The Lord's Empire Chapter 23 – Attacking a Village

Chapter 23 – Attacking a Village
Translator: Mr Voltaire
Editor: Modlawls123
Bai Qi’s figure blurred as he sidestepped around the left of the Skeleton Shieldbearers. He unleashed a Qi Slash with his full strength, his sword erupting with light as a 3-meter long arc of light slashed out from it.
BOOM!!
Bai Qi’s attack caused 3 Skeleton Shieldbearers and the Skeleton Infantry behind them to be sent flying, completely destroying their defense.
Zhao Fu hurriedly roared, “Hurry! Separate them!”
The Shieldbearers and Infantry immediately obeyed, splitting into two teams and separating the Skeletons that had fallen and the Skeletons that hadn't.
Now that the Skeletons’ defense had been broken, they immediately fell into chaos. Zhao Fu’s soldiers started to attack, but because of how close his own people and the Skeletons were, Zhao Fu could not use any Fireballs and could only shoot Rock Crushing Arrows.
While a Skeleton Shieldbearer was distracted, Zhao Fu shot an arrow at it, piercing into its head.
A ‘crack’ sounded out as the blue tongue of fire within the Skeleton Shieldbearer’s head was extinguished. Its body collapsed as its bones and the shield it was holding fell to the ground.
It was actually quite difficult to hit a Skeleton’s head because arrows were quite easy to dodge. Zhao Fu had only succeeded this time because the Skeleton Shieldbearer had been distracted.
However, he did not have time to celebrate when a scream sounded out.
“Arghhh!”
After being hit by a few arrows, a Skeleton Archer went all-out, rapidly shooting arrows, one of which had pierced into one of the Infantryman’s arm.
“Damnit!” Zhao Fu inwardly cursed as he yelled out, “Archers, suppress those Skeleton Archers! Bai Qi, be careful.”
Bai Qi nodded and rushed towards the Skeleton Archers while they were being restrained by Zhao Fu’s Archers.
Zhao Fu took the injured Infantryman out of the battle. Luckily, Zhao Fu had used the Refined Martial Soul from before, giving him a skill that he immediately became proficient at. As such, he had a good grasp of archery. Even though the arrows he shot out did not instantly kill any Skeletons like before, they temporarily stopped the Skeleton soldiers’ attacks, creating some opportunities for his soldiers.
The Skeleton soldiers seemed to detect that the battle was becoming more and more unfavorable towards them, and they started to ferociously attack with wild abandon. In the end, Zhao Fu’s side finally killed all of the Skeletons at the price of 3 of his people getting injured. Bai Qi also successfully dispatched the Skeleton Archers, obtaining a Soldier Soul from one of the Skeleton Archers.
This time, the 13 Skeleton soldiers had dropped 9 Refined Martial Souls, 13 Blue grade weapons, and 3 White grade weapons.
Altogether, they had obtained 1 Silver grade weapon, 55 Blue grade weapons, 10 White grade weapons, 38 Refined Martial Souls, and 2 Soldier Souls on this expedition. They were worth roughly 405 gold coins, which was 4,050,000 copper coins.
Zhao Fu didn’t know how much Soldier Souls were worth because he had never seen them on forums before. They seemed to be quite rare, and it was difficult for Zhao Fu to put a price on them, so he did not count their value into the total he had calculated.
The gains they had received today both surprised and delighted Zhao Fu. However, when he looked at the four injured soldiers, he inwardly sighed. They would have to stop here and go back to rest and strategize. If they continued on, they would keep sustaining injuries or even suffer deaths.
Zhao Fu walked over to the soldier who had the worst injury, the Infantryman who had been shot in the arm by an arrow, and asked in concern, “Are you alright?”
The Infantryman quickly nodded, showing that he was fine.
Seeing this, Zhao Fu said, “I’ll help you remove the arrow.”
The Infantryman said in a somewhat panicked manner, “Your Majesty, I’ll just go to Apothecary Zhang. How could I trouble Your Majesty?”
“Alright, don’t worry about it.” Zhao Fu bitterly smiled. Since these soldiers respected him so much, he felt quite guilty when he saw them get injured.
Zhao Fu tore the Infantryman’s sleeve and cut the arrow shaft before pulling the arrow out in an instant. Blood started to pour out from the wound, and Zhao Fu quickly used Blood Healing. This was the first time he had used it, so he was not sure what the effects would be.
As Zhao Fu placed his hand near the wound, a blood-colored light shined from his hand. The Infantryman’s bleeding stopped, and the flesh mended itself at a rate that could be seen by the naked eye.
Even though Blood Healing did not completely heal the wound, it was already half healed.
The Infantryman was almost moved to the point of tears. He had never thought that the incredibly distinguished Majesty, who would become the ruler of Great Qin, would personally tend to his wound. Everyone who saw this felt even more loyal towards Zhao Fu.
Following this, Zhao Fu brought everyone back to the surface. He told the injured soldiers to get medical treatment and then delivered the weapons to Blacksmith Wang Dawu to be repaired.
Zhao Fu and Bai Qi went to a room to discuss their experiences of the battles today. They discussed the shortcomings of their tactics as well as the weaknesses of their enemies and came up with new battle tactics.
After a while, someone came and reported that a bandit village had been discovered 10 kilometers south of the Great Qin Village. Hearing this, Zhao Fu and Bai Qi concluded their discussion and started assembling their soldiers.
“Your Majesty! I want to go too.”
Liu Mei was quite excited when she heard that there was a fight going to happen – evidently, she wasn’t one for peace and ran over to find Zhao Fu.
Zhao Fu looked at her and asked, “Can you completely obey my orders?”
Liu Mei quickly nodded, expressing that she would follow all of his commands.
Seeing this, Zhao Fu reminded her, “If you don’t follow orders on the battlefield and make trouble, I’ll definitely kill you!”
Liu Mei knew that Zhao Fu was someone who would stand by his words. However, she felt slightly displeased – after all, she was quite a beauty, so how could this fellow keep threatening to kill her.
“Forget it, I won’t bicker with him. I’ve been so bored in the Great Qin Village over the past few days, so I have to go with them to attack this bandit village,” Liu Mei thought to herself. She once again nodded, showing that she understood.
Zhao Fu did not say much after that. With Liu Mei’s skills, she would be a great help to them on the battlefield.
Soon, the soldiers had been gathered and they set off. After traveling for a little more than an hour, they arrived at the bandit village.
This bandit village was next to a small creek, and it was not very big. Its defenses were also quite poor, and there were around 150 people in the village. What surprised Zhao Fu was that 30 or so of them were wearing plate armor. Since they had so many pieces of plate armor, they most likely had blueprints for plate armor, which made him feel ecstatic.
Now, Zhao Fu had around 300 soldiers in his forces: 200 were soldiers from the Great Qin Village, 60 Goblins, and 40 Gnome Crossbowmen.
With 300 soldiers, Zhao Fu would definitely win if he directly attacked the bandit village, since the bandit village only had 150 people. However, Zhao Fu’s forces would still suffer injuries and casualties, and that wasn’t Zhao Fu’s style.
As such, he had to seriously look for any weaknesses or use a method similar to what he had used against the Wolf Village. Even though it was quite shameless, it was quite effective.
As Zhao Fu observed the village, he found that there was no cultivated land within the bandit village, which made sense – the bandits obtained all of their food by raiding other villages or hunting beasts. This village seemed to be the latter, so the situation was not as complicated anymore.