NOVEL NEXT
Chapter 24: Good Medicine Tastes Bitter
Trigger Warnings: May contain violent content
【My host, I noticed a problem.】
System 12345 offered its opinion after days of observation.
【Momoana hasn’t been eating or sleeping well recently. It seems like something has been on her mind, or that she’s busy with work. My host, you should try talking to her about it.】
【No, that might not be appropriate. I don’t know what’s your current standing with her.】
System 12345 hesitated before adding.
【How about this? I’ll get you some stamina serum, and you offer it to Momoana?】
【That might help to rake up some affection points with her. Of course, you can also keep some for your own use. Who knows? You might just need it… Ohohohoho!】
System 12345 laughed heartily to itself as it envisioned a scene of passion. Knowing that it would have to lay its money down to get something better, it used its much-cherished internship points to purchase some resources for its host.
【Here, my host! Accept my gift!】
“Is it a mission reward?”
Shu Yichao tapped into the newly-arrived notification, and a bottle appeared in his hands. He uncorked the bottle, and several round pills rolled out. He sniffed the pills, and the scent itself invigorated him.
“What medicine is this? Let me read the description… These jumbled up characters are a pain in the ass. Whatever! It should be good stuff.”
Shu Yichao popped one of the pills into his mouth.
“Holy shit!” Shu Yichao was delighted to see his 130 ranged damage and 140 melee damage rising to 150 and 160 respectively. “This is good shit!”
The stat boost was wonderful, but the enhanced stamina recovery was godsent.
While Shu Yichao’s army had outstanding stamina, they would still tire in a prolonged battle. Thus, he had to split them into different sections and alternate among them, so that all of them would get some resting time.
But if he could feed his army one pill each before a crucial fight…
Wait, these pills look like they can be dissolved in water?
Shu Yichao tried tossing one of the pills into the alcohol; it swiftly dissolved. This excited him.
I can just distribute water containing the dissolved pills to the soldiers to replenish their stamina, and it’ll save me a huge sum of money too!
Shu Yichao had already fulfilled the criteria to further upgrade his soldiers, but he was in a dilemma whether he should do so now. It was nearing the end of the week, and if he upgraded his troops now, he would have to pay them by the increased wages.
That’s such a huge loss!
But at the same time, the knowledge that there were better troops available but he was using weaker ones made him squirm in discomfort.
This pill, in a way, resolved his dilemma.
“To celebrate this momentous occasion, from today onward, we shall assault them twice a day!”
…
Despair and chaos were spreading in the Ottomain army at a ridiculous speed.
Momoana clutched her increasingly aching head while staring at the maps on her table with reddened eyes. She had known that it would be no easy feat to take down this massive fortress, but she hadn’t expected things to get so disastrous.
It had been twenty days since her disastrous failure at moving her ships across Constantinope’s great chain barrier into the Golden Horn. She had tried all means to turn the tides around in the meantime, but nothing seemed to work.
On the contrary, things only seemed to be getting worse on her side.
Many times she had tried to mobilize her army to attack the Romains, but the Khitans would always beat them down each time.
What further baffled her was how the Khitans clearly suffered losses each time, but their army strength continued to hover in the hundreds no matter how many battles they fought. Her plan to fight a battle of attrition wasn’t working.
To make things worse, she realized that more Khitans were gathering behind their barracks. Ordinary Ottomain cavalrymen weren’t a match for them at all, so huge amounts of their rations were either plundered or destroyed en route.
And the Khitans were growing increasingly arrogant. The frequency of their night attacks had been going up; they even attempted to attack their main barracks!
As a result, the morale of the Ottomain army plummeted.
There were deserters fleeing from their ranks each day. Some soldiers even grumbled that this was a war cursed by their God.
Momoana even had a feeling that they were the victim instead of the aggressors, with how the Khitans were thrashing them! She was starting to regret not listening to her ministers’ advice.
What should I do now? Should I retreat?
Momoana shook her head and dumped this thought to the back of her head.
Absolutely not!
If I retreat here, all the opposing powers will rise up against me. Even my own army might turn against me too! My position then won’t be any better than it is now.
It’s time for me to make up my mind!
“Huuu—”
Momoana took a deep breath before calling the military commanders, pashas, and emirs to gather the entire army together.
An hour later, she stood before her great army in her most extravagant clothes. An altar was erected in the middle of the barracks, with a praying mat laid in front of it.
She stepped onto the praying mat with bare feet and bowed several times toward their distant Holy Land. Then, she began loudly praying for their God to bless them with victory in this battle.
The Ottomain soldiers behind her kneeled down and prayed together with her, pleading for their God to bestow them with the power to win this battle.
Then, Momoana leaped onto her steed. Deafening drums and a loud horn followed, as she galloped to the forefront of the army.
“This is the critical moment of the Holy War. We have suffered setbacks in this battle. This is our God testing our faith. He, too, wants us to overcome this ordeal and rise up stronger than ever!
“I, as the envoy of the true God and your Sultana, declare that if we take down Constantinope, you can have their beauties, slaves, and riches for yourself. Go ahead and kill any man who irks you. Rape any woman who catches your eye. Crush any child who gets on your nerves.
“Whether it’s killing a child before their mother, or raping a wife before her husband, you are permitted to do whatever your heart pleases. Take whatever riches you see, be it’s gold, silk, or jewelry. Just like what we did in Anatolia. Just like what we did in Albania!
“Death is not to be feared in this Holy War. Our God will take you to heaven, where you’ll enjoy eternal happiness.
“Today, I, your Sultana, shall stand alongside you. I’ll be at the very front, shooting the first arrow at our enemies. We shall either conquer Constantinope or die beneath its walls!
“Warriors of our Ottomain Empire, our God will be watching over us today!”
After a brief moment of silence, the Ottomain army roared with renewed tenacity.
“Praise our God!”
“Our God is with us!”
“Our Sultana is the envoy of the true God!”
Their cheers were so resounding that it shook even Constantinope’s west wall, causing specks of dust to fall.
The Romain garrison troops, despite having come out on top in previous encounters, were shaken up by the Ottomain army’s ferocious momentum.
“Hmph!”
In one of the houses in Constantinope, a bespectacled woman looked at the trembling oil lamp on the table and burst into laughter. “Looks like those barbaric heretics are going to do one last desperate struggle.”
She had already compiled the intelligence gathered via her wide connections to deduce Momoana’s current plight. The latter was in between a rock and a hard place.
The Ottomain army claimed to be 200,000-men strong, but their real soldiers only numbered between 60,000 to 80,000. The remaining people were either volunteers or conscripts.
Of course, this was not the full extent of the Ottomain Empire’s military might; they had proper armies stationed in Anatolia and the Balkans. However, those soldiers couldn’t be mobilized to attack Constantinope as they were required to fend against other dangerous enemies,
To be fair, Momoana’s 80,000-men army should have been enough.
She could slowly choke the life out of Constantinope through her encirclement before launching a decisive attack to claim the fortress in a single swoop.
Yet, a bunch of ferocious Khitans suddenly appeared at this juncture and foiled their plan.
The bespectacled woman thought that after twenty days of struggling in futility, Momoana should have admitted her defeat, and retreated with her army so that they could recuperate from their losses. They could make a comeback at a later date; there was no need to force things through at this juncture, when the tides of war were not in their favor.
But now…
“It’ll be a tragic defeat.”
The bespectacled woman shook her head before turning her attention toward something more meaningful.
—
Starve’s Translator Notes:
This arc is set in the Middle Ages, where almost all of the major powerhouses commit atrocities in the name of religions and so on. Civilization has made great progress since, and our religions have become gentler and more compassionate now.
I know the content might be sensitive in this present time, and I don’t want to comment on it.
I just want to say that I didn’t censor the content because it is historically accurate, according to some sources, and it would be dumb to judge people living in the modern era over events that happened so long ago.