Cthulhu Gonfalon

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The capital city of the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs was called Nephrite City. Before Void City appeared, this city was known as the most beautiful city in the Main Plane. Its city walls were constructed with stones beautiful as white jade, and when the weather was good, the light of the sun made those walls glitter like a single gigantic piece of jade. It was more beautiful than anything you could imagine.

Until now, it had always been called a "heaven on earth," or "the city as beautiful as the Holy Kingdom." Not only had wandering bards composed countless ballads praising it, even the gods themselves often sent down clones to visit it. Of these, the one who visited most often was the Goddess of Spring Water.

This mid-level god from the Nature God System loved more than anything to wander about between mountain forests and spring waters, her core requirements from her believers being to "cherish spring waters" and to "increase the number of fountains." She cared for nothing else. Good or evil, soldier or thief—none of that mattered to her.

Yet, it was precisely because of this attitude of hers that she was chosen by the human gods to give them the power they needed to strike against the Ancient Forest and the Mountain of Broken Clouds, fully supporting the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs with all her strength.

Nephrite City, as the capital of the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs, was covered all over in fountains. These fountains weren't like the ones in Shandong, that famous spring city on Earth where the water bubbled out from underground; these fountains were three parts natural, seven parts manmade. Back when they'd first built this city, a good number of great legendary magicians had worked together to create a portal beneath the city that lead directly to the Water Element Plane. An unending stream of fresh water flowed underground through that portal, following pre-cut fountain holes up to the surface and creating the fantastic scene that was "a city of 1000 springs."

Within this city, surrounded by those white jade walls—no more and no less—were exactly 1000 fountains.

When they first built this city, the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs was only in its fledgling stage and had yet to even decide on a name for itself. It was after this city of 1000 springs was built that the Goddess of Spring Water sent down a clone, personally giving her blessings to this country and christening it the "Kingdom of Thousands of Springs."

But behind this beautiful city lay mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

There originally had never been a Country of Thousands of Springs on this planet, and neither had there been a Nephrite City. Originally, the land southeast of the Mountain of Broken Clouds had been a zone of never-ending hills. Its north bordered on the Mountain of Broken Clouds, its south faced the Golden Desert, to the east lay a great plain, and to the west was the Ancient Forest. Dwarfs, Pygmies and other races all mixed together here, living peaceful lives.

When humans rose to power, they first followed the God of Knights in fighting a series of battles against the Orcs, but ultimately came out at a disadvantage. Afterwards, the God of Revenge took power. He changed their strategy, leaving only a small portion of humans to guard that bit of fertile land between the Broken Clouds, Graystone, and Ash-Beast Mountains from any more Orc invasions, while the rest of the humans were sent out to assault the east.

This was the famous human historical event called the "Eastern Campaign." Over the course of these conflicts spanning several thousand years, the humans wiped out the Pygmy, Fairy, Dwarf, and other races' countries which had originally occupied the eastern part of the continent. In the most fertile eastern plain on the entire planet, they then established the 28-City Commonwealth—what would later become the Kingdom of the Blue Moon.

Afterwards, the humans split into two branches. One branch worshipped the Sun God; they turned their assault to the north, thoroughly annihilating the Pygmy Kingdom and establishing the Kingdom of Holy Angels. The other branch turned their assault to the southwest, capturing the Elf God System and subsequently being exterminated by the Master of Mystery. Finding a chance to inflict serious damage, the Elf Race then joined forces with a part of the Nature God System. They annihilated all the Dwarf and Pygmy powers in the hills and erected their country.

Naturally, there was a massive amount of killing involved in this course of events. The Fairies, once famed as the "Dexterous People" due to their skill in manufacturing small-scale machinery, were practically wiped out. The few survivors left the Main Plane for some other unknown world under the protection of their god; a good number of Pygmy countries of all sizes were wiped out as well, the Pygmy race becoming famed across the continent as a vagrant race. Only the Dwarfs, with their sturdy physiques and undying fighting spirit, continued to tenaciously resist.

These past few years, probably once every three or five or ten years, the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs would organize an army and head out to attack the Kingdom of Dwarfs in the Mountain of Broken Clouds. On one hand, they coveted the local mineral resources and the Kingdom of Dwarfs' money and valuables; on the other hand, they simply wanted to follow things through to the end, forcing the Dwarf race to leave the Main Plane like the Fairies did and thus resolving one of their worries.

Every time they prepared to invade the Mountain of Broken Clouds, they'd set up temporary barracks outside the east gate of Nephrite City and hang up recruitment orders, always managing to bring in a large number of adventurers. Once the actual conflict began, these adventurers were especially given all the dangerous jobs. They would naturally be the front lines of any attack and the rear guard of any retreat. Although most of those who survived could gain piles of money and riches, not even a third of the adventurers could actually make it back safe and sound at the end of it all.

Of course, when people died there had to be compensation, so the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs always lost a great amount to compensation payments. Adventurers weren't idiots; if it weren't for that compensation pay, who would be willing to risk a two-thirds chance of death just for some riches? A lot of injured or aging adventurers actually came specifically for that little bit of compensation money.

What they wanted to earn wasn't riches or honor, but this little payment for their sacrifice instead. This was the poor man's sorrow, something that didn't change much regardless of the place.

But the situation this time was a little different; temporary barracks were once more set up outside the east gate of Nephrite City, and recruitment orders were hung up again. But this time, most of the applicants that came were strong and healthy, tough-as-nails fighters. The usual situation where average-level and sometimes even fragile applicants gathered at the recruitment table didn't happen.

The person in charge of recruitment was a count. At the moment, he was sitting atop the recruitment platform watching the enlistment area from a distance. After a while, he breathed out a heavy sigh.

"My lord, is there something wrong?" asked the trusted aide by his side.

"We didn't get to recruit much cannon fodder this time around."

"If there isn't any cannon fodder, we can just use the militia instead," one of his sons said in an offhand manner. "As long as we get elite recruits, it's fine."

The count shook his head and furrowed his brows, not bothering to explain to his son in detail.

If outsiders die, there won't be any regrets; if your own die, there surely will be!

Although the life or death of commoners wasn't worth all that much, if things went bad this time, it was hard to say how things might go in the future. Perhaps in the future border-developing wars against the Mountain of Broken Clouds, the country would lean more towards letting its citizens be the cannon fodder. The country might also stop enlisting low-level adventurers, thus avoiding having to pay compensation fees.

This was obviously a good thing in the short term since it saved them a lot of money, but it would ultimately be detrimental to the country's long-term plans.

The people of the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs were happy at the news of war partially because the war could bring them profit, but also because the losses on their side would be relatively few. If every battle caused the loss of numerous civilians and resulted in with thousands of tearful households in mourning, this would constitute a huge blow to popular sentiment.

Over time, the people of the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs would cease to see war as an opportunity to excel and earn riches, and instead consider it to be a serious burden.

Of course, there was no way he'd be able to see all of this himself. But who wouldn't be worried sick thinking of a future like this!