Herald of Steel

As Alexander entered the city, the clamor and din of the cheering crowd reached such a deafening roar that for a while he was unable to even hear himself.

He felt many of these cheers were truly genuine, coming mostly from his Adhanian men, since for them, the hero who gave them the unattainable Thesalie was someone truly cheering for.

Facing this huge crowd, Alexander simply smiled, waved, and pumped his hand to the sky, each of these gestures producing an even greater shout.

And it was among such a grand reception that he slowly made his horse pass through the stone paved roads, eager to tour the prize he had taken for himself, both in its beauty and its ugly.

The beauty in the city itself, the ugly in the devastation wrought upon it by the looting and plundering by the nearly eighty thousand men and women for the past three days.

Alexander was sure that would not be anything less than tragic.

"My lord, welcome to Thesalie!" 

At the end of the street, stood Melodias, who greeted Alexander with a great smile and a glowing face.

"It's good to see you. Have the soldiers been recalled?" And nodding to the greeting, Alexander then posed, clearly showing his concern.

"Yes, the order went at dawn. The men will be soon leaving the city and returning to the camp. Rest assured." 

This was the real reason Melodias was here, sent by Alexander yesterday.

Alexander thought that after three days of unrestrained pleasure, it would take someone as highly ranked as Melodias to reign back all those soldiers.

"Good. And I enjoyed this reception that you organized for me. Thank you," Hearing MM's confirmation, Alexander added such, much to the delight of the former, who loved the recognition.

Following this Alexander then added, "Also, I will address the people around midday, after lunch. You know the city, prepare a suitable place. And gather how many of the citizenry you can."

Alexander wanted to placate them and deliver promises of assistance. 

"Yes, my lord! Leave the place and its security to me." And at the delegation of this duty, MM was very enthusiastic, receiving with a salute.

The man then decided to give Alexander and his entourage a tour, offering so with a polite wave of the arm.

Hence soon, Alexander found himself trotting along the streets, which were as he expected narrow and winding, with bricked and wooden houses lining both sides of them, each reaching three to four stories high.

Many of these houses were seen burnt to the ground, with only some of the stone scaffolding remaining standing, while in the ashy midst Alexander sometimes even spotted charred remains of men, women, and children.

Alexander did not know whether these were caused by his catapults or by the marauding soldiers.

As for the luckier houses, i.e.- ones that were still standing, every single one of them had their doors smashed open, bar none an exception, clear evidence of being broken into.

And as Alexander passed through them, Alexander could detect the unmistakable waft of mournful cries drifting out from there.

Although Alexander had ordered the plunder to be ceased, the victims of these atrocities were still alive, and finally given respite, they could finally let their heart out.

Their wailful songs played in utter contrast to the euphoric cheers Alexander was surrounded with by the following soldiers, and if one did not see it for himself, one would find it hard to believe that two such utterly contrasting worlds could exist only separated by a thin brick wall.

And this realization caused Alexander to even lament his actions, for he said in his heart, 

'*Sigh*, if there was another way, I would not have done so. But if I did not do so to you, perhaps it would be you or your brother, or husband, or son, who would have done exactly so to me and my city.'

'Since someone has to suffer, then please let it be you. I'm sorry.'

As Alexander moved he along, he also began to notice that much like in Zanzan, many of these buildings dueled as both homes and shops, with the first floors selling all sorts of produce.

Every single such shop, salon, and restaurant that he passed was broken into and stripped of all valuables- food, jewelry, fabrics, pottery, whatever the soldiers could find.

Even mundane everyday things like shoes, small furniture, and even pots and pans were not left untouched, especially if they were made of iron.

As for the fate of the ones running them, well from the corner of his eyes, Alexander noticed the shadows of quite a few of the dead or violated lying there motionless.

Past these buildings, Alexander suddenly sensed his horse was climbing up.

It seemed that much like Adhan and even to some extent Zanzan, being built atop a hill, instead of being horizontal, Thesalie's road spiraled upward.

And as Alexander moved up, he soon began to notice a change around him.

The congestion of the houses started to lessen and his skyline of box shaped, rectangular buildings was now replaced by long, grand spiraling rooftops, all of them belonging to numerous small and medium temples, administrative buildings of various kinds, and homes of nobles and rich merchants.

Alexander understood that the poorer lived in the lower half of the city, in its underbelly, while the rich lived in the upper section, with the highest point being occupied by, as you could have guessed, the city lord.

This was very much in line with the architecture of the time, and Alexander found it absolutely normal, for the air here was much clearer and fresher.

No longer did his nose sting, the reason being something he was even reluctant to think about.

'Public toilets and aqueducts.' 

Instead, he only said this as Alexander continued to climb up.

Then along the way, his eyes at last began to notice the numerous villas and manor around him and he was surprised by just how many of them were.

By his estimate, Zanzan did not even have a third of this may

Plus, each of them seemed much larger than their counterpart, with all of them having their own huge rolling backyard.

There, almost all of them had plantations on the expansive verdant hills, and as Alexander spotted them, he came to realize that surely those were the grape vineyards Camius had spoken so much about.

The affluence in display clearly went to clearly show Thesalie was much richer than its counterpart.

Or perhaps more precisely had been.

Because whether it was still now, after what had been done to it, was worth ruminating.

And besides, in recent years, Zanzan's economy had ballooned to values it could not have even imagined, growing literally a hundred times, from 10 million to almost 1 billion ropals.

But for better or worse, all of this wealth was almost entirely concentrated on Alexander.

And with him taking all the available workforce, other merchants found it hard to start any business in Zanzan, which was why there were only a few such manors there.

But still, it was a very tell- tale sign of wealth, and Alexander very much looked forward to seeing what kind of revenues the city would generate.

It also made him realize just how big the city truly was, as it could hold so many vineyards within its walls!

Alexander had tried to find out the exact area of it before attacking it, but all he got were garbage values, ranging anywhere from 1 square km to 1,000 square km.

These were no doubt propaganda values, the former produced by Adhania to belittle the enemy, while the latter was created by Tibias to show off.

And in that mudslinging contest, the true value was lost, at least to the general public, accessible only to those higher nobles of Tibias.

But after seeing it for himself, Alexander determined the city to be around 10 square km, which might not sound like anything in modern terms but was truly mammoth.

For context, ancient Athens, which was the biggest Greek city of its time, covered around 7 square km, suburbs not included.

A realization that added to Alexander's satisfaction over the city's capture. 

Alexander continued his way up with such thoughts, and very expectedly noticed that aside from the temples, which were tightly shut, all the other buildings gave a vacant, deserted feeling, with doors ajar, windows smashed, and its inhabitants gone- either dead or in hiding.

He also noticed many of the once immaculately designed front courtyards of these magnificent houses effectively ruined, trampled over by a thousand footsteps, and many of the expensive decorations plundered.

Far off in the distance, Alexander would even see many of the vineyards damaged.

'*Sigh*, I hope Camius's business partner managed to escape,' And seeing so he wished. 

And it was with much mixture of joy and regret that Alexander finally reached his destination, the top of the hill, where he found Lapitus waiting for him with a small reception group right at the gates.

"Lord Pasha, welcome! Welcome!" 

And immediately upon seeing him, the man gave a full noble bow, something that caused Alexander to feel a bit awkward for the briefest of time.

But he immediately recovered and returned an appropriate greeting back.

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