Since the original owner had already maintained these relationships, Phield thought he might benefit from them in the future.
"Ha ha, Baron Bull and his son are quite famous, uh—sorry, I spoke out of turn." Kaor quickly shut his mouth. Gossiping about one noble in front of another was a fast way to lose one's head, even if the listener was famously timid and cowardly.
He knew the price better than anyone—back then, he had accidentally witnessed a noble affair, ruining his prospects and earning him exile to the northern frontier.
Phield was about to press for details when he noticed a swarm of red skull icons suddenly appear on the minimap in his mind, rapidly moving toward their position.
"Hiss… could this be someone coming to welcome us?" He said it lightly, but Phield wasn't stupid—the skull icons were definitely bad news. He immediately sent a manservant to summon Captain Connor.
"Ha ha, with all due respect, Baron, you're just being paranoid!" Connor laughed loudly at the slightly anxious report, his face full of disdain as he mocked, "We're still behind the walls of Kazan Fortress, the strongest link in the empire's defense line. If danger reaches us here, I'll eat every pile of dung my warhorse drops!"
In Connor's mind, Phield had already been labeled as "a desperate man's final struggle."
"Tell your baron that traveling to the Nightfall Domain is supervised by both law and family—he can't back out temporarily. That wouldn't suit a noble's character."
The manservant, feeling a bit helpless at Connor's aggressive tone, could only return to report.
After hearing the account, Phield simply said "Oh" and ordered the slaves to slow down.
Connor, on horseback, was forced to the front of the column.
"Coward! I really don't know how the count sired such a spineless thing." Connor muttered mockingly under his breath.
But soon, his expression turned extremely ugly.
Because Phield's "enthusiastic local welcome" had truly arrived.
"Roar!" A monstrous howl rang out.
"They're here?" Phield chuckled softly. "Looks like someone's having horse dung for dinner tonight."
Amid the rising cries of alarm, Phield pushed past the obstructing slaves and saw them: pairs of gray-white eyeballs set in rotting faces, corpse monsters dressed in peasant clothes, charging furiously toward them in great strides. Ahead of them, about a dozen normal humans were fleeing for their lives.
Even from a hundred meters away, the chilling malice and putrid stench still assaulted their senses.
These corrupted corpses were the signature product of the northern frontier!
"What the hell? We're not even in the northern province yet—how are there monsters?!"
Captain Connor spat, cursing his bad luck. To make matters worse, he had just mocked Phield, which made him especially irritated.
He raised his lance with obvious reluctance, but if he shirked his duty, he would be shut out from high society forever.
"Mount up! Knights, prepare for combat!"
The twenty cavalry immediately formed a straight line, galloped up the high ground to the right, then used the downhill momentum to charge rapidly into the corpse horde.
"Better to rely on myself than others." Phield's heart tightened as well. He stared deeply at the ferocious corrupted corpses and shouted to the slaves behind him: "Link the wagons together! Any man with courage, grab a farm tool and fight with me! I'll reward you based on your performance!"
The slaves remained unmoved, merely cowering behind the wagons, trembling or praying for divine intervention.
"Don't count on those useless cowards." Kaor's legs shook violently; he was scared nearly to the point of wetting himself. He grabbed Phield's robe and pleaded in a trembling voice, "My lord, let's flee—uh, I mean strategic retreat! There's no need to care about these slaves; if they die, we can just buy more."
Phield pushed the steward's hand away and frowned. "If this little scene scares you this much, you'd better not come to the northern province at all."
As if I want to come! The count personally ordered me here—I couldn't refuse! Kaor's face flushed red with frustration.
"Huh? Enemies?" Ashina jumped down from the wagon. After days of proper care, she had shed her gaunt, malnourished look; her figure had gradually filled out, her skin fair and smooth. If not for the slave brand and maid outfit, she could almost pass for a noble young lady.
"My lord… I'll do my best to protect you!"
Ashina raised her small fists, trembling as she stood in front of Phield, shaking like a kitten in a cold wind.
"No need to go that far." Watching Ashina's wolf ears flatten completely from nerves—turning into classic airplane ears—Phield couldn't help but laugh helplessly, though he felt genuinely comforted. The meat and bread hadn't been wasted on her after all.
Unlike certain despicable people who took his kindness and still harbored resentment.
"Help! Save us!" The peasants at the front, seeing their saviors, wailed and stumbled toward the column, dragging the entire corpse horde right along with them.
"For glory!"
Once they reached striking range, Connor's cavalry launched their charge. War cries thundered from their throats as they leveled their three-meter lances and drove straight into the rotting mass.
Thud! Thud!
Sickening sounds of piercing flesh rang out. Seven or eight zombies were skewered outright, flung high into the air like ragged sacks, then slammed back to the ground in broken heaps. Purple-black corrupted blood jetted in sprays, turning the earth into a slick, viscous sludge.
But this was merely the appetizer. After the lance charge, the knights wheeled around on the spot, swinging chained flails and sabers from horseback in rapid, brutal arcs. Gore exploded in crimson bursts; the corrupted corpses fell like wheat before a scythe. Some were simply knocked down and trampled, their chests caving in with wet, cracking bursts beneath iron-shod hooves. The battlefield had become nothing less than a one-sided massacre.
The few stragglers that slipped through crashed blindly into the wagon circle Phield had ordered. Their decayed brains were little more than ornaments—they understood no tactics, only flailing and gnawing mindlessly at the wooden wheels.
"Mommy!" Screams erupted as the slaves shoved and trampled one another, packed so tightly inside the wagons that there was no room to flee.
The steward fared no better—his legs gave out completely, and a warm stain rapidly spread down his trousers.
"I've really had enough of these useless cowards," Phield muttered under his breath.
He was afraid too, of course, but the fear wasn't overwhelming—likely because, before transmigrating, he had been obsessed with post-apocalyptic novels and zombie movies.
He had no real soldiers of his own. Though Connor's knights were swift and fearless in the face of death, they were still just ordinary men.
Which meant he had to do it himself.
Time to get my hands dirty.
Phield could only fight personally—after all, he had trained in some basic combat techniques.
Seizing the moment when a corpse shoved against a small handcart and lost its balance, Phield thrust his longsword deep into its neck, then yanked sideways with full force. The head drooped limply forward like a lightning-blasted branch, hanging from the chest by mere strands of rotting flesh.
"Ugh—"
The stench of rot mixed with fermented waste assaulted his nostrils without mercy, nearly making Phield vomit on the spot. Yet beneath that violent nausea, an irrepressible thrill surged from deep within him!
A hint of madness flickered in his eyes—the awakening of an ancient, warlike bloodlust buried in his soul.
"Killing these corrupted things isn't so hard after all." Confidence flooded through Phield as he casually flicked the foul blood from his blade.
"My lord—watch out!"
Another half-bodied corpse suddenly crawled forward, lunging straight for Phield's ankle. At the critical moment, Ashina grabbed a manure fork from one of the wagons and drove it down with all her strength, pinning the creature's spine firmly to the ground.
"Whew! Well done!"
Phield broke out in cold sweat, staggering back several steps as his heart pounded wildly—he had nearly been bitten!
Though corpse venom could be cured by clerics in the church, the cost was exorbitant; nothing less than a hundred gold coins would do.
Finally recovering from the racing heartbeat, Phield let out a long breath, turned, and gratefully ruffled Ashina's head. "You saved my life this time. As thanks, I'm rewarding you one gold coin, Ashina!"
Ashina's eyes shone like gold; she had never even seen that much money in her entire life.
"Eh? Really? But… this is just what I'm supposed to do."