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Then, a large hand in a leather glove grabbed his unkempt, half-long curly hair, pulling him upward. The acute pain from his scalp forced Johan to bear the pain and get up, stumbling forward as he was led by the person holding his hair.

On one side of the sidewalk, there were several horse-drawn boxed carriages used by the city police to transport criminals.

These carriages, somewhat similar to Weisshem\'s steel carriages, had a large body and an enclosed driver\'s seat at the front to prevent attacks. However, they had a much lower chassis than Weisshem\'s, and only the frame was reinforced with steel; the carriage body was still made of thick wood.

When Johan was thrown into one of these carriages, it was already filled with people. As he tumbled in, he saw many pairs of feet. This terrified, bewildered young man from the slums struggled to prop himself up on his elbows and lift his head, scanning the cramped, fearful faces of those standing shoulder to shoulder.

They were all young men of similar age to him, some dressed like him in their work clothes, others a bit cleaner but with dirty shoes; clearly, they weren\'t from the more distinguished parts of the city.

"Stop being a hindrance, stand properly!"

Hearing the scolding from behind, Johan hurriedly got up and squeezed in with the others in the carriage.

Then, Johan watched as he companions, Sanchi, Tommy, and Bobby, were herded onto the carriage in succession, being handled as if they were livestock.

The carriage was full once these four were on board. The city police slammed the door shut and locked it, and soon, the carriage started moving.

As the wheels rolled, Johan heard the city police outside discussing which district to target next for arrests…

"Wh-where will they take us?" The youngest, Sanchi, was terrified, whispering his fear amid sobs.

No one answered him. In the windowless, dim carriage, everyone packed inside was just numbly, anxiously swaying with the movement of the wheels.

Minutes later, the people inside heard tumult outside; men questioning "what are you trying to do" and women pleading "please spare him."

The carriage kept moving, and the people inside grew even more panicked.

"What\'s going on, what\'s happening in the city? Sirs, do you know what\'s going on?" Johan mustered his courage to ask the better-dressed city folk in the carriage for information.

"…I don\'t know," a young man in a restaurant waiter garb muttered softly. "I was just going to work as usual… I just reached Saint Joseph Street when I got caught up with everyone else."

"I\'m a procurement staff at a leather workshop," another man in a long-sleeved coat said with a bitter smile. "It\'s really bizarre. I thought I was being robbed… but it turned out to be the city police, who are even more terrifying than robbers."

When this was said, no one in the carriage doubted this truth.

No one wanted to deal with the city police regardless of whether they were those hustling for a living on the streets, day laborers, individuals with stable jobs, or small workshop owners or shopkeepers with some assets. The city police were more avaricious than street gangs, more inhuman, and while a gang might not take their life, they would.

Amid the oppressive silence, the carriage finally stopped.

The door was opened, and the city police with large iron locks on chains shouted and ordered the men inside to get out.

Johan and his friends helped each other down from the carriage and were astonished to find they had been brought to the west gate.

The square within the west gate, which also served as a market when the mule and horse market was open, was a place Johan and his friends were familiar with. During the summer and autumn seasons, he and his friends would gather wild fruits and nuts from outside the slums to sell here.

As Johan and the others were herded toward a wall, he saw many more boxy carriages around the square, each holding 20 to 30 young and middle-aged men who were also being led in the same direction.

Beneath the city wall, at least a thousand people were already waiting, sitting or standing. Although there were not many city police overseeing them, the group remained quiet and compliant. Johan suspected it was due to the dozen or so men hanging from ropes on the city wall behind them. Seeing those men made his legs go weak.

Johan and his companions were taken to the edge of the crowd. The corpulent city police glared at them, warning them not to move, speak, or cause trouble, pointing to the men hanging on the wall as a threat of what would happen if they disobeyed.

The immediate examples were effective, and coupled with the city police\'s notorious reputation, no one in Johan\'s group dared to risk it; they all obediently sat down.

Johan and his three friends, filled with fear, huddled closely together, watching as more and more people were forcibly brought to the square.

By the time it got dark, Johan could no longer ascertain how many people had been gathered, but a quick glance revealed a sea of heads as far as he could see.

On the other side of the square, bonfires were lit and large pots were set up, with city hall staff bringing in cartloads of potatoes, tossing them into the pots with their skins and dirt still on to cook.

Johan received two mushy, completely unsalted potatoes handed out by city hall staff who threw them into the crowd for people to pick up themselves; during the distribution, city policemen with long swords stood by menacingly, ready to harshly strike anyone who dared to fight over the food with the sheath of their swords.

Two potatoes were far from enough to fill the stomach of a young adult male, but fortunately, the impoverished people of this world were accustomed to hunger. Even the usually ravenous Sanchi wouldn\'t complain of not being full.

But on this chilly autumn night, forced to stay in this open square, people had no choice but to huddle together for warmth.

In the middle of the night, as Johan dozed off, he was awakened by someone\'s cries of emotional breakdown. Opening his eyes, he saw several city policemen charging into the crowd, dragging out an unrecognizable person, cursing and kicking him, then using a rope to tie the person\'s hands and waist, dragging him toward the city wall…

Johan paled and felt nauseated as he firmly covered Sanchi\'s mouth to prevent him from crying out loud.

Sanchi\'s tears fell on Johan\'s hand, and Johan himself, filled with fear, comforted him softly, "Don\'t make a sound, just endure it… It\'ll be okay once we get through this."

They survived the arduous night until dawn when city hall staff came again to distribute another round of potatoes.

As Johan bit into his potato in frustration, he saw several luxurious carriages driving up to the square, with many armored men escorting someone from the carriage toward the city wall.

There were too many people surrounding the escorted figure, preventing Johan from seeing who it was, though he could glimpse a small patch of gleaming golden fabric.

Johan suddenly began to despise the color gold.

He stared at that flicker of gold among the dense crowd, realizing that the excruciatingly long night endured by everyone in the square was all because of that person with that small patch of golden fabric.

What was beyond the west gate? Weisshem\'s undead army. A fact well-known to everyone in the city.

The armies of local nobility being routed by Weisshem\'s undead yesterday was also known to everyone.

So many people had been herded to the square inside the west gate, all of them young and able-bodied men… Even Johan, an uneducated, inexperienced youth from the slums, could guess what was happening—the nobles\' military forces were ineffective, so they were turning to them.

Such a thing was a semi-public secret among the lower-class farm folk; which family didn\'t have ancestors who were conscripted by nobles and never returned?

Filled with anger, Johan stuffed the last piece of potato into his mouth.

He would never fight for those who didn\'t consider them human, especially not when those on the opposite side were Mr. Barton and the others!

"Sanchi, Tommy, Bobby, listen to me," Johan whispered to his friends, drawing them closer. "No matter what they tell us to do later, just go along and don\'t resist. Once we\'re out of the city gate, stay away from those who will hit us randomly, and run with all your might toward the other side!"

Sanchi, Tommy, and Bobby, children from impoverished families who had to shoulder family responsibilities from a young age, weren\'t stupid and nodded vigorously in agreement.

They wouldn\'t need to be afraid of Mr. Barton who was across the battlefield—Mr. Barton had always been kind to them; he would never harm them!

A while later, several hundred people in armor, riding horses, arrived at the square.

The city defense force commander, Horn, tugged on the reins of his horse and glanced at the dense crowd of local men beneath the city wall before turning his face away.

Horn held no hope for a positive outcome from this battle. Since Mr. Gould wished to create an unmanageable mess for Charlie Rex, that bastard child, Horn would do his best to cooperate, considering it a farewell to his years of friendship with Mr. Gould.

He had already hurriedly sent the young generations of the Horn family out of the city to Neuen Town overnight. Even if he himself sank in this power transition, at least the next generation of the Horn family could start anew.

In the second battle, the city defense force no longer acted as the main force but served as a supervisory army—Adra III was well aware that once the Bartalis family moved to another territory, he would be vulnerable without sufficient armed forces. Thus, he needed to preserve his troops.

Under the watchful eyes of the city police and city defense force, the young and strong men, who had been sitting under the city wall for a night, were called up and taken out of the city in batches.

At this moment, some people in the crowd, unable to fathom that they were being conscripted, had to face a harsh reality. Many lost control of their emotions, either shouting or breaking down in tears.

In this world, there wasn\'t any country that could maintain long-term stable peace. Even the landlocked Rhine Kingdom, with few international entanglements, experienced territorial wars every few years.

War always resulted in death. Any unrealistic romantic fantasies about war only occured in the minds of those who had never encountered war and had no understanding of it.

No matter how much these lower-class commoners resisted, they could not stand against the armored city defense force and the ruthless city police. Whether paralyzed by fear or weeping bitterly, they all had to obediently leave the city in an orderly manner.

When leaving the safety of the city walls, the "weapons" they received were just sharpened wooden poles, not even covered with iron sheeting—the Bartalis family intended for these people to head to their deaths and staining Rex with the blood of locals, so naturally, they wouldn\'t provide decent weapons.

Johan was separated from his friends when they were taken out of the city in batches because, despite being dark and skinny, he was relatively tall and had a reasonably strong physique due to years of hard labor, so he was placed in the first batch.

Suppressing the fear in his heart, Johan obediently received his "weapon" like the others, followed the crowd out of the city under the city police\'s stern supervision, and was positioned at the very front.

From a distance of several hundred meters, Johan saw the front of the Weisshem camp, which was already teeming with undead activity.

With only the thought of "surrender" in his mind and no desire to fight, Johan\'s hands began to sweat as he gripped the sharpened wooden pole.

It\'s okay… it\'s okay… The undead are not scary… They even help us with tasks…

Johan continuously reassured himself as his legs trembled uncontrollably.

It took a long time for nearly ten thousand people to queue up, receive their "weapons," and form lines to march out of the city.

In the excruciatingly tense wait, Johan, positioned at the forefront, heard people around him sobbing softly.

"Don\'t be afraid—" Johan wanted to vocally comfort those around him, urging them to surrender with him, but when he actually spoke, his voice was so soft it was akin to the buzz of a mosquito.

Johan tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry and devoid of any moisture, his throat\'s mucous membrane painfully stuck to his tongue when he tried to moisten it.

Don\'t panic… Don\'t panic…

Johan could only reassure himself silently.

As sweat trickled down his dark face, forming rivulets, the conscripted men finally completed their assembly.

Johan, minimizing his movements as much as possible, carefully looked back and saw that the city police and the city defense army had drawn their weapons, forming a threatening line behind the crowd.

"Listen up! You are only allowed to move forward. No retreating!" a loud city police officer shouted, brandishing a gleaming long sword. "Anyone who takes even half a step back will have their head hit the ground!"

"Charge!"

Johan\'s overly tense nerves momentarily prevented him from reacting to the command until he was bumped from behind, prompting him to start running, half-pushed, half-propelled.

After mindlessly running for several dozen meters, Johan gradually regained his composure.

He looked back again to ensure that the "supervising" forces were merely blocking the city gate and not charging along with the young and strong men. Without hesitation, he discarded the wooden pole, raised his hands, and sprinted toward the Weisshem camp as fast as he could, all the while shouting with all the strength he could muster, "Don\'t kill me, I surrender!"