RNP Chapter 185 Iron Man Boy
Chapter 185 Iron Man Boy
Chapter 116 Iron Man Boy
Where am I?
Lake of Controversy? Yes, I'm at Lake of Controversy.
What did I do before?
Yes, he came upstream with his ironworkers and sailors to escape.
Then----
"Hey, Leon, there are over a hundred people here, how did you capture them all? And without any casualties?"
"Hey—that's a long story!"
I remembered.
The warehouse was empty, but as soon as we went in, we found a lot of rice, cured meat, and wine.
Sevita's mind was still a mess, and the act of thinking itself made him feel uncomfortable.
"I understand," Tiberius said with a strange expression.
"While we were having a good fight with those bastards from Valantis, these guys took advantage of the empty warehouse, sneaked in, and feasted like rats in a rice jar, and then—"
"Then when our men went in, all they saw was a bunch of snoring, drunken bastards. Look what they'd done!" Uncle Jules said, somewhat annoyed.
In his view, these Iron People were eating his spoils of war!
"Hey, who's their leader?" Tiberius asked Leon.
"Look, this one." Leon pointed to a child who wore the most jewelry.
"Him? A child, the leader of a pirate crew?" Tiberius asked, frowning. "What kind of nonsense is this?"
"Cough!" Old Tom coughed loudly.
Next was Risangro, who tried his best not to laugh.
Then came Dmitri, Habro, and Lezapo —
Even the usually serious Jules couldn't help but smile.
"You're laughing—" Tiberius frowned, wanting to ask them what they were laughing at.
"Look at yourself, kid!" Vito pointed at Tiberius, then at the Ironborn on the ground.
"How old are you? He's at least older than you!"
"————" Tippi was speechless for a moment.
Yes, he himself is only thirteen, while the Lightning Group is already a mercenary group of seven or eight hundred people.
I'm a leader myself.
"Alright, stop laughing! That's enough!" Tiberius said, laughing and scolding at the same time. "Calvin, give him a bucket of cold water and tell him to stop pretending to be asleep!"
A large basin of cold water was poured over him from head to toe, forcing the young man from Tiemin to shiver.
"Quack!" he yelled. "Cold water!"
Tiberius wasn't buying it; he knew the Iron Islands people couldn't possibly be afraid of the cold.
At their latitude, spending every day in the sea, are they afraid of the cold? Nonsense!
"Hey kid, what are you Iron Islands folks doing here, suddenly ending up in this godforsaken place upstream on the River of Controversy?"
"Not going to talk?" Tippi chuckled sinisterly, looking at the stubborn Ironman.
"Okay, I love tough guys, especially tough guys pulling teeth—pulling them out one by one, and then pulling out your friend's teeth and putting them in your own! Tell us, what's your name? What are you doing here, Iron Citizen? What are you and your accomplices doing at Lake of Controversy?"
Sevita spat, glaring fearlessly at Tiberius: "I'm Sevita of Old Wake Island, no doubt about it! What are you doing here? What else could it be? Hired by those bastards from Valentis to be part of the navy! They promised to pay us with iron coins so we could make a fortune!"
"Vito, what is iron money?" Tiberius asked, looking up.
"You don't remember this?" Vito asked, somewhat surprised. "It's robbery! They call it iron coins."
"Alright—you kid, stop being a mute and keep going!"
"And the result? They lost the Battle of Valanthi utterly! It's all that admiral's fault, he's a complete idiot! The Valantians are such useless trash!" He got angrier and angrier as he spoke, his words flying: "After losing the naval battle, we figured we couldn't have come all this way for nothing, so we decided to sneak back through the crossing of the River of Controversy."
"But guess what? At the ferry crossing, even Valantis's small navy couldn't hold it—of course, that is, if they still had a navy at that time. The Three Daughters Kingdom's ships did block the river, but the ferry crossing itself?" Severta's face showed an extremely gloomy expression.
"That place is now a fucking mass grave and ruins, nobody can even tell which is the ferry crossing! We went upstream because your Three Daughters Kingdom's big ships were chasing us closely, but the water upstream is shallow. Our small boats with shallow drafts can get through, but your big ships can't, so we ran into you!"
"Kill me or torture me—well, we're actually quite useful. Hydrology! We understand hydrology! You need someone to row the boat, right? I'm also quite skilled with an axe!"
"Robbery! Boarding! Catching fire! I can do it all! I can even write extortion letters, how about it? Let me—let my Sevita serve you, how about that?" Sevita immediately chose to slide to his knees.
I'm only fifteen years old, and I'm dead now? That would be a complete waste!
What does it mean that those who own ships are not slaves, and every captain is the king of his own ship?
Nonsense! Even kings are afraid of death! It's better to live a miserable life than to die!
Being born into poverty is not a disgrace; a true man is one who can bend and stretch!
Just wait, wait until the day my luck turns around and I'll have you serving me!
Tiberius listened, but a meaningful smile appeared on his face. He sheathed his sword and waved to the soldiers escorting him.
"Untie him. Bring him and his few Iron Islands 'fellows' over here; I have something to say to them."
Severta rubbed his wrists, which were numb from being bound, and looked at Tiberius suspiciously, wondering what this "general," who didn't seem much older than him, was up to.
Tiberius's smile remained unchanged, but his tone carried an undeniable confidence.
"What do you think of us? We're real men who dare to fight and risk everything, each one a seasoned warrior who's tasted blood. Follow us, and we can't guarantee anything else—"
As he spoke, he pulled a handful of gleaming gold coins from his purse at his waist, and had Tom hand him a piece of bread, which he weighed in his hand, making an enticing sound.
"At least, we're paying with this, not just empty promises of iron money."
"Moreover, we never use gold coins to deal with our enemies, we only use this!" He patted the hilt of his sword.
Then, Tiberius pointed to himself and counted Jules Maud, raising his voice slightly, with a sense of pride and honor.
You've all heard of Jules the Keeper of His Word, haven't you? My uncle has nearly two or three thousand men working for him. His reputation, strength, and intelligence are our greatest assets. How about it, give it a try?
Severta looked at the gold coins in Tiberius's hand, then at Jules's composed figure and the obviously experienced and disciplined soldiers around him.
In contrast, the skepticism in the eyes of the unreliable Valantis was gradually replaced by a shrewdness that weighed the pros and cons.
He licked his chapped lips, hesitated for a moment, and finally asked in a gruff voice, "—Will there be enough food? How will we divide the spoils? We need to agree on the distribution beforehand. The captain must agree on the distribution method before we board the ship, so the sailors won't run away!"
Tiberius laughed heartily: "Abundant food! Proportioned to your contribution! Definitely fairer than the Valantines!"
"The captain won't mistreat his sailors, especially since he's a good fighter, quick-witted, and clear-headed," Tiberio said, looking into Sevitana's eyes, which were as black as raven feathers.
Severta glanced at his fellow countrymen and sailors behind him, who were also emaciated and staring longingly at the gold coins and bread. He gritted his teeth and nodded sharply.
"Come on, we have a new captain! Meet your new boss!"
"Kid, these Ironborn are trouble, not a help," Jules said, grabbing Tiberius's wrist and whispering a warning. "You'd better think this through! These guys only care about money, not people, and they're insatiably greedy, demanding far more than they can handle!"
Tiberius, however, seemed indifferent to this.
"Uncle, do you remember what we talked about back then? How to eliminate these Valantians in the Controversial Lake as quickly as possible?"
'
"Use the lake as a base, maneuver within the waters, and defeat them one by one! Right now, we can only find local sailors to row our boats. How many of them are there? And our men—well, most of them can't swim."
"But these Ironborn—and the sailors with them, with a little practice, they'd be a natural riverboat crew!" Tippi said excitedly.
"We must have plenty of sailors and boats, and we must constantly conduct inland maneuvers on the lake. Today we'll appear by boat on the north bank of the lake and take out an outpost; tomorrow we'll appear on the south bank and ambush a transport convoy."
"The day after tomorrow, we'll quickly row to the east side of the lake and besiege a small, isolated fortress," Tiberius said. "Because we can't afford a war of attrition!"
Jules nodded, but his expression still showed some dissatisfaction.
"Listen, we Ironborn bastards and pirates are sworn enemies. But you're forcing an Ironborn kid to be your sailor—hey! Your father Harlan might just write that into the family history!"
In the following days, the White Legion's movements were unpredictable, leaving the scattered Valantis defenders completely confused, unable to determine the location of the main force, and even less able to effectively regroup.
Jules and Tiberius, through maps and interrogations, became intimately familiar with the locations, troop strength, and defenses of the enemy's strongholds.
"Those few dilapidated strongholds of theirs, as long as a boat can get my men ashore, I know how to fight them with my eyes closed!" Jules roared, raising his twin swords and directing his troops like precise scalpels, cutting into the weak points of the enemy's defenses time and time again.
The battles were almost always one-sided.
Tiberius discovered that the Valantis garrison not only overstated its numbers but had also been at peace for so long that it was no match for these fierce and experienced mercenaries.
Outposts were eliminated one by one, patrol teams were wiped out, and small fortresses were breached one by one.
Jules and Tiberius swiftly swept through the entire Controversial Lake region at minimal cost, completely eliminating the threat behind it, and also gained a considerable amount of unexpected supplies and a few usable ships, further enhancing their mobility.
With his bottom cleaned up and his side and back safe, Jules licked his lips with satisfaction and looked eastward—towards that heartland that truly belonged to Valantis, now perhaps utterly empty.
"Alright, you greedy lads," he said to Tiberius and Lisanlo, "now we can go visit them in their hometown without worry!"
The atmosphere in Jules's makeshift command post was so heavy it seemed to drip water. A map lay spread out on a rough wooden table, its edges weighed down by several quivers and helmets.
Tiberius pointed firmly to the ford marker on the upper reaches of the disputed river, his face showing the seriousness of "as expected."
"Uncle, just as I said—Valantis, that old fox, didn't try to confront them head-on downstream. He knew the downstream crossings were out of control, and our navy was blocking the river like an iron chain, so he couldn't cross. Therefore—" Tiberius tapped his fingertips heavily on the location of the upstream crossing.
"He fought his way through the disputed territory, heading straight for here! Exactly as we predicted! I reckon our loyal comrades who stayed behind will hold out for three days—no, even one day would be a stroke of good fortune for them."
Jules remained silent, slowly wiping the blade of his broadsword with an oiled cloth, the cold gleam reflecting on his furrowed brow. His gaze moved across the map, and finally he shook his head.
"From now on, we can no longer retreat to the west bank."
His finger moved to the vast area further west of the Controversial Lake, where scattered hills, wastelands, and unknown tribal territories were marked.
"Go through the disputed lake and retreat back to the Milian territory? In the original plan, this was indeed a way out. But, Tiberius," Jules drew a circle with his finger over the empty area west of the lake.
"Look at this place. Are there any colonies or plantations? Are there any reliable supply points? No!"
His finger pointed to several blurry marks on the map, his tone filled with deep apprehension: "More importantly, what's in this wilderness? Free tribes, mercenaries scattered from war, dens of escaped slaves, ruthless bandits, roaming Dothraki cavalry, and those mad dogs defeated in city-state struggles—"
"These men are more dangerous than Valantis' regular army on the wasteland! Whether we can even make it to the walls of Myr alive is a question!"
He sighed and pointed to the east bank of the disputed river, to the ferry crossings they had hoped to use to provide assistance.
"As for these ferry crossings on the east bank—there might still be some of our people guarding them. To put it bluntly, if there are still Valantis waiting there, going there would be like walking into a trap and becoming easy prey for them."
"No!" A hoarse voice with an Iron Islands accent interrupted.
It was Sevita. This kid had somehow gotten close to us, grinning and showing off a set of not-so-white teeth.
"There are hardly any survivors left over there! The ferry crossings downstream are completely rotten! Piles of corpses are higher than mountains. Outside the city, there are either corpses or siege fortifications. Oh, and there's plague, famine, and wild dogs that are fiercer than the living!"
"You people from the Three Kingdoms of Women? You can only float on the river; you can't hold onto the shore at all! Soon the autumn rains will come, hehe, and it'll become a huge mud pit and swamp! Even the Seven Gods would get stuck!"
Tippi rubbed his temples hard, feeling a throbbing pain in his temples.
Although Cevita's words were harsh, they were undoubtedly the final straw that broke the camel's back for both the westward and southward retreat plans.
Vito, standing nearby, chuckled wryly and patted Tiberius on the shoulder: "Did you hear that, kid! After all the calculations, we're fucking down to only one path—like your wildest idea at the beginning: 'Straight to the heart of the Volantis!'"
"Now, all we can do is pray you're right—the Valantis' homeland is truly as empty as—like a whore on aphrodisiacs, completely at our mercy. Because whether they want to head south along the east coast or cross the lake to retreat west, all their escape routes are fucking blocked!"
Jules finally finished wiping the sword and shoved the broadsword into its sheath with a clang.
He raised his eyes, his gaze sweeping over Tiberius and Vito, finally settling on Sevita's brash face. His eyes held no more hesitation, only a resolute determination: "Then it's settled. Cross the River of Controversy to the east, target—the heart of Valantis! Let their ancient Valyrian eldest daughter taste what it feels like to have her heart ripped out!"