After another full day of walking, the emperor's army finally walked out of the Alps and arrived at a small town called "Valdagno".
This is the northernmost region of Italy, only about 35 kilometers away from the city of Verona in a straight line, and it is already a veritable "enemy-occupied area."
The emperor's army captured the town without any effort. Due to the huge disparity in troop strength, the defenders just fired a few shots symbolically and then surrendered.
Next came the looting.
It was only separated by the Alps, but it was much richer than Bavaria. What shocked the soldiers the most was the giant Borgia supermarket chain in the center of the town and the dazzling array of goods inside.
In the Holy Solomon Empire, there is food and clothing of this quality, but the supply is extremely limited. They are basically sold to the nobility and the prices are very high.
Here, the soldiers experienced a terrible culture shock for the first time just by seeing the rows of neatly arranged shelves filled with all kinds of food, drinks and clothes, as well as the terrifyingly low prices on the tags.
These Latins are so rich that even the poorest citizens can buy cheap beef patties for dinner in the supermarket for nine copper coins.
Compared with them, the imperial people were extremely poor. For the same price, they could only buy black bread, the kind of coarse grain bread mixed with wheat bran and grit that could break teeth.
Why can they live a good life while we have to live such a hard life
So, with a certain pleasure of robbing the rich to help the poor, the soldiers began to plunder spontaneously, and even the knights could not restrain their men - because there were too many people participating in the riot.
In the end, it was Bruno, the Dragon of Imagination, who intervened and cast a "contagious suggestion" in the center of the town, forcing these low-level soldiers to stop.
However, this completely deteriorated the relationship between the imperial army and the local residents.
Soon, His Majesty the Emperor ordered a strict occupation, martial law and curfew in the town of Valdagno, and soldiers began to set up camps inside and outside the town.
As for the goods in Borgia Supermarket, they are requisitioned and stored by the military quartermaster, and no one is allowed to use them privately.
The house that Cangqingzhijian was assigned to this time was a two-story building in Latin style. The owner and his wife were accidentally killed by soldiers during the previous robbery... Maybe it wasn't an accident, it doesn't matter, the owner is dead anyway.
After moving into the house, Ask found an empty basement, locked the door, and then carefully lit the candle that Malkina gave him.
The flame of this candle is milky white, emitting a faint light that is not too strong.
Ask stared at the candlelight for a while, then realized that Malkina had appeared in front of him without him noticing, also staring at the candlelight.
"Okay." She straightened up and said, "So you have infiltrated Otto's army?"
Ask told her about what happened on this trip, including the encounter with the devil in the town, the subsequent incident with the strange prison guard team, and the contact and analysis of Bruno, the fantasy dragon.