A major caravan could be seen going from Sporco Stronghold and heading to Selma City. The caravan had thousands upon thousands of people which consisted of many slaves who only had a minimal amount of clothing on them, farmers carrying tools, mercenaries with minimal armor, high-ranked mercenaries that were huddled together sharing a carriage, knights protecting their lords while they were on horseback, and nobles in their carriages.
In the humongous caravan was Ritzy group right next to Skira. Skira was in his personal carriage surrounded by knights and having his servants and personal items on the two carriages behind him. Ritzy on the other hand was sharing a single carriage with the servants and his knights surrounding the carriage. The second carriage that he used to have, was part of the donation to the war effort.
Inside the personal carriage, Skira was looking through the glass to see Ritzy's carriage.
Skira's mind,
'What in the world, why is Ritzy sharing a carriage with the servants? He is technically a noble since he is the descendent of one, so he should have his own carriage. What could be the reason for Ritzy not having his personal carriage, especially when he is the family's representative in this war?'.
'Could it be that his family sacrificed him for Rodrigo? That is the only possibility I could think of. Typically the one who should be sent to represent the family in this war would be the family heir, so it should've been Ritzy's older brother Rodrigo'.
'Looks like they disowned Ritzy and sent him here to sacrifice himself. The most likely reason I can believe why Ritzy was sent here is that Rodrigo is in the midst of training and couldn't be disturbed, but since they did not want to offend us, they still sent us one of their children. Wait no, that still makes no sense. If that was true, then the second son Christopher would be sent'.
'It seems to me that in reality, they sent Ritzy here to die and not to be sacrificed so Rodrigo could train more. They probably didn't want Ritzy anymore because he wasn't as talented as his brothers, so they just decided to send him here so he can not embarrass the family on how weak he is. That they would pretend that their son was not weak and died valiantly in the name of the kingdom'.
'The more I think about it, the more infuriated I get. My poor little Ritzy, even though your family disowned you, even though my father rebuked me for taking responsibility for you, I will still try my best to cultivate you into a fine warrior. Don't you worry, I won't disown you like the rest!'.
In the other carriage, Ritzy suddenly sneezed.
...
After hours upon hours of travel, the sun was already setting and the day was ending. Seeing the sunset, Grasso sent an order down the caravan that they should set up camp and continue tomorrow morning.
Ritzy was a bit confused about why they haven't arrived at the city yet, and that they were setting up camp. He believed that they should've already arrived and been preparing for battle. Confused, he taped on the chauffeur back and asked,
Ritzy,
"How much farther is Selma City?".
Chauffer,
"From what I heard around the camp, it should only be two days travel, but since we're are in a caravan, it should only take about a week or so".
Ritzy had no words and laid back on the carriage.
Ritzy's mind,
'We've already been traveling for many days and now we're traveling even more! Why would there be such a thing in war. Why do we have to travel for countless days just so we can resolve a problem that doesn't even affect our homes! Now that I think about it, why is this called a war!?! They just have a city of men while we're bringing thousands upon thousands, isn't this a bit overkill? Should the royal family have their own personal army? Why couldn't they send them instead of us?'.
The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he made himself.
Ritzy's mind,
"Whatever, it's best to be overprepared than underprepared".
After giving up on the thought of having too many people for the job, he leaped off the carriage and stretched his body. While he was stretching his body, the knights were setting up a fire so everyone could huddle around the fire and be warm while the servants were setting up the tents and preparing dinner.
The dish wasn't much meat-based because they didn't get much meat from hunting nearby animals since they were in the middle of the caravan.
In their journey, they were positioned in the middle of the caravan. The middle of the caravan was known for being the safest position and since they were the machinery division. It was natural for them to take the safest position.
Unlike the rest of the soldiers that could be replaced with any other brute. The machinery men were skilled and trained for days before they were able to use the machinery efficiently. This meant that they weren't replaceable. Every man lost in this division was a permanent loss for the army. This gave the men the highest protection possible, second only to highly esteemed nobles.
Typically, this would be considered very nice but it wasn't truly so. When people traveled, they would encounter wild animals that they could use for that night's dinner. In a caravan, the only people who would enjoy this luxury were the people in front, the scouts. Since Ritzy's group was in the center, there were virtually no animals.
Lucky in their travels, they're was burrowed snakes that appeared out of their nest. It seemed that the snakes were disturbed by the constant amount of people walking over their nest so they left their burrow to kill the people causing the disturbance. Luckily for Alter, he noticed the snakes first and ordered the other knights to hunt them with him.
Killing the snakes, they brought it to the servants and told them to make it for tonight's meal. People of their stature weren't truly picky eaters, they valued any food that had meat in it, snakes included. People of regular knight class or lower weren't provided with any benefits with their lords. Anything they made or hunted would mostly be given to their lord, including food. This caused for any meat they were allowed to keep would be a minuscule amount and only be able to provide enough for half a person. To Ritzy's knights and servants, this was a food vacation.
The servants cooking was slicing the snakes apart, removing all intestines, harmful parts, and valuables that could be sold. As two servants were dissecting the snake, one of the servants was setting up a cooking fire that had a little rock fort on top of it, and the last servant went to a nearby lake to fill a cooking pot basket with water.
The fire was set up and the other servant bringing the pot placed the pot on the little stone fort. The fort was used for carrying the pot and to heat up form the fire. Essentially creating a makeshift burner. After a while, the servants chopping up the snakes were done and they poured the edible meat into the pot.
As the meat was cooking and dispersing its flavor into the water to make it into a tasty broth, two servants went out to seek any edible vegetation, and at the same time, the last free servant went into the carriage.
The servant in the carriage grabbed a jar of 'grains of paradise' which was a local favorite in Selma City which naturally also spread its sales of the spice to the towns Ritzy's crew encountered during their journey to the stronghold.
The spice was black and was the size of small pebbles. The spice imparts a pungent, black-pepper-like flavor with hints of citrus. The unique taste was highly valued for it's well paring with pig, cow, and snake meat.
Pouring the spice in, it created a pungent but delicious smell in the air that could bring cravings to a person even when full.
After a couple of minutes, the other two servants that went scavenging brought asparagus, wild leek, and plantain. Bringing the vegetation, they poured the plants slowly while another servant stirred. The leek was the only one minced before being poured.
It wasn't irregular for commoners like servants, to know about edible vegetation. People of their class would normally need to scrounge around their environment so they could eat well. With nobles taking their farm plants and meat they hunted, they looked for uncommonly used edible vegetation out in the wild for food.
After an adequate amount of time, which felt like forever for the knights and Ritzy, the food was finally ready to be served.
The servants poured hefty portions into a wooden bowl and then brought the now bowl filled soup and spoon to Ritzy and the knights.
Ritzy seeing his bowl, he quickly got a big scoop of meat with some chopped leek. He blew a few times on the hot food and then took a bite. Ritzy was too impatient so the food was too hot. This caused Ritzy to hold the food in his mouth instead of eating it. He was now holding the food in his mouth and blowing at the same time to try cooling it down before consumption.
He looked like an idiot trying to impersonate a dragon blowing fire.