Rome must fall.

Chapter 361: Diplomatic Mission to Noriki (Continued)
In front of the village gate, there were dozens of Noriki warriors wearing iron helmets and armor, with long swords on their waists, standing in a line on both sides of the road. One of them wore a large helmet with horns and shiny silver armor. He was burly, with broad shoulders and a broad body. His arms were strong and powerful, with bulging veins, and a thick beard that completely covered his mouth and nose.

Seeing Alakosia and his group coming, he stepped forward and said in a loud voice: "Messenger of the Nix Tribe, I am the leader of the Iron Core Tribe, welcome to you!"

Alakosia bowed and saluted: "Your Excellency Chief Sfeli, I am Alakosia, the envoy sent by the Nix tribe. Our Chief Maximus asked me to extend his sincere greetings to you and asked me to represent the tribe and hope to discuss friendly relations between the two tribes with you!"

Alakosia pointed to the wooden box behind him and said seriously, "This is a gift that Chief Maximus carefully prepared for you to express his sincerity. I hope you like it!"

"Good! Good!" Sifeili grinned, revealing a row of neat and white teeth. He waved his arms vigorously: "Your leader is too polite! Come on, follow me into the village first, and we will sit down and talk slowly."

To be honest, Alakosia did not expect that the leader of the tribe would come out to greet them personally, but the dozens of heavily-armored warriors lining up to welcome them showed them the strength of the tribe.

How could Alacosia, who had experienced many hardships, be frightened by such a small scene? He followed Sfeli calmly, passing among the majestic Noriki heavy-armored warriors, and leisurely looked at the towering stone wall in front and the fully armed patrol on the wall.

He discovered that compared with the army of Segestica, the warriors of this Norse tribe wore a much higher rate of armor, but this was understandable, after all, the Norse were well-known in the Mediterranean for their expertise in iron smelting and blacksmithing.

After passing through the village gate corridor and walking along the short mountain pass, a relatively flat and wide valley appeared before Alakosia's eyes.

In the center of the valley are neat rows of wooden and stone houses, as well as a large square where children play and the elderly chat in the sun.

There are several water diversion channels built in the small river near the cliff. The river water is diverted to a row of stone houses on the shore. This is where iron ore is smelted. The blazing fire burns day and night, and impurities continue to melt and flow out under high temperature. The softened iron in the vertical furnace is called "iron fish" by the Noriki people. After cooling, these iron fish are carried to the spacious stone warehouse next to them for storage.

On the other side of the valley is a low forest. There are also many stone houses built between the forest and the valley. That is where the tribe makes iron tools. The Noriki craftsmen hold hammers and work tirelessly to beat the iron blocks. After repeated hammering and polishing, exquisite iron tools are gradually formed. There are farm tools, but more are spears, long swords, short swords, javelins, shields, helmets, breastplates... and other various weapons. They are carefully placed on the weapon stalls on both sides of the road that Alakosia and his group passed.

The sound of iron hammering was heard in his ears, the strong smell of charcoal was in his nose, and he listened to Sfeli's introduction to his tribe and looked at the many exquisite weapons on the roadside. Alakosia kept thinking in his mind: What is the motive of the Noriki people for doing all this in front of him? ...

Arriving at the main house, Alakosia was led into the living room by Sfeili. She was surprised to find that there was another person in the living room, sitting in the main seat. He was wearing a linen robe, with long hair tied around his shoulders and a white beard flowing down his chest. Although he was an old man, his face was gaunt and ruddy, his eyes were deep and gentle, and his elegant and graceful temperament was very different from the Noriki people she had seen on the road.

"Sage, the envoy of the Knyx tribe has arrived." Sfeli said respectfully.

This move surprised Alakosia a little.

The old man smiled and said, "Dear guests who have come from afar, I am the druid Podamochi from the Iron Core Tribe. On behalf of the tribesmen, I welcome you. Please take a seat!"

Druids! ... Alacosia, who had learned something about the Norikis before coming, suddenly realized: In many traditional Celtic tribes, the main responsibility of the leader is to lead the warriors of the tribe to fight wars, and the highest status and the most powerful person in the tribe is the druid, who has many rights such as sacrifice, judgment, diplomacy, teaching... Even the tribal leader is appointed by them.

The Iron Core Tribe was obviously also a traditional Celtic tribe. No wonder the chief, Sfeli, took the initiative to greet them outside the village when they first visited, because he was not the leader of the tribe. This was very different from the power system of the Nix Tribe, the Ardi Tribe, and the Pannoni Tribe! ... Alakosia was secretly alert and quickly introduced himself again.

"Is the envoy an Illyrian?" asked Podmochi. "Yes." Alakosia nodded and emphasized: "Our Nix tribe is an Illyrian tribe."

"But you speak Celtic quite well."

Alakosia took the opportunity to say, "This is mainly because there are many Scodischi people in the Knicks tribe. Although they are Celts, the tribe still accepts them as tribal members, because our leader Maximus has always advocated, 'No matter what race a person is, as long as he is willing to join the Knicks and willing to contribute his strength to the Knicks, we should not reject him, but treat him as one of our own.'"

"Your leader is so broad-minded! I am very grateful that you treat the Scodis people so kindly!" Podmochi said in a gentle tone with a look of surprise on his face.

Then, he changed the subject: "We live in the mountains and don't know much about the things in the south. We only know that there is an Illyrian tribe called Aldei to the south of our tribe. We didn't know anything about your Nix tribe before. How ashamed!"

These words of apology made Alacosia taste another meaning from them. He explained calmly, "The old people of our Nix originally came from the Illyrian tribe further south. It was only because of the difficulty of living in the mountains that they were forced to leave the mountains and serve as mercenaries. They barely survived for several years by being hired to fight for the coastal city-states.

Later, the envoys of the Ardi tribe came to us, hoping that we could help them defeat the powerful enemy who invaded their homeland, the Pannoni, and promised that as long as we defeated the Pannoni, they would be willing to give us the land of the Kupa River that originally belonged to them to live in. So we came here and later established the Nix tribe..."

What Alakosia said was not his own fabrication, but an official version that had been discussed in the Council of State long ago. It was publicized by the Ministry of Commerce when dealing with surrounding tribes, thus eliminating traces of the rebels and giving other tribes the impression that the Knicks were a local tribe.

"So that's how it is." Podmochi nodded slightly, then sighed: "The Pannoni are a large and powerful tribe in the Shannan River Plain. The Segestica tribe is even more powerful. You, the Nix, have just arrived, and you not only defeated them, but you also destroyed them. This is really surprising!"

"Respected Sage Podamoch." Alakosia explained seriously, "We, the Nixchu, are indeed far inferior to the more populous Pannoni in terms of strength. But although we are small in number, we have been fighting outside for many years, and every soldier has rich combat experience.

We also learned better military technology from the Romans and Greeks. In order to survive in battle, our soldiers bought better weapons and armor to equip themselves when they had money... Therefore, in terms of warfare alone, the Pannonians are far inferior to us, the Nyx.

But the Pannoni were too confident of their own strength and looked down on us, the Nixes. They were careless every time they fought with us. We, on the other hand, had a wise and decisive leader, Maximus, so we were able to win again and again.

However, the several wars between us Nix and the Pannoni were all initiated by the Pannoni! It was they who invaded the territory of the Aldi people and even wanted to destroy the entire Aldi tribe, so we Nix were invited here!
After we, the Nix, settled down along the Kupa River, we even took the initiative to sign a truce agreement with the Segestica tribe. However, the Pannoni people were unwilling to accept defeat, and a year later they formed a large army to completely wipe us out. After we, the Nix, completely defeated the Segestica tribe, we once again signed a truce agreement with several large Pannoni tribes including the Deisitiatai...

But I think the Pannoni hate us Nix so much that they might start a war again one day. Chief Maximus once said, 'We Nix tribe are newcomers to this land, and we should try our best to maintain friendship with the surrounding tribes, so that the tribesmen can live a stable life. But if any tribe wants to bully Nix, Nix will fight back with all its strength, because only victory can guarantee the peace of the tribe! '"

The reason why Alacosia mentioned in her speech that the Nyx military technology and weapons and equipment were learned from the Romans and Greeks was because the battle between the Nyx army and the Japodes took place not far to the south from here. If the Noricians were willing to inquire, they would naturally find that the attire of the Nyx soldiers was very similar to that of the Romans, and the Noricians had trade relations with the Romans. Therefore, Alacosia gave such a reasonable reason in response to Podmochi to prevent the Noricians from being too surprised and telling the Romans, thus letting the Romans guess the truth.

However, Podmochi's focus was not on the military equipment of the Nix soldiers. The Nix tribe's foreign attitude expressed by Alakosia's words moved him and made him feel a little relieved.

(End of this chapter)