Chapter 447: 442: Nothing To See Here

Angelo's grim hair flies with the soaring autumn wind coming from the East, beneath it hides a decrepit but steely face with several deep scars and wrinkles carved on it proving this man's eventful history. He sat there silently, watching the teams after teams of foreigners, athletes, diplomats and tourists parade through the mese before him. It is indeed an event of a life time alluring thousands of citizens to come here and have a look at these supposed heretics and barbarians. But this could hardly raise any interest within Angelo's mind, for he has already witnessed too much events through his long run of journey, the only thing that might spark his emotion is perhaps when he saw his citizens finally losing the fear and self abasement on these Westerners from the countless defeats in the history, raising their heads knowing the richness and power the state behind their backs supporting them have.
The old man, different from his young friend Antonius, feels that high self esteem and value for prestige is a symbol that signifies the state has been revived from the ashes and risen back to the position where she sat last time. He strongly believes that patriotism and self confidence of the citizens has a strong bond with the overall military presence and economy of the state, if the economy is thriving and military is constantly showing its might, patriotism and self esteem shall automatically start developing in the minds of the people.
While Abdullah, on the other hand, does not have so many thoughts about his past achievements in his mind like Anjelo, for he is still relatively young in his forties, having at least two decade more to live if he stays healthy. He is now thinking about himself, for he still has no children till this age when normally people of the same age as him in this era are already having grand children. He did try, very hard of course. But almost every single doctor told him that he has low possibility of fertilisation most probably due to the fact that he is short of exercise since a young age, and over worked himself when he turned in to adulthood especially for recent years.
The middle aged man, different from his old partner sitting right in front of him, is now starting to worry about his own and his family's future. Unlike Anjelo who got nothing else to care about nearing the end of his life except for the results he has fought for a decade, Abdullah still have a lot of things to worry about, especially after he found out that the Sultan he once served, the prince he once made friend with, did not kill his family in Edirne despite threatening to for multiple times. Life as a middle aged man is far more difficult from the other age gaps, it is an age when one needs to worry for his career, his family, and his future.
The two men, despite standing at a close distance to one another, are thinking about two completely different things in their mind.
"Let's go, nothing to see here." After a while Anjelo felt the nauseous sensation of having hardness breathing coming back to him once again. He nagged his shoulder to cover himself in the blanket while he spoke to his friend behind. "This Olympia game is not that important; the important thing is the expedition on Epirus after the event. Although I am not sure why did Antonius decide to postpone the war for an entire year… But it cannot be fore this kind of games, as from my view it only has an effect of motivating the crowd and the army, giving them a little bit of extra stuff to do to kill off their time."
"You are right Anjelo." Abdullah stopped thinking what ever messy stuff inside his brain and started pushing the fragile old man back to his care taker. The two people walked in the direction facing the fading sun, dragging a long shadow behind their trails.
The Olympia games went just according to its original plans lasting for an entire month. Nothing out of plan occurred except for a few minor incidents, such as there was one occasion the delegates and merchants in support of a team from England clashed violently with the supporters of a team that came from Novagrad, resulting in a dozen casualties. This kind of event is not that rare, considering the fact that people did not had many activities for entertainment except for soaking themselves in taverns or indulging themselves in the sins of brothels, thus the next sort of event that has the most hormones is of course brawling.

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However, this kind of brawling proved to have no positive effect on the two teams, the victor of this brawl did not have the ability to change the outcome of the match, instead it only deepened the misconception of the local population when they saw this kind of barbarous thing happening in their own city. There was another instance when the team of one city state managed to out score the team from another rivalling city state, and so the supporters of the winning team decided to buy a coffin from the local vendors, placing the flag resembling the city state which has lost on top of the coffin and paraded through the streets. This news attracted lots of attentions and managed to be described vividly with the news papers of Thessaloniki, spreading to the other side of the Mediterranean sea, going back to the city states of the two teams in Northern Italia.
What they did not know is that this event escalated even further and caused a direct conflict between the two city states, this is indeed the very first time recorded in history that the rivalry formed in athletic games ended up getting solved through a diplomatic crisis and blood shed.
Of course, the games are hosted under the slogan of 'friendship through competition, fairness before honour, sportsmanship more important than medals'. Because of this slogan, the total medal count and ranking is not being counted officially, each of the athletes, no matter whether they won or not, are issued a medal of participation made from bronze, which is also being seen as a method the most powerful vassal of Romana bragging about his wealth.
Apart from the athletes, the gambling organisers from various states also earnt a crazy amount of fresh gold through their industry which thrived from the sudden rise of competitions and travellors. These two combined together makes it the easiest targets for them to scam. It is only through this event that did the citizens of Thessaloniki realise the importance of a surge of foreign visitors and the economical values they bring. The amount of trade and exchange of merchandise during this month grew by at least fifty percent, and the attitude of the locals on these westerners changed from despise thinking that they are barbarians, to guests that needs to be welcomed and greeted, because they bring real profits to them.
The visitors gradually scattered after all the events are over following the start of the events, and the city of Thessaloniki is back to her emptiness as winter came and all various house holds stayed in their homes due to the fact that there is a limited number of crops they can grow in this Mediterranean winter season. Though the jobs being offered now in the mines, work shops and construction sites grew tremendously with each year to come, it would still take a long time before the scale of workers in industries over take the scale of farmers in agriculture sector.
Although for this year, the atmosphere of the city is being rather different. Accompanied with the lowering of passers by on the streets there seemed to be an increase in the numbers of soldiers patrolling around. Then did people remember that the Caesar made a promise, to advance his multi national troops in to Epirus to punish and trial those bandits who murdered their heroic Varangian Yuri, and it seemed obvious that their Caesar has not forgotten about his vow. What he said on the papers are true, he is going to launch the operation after the games end.
After realising this, the news paper and the public started a round of praising their Caesar, saying that he delayed the operation on purpose setting up the multi national Olympia games as a distraction to the war lords in Epirus, making them think that this is only a threat and thus lowering their guards. So, when the operation is initiated the various powers in Epirus would have a limited time to react, and thus be squashed for their ill prepared defences.
Though in fact, different from what the news agencies have speculated, Antonius did not think this far of setting up a smoke barrier using the Olympia games when he made the plan.

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