Chapter 1: Farewell to Changmai Cunzi, on the Road Heading North for the Return Journey

The early morning in Changmai Cunzi was somewhat noisy.

Regarding the dispute over houses, villagers wanting to sell their houses and villagers wanting to rent houses at a low price were already arguing about this early in the morning.

Although everyone had gathered together to sing and dance last night to celebrate surviving this disaster, as soon as the sky brightened, it seemed as if the friendship and tacit understanding from last night had completely vanished.

But many times, things are just this realistic; emotional matters are emotional, but realistic problems still have to be handled using some traditional and inferior methods.

Last night, Priest Bata'er revealed the amount of time he would continue to stay in Changmai Cunzi, so the villagers who planned to leave with the priest knew there were still more than ten days left, and they changed their tune this morning regarding the house-handling methods they had previously loosened up on.

This caused the villagers who were not leaving, whose house-handling methods had already been agreed upon, to have their anger surge, and they began to argue fiercely early in the morning.

But argue as they might, when Jier got up and led people over to eat, passing by, they all temporarily extinguished their fire and cleared the open space in front of the Nongshen Church for Jier and his twenty-some Warriors to go and eat breakfast.

While eating thick wheat porridge, Jier asked Aoni: "What did those Maomao say? Did you ask them last night how they are going to travel later?"

Aoni slurped a mouthful of wheat porridge and opened his mouth to pant; he had been scalded by the wheat porridge. Only after swallowing this mouthful of porridge did he answer: "You asked me to go ask last night, and I asked them, my lord. The lead Maomao called Yongqi said it will still follow us for a stretch of the road, because this place is relatively remote after all, and they don't have suitable transport tools; they can't take away those metal trinkets they got along the way and treat like treasures without a carriage. It asked me to ask you, what is our route afterward? So it can decide where to part ways with us."

Jier was not afraid of the heat; he drank the wheat porridge in his bowl dry, and after having the village girl who was cooking add another bowl for him, he then said to Aoni: "What else could it be? Return the same way! Head north, pass through Lanse-Qingting Cunzi and Big Tree Cunzi, and after reaching Shichui Cunzi, turn east into Huitou Forest, pick up those Dwarves who want to leave at Tuolituo Cunzi, then return to Shichui Cunzi, and then head north to reach Northern Sasi County, and rest for a while at Yemei Town."

Speaking to this point, Jier paused: "At that time, I made an agreement with the Heir of the Sasi Baron Family in Yemei Town that upon returning from this trip, I would take people with him to break the Parasitic Vine Monster causing trouble in Northern Sasi County, and we must go deep into their lair to completely repel, break, and annihilate this group of monsters. The spoils in between count as mine, but the corresponding merit counts as his."

"Hearing this news, are you all quite happy? Because you can fight and get bounties again. But everyone listen well, the bounty for Parasitic Vine Monsters is different from Defeated Soldiers; after all, they parasitize ordinary people, and while their numbers might be higher, their strength is very limited, relying only on their vitality and strange parasitic abilities to harm people. So the price of the bounty reward is far lower than for Defeated Soldiers."

Jier added another sentence: "Especially after defeating them, you get almost no spoils, which is a key point."

The fighting enthusiasm that everyone had just raised suddenly sank back down; many people who had just wanted to shout a few words like 'Defeat the enemy, get more bounties' saw them disappear before they could even open their mouths.

One by one, they squatted down honestly and ate their breakfast obediently.

After everyone finished eating, the drivers also prepared the team about to depart; a large amount of battle spoils were placed on the much emptier carriages, and even after loading everyone's tents, the captured Defeated Soldiers, and some villagers temporarily hitching a ride back to Lanse-Qingting Cunzi, the entire convoy was not completely full.

After all, this convoy under Jier was originally equipped for a Refugee Team of hundreds of people; now the entire team had fewer than thirty Warriors, over ten captured soldiers, and over ten villagers from Lanse-Qingting Cunzi returning, totaling less than seventy people, and even counting the drivers, it was only about eighty people. Everyone's belongings could all be moved on the carriages, and the return journey would likely end very quickly.

Jier inspected the entire convoy, confirmed that everyone was there, the captives were also beaten and bruised and tied up on the carriages, and the villagers hitching a ride had not been left behind. Thus, Jier mounted the Tianxuecao that was not wearing Horse Armor, waved his hand, and shouted loudly: "Convoy head north, set off!"

"Set off!" Xueya Site, who was driving Jier's personal carriage at the very front, shouted loudly in response.

"Set off!" On the carriages behind, the drivers shouted in turn.

Until the last carriage, which had a driver and one of Jier's Warriors sitting at the front, while the carriage box behind was filled with various supplies and boxes of all sizes; these were the harvest of the Maomao on this trip.

A large portion of it was supplies captured from inside a guard post when they attacked one of the gates of Changmai Cunzi; they spent half the night last night moving these Wooden Boxes containing supplies one by one onto the carriage they lived in.

So don't ask why the Maomao didn't participate in the celebration activities of Changmai Cunzi last night; they were busy.

This small, alien team with few members, having left their tribe to venture into the Human world, although the start wasn't very good, after meeting Jier and making the relevant agreement, their harvest during this period was not small at all!

Gradually, their harvest had already filled more than half of a cargo carriage.

Considering they only had ten Maomao, having such a harvest could already be considered very remarkable. And the team from the larger Maomao tribe in the Southern Mountains, although they obtained Metal Ingots for a moment, after the Metal Ingots were snatched away by Yamila, they not only suffered heavy losses in manpower, but their overall harvest was also not large.

Apart from the abandoned Mine left to them, perhaps only those Metal Lumps traded to them by the Defeated Soldiers could be considered their 'harvest' this time.

Yongqi and the other Maomao had been busy for half the night; at this time, even though the sound of the convoy setting off was loud, they only opened a crack in the Wooden Box where they were resting, looked outside casually, confirmed that Jier was there and the convoy was moving, and then closed the box and curled up inside to sleep soundly.

They were originally mountain forest creatures that were active at night and rested during the day; in the hot summer daytime, they didn't have the slightest intention of going out.

"Luosa! I'm leaving! Goodbye!" Jier, riding on his horse, shouted loudly at the Priest standing at the entrance of the Church.

"Remember, if you need help, you must come find me! Northwest Province, Kendall County, Kendall City!" Jier shouted loudly to the Priest.

Priest Bata'er waved his hand, nodding with a smile on his face. He didn't say anything more; what they wanted to say had already been said last night.

At this moment, there was only the waving of farewell, and the blessings for a good friend in each other's hearts.

The convoy rumbled into motion, one carriage after another along the village road heading north, passing through the north gate of the village, and according to the road traces that could still be vaguely distinguished, headed toward Lanse-Qingting Cunzi in the north.

There were no problems along the way in the morning; the drivers of the convoy had already traveled this road several times before. When Warriors were injured during the attack on Changmai Cunzi, they were sent by the drivers to Lanse-Qingting Cunzi for the Old Priest to treat.

Otherwise, even an arrow wound would take a long time to heal; how could it be as convenient as it was now, where in less than ten days, the injuries were completely healed.

At high noon when the sun was most intense, the convoy drove slightly off the road to rest in the shade at the edge of a Forest by the road.

The horses needed to drink water, and people also needed to relieve themselves and drink water.

Don't even think about eating; in the absence of combat, two meals a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, was already the normal situation.

"Everyone get off the carriages to rest and stretch your limbs. The captives are the same; untie the ropes on them one by one and let them stretch their limbs. Don't think about escaping; escaping means death!" Jier, riding on his horse and holding a Soldier Bow, not only kept watch but also served as a deterrent to those captives.

Aoni also repeated Jier's words; he held his own sword and shield, but that did not prevent him from having the three archers in the Warrior team stand behind him to bring deterrence to those soldier captives.

These soldiers actually had no intention of escaping; after all, they had already surrendered. If they were killed for escaping now, wouldn't the suffering they endured from the villagers' retaliation and insults after surrendering all these days be in vain?

Isn't that right?

These days, the villagers had beaten them quite a bit, and Jier's Warriors just watched and didn't interfere, unless the villagers used heavy force, in which case they would pull people away and drive them off. These Defeated Soldiers also knew what they had done to the villagers of Changmai Cunzi; they had previously raided villages, enslaved villagers, insulted farm women, etc., almost doing every kind of bad thing to the villagers, so the retaliation they were receiving now was deserved.

It was just that these surrendered soldiers were anxious because they didn't know how Jier would ultimately deal with them.

Would he hand them over to the villagers of some village to deal with? Or hand them over to the local Noble and lock them in a Jianlao? Or was there some other way to deal with them?

If possible, they would rather be locked in the Jianlao of a local Noble.

Even if they were sentenced to heavy crimes and sent to dig stones in some remote mine, or even like the villagers they enslaved, sent to dig in a Mine, that would be far, far better than being handed over to the local villagers to deal with.

After all, they were a whole; even if sent to dig, relying on the strength of the group, they wouldn't be bullied much. If they found a chance to escape later, they could always find a way to return to their hometowns.

Perhaps in the local Jianlao and mines, they could even find a way to avoid this war!

After all, although digging stones was rumored to be very exhausting and life-threatening, compared to a real battlefield that was like a meat grinder, it was still far worse.

It was just that these surrendered soldiers didn't know that Jier would neither hand them over to the local villagers—these soldiers were defeated by Jier, the villagers had no right to the final disposal of these surrendered soldiers—nor would he hand them over to the local Noble—the Sasi Baron Family did not have administrative rights over southern Sasi County; villages like Changmai Cunzi were autonomous, and only needed to pay a small amount of grain tax to the grain collection team of the Sasi Baron every year. If the Sasi Baron Family wanted to enforce the law in southern Sasi County, they would need someone to pay attention to them.

In fact, Jier intended to sell them all off in Duoen Town, just like the Bandits captured earlier.

Don't say that the Saint Hors Kingdom had abolished the slavery system; Jier had no intention of selling these people as slaves; he was selling the debt-labor time of these surrendered soldiers! Because these people fought against Jier's team, they caused financial losses to his team, and these losses had to be repaid after they surrendered.

Don't even mention the weapons, equipment, and personal belongings on them; those were things captured in battle, how could they count as the personal belongings of surrendered soldiers?

So these penniless surrendered soldiers, if they wanted to pay off the debt they owed Jier, had to work in Duoen Town to earn money. Jier was just reselling their debt to certain Merchant Guilds in Duoen Town; how could that be called slavery?

Right?

This was something stipulated by the Kingdom's laws, reasonable and legal.

And these ten-plus young and strong surrendered soldiers, especially since they were physically strong and had no obvious injuries, would be able to sell for a higher price than the crooked and broken Bandits. This would allow Jier to earn another sum.

As for whether these surrendered soldiers would escape in Duoen Town, that was none of Jier's business; it all depended on the individual abilities of these soldiers.

According to Jier's calculations, they would most likely run, and he estimated that no one would be able to stop them.

After all, they were hardened characters who had fought their way through the terrifying Southern Mountains, and it wasn't just one or two individuals, but over a dozen; as long as these people organized themselves even slightly, they were not the kind of guys that the thugs in Duoen Town could block.

If some of the Merchant Guilds in Duoen Town could see this point and change their method of employing them, they would likely prioritize having these Soldiers train the Merchant Guild guards in the town.

After resting for a while, Jier rode his Tianxuecao, carrying a Banwen Deer on its back, and emerged from the nearby woods; he happily patted the deer on the horse's back and excitedly said to everyone, "You're in luck, we have venison to eat today!"

"Hooray!" The young Warriors jumped up with joy, unable to wait for the evening to arrive.

"Alright, alright, we can't eat it right now. Get ready to set off; although the sun is still very intense, we have to go, let's strive to reach Lanse-Qingting Cunzi before dark to spend the night!" Jier said.

Thinking that they were about to go home, the Villagers of Lanse-Qingting Cunzi who had been captured by the Defeated Soldiers all had smiles on their faces, and after beating the surrendered Soldiers once more, they climbed onto the carriages.

The surrendered Soldiers were also impatient to leave the territory of these Villagers they had harmed as soon as possible. Just endure it a little longer, and it would be fine; tomorrow, once they left Lanse-Qingting Cunzi, the Villagers in other places would not come up and beat them at every turn like they were doing now.

Jier used a Steel Dagger to slit the throat of the Banwen Deer that had been shot in the eye, and used a rope to hang the deer upside down, keeping its head low and body high, to let as much of the blood in its body flow out naturally, so as to reduce the gamey smell in the venison.

The whole deer would not be hung on the horse's back, but rather tied to his own carriage with a rope, watched over by Xueya Site, so that the delicious ingredient wouldn't be lost by accident.

On the way back to Lanse-Qingting Cunzi, what one needed to be most careful of, of course, were the small ponds and small lakes at the base of the surrounding hills, for that was the territory of the Siege Fish that lurked here.

Never mind going over to rest and drink water, even just getting close to these places, one had to be careful of having their head broken by a Stone spat out by a Siege Fish.

Jier walked at the very front of the caravan, and one of his main jobs was to guide the way, avoiding having the entire caravan mistakenly enter the territory of the Siege Fish.

If they wanted to turn around at that point, it would go without saying that they would have to risk danger to do so. And if the horses pulling the carriages were startled, that would be even more troublesome, and it was even possible that it could cause chaos for the entire caravan.

Fortunately, Jier had good eyesight, and the drivers in the caravan were relatively familiar with this road connecting Changmai Cunzi and Lanse-Qingting Cunzi.

Before dusk, Jier and his group finally arrived at Lanse-Qingting Cunzi.

Before they even got close to the village, the temporary guard posts set up by the village outside the village signaled the village; even after identifying Jier's caravan, Lanse-Qingting Cunzi still organized the Villagers: the Villagers tending to the farmland outside the village quickly returned to the Cunzi through the village gate, and many young Villagers, both male and female, flooded onto the village walls, holding wooden spears they had made on the spot; although the weapons lacked power, having weapons in their hands was vastly different from having no weapons at all.

"Hey! It's me! Jier! We won!" Jier shouted from far away, and had the carriage in the caravan carrying the Villagers of Lanse-Qingting Cunzi break away from the group to move forward, with that single carriage approaching the village while the other carriages slowed down and followed far behind.

Once the Villagers on the village walls recognized the companions who had been captured, the entire village erupted into excited noise.

The gate was opened, letting the caravan in.

And as soon as they entered the village, the captured Villagers who had been waiting on the carriages for a long time jumped off the carriages one by one, excitedly embracing their family and friends who had come over.

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