Chapter 101: Post-War Matters

At this moment, everyone was still within Momona Cunzi, which had been emptied of its villagers. After being occupied by the parasitic monsters and enduring today's brutal battle, the entire village was essentially in a state of total disarray.

Some houses in the village had collapsed on a large scale, and those that hadn't were also in a precarious, teetering state.

Black smoke was still rising from some places, with flames erupting from time to time, prompting the nearby Armed Civilians to go and extinguish them.

The corpses of the parasitic monsters were scattered everywhere, left uncollected and exposed to the scorching sun; it was estimated that they would be dried out within two days.

The ten Church Priests who had finished the crusade against the Alien Evil God immediately joined the heavy work of treating the wounded. Despite the people having resisted the parasitic monsters tenaciously and having wiped out a large number of them in the end, the losses on their own side were actually quite severe.

The various vines and tentacles of the parasitic monsters contained anesthetic fluids that could paralyze the human body; contact with the surface of the skin would cause the body to lose sensation and become unable to function normally.

During the battle, Jier's Warriors were not very afraid of this tactic because they had full sets of Metal Armor Plate. However, the others were not so fortunate; their thin Leather Clothing and Leather Armor would be compromised inadvertently, and once affected, a person would be unable to participate in the battle for a short time.

Furthermore, the parasitic monsters possessed great strength; their methods of ramming or swinging their limbs would break a person's bones upon impact if they did not have a Shield for defense.

A large number of Armed Civilians were injured precisely because of this.

At this time, the Priests were individually providing meticulous treatment to the wounded, and they formed small-scale Prayer rituals for healing Divine Art, providing effective treatment to those with severe injuries in small batches.

This was the simplest and fastest way to win over the Human Mind. Most of these Armed Civilians who had come to participate in the crusade against the parasitic monsters were youths from the surrounding villages and would be the main labor force for each village in the future. Making them owe a favor now would make it much easier to preach or arrange work later.

The Agricultural God Church was, of course, unhappy to see this happen. After all, the youths from most Farmer families were nominal believers of the Agricultural God. Letting people from other churches—especially the Sun God Church—find opportunities to spread their Faith so easily was absolutely unacceptable.

Therefore, several Priests of the Agricultural God Church also brought out all their strength, using methods far more strenuous than when dealing with the Evil God, and wantonly exerted the Divine Power of the Agricultural God, striving to use a number of people far inferior to the Sun God Church Priests to compete to treat more injured civilians.

As for the Priests of the Hunting God Church and the Hunters, they had not come to Momona Cunzi at all.

After the Hunting God strode away and the Great Hunting Ritual officially ended, the Hunters, having lost most of their Magic Arrow and special Arrow, looked satisfied as they were led by the Priest of the God of Hunting into the mountain forest, embarking on the journey back to their homeland.

Perhaps there were some discussions and research among them regarding this hunting operation, but that was not something for outsiders to know.

As for Bell, he was also numbly handling the post-war affairs after experiencing the immense shock of a deity's personal arrival.

The task of treating the wounded could be left entirely to the various Priests, while other matters had to be handled by him, his attendants, and the town officials.

The primary task was to concentrate and disperse the large number of unnecessary personnel from other places.

Large-scale rewards and such could be handled later; the surplus personnel needed to return to Yemei Town as soon as possible to be disbanded.

Because the supplies consumed daily by these hundreds of people were no small amount; it was already a logistical burden that some Merchant Guilds in Yemei Town and the Government Office managed by the Sasi Family were working very hard to maintain.

After all, for this crusade and counter-attack force of hundreds, just the food for the people and horses was not a small number. Especially the water everyone drank, which was actually being shipped urgently from Yemei Town; this consumed a massive amount of transport resources. Just the wagons running on the supply line were being dispatched every hour or two, and over the course of a whole day, there was no telling how many wagons, organized temporarily by the Merchant Guilds, were running on the logistics line for the force.

Jier also had to gather or dismiss the rest of his team still in the mountain forest as soon as possible.

Of course, unlike Bell's side, which was conscripting local Town Guard and temporarily organized Armed Civilians from outside the town, Jier's team could be said to have been hired by Bell with money, so if he wanted them to disperse, he had to pay!

And it had to be cash!

Therefore, calculating the Gold Coin needed for Jier and everyone in his team for this counter-attack plan was the most important thing right now.

The attendant who had been following Jier's team, along with two low-level officials from the Government Office, were busy at this moment telling others who were calculating the kill information about the various pieces of information they had obtained.

Bell himself was quickly flipping through the combat records written by the two low-level officials.

Although the two were not professional military logistics clerks, the combat records and kill records they wrote were very amateurish and added many of their own subjective opinions.

But at least, it counted as a first-hand written record.

Because human memory is not reliable; when there are few things, people might still be able to remember what they and those around them did, but once things pile up, they basically cannot remember so many events.

Similar events would be mixed together in memory, becoming severely distorted. Therefore, if these distorted kill counts were really used to calculate the pay for Jier's subordinates, it would cause big problems.

He must not let the northern region of Sasi County experience a rebellion of hired Warriors after having suffered the harassment and encroachment of the parasitic monsters; if that happened, to say nothing of anything else, his own reputation would be ruined.

Jier led his men downstairs, arranging for Aoni to take his men back along the route they came, and to bring back his own people who were responsible for logistics along the main road by taking a detour. On the other hand, Jier took a small number of people to the village house in Momona Cunzi, where Bell was working temporarily.

Along the way, because of the scorching sun, there were few people active in the open space in the center of Momona Cunzi besides the corpses of the parasitic monsters everywhere. Most of the civilians were either hiding in the shadows, or the more quick-witted ones were weaving through the various villagers' houses in the deserted Momona Cunzi.

"Hell, so many houses are empty? Where did those monsters move the things from these people's homes?"

"Who knows? These monsters that can't even speak, what do they want with money or furniture? I don't get it."

"Someone must have moved too fast; we can't even get a sip of soup now."

Two Town Guards who saw Jier and shrank to the side complained in low voices, and their words were heard completely by Jier.

Although he was a bit curious about where the things in the Momona Cunzi villagers' homes had gone, Jier did not think too much about it; after all, they humans could not understand the thoughts of the parasitic monsters.

Inside the village house in the open space at the center of Momona Cunzi, the young people of the Knight Family were gathered together, happily drinking ale they had gotten from somewhere. Having taken off their Armor, they were loudly discussing their respective combat methods and results.

Their attendants were busy nearby, polishing and repairing their masters' weapons and equipment.

A large number of accompanying officials were holding paper and pens, nervously racing against time to calculate and coordinate the kill counts of all parties, as well as the hiring fees for Jier's team.

It was mainly the former, especially Jier himself, who had ridden out alone in the early stages of the counter-attack plan, killing many of the most difficult flowering monsters. And the Sasi Family had set a bounty for every flowering monster.

"The data for Banjiu Cunzi is the most reliable; has it been calculated yet?"

"It's out, it's out!"

"What about Flo Cunzi? What is the kill count for the Warriors under those Knights, and for Knight Jier?"

"Stop rushing me, I'm looking for it."

These officials even took apart the record book that Bell had briefly looked through, and in pairs, they separately recorded the number of flowering monsters killed in each Cunzi, and went to find Bell's attendant for third-party verification.

"Your side is easy to calculate, but Bitter Water Cunzi is troublesome. The brutal and chaotic battle was divided into two parts; the fighting at the time was very messy, and the written records are not very clear." An official responsible for the data of Bitter Water Cunzi scratched his head, looking at the vague and messy combat records of Bitter Water Cunzi, his face full of annoyance.

"Then go find the Sun God Church Priests who were at Bitter Water Cunzi at the time and have them testify to the kill count." Bell offered a suggestion.

Someone immediately stepped back and trotted off to find the Sun God Church Priests for verification.

When Jier walked in, this was the situation he saw.

He gave a wry smile at this; he himself could not remember how many parasitic monsters he and his men had killed in these few days, nor how many flowering monsters that could be counted for money they had killed.

"To say nothing of anything else, how should the flowering monsters killed in today's battle be counted? And how should the flowering monsters killed by the Hunting God Church be counted? They have already left; how should those bounties be given to them?"

The words Jier said casually made the annoyed officials in the room even more annoyed. But when they looked up and saw it was Knight Jier, they dared not say anything more and could only lower their heads and continue calculating.

"Alright, Jier, please don't add to their trouble. Our cooperation with the Hunters of the Hunting God Church is a partnership, not a formal hiring; they don't get bounties for killing flowering monsters."

Bell's words were just bullying those Hunters for not being there, thus resolving a large expense for the family in a few words.

Of course, for the people of the Hunting God Church, they certainly did not look down upon the bounties for those flowering monsters. In the eyes of these Hunters, the Great Hunting Ritual was the most important thing; being able to gain glory and the recognition of the deity in the ritual was far more precious than a few Gold Coin.

"Jier, it's good that you're here. Quickly give a number for the flowering monsters killed, so my people can cross-check it."

Bell said this, which instead made Jier scratch his head, unable to laugh.

He didn't have an exact count either, so he had to give a rough number: "Uh, about forty-something blooming monsters?"

Jier counted on his fingers, roughly calculating how many were in each of the first few villages; although the number of villages cleared in the later stages was higher, the number of blooming monsters in each village was actually much lower.

He mostly left them for his subordinate Warriors to handle. At that time, he mainly rode Tianxuecao to suppress the formation during the battles. Wherever there were many monsters, he would charge in and scatter them.

"By the way, on the way here, in that mountain forest, I even killed a parasitized Earth Grizzly Bear! This guy was even more powerful than a regular blooming monster; is there a bounty for this?"

"This..." Bell hesitated; he had also heard Jier's subordinate Warriors mention this Earth Grizzly Bear, as it was a somewhat famous mountain forest monster in the local area.

Logically speaking, the town should have a bounty for this monster, but such matters were too minor, and he himself was not aware of it.

Moreover, if one looks at the fact that whoever the parasitic monster parasitizes dies, wasn't the parasitized Earth Grizzly Bear killed by the parasitic monster?

Calculating this logic, Jier laughed himself: "It seems we should issue a bounty to the parasitic monsters instead!"

"Haha, only not many people would come to collect it!"

The two laughed.

With this matter set aside, Jier took people there to assist the town officials in calculating the bounty for him and his team.

Bell also roughly calculated the bounty to be paid, wrote a letter to have someone bring it back to Yemei Town in advance, and had the rest of the family prepare the corresponding money ahead of time.

Of course, it wasn't just money. Bell discussed it with Jier and exchanged part of the money for other supplies.

For example, some Magic Material provided to the Sasi Family by the various churches in Yemei Town.

Regarding these, Jier naturally wanted as much as possible; he planned to find a renowned master Craftsman of armor later to forge him a set of high-performance Knight Armor, and if there were surplus materials, he could also repair the knight sword of the Hartna Knight he had captured.

As a backup weapon.

Although the Hunting Sword was still easy to use, Jier's strength had been increasing rapidly recently, and the long sword that he once felt had sufficient weight was now no longer heavy enough.

This was something the Jier of the past would never have dared to imagine.

—

It wasn't until the first half of the night today that Aoni led everyone under Jier's command to Momona Cunzi.

And here, except for some Armed Civilian who had started to retreat in the afternoon, the rest of the people were excitedly celebrating the complete victory of the battle.

In fact, the ale for the celebration had long been sent over by the Merchant Guild in town, but it wasn't until the afternoon that Bell had people send over barrel after barrel of ale for all the victorious Warriors to drink to their heart's content.

Night shrouded the world, but Momona Cunzi was bright.

The Sun God Church Priest who were exhausted from treating the wounded certainly did not have the energy to provide lighting for everyone.

In reality, it was Jier who took the Blessed Short Staff in his hand and fired small balls of light everywhere to create it.

At this time, Jier's subordinate Warriors, whether they were directly under him or the hired guards who had temporarily joined his team, all stood straight and looked excited while receiving their wages and bounties.

Jier's subordinates went without saying; the hiring wage for temporarily fighting the parasitic monsters was quite a lot. And there was also the wage Jier himself was going to pay his subordinates for working with him.

This was two sums of money!

Not to mention the large bounty for them teaming up to solve the blooming monsters.

Everyone had roughly calculated it in their hearts; although their arithmetic was all very poor, they could still do simple addition and subtraction. Otherwise, if they couldn't calculate how much grain they would harvest each year and how much grain they had to pay the lord in taxes, that wouldn't do.

They would be cheated by the lord's tax official!

Seeing his subordinate Warriors quiet and orderly, Jier was very satisfied; compared to the other messy Town Guard who were drinking, singing, and dancing, Bell beside him was simply too embarrassed to look at his own subordinates.

Jier beckoned to Bell, who was also dressed neatly, and asked him to come forward to distribute the money.

Because after calculation, Jier's own bounty reward accounted for more than half of the total bounty reward. So Bell specifically had people quickly transfer a sum of money from Yemei Town.

This was the largest amount of funds he could mobilize from the family while his father was away.

About five hundred Gold Coin.

Fortunately, Jier said he didn't want the Gold Coin reward and could use Magic Material to replace the Gold Coin reward. This made Bell breathe a sigh of relief.

If Jier also wanted money, he would have to temporarily borrow a high-interest loan from the various Merchant Guild in town or the Church of the God of Wealth.

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