Chapter 111: Night Visit to New Clear Spring Cunzi, Questioning, and the Church Hunter Who Does No Human Deeds

New Clear Spring Cunzi is not very far from the main trade route; while it would certainly take a good while on foot, it takes no time at all to reach it by horse along the path that gradually ascends into the mountains.

The trees along the path are dense, and if not for the existence of the path worn down by horses' hooves, no one would ever imagine that a village could exist in the mountain forest ahead.

After the group had ridden for a while, the trees thinned out, and the view ahead gradually opened up.

A village and its fields, located in a mountain hollow, appeared within the moonlit forest.

Looking from afar, the few faint points of light inside the village were very conspicuous; however, the unplanted farmland along the path nearby indicated that production and life here had long been interrupted, and it was far less peaceful than it first appeared.

"There is no one guarding the village wall."

Shishou gazed at the village in the darkness from his bumpy horse, pointing out that something was wrong.

"That is natural; in fact, the situation there is a bit strange, which is why I came here overnight." Just as Jier finished speaking, Shishou asked: "But how did you know the situation here in the middle of the night?"

"That is a secret; just don't ask." Jier did not answer at all.

The others in the group were a bit curious, but since Jier did not want to say, they had no way of knowing, so they had to follow behind Jier, who was leading the way on horseback.

After a while, they approached New Clear Spring Cunzi under various sources of illumination.

The village gate was tightly shut, which was a natural thing.

However, on the wooden wall next to the gate, there was a rope ladder left behind by someone; yet, this ladder was left out in the middle of the night, unguarded, just hanging there.

"I will go open the gate. After you enter, Zuojigela, you guard our horses. The others, take your weapons and go to the houses in the village that still have lights on, then confiscate the weapons of everyone inside. If anyone resists, uh..." Jier thought of the miserable state of those bandits.

"If anyone resists, kill them as the situation dictates. But do not use heavy force on those without weapons; they should be the original villagers."

Jier's words were very strange; at least the others in the group did not quite understand what he meant to express.

Jumping off his horse, Jier performed a single leap on the spot, jumping directly over the height of the entire wooden gate and landing on the other side.

Thump!

That was the heavy sound of Jier's feet hitting the ground, which was very distinct in the quiet night.

Subsequently, as Jier opened the village gate, the sounds of some people shouting feebly rang out from several wooden houses in the center of the village.

The gate opened, and the horses entered one by one.

"Watch the horses, the rest of you spread out."

After Jier finished speaking, he strode toward the largest wooden house in the village; he had some questions to ask that Bandit Leader.

The Bandit Leader, the former mercenary "Killer Ken," woke up from a daze and shook his head: "Just now, was there a loud noise?"

The village women sitting on the ground, who were also unable to sleep due to pain, nodded: "There was one."

"It came from the village gate."

"Could it be some kind of Monster?"

"Gods preserve us, our little place was attacked by those people before; let's hope no more monsters come!"

"Shut up!" Ken shouted to stop the chattering of these young village women and waved the leather whip in his hand: "You, you're the one who kept mentioning those people, now go to the village entrance and see what exactly is happening!"

This young village woman naturally did not dare to go, not to mention that her own leg was injured—although not seriously—but even when her legs were fine, she would not dare to wander to the village entrance alone in the middle of the night, unless her husband could accompany her.

"Hmm? What, not going? Want to taste the whip again? Or do you want to be like that woman in the corner, having your neck twisted by me?"

The middle-aged mercenary with the broken leg said viciously. If his right knee hadn't been injured, he certainly wouldn't need these useless people, but there was no help for it; he and his subordinates had all had their right knees shot through, and some of the foul-mouthed ones even had both knees shattered.

This unlucky event caused them to completely lose the possibility of leaving New Clear Spring Cunzi to rob. Let alone going out to rob, even living in this small village had become incomparably difficult.

If not for the fact that their weapons were still at hand, these bandits entrenched in the village would have long since been killed by the village women and children who were less severely injured.

At this moment, accompanied by the sound of some horses, a clear footstep approached from afar.

"No need, let me ask you about the news here instead!"

The door of the house was pushed open, and a young Warrior wearing thick metal armor and draped in a pitch-black Cloak strode in.

As soon as Ken saw the other party's weapons and equipment, he realized it was over.

As soon as he pushed the door open and entered, Jier frowned.

Because the smell in the room was too foul; not to mention that the people with broken legs had no energy or ability to attend to their personal hygiene, just the rotting female corpse in the corner of the room was enough to make a normal person vomit their breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at once.

"You guys are really good at enduring; don't you know how to dispose of the dead body?" Jier pointed at the corpse in the corner and asked while standing in the middle of the room.

"Who are you?" Ken immediately dropped the leather whip that made the women in the room afraid and turned to pick up his own Sword from the side.

Clang—

This was a Steel Sword that had been used for a long time and repaired and reforged several times; the thin cloth strips on the hilt were stained black with blood, but the polished, sharp blade indicated that this was a weapon that could easily kill.

Jier snorted disdainfully, pointed silently at the middle-aged mercenary's broken leg, and then scolded: "I am the one asking you, not you asking me!"

He walked closer to the other party, his gaze pressuring the middle-aged mercenary sitting on the chair: "It should be me asking you: Who are you?"

"I am your %%!"

The former mercenary, now the Bandit Leader "Killer Ken," immediately sprang up from the chair.

Pushing off the ground with his left leg, he slashed his Steel Sword toward Jier's face with lightning speed. There was no help for it; Jier was protected from head to toe by thick Metal Armor Plates, so only his face, which did not have a Faceplate lowered, looked like a weak point he could attack.

But this move was just a feint; the middle-aged mercenary's true killing blow was the armor-piercing awl in his left hand. This thing looked like a screwdriver from a past life at a glance, but in reality, it weighed ten times as much as a screwdriver and was triangular in shape, capable of piercing through Leather Armor and thin iron armor in one strike and stabbing into the vital abdomen of a human body.

But Jier just blocked with both hands and grabbed the main bodies of both weapons.

His left hand even grabbed the blade of the Steel Sword directly, letting the edge of the Long Sword fight against the Metal Armor Plate on his left palm. With a pull of his right hand, he snatched the armor-piercing awl away.

His strength was too great; even though the middle-aged mercenary used all the strength in his hands, he could not stop the weapons from being taken away.

After taking away the man's secondary weapon, Jier pushed the Bandit Leader who had sprung up back onto the chair. Amidst the creaking friction of the Steel Sword held in his hand, this Steel Sword was also snatched away by Jier.

The Steel Sword with the slightly worn edge was re-inserted into the Sword Sheath, while the armor-piercing awl was weighed in Jier's hand: "This thing is not bad; it's mine now."

He ripped the short sheath that originally held the armor-piercing awl from the Bandit Leader's waist, and after putting the two back together, he attached it to his left waist.

Subsequently, Jier's steel-armored palm gripped the Bandit Leader's chin, making him look into Jier's eyes: "Now, answer my question properly: Who are you? If you don't cooperate, I think I can only do as you did—twist your neck, just like you twisted the neck of that poor woman in the room."

Speaking of this, Jier laughed to himself: "But not only that, I will also nail your corpse to a piece of wood and stand it in the open space of the village, displaying your corpse for all the villagers here who have been bullied and insulted by you to see."

"I think they will be very happy to watch your corpse rot and decompose, eventually turning into a pile of white bones."

The Bandit Leader, a middle-aged mercenary who once had some fame in Sasi County, spoke. His chin was pinched by Jier, causing his voice to sound distorted: "I am Ken-Feite; you must have heard of the name 'Killer Ken'."

"Hmph." Jier was noncommittal: "I heard you were a mercenary? How did you end up in the bandit trade, and even entrenched in New Clear Spring Cunzi?"

"I do whatever makes money, and nowadays, naturally, pulling together a group of people to act as bandits is the fastest way to make money."

Jier looked left and right, then looked at the worn-out leather armor on the Bandit Leader, and curled his lip in disdain: "I have never seen anyone get rich by being a bandit; most of them are just fools who end up losing their lives."

"Heh heh, how could I compare to you, my lord!"

At this moment, outside the open gate, the intermittent groans and wails of people drifted in. Hearing these sounds, the Bandit Leader knew his subordinates were finished. In fact, as long as anyone appearing here right now wasn't too incompetent, they could easily defeat these bandits with broken legs just by relying on their own two sound legs.

"What happened to your leg? It looks like you can't even exert half your strength now. What a pity, I originally wanted to witness the skills of a famous mercenary like you, but this is it?"

Ken gritted his teeth: "If it weren't for that group of weirdos who shot and broke the legs of everyone in the village, how could we have fallen into this situation? Of course, a lord like you is definitely stronger than me; even if my legs were fine, I certainly wouldn't be your opponent."

This was a matter of course; the two men's weapons and equipment were worlds apart, not to mention the gap in skill and physical ability.

"Weirdos? Shot and broke the legs of everyone in the village?"

Jier raised a question.

The cornered Ken waved at the women huddled together to the side, letting them reveal the injuries on their respective legs.

Jier certainly knew that all the adults and those nearing adulthood here had their right knee joints shot and broken, but he still looked them over once.

"What kind of people are so heartless? And why did they only shoot and break all your legs instead of killing you? No matter how you think about it, killing people must be easier than specifically aiming for the right knee joint, right?"

Jier asked, full of doubt, but in his heart, he already had the answer.

"We don't know either. Those people were wearing cloaks, their skills were extremely formidable, and the arrows they shot would actually fly back into their hands. That was truly a terrifying day. All of us thought we were going to die, but those people didn't kill us; instead, they found everyone in the village and, according to age, shot and broke the right knee joints of everyone over ten years old."

Ken said with difficulty: "Crushing all of us to death would be as simple as crushing an ant for them. No one knows why they only injured us instead of killing us. Could it be just to watch us live in such pain? This godforsaken place has no medicine; with such injuries to the body, how is that any different from killing us directly?"

He then cursed: "Those damn bastards, cursed %%, their hearts are dirtier than the maggots in a cesspit, I curse them!"

Jier hummed twice, thinking to himself: 'Then you'll be disappointed; they not only gained glory but also both fame and fortune.'

He already understood that the people who committed this evil deed were none other than the Church Hunters of the Hunting God Church he had fought alongside before. Considering the location of New Clear Spring Cunzi and the state of the village, he couldn't help but suspect that those Church Hunters did this mostly to prevent these people from having the chance to interfere with matters over at Momona Cunzi.

If these villagers, under the coercion of these bandits, foolishly attempted to defect or join the side of the parasitic Monster, considering the number of people in the village, this would naturally be no small threat.

Although it was not a big threat to the Great Hunting Ritual, the Church clearly did not want to receive more interference, so they specifically made this move.

It was just that these people from the Hunting God Church were truly cruel. Not to mention killing the bandits in the village while they were at it, they actually didn't distinguish between black and white, good and bad, and uniformly shot through the legs of everyone who might pass through the mountains and forests to head to Momona Cunzi.

"I ask you, what day did those weirdos appear?"

Jier continued to ask.

"The day? I haven't really been counting the days lately, and I don't know what time it is now, but it was about four or five days ago."

Four or five days ago, just about a day or two before the start of the Battle of Momona Cunzi. Clearly, this was definitely the work of the Hunting God Church. As the critical time point approached, in order not to let outsiders disturb their key Hunting plan, these Church Hunters without sufficient morality directly and uniformly shot and broke the right knee joints of most people in New Clear Spring Cunzi.

"Last question, have those weirdos appeared again in the last few days?"

Ken did not answer Jier's question but kept begging: "This lord, I don't want to die. Can you guarantee that if I answer the question, I can live? Even if you can't stand my behavior, you can send me to Yemei Town to be punished and sentenced; I beg you, don't kill me just to save yourself the trouble!"

He began to tremble. Clearly, no matter how tough and resilient a guy he was before, after days of torture from his leg injury, his body and spirit had declined significantly, and even his will had become so weak, changing from a tough guy everyone in Sasi County mentioned into a spineless dog who only wanted to live.

"I have money. I have quite a bit of wealth accumulated from killing people and completing missions in the past, and there are also valuable things I've robbed while being a bandit these days. I'll give it all to you, just please promise not to kill me, okay?"

Jier snorted: "Answer my question, have those people appeared recently? We'll talk about your business later."

"Yes, yes, those people have popped up recently. Just yesterday, two guys wearing cloaks circled the village, dropped a few Gold Coins for the parents of a few children, and then took away a few sturdy boys from the village. No one dared to disagree, and those half-grown boys also knew not to provoke those weirdos, so they obediently let them be taken away."

"Took away a few children? Did they say what for?"

Jier continued to ask.

Ken thought for a moment: "About four, I think, two boys and two girls. They were all healthy children. After everyone got injured these past two days, it was these children who were taking care of everyone. As for what for, it seems they said at the time that they had talent. They didn't say what kind of talent, just that it was a good thing, so they had to take them away."

Jier had finished asking what he wanted to know, then, without even looking at this fallen middle-aged mercenary, he exerted force in his hand and directly crushed the man's neck.

"You..."

This former well-known local mercenary, now the Bandit Leader, died directly without even finishing half a sentence.

Jier clapped his hands, as if he had crushed an ant, turned around, and said to the few women from the village who were shrinking back even more: "Please don't be worried or afraid. I am not a bad person; killing this man was just to take revenge for the others he killed. You tell me, is that right?"

The few women looked at each other; it seemed there was some logic to it?

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