Chapter 172: The Priests' Inquiry, and the Joyful Answer

Jier's caravan stopped to wait for the Church of the God of the Dead priests to inquire and inspect; these priests themselves were merely on guard against armies that killed indiscriminately in remote areas, causing chaos and leaving messes behind without burying the dead.

Yesterday, a skull-shaped stone sphere used for divination within the church rolled incessantly toward the west while emitting low wails, signaling that at least several large-scale deaths on the scale of a hundred people had occurred on the trade route west of Suishi Cheng.

It was clear that because of the rampant activities of Bandit Groups, few people had been running trade on that route recently; the sudden appearance of such large-scale slaughter, without any organization or individual explaining the situation to them beforehand, left the Church of the God of the Dead very dissatisfied.

Because the appearance of undead and their harassment of the living can truly lead to an area becoming completely desolate; for instance, the region in the southern part of the Empire where they clashed with the Southern Magic Society, due to the large-scale appearance of undead, resulted in land roughly the size of half the Saint Hors Kingdom being unable to be rebuilt even after several decades.

There even appeared a "kingdom" of undead there, hostile to all regimes and organizations of the living, gradually invading the normal surrounding areas.

Although theoretically, all undead creatures in the world are natural believers of the God of the Dead (intelligent undead creatures can also generate faith), as priests of the church, they should not only refrain from eradicating the undead creatures within their jurisdiction but should actively care for them.

Yet in reality, the gods have never been in a hurry regarding the spread of faith in the God of the Dead, nor is the church particularly anxious; after all, no matter how pious the believers of other gods are, it is impossible for everyone to enter the Divine Kingdom of their gods to enjoy happiness after death. The vast majority of people, including those of all other faiths, will eventually find the local Church of the God of the Dead when they grow old, and gradually convert to the God of the Dead before death approaches.

The fear of death—this is the natural source of faith.

Therefore, compared to troublesome undead creatures, living believers, who are greater in number, are more important to the gods and the church.

This is also the reason why the Church of the God of the Dead is spread throughout the Saint Hors Kingdom, and why they focus on clearing out places where Founengliang gathers and dealing with newly born undead.

The Old Priest prepared his defenses at any moment, and he sent his subordinate young priests to question the various people in the caravan, asking them exactly what had happened yesterday.

They first questioned the armored Human Warriors; these subordinates of Jier shook the money bags in their pockets triumphantly, making a jingling sound: "We encountered a large-scale battle yesterday, and battle brings rewards, and rewards can be used for many things. Ha, I hope there are more battles like that."

The priests' expressions turned slightly ugly; as the number of people who wantonly used violence increased, their work often increased as well, and few people truly liked such individuals.

They questioned the most numerous group, the weak captives being guarded; these people, who came from several different groups and backgrounds, gave different answers: "My lords, Priest lords, please give us something to eat; we haven't eaten anything for over a day now."

Some young priests wanted to show kindness, but they were stopped by a young priest with some social experience. The young priest secretly pointed at those so-called hungry and weak captives; these people were basically young and strong, physically robust, and clearly had not lacked meat or enjoyment during their days as bandits. The pitiful words of such strong and healthy people often needed to be judged with caution.

As for some other captives who were dressed in rags and looked like a motley crew, their words were somewhat sensational: "Save us quickly, we are all simple villagers from the surrounding area, the people in this caravan are the real bad guys, they rob with force wherever they go, our families have all been killed, are they planning to take us away and sell us? Sob sob sob..."

This person seemed to be crying sadly, making the young priests in the priest team indignant, but the Old Priest, who held a small Stone Coffin in his hand, snorted and mocked: "Hmph, 'simple villagers,' if you all can be called 'simple,' then everyone else could serve as living saints for every church. Turn his face back around, see if he is truly crying in pain!"

A young priest immediately stepped forward and forcibly turned the head of the person faking tears; sure enough, while the person was making crying sounds, not a single tear was actually flowing.

This made the young priest who had just shown kindness blush with shame, muttering: "How can these people be so bad? Why would they tell such easily exposed lies right in front of us?"

Finally, they questioned the captives who seemed to be the fewest in number and whose appearance was truly simple to the point of stupidity; these real farmers from Bianji Cun looked like they had hit bad luck: "I don't know either, the person who really manages things in the village, the Hols family, sent people to the village the day before yesterday to call for people, saying they needed about a hundred people to go out and work, which meant going out with them to beat people up, and they would provide food, promising to reduce this year's land rent by more than half. In previous years, this kind of thing happened occasionally; it was all easy work with good returns, so those who were idle at home all came out."

"But who knew that the two brothers of the Hols family were truly two stupid pigs and dumb oxen! We followed these two foolish things and bumped straight into a Knight named Jier. Many of us were defeated and killed by him. But more people ran away, and we all ran in the wrong direction and bumped into their caravan, which is why we were captured in passing."

The words of these people had a certain degree of credibility; after hearing this, the priests of the Church of the God of the Dead could at least understand that it was not Jier's caravan that took the initiative to attack anyone, but that others had come to attack the caravan and had simply hit an iron plate. Moreover, the fact that local villagers went to attack a caravan on the trade route made the priests worry about the local Human Mind and public security.

Afterward, they saw quite a few Dwarfs in the caravan!

This made this group of Church of the God of the Dead priests living in Suishi Cheng feel astonished, and they naturally felt a sense of closeness. After all, it was said that the entire town was built on an open-pit Cuikuang mine belonging to Dwarfs over a hundred years ago; the town was filled with Dwarven architecture and Dwarven ruins, and almost every household had a broken Dwarven mining tool hanging on the wall as a decoration.

This was also a notable feature of Suishi Cheng.

"Do, you, speak, Human, Common, Language?" (Dwarven Language)

A middle-aged priest spoke while gesturing, trying to communicate with the Dwarfs; the sentence composed of broken Dwarven vocabulary almost made the Dwarf Warriors who heard it unable to keep a straight face.

It was the old Dwarf who rode over and took the initiative to speak in Human Common Language: "Put away your broken Dwarven language; we are a Dwarf mercenary team, hired by Knight Qiao Jier, preparing to accompany him into the border war between your two Human kingdoms."

"Then, what about yesterday?" the middle-aged priest asked, switching to the more familiar Human Common Language.

"It's very simple, in that place called Duoen Town, the bandits nearby have increased significantly recently, cutting off the trade route beneath our feet. I heard that a while ago, they even united to attack a large caravan; hmph, clearly their appetites have grown too large. Even though our caravan has your Human Knights leading it and has Dwarf mercenaries like us, those Bandit Groups still thought they could rely on their numerical advantage to swallow us up."

The old Dwarf deliberately pretended to be like the Dwarf mercenaries he had seen before, spat on the ground while on horseback, and it landed right on the head of a captive: "They thought too highly of themselves. I swear by my beard, even without Knight Jier's fighting, just relying on us, we could chase and beat those Human bandits who numbered over six hundred."

Although the old Dwarf spoke bluntly, it actually made the priests feel that this might be the truth, describing part of the situation from yesterday from the side.

The foreign Bandit Groups not only repeatedly attacked small caravans on the trade route but even united to attack the large caravan of the Duoen Town Chamber of Commerce Union, and succeeded. This led to the fact that even though Jier's caravan was mostly composed of capable Human and Dwarf Warriors, those overly arrogant bandits still united, wanting to rely on their numerical advantage to plunder the caravan.

"So, the large number of people who died yesterday?" a priest asked.

The old Dwarf told the truth: "Half were killed by Knight Jier alone, and the other half were killed by us and the Human Warriors under Knight Jier in the caravan working together. There were also some people who were seriously injured in the battle and couldn't be saved, and Knight Jier personally sent those people off after the battle."

The priests sighed with emotion, not expecting the truth of yesterday's slaughter to be this.

The Old Priest who led the priests and was still cautiously holding the small Stone Coffin on the carriage took a few more looks at Knight Jier, who was standing to the side watching them inquire without interrupting. According to the Dwarf mercenary leader, of the at least three hundred deaths, half were killed by this young Knight single-handedly.

This kind of thing made him feel surprised, but it was also within the strength range of a true Knight, especially when the terrain was open and one possessed a warhorse with strong protection, mobility, and a high capacity for carrying projectiles.

And Knight Jier seemed to satisfy all the requirements mentioned above, so it was possible for him to achieve such results.

But he narrowed his eyes, letting the light of Divine Power flow through them; the Divine Power of the God of the Dead allowed him to see various signs related to Founengliang on everyone, but apart from a strong gathering of Founengliang in his right eye, Knight Jier did not have the vengeful spirits of the dead clinging to him that usually stain a killer after a mass slaughter.

This was very abnormal, but such thoughts were best kept to himself; it was impossible to ask about it in public. Many times, these anomalies stemmed from the special family techniques of the Knights; asking about this in public would only cause displeasure.

Finally, the priests questioned the business caravan in the caravan that looked like real Merchants; these Merchants and Shop Assistants talked over each other, adding their own exaggerated descriptions to what they saw yesterday, and poured it all out.

These descriptions were generally fine regarding the sequence of events, but the specific numbers and the actual situation were clearly becoming more and more outrageous as these well-traveled, loose-lipped fellows told them.

Although outrageous, at least these caravans, whose freedom had not been restricted, indicated that Knight Jier's caravan was a legitimate one, and that yesterday they had simply been targeted by Bandit Groups whose appetites and ambitions had burst, leading to a battle of an egg hitting a rock.

"Then finally, we need to know. How did you handle the large number of Human corpses after they died yesterday? You didn't just leave them scattered at the place where the battle occurred, did you?"

The Old Priest leading the team put away the large, floating skull phantom and returned the small Stone Coffin of unknown function to the Leather Bag at his waist, and he asked helplessly.

If it were truly as he feared, then these people would have their work cut out for them; several hundred corpses scattered all over the battlefield would likely keep them busy for several days under the hot sun.

Although they had brought at least half a month's worth of food for this trip, being able to sit in the shade of a church building and tell legendary stories of gods and the church to wealthy old men and women was clearly much better than being busy collecting corpses under the scorching sun.

"Ahem, regarding this, may I be allowed to say something?"

Jier rode his horse closer and asked politely.

Seeing that there was a turning point, if a Knight who looked as professional as Jier were to conduct the post-battle command, then perhaps things would be much easier to handle.

"Please speak. By the way, regarding the previous behavior, I must apologize to you. Young Knight, you know, when the situation is unclear, we have to act with caution." The Old Priest walked to the edge of the carriage, his eye level just about matching Jier's on horseback; he bowed slightly, making an apologetic gesture.

Jier smiled and waved his hand: "It's fine, I've encountered this situation once before; the last time I felt a bit aggrieved, but now I don't have that feeling. After all, I can understand you; often in places with many casualties, the people there are not necessarily good people, and many are even the perpetrators themselves."

The priests were a bit surprised; what did he mean by having encountered it once before?

Jier explained, and everyone finally understood that Knight Jier had once led hundreds of Refugees seeking survival, but encountered bandits blocking the road to plunder, and after a battle, they were instead stopped by the priests of the Church of the God of the Dead who had arrived.

The Old Priest smiled: "Over at White Stone Pass, because of its important location and the fact that it has never been peaceful, it is normal for the fellow believers there to be more cautious, and they are even equipped with a Repulsion Orb, precisely because they have encountered enemies who attacked priests coming to handle corpses in the past."

Afterward, Jier explained how they had gathered the corpses and burned them with a large amount of wood.

However, because the smoke and dust from burning the corpses drifted south, and the fire was mainly burned at night, the smell of the large amount of burning corpses could not be smelled on the east side of the trade route.

"Burning is good, burning is good," the Old Priest said, and the young priests under him also had joy on their faces.

This meant that most of the work for this trip had already been completed by Jier's caravan; they only needed to go over and confirm it, and jointly cast a Divine Art to dispel the Founengliang.

Of course, if Jier and his group did not do it professionally enough, or if there was not enough firewood to burn the corpses, and they could not burn all of them, the Priests would still at least be spared more than half of their workload.

Depending on the situation, they could replenish some fuel nearby, or join forces to cast another more powerful Divine Art that could reduce everything within its range, including corpses and Founengliang, to absolute stillness.

That would at least be much better than them braving the scorching sun to move the foul-smelling, putrid corpses one by one, right?

Just like that, Jier and his group saw off the jubilant Church Priests of the God of the Dead and continued moving east along the Shanglu. Because they had been slowed down, it was estimated that it would be difficult to reach the vicinity of Suishi Cheng by this evening, but as long as they got close to Suishi Cheng, everything would be fine.

?? Welcome everyone to subscribe to this book, follow this book, and add this book to your favorites, thank you.