Chapter 174: Baiduoyang Town, Arriving at Suishi Cheng

However, a guess is a guess after all; even if it makes a lot of sense, without solid evidence to definitively prove it, the truth of the matter remains unknowable.

But this was not useless; the old Dwarf immediately held a public talk for all the Dwarves, using the Dwarven Language to persuade all the Dwarves present, letting everyone understand that the differences between Dwarf and Human civilization and culture lead to certain contradictions and conflicts.

If possible, he hoped that all the Dwarves, upon realizing that these contradictions and conflicts arose from differences in culture and civilization, would immediately cease the means of conflict and prudently judge matters from an objective standpoint.

This would avoid this constant upward spiral of contradictions, which would eventually trap them in a predicament where they were surrounded by enemies on all sides.

After all, they were seeking a way out in human society; to put it bluntly, they had to keep their tails tucked and behave, rather than being so impulsive.

Once the old "Iron Fist" finished speaking to all the Dwarves, Jier then informed him of his intentions.

"Suishi Cheng? Oh, that's what you Humans call it, right? Looking at the distance, ahead is the largest copper mine collection, smelting, and forging center we Dwarves once had in this area. Sigh, I remember this place used to be quite large; thousands of Dwarf Miners used all sorts of advanced magic-energy machines to easily excavate high-copper-content Mineral Ore from the open-pit veins. Then, using coal transported from afar, they processed the Mineral Ore powder that had undergone complex pretreatment procedures."

"Haha, at that time, the Mineral Ore even had an entire process of pretreatment: crushing, washing, screening, grinding, and drying. The pretreated mineral powder had an extremely high copper content; after being sent into the core Furnace, it would instantly be melted by the high temperature into scorching pure copper droplets, and after collecting them and removing floating and bottom-settling impurities, it was almost pure copper."

The old Dwarf seemed to be in a talkative mood, and as he spoke, he even revealed some of the Dwarves' smelting secrets: "That's not all. By sending the scorching liquid copper into molds and subjecting it to super-gravity Magic compression, its quality would be raised another level. The copper ingots that were later sent out of the super-gravity zone for natural cooling were considered a type of high-quality basic metal raw material. But this place was different; because of the abundant energy resulting from the sufficient coal supply, the gravity Magic could be deployed over a large area, allowing the liquid copper in the molds to cool within the super-gravity zone, ultimately resulting in a new type of material that looked like an ordinary copper ingot but had performance far exceeding it in every aspect."

When he reached this point, he seemed to realize something and immediately stopped: "Haha, I seem to have grown old and have started talking nonsense. Jier, just pretend you didn't hear what I just said, how about that?"

Jier also smiled: "Of course, I am very forgetful; I can't even remember many things from when I was a child. Hahaha."

"Hahahaha." The old Dwarf also laughed.

That evening, many restless Villagers from two nearby villages even came in groups to "admire" the Dwarves.

At first, Jier thought these local villages were spying on him and his caravan, or perhaps plotting something against his caravan, but after going over to ask, he learned that the farmers who had eaten at the caravan had boasted about it after returning home, which directly piqued the curiosity of the men, women, and children in the two villages.

They lived in a mining base that had once been prosperous for the Dwarves but had since been abandoned; naturally, they could see many buildings and discarded tools left behind by the Dwarves throughout their lives, and the various local stories naturally lacked no legends about the Dwarves.

But after all, the Dwarves here had been gone for nearly a hundred years; let alone the young Villagers of today, even their grandparents, who were the first to settle here, had never seen a real Dwarf in their entire lives.

Now that real Dwarves were in Knight Jier's caravan, everyone had to come and see the novelty!

But hearing of something is not as good as seeing it; despite how magical the Dwarves were in various local stories, leaving behind all sorts of complex ruins, the real Dwarves looked truly unremarkable.

Most Dwarves were not even as tall as the waist of a normal Human; even a Human woman could easily pat a Dwarf on the head with her hand.

Moreover, it was night, and the Dwarves, having no martial arts training to do and no mines to dig, went to sleep early, leaving only a few Dwarves in Metal Armor on guard. Most of their appearance was covered by thick armor, which made the Villagers who had run over to see them overnight feel a bit disappointed.

When Jier was woken up in the middle of the night to deal with this, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. After discussing it, he specifically had "Xiaoxuezi," who was friendly to Humans and young, wear casual clothes to interact with the Villagers who had come to curiously watch the Dwarves outside the Yingdi.

Jier specifically explained to the others that "Xiaoxuezi" could speak the common language of Humans, which made the Villagers not only touch and pat him but also ask him all sorts of questions.

A confused "Xiaoxuezi" was completely bewildered and could only look to Knight Jier for help. Jier selected some of the Villagers' questions for "Xiaoxuezi" to answer; although it didn't satisfy all the Villagers, it at least satisfied their curiosity.

Of course, Jier also had the seemingly youthful "Xiaoxuezi" demonstrate the Dwarves' natural strength in public. Despite being just a short, stout little fellow, "Xiaoxuezi" actually had astonishing strength; he could lift an adult farmer with one hand and easily lift two people with both hands.

The commotion lasted until the second half of the night, and the Villagers, who had to work the next day, couldn't hold out any longer and left one after another. Jier and "Xiaoxuezi" yawned, and they had only just managed to sleep for three hours when the sky brightened early.

It was a new day. After the caravan ate and fed water to the weaker captives, they seized the time to set off on the road while the ground temperature was not yet very hot in the morning.

After walking for a while and resting once, they encountered a bustling small town called Baiduoyang Town, which was the center for seven or eight surrounding villages.

Because Jier had let Aoni and Weier go to the town one step ahead to report, the arrival of Jier's caravan did not surprise the Town Guard stationed in the town.

However, the hundreds of captives being escorted by the caravan did make these Town Guards point and gesture, feeling somewhat gratified.

After all, these Bandits were numerous, and after they ravaged the Shanglu leading to Dorn Town, the trade income of this Baiduoyang Town was also greatly affected. With the town's tax revenue affected, the income of these Town Guards was naturally affected as well.

To say nothing else, the guards at the town's several gates saw their extra income drop to almost only one-tenth of what it used to be.

This time, Jier dealt a heavy blow to the Bandit Group; although he didn't know how the people in Dorn Town would react later, at least it could be considered moving things in a better direction.

It was not yet noon, so Jier's caravan would certainly not stop in Baiduoyang Town for a day. According to the directions received, they could basically reach Suishi Cheng before nightfall this afternoon.

However, Jier did not do nothing in Baiduoyang Town.

When the caravan arrived outside the town, some of the prominent figures in the town had naturally already led many Soldiers to wait for Jier's arrival.

They were not there to welcome Jier; after all, Jier was just a young Knight from out of town and didn't have enough face to make the town's prominent figures come out to welcome him. These people came because they had received Jier's prior notification; after all, Jier had previously led a team to rout a large number of Bandits, and the Bandit Leaders among them had been on wanted posters in nearby villages and towns for the past few months.

Additionally, some of the lightly injured Bandits in the team hadn't eaten for two days, and their physical strength was basically at rock bottom, so it was better to do a favor and hand them over to the people of Baiduoyang Town to deal with, treating them as their own Bandit captives.

These people were basically the family and relatives of the town's Knight Lord, and they held many key positions in the town under the appointment of the Lord. Of course, not all of them were nepotistic hires; some technical jobs were specifically filled by people the local Knight Lord had paid to bring in from Suishi Cheng.

For example, the town mayor, a critical position, required sufficient management ability, and since none of the Knight Lord's family or relatives could handle these affairs, the mayor was a retired Steward specifically hired from a large Merchant Guild in Suishi Cheng.

This time, nearly seventy exhausted Bandit captives were to be transferred. Jier did not care about the fate of these people; he only cared about the bounties for the Bandit Leaders whose heads had been severed.

The heads, each packed in a bag and wrapped in salt, were taken out. Jier was currently identifying them against the wanted posters previously issued by the town, together with the mayor and the Town Guard Captain.

The wanted posters naturally had portraits and feature descriptions. After verification, Jier had about nine Bandit Leaders on hand that matched the bounties here in town.

At this moment, after repeated comparisons and calling some Merchants who had been robbed but escaped back to the town to identify them on the spot, the Government Office in the town finally paid the bounties for these people to Jier on the spot.

It was neither too much nor too little. Since these were only the individual bounties issued by Baiduoyang Town, the bounty for each of these confirmed Bandit Leaders was about five to ten Gold Coins, which was about the same amount as when he wiped out the Bandits in Kendall County.

However, this was just the beginning. After all, Baiduoyang Town was only a small town on the Shanglu, and there were not many Merchants or Merchant Guilds doing business there; the real big money was in Suishi Cheng.

With the heads of these Bandit Leaders, Jier could collect a bounty in Baiduoyang Town, and after arriving in Suishi Cheng, he could collect another bounty!

A huge profit!

As for those ordinary Bandits, they were almost just an extra. The town's Government Office would almost never issue bounties for ordinary Bandits; after all, for one thing, there were too many Bandits, and it was impossible to issue a separate bounty for every single one—the Government Office might as well stop doing anything else and rename itself the Bounty Office, and the wanted posters would probably cover several walls.

Moreover, ordinary Bandits were just ordinary people when they weren't doing bad things. Could some black-hearted people who made a living on bounties just go anywhere, kill a few people, and take the heads of these innocent victims to collect money here? Obviously not.

Unless it was a suppression operation led by a Knight Lord, in which case the regular team's logistics would have a logistics clerk recording the battle results on the spot, and the Bandits killed or captured could then be counted as battle results and bounties.

For an outsider like Jier who routed the Bandits, unless the Bandits were captured alive, the corpses alone didn't count for anything.

The Government Office could not just issue a bounty for killing Bandits based on a youth's corpse you brought in.

While Jier was busy verifying the wanted posters and the heads, the other people in Baiduoyang Town, just like the Villagers yesterday, were pointing and gesturing at the Dwarves in Jier's team, full of curiosity.

Because Jier had previously stated that these Dwarves were Dwarf mercenaries he had hired to participate in the battle, the family and relatives of these Knight Lords were not so presumptuous; they just took a look and commented on them, and later they could tell others that they had seen Dwarves with their own eyes.

And not just ordinary Dwarves, but Dwarf mercenaries!

Many of the Knight Lord's family members were knowledgeable; as soon as they saw the thick, terrifying Metal Armor on the Dwarf Warriors, they knew these silent, short warriors were not as harmless as they appeared now.

With dozens of such Dwarf Warriors wearing thick armor, it would be basically impossible to stop them without hundreds of Human Soldiers.

After seeing what the Dwarves looked like, these people politely greeted the young Jier and returned to Baiduoyang Town early. Jier did not let the caravan enter the town either. After handing over a batch of exhausted Bandit captives, Jier took a whole bag of coins and, feeling satisfied, continued to lead the team to set off, continuing east from the Shanglu outside Baiduoyang Town toward Suishi Cheng.

Without the batch of Bandit captives who walked the slowest, the speed of the entire caravan was significantly faster. After passing several villages near the Shanglu in the afternoon, Jier, riding on horseback, could see Suishi Cheng in the distance ahead.

As before, Jier had Weier and Aoni ride ahead of the caravan to reach Suishi Cheng and report their situation in advance.

As for how Suishi Cheng would react, Jier did not hold much optimism; after all, he was still just a young Knight who had not yet been enfeoffed, while they were a true Baron family, and even if the Baron himself had led most of the local Knight Lords away to war, it was impossible for Suishi Cheng to truly treat Jier as an honored guest.

After all, Cuikuang County was different from Sasi County.

The former only had some Bandit Groups harassing the Shanglu active in various places, and because those Bandit Groups were all near the wealthy and poorly defended Duoen Town, other places were actually relatively peaceful. In a place like this near Suishi Cheng, the security forces had not been heavily drawn away, and when Jier and his party were traveling on the Shanglu in the afternoon, there were still quite a few merchants traveling on the route from Baiduoyang Town to Suishi Cheng.

As for the latter, Sasi County could almost be described as hanging by a thread.

Without Jier's help, perhaps Sasi County could have turned danger into safety due to the intervention of the Hunting God Church, but it clearly would not have happened so early, nor so smoothly, and it was even very possible that one or two rebellions over resources would have broken out internally.

Therefore, when Jier led his team to arrive at Suishi Cheng, the only ones welcoming him outside the city were a few dozen city officials with armed guards.

Looking at those people, it was estimated that they were mainly there to handle the Bandit captives that Jier was about to hand over, as well as to verify the bounty matters regarding the life or death of the Bandit Leader on the spot.

Of course, there were also some well-informed fellows curious about what a Dwarf looked like; it was estimated that as time passed, more people in the entire city would hear this news, and more people would run over to take a look at what a Dwarf looked like.

Perhaps the entire city would run over to take a look at the Dwarf!

"Jier, do you think we should charge some money for this? That way, we would have the travel expenses for the journey home, and the curiosity of these people would also be satisfied?" the old Dwarf asked with a wry smile.

"Ha, if you think of yourself as a clown, then I wouldn't mind."

Hearing Jier's words, the old Dwarf immediately extinguished this thought.