Chapter 454: Strange Fish in the South of Sasi County, Big Tree Cunzi

The training session that evening was very effective. For most of them, it was their first time being taught how to fight; many warriors had previously relied on fighting methods they had fumbled through on their own. After being given pointers by Knight Jier this time, not only did their skills improve, but more importantly, they felt a subtle sense of unity because of it.

After all, when facing others in the future, they could say things like, "I am a soldier and warrior personally trained by Knight Jier."

However, because everyone had trained very late that night, the warriors in the carriages were drowsy after setting off the next morning; even the jolting of the carriages could not shake them out of their sleepiness.

"Will this work? Warrior Jier?" Priest Bata'er rode his horse beside the caravan, looking at the twenty warriors huddled together in the two carriages, their snoring louder than the noise of the carriage wheels.

"It's fine. Ever since we headed south from Yemei Town, haven't we encountered no danger?" Jier reassured Priest Bata'er, who was feeling homesick. He said, "It's just as you described: open and peaceful. There are only some wild beasts and animals; I haven't even seen many monsters."

Priest Bata'er gave a wry smile: "There are monsters, but the types of monsters vary by region. Just like in the Northwest Province of the Kingdom, the terrain and climate there mean some of the monsters here wouldn't be able to adapt. And with the climate and terrain here, the monsters from your side wouldn't have a good time either."

"For example?" Jier asked curiously.

Unexpectedly, Priest Bata'er raised his finger toward a rolling hill on the west side and pointed at a pond there: "Do you see that pond over there?"

Jier turned his head to look. His eyesight was better than Priest Bata'er's, and after a thorough scan, he didn't feel there were any traces of monsters at that pond: "I see it. It's a very normal pond; it should be a good place for the surrounding animals to drink water."

But the priest gave a wry smile: "Warrior, but do you see any signs of animals gathering there to drink water?"

Now that he mentioned it, indeed, the vegetation around the pond was lush. Logically, these places should have long been trampled into a mess by various animals coming to drink and play; it was impossible for such lush plants to grow there, looking as if no animal had ever come to drink.

"It is a bit strange. What is the reason for it?" Jier curiously rode Tianxuecao closer to Priest Bata'er, feeling very curious.

Priest Bata'er had no interest in playing riddles. He gave the answer directly, using his hands to gesture the shape of a fish, and said: "It is because of a type of fish."

"A fish? A fish that belongs to the monster category?" Jier became interested and interrupted to ask.

"Yes, a monster fish. They live in these ponds under the hills that are everywhere, attacking various animals that approach the pond to drink." The priest spread his arms, wider and wider, showing that the fish was at least two meters long and thicker than a human body.

"I know you are going to ask what abilities they have, right? Warrior Jier."

Jier spread his hands, indicating that he was indeed about to ask just that.

"They can spit water, and they can also spit heavier small stones. Don't laugh; they are a huge threat. The water they spit can snap small trees, and the stones they spit can fly over a hundred meters away. So, the locals later learned to give these ponds a wide berth," the priest explained.

Jier smiled: "What's the use of that? If they knock out or kill those animals or humans approaching the pond, they can't eat them in the water, can they?"

"No, they can eat them. Those monster fish can completely leave the pond, relying on a sturdy pair of fins and a strong tail to jump and wiggle forward on the ground to attack the animals they have knocked out or injured." Priest Bata'er waved his hands, simulating the way the monster fish used its fins to move.

"And during the summer rainstorm season, those monster fish can even take advantage of the rainstorms to set off for other nearby ponds to breed and socialize. So if you see a large group of fish moving along the road during a summer rainstorm in this area, don't be surprised," Priest Bata'er said with a smile.

Jier raised an eyebrow: "Isn't it very dangerous to run into those migrating monster fish during a rainstorm?"

The priest shrugged: "It's not dangerous, because those annoying guys are in a hurry. They often have to take advantage of the short duration of the rainstorm to urgently rush from one pond to another; they won't attack other fellow travelers they meet on the road at all. I once heard of a bold peddler who was traveling during a summer rainstorm and encountered a group of monster fish also walking on the road. He even reached out and touched those guys, who were usually bad-tempered, but they didn't pay him any mind at all."

"That's true. Summer rainstorms come and go in a flash. Those guys in the water have to hurry; if it were me, I wouldn't pay attention to human interference either," Jier laughed out loud.

"Sometimes, in the summer, you can often find those monster fish that have died after being dried out halfway. At this time, the person who finds the corpse of such a monster has struck good luck, because although the corpse of this monster fish rots slowly, its skeleton can be taken to a big city to be exchanged for money. A complete set of fish bones can sell for more than a dozen Gold Coins!"

Jier's eyes lit up: "That much! Since there is so much money, why doesn't anyone go specifically to hunt them?"

After hearing Jier's words, the priest laughed heartily: "Warrior, then you might as well go near the pond and see how those guys warmly welcome you, their new friend."

Jier could not hold back; he turned around and let Tianxuecao run toward the pond they had passed while talking.

The road was four or five hundred meters away from the pond. On the way to the pond, Jier discovered that there was actually a wide "road" that looked like it had been "man-made." On this road, there were no lonely small trees, nor were there any lush bushes that had grown for years. The ground was packed solid, with only some of the most stubborn grass barely growing there.

The "road" was quite solid; even the sound of Tianxuecao's horseshoes stepping on it was different from the road they had just traveled, crisper, as if walking on a stone-paved road.

Jier guessed that this must be the "fish path" pressed out by those giant monster fish during their annual summer migration.

After walking for several hundred meters, as Jier gradually approached the pond under the huge hill in front, the pond, which was reflecting the sunlight, suddenly rippled on the surface; clearly, something was moving underwater.

Just as Jier put his hand over his eyes to shield them from the morning sun to observe carefully, a fish head emerged from the ripples and looked toward Jier's side.

After the man and the fish stared at each other, Jier was about to exclaim that this fish was really big, but before it was as big as the shipwreck fish he had dealt with before, the fish actually retracted its head into the water.

"Ha, clearly it's afraid of me!" Jier chuckled.

But the next moment, several fish heads poked out of the water, opening their mouths toward Jier and Tianxuecao, the man and horse approaching the pond.

"Hmm?" Before Jier could express his confusion, those several large fish spat out one after another hard stones the size of a fist from their mouths.

These things were not fired straight at Jier, but were more like mortars, firing into the sky, and then using the ballistic arc of the projectiles to fall and smash around Jier.

Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft!

This was the sound of the large fish aiming in Jier's direction and spitting stones into the sky.

Whoosh—thwack! Whoosh—thwack!

This was the sound of the wind made by these stones as they flew, and the huge impact sound they made when they hit the ground after landing.

"Hell! So powerful!" What was powerful was not just the stones hitting the ground upon landing, but many stones were smashed to pieces after landing, and the flying debris was as dangerous as mortar shrapnel.

Jier was not wearing Armor today; he was still wearing the old clothes from last night. At this moment, he panicked and lay flat on Tianxuecao's back, trying to reduce his target area. Tianxuecao was also startled and dodged in a panic, but it soon realized that there was no need to dodge. Not to mention the low probability of being hit by stones falling from the sky, just the scattered fragments from the stones shattering after landing caused no harm to Tianxuecao, who was wearing Horse Armor.

"Leave here quickly! You stupid guy, you're not afraid, but I'm not wearing Armor!" Jier loudly urged his warhorse. Only then did Tianxuecao realize that its stupid master was not wearing that hard Armor today. To take care of its stupid master, Tianxuecao had to reluctantly turn around and accelerate to run out of the range of the stones projected by the monster fish.

To be honest, Jier did not expect that those large fish could spit stones up to three hundred meters away. Although the stones at this distance no longer had much offensive power, Jier was still surprised.

When he caught up with the caravan on horseback, everyone in the caravan looked at Knight Jier, and only breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that the knight was uninjured. Priest Bata'er was confident in Jier's skills and just smiled as he rode over to ask: "How is it? Now do you know why no one goes to hunt them?"

Jier let out a breath: "I've seen it now; those guys are difficult to deal with. There are about four or five of those monster fish in one pond, right?"

The priest nodded: "About that number. In larger ponds, there are one or two more monster fish, and in smaller ponds, there are one or two fewer."

Jier waved his hand: "That's right. This kind of fish is so difficult that an ordinary team simply cannot handle it. Even if they could risk the danger and losses to get close to the pond, those hateful guys could retreat into the water, leaving the hunters with nothing to show for it. So the best opportunity, I think, is still during the summer rainstorm season. After they leave the pond, they have no place to hide and no place to replenish their stones; that's when they are easy to deal with."

The priest shook his head: "You're wrong, Warrior Jier. They are even more difficult to deal with at that time, because their movement speed on the ground during a rainstorm is not slow at all; it's even a bit faster than us humans running."

Only then did Jier extinguish the idea of returning here in the future to bring people to make a fortune. If he lost the subordinates he had trained just to earn those dozen or so Gold Coins, he felt it would be too much of a loss.

Money can be earned anywhere; there is no need to specifically take time to run to such a remote southern part of Sasi County, and still have to take such a big risk to deal with that kind of monster fish.

"By the way, that kind of fish should have a name, right? It's impossible that the locals also just call that kind of fish 'monster fish', such a simple name?" Jier finally asked Priest Bata'er.

The priest laughed: "You're not wrong. The locals have given that monster fish a specific name, called Stone-Throwing Fish or Siege Fish. Some Empire immigrants say that the attack method of those monster fish is just like the various stone-throwing machines used by the Empire Army, as powerful as throwing stones for a siege at the enemy on the battlefield."

"Ha, Stone-Throwing Fish, Siege Fish. I like the latter name, because being attacked by them really feels like being in a war."

By the afternoon, the caravan finally saw signs of human activity, moving away from the unchanging wild hilly environment.

Large areas of farmland appeared in front, as well as a human village surrounded by wooden walls in the center of the farmland.

When the caravan appeared in the village's field of vision, Jier saw that the people who were still working in the farmland outside the village were running toward the village in a panic. Many farmers only hugged their own children, not even wanting their own farm tools, and ran directly toward the village gate with big strides.

At the same time, a metallic warning knocking sound also rang out on the gate on the north side of the village. Subsequently, a warning bell sound from a bronze bell being struck rang out in the center of the village.

Dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang.

Boom—boom—boom—boom—

"Oh, so they've taken us for bad guys, have they?" Jier signaled for the Caravan to slow down, but he continued to approach the Cunzi, speaking at the same time to Bata'er Jiaoshi, who was also riding a horse beside him.

"There's no helping it. After I was attacked at Changmai Cunzi, I passed through here and gave the village a warning. Clearly, some time has passed, and they remain very cautious of any outsiders. This is actually very good; it means the situation I feared most has not occurred." The Priest let out a sigh of relief and gave Jier an answer.

"The worst-case scenario?" Jier pondered, then he suddenly realized: "You mean those defeated Soldiers fled north, and not only attacked Changmai Cunzi, but in the time since, have attacked other Nanbu Villages one after another?"

"Yes, that is what I feared. If the dozen or so villages south of Shichui Cunzi were all attacked, I truly do not know how many casualties that would cause, or what a tragic scene it would be. My fellow Priests and I, generation after generation, spent decades turning this from an uninhabited wilderness into these self-governing villages that can exist so tenaciously."

"But if those scoundrels, those defeated Soldiers who lost a battle and then oppressed their own people, have committed such evil deeds, I truly do not know how I would face the Great God of Agriculture, or how I would give an account to the believers and commoners who trust us." Bata'er Jiaoshi clenched his fists, his gaze passing over Big Tree Cunzi ahead and casting toward the further south.

As the Caravan approached the north gate of the village along the dirt road outside, Jier could already see that the village wall was crowded with Farmers holding various farm tools capable of combat. There were not only dark-skinned, robust young male farmers, but also tall and powerful female farmers and young village girls; even some white-haired elders, regardless of gender, stood on the village wall holding clubs.

Their numbers exceeded five hundred. The top of the north gate of the village could not hold so many people, so some stood in sequence along the Corridor on the wall, extending all the way to the gates in the other two directions.

Jier affirmed this: "Not bad, the will to resist is very strong. They must have understood from your account what the consequences would be for everyone if those defeated Soldiers were to break into the village. That is why everyone is participating in the action to defend the village, because they understand that once the village is broken, no one will have a good life."

Bata'er Jiaoshi nodded heavily. Every time he looked at Big Tree Cunzi ahead, standing in strict formation, he felt regret and annoyance. If the people of Changmai Cunzi back then had possessed such a spirit of resistance and determination, those defeated Soldiers would not have been able to break into the village so easily, right?

Those defeated Soldiers clearly did not have much food. As long as the village defended well and did not let the other side break in, the village could hold out for several years. Because Changmai Cunzi was not named for nothing; the village grew wheat year-round, and there was so much grain that the storehouses of every household in the village could not hold it all. Every year, the grain tax paid made the grain tax collector of Yemei Town worry about how to transport such a large batch of grain from the southernmost end of the county back to the town with low loss.

Even this tax collection was a loss. Because the area around Yemei Town itself was a grain-producing region, grain was not worth much. Transporting a batch of the most ordinary wheat from the southernmost end of the county to the north, the grain finally transported back was not enough to pay the fees for hiring the Caravan wagons.

But there was no other way. For a local lord, collecting taxes was not just an economic account, but a political one. Only by collecting taxes could this area be considered a ruled territory under your name, and only then would the various villages in the region consider themselves your subjects.

?? I hope everyone will subscribe to this book more, because the income in April was really not ideal. Even after the full attendance bonus, the income from this book is very little, far less than what I earn from my regular job. Writing novels, apart from passion, is a pure loss for me.

? (End of this chapter)