Chapter 550: Quarrels, the Reason for Betrayal, and the Magic Apprentice Yamila

"Heh heh heh heh, you have a point, Piluo. But think about it, if you were in my position and status, what would you do?"

The soldier Captain Yeluba narrowed his eyes and smiled slyly: "The possibility you mentioned isn't non-existent, but what if it isn't? One has to take a gamble, right? Especially after we've made it through the Southern Mountains."

Speaking of the Southern Mountains, the smile on Yeluba's face gradually faded: "The Southern Mountains, that damned place. Many times, I even think everything now is just a dream, and we are still in some damp Shandong there, everyone hiding from the rain outside the cave, using a Dagger to cut those terrible things off a young man covered in plant roots."

"Or perhaps interrogating a comrade who returned alone, and with deep regret, gouging out his heart to see if he was a Human."

"We even had to subdue guys who wouldn't stop dancing, and find a way to get a Torch to burn the guy who caused people to dance to death!"

"Ah, we also had to find some soft moss to stuff into our ears, because the wails of missing soldiers always accompanied everyone. Even though they had died in some unknown corner, their vengeful Spirits insisted on following us, not letting anyone sleep. It's truly annoying! Piluo, if I died like that, I certainly wouldn't cause trouble for everyone. I would definitely die quietly."

"So, Piluo, even though everyone looks alive now, in truth, they have all died once in those damned mountains. And isn't everything that caused this the fault of your master, your wife's brother, that Knight Hartna? It was him who brought that damned plan! That damned deal! %%￥%! Why didn't he die while being captured by the enemy! Why did he have to find everyone who had hidden away?"

"If he hadn't appeared, we would have already retreated to the rear, preparing for a new round of war with full glory."

"Instead of being in this remote little place, huddled all day in a Forest full of bugs, eating meal after meal of Wheat Porridge, and sleeping with dull village farm women."

Speaking to the end, the soldier Captain Yeluba pointed his finger at the Adjutant Piluo and roared at him with a fierce tone.

The two trusted soldiers guarding the door also stared at Piluo with fierce eyes, their teeth chattering. These two were soldiers recruited from Knight Hartna's territory, but because their own brothers had died one after another in the Southern Mountains, they hated the Knight Hartna who led them through the mountains, so they had long since stood on the side of the soldier Captain Yeluba.

In fact, most of the soldiers remaining in the Jiedian were those who disliked or even opposed Knight Hartna. The soldiers truly loyal to the Knight had long been sent away by Yeluba; the most loyal Refining Qi Scout soldiers were even sent far away to the Blue Dragonfly Village in the Bei Mian.

"So, this is the reason for your betrayal? Because traversing the Southern Mountains brought physical and mental pain to a delicate fellow like you? Just like a little girl kidnapped by a Bandit?"

Facing Adjutant Piluo's description, Yeluba's face flushed. He wasn't actually afraid of the Southern Mountains, but he couldn't exactly voice the desire for wealth in his heart, could he? Forced to choose between fake fear and real greed, he had to choose the former at this moment.

So he slammed his right fist onto the table, making the stained wooden pieces on the map jump: "So, is it not allowed?"

"Go out and ask, which partner isn't afraid of those days? Every day, every single day, comrades disappeared for one reason or another. It was fortunate if you could find their corpses; the real fear was that after someone went missing, you couldn't even find out how they died or where their body was."

"And what's even more terrifying is that those who returned after going missing were no longer themselves. Their bodies were full of maggots, dead for who knows how many days, yet they could still greet you and ask how you were. Aren't you afraid, Piluo?"

Adjutant Piluo was stunned for a moment. He was just about to say he was afraid too, but Yeluba followed up with a sneer.

"Of course you aren't afraid, Piluo, because you married Knight Hartna's sister. You grew up together, and our powerful Knight lord will naturally protect you. Whenever I took men to deal with those terrible things, you were either in the back organizing documents or tinkering with that useless Healing Ointment of yours."

"Although you crossed the Southern Mountains with everyone, you are simply not one of us, Piluo. You have never faced the horrors in the mountains, so naturally, you don't know how much we hate your Knight master!"

A cruel smile appeared on Yeluba's face. He pointed his finger at a soldier guarding the inner entrance of the room and said: "Ask Chris how his brother died? Huh? Ask him!"

Adjutant Piluo immediately turned his head to look at the furious guard soldier, swallowed, and then asked embarrassedly: "Chris, your brother..."

This soldier named Chris immediately scolded: "Don't mention my brother! He shouldn't have died in the mountains. He had just come of age, hadn't even met a beloved girl to marry and start a family, and then he was wrapped up by vines on a tree and twisted to death alive! Before he died, he was calling for help, asking me to save him! But I couldn't do anything. I was afraid, I was afraid that if I went over, I would be grabbed by the vines too, twisted to death on the tree, and have the blood squeezed out of my body by those terrible things to water the roots of the vines."

"If it weren't for Knight Hartna's bullshit plan and agreement, he wouldn't have died! Adjutant Piluo, haven't you figured it out yet, how much everyone in the team hates you and your master..."

Yeluba added triumphantly at this time: "If I hadn't rushed over and used a Torch to light those vines on fire, Chris's brother's remains wouldn't have been recovered. Heh heh, Piluo, do you want to ask again how the guy next to you, Aierfudisi, had his brother die? And who caused his death?"

This time, there was no need for Adjutant Piluo to ask; the soldier named Aierfudisi said with hatred: "He was killed by Knight Hartna."

Piluo couldn't believe it and asked back: "How is that possible!"

"How is it not? Our noble Knight Hartna is also afraid when facing those strange Monsters, and fears failure, so he always orders the accompanying soldiers to risk their lives to test the Monsters' abilities. And my brother, that stupid fool who was loyal to Knight Hartna, just rushed up recklessly like that."

The soldier gritted his teeth and glared at Adjutant Piluo: "As a result, he was sprayed all over by a large amount of acid spat out by the Monster. Damn it! In the end, I only found his left foot; the rest of his body had melted into a large puddle of foul-smelling slime on the ground. Was I supposed to take this left foot to show my father and mother? To show my brother's wife, my niece and nephew? To tell them that my brother was reduced to just this one foot?"

"Then why was I able to live and come back? While my brother died? Because of his loyalty? Because his skills were lacking? Or... because of that damned Knight Hartna's order?"

Yeluba lifted his chin triumphantly and said to Piluo: "Guess who later led people to surround and annihilate that acid-spitting Monster, while our Knight Hartna failed to kill it because he was feeling unwell."

Piluo stared at Yeluba: "It was you, right? So, you avenged Chris and recovered his brother's corpse. And you avenged Aierfudisi and killed the Monster that killed his brother. So, these two are your die-hard followers?"

Piluo looked back and forth: "Are you going to kill me here? Right now?"

"Hmph."

Yeluba didn't dare. He was afraid that if he killed Piluo, Knight Hartna, who was not far away, would sense it and then, even if severely injured, would consume a Courage Potion to come and kill him.

When a person dies, everything is gone. Although many divine churches say that after death there is a soul that can live in the gods' Divine Kingdom, or be reincarnated, Yeluba didn't believe it.

Even if it existed, it wasn't something small people like them could enjoy.

And for small people like them, if they wanted something, they had to risk their lives to strive for it to have any real gain.

"Oh, not killing me? Because you're afraid Knight Hartna will kill you? Or is it that the target of the agreement hasn't arrived yet? You are also waiting for the other party to appear?"

Piluo stared straight at Yeluba's face, and seeing the slight change in the other's expression, he immediately understood that the other party really hadn't met with the enemy country's contact yet.

"Hmph, since that's the case, our Captain, you just wait honestly for the other party, and see if they will do as you think. But you must remember, who is strong and who is weak. Who is the passive party in the deal, and who holds the initiative."

After a warning, Adjutant Piluo strode out. The two soldiers wanted to stop the Adjutant, but Yeluba waved his hand with a dark face, letting the soldiers let him go.

After Piluo walked out, Yeluba let the soldiers go out to guard the house, while he reached into his crotch to adjust his trajectory, then paced back and forth in the house in a foul mood.

He felt very unhappy; most of the situation was under his control, but two key areas had never been in his grasp.

One was the matter of the last bottle of Courage Potion on Knight Hartna.

The most damned thing was this: even though they encountered too many Monsters and Magic Beasts during the journey through the Southern Mountains, and Knight Hartna had always fought on the front lines, it just so happened that he had exactly one bottle of Courage Potion left.

If Knight Hartna had a few more bottles, or even two, he wouldn't have had other thoughts, and wouldn't have risked betrayal.

And if Knight Hartna didn't have a single bottle left, he would have long since conspired with the soldiers dissatisfied with the Knight to kill Knight Hartna while the Knight was unconscious.

Now Knight Hartna and Adjutant Piluo were like a tumor in the Jiedian that could explode at any time; if you didn't poke it, it wouldn't hurt, but once you poked it hard, it could burst at any moment.

The other thing not in his control was the contact for the agreement that Piluo mentioned.

The agreed day had arrived, and the agreed location was the Mine in the Jiedian. Logically speaking, the enemy had released the captured Knight Hartna, tried every way to send them to the edge of the Southern Mountains, and even specifically 'transferred' a batch of supplies to them through the hands of Bandits.

And they had arranged for a not-insignificant number of aliens to guide them through the mountains, having already spent quite a few resources.

The purpose, naturally, was the Metal Ingot, which was in short supply for both warring countries and could arm more soldiers.

In war, money is important, but what is more important is the various tangible supplies.

The same amount of Metal Ingot might only be exchanged for a large sum of money in a normal year, but now, it could be the metal material to arm a thousand people.

Don't think a thousand people isn't much, but who knows how many such abandoned Mines were secretly opened by the enemy country in the Southern Mountains? If every one of them was like theirs, with people sent to urgently restart them, that could be a batch of metal supplies capable of arming thousands, or even ten thousand people.

This could already sway the outcome of a war.

Even if the neighboring enemy had terrifying flames and elite troops that could command fire, if the scale of the battle became larger, ultimately, the victory of the war depended on how many soldiers both sides could organize and how many soldiers could be armed with metal weapons and Armor.

This was the key to deciding victory or defeat in large-scale warfare.

Yeluba, who had fought several battles, understood this very well.

Therefore, he could not understand why, at such a critical time for acquiring scarce metal supplies, the other party's people had not yet appeared.

Did they have an accident on the way? Or were they entangled with others in another restarted mine similar to this one, and ran into trouble?

Or perhaps, they had already obtained enough metal resources, so compared to the potential cost of the 【Lizardman Transformation Potion】, the potion had become more important? Were they not coming anymore?

Or perhaps, had some change occurred within the enemy's ranks? A political shift? Or, now that summer had arrived, had the front lines already started fighting? Were these Metal Ingots no longer needed for the war, causing the enemy to give up?

These thoughts constantly entangled in Yeluba's mind, making him very irritable.

Especially since he had just been enjoying himself in the room with that curvaceous Villager, only for the good time to be interrupted by that damned Piluo not long after it started.

Yeluba tugged at his pants, licked the corner of his mouth, and shouted to the Soldier outside the door: "Lisi, trouble yourself to go find that woman from before, 【gibberish】, she took the food I gave her, but the matter wasn't finished or done well, this won't do. Trouble yourself to bring her here, a deal is a deal, I gave her food, so she must serve me well."

"Yes, sir. I'll go find her right now."

The Soldier named Lisi replied toward the tunnel leading into the wooden room, then smiled at his companion nearby, pointing at each other's lower bodies, the meaning self-evident.

The two of them were also somewhat greedy for that woman's figure; if one didn't consider that she was just an uneducated and ignorant Villager from a remote Village, and that her face wasn't good-looking, that curvaceous and tall figure was something many city women couldn't actually compare to.

But for a period of time afterward, no matter how Lisi searched in the Jiedian or the outskirts of the Mine, he could not find that slender and curvaceous woman.

With no other choice, he had to endure a harsh scolding from Yeluba.

Yamila was in a very bad mood; she had just been busy with the handsome Soldier Captain when someone disturbed them.

This made her already bad mood become even worse.

She tugged at the Cloak on her body, brushing over several hidden patterns on the inside of the Cloak, and this seemingly ordinary gray Cloak carried her into invisibility.

Her perfect waist and hips, which swayed with her steps as she walked, thus disappeared from the sight of the people around her.

Carefully avoiding the reckless Soldiers around her and the female Villagers who were busy with who knows what, she glanced at a rough wooden house not far away, a look of disgust appearing on her face.

She had originally intended to go find that Knight Hate she had an appointment with, but as she approached the house where the Knight was, she was immediately forced back by a foul stench emanating from the room.

With the whole person smelling like that, she guessed that even if he drank the 【Lizardman Transformation Potion】, he wouldn't be saved, right?

Since that was the case, it would be better for her to keep this Potion and secretly sell it later to some Knight commander in her own army. One had to know that, currently in the army, a bottle of 【Lizardman Transformation Potion】 capable of healing a critically wounded person on the verge of death was already selling for two hundred and sixty Ogle Gold Coins.

This was not a small sum of money.

Especially for a Magic Apprentice like her who needed resources, no amount of money was ever enough.

Even though she had come out with her teacher to execute a Kingdom mission for this war, and could use the Magic Tower tokens given after the mission's completion to replace a large amount of money, she still felt it wasn't enough.

Executing one mission, how many Magic Tower tokens could it give? At most one? Or two?

And how many of the Kingdom's Ogle Gold Coins could these self-produced and self-recognized Magic Tower tokens be converted into? One hundred Gold Coins each? Or one hundred and twenty?

But as long as she kept this mission item, she could earn more money; at the very least, it would double.

If she could perfectly complete the mission and bring this batch of Metal Ingots back, then she could obtain even more resources.

One had to know, learning Magic was very expensive!

Thinking of this, Yamila touched a fixed Leather Bag at her waist, carefully stroked a bottle of Potion inside, and decided to use the money from selling this Potion to have a senior fellow student several decades older than her exchange it for a new set of Magic enhancement jewelry.

That senior fellow student, who had entered the Magic Tower to study decades earlier, although not yet a Mage, had alchemy manufacturing skills that even their teacher admitted were inferior to his.

She had been coveting that set of Magic enhancement jewelry for some time, but because she was strapped for cash, she had never bought it. Among her companions, quite a few had actually set their eyes on that item, and everyone was saving money this time, all wanting to be the first to buy that inexpensive yet highly effective set of Magic enhancement jewelry.

"Haha, how could they have imagined that the work which looks the most bitter and tiring is actually the most lucrative. One just needs to think of a way."

A smile played on the corners of her mouth as she touched the imitation mask on her face, somewhat dissatisfied that this ugly mask obscured her true appearance.

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