Chapter 661: Hidden Malice

Jier smiled, beckoning to his horse: "Come, it's time for you to do your part."

The young man nearby, who had originally intended to pull the heavy tree trunk himself, only then realized that Jier was actually willing to let his horse help pull the trunk.

Many were already surprised that Jier had cut the trees himself; they had not expected this young Knight lord to truly be capable of manual labor, rather than just brandishing a whip to lash them to display his authority and status.

Tianxuecao approached excitedly, and was then beckoned by Jier to have the young man loop the thick rope around the horse's neck and the saddle on its body, then prepare to tie it to the tree trunk behind.

Near the end of the tree trunk, the young man who had been felling trees had already cut a groove horizontally to make it easier to tie the rope. Afterward, the thick rope was twisted through and wrapped several times, securing it firmly.

"Come, you all push the trunk from behind, and I'll have my horse pull it from the front!"

As Jier said this, the young men—except for those holding or dragging a pile of loose branches—gathered at the middle and rear of the trunk, leaning sideways to place their hands on the mottled bark, waiting for the Knight's horse to pull.

Jier stood at the horse's head, reaching out to pull the Jiansheng forward to signal: "Tianxuecao, go, forward!"

The horse was very intelligent, immediately stepping forward and pulling the rope.

The rope was instantly pulled taut, and then the heavy tree trunk as a whole emitted a creaking friction sound, slowly inching forward.

It was not that the horse lacked strength, but that the resistance was greatest at the very beginning; the large tree had gouged out a groove when it fell, and the ground was also very soft, creating significant resistance. It should be much better once they were out of the forest's perimeter.

"Push with all your might! Heave!"

Jier shouted to the ten people beside the tree trunk behind him. Only then did those young men exert their strength and shout as they pushed.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Push—!"

As everyone exerted force, the movement of the tree trunk accelerated, and the group pushed the trunk slowly out of the forest.

Seeing a few people still picking up fallen branches at the previous spot, Jier released the Jiansheng, letting the horse pull toward the previous clearing on its own, while he walked back to urge the stragglers to keep up with the group: "Don't stay here anymore, everyone else has gone far, keep up! Be careful of Monsters in the forest; it's fine when there are many people, but once the numbers dwindle, they might just pounce out to eat people."

Jier found this scare tactic somewhat amusing himself, but it terrified the young men, who immediately clutched the large pile of branches in their arms and stumbled outward to catch up with the group.

Jier walked at the very back of the group to bring up the rear; he gazed at the deep, dark forest, chuckled softly, turned his head, and left.

"Brother, that guy wearing armor—he wouldn't have discovered the two of us, would he?"

Behind some shrubs deeper in the forest, two people wearing Banlan Vertical Chop lay on the ground; because of the brown-black beast hides they wore, they were almost indistinguishable from the rotting fallen leaves on the ground.

Without speaking, no one would have guessed there were two people here.

"Keep your voice down, he can't see us, follow them."

The other person responded in a low voice, then crawled forward, their limbs making slight collisions and compressions against the soft, damp dead branches and leaves on the ground, emitting tiny rustling sounds.

As the first person moved, the one behind followed the same path to crawl, the two of them like alert field mice, moving carefully, turning their heads every step of the way.

They had to be careful; in the forest near the mountain range, the danger came not only from the targets they were about to ambush, but even more so from the various dangerous and strange things in the soil and overhead.

The two quietly trailed Jier, who was bringing up the rear, until they reached the edge of the forest.

The two no longer moved outward, but crouched within the lush shrubs that could conceal their figures, slightly parting the branches to reveal two pairs of cruel, alert eyes watching the woodcutters move away.

"That blue axe must be a good item; the forest-guarding trees growing at the edge of the forest are so dense and tough, yet it could fell them in just a few strikes. It should sell for a lot of money."

"Hmm, the other things don't look bad either. Not to mention the others, just selling this guy's equipment alone would be enough for our group to live on for a year without working."

"So, should we?"

"What are you thinking! Can our twenty-some people take that guy down? Let's go back first, explain the situation to the boss, and see if we can join up with other groups that haven't had any luck lately to pull off a big job."

"A big job? Just those Refugees who are so poor they're nothing but bones and meat? They were already fleeced when they passed the checkpoint; how much profit could there be?"

"That's where you're wrong. I heard the boss say there's news from the east, secretly recruiting—no, collecting people—one Silver Coin per person. These Refugees, they aren't people; they're walking coins with legs."

"Really? Then what are we waiting for? Let's hurry back to the Temporary Yingdi. Tonight, we'll each snatch a dozen or so in the chaos; won't the money and our future be secured then!"

After the two finished discussing in the shrubs, they quietly retreated back into the forest. Once the scene outside the forest was no longer visible, they rose from their crawling position, first walking quickly with hunched backs, then breaking into a run toward a small, undulating hill not far away.

That was the place with the best view in the vicinity, and it was the Temporary Yingdi their gang used every time they went 'hunting'.

It was not far, and the two ran there quickly.

They slowed their pace before getting close, and on the path near the top of the small hill, they relied on a set of patterns marked on the surrounding tree trunks that only their own people recognized, turning left and right to avoid traps set in advance, before finally arriving at the camp.

Calling it a camp was a stretch; it was actually just a low Shandong specifically excavated at the top of the small hill.

The narrow entrance of the Shandong was even covered by a net tied with many dead branches and leaves; this net blocked the entrance, and the naked eye could not see the mystery behind the concealment net at all.

They lifted the net, and behind it sat a guard with a Long Sword on their lap.

They were all one family; although their duties differed, they were as familiar as could be, and the two who entered nodded to the guard in greeting.

"Seeing you two in such a rush, is there 'cargo' among the large group of people staying on the empty ground by the road in the distance?"

The guard asked this.

They were all their own people, so there was no need to hide it. The two scouts responsible for reconnaissance nodded, pulled down the Banlan Vertical Chop covering their faces, and answered affirmatively: "Not only is there cargo, but there's a guy inside whose equipment alone could feed us for a year if sold. The others are all Refugees who were let through a while ago and have returned. Although they're probably so poor they're nothing but skin and bones, there are people in the east collecting them too, so it's all money."

"Tsk, if only the news had come a few days earlier. We could have intercepted them before those Refugees reached the checkpoint, stripped them clean, and sold both the people and the goods. These days wouldn't have been so troublesome."

The guard added: "Who's to say otherwise. Hurry inside."

The guard remained seated without moving, and the Long Sword in their hand remained sheathed, pointing toward the low Corridor of the cave behind them, and the two scouts skillfully ducked and squeezed in.

The passage of soil mixed with rock sloped and twisted downward; after reaching the bottom, the terrain opened up, and a hole the size of a room appeared here.

No Torch was lit inside for illumination; instead, it relied on several beams of light shining in from the cliffside on one side of the small hill through cracks in the cave ceiling.

The smell inside was unpleasant, with excrement mixed with body odor and the smell of stinky Boots and feet. The two who had just returned from outside were hit by the stench, and after a moment of adjustment, they bypassed the wooden beds and hammocks set up in the narrow cave to arrive before the only wooden chair with a backrest.

The leader of this Bandit group was sitting there, with a small table set up in front of the chair, on which lay a detailed map of the vicinity. Some colored wooden chess pieces were placed on the map to represent observed situations.

As soon as the two arrived, their leader looked up from the map.

"How was it? Did you see anything after getting close? What kind of people, what's the situation, are they 'fat'?"

The two scouts immediately knelt on one knee, lowered their heads, and answered their leader: "We hid in the large trees by the road in advance, and later in the forest where those people stopped to fell trees, and watched carefully."

"The vast majority are those refugee Villagers who were let through after paying money before. I don't know why a large group of young people came out together this time, heading east. There are two leaders: one is a young Priest of the church. Although we were a bit far and didn't see clearly, we can generally confirm they are from the Agricultural God Church. They are riding a horse, and what they are wearing is not quite the same as ordinary people of the Agricultural God Church, and they are carrying a glowing long staff."

"The other leader is wearing a suit of Metal Armor, wrapped up tightly, but they don't look like a Knight Lord or anything; the armor is neither ornate nor heavy, and the horse is just an ordinary prairie horse. Boss, but this Warrior or whatever they are, not only has a full suit of Metal Armor, but also has a blue axe, the kind that glows; it doesn't look ordinary."

"Anything else?"

"Boss, is it true that someone in the east is collecting people? Then wouldn't those Refugees who are poor as church mice...?"

Facing the 'hint' from their subordinates, the Bandit leader chuckled: "Five hundred Refugees or more—even if they were five hundred pigs or sheep, we couldn't catch them all; they'd all run away."

The two scouts wilted upon hearing this, as if the money already in their grasp was about to run away.

"However."

A single "however" lifted everyone's spirits again: "Boss, stop keeping us in suspense, hurry up and come up with an idea! The livelihood of us brothers depends entirely on you!"

As they spoke, from a narrow wooden bed not far away, came the continuous, painful cries of two women, accompanied by the sounds of several young bandits laughing and jeering.

The Bandit Leader's expression changed; he turned his face cold and looked toward where the sound came from, shouting, "Pay attention, all of you, don't %￥%￥ play them to death. After all, they were waitresses from the inns we often frequented after getting money and goods. You used to fawn over them like treasures, and now you do this? Where is your dignity? You have no dignity and are driven only by that middle leg of yours, but I still want some dignity! If they die, are you going to let the brothers play with them instead?"

The lethality of this final question was not low; the noisy commotion deep within the tightly packed wooden beds immediately quieted down. Soon, several young bandits with smirking faces walked over, pulling up their animal-hide trousers, and knelt halfway on the ground to complain and apologize to the Bandit Leader.

These young men were afraid too; after all, they understood that while the bandit brothers living in the same cave seemed to have good relationships, if the boss truly issued a punishment order, the others in the gang wouldn't care whether they were male or female.

Once tied up, when night falls, brothers? Brothers will take their turns!

After dealing with the few young bandits who had joined less than two years ago, the Bandit Leader continued from his previous point: "However, if we unite with several other gangs to strike together, it is not impossible to wipe them all out. Moreover, there are two tough guys among them that sound hard to chew; we can just push them onto the other gangs to deal with, and we can intercept the loot depending on the situation. The refugees are shiny silver coins, and the valuable weapons and equipment are also money, perhaps even more valuable."

The leader reached out and made a grasping motion: "I want it all!"

The two scout bandits and the young bandits kneeling together all chimed in to match the atmosphere; the entire gang was built by the Bandit Leader single-handedly, so fawning over him was the way to gain more benefits within the gang.

For money and other benefits, let alone fawning over and pleasing the leader, even kneeling down to lick the leader's stinking boots like this was something everyone in the gang was capable of.

"In that case." The Bandit Leader looked up at the light-transmitting cracks in the rock wall that provided illumination in the cave, judging the current time based on his experience.

"In that case, the contact work must be started now. Just right, you few." The young bandits pointed out by the Bandit Leader immediately raised their heads, puffed out their chests, and put on fierce, capable expressions.

"You few make a trip, go to here, here, here, and here respectively. Four nearby places, find the people from the gangs there, and notify them to strike together tonight, to see if we can swallow this fat sheep that we finally got our hands on. Remember, make it clear to their bosses: tonight, everyone relies on their own ability, don't %￥% drag others down. The refugees that get away aren't people, they are shiny silver coins! Did you remember?"

The few young men immediately nodded vigorously: "We all remembered, rely on our own ability, don't drag others down, refugees are money."

The Bandit Leader waved a hand: "Alright, each of you pick a nearby gang territory and get going quickly. Tonight we are going to have a big haul! Hahahaha."

The Bandit Leader laughed, and the others immediately put on smiling faces, but this time, the smiles were from the hearts of these beasts—happy smiles, smug smiles, harvest smiles.

On the wooden bed in the dark corner of the cave not far away, the two naked former inn waitresses sobbed in low voices, trembling and curling into balls. They never imagined that the poor, boorish young men they used to look down upon at the inn would turn out like this.

Not only that, the kind-looking, sturdy middle-aged man who often came to the inn to spend money and meet with foreign merchants was actually the leader of a bandit den so close to their inn.

The few young bandits who had just bullied them walked quickly to the bed, excitedly picked up the weapons and equipment dropped under the bed, and without even looking at the two waitresses, quickly packed up and rushed out of the cave.

After the feeling of being watched disappeared, Jier, who was bringing up the rear of the group, finally caught up with the others who had walked far ahead.

He was estimating the possibility of being attacked tonight, not expecting that upon returning to the open space where they were spending the night, he would hear words from the worried Priest Bata'er that made him feel excited.

"Jier, that companion of yours said he saw that in several woods in the distance across the creek, things were not right. It seems, it seems."

Jier took over: "It seems there are people or monsters in the woods, right? Relax, think about it, if in the woods opposite." Jier pointed to the woods opposite.

"If there really were people or monsters in the woods, then it could only be all people, or all beasts or monsters. Right? After all, if people and beasts or monsters were hiding in the woods together, they would fight among themselves. Haha."

"You can still laugh. Tell me, what exactly are your plans?"

Priest Bata'er looked nervous and pulled Jier to the side of a carriage; no young refugees were near Jier's carriage, so it was appropriate to talk here.

Jier took off the Metal Helmet from his head, hung it on his waist, and then carefully scratched the hair on top of his head with fingers wearing Steel Armor Gloves: "It's nothing, I just feel that tonight might be a good opportunity to get a batch of weapons and equipment for these empty-handed young men. After all, if you want them to help, they need to have something in their hands, right? But there are so many people, it's impossible for us, you and me, to pay for this inevitably large cost of weapons and equipment."

"Hmph, even if you were sold, you couldn't afford this much money. And as for me, honestly, I am helping you, although I have thoughts of upholding justice and such, ultimately it is because there is profit involved. For this and that."

Jier said to this point, pointing to the places on both their bodies where the blessings were located: "For this and that, it's impossible to pour one's own wealth into it, right? And I'm not that rich."

Here, Jier turned his head to the side, not daring to look into Priest Bata'er's eyes while speaking.

But even though it looked like he was lying, Priest Bata'er felt that what Jier said had no problem; although Jier's equipment was not bad, it was impossible for him to really come up with a large sum of money to arm these eight hundred or so young refugees.

What was he thinking? This scale of armed force would at least require a Knight Lord to be able to arm and support it.

A young man like Jier, who was undergoing Knight Training and had not yet been granted a fief by a Noble, was still too far off.

But Jier thought of the many Elf Silver Plates in the dream provided by the Lady.

A palm-sized silver plate was worth hundreds or even more silver coins.

After all, the silver plate was pure silver, while silver coins, including Gold Coins, copper coins, and Iron Coins, were all said to be mixed with other metal materials in order to circulate as currency.

Precious metals were all relatively soft, so metals that could increase hardness had to be added for reinforcement. Base metals like copper and iron were also prone to change (oxidation), so metals that could improve rust resistance had to be added for reinforcement.

Besides that, in the minting of coins in various kingdoms, in order to use less precious gold and silver, the purity of the circulating Gold and Silver Coins was inconsistent across different regions.

What Jier did not know was that in order to trade with the neighboring Empire, the Saint Hors Kingdom not only kept the shape of its coins consistent with the Empire, but also tried to keep the ratio of gold and silver consistent with the Empire's standards.

But the Empire's precious coins often had inconsistent purity, and were sometimes not even as good as the coins of the Saint Hors Kingdom.