Chapter 685: The Darkest Moonless Night (21)

The middle-aged Merchant Paxi-Aidewen held his hands high to show he carried no weapons, then walked toward the darkness ahead, urged on by the horse behind him.

The light from the Magic Glowing Pendant on the ears of the prairie horse behind him shone forward, gradually revealing the true sources of the whispering voices hidden in the dark.

First came various metal weapons reflecting the incoming magic light, then figures standing close together, then cheap beast skin clothing identical to that worn by the Bandits, and finally, the faces of farmers, squinting as the magic light hit them.

Paxi-Aidewen also squinted, sizing these people up.

The other side was also trying to size him up, but due to the lighting, these disheveled so-called "Knight's subordinates" could not confirm the middle-aged Merchant's identity.

"Stop!"

The other side shouted thus.

The middle-aged Merchant stopped in a hurry, as the other side had pointed their weapons at him.

"What is it? You let me come over, then you tell me to stop?"

But soon, a farmer wearing leather armor with a bloody hole in the chest squeezed out of the crowd and walked toward him with a Long Sword in hand. Before Paxi-Aidewen could say anything, the man tackled him to the ground, and then the others swarmed up, surrounding the middle-aged Merchant and the tall prairie horse.

"Hold him down! Hold him down!"

"Search him!"

"No weapons. Hmm?"

"This horse is indeed the Knight's horse; I remember its appearance very clearly!"

"Then where is the Knight?"

Dozens of people swarmed up all at once, some pinning him down, others checking the horse; for a moment, it was quite a scene.

The middle-aged Merchant's wrists were bound with a rope, tied behind his back, and then he was hauled up.

"How is the Knight's horse in your hands? Speak! What happened? What went wrong?"

Shoved heavily, the middle-aged Merchant hurriedly answered them, but his answer did not satisfy the young people around him.

"Really, I'm not lying. The horse wasn't stolen; that young Knight specifically had me come down to call you up to help. The Bandits above have all been defeated and captured by him, but the other merchants, who are in the same position as me, can't help the Knight much at all. He can't leave, so he had me bring a token to find you."

"So, where is the token?"

The middle-aged Merchant gave a sheepish smile and pursed his lips: "There, it's clamped in this prairie horse's mouth. I fell off the horse's back just now, and it just clamped onto it and wouldn't let anyone have it."

Only then did the crowd notice there was something in the prairie horse's mouth.

It was a slender, fiery-red Dagger; the young people had seen Jier use this weapon when they fought alongside him on the south side of the clearing. Its immense power had left a deep impression on these inexperienced young people.

"It's the Magic Dagger the Knight uses!"

Someone shouted loudly.

"A Magic Dagger?"

The middle-aged Merchant Paxi-Aidewen looked surprised, followed by an expression of annoyance. He hadn't expected that, just a moment ago, the most valuable thing had been in his own hands. But who could have guessed that? After all, the young Knight hadn't told him it was a Magic Dagger.

He had just thought that a dagger inlaid with red Gems was a bit too flashy and showy. But if it was a young man, liking gorgeous Gems and such should be normal, right?

After all, everyone loves Gems; he just didn't have the wealth, otherwise, he would like Gem decorations too.

But who could have guessed it was actually a magic weapon.

He had heard about the price difference between ordinary Gems and Gems with Magic Power.

Therefore, he was very annoyed.

This unexpected look of annoyance was immediately noticed by a young man in leather armor guarding him: "You didn't know about this Magic Dagger?"

Paxi-Aidewen frankly admitted it: "That young Knight didn't tell me, he just said to take it as a token. Once you saw it, you would believe what I said."

The misunderstanding cleared, the young people immediately removed the rope from the middle-aged Merchant's wrists.

"Since that's the case, everyone get ready to set off toward the Bandit lair!" A few young people in leather armor discussed it, then issued the order. The other young people around listened to them, so they grabbed the captured Bandits sitting on the ground in pairs and dragged them along, ready to depart.

"By the way, do you know the route from when you came over?"

Asked this, the middle-aged Merchant rubbed his wrists and rolled his eyes: "You young people surely won't believe me if I say it, heh, it was that prairie horse that brought me down; I don't actually know the way."

Hearing this, the young people crowded around the prairie horse, pointing at the hillside and saying something to the horse.

Tianxuecao was very clever; without needing anyone to say more, it followed its master's previous instructions, taking the lead and walking in small steps at the front of the group, retracing the route it had walked twice before.

Everyone else followed behind.

The middle-aged Merchant Paxi-Aidewen looked behind him, hesitated for a moment, and then immediately followed. He had no confidence he could walk to the White Stone City Wall Guanka alone, especially since he didn't know how many wandering Bandits were in the vicinity of where he was.

"Wait for me!" He hurried to catch up.

"Someone come and help this man."

A young man in the lead said, and immediately other young people used their arms to support the middle-aged Merchant's arms, which were thin from imprisonment and hunger.

"Good heavens, how did you end up like this?" The young man helping him looked surprised; after all, no matter how bad things were for them as Refugees inside the White Stone City Wall Guanka, they could still manage to scrape by.

Yet this man, who was clearly taller than him, had arms that were exceptionally "slender" inside his dirty, smelly, moldy sleeves.

Once this was mentioned, Paxi-Aidewen had a belly full of bitterness to pour out. Once the young man asked, he could no longer hold it back, and like spilled ink, he told them all about the days he had been robbed and kidnapped by the Bandits.

On Jier's side, facing the waves of oppressive stench, he finally gave in. Ignoring the resistance of the Hunting Sword, he shoved the Long Sword into the Sword Sheath and then took off running.

As he walked, he explained the situation to his weapons.

"It's not that I'm not brave enough. How could that be? I haven't even been afraid of powerful Magic Beasts, as you all know. But that smell just now is really not something a normal Human can endure. It is a truly fortunate thing that you don't have organs like noses, understand?"

The two weapons at his waist and on his back vibrated, seemingly dissatisfied with this explanation.

"Don't be dissatisfied. I am the master, I am a Human, and I have a nose. If I installed a nose on you, you wouldn't be able to stand it either. Besides, those disgusting intestines, rotting Viscera, and such—do you really want to have intimate contact with those things?"

The axe remained stubborn, vibrating hard on the hook behind the armor, but the Hunting Sword retreated a bit; once Jier said this, it went quiet.

"That's right, revenge doesn't necessarily mean you have to jump into a cesspit and swim in it yourself; you can use other methods. For example, for example."

Jier pondered for a moment: "Right, for example, we could use the crude Iron Ingots from the Wooden Box just now, take those things, stand on a high platform, and smash them to death—no, smash those living corpses to pieces! How about that? That should be effective enough, right?"

The two weapons gave no indication regarding this method.

Jier thought of a new method: "Right, Heart Fire! Use the Magic Fire of the Magic Dagger, Heart Fire, to deal with those disgusting living corpses! After all, corpses deserve to be incinerated in flames; that is their rightful destination!"

The Hunting Sword gave no indication, but the axe head disagreed somewhat; it swayed left and right on the hook, the metal hook and the blue axe face colliding to make a clinking sound.

It was as if to say that it could also eliminate those inhuman living corpses.

Regarding this, Jier snorted: "But a Magic Dagger doesn't need to come into close contact with those disgusting corpses; using fire from a distance is fine."

With a *pop*, the axe jumped up from the hook on Jier's back, unexpectedly taking the initiative to spin in the air.

Jier flipped up his Steel Face Mask: "I'm warning you, I won't use a weapon stained with the rotting mucus and viscera of living corpses. Even if your axe face doesn't get stained with blood, it's the same."

Jier glanced at the wooden handle of the Two-handed Axe: "The handle is wood, after all. Staining it with blood is one thing, but once those foul-smelling, putrid fluids stick to it, I reckon it won't be washable."

After saying this, he deliberately fanned his nose with his palm, making an expression of disgust at the smell.

At this, the water-drenched head stopped being stubborn, stabilized in mid-air, and threw itself into Jier's hand.

Jier grabbed it smoothly, hung it on his back with a backhand motion, and sighed.

At the same time, the monster heads on the axe also made expressions of relief. Even monsters did not want the place where they finally resided to be polluted by those living corpses stained with the power of death.

Only the spider-type Magic Beast did not care; when it was in the Forest, it did not care whether it swallowed living creatures or rotting corpses. Whether it was human corpses or the corpses of animals in the Forest, it would swallow and digest them. Because the state of the corpse made no difference to it, and perhaps the walking living corpses full of death and putrid power were even better?

Jier returned along the passage to the interior of the Shandong on the previous level.

He looked left and right, then re-inserted the candle back into the candlestick and placed it on the table in the middle of the cave.

Beside the brazier that provided illumination, he brought over some moldy firewood, threw it into the brazier, and lit it with the flame of the candle from the candlestick. After providing illumination to the cave again, Jier pulled out the various wooden crates he had taken a fancy to earlier and placed them in a conspicuous spot near the outside. As for the other useless things he didn't care for, he kicked them hard toward the cave wall with his feet.

"Alright, this trip saved quite a few people, and these things are worth some money and can also come in handy; it wasn't a wasted trip. I hope the next two Bandit nests tonight can bring me some surprises."

Jier said to himself.

After finishing, he walked outside.

Outside the crevice-like Shandong, the flames burning on the three-story watchtower had passed their peak and were gradually dying down. The structure of the top floor of the watchtower was burned through and collapsed with a *boom*, igniting a crude wooden shack belonging to the Bandits nearby.

The rescued people gathered lazily beside the iron pot, the food in the iron pot bubbling with heat. Whoever among the surrounding people still felt hungry would take the initiative to fill a wooden bowl, let it cool slightly, and then, changing from their previous wolfing down, began to sip the turbid hot soup in the bowl in small mouthfuls.

However, although these rescued people, who were mostly Merchants, had recovered much of their demeanor, it was clear that their sense of taste had not yet come back online. The still-terrible hot soup was still regarded as a 'delicacy' by these Merchants who had suffered greatly.

After all, in the days before, let alone terrible food, they simply had nothing to eat.

Slow starvation is a long-term torture.

Those Bandits always provided them with food according to their whims.

When they were in a better mood, there would be some minced meat or dead rats. When they were in a bad mood, they would boil a pot of clear water, simply sprinkle a small handful of wheat grains, and spit a mouthful of thick phlegm into it; then the meal was done.

The prisoners in the wooden cages had no choice at all; those who valued their dignity often died within less than half a month of arriving at the Bandit Shandong.

The corpses were dragged away, and often a few days later, they would be joined by new members amidst the whimpering and groaning occasionally heard in the cave.

Jier saw this situation as soon as he came out.

He shook his head, knowing that these people had been tormented terribly and likely wouldn't be of any use in the short term, so he did it himself, moving all the valuable items on the ground near the burning wooden shack toward the center of the Yingdi.

In the gap between several wooden shacks and the Stone Wall of the Yingdi, Jier also found several empty, dilapidated carts. However, there were no horses, only cart bodies that creaked at a touch.

He knocked on the most critical parts of the cart bodies and the wheel axles, finding that they were barely usable.

So Jier dragged and lifted the hundreds-of-kilograms-heavy empty carts to the center of the Yingdi.

Half a year ago, when he was at Umi Lake Village, he had been at a loss when faced with a giant wild boar corpse of the same weight; a few dozen kilograms of wild boar meat was the maximum weight he could carry and move at that time.

But looking at it now, for the same weight, Jier could already lift it using only his two hands.

"Phew, who would have thought, the changes in life. Hey!"

He brought out another empty cart.

The sound of the cart hitting the ground when it was put down startled all the rescued people who were drowsy and about to fall asleep, while those captured and surrendered Bandits kept their eyes wide open, watching Jier's performance.

The Bandits had finally realized the specific difference between a Knight and an ordinary person.

The strength was not on the same level at all.

From their superficial understanding, the greater the strength, the greater the combat power. After all, one could wield heavier weapons, wear heavier Armor, and have greater power during a brawl.

Although they had absolutely no awareness of weapon usage techniques, their understanding of strength and combat power was not exactly wrong; a simple and superficial understanding is also an effective one.

"If I can survive, I will never go against a Knight again in the future. They are simply not human!"

Among the few Bandits standing in a row, one guy quietly said to his companion.

The person next to him nodded vigorously, feeling that his companion was right.

"Such a Monster, why would it appear in this world? And it has the same physique as everyone else, and even has a normal face? If it had scales on its body, or a few extra arms, I reckon I would have run the first moment I met it."

The person next to him rolled his eyes, feeling that his companion was talking nonsense.

Just as Jier was moving the carts, outside the gate of the Yingdi, the faint sound of horses neighing and many people marching could be heard.

The rescued people huddled together in fear again, but the four surrendered Bandits sat on the ground, knowing it was over. In fact, before Jier entered the Shandong, it wasn't that they hadn't thought about escaping, but Jier had tied their legs and feet together one by one; just walking from the gate of the Yingdi to the middle of the Yingdi earlier, they had fallen several times.

Without training, it was simply impossible to escape before untying the Rope.

But their hands were also tied, and they couldn't untie the Rope.

If they just ran away step by step, they were afraid that those rescued people would run into the Shandong to notify the Knight. At that time, they wouldn't be able to run far, and the chance of survival gained by surrendering would likely be gone.

That cruel Knight Monster would likely only need his palm to crush their skulls one by one if they ran.

"It's my people who have arrived! Everyone, don't panic!"

Jier shouted loudly.

At the same time, one horse leading three other horses ran in from the gate of the Yingdi *clippity-clop* a step ahead.

The tallest prairie horse and the other two ordinary horses gathered around Jier, fawningly rubbing their horse heads against Jier's Armor. Tianxuecao spat out its mouth, and its tongue delivered a fiery red Dagger to Jier.

"Heh." Jier smiled with an ambiguous meaning, took the Dagger, took out a red cloth that had just been washed in clear water, wiped the Dagger covered in saliva, and inserted it into the ornate Dagger sheath on his right waist.

Tianxuecao licked Jier's face hard, and the other two horses Jier had brought back from Kendall also fawningly licked Jier's Steel Helmet hard with their tongues.

"Alright, alright, it's only been how long, and you're already this affectionate."

The horses licked enough and smelled enough of their master's familiar scent, then honestly gathered to the side by the empty carts. As for Tianxuecao, it held its head high and stood in place.

Jier jumped up, took the glowing Magic pendant from Tianxuecao's ear, and pinned it back onto his own metal belt.

He turned around, and the young Refugees he had brought on this trip were already standing at the gate of the Yingdi, curiously looking at everything inside and outside the gate.

"What are you all standing there like idiots for? Come over here and get to work!"

Jier beckoned with his hand, pointing at the various items he had selected on the ground around him, as well as the supplies that Yellow Snake and the others had picked out first in the open space at the center of the camp.

"Who knows some carpentry? Even if you've only watched others do it in the Cunzi, that's fine; these empty wagons need their side boards reinforced. And you few, come here."

As Jier spoke, he had the few young men he had specifically singled out, who were wearing simple leather armor, move closer, whispering to them while pointing his finger toward the direction of the cracked Shandong behind him.

The middle-aged Merchant Paxi-Aidewen wanted to crowd over to ask for credit and a reward, but after Jier pointed a finger at him, the fellow consciously retreated.

Paxi-Aidewen felt certain that the Knight's horse must have told on its master, revealing his attempt to escape in the Shulin. As for how a person could communicate with a horse, well, this world had gods and Magic anyway; if a young Knight possessed a Magic Dagger, why couldn't he also master a magical treasure or ability that allowed him to talk to animals?

Perhaps he had not considered: when Jier sent people down to call for others, was it possible he had already anticipated this situation? So, when his horse returned the Magic Dagger to him, did he already know what had happened?