Chapter 694: The Dawn of the Contest (Part 3)

After Jier chopped down the loathsome corpse-hanging tree, he had his men collect the bones that had scattered all over the ground when it fell.

"Just toss them onto the wagon, we'll burn them all together when we get back!"

The young men were slightly unwilling, all finding the task ominous, but they finished it anyway after some dawdling.

The forest on the north side of this Shanglu was wider and denser; if not for the roots of various large trees barring the way along the ground, it would have barely been possible for a wagon to enter slowly. But the young men driving the wagon had only ever driven grain wagons in the Cunzi and did not truly possess any superb driving skills. Even though those few young men patted their chests to guarantee their skills were solid, Jier did not easily trust them.

"Like this, of you twenty, split in half—no, leave fourteen people here to guard the wagon. You and him, you two wearing leather armor, you also stay here to strengthen the defensive force. The remaining six people will come with me into the Shulin to suppress the lair of the last Bandit nearby."

The people around stood quietly watching, and after Jier pondered for a while, he made the judgment and order above.

From the previous skirmishes with the Bandits, it was clear that these guys' strength was actually just so-so, relying more on sneak attacks and cruelty. If not for dozens or hundreds of them swarming at once, even he, who had not yet undergone Knight Training, could defeat these guys during a prolonged engagement.

Therefore, his combat power was actually far superior. As for bringing six people, it was not primarily for combat, but for reconnaissance and to serve as helpers. On the contrary, for the wagon here, because it had to wait outside the Shulin, there was a high possibility that those Bandits would cunningly circle out of the Shulin and use this as a weak point that could be breached.

He could not give them the chance.

Faced with Jier's order, the young men who wanted to prove themselves in battle all expressed their desire to be among those six.

Jier casually pointed out a few who were tall and sturdy.

He waved his hand at the remaining people and said: "All stay inside the wagon, pay attention to the situation around you and anyone coming out of the Shulin. My horse will also stay here, but you don't need to worry about it; it will take care of itself."

Two of his men nodded, then led the others to climb into the open carriage of the wagon.

Jier then took the surrendered Bandit and the six young men, and under the Bandit's guidance, walked toward the depths of the Shulin. Tianxuecao had the bit removed from its mouth and was wandering about, grazing on the tender grass and shrubs nearby.

"About how long will it take?"

Faced with the Knight's question, the surrendered Bandit counted on his fingers: "My lord, very soon, we will arrive very soon. After all, to make it convenient to go out and raid the Caravan on the Shanglu, when the boss chose the location, he didn't pick a place too far away as the lair. We are different from other gangs; they might have more people or play with Poisonous Snake, but their strength is still far inferior to ours."

Their group was currently relying entirely on the glowing Magic pendant at Jier's waist for illumination. The cold light of the Magic shone on the surrounding large trees, and the pale trunks and the shadows behind them appeared inexplicably eerie.

Except for Jier, the other young men all held their weapons in their hands, following closely behind the young Knight.

Jier walked while observing the surrounding environment. He was not frightened by the seemingly terrifying night scene of the Shulin, nor was he startled by the reflective eyes beneath the ferns.

The darker the surrounding environment, the more at ease he felt.

If there were no others around, he might even have started singing a little tune or whistling, even though he was here to kill and wipe out a Bandit lair.

Jier noticed that, logically, this Shulin on the north side of the Shanglu should have extended directly into the long mountain range on the north side, and it should have been a scene of primeval forest everywhere. But he noticed that the ground he had walked on earlier not only lacked the thick layer of humus leaves found in primeval deciduous forests, but there were also some small scuff marks on the surrounding trunks.

This seemingly abnormal scene was actually quite normal, but what was originally normal and now abnormal was soon to come.

"Stop for a moment."

Jier stopped suddenly, causing the entire small team centered on him to come to a halt.

"What is it, Knight lord? Is there a need to stop?"

The surrendered Bandit leaned his back against the trunk of a large tree and questioned Jier, who had suddenly stopped walking.

Jier's right palm loosened and gripped, gripped and loosened, as if weighing something. Immediately after, he suddenly exploded into action, lunging fiercely at the surrendered Bandit leaning against the trunk.

And this Bandit seemed to be prepared; he reached out and grabbed a vine that appeared to be hanging from a branch. With a pull and a grip, his whole body was suddenly yanked from the ground toward the heights.

"Haha, this is a trap! Die, tin can! You and your lackeys can stay in the forest!"

The Bandit laughed loudly, and accompanied by the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground, he was carried to the high part of this large tree.

Jier lunged at empty air, but he was not annoyed. He first turned to his young men and shouted: "Stay where you are, do not move!"

Then he exhaled and shouted, kicked off the ground, and leaped forward, kicking with both legs.

The target was precisely the trunk of the large tree the Bandit had suddenly ascended.

At this moment, he exerted all his strength; the green light erupting from his eyes could not even be blocked by his Faceplate.

Boom!

His feet kicked straight and horizontally into the trunk. Jier's body weight, his full set of weapons and equipment, plus the explosive impact force, all turned into a massive force that caused the trunk of the large tree to shake violently.

Where Jier's boots made direct contact, basin-sized concave impact marks burst out, and large swaths of bark and the hard wood wrapped beneath it flew out from the point of impact.

The trunk at the base of the large tree was shaken like this by Jier's kick, so the upper layers shook even more violently.

"Hey hey, ahhhhh, how can this be? Hey hey hey ow ow—"

Amidst the shaking, the Bandit, who had not yet stood or gripped firmly, slipped, failed to step steadily on the branch or hold onto the Rope securing his form, and fell rotating from several meters up the large tree.

This guy was very unlucky; as he fell, his crotch was hit hard by a protruding branch.

Crackle, the man fell miserably and awkwardly onto the thick leaf humus around the trunk.

But surprisingly, the seemingly thick layer of leaves was fake; underneath was a pit just large enough for one leg to fall into. And the bottom of the pit had been rigged with something.

"Ah! My foot! Ahhhhh! It hurts, hiss—"

Ignoring the guy's wailing, Jier climbed up from his fall after the fierce kick and sneered: "How is it? Experiencing your own trap, feels good, right?"

The Bandit couldn't care about anything else, and ignoring the Knight's mockery, he reached out directly, begging for mercy: "I was wrong, I was wrong. I shouldn't have played tricks, please help me get out, I beg you!"

Jier stood still, hands on his hips, observing the other's situation: "Still faking! Trying to lure me over? Why didn't you say whether there is the trap you are tasting now between you and me?"

"Ah? Ah! Yes, yes, yes, there are traps, there are traps! I beg you, come save me, be careful, under the leaves are pits aimed at legs and feet, and also—hiss—there are Wooden Spike and bone spikes stuck inside!"

Jier snorted twice and said to the young men standing still behind him: "How is it? Look around you, is there only a clean path without leaves by your feet? And the surroundings are all leaf layers that look normal."

The young men carefully squatted down and flipped up the fallen leaves on the ground in a circle around them, and then they were furious, because right near them, wherever the leaves had covered, there were pitch-black, head-sized deep pits underneath.

This kind of deep pit was specifically for trapping people's legs and feet; once stepped into, the whole person would fall along with the leg that stepped into the void.

And the bottom, needless to say, was definitely covered with sharp spikes that could pierce through the soles of feet.

This was also the reason why, after the incident, Jier jumped up on the spot instead of Running and accelerating to sprint.

The young men were surrounded by traps to their left, front, and right; only the route they came from had none. But one reason Jier had felt something was wrong earlier was that, by the relative distance of the large tree trunks he passed, he discovered they were not walking in a straight line toward the Bandit lair, but were wandering forward, turning left and right between the trunks.

This did not look like a normal route to a lair at all; after all, although the roots of large trees in the forest protruded from the ground and could easily trip people, they were not to the extent that one needed to specifically detour around them.

One should just lift their legs and step over them, taking a straight line to approach the lair.

Added to the strange differences in the leaves on the ground route he noticed, he immediately thought of what was happening.

The Bandit Leader named Mountain Wolf had specifically created an area full of traps near his lair, specifically made for his captured men to lure enemies into.

"Everyone be careful, there may be enemies nearby!"

Jier immediately called out to warn the young men under his command, but the surroundings remained silent; it was not as Jier had imagined, with four, five, or six people suddenly rushing out to kill.

The Bandit who had been caught by his own trap was also stunned for a moment, but then he laughed at himself amidst his pained cries: "Damn it, so there really aren't enough men left to even form a team."

Jier snorted a puff of air through his nose and chuckled, mocking his own excessive caution. Although this was a trap area specifically designed to lure people deep inside, most of the Mountain Wolf Bandit Group's men had died in the previous attack; even if there were any left, there wouldn't be enough manpower to station them here.

Logically, after having one of their own captured, they should have considered that the captured subordinate would lead the enemy into this specific trap area. But with too few men, it was likely that those people had either already fled or were still trying to move various valuables from their lair.

Jier used his foot to push aside the thick leaves in front of him, revealing the pit traps that appeared one after another on the ground.

"There are quite a lot of them. You lot really are idle enough, digging so many holes, just like rabbits."

Soon, Jier arrived before the injured Bandit, first grabbing the man by the hair to lift his head and face up to look at him.

"Tell me, what use can a guy like you still serve? Only then can I overlook what you just did."

On the Bandit's face, twisted and sweating from pain, he barely managed to squeeze out a smile: "Our lair, I'll take you there, really, it's not far away!"

Jier snorted: "Since it's not far away, can't I try to find it myself? Isn't it the same?"

The Bandit waved his hands vigorously: "No, no, no, there isn't just one trap; the entire hillside around the lair is filled with them. There is only one—no, two—paths for entry and exit that allow for quick access."

Jier grabbed the man's hair with one hand, lifting him slightly, while gently patting the Bandit's face with the other.

After just a few light pats, one side of the opponent's face swelled up.

"I can't trust you. You should know that the credibility and life of a person who surrenders are even weaker than the flame of an Oil Lamp. A light breath, or a gust of cool wind, and once it's extinguished, it won't light up again."

"It can light up, it can! Spare my life, spare my life! I just suddenly thought of the routine our boss usually teaches about luring people into traps when I was leading the way. Really, I followed that route subconsciously. After walking a few steps forward, I truly regretted it! I really regretted it! But I was afraid that if I said it out loud, you would kill me! I had no choice but to swallow the words on the tip of my tongue and try to see if I could escape through the escape route in the trap. But now, look at this, sigh."

The Bandit spoke with tears and snot streaming down his face; it was unclear whether it was from the anxiety in his heart or the pain from his foot being pierced.

Jier said nothing; he loosened his hand, dropped the man on the ground, and began to calculate.

The Bandit, meanwhile, was cursing under his breath, all directed at some Bandit who had built the escape route; the content was quite vicious, so it will not be written down. Several nocturnal birds that had perched on the tree at some unknown time were also cawing, though it was unclear if they were urging Jier to kill or engaging in a heated verbal battle with the Bandit.

"How about this, I'll give you one more chance."

Before Jier could finish his sentence, the Bandit's eyes lit up.

"But, your life depends on yourself. Your leg is ruined; now take me to your lair. Once I conquer it, I will let you go from that lair. Whether you stay in your lair alone with a broken leg or leave the Shulin to fend for yourself, you choose."

"You're going to leave me in the Forest? Alone?"

"What, you don't want to? Then I'll take my men and leave now? You can play with the big birds in the tree yourself. Listen, they seem to be the same birds from the tree where the corpses were hanging earlier, and they even brought their friends along. Hiss, they are impatiently waiting for you to die so they can have a meal!"

The Bandit tilted his head back, trying hard to identify the nocturnal birds gathering in the upper branches and leaves of the Forest. He did not have the sharp eyes of a Knight that could see clearly even at night, but just by listening to the calls, he could distinguish several different types of birds waiting for a meal.

He was terrified, because what the Knight and those young Refugees did not know was that these little Demons were not just waiting for a meal; as soon as the murderous Knight walked away a certain distance, those clever bastards who smelled the blood would see his helplessness and despair, flap their wings, descend, and gather together to peck him to death and eat him alive.

He and the companions who had died at the hands of the Knight used to watch this as a boring entertainment program, watching how those guys they had intentionally cut to bleed and hung on trees were eaten by flocks of birds.

He never expected that today, it would be his turn.

He felt a bit of envy for those bastards who had died early at the hands of the Knight; at least they had fought heroically before death, rather than being mentally tortured like him.

"I, I agree. Please, please, Lord Knight, save me."

This Bandit did not hesitate much before speaking.

Jier snorted with boredom: "Those who surrender are truly not tough guys."

After speaking, he reached his hand into the pit, wanting to pull out the opponent's right leg that had been pierced. But before he could even exert force, the Bandit wailed: "Don't pull, please don't pull, there are barbs! There are barbs!"

Jier then snapped off the wooden spike under the opponent's foot, and only then did he lift the man up entirely.

Grabbing the man's clothes with one hand, Jier carried the Bandit back the way he came to the spot where his men were waiting.

"Lord Knight, why keep this man? He just tried to harm us!"

"And he wasn't honest, he wanted to run away!"

Jier waved his hand: "It doesn't matter. In a remote Shulin, with his foot pierced like that, humph, whether he can survive is really hard to say. He will lead us to the lair, and then I will let him go. Let him do whatever."

After speaking, Jier looked down at the Bandit, who was covered in cold sweat and trying to stop the bleeding from his foot, and said: "Did you hear that? We should be close to your lair by now, right? I'll count down from three hundred. If the count reaches zero and we haven't arrived, then I'll break your limbs and hang you on a tree branch, how about that?"

The Bandit nodded vigorously while trembling, his teeth chattering as he said: "No problem, no problem, it, it won't take that many."

"Starting now, three hundred."

"Two hundred and ninety-nine."

"Two hundred and ninety-eight."

"Two hundred and ninety-seven."

But after Jier recited a few numbers, he stopped. Because he saw that everyone present, including the injured Bandit, had a look of utter confusion on their faces.

"What's wrong? What's with those strange expressions?"

A young man said blankly: "What is three hundred?"

Hm?

Jier suddenly gasped.

To be honest, everything that happened tonight was not as shocking to him as this.

"Can someone tell me, one hundred and fifty plus one hundred and fifty, put together, how much is that?"

Everyone shook their heads, indicating they did not know.

"Then fifteen plus fifteen, you should at least know that, right?"

Something even more shocking to Jier happened: the young man under his command, with a Long Sword and a Cleaver tucked under his armpits, immediately began to count the number fifteen on his fingers, then muttered the numbers and continued adding one by one from fifteen.

What shocked him even more was that even then, two people calculated it wrong.

It wasn't that they were wrong about adding the numbers one by one on their fingers, but that the numbers they muttered were out of sync with their hand movements, so the calculation naturally went wrong.

In the end, it was the injured Bandit sitting on the ground who calculated it.

Although this man also used his hands, the speed was much faster, and he didn't calculate it wrong. The Bandit shed his previous wretched look and said with a smug expression: "It's a good thing the coins I handle often reach this amount, otherwise I really would have calculated it wrong."

Good grief, you're getting cocky now, aren't you?

But the Bandit's smugness didn't last more than a few seconds, because the young man who had calculated wrong immediately gave the Bandit a few big slaps to make him straighten up.

Exhaling a breath, Jier held his forehead, feeling that settling the hundreds of young Refugees would be a huge disaster.