Chapter 70: Recovering the Villages, the Third Phase of the Counterattack, Arriving at Celebration Cunzi

The next morning, Jier was stationed in a small village named Bianjie Cunzi.

He and his Warriors had broken through here yesterday evening, strangling the remaining twenty or so Parasitic Vine Monsters in the small village.

Because there were no Villagers here, and aside from his own men, only an empty village remained, Jier allowed the guards and hired thugs who had temporarily joined them to indulge themselves last night, letting them loot the deserted village as they pleased.

Aside from their daily training, his men were also forced by Jier to collect the monsters' body tissues; this task caused the Warriors to complain quite a bit, as the monsters were already dead, and being told to collect the shredded fragments of monster bodies at this point was truly troublesome.

But they still did it honestly; no one dared to resist any of Jier's orders.

Especially after the battle at Bitter Water Cunzi yesterday.

Jier's terrifying performance and image at that time truly made the Warriors terrified and completely submissive to Jier's strength. If Jier's previous performance had seemed like something the Warriors could barely achieve, the terrifying strength he displayed then made the Warriors correctly realize the difference between the two.

Was it not likely that if Knight Jier wanted to, he could kill everyone in the entire team by himself at any time?

Jier, of course, did not think so; he had been pestered all night long by the Sun God Priest and the Agricultural God Church priests.

The Agricultural God Church priests took turns telling him stories of faith about the great priests of the Agricultural God Church, attempting to hedge against the influence of the Sun God Church for him. And the five young Sun God Priests who followed the team, upon seeing this scene, actually began to preach various historical stories of the Sun God Church to Jier as well.

Both were long-standing orthodox churches; if explained in detail, even thousands of years of church history would not be enough to finish.

Fortunately, the priests had limited knowledge; after a night of verbal torture, Jier finally heard them start to repeat content. What did this mean? It meant the priests had nothing new to say!

But Jier hadn't been happy for long before the priests started telling stories about the church believers they each knew.

From the religious experiences of each believer's family, to their family's position among the church believers, to how much faith had helped these believers, and so on and so forth...

Therefore, when a messenger rode a fast horse early in the morning to deliver Bell's orders and letters, Jier could not have been happier.

"Quick, quick, quick, bring it over!"

He happily took the command Scroll from the panting messenger, then walked over to the Warriors who had just woken up and were getting their meals, and loudly read out Bell's orders.

【To Knight Qiao-Jier: I am very happy to learn that you have joined forces with the Sun God Church, taken Bitter Water Cunzi after a fierce battle, and successfully stationed yourselves in Bitter Water Cunzi. I also learned that you, Knight Jier, have successively captured three villages in the northeast direction of the county yesterday afternoon; this is a major victory for the counterattack plan! My side has successfully formed larger Hunting Squads and clearing teams with several villages southwest of Yemei Town, and will conduct continuous clearing and cleanup work within a few kilometers outside the town, continuously exterminating the scattered monsters wandering outside the town to suppress the number of monsters. Do not worry about the situation in Celebration Cunzi; the number of monsters coming from the Xīběi direction has been continuously decreasing recently, and I have been able to free up more manpower to join the counterattack plan. Today, I will have the Town Guard lead a small number of returning Villagers to the villages you captured yesterday afternoon. Please, Knight Jier, continue to lead the Warriors to fight, and according to the plan, from north to east, and from east to south, recover and capture the outer villages in turn. In addition, I am already aware of the matter of the 【Sun Child】, and have warned the Sun God Church priests in Bitter Water Cunzi, as well as the Sun God Church in Yemei Town. They have indicated that they will provide you with generous compensation, and I will also provide you with compensation. Bell-Sasi】

After Jier finished reading, the Warriors were speechless upon hearing that they had to continue rapidly clearing villages one by one today. After all, traveling quickly by carriage and getting off to fight was a very painful thing. The carriage's suspension was not good; it was fine when running slowly, but once it sped up, the carriage would shake so much that one couldn't even sit still, and the Wooden Box under one's butt felt like it was opening its mouth to bite one's butt.

And this damn weather was getting hotter day by day, and there wasn't a drop of rain from the sky; if it weren't for the fact that they stayed overnight in the village every night and everyone could draw water from the well to wipe their bodies, they would have already stunk from the heat.

Although, in reality, everyone's smell was quite strong anyway. After all, bathing was one thing, but the padding under the Plate Armor they wore was not easy to remove and clean; after these sturdy Linen Cloth armor paddings were soaked in sweat, the smell was simply pungent.

By comparison, the priests were much better off, as they had Divine Power in their bodies. This omnipotent divine power had endless uses; if one wasn't afraid of wasting Divine Power, even using it to clean one's body and clothes was possible.

Upon learning that they could attack villages occupied by monsters again today, the temporarily joined Caravan guards and shop thugs were the most excited; Jier's men always charged to the front during battles, fighting the monsters with all their might, so they only needed to intentionally fall a few steps behind, or find a few limping vine monsters to fight, and no one would bother them. And after the battle ended, Jier would organize the Warriors to collect monster body tissues, carefully separating the monsters' vine tissues and extracting monster juices. Meanwhile, these guys could freely collect valuable things in the deserted village to their heart's content.

Although the Villagers had tried their best to take their family's valuable belongings with them when they received the assembly order, as long as they searched carefully, these experienced guards and thugs could still accurately find the money jars hidden by the Farmers, or silver and copper jewelry, furniture, and tools.

These were all valuable things; taking them to Yemei Town, one could directly find a general store that bought everything and exchange them for cash based on the material cost and weight.

Coming out on this trip, they had earned quite a lot of money following Knight Jier!

Praise the highly energetic Knight Jier!

Handing the Scroll containing the orders to the Yemei Town official accompanying the team, Jier sat down on the spot and opened Bell's letter.

The content at the beginning was still detailed news about Bell's route. After the Hunting Squads dispersed and made contact with each of the successfully resettled villages, Bell organized the Armed Civilians in each resettled village, letting each village provide a team of thirty to fifty people, using the patrol routes between villages and from the villages to Yemei Town, to keep the Armed Civilians patrolling continuously during the day.

This scale of Armed Civilians, even if their combat ability was truly limited, was enough to deal with up to three parasitic monsters. Although both sides were very weak, the human side had very abundant manpower; after releasing the crowded human Villagers in Yemei Town, Bell realized whether the original order to assemble the civilians was actually the right thing to do.

Perhaps when the number of monsters was small at the beginning, blocking them at the Xīběi entrance of the county was also a method?

At the end of the letter was Bell's apology to Jier. He really didn't expect that the Sun God priests would be so bold as to use the 【Sun Child】 method on the helper he had invited!

This was a provocation to the Sasi Family! The church side must provide generous compensation.

Of course, he only represented his family and would also give Jier appropriate compensation.

However, in the letter, Bell also cautiously asked about Jier's current views on faith, asking Jier to write him a letter for the messenger to bring back if he had time.

Seeing this, Jier gave a disdainful smile; clearly, Bell had been reminded by the priests around him and knew the result of the 【Sun Child】 method, fearing that Jier, a young Knight from outside, would have his faith converted for no reason on the way to help in Sasi County.

Jier himself might not have any opinion on this, but if the Noble behind Jier knew about this, it was clear that the Sun God Church could not be moved by a small Noble, and it was possible for the Heir of a Baron family in a remote place to be messed with by them.

Bell was clearly worried about this.

Jier really wanted to say that his faith and spirit had not been affected by the 【Sun Child】 method, but he didn't dare to guarantee that he really hadn't been affected. Was there a possibility that he had already been affected, but he just didn't know it himself?

"Dog shit Sun God, dog shit Sun God, dog shit Sun God!!!"

Jier muttered a few times, confirmed there was no discomfort, and that his mouth could say whatever he wanted, and only then did he feel relieved.

Afterwards, the team finished their meal, finished preparations, and set off by carriage once again.

Two days later, the sixth afternoon of the counterattack plan.

Over the past two days, Jier had led the team to clear all the villages in the northern part of Sasi County belonging to Yemei Town, and was currently heading to the end of his route—Celebration Cunzi—according to the plan, to rendezvous with Bell-Sasi.

The day before, Jier had already learned from Bell's letter that the remaining personnel of the Sun God Church route had arrived at Celebration Cunzi ahead of schedule, and now, with the addition of his own route's people, the third phase of the counterattack plan was about to begin.

In the first phase, the three forces that set out took the five nearest large villages around Yemei Town and guided the Villagers of the five resettled villages to leave the outskirts of Yemei Town and return to their respective villages, easing the resource tension in Yemei Town.

This phase was generally completed, except that the Sun God Church route encountered difficulties. But with Jier's support, the occupation of Bitter Water Cunzi was barely completed.

In the second phase, Bell's route held Celebration Cunzi, intercepting the support forces from the monsters' lair, so that the monster enemies in the northern part of Sasi County had no replenishment in numbers. Jier's route went from west to south and then to east, taking the outer villages one by one, allowing a small number of young and able-bodied Villagers from these villages to return to these villages in advance. The Sun God Church route went from north to east, taking the outer villages in this area one by one.

It was just that the Sun God Church route, after suffering setbacks in Bitter Water Cunzi, could no longer complete the subsequent tasks, and even the priest leader who led the team had become a 'useless person' who could no longer accept Divine Power and Faith because of the 【Sun Child】 method, from a priest leader with sufficient strength, status, and prestige. Naturally, he could not lead the team. Therefore, the task of their route was handed over to Jier.

Fortunately, it was just a few more villages that needed to be captured, because a large number of parasitic monsters in the surrounding area were pinned down at Bitter Water Cunzi and wiped out in one fell swoop, so the subsequent attacks and occupations of the villages were not that difficult.

When Jier led the team, they moved quickly by carriage, and could take three villages in one morning. Often they would blast open the village gates, charge straight into the village's central open space, and then jump off the carriage and scatter to fight. The number of parasitic monsters in these villages had dropped very severely, and the number was not even as large as the Warriors under Jier.

Therefore, enter quickly, wipe out quickly, and then withdraw quickly. They could take three villages in one morning, and six or seven villages in a day.

The Warriors were naturally very tired and exhausted, but at this time, in order to give the Warriors motivation to fight, Jier temporarily added a bounty of one Silver Coin per ordinary parasitic monster.

This price was not much, but it was not little. To say it wasn't much was because a village was often occupied by only twenty or thirty parasitic monsters; even excluding the monsters Jier killed himself, if he let his men kill them all, he would only provide a reward of two or three Gold Coins at a time.

To say it wasn't little was because, for the Warriors, this monster reward certainly couldn't compare to the defeated soldiers of the past, but the difficulty was also different. A fully armed Warrior under Jier could often fight an ordinary parasitic monster by himself.

Therefore, they charged howling at every parasitic monster passing through the village; even those guards and thugs who liked to loot the Villagers' houses gave up looting during the battle and instead raised their respective weapons to compete for the insufficient number of parasitic monsters.

The situation reversed at this time. Previously, it was the parasitic monsters that used their numerical advantage and the horror of parasitism to suppress humans. But now, Jier's side actually complained that the number of monsters was insufficient and could not assign an enemy to every Warrior in one battle.

It was simply absurd.

Therefore, by the afternoon of the sixth day of the counterattack plan, although the Warriors in the carriages were dusty, tanned dark over the past two days, and smelled sour and stinky, each of them was high-spirited, their weapons constantly spinning in their palms, eager to cut down a few more monsters.

Just right, as Jier told the Warriors, in the third phase of the counterattack that was about to begin, everyone was about to head towards the monster lair that would definitely be occupied by a large number of monsters. At that time, there would be no shortage of fighting for them.

"Why don't we just set off this afternoon, my lord? We can go there on our own."

A Warrior subordinate sitting on a carriage called out to Jier, who was riding a horse alongside them.

Jier was amused and replied, "That is not how things are done. This is the territory of the Sasi Family, and the counterattack plan was proposed by the Sasi Family Heir, Bell-Sasi. Therefore, our actions require orders from Bell-Sasi."

He explained loudly, "The third phase of the counterattack plan is for the three forces to converge at Celebration Cunzi and, following the direction from which the Monsters emerged, strike back against their lair. We will thoroughly eradicate the lair of the parasitic Monsters from this outbreak and restore peace and stability to Sasi County. Don't just think about the small bounty I offered."

Jier shook his finger, "Don't forget, besides that bounty, there is also the mercenary pay that the Sasi Family has specifically provided for everyone these past few days. That is also a significant amount of money. If you violate the regulations and set off to fight on your own, what will you do when that money you were supposed to get is gone?"

At this, everyone became much more obedient; after all, no matter how capable you are, you wouldn't go against money that is about to be in your hands, would you? Everyone came out to fight partly because they hoped to improve themselves and hone their skills under Jier, so that in the future, they would never go hungry with such strength and experience. On the other hand, it was to earn as much money as possible. Most of them were originally farmers and Refugees who had left their homes, so earning money while fleeing was the most important thing.

After all, many Warriors had relatives who were either stranded begging at White Stone Pass or had followed Jier to relocate to New Hope Town; for the sake of those family members, they had to earn as much money as possible to take back.

"Up ahead is Celebration Cunzi. Everyone can have a good rest tonight, and in particular, everyone must properly maintain and scrub their weapons and equipment! That smell is truly pungent. Although I'm not much better off myself."

Jier joked as he led the group into Celebration Cunzi.

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