Chapter 833: Obstinate Villagers, Wealthy Townsfolk

On the stone wall of Yemei Town, the town guards spotted the returning caravan from afar. When they saw the Baron Heir standing on the lead carriage, they cheered one after another.

Holding high their long spears and shields emblazoned with the Sasi Family crest, they crowded onto the firing platforms along the wall, cheering and jumping. Many did not even know why they were cheering, but since the caravan had departed and returned, they assumed it must have brought back a victory.

Bell-Sasi waved at the guards on the wall, but said to Jier, who was riding alongside the carriage, "Still won't reconsider? As long as you and I lead the fighting, cheers and victories like this will surely happen. By then, the people of the entire town will cheer and applaud for you and me."

"This will be the highest praise a Knight can receive. People will call the Knight who defeats the Flesh Demons a hero, bards will write songs of praise for it, and the various divine churches will carve the battles into stone walls to record them for people to visit and study thousands of years from now."

Jier remained unmoved. He raised a finger to point at the young villagers from outside the town gathering outside the southeast gate, and replied with a hint of sarcasm: "Forget about things that haven't happened yet. Look, the problem from last night hasn't truly been solved; those people are blocking the road. To be honest, last night's incident was just a reaction after pressure had accumulated to a certain point. Don't tell me you don't realize that?"

Bell-Sasi snorted, then turned to call out to the family soldiers on the other carriages behind him, ordering these brawny and well-equipped soldiers to drive away the people blocking the road at the gate.

Jier quickly spurred his horse to intercept these soldiers. The soldiers dared not cross Jier, a Knight, and turned to look at their master. To this, the Baron Heir asked directly: "What? This is a matter of Sasi County; are you going to interfere? Hmph, interfering is fine too, you can solve this as you please, but afterwards you must join the sortie to deal with those monsters, how about it?"

Ignoring the offer entirely, Jier lifted the steel face mask of his helmet and said with a grin: "Forget it. I was just reminding you that there is often more than one way to solve a problem. Instead of blocking the road and the gate, why not send the Agricultural God Church priests from the caravan? Let the priests persuade them, understand the thoughts and needs of those people, and satisfy them simply. There is no need to use forceful means to solve the problem."

"Satisfy them? If I succeed in giving them things today when they block the gate, what about tomorrow? What will I have left to give them? Don't be foolish, Knight Jier." Bell-Sasi did not listen to Jier's method at all and waved his hand, signaling his elite soldiers to bypass the horse blocking the way.

Afterwards, he shouted orders to the town guards on the wall, telling those who were cheering to go to the gate and come out from the inside to help drive away the crowd blocking the road.

After blocking them for a moment, Jier reined in Tianxuecao and did not continue following the caravan, standing by the side of the road to watch it all.

The elite soldiers, who had just finished clearing out some parasitic monsters, were very rough in their movements and not mentally calm. They rushed to the blocking crowd ahead of the caravan, relying directly on their tall, sturdy frames and their armor and equipment to forcefully push against the dozens of young villagers blocking the road.

These young villagers from outside the town had basically never been full, and their bodies were very weak; how could they withstand elite soldiers who ate meat every day?

Upon contact, they were pushed back by the fewer number of soldiers.

They cursed out loud, which immediately drew retaliation from the equally rough soldiers. However, the soldiers did not rely on cursing; they slapped the youths directly in the face. The sturdy palms in leather gloves had astonishing force, leaving the youths dizzy and collapsing to the ground, only to be dragged by their limbs and tossed to the side of the road by the soldiers.

This caused the young villagers who hadn't been hit yet to retreat in fear, and so the soldiers advanced a few steps.

Seeing that this worked well, the soldiers shouted a few times, then swung their arms or turned sideways to ram forward with their shoulders.

Jier saw the young people blocking the road being knocked down like bowling pins, swaying left and right and wailing incessantly. Some tried to fight back, but being empty-handed, they found that their strikes against the soldiers were unfelt and painless.

But the soldiers' retaliation was something these youths, who couldn't even get a few full meals, could not endure.

However, they still had an advantage: there were many of them. After calling out to the back, more young men and women who had been idling in the sun rushed over. As soon as these people joined, the elite soldiers who had been punching and kicking their way through were immediately surrounded by villagers from all sides.

Someone wanted to draw a weapon to slash, but was stopped by the Baron Heir still standing on the carriage. Therefore, although the soldiers were surrounded, they continued to use their fists to solve the problem.

Strangely, although the fighting in front was intense, the young villagers did not approach the carriage loaded with firewood. Or rather, these young villagers from outside the town, full of resentment, did not dare to approach the Baron Heir wearing a full suit of Knight steel armor.

Jier curled his lip and sighed.

Knight-rank Warriors, possessing superhuman combat power, formed the bedrock of this otherworldly society, which was stable and cold to the extreme.

Hundreds of unarmed civilians, even if they rioted or rebelled, would not be a match for a single fully armed Knight-rank Warrior. Even though Bell-Sasi was not riding a warhorse at this moment and lacked absolute mobility, he was still enough to crush these people in other aspects.

Looking at it this way, although the soldiers and young villagers were fighting lively, in reality, no one present had any intention of escalating the situation.

The soldiers had two Knights backing them (counting Jier, since they had acted together out of town that morning), so even though they were surrounded and brawled with villagers ten times their number, they remained calm. They didn't use weapons because they were told not to; after all, their fine equipment was not for show, and the unarmed masses could do nothing to them.

And although the young villagers were full of resentment, with constant curses and obscene gestures, most of the words they cursed had nothing to do with the Sasi Family as lords, but rather concerned the families and ancestors of the town guards. Even the obscene gestures during the brawl were all directed at the wall.

Although the brawl was larger in scale than the one last night, it was not chaotic; no one rushed to attack the caravan, no one approached the Baron Heir standing on the carriage, and no one climbed to attack the town wall or the southeast gate.

Rather than a riot or rebellion, Jier mused, it was more like a 'performance', a 'coquettish act' directed at the actual managers of the town.

And the Baron Heir, standing firmly on the carriage, seemed to understand this.

Jier rolled his eyes, trying to put himself in the shoes of both sides instead of being an outside third party. After thinking for a while, he finally understood some of the things behind it.

Faced with the villagers outside the town blocking the caravan, Bell-Sasi, as the first heir of the Sasi Family, could not simply agree. For one, it would damage the dignity and deterrent power of the noble family locally, and for another, he feared that if he agreed, other villagers outside the town would follow suit.

Therefore, he would never agree to such a thing even once.

Furthermore, he was only the heir to the title, not the actual Sasi Baron himself; he could not make this decision that would inevitably damage the family's dignity. Perhaps agreeing to some small requests from the villagers blocking the road could ease the increasingly tense relationship, but doing so would also damage his personal political interests.

Just as Jier was watching this 'lively performance', the previously closed southeast gate of the town opened inward, and over a hundred town guards marched out with a rumble.

These guards held long spears and pikes, like hedgehogs made of wood and metal, rushing out from the gate and quickly deploying.

While marching heavily, making intimidating, ground-shaking footsteps, they shouted at the rioting crowd: "Back! All of you back! Or the spear tips will be stained with blood!"

The guards at the very front held their long spears horizontally, pushing the rioting young villagers back. Those who fell in the crowded throng were dragged out, given a sound beating, and tossed aside.

With the help of these newly joined town guards, the elite soldiers, who had been at an absolute disadvantage in numbers, quickly turned the situation around.

Pushing, beating, shouting—the road to the town was finally opened.

Bell-Sasi, who had kept a cold face the whole time, snorted and waved his hand, and the caravan began to move again.

He turned his head to look at Jier, who was sitting motionless on his horse, and asked loudly: "Knight Jier, won't you come in and have something to eat and drink? The family cook has some specialties, how about a temporary rest? It will take some time for the caravan to unload anyway."

Jier waved his hand and responded loudly as well: "No need, I have food and drink at my camp too."

The lumberjacks sitting on the carriages jumped off when the caravan passed Jier's camp and did not follow them into the town to unload the timber.

No longer caring about the affairs of Yemei Town, Jier returned to his camp and immediately had the cooks prepare some food to replenish the energy of the lumberjacks who had been busy for most of the morning.

Logging was hard work; if they didn't eat and drink their fill, their physical strength wouldn't keep up, and efficiency naturally wouldn't be high.

So, as soon as Jier gave the order, the camp cooks got busy, calling their assistants to stoke the fires, taking out bags of wheat flour, adding water to knead it into rough dough on the side. Without fermenting—either because there wasn't enough time or because there was no natural yeast—they made the unfermented dough into flatbreads and baked them on the sides of the hot iron pots.

Soon, they were baked into thin, white-and-brown wheat cakes.

The unrefined wheat flour was still quite coarse, but the aroma of the cakes baked this way was even better. Not to mention the lumberjacks who had worked all morning; they didn't care that the cakes were piping hot, reaching out to grab them and eating, their tongues sticking out from the heat. Jier also smelled the wheat-scented cakes and grabbed two without even taking off his gloves.

Holding them in his hands and fanning them back and forth, Jier wouldn't be as miserable as the lumberjacks around him who were burned by the ready-made cakes. He cooled his cakes down, one for himself and one for Tianxuecao, and man and horse both opened their mouths wide to chew on this fresh-out-of-the-pot food.

The wheat cakes were still very hot, but Jier tried to gather the Life Energy within his body into his mouth and tongue, and he no longer felt they were that hot.

The unfermented wheat cakes were very chewy and hard to swallow even after repeated chewing, but this was just right, as chewing back and forth prevented burning his throat. Tianxuecao was much more casual; with a roll of its tongue, the creature swept the wheat cake into its mouth and chewed vigorously.

After eating one, the creature still felt it wasn't enough and kept poking its head toward the new wheat cakes still baking in the iron pot.

"Not afraid of the heat, are you! Careful you don't burn your tongue off!" Jier cursed Tianxuecao with a smile and took off his helmet, sitting where he was.

Bata'er Jiaoshi and Xueya Site came over. The former asked about the trouble that had just occurred at the lumber caravan, worried and pacing back and forth while scratching his head. The latter was curious about what thrilling experiences the caravan had had while collecting timber in the lumber yard to the west that morning.

Facing the anxious Bata'er Jiaoshi, Jier told him a part of his own speculation, which made Bata'er Jiaoshi furious: "Foolish! The more it's like this, the more we need to unite! The enemy isn't fellow humans, but monsters that are hostile to humanity! Really, facing such monsters, there's no one to fawn over or flatter, and no one will surrender; it's the perfect time to unite everyone!"

"Truly foolish! It's hateful that even at a time like this, they are still bound by this and that, dividing people into those inside the town and those outside. What is wrong with the companions from the Church? Did they just watch? No one cared? No one said anything?"

Jier gave a bitter smile: "What do you expect the four Agricultural God Church priests in the caravan to do? Jump off the carriage and join the rioting masses? And then resist the Sasi Family's soldiers and guards together? Would the Agricultural God Church in Yemei Town even be able to open in the future? Calm down, buddy. If everything were done the way you said, I think the Agricultural God Church would be kicked out of Yemei Town by next year and would only be able to set up in some village nearby."

Jier's words were like a basin of cold water, dousing the furious Bata'er Jiaoshi.

Reality was colder than ice water, causing Bata'er Jiaoshi to slump down onto the ground, fiercely striking the dirt with his fist.

Xueya Site found it amusing: "The dirt on the ground isn't that young man in armor from just now; no matter how much you hit it, you won't hurt him. Haha."

The Priest glared at the joking Xueya Site, patted his pale red Priest Robe, and then ran toward the nearby gathering point of villagers outside the town: "I'm going to treat their wounds; if you need anything, find me there!!"

After Bata'er Jiaoshi passed through the section guarded by the Armed Squad, Jier and Xueya Site talked about the morning's events again.

The Baron Heir's persistent recruitment, the other party's intentions, the responsibilities and ambitions behind it all. A certain type of parasitic Monster that was a bit more powerful, but not powerful enough to be anything special, at least it looked much more frightening. And the two newly met Sun God Church Church Priests from Yemei Town.

"Is it really that powerful? A thin-armed Priest can throw a metal staff that far?"

Xueya Site looked incredulous.

"Of course, the power is not small; the landing point was several hundred meters away, this big."

Jier reached out and gestured vaguely in front of him: "Even a bit bigger, it was all burned to ash by the glowing, scalding staff that fell. Ha, there were even a few foolish parasitic Monsters hiding in the scalding ashes, trying to ambush me as I went to retrieve the staff. But they were all picked out from the ground and stabbed to death by me, one spear thrust each."

Speaking of this, the Tianxuecao nearby, which was drinking water and eating Beans, leaned over and neighed.

"Oh, right, right, you helped take out two as well! I didn't forget, don't butt me with your head; what you trampled to death counts as me defeating them, I'm the master! What's yours is mine!"

The horse's ears flicked as it looked at Jier.

Jier patted its head heavily, and only then did this fellow go back to eating.

"Do we have to make another trip this afternoon?" Xueya Site asked.

Jier took a wheat cake and took a bite: "Of course, at least one more trip is possible. If we use it sparingly, plus the cartload we had yesterday, this wood will be enough for Yemei Town to use for a while. Actually, the problem is far from being that serious; if there's no firewood, one can simply dismantle the houses inside the town."

He shrugged: "The problem is never these superficial things, but the imbalance of resources inside and outside the town."

"Imbalance?" Xueya Site chewed on the phrase Jier had used, his palm rubbing his chin.

At this moment, Bafute walked over with a smug look on his face. He held a small notebook filled with writing and shoved it toward Jier to look at: "Lord Jier, this is the detailed list of material exchanges between our team and the Merchant Guild inside the town this morning, as well as the list of fund expenditures. Please take a look."

Jier took the small notebook and looked at what was written on it.

Nearby, Bafute and Xueya Site began to talk. After a brief exchange, facing the confused Xueya Site, Bafute explained happily: "This imbalance is very simple; it's just that there are many people outside the town, but little firewood available for starting fires, to the point where some brave youths have to risk crossing the dug trenches to collect it from nearby fields and villages. And there are few people inside the town, but they have long-stored fuel, and besides, there are houses; in order to eat, it's possible to temporarily dismantle some wooden houses."

He gestured with his hands like an invisible scale: "Many people, outside the town." His left hand lifted.

"Few people, inside the town." His right hand lowered.

"Lots of firewood, inside the town." His right hand lifted.

"Little firewood, and there's a risk to life, outside the town." His left hand lowered.

Finally, Bafute curled his lips: "That's how it is."

"How can it be like this! What time is it now!" Xueya Site looked speechless. He pointed at the Refugee Team around them: "Can't they be like us, and temporarily distribute all the food, drink, and shelter evenly among everyone? At least to get through the difficult times..."

These words amused Bafute: "Siter, what are you thinking?"

"We are either refugees with nothing, or poor people rescued by Knight Jier; check our pockets, they're cleaner than our faces. And everyone owes Knight Jier too much, which is why we could organize this temporary Refugee Team under the recognition of Lord Knight Jier, and it's becoming more and more powerful."

Using his little finger to point at Yemei Town, Bafute laughed softly: "And here? The lord's family, the Merchant Guild, the rich, the residents inside the town, all have their own property, as well as the town's military force to guard this wealth. What about the village people who fled here from outside the town?"

"Although they brought everything each household could carry, you and I both know that the most important wealth for Farmers is the land they own, as well as their houses. These are things they can't take with them at all."

Finally, Bafute mocked: "When I was making the trade just now, I chatted with the people from the Merchant Guild inside the town for a bit. Haha, it's only during a disaster that one can make a fortune; although those Merchant Guilds can't run Caravan businesses anymore, they haven't earned any less money these days."

He shook his head, looking at the villagers from outside the town on both sides of the Refugee Team's Yingdi with an expression that carried unknown emotions, watching these villagers grow increasingly poor.