Mercenaries and Adventurers

The clear ringing of bells rang quickly from the height of the wooden tower in the west of the town. A large number of 'townspeople' wandering in the complicated and chaotic streets below were stunned for a moment at the same time, and then they all thought of something bad, and then cursed. He started running quickly.

What to do?

Go home and hide!

On both sides of the narrow, dirty streets, store clerks heard the bell ringing and quickly persuaded customers to leave the store. Then they closed the thick doors tightly and held the back of the door with heavy objects.

The thugs and clerks in the store, under the command of the store owner or steward, scrambled to find the swords and weapons that had been prepared in the store.

But they didn't go out to do anything. They just stayed in their own shops, pricking up every ear and listening to what was happening on the street outside.

The shop owners set up the newly purchased wooden ladders in the backyard of the shop, climbed up to the roof of the shop using hands and feet, stepped on the wooden tiles or the roof made of wheat straw, and leaned out to the west of the town. Looking from afar.

There are deliberately no trees planted on the main roads around Dorne Town, so if you look around from a high place in the town, you can see the movement in the distance.

If a large number of bandits or troops come, they will have a certain amount of time to prepare and gather strength.

A few days ago, everyone had not taken this plan to heart that had been discussed since the town was founded. As a result, an elite army of six to seven hundred people came out from the west trade road that day and quickly approached the town, frightening the entire town half to death.

They were in chaos and waited for a long time without anyone entering the town. Only then did someone go out to communicate with each other.

It turned out to be a support force from the north to support the war on the southern border. The merchants in the town thought it was some noble noble who led the army and wanted to clear out the town of Dorne and raise military supplies and logistical items under the current uneasy situation.

At this time, the warning bell rang again, and everyone remembered the response methods that everyone who had lived in the town for a long time should know.

Then those who went home went home, and those who closed their shops closed their shops.

There is no need for the armed thugs from each family to assemble to fight to protect all the town's wealth. After the last experience, everyone knows that when faced with an unknown but certainly large number of external forces approaching, several large chambers of commerce in the town will always send people to inquire and investigate the other party's intentions.

It should be the same this time.

Sure enough, within a moment of the bell ringing, several riders gathered around a gorgeously dressed businessman and rode westward together.

On the roofs of many shops, there are eyes watching the merchants going away. Everyone’s eyes are complicated, and no one knows what everyone is thinking.

Maybe he was cursing the laziness of the big chamber of commerce, maybe he was praying to a certain god for safety and peace, or maybe he was planning some evil money-making activities.

-

After coming out of the trade road between the mountains, not only the view is wide, but the trade road under the feet is more than twice as wide. The people under Kiel's steps are brisk, and everyone is eager to return to human civilization. The world, even if the town in front is an extremely bad place.

But even such a poor town is much better than the deserted mountains and wilderness.

Every day when we spend the night in the wild, there are often nocturnal raptors that make strange noises circling in the night sky. These nocturnal raptors that make terrifying flapping sounds will try to descend and attack the lone person with their sharp claws whenever they find someone lone. person's head.

Someone was injured on the head when he got up at night. After being rescued by the priest, the whole person became confused and stupid because of the head injury.

Later, Kiel asked everyone who was active at night to pay attention to the top of their heads, and no one was injured.

Along the wide commercial road approaching the town of Dorne, the fields on both sides of the road are more complicated than the patterns on the jigsaw puzzle. Not only are the crops grown in adjacent fields inconsistent, but there is also no water supply project for irrigation.

Many thin men and women dressed in rags spend the afternoon carrying buckets of water, going back and forth between the water intake point along the river and the fields they are responsible for. They often need to work like this for a whole day to provide sufficient moisture for some precious vegetables or crops.

Every day, there will be guards patrolling the fields. Whenever these guys with whips see someone putting down a bucket or farm tools, they will rush over and slap them with a whip. If they dare to resist, they will be whipped again.

The tip of the vicious whip is not flat, and some hard things are deliberately added to it. When it hits a person, it is a trivial matter for the skin to be torn. Those men and women who are in debt and can only do hard labor are more distressed because their last wealth—— Rags.

That's how bad it usually is.

But today was different. When a team of hundreds of people, whose purpose of coming was unclear, came out of the gap in the continuous mountains to the west, the caretakers with whips in their hands ran faster than anyone else. They turned over and jumped down the field. Dive into the crops that are not very dense and tall.

The debtors who were left unattended could finally breathe a sigh of relief. They stopped one after another, put the buckets on their heads or carried on their shoulders on the ground, and rested on the spot.

They didn't dare to run away. After all, running away before repaying their debt was a serious crime in Dorne Town, and their fingers would be cut off. Run once and cut off a finger.

When the thumb of the hand is cut off, that hand can no longer be used for work, and the person loses the value of work.

What is left to these people will be a more tragic outcome that no one cares about.

Therefore, they did not dare to run, so they stood still and looked fearlessly at the group of hundreds of people approaching along the trade road.

When they looked at the reflective sword, they realized that they should be afraid, so they picked up the buckets and jumped off the field.

But they still looked at the walking procession along the trade road.

They always look at every passing team like this.

It's just that no one in the previous caravans cared about these hard-working debtors, nor did they think there was anything wrong with these people working to repay their debts.

-

Keir walked at the front of the team, and of course he noticed the ragged people looking at them blankly in the messy fields on both sides of the road.

Ms. Fenia is very familiar with this place, and many of the rescued businessmen have also been here. So Kiel knew where these people came from.

It looks pitiful, but also hateful enough.

The town of Dorne has its own rules, and these are the people who owe debts to the casino.

Although they don't owe much, these guys who have lost all their wealth in the casino and don't have a single iron coin, regardless of gender, no matter how little money they owe, they have to work in the fields for the gang in charge of lending money in the casino. .

Of course, those villains have ways to get money faster, but that way, people will quickly disappear or become disabled and die, which is not a long-term way to maintain it. Therefore, around Dorne Town, there are several large chambers of commerce that maintain the management here, as well as gangs, shops, and workshops, all of which have large and small messy fields outside the town.

In these fields, whatever crops are most valuable on the market are grown. Gangs own oil mills, and they plant oil crops in the fields owned by the gangs.

The Chamber of Commerce had a group of female spinners and weavers, so they planted cotton or hemp plants in the fields, regardless of whether the climate or soil was suitable for planting.

The tavern worked hard to grow hops in its own fields, and planted vegetables or root plants in its spare time, using almost free labor to obtain food raw materials that had to be bought with money.

Behind all this is the black market for debtors' debt transactions. The town has its own calculation method for daily labor in exchange for reducing debts. Depending on the amount of debt, a debtor with a small amount may have to work for half a month, and a debtor with a large amount may have to work for half a month. Years of hard work.

These IOUs marking debtors were traded back and forth by people, providing the lowest level of labor distribution in the entire town.

Even if it is so similar to slavery.

Even though the Kingdom of Saint Halls had abolished the slave trade since the founding of the country in accordance with the imperial decree.

But all this happened so obviously in the town of Dorne. Everyone, including men and women, nobles and big businessmen, knew about it, but everyone pretended not to see it.

-

Priest Batal had naturally been here before, and he looked back with regret at the countless numb eyes that looked over. He didn't know that there was such a place before. When he borrowed it from here to go to Montauca City a few days ago, he was shocked by how barbaric and backward it was.

Although the days that debtors are forced to work are only related to how much debt they owe, it seems that they are all blamed for their gambling debts, right?

But at that time, Priest Batal only entered the fields here to talk to a dozen debtors for a while. He realized that in the town of Dorne, when the limit of a person's wealth is close to zero, if there is no stable job responsible for food and housing, , then that person is particularly likely to fall into the casino and try to rely on gambling to turn over.

But it is easy to borrow money but difficult to pay back, and nine times out of ten you gamble, you lose. There are too few people who rely on gambling to turn around and move away. More people often fall into the trap of casino dealers, and lose all their wealth in three times, five times, five times divided by two. Even if you can't even hold your breath with the borrowed money, you will be put around your neck with a rope, like an animal, taken to the black market where IOUs are traded, and bought by various buyers to work.

The entire town has been designed with a downward path for people who are on the verge of bankruptcy. Want to turn over?

It's too difficult.

So he gave up quickly at that time.

Now that he came to Dorne Town again, the priest didn't even dare to look back carefully at the eyes that looked over him.

Kil, on the other hand, didn't care. After hearing what his companions around him said about the town of Dorne, he didn't comment. Because let go of the mentality of helping others and respect the fate of others, this sentence is really suitable to be used here.

It can only be said that the method adopted by Dorne Town is suitable for the management and governance of small places in times of peace and stability. Normally, it can be maintained only by blood transfusions from external resources and manpower.

But now the security of the entire southern province is rapidly declining. Small and medium-sized caravans, which account for the majority of merchants, dare not conduct long-distance trade. Only a small number of large chambers of commerce can still arm armed caravans to move around unhindered, but this is only a drop in the bucket.

A large number of trade foundations - villages in various places were abandoned one after another, and large numbers of people fled to big cities or other places. The foundation of trade was dug up, and what was revealed was that the town of Dorne gradually became depressed.

What Keir didn't know was that at this time, the town of Dorne was trying to seize the cheap black goods and dirty goods from the hands of the bandits due to the disbandment of various bandit gangs, but this was just the last glory.

Once this wave of craze passes, the town of Dorne will be completely depleted of material and wealth supplies, and this scheme will become completely unplayable.

Because the entire town, even the food they eat, is supplied by businessmen from other places.

Although the scattered fields outside the town are large in size and there are many debtors working in them, there are too many miscellaneous crops grown in those fields, and the small amount of serious farmland cannot support the various arrogant and luxurious chambers of commerce in the town.

-

Click, click, click, a team of five riders quickly ran over from the exit on the west side of the town along the road, and Keir waved the team to stop.

As the men shouted instructions, the entire team gradually stopped.

Whether they were armed people with swords in their hands or people with only carrying supplies, everyone stretched their heads to see what was happening in front of them and to stop so close to the town.

Of course, Kil knew why the other party came. Just like the armed caravan he met on the trade road before, everyone would become nervous when so many armed teams with swords approached.

"Should have sent someone out with advance notice. Just like what I did in Kendall's army."

Kil muttered, he lifted up his steel visor and rode forward to greet these people coming out of the town.

The five people who glanced over from a distance could tell at a glance that the four powerful guys outside were just the middlemen's guards. The middle-aged guy dressed in a gorgeous businessman's service is the real owner.

As the other party approached, Keir raised his chin but did not speak.

After approaching, the opponent also roughly confirmed the composition of Kiel's team with the naked eye.

Although most of the seven or eight hundred people were ordinary people carrying burdens on their backs, there were only a hundred or so rude fellows in front and behind the long queue with swords in their hands or on their waists. . But it is still a force that is not easy to deal with in the town of Dorne.

Especially the one in front of him, riding a tall and powerful prairie horse, wearing a mottled metal armor, with all kinds of weapons and equipment on his horse and body, he looked like a knight.

Especially the cold and hard atmosphere on the other side gave him the same feeling as the Northern Kendall Knight he met a few days ago.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome to the prosperous town of Dorne. I am the senior steward of the 'Fortune Fruit', one of the chambers of commerce in the town responsible for managing local order, Dundel Orilga Deripari. Everyone likes it. Call me by my alias: 'Dry Flat Ollier'. I wonder what I call this person?"

The steward did not see the family coat of arms or emblems of knights or nobles on Kiel's horses and armor, but Kiel was obviously the leader of this group, so he cautiously asked questions first, and then filled in the possible debt. The following etiquette.

Keel clenched his right fist and hit his left chest, and said casually: "Joe Keel, from Kendall, is a knight."

'Dry Oriel' immediately narrowed his eyes when he heard this, and said with a smile: "Ah, it turns out he is our friend, the most loyal and noble knight of Kendall County! I happened to meet Kendall a few days ago The two knights accompanying the army, don’t you know who they are?”

Kil chuckled and replied casually: "Knight Dodel Crow is my teacher, the mentor who led me into the path of knighthood. And the other one is Knight Punk Rumi, who I am with Both are very good friends and have fought together more than once. How about that?"

"Welcome, welcome. The town of Dorne welcomes the knights from Kendal County. Who are these, uh, bandit-like 'people'?"

Keir directly explained to the other party the general situation of the White Stone City Wall Checkpoint, letting the other party understand that these people were originally rural people fleeing from the southern provinces to avoid disaster.

"It's really disgusting. I'm sorry. I'm not talking about the nobles and lords of Montoka City. I'm just doing this. There must be people under the White Stone City Wall who are causing trouble and doing evil. After all, everyone knows that those adults rarely care. These are trivial matters. Recently, very few people who have taken refuge have gone west to the Western Province. It is better to let the remaining poor people pass through the White Stone City Wall Checkpoint, which can also reduce local conflicts."

The two of them were riding side by side and talking. Facing what the 'dry-faced Olier' man said, Keir just smiled and didn't take it to heart.

Because Keir knew that this thin, talkative middle-aged businessman, one of the major chambers of commerce involved in the management of Dorne Town, must actually be a bad guy but not stupid.

Idiots can't be senior stewards of the Great Chamber of Commerce, and good people can't survive in Dorne Town, let alone be sent out to contact large-scale unknown teams from outside.

Therefore, Keir just listened to what this man said and did not believe a single word.

Kiel noticed that after taking a closer look at the composition of Kiel's team, the businessman in charge signaled a rider to return to the town in advance to report the news. After asking Kiel's identity, the other party secretly signaled to his subordinates to let another rider run away in advance. Go back to town and report the news.

As soon as I thought about it, I understood that this was to convey a message. The previous person must have conveyed a message similar to 'safety for those who come', because it was confirmed that the people who came were all fleeing people. Although hundreds of them were armed and difficult to deal with, these people could be dealt with in the town. within the quantity.

The message conveyed by the latter person must be "related to the Kendall army a few days ago". This message is much clearer and more detailed. It is estimated that the method used to deal with the Kendall County army will be based on the number of Kiel's men. Deal with the people led by Keir all over again.

At this time, the team behind Kiel continued to move forward. While talking along the way, the other party led Kiel toward a huge walled open space on the south side of the town.

"Knight Kiel, this was originally a field that had been ownerless for many years. Just a few days ago, your Kendall army came to the town to supply supplies, so we selected this place for the army to camp for the night. After the army rested here for a day, , and walked towards the east road leading directly to the provincial capital."

After hearing this, Kil looked at the road extending eastward in the northeast, then nodded and said: "I don't want to go east, but south. Are the drinking water and excretion measures in this open space still in place?" "

The other party quickly said: "Yes, yes. For drinking water, there is a well near the town. The water is very clean and can be drank directly. And if many people defecate, we can send people over every day to collect the accumulated feces. There is a well next to it. A river, just pour it into it.”

So, Keir rode his horse and ran twice around the walled clearing on the soft ground. Then he came to the gate of the clearing and waved to his men waiting here: "Go in and set up camp!"

Then Keir asked Mr. 'Dry Oriel': "So, how do you prepare the wood for the fire?"

The other party was stunned for a moment, and then quickly replied: "Oh, firewood, firewood, Kendall's army brings its own firewood, but if your team needs it, there are shops selling these goods in the town. Please settle your people, Follow me around the town. Dorne Town is an important distribution center for goods and goods. It is the shining gold necklace in the western part of the southern province! There are all kinds of goods and services here! I guarantee you can find what you want. All the things!"

Keir squinted his eyes: "Products? Stores? You mean, I have to spend money to buy them?"