The old man you see with your phone is highly suspicious.

Furthermore, because of its proximity to the sea, the humid monsoon brings air from the sea level, resulting in a lot of humid air in the north. However, as soon as the temperature drops slightly, it will snow heavily here.

But further north lies the icy plains, the territory of magical beasts. It is said that a large number of icy beasts live there, attacking humans from time to time or completely slaughtering entire villages near the border.

Therefore, Rosmar is also a border battle fortress. In the angel's memory, she once set up border walls and outposts in this territory for a very long time and gave the people of this land protection from the cold.

Although the protection was weak, only enough to prevent the soldiers here from freezing to death or suffering frostbite in winter, she had indeed put a lot of effort into this border area. After all, she was born in primitive times and knew better about the disasters caused by northern monsters that could not survive the cold winter and came south to prey on them.

Therefore, under her rule, the area was generally peaceful. The brave warriors who were blessed by her and were not afraid of the cold guarded the northern border of the Papacy for generations. In the original Papacy of the Angels, they also had a very glorious title.

Known as the "Wild Hunt Warriors," they are among the most elite members of the Papacy's Twelve Warriors, having received numerous honors and even been personally commended by the Pope.

But now, Xue Dinglu saw the distant city walls and outposts, and everywhere he looked, there was only ruin.

The defensive line that once resisted the monsters has been completely reduced to ruins, and all the outposts and beacon towers that were responsible for transmitting messages have collapsed.

The once glorious Vatican and its warriors, along with the Wild Hunt, have all vanished into the annals of history.

Perhaps those who were blessed by angels and possessed cold resistance have all perished. Then who are the people left in this border fortress?

How did they fight off the monsters, and how did they survive in this place?

Xue's Law suddenly came to mind with a lot of thoughts.

Lan Lin'er got out of the car as well. A crystal snowflake landed on her head. It was the first time she had ever seen snow. She even caught the snowflake like a child and then secretly licked it when she realized that Xue Dinglu wasn't looking at her.

But the snow had already turned into water before she could lick it.

A large group of children left Rosmar on the road, seemingly heading towards the capital. This unusual behavior caught Lanlin'er's attention, and she asked, "Are you heading to the capital?"

The group of five or six children looked around, and then one of them, who seemed to be the leader, said, "Yes, we are going to work in the capital. We heard that you can eat your fill there without working, so we decided to go and make money."

This leader had long, ice-blue hair and was dressed in leather armor, giving her a rather heroic appearance.

In the capital city, a woman of this age would probably be a mother of several babies by now, but here on the northern border, she doesn't look like she's ever given birth.

With measurements of 82-62-79, she has a very healthy figure, so healthy that you can even vaguely see her abdominal muscles through her leather jacket. People who have given birth, especially those who have had many children, definitely don't have such a healthy figure.

Xue Lude thought to himself silently.

"No, here, the thing about receiving money for giving birth..." Lan Lin'er said.

"You mean those people tried to buy our tribe's children with money? We would never do that, but I heard that some other ethnic groups were planning to do the same thing. However, after handing over their children, they had their subsidies withheld, and they made a huge scene, which made us all laugh at them." The leader of the group said casually.

In the northern border region, they did not seem to rely on childbirth subsidies for survival, which instead brought a glimmer of light to Lan Lin'er's eyes.

Yes, this is the normal human world that my mother was talking about, not that hell where you can survive by giving birth.

As if she had found her own Eden, she asked impatiently, "If you don't rely on having children to receive subsidies, how do you survive?"

The blue-haired leader smiled, pointed to herself with her thumb, and said, "Of course, it's killing and eating magical beasts!"

"Huh?" This surprised Lan Lin'er.

All the farmland was controlled by the divine nobles, and the northern border did not rely on having children to receive subsidies; instead, they mainly made a living by killing magical beasts.

This lifestyle, which seemed to have returned to the primitive era, even made Xue Dinglu listen attentively.

"Come on, tell the noble lords of the capital our achievements. I've killed 148 magical beasts." The leader proudly pointed to herself with her thumb.

"I've killed 31!"

"I've killed 28!"

"I killed 19!"

"I...I only killed 6..."

The boy who killed six magical beasts immediately drew ridicule from his companions.

"Alright, let's not bother the noble gentlemen from the capital. We need to get to the capital before dark and find some work to make a living," said the leader of the group.

"Wait, don't go! You can live peacefully by killing monsters, why do you want to go to... the capital?" Lan Lin'er almost said "hell" before correcting herself to "the capital."

"Because a lot of people starve to death in winter, and the monsters are also skinny and ferocious in winter, making hunting extremely risky. At the same time, the beast tides that may occur in winter also cause monsters to swarm together, making them difficult to hunt. So every winter, a large number of people go to the capital to work, and it is said that they can send back a lot of money." The leader said, "I just don't know why, but none of the people who go to the capital come home."

"We also want to go to the capital to make a lot of money."

"Ha, someone who has only killed 6 magical beasts shouldn't talk big."

The boys and girls were playing and laughing, but Lan Lin'er was so anxious that she was about to cry.

What kind of jobs could there be in a place like the capital city that doesn't produce anything? Only birthing factories!

Seeing this healthy, cheerful, and energetic border girl going to work in that hellish place, Lan Lin'er felt nauseous just thinking about how this girl would be given large amounts of veterinary drugs to induce arousal, and then, under the influence of hormones, become like a sow, and then be turned into a machine that kept breeding like a pig.

Those of your clansmen who originally went to work in the capital may never come back!

They've all become pigs, only fit for breeding factories...

Don't go! I'm begging you, that place is hell!

She finally understood what the slave-catching team in the birthing factory was for. She guessed that her capture was just a side effect. The professional slave-catching team of the birthing factory in the capital was there to capture these children from the countryside who had come to work in the capital.

Chapter 273 A Countryman's Lament

Lan Lin'er realized she was bad with words, and she desperately tried to stop the group of boys and girls from going to work in the capital.

Because if they really went to the capital, the only outcome would be that the boys, if they had talent, would become exploited seed machines, while the girls would be given aphrodisiacs and turned into pigs.

Without magical talent, they wouldn't even have to wait until they were exploited; they would be hung in trees and become sworn brothers with millions of others.

However, these cheerful and optimistic rural children, who had high hopes for the future, were completely unaware of this reality. All they knew was that they could go to the city to work and make a lot of money, and that their families and villages would no longer have to rely on hunting monsters for a living.

"What's wrong? Why are you crying? Let me tell you, we didn't bully you." Seeing that Lan Lin'er was about to cry, the leader immediately told her friends to take a step back.

Xue Dinglu and Lan Lin'er looked like a prince or princess from the capital, and they were not to be trifled with by country folk like them. She stayed behind to chat and try to get closer to them, hoping to find out where there were high-paying jobs in the capital.

If the noble lords revealed some information, they would be thrilled to be able to secure a job like tending horses for them.

Although raising horses is tiring and dirty, it doesn't matter. For these rural folks who rely on the magical beasts in the icy plains to survive, and who seem to have regressed to a primitive tribal form, raising horses is a piece of cake. They have raised dragons and all kinds of livestock.

"No, no, don't go to the capital, it's hell. If you go there, you'll be tortured... Don't go... it's hell..." Lan Lin'er could only repeat these few words. She was really at a loss for words and didn't know how to explain. She was at a loss.

"If you want to become livestock that can only reproduce in cages, then go and work in the capital." Xue Dinglu, on the other hand, spoke the truth without any reservations.

"Huh? Eh?" The children were stunned, and even doubted that they had heard correctly.

"The only way to make money in the capital is to have children. There is no other way. If you are delusional and want to make a lot of money there, then go ahead and drown your ideals in a pig cage." Xue Dinglu directly revealed the cruelest side. He had already told them the truth. If they still wanted to go and die, there was no way to save them.

The children were stunned; they never imagined that the truth would be like this.

They wanted to argue back, but when they saw Xue Dinglu's face, they suddenly didn't know how to respond.

Xue Dinglu's face and white robe seemed to possess a magical power, exuding a strong persuasive force. It was as if anything he said had the power to convince everyone.

"Then, what about those of our clansmen who went to work in the capital before..." The leader of the children's group asked angrily, clenching her fist.

“They’ve become livestock that only know how to give birth.” Xue Dinglu ignored them, turned around, and got into the carriage.

“But… sir, if we don’t go to the capital, we won’t survive…” The leader kept her head down, looking unwillingly in the direction of the capital, her fists clenched tightly, biting her lip.

Actually, they said they were people going to work in the capital, but more importantly, they were people the tribe could no longer support...

Hunting alone can only support a limited number of people, and they often go hungry. Especially with winter approaching, the monsters will go berserk and gather to form a beast tide that can travel south to hunt.

At times like these, one can only stay in the city and dare not go out hunting, for going out means certain death.

The only option is to hold out until the beast tide passes, and then see if you can get lucky and pick up a lot of corpses that died in the beast tide. However, this is rare, as the corpses that die in the beast tide will soon be devoured by the surrounding monsters.

So every winter, all the tribes would gather together to check their remaining food supplies and count the tribe's population. If there wasn't enough food, the elders would leave the city and go to the vast ice fields to commit suicide, thus reducing the tribe's food supply.

But even if all the old people die, there still won't be enough food...

That means we can only send some people to the capital to see if they can find other ways to make a living.

And these are the people who, when they can no longer survive and there isn't enough food to get through the winter, will either starve to death or have no choice but to go to the capital to seek a living.

This is their way of surviving.

The capital city doesn't mind that people in the border regions don't adhere to the survival-oriented approach, because the land isn't in their hands, and how many people can they support solely by hunting? Those who can't support themselves will inevitably come to the capital city.

Now that we've arrived in the capital, there's only one fate: to become an endless source of fertilizer for the divine tree, causing the number of corpses hanging on it to increase.

This is the siphon effect of the capital city on all border regions. Ultimately, all arable land is in the hands of the divine nobles, and they have no choice but to follow the structure set by the divine nobles in order to survive.

As for resistance?

How many combat personnel could border tribes that rely solely on hunting for a living have?

And these divine nobles, who can cultivate all the farmland in the world through those plant-like monsters called "Deadpools," how powerful would they be if the Deadpools stopped farming and instead gathered together to start killing?

Not to mention that the divine nobles also control the entire magic academy, and even have the God-King backing them up. To the natives of this world, the Mind Flayer who holds part of the world's power is the true and undisputed God-King. How can these border tribesmen possibly resist?

The greatest resistance they could offer was to secretly steal a few of the city lord's gold coins.

This is the lament of these country folk.

The carriage slowly made its way towards Rosmar, the original home of the Wild Hunt warriors and the region that once nurtured the elite legions of the entire Papacy. But now, it was all in ruins.

The vines and the city walls are now covered with the marks of time, and there are countless gaps in the walls.

The high walls that were originally meant to protect against the beast tides from the north from plundering southwards have completely lost their original purpose. As for the tribespeople living here, they simply hide when the beast tides come, close the city gates, and let the beast tides go south.

Anyway, the beast tide is just heading south to wreak havoc on other cities, or to wreak havoc on the fields in Winter Valley that those gods and nobles sent their dead servants to plant.

Deep Purple-Red heard that at its most outrageous, the beast tide was almost reaching the capital.

The fierce hunters who once braved the wind and snow to defend against the beast tides are gone, their glory is gone, and only the border tribesmen who now barely survive remain.

Not knowing what the angel thought, Xue Luding looked at the Frost Signal Halberd floating behind Lan Lin'er. In fact, in an older story, the Wild Hunt tribe here was the second tribe that the angel conquered. She promised to give the Wild Hunt tribe glory and a future, and the Wild Hunt tribe would forever guard the north.

I wonder what the angels think now.

The angel remained silent. Perhaps she was filled with regret, anger, or perhaps she was thinking of the covenant and vows she had made. But with the passage of time, all of that seemed to have been buried deep within this icy plain.

"Wild Hunt warriors, at least they haven't betrayed me," came the angel's voice.

"Ah."

"It's my fault. I didn't protect them and didn't give them the future they deserve."

"Ah."

Xue's law simply responded with a single word. Behind the carriage, the group of children who were preparing to go to the capital to work were dejected, some even covering their faces and crying. At that moment, they only felt confusion and fear about the future.

I could only follow the carriage numbly, not knowing where else I could go.