Goddess Kaleidoscope

"He's still your own son, it's not fair to trade him for someone else, is it?"

"Ha! So what if he's my own son? I can just find another woman and have another one. I've heard the women in your village are quite nice, haha..."

Zach, standing on the hillside, spoke casually, seemingly unconcerned about Buddy's life or death, but his hand gripping his sword tightened. He knew perfectly well that the key to negotiation was not to reveal his true intentions prematurely, so he absolutely could not let the other side discover his true thoughts; it was best to strike first and put pressure on them.

So Zach drew his longsword and walked up to one of the villagers.

"How about this? I feel like I'm losing out by trading two for one. How about I take some parts off each of these two and make two halves to trade with you? If you don't say anything, I'll take that as a yes!"

As soon as Zack finished speaking, before Lud could react, he plunged his sword into the hand of one of the villagers. Then, he twisted the blade twice and severed the villager's little finger and ring finger along with a small piece of his palm. The villager, whose hand had been cut off, let out an extremely shrill scream, which caused the bandits to cheer.

In the darkness, the villagers' screams clearly reached the ears of every villager near the temple. Everyone's face turned pale, and some of the more timid ones even squatted down and began to sob quietly.

Noticing the reactions of the surrounding villagers, Lud realized he had already lost this round. The two captured villagers might not be any important figures; their presence or absence wouldn't make a difference to the village. But if they were allowed to be tortured to death by the bandits, their morale would likely collapse as well.

And this is exactly what Zach hoped for. He knew clearly the difference between the villagers and the warriors, and fear would remind them of the fact that they were sheep!

At this moment, Zak slashed another villager with his sword, this time severing his ear. A bandit wrapped the "parts" cut off by the two men in a rag, then rode his horse straight up the hillside, waved the blood-soaked rag in his hand outside the barricade, and threw it directly into the temple courtyard.

The terrifying grin on the other person's face shifted and changed in the flickering firelight, making him look like a humanoid demon that had invaded the human world from hell!

"Mr. Zack, how about this? You can exchange one of your sons, and we'll provide some grain in exchange for the other one. What do you think?"

"Sure! One person, one cartload of grain, no bargaining!"

Upon hearing that the mountain had relented, a triumphant smile spread across Zack's face.

Soon, the temple side moved aside the barricades, and seven or eight villagers wielding pitchforks and sickles led the way, escorting several others carrying supplies out. They transported about a cartload of grain and a bundle of Buddy to the hillside. Zak, keeping his promise, only sent four men to escort two villagers forward to exchange for the hostages.

After exchanging hostages and supplies, the villagers practically fled, while Buddy returned to Zach. Father and son faced each other; Buddy lowered his head, not daring to look at his father's face, while Zach spoke in a low, stern voice.

"Lift your head and look at me!"

"Father, I..."

"Snapped!"

With a crisp slap, Buddy was mercilessly knocked to the ground by Zack, who had a cold face, and blood immediately seeped from the corner of his mouth.

"Useless! You can't even handle this simple task. You still have a lot to learn!"

After beating his son, Zach turned away and ignored him, raising his blood-stained sword and pointing it at the temple on the hillside, shouting orders to his henchmen.

"Men! Your boss is in a bad mood today. How about we charge in and chop down those ungrateful bumpkins?"

"Alright! Kill all the men, leave the women alive!"

"Charge!!!"

Under Zak's orders, the bandits who had just exchanged hostages launched a frontal assault without saying a word, with more than two hundred people howling as they rushed forward.

Faced with the horde of bandits rushing up, the villagers quickly set up barricades and closed the gates. Then, they desperately threw bricks and stones they had prepared beforehand down the hillside over the courtyard wall. This was the easiest means of long-range attack available to the village.

However, the bandits were well-prepared for the stone attack; almost every one of them carried a crudely made wooden shield. These things might be useless against the standard weapons of a regular army, but they were very effective at blocking stones thrown by the villagers.

Within a distance of 100-200 meters, the bandits quickly rushed up the hillside. A group of them, braving the stones and boiling water thrown by the villagers, quickly destroyed the crudely made barricades at the front, clearing a path to the gate.

Just as the vicious bandits were about to charge, the front-line soldiers on both sides could almost see each other's expressions. Suddenly, a loud, powerful shout rang out from among the villagers.

"Now! Ignite it!"

Before the bandits who rushed up side by side could understand what was happening, the villagers in front suddenly parted to the sides, creating a gap more than a meter wide, revealing a strange-looking hollow piece of wood. Behind this wooden stump, a villager holding a torch was extending a flame behind the stump.

The bandits at the front saw a flash of white light, followed by a loud bang, and an unprecedented and terrifying force blew them all away, knocking down a large number of people.

"Aaaaaah! My eyes! My face!!!"

The sudden special attack caught the bandits off guard. Many of them even subconsciously thought that there was a magician among the villagers who was pretending to be weak while actually being strong, and that he had taken them by surprise.

So, to Zack's astonishment, the henchmen who had charged forward with such ferocity suddenly fled in disarray after a loud bang.

Lu De stood inside the courtyard wall, watching the fleeing bandits, and muttered to himself with a hint of smugness.

"Our Great Ming Dynasty has the best firearms in the world!"

End of this chapter

Based on the village's existing conditions, Lu De did indeed manage to build several "cannons" before the bandits attacked his home, and the actual combat effect was just as he had hoped, catching the bandits off guard.

Like most transmigrators in novels, running to a fantasy world where cold weapons are still used to build guns and cannons, and then remotely defeating various sword saints and mages, has always been one of the many romantic ideas men have, and Lu De is no exception.

But when he actually tried to do it, Ludwig found that he was stumped not only by figuring out the gun barrel, but also by figuring out how to make the black powder.

One part sulfur, two parts saltpeter, three parts charcoal—the ancient Chinese ancestors did indeed leave behind a very concise recipe for gunpowder. However, obtaining all three seemingly insignificant raw materials in Pine Village was no easy task. Furthermore, given his primary focus on missionary work and deification, Lu De temporarily set aside the preparation of the blackening agent.

However, Rudd later discovered that this world actually had alchemical products similar to gunpowder, and that obtaining them was not difficult.

After the autumn harvest, the villagers of Songshu Village, feeling secure with surplus grain, planned to hold a grand harvest festival this year. So, when the village chief sent people to the city to buy goods last time, he brought back a small truckload of fireworks.

Lud was quite surprised when he first saw this thing, but he was soon reminded of his memories that he had actually seen it before, but had simply forgotten about it.

Like gunpowder on Earth, the fireworks powder in this world is a byproduct of alchemists' messing around with Xia Ji Ba. Its composition is different from gunpowder, but the effect after ignition is the same, and the colors are more vibrant, so it was made into fireworks.

It's worth mentioning that when fireworks powder was first discovered, the alchemist who created it considered selling it to nobles for military applications. However, the nobles, upon seeing it, realized that this fancy contraption was nowhere near as powerful as the fireballs conjured by magicians, and therefore showed no interest whatsoever.

To fight off the bandits, Lu De obtained these fireworks from the village chief and organized a group of people to make a batch of "homemade firearms." However, what's really funny is that Lu De thought he was making a Ming Dynasty fire lance, but in reality, the fire lance was a contraption invented by the Song Dynasty, and what he made was more like the wooden cannons used by the Eighth Route Army. In a sense, it was full of comical moments.

These firearms were made using readily available sawn timber from the carpenter's shop. To quickly hollow them out, they first sawed the timber vertically, carved a straight groove on each side, and then put the timber back together. They used clay to seal the joints, and the blacksmith made hoops to secure them.

They then sealed one end with clay, dried it with fire, and poured in explosive powder obtained from dismantling fireworks. To increase the kill area, Ludwig did not load these wooden cannons with solid projectiles, but instead stuffed them with a lot of iron filings and small stones, making them large-sized shotgun shells.

In actual combat, this one-time-use large shotgun was a sensation, wiping out a large number of enemies with a single shot! Although no one was killed, more than a dozen were injured, and the morale of the opposing side was successfully shattered, with many more falling and injuring themselves as they tumbled down the mountain.

In the first direct confrontation, the villagers achieved a resounding victory with zero casualties, greatly boosting their morale and dispelling the previous gloom. Everyone looked at Lud with reverence, praising the merciful female medicine goddess and thanking her for bestowing wisdom upon the priest in their time of crisis, helping the villagers defend themselves against the bandits!

Looking at the villagers bursting with faith, Lud turned to glance at Aina, who was also looking excited, and couldn't help but secretly complain to himself.

"This goddess doesn't seem like someone with any wisdom at all!?"

On the other side, Zack looked at his men who had fled back in a sorry state, his expression growing increasingly cold, so angry that he was practically trembling.

At this moment, the squad leader who led the charge came up to him, covering his face. When Zack saw the guy's appearance, he couldn't help but frown. Most of his face was a bloody mess, like a honeycomb, full of holes of all sizes, and studded with all sorts of random things.

The unfortunate fellow dared not cover his face, and said tremblingly.

"Boss, there's a magician in this village!"

"Bullshit! How could there be a magician in this run-down village? That dilapidated temple probably isn't even a major sect. What are you afraid of?"

"But look at the injuries I and my brothers have!"

Zach looked around and saw that the brothers who rushed forward were indeed all wounded and looked very miserable, but none of them had died.

At that moment, Zack noticed the wooden shield in one of the people's hands, walked over, snatched it, and then held it up to show everyone present.

"This is the magic you're talking about? It can't even break a shield made of a piece of broken wood? You've all been fooled! This is just a little trick those villagers pulled out to scare cowards like you!"

Looking at the black, but intact wooden shield in Zack's hand, the bandits present exchanged bewildered glances, realizing that their leader, that bastard, did seem to have some merit in what he said.

Those who can become bandits are basically all brave and ruthless villains. In addition, Zack often preaches his "wolf eats sheep" view, so his men don't want to be humiliated by a group of villagers.

So, incited by Zak, these outlaws quickly regained their confidence as professional bandits and prepared to attack again.

On the temple side, Lude was also observing the bandits down the slope from afar. Seeing that they did not retreat after their first failed attack, but were regrouping and preparing to try again, he immediately felt quite troubled.

It's clear that Zha's group is of good quality; they're definitely top-tier among mountain bandits. On the other hand, their side only has about 150 villagers capable of fighting, and they only have four wooden cannons left. The difference in combat strength between the two sides is still obvious.

As Lud was pondering how to repel the enemy, he suddenly felt someone tug at his sleeve from behind. He turned around and saw something quite astonishing—Aina was glowing.

"Holy crap! What happened to you?"

"I...I don't know, it just feels a bit hot here."

Pointing to her chest, which was still very prominent despite being wrapped in strips of cloth, Aina's face was radiating golden light, and she kept fanning herself with her two small hands, giving the impression of a hot autumn night despite the rain.

Seeing that the surrounding villagers were busy reinforcing their defenses and no one had noticed them yet, Lude quickly pulled the little nun, who was about to evolve into a light bulb, to a secluded corner.

Looking at Aina's unusual behavior and hearing the prayers of women and children in the temple not far away, Lud realized something.

End of this chapter

027. The Goddess Appears

Down the hillside, the bandits rallied and prepared for another attack. To guard against the villagers' terrifying "magical weapons," the thugs went to the deserted village, dismantled dozens of doors to make makeshift shield towers, and then formed a shield array, slowly approaching the temple.

Seeing the bandits attacking again, the village chief Luo organized the villagers to set up another wooden cannon and aim it at the bandits' "turtle shell".

But before the bandits could even get within the meager range of the wooden cannons, their tortoise-shell formation revealed some gaps, and they launched a ranged attack first.

"It's arrows! Everyone be careful."

Hearing the sound of a bowstring being plucked in the darkness, old Rom, a former soldier, immediately changed his expression and warned the villagers around him to take cover. It had been raining for some time, and the visibility was so low that the bandits' archers and the village hunters hadn't had a chance to demonstrate their skills.

The sudden attack caught the villagers off guard. Even with Old Rom's warning, several slow-reacting villagers were still shot and fell to the ground, howling in pain.

In an instant, the villagers, who were under immense tension, were thrown into disarray. Ron, who was in charge of lighting the cannon, flinched and fired it prematurely. As expected, the cannon was fired too early due to insufficient range, resulting in a wasted bang.

"You damn bastard! You put it out too early!"

"Father! I...I..."

"Stop nagging, just get a new one!"

Urged on by Rom, several villagers hurriedly replaced the cannon barrels on the launcher, but at that moment the bandits' tortoise-shell formation rushed up and quickly destroyed the barricades in front of the gate with axes.

The bandits had already figured out from the previous blank shot that the villagers' secret weapon was nothing special. These guys weren't stupid, and they wouldn't just stand by and watch them change the barrel and fire a second shot, so they acted very quickly.

As the leading bandit, a burly man, charged forward wielding a machete, stepping onto a rocky outcrop as if about to leap in, while the other villagers, pale and useless, were left helpless, Old Rom, disregarding his advanced age, grabbed a spear and bravely thrust it at the bandit.

Despite his advanced age and limp, the old man had served in the king's army and received formal military training. He still remembered what the instructors had told them during basic training.

"Fighting with etiquette is the way of knights. We peasant soldiers don't care about that. Today I'll teach you something practical!"

Thanks to this "pragmatic" instructor, young Rom spent a month in basic training learning only "lower-level fighting techniques." Therefore, his thrust landed squarely on the bandit's groin; the entire movement was fluid and precise, emphasizing "steadiness, accuracy, and ruthlessness!"

And so, the bandits who were swaggering and showing off just a moment ago suddenly let out a mournful cry that was not human, and rolled down like a hunched shrimp, clutching their bleeding crotch.

Old Rom then flicked the blood-stained tip of his gun and shouted at the top of his lungs to the surrounding villagers.

"If you don't want to die, fight them! Stab them in the groin!!!"