This young master truly has the ambition of a hero.

At this time, Dick took the initiative to send someone to deliver a message to the Nameless Valley, inviting Karajo to meet at the Blood Wolf Gang's stronghold.

After the Blood Wolf Gang was wiped out, Dick chose to use this place as an outpost base. While sending prisoners and rescued hostages in batches, he also called in craftsmen to repair the place.

Compared to the Vulture Gang's stronghold on Ghost Cry Peak, the Blood Wolf Gang's stronghold, while lacking a strategic location, was in a very good position. It was a transportation hub in the western mountains, a junction of multiple mountain roads.

After Dick sent someone to deliver a letter to Caraccio, he thought the other party would hesitate for a while before deciding to come and see him. Unexpectedly, only two days later, the other party came to his door alone.

Upon meeting Dick in person, Caraccio's expression was strangely solemn. It seemed that he had made up his mind before coming, and he got straight to the point as soon as they met.

“If I surrender, can you spare the wild people of the Nameless Valley? I assure you, they are not colluding with bandits, but are just poor people who cannot pay their taxes. You can let them go and cultivate the land. As long as they have a stable life, no one wants to stay in the mountains.”

Caraccio spoke in a very humble manner. The easy annihilation of the two major bandit gangs had made Caraccio realize the difference between the new governor and those useless idiots of the past. His good deeds of treating many patients with cold-related illnesses in winter had also spread throughout the area. The recently promulgated land reclamation decree clearly stated that wild people were allowed to come down from the mountains and settle down again, and the governor's office could forgive past offenses.

Although the wild people usually hide in the mountains, they have never completely cut off contact with the outside world. Occasionally, they will go down the mountain to buy daily necessities such as salt, or even disguise themselves and sneak into the city.

Carragher knew that if they fought back with force, Nameless Valley was no match for the regular army, and Dick's carrot and stick approach had also shaken the resolve of many.

This new governor is not a bastard, not a beast, not an animal, and not a parasite.

He seems like a really nice person!

So when Dick sent a ninja to place the personal letter requesting a meeting directly on the table in Karajo's cabin, the savage's pillar of support and the great hero who had killed the villainous governor made his decision.

However, Caraccio was actually overthinking things. Dick had Red Leaf put the letter directly on his desk, which was indeed a form of protest and hoped that the thousands of wild people in the western mountains could come down from the mountains and return to being ordinary people. But he really didn't intend to kill Caraccio.

Dick actually admired this guy quite a bit; he was a real hero.

Moreover, killing him, while it might intimidate the savages, would also incite hatred, turning the dead Carajo into a totem for their rebellion, which was not what Dick wanted to see.

So Dick quickly told the other man to stop, explaining that he had come to "appease" him.

"You're a talented person. Would you be interested in working with me?"

"I am a wanted criminal."

“I can grant you a pardon. The savages trust you, so you can become their village chief. If you do well, I can even promote you to town mayor.”

Dick had considered dispersing the savages who had come down from the mountains into various villages, thus breaking them up. However, after learning about the situation in the western mountains, Dick hoped to incorporate the Nameless Valley and establish villages and towns for them.

After all, the western mountainous areas are also within the territory of Laguge. Moving people out is one solution, but resettling people to the border is also an effective strategy to squeeze the living space of bandits.

Besides, there are mines in the western mountains!

Although the local mining industry mainly produces cold iron, that stuff is a royal supply and is subject to extremely strict regulations. Because it cannot be freely traded, it does not generate much economic benefit and has even been a burden on the local people for a long time.

Dick already has plans to reclaim the eastern plains, but the development of the western mountains can also proceed simultaneously. If Karajo can bring most of the wildlings to join him, then what needs to be done next will become much simpler.

Chapter 044: Assassination and Counter-Assassination

Caraccio's defection saved Dick a lot of trouble.

Dick learned through inquiry that this was thanks to the "assistance" from the Deer Head Gang.

According to Karajo, the wild tribes led by the Nameless Valley have never been on good terms with the three major bandit gangs in the western mountains, but most of the time they have maintained a state of mutual non-interference.

However, with the successive destruction of the Vulture Gang and the Blood Wolf Gang, the Deer Head Gang, unwilling to sit idly by and wait for their demise, repeatedly proposed to the Nameless Valley to join forces against the Governor's Mansion, but Carajo sternly rejected them each time.

In Caraccio's own words, he was a rough man, not particularly clever but not stupid either. If he had to choose between "a governor with a decent reputation" and "a group of mentally unstable cult lunatics," even if the stag-headed demon had kicked his brain, he wouldn't choose the latter.

Initially, when the Vulture Gang was first wiped out, Carajo intended to remain neutral. He didn't want the impoverished mountain people to be drawn into this potentially deadly conflict. If all else failed, he would simply follow their old strategy for dealing with encirclements and retreat into the deep mountains.

But the Deer Head Gang cultists did something outrageous at this time... They raided the Nameless Valley, robbed the villagers of their remaining food, and even set the village on fire.

This sneak attack thoroughly enraged the Nameless Valley, but it also drove them into a desperate situation.

Without enough food, and in this season when the snow and ice have not yet melted, they will not escape the fate of starving to death, whether they stay in the valley or retreat into the deep mountains and forests.

Left with no other choice, Caraccio finally decided to use his own head to buy a way out for the savages who had always trusted him; it was the only solution he could think of.

After understanding the general situation, Dick immediately said that there was no need to worry about the food problem. As long as the hundreds of people in the Nameless Valley were willing to re-register as citizens of Lagug, he, as the governor, would not ignore their lives. However, in return, they would have to obey the governor's orders from now on.

As for Caraccio, Dick had a good impression of him, so he said with a smile.

"I'll take your head, but I'll put it on your neck for now. You'll just have to work for me from now on."

"You really won't kill me."

"Do you really want to die?"

Dick chuckled and countered, "Laguge Mountain is far from the capital. As long as the annual special supply of cold iron is delivered in the correct weight, the higher-ups don't bother with such a remote place. The governor here is an absolute ruler."

In fact, Dick had checked the territory records and found that "the villain Carajo" had been beheaded no less than three times in the past twenty years, as if Carajo were immortal and his head could grow back like leeks after being cut off.

These former governors all used the pretext of suppressing bandits to amass wealth for themselves and curry favor with their superiors, but Dick did the opposite. He was genuinely suppressing bandits, but he concealed his achievements.

Dick kept his word and the next day urgently allocated a batch of grain to the mountains, personally leading a hundred private soldiers to escort the grain to the Nameless Valley.

Carracio, who was following Dick around, saw that the private army was very familiar with the place. When he thought of the letter that had been delivered to his house without his knowledge, Carracio began to have doubts.

It turns out that their supposedly well-hidden hideout had actually been located long ago.

When the private army arrived at the Valley of No Name, it caused quite a commotion in the village. It wasn't until Dick stepped forward to identify himself and state his purpose, and with Caraccio vouching for him, that the crowd was calmed down.

Looking at the ragged, emaciated villagers in the dilapidated village, Dick thought to himself that even if they hid and didn't pay taxes, these people were actually not doing well.

At that moment, Dick seemed to remember something and turned to Caraccio to ask.

Are there any other people in the village suffering from cold-related illnesses?

"Have."

Having received a positive response, Dick immediately summoned Natasha and instructed her to take the pre-prepared medicine to rescue the people first, while he told the army cook to start preparing a meal.

When Dick took office in Lagug last year, he purchased a large amount of lard and cheap coarse grains.

The cook directly boiled lard, coarse salt, and water in a pot to make soup. Then he smashed black bread that was hard enough to crack open a person's skull (it couldn't be cut) and poured it into the boiling soup to cook together until it became a paste.

To be honest, Dick himself couldn't stomach the food, which looked like vomit; just looking at it made him nauseous. But the villagers, who had been without food for several days, devoured it, their hunger making them too lazy to even consider doubts like "could it be poisonous?"

Soon, the village's population data was tallied, and it was more than Dick had expected, with nearly seven hundred people. However, less than a quarter of them were young and middle-aged adults, which seemed suspicious.

Normally, winter in the mountains is tough, and young adults should be more likely to survive than the elderly and weak. However, in the nameless valley, the majority of the inhabitants are the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled.

When Dick asked, he found out that this was another disaster caused by the Deer Head Gang!

Originally, the Valley of No Name had only a little over three hundred people, but in the past month or two, several stranded wild people had come seeking refuge there. Karachio learned upon inquiry that they had been attacked by the Deer Head Gang.

Seemingly determined to oppose the Governor's Mansion, the Deer Head Gang has been trying to strengthen its power in recent times by targeting weak villages and forcing them to join its ranks. If they refuse, they resort to violence and plunder.

Those who managed to escape had no choice but to seek refuge in the nameless valley, and so the number of people gathered there gradually grew to its current size.

Just seven days earlier, on the night Dick launched his surprise attack on the Blood Wolf Gang, the cultists of the Deer Head Gang also attacked the Nameless Valley, which forced Caraccio to surrender to the governor.

When Dick heard about the Deer Head Gang's outrageous tactics, he wanted to laugh but was too embarrassed to, feeling that if he laughed out loud here, his career as governor would be over.

Dick had been hesitant about whether to suppress or appease the scattered and diverse tribes in the western mountains, but the Deer Head Gang did him a huge favor. They won over those who were inclined to join the bandits, while the rest automatically gathered in the Nameless Valley, effectively filtering out the population for him.

Over the next few days, Dick began preparations for the battle to wipe out the Deer Head Gang.

The main force of the private army of three hundred men was assembled and waiting at the outpost, while in the Nameless Valley, Dick was personally in charge, reorganizing the wild people who had been brought under his command.

Dick didn't expect these people to be cannon fodder to fight the Deer Head Gang, but Nameless Valley was indeed a very suitable place to establish a settlement.

So Dick renamed the place "Valley Village" and publicly appointed Caraccio, who used the alias "Laccio," as the village chief, allowing the village to form a fifty-person militia self-defense force.

As it is a newly built village, it enjoys the same three-year tax exemption policy as other villages established by the pioneers.

Dick knew that the savages would not submit to him so easily. Many people, including Carajo, were actually watching and waiting. After all, the influence left by so many previous insect governors was still quite strong. It was not something that Dick could immediately reverse the bad impression by doing a few good deeds.

But it was precisely thanks to these "predecessors" that their brutal, beast-like rule in the local area had already lowered the locals' expectations of the governor enough. When Dick arrived, he didn't even need to achieve anything remarkable; just being a decent person in terms of character was enough to surprise and delight the locals.

After receiving relief grain from the Governor's Office, Valley Village temporarily became a refugee camp. The village rebuilt its walls and moats to guard against possible attacks by the Deer Head Gang. At the same time, it welcomed all refugees who came to seek refuge and built a large number of simple wooden houses as refugee camps.

Caraccio specifically reminded Dick to carefully screen the refugees, as he had previously suffered a loss because the refugees he had gathered included spies from the Deer Head Gang, which led to his successful sneak attack.

But Dick just laughed it off with an air of nonchalance.

"It's alright, I was worried they wouldn't come."

Caraccio was an honest and upright man. He enjoyed a leader-like prestige among the savages not only because of his martial prowess in wielding two berserker axes more than twenty years ago, which allowed him to single-handedly cut through the guards and behead the governor, but also because of his generous and righteous character.

After getting to know him for a while, Dick realized that while the guy had a lot of charisma, his personal abilities were just so-so.

I'm not stupid, that's all!

Caraccio was also unlucky. He had been hiding in the mountains for so many years, but he never had a smart enough strategist who was willing to assist him. Otherwise, the Valley of No Name might not be such an easy place to deal with as a hermit village.

Dick thought for a moment, but didn't tell Caraccio that there were actually spies and ninjas under his command watching the refugee camp, waiting for the Deer Head Gang's agents to infiltrate. He only told him that he was prepared and that he didn't need to worry too much; he would resolve the Deer Head Gang issue before spring.

After seeing Caraccio off, Dick continued to process official documents in his tent, with only Joel, a seemingly beautiful and frail female secretary, by his side.

However, at that moment, in the corner of the tent, which was in the blind spot of the two, a dark shape suddenly emerged silently from the shadows, transforming into the upper body of a humanoid figure, and suddenly threw a throwing knife at the back of Dick's head.

But before the throwing knife could hit Dick, it was kicked away by Joel, who was holding the documents in both hands.

And his originally憨憨 (simple and honest) expression turned sharp the moment he entered battle mode.

"Who goes there!?"

The sneak attack failed, but the creature lurking in the shadows did not give up. Instead, it leaped up to launch a full-scale attack. Seeing this, Joel was about to meet the attack and protect Dick when he was shocked to find himself frozen in place, unable to move.

This is also Joel's weakness. Although her physical abilities are ridiculously strong, she is a pure physical attack type character and lacks the means to deal with supernatural abilities such as magic and sorcery.

Seeing that he was about to succeed, the shadowy figure, whose appearance resembled "Little Black" (a suspect in Detective Conan), revealed a smug, sinister smile. But just as his right hand, which had transformed into a sharp blade, was about to strike Dick's seemingly unguarded neck, Dick's figure suddenly seemed to melt away, causing his shadow blade, which could cut through iron like mud, to awkwardly swing and miss.

Before he could react, the real Dick peeked out from under the curtain at the table, holding a "magic shotgun" that was a complete knock-off of the M1897, and pulled the trigger at the shadowy figure who was right in front of him.

Chapter 045: Joel, the "Time Freeze"

Having stolen Earth's technology for decades, this world naturally also has guns. Furthermore, by incorporating some local magical techniques, the performance of their magical firearms is in no way inferior to their Earth counterparts, and they even have significant advantages in some aspects.

Military technology such as firearms has always been monopolized by the royal family. If commoners were found to possess firearms, they would be immediately executed. If nobles used firearms to arm their private armies, it would be considered treason.

Although firearms were contraband, nobles, as a privileged class, could not openly arm their private armies with firearms on a large scale, but they could secretly acquire a few to play with without any taboo.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Dick, as the son of a duke and the governor of his fiefdom, could pull out a loaded shotgun from his spatial bracelet (which was stored in the storage space and did not need to be discharged accidentally) and use it as a weapon for self-defense.

Dick had long anticipated that the Deer Head cultists would send someone to assassinate him, but he didn't know the time, place, or method of assassination.

So Dick deliberately created a weakness for the enemy. He stayed in the valley village every day, either comforting the newly taken-in wild people or dealing with official documents in the camp, deliberately keeping the guards away.

But in reality, with Joel in the open and three female ninjas in the shadows, Dick, who was wearing a bunch of protective charms, appeared calm on the surface, but in his heart, he was as tense as a fisherman holding a fishing rod.

Just as he was waiting and waiting, wondering if the other party was even more cunning than himself, the cultists finally made their move, and immediately subjected him to a "magic and cruel trick" he had never seen before.

More accurately, this should be considered some kind of evil magic!

The moment the trigger was pulled, the shadowy figure felt as if he had been struck in the chest by a heavy hammer; his entire body flew backward, crashing through the tent and flying outside.

Dick, who had crawled out from under the table, also gave chase. With incredibly fast hand speed, he loaded the gun and pulled the trigger in succession, firing all five shotgun shells with different damage attributes.

He wasn't sure what kind of magic or sorcery the opponent was using, but there was a high probability that one of these five elemental bullets would be a perfect counter to the opponent.

As Dick had predicted, the first three bullets only forced the shadowy figure to retreat, but the fourth "Holy Light Blessing Bullet" had an effect comparable to a "critical hit," breaking through the opponent's defenses on the spot and directly blasting half of his body apart.

Dick quickly pulled out five more Holy Light bullets from his spatial bracelet and popped them into the shotgun whose magazine had just been emptied.

Here's a little-known fact about the Hessian Empire: the Holy Church, which worships the gods of the divine realm, received special permission from the royal family to "borrow" a batch of light firearms from the Royal Guard by providing them with accompanying priests.

The Holy Church discovered that revolvers using specially made silver bullets were incredibly effective exorcism tools, and also very easy to carry. Using this for exorcism was far more convenient than the old method of chasing after ghosts and monsters with a silver sword in one hand and a bottle of holy water in the other, splashing and slashing them.

Dick, for some reason, obtained the status of "apprentice exorcist" from the church, thus having a completely legal channel to purchase these guns and ammunition at his own expense.

At this moment, the three female ninjas who had been hiding in the shadows finally appeared. The three of them formed a triangle and surrounded the shadowy figure in the middle. Their hands moved with dazzling speed, forming a magic-sealing barrier that trapped the shadowy figure inside, preventing him from escaping.

In the original world of the three female ninjas, supernatural evil forces have existed since ancient times, and they all came from a ninja clan that fought against the demon god.

So you're saying these three are all "Taimanin" (demon-slaying ninjas), but actually there's not much difference.

Looking at the shadowy figure inside the barrier, who resembled a trapped beast, Dick gave the three female ninjas an "OK" sign. The combo they unleashed was incredibly smooth.

Then Dick turned around and saw Joel still bound and unable to move inside the tent.

This girl really has no magic resistance at all, which makes Dick a little worried. If she encounters a mind control-type spell attack, she'll probably be powerless to resist.

But he had to admit that seeing the other person motionless as if time had stood still, he couldn't suppress his mischievous urge to play a prank.

"Hey! What did you do to my people?"

He asked the shadowy figure inside the barrier a question in a rather irritable manner, only to be met with a barrage of curses and snarls from the figure.