Banner of the Evil God

"I can't believe that someone could be so heartless. He is totally heartless!" Kabala, the chief priest of the Void Mask Church in Dal City, angrily pounded the table, and the anger in his eyes almost burned the cup of herbal tea in front of him dry. "These poor people have finally lived a decent life for a few days, and he immediately sent tax collectors... Why didn't he act so quickly when there was a natural disaster and needed relief!"

"Just look at the faction aura on him. How could a guy from the evil faction do disaster relief?" The older priest said with a smile, "Although the faction aura is not very reliable, it is not so wrong most of the time. So we shouldn't have expected anything from him."

"But I never thought that he would not help, but would make trouble!"

"Many lords are like this." A young paladin said, "That's why your majesty taught us to use our own hands to promote the progress of the world."

Kabala, the chief priest, pondered for a long time and nodded heavily: "You are right, It is places like this that need us most. Look at those poor people. If we don't come to help them, what will they do? "

"But the problem now is how to get rid of those tax collectors?" Another priest asked, "I think it won't be long before they dig out the old tax documents. Then we won't have an excuse."

Kabala smiled coldly, with a sneer in his eyes: "What's the use of digging out the old tax documents? They must first be able to prove that the poor people lived in the city at that time and did not pay taxes."

"Huh?" The priest was stunned and asked, "Didn't they always live in the city? And... they didn't have money to pay taxes."

"My fellow believers! This kind of thing is not enough, there must be evidence!" Kabbala laughed, "Without evidence, who knows whether it is true or false!"

"Isn't there a 'detect lie'?" A paladin asked.

"Fellow church member, I can tell at a glance that you are not from the Gold Coin Federation!" Without waiting for Kabbalah to answer, another paladin laughed, "We in the Gold Coin Federation never believe in 'detecting lies'. There is a famous rule here - if there is no evidence, it didn't happen."

"There is no way, which businessman doesn't do something sneaky? How many businessmen in the world do business seriously? Cheating is the common sense of businessmen, as long as no one catches the evidence." The paladin said, "This situation is of course not good, but we can now take advantage of this tradition."

"One of the arts of struggle is to grasp the situation at any time, use all available conditions, and turn disadvantages into advantages." The older priest said.

As he spoke, everyone laughed.

"In short, as long as the lord can't provide evidence that these poor people lived here and didn't pay taxes, they don't owe taxes." After laughing, Kabala said sarcastically, "In fact, in this case, collecting taxes is illegal. The reason why the tax collector dares to bully those poor people is nothing more than relying on the lord behind him. And the lord relies on nothing more than force, but I want to see if they have the courage to use force against us!"

Baron Dahl really didn't dare to use force.

Although the group of people in the Church of the Void Mask are not particularly strong, the most powerful one is nothing more than a mid-level priest, but Baron Dahl is not strong either.

He currently has three knights and two quasi-knights under his command, one of whom is mid-level, and the other five are only at the beginner level. In addition, he has two capable generals under him, both of whom were promoted from adventurers, and all of them are at the mid-level level.

On paper, he seems to have a great advantage. But as we all know, the Void Mask Church is not just those ten people. There is a huge church behind them, and there are many legendary strongmen.

Want to fight? Even if he can beat these ten people, what's the use?

Moreover, even if he only faces those ten clergymen, he does not have an absolute chance of winning.

His subordinates are numerous and powerful, but why should they fight for him? But those clergymen are different. For the gods they believe in and to maintain the doctrine, they absolutely don't care about dying.

The Dahl family has an important family motto, which is "Don't trust others, and don't pin your hopes on others." Baron Dahl will not do stupid things like expecting others to fight for him. Most lords who make such mistakes will be finished.

So after listening to the report of the tax collector, although he was furious, he did not have an attack. He just had a gloomy face and asked the tax collectors to look up the information of previous years to see if they could find favorable evidence.

But he knew that most of them would not be found.

Nobles generally don't keep tax records or something like that, because they may become evidence against them at some point. Baron Dahl is such a smart man, of course he won't make such a mistake.

Moreover, even if he finds the tax records of previous years, what's the use?

Kabala and other priests can think of such tricks, how could Baron Dahl, a cunning old man, not think of them?

"Alas! I didn't expect that the priests would actually use such means, it's really a bit of a mistake!" He sighed deeply, shook his head, and tried to suppress the depression in his heart, but pretended to be calm.

He had to pretend to be like this, otherwise a servant in the castle might spread the news, and then spread it to other lords nearby, leading to other things.

Although he was not sure what might happen, Baron Dahl's request was not to let anything unnecessary happen.

For this, even if there was a slight loss of tax revenue, it was acceptable.

But this did not mean that he gave up!

A few days later, a new order was issued.

The lord was going to take advantage of the winter when wild beasts and monsters lacked food to carry out a sweep of the mountainous areas outside the city. All adults in the city who did not have a legitimate job had to accept the conscription and participate in the sweep.

Of course, it was impossible to pay a salary for this conscription, but one meal could be provided every day during the expedition.

As for those who refused to accept the conscription, they had to either pay a "collection fee" or leave Dahl City - they could only take away their personal belongings.

This order was not unexpected. It was common to sweep monsters and beasts in winter.

But unexpectedly, the city defense officer came to the slums with a few soldiers and read the order loudly.

After reading the order, he looked at the poor people coldly, laughed sinisterly a few times, and walked away.

There is no doubt that these poor people all have "no legitimate jobs".