Iron Powder and Spellcaster

I don’t know what the mendicant monk said to the Protestants in those two villages. Anyway, South New Village and North New Village suddenly became enthusiastic about Winters.

The people of the two villages who were originally very resistant to the priest of the Wolf Town Church actually began to respect the old mendicant monk after listening to Brother Red's sermon.

All the young men in the two villages signed up to join the bear hunting team, and the manpower for searching the mountains suddenly became abundant.

"What did you tell them?" Winters was quite curious: "You wouldn't lie to them that I was a Protestant too, right?"

Winters still had no respect for the old magician, and the old monk knew this very well. Because of this, the two can talk without any worries.

The mendicant monk did not answer directly: "Are you going to pay back the land they illegally cultivated?"

"Of course not. Am I full enough? Maybe I won't be here in two months." Winters just felt baffled.

"Then it doesn't matter what I say." The old monk said casually: "As long as they know that you have no ill intentions towards them, as long as they think that you are one of theirs, it is enough for you."

The second lieutenant probably understood something, and he asked curiously: "Then why do they regard you as 'one of theirs'?"

"For some people, 'worship' is a rigid need. Therefore, the more devout people are, the easier it is to be manipulated, because they will convince themselves." Brother Rhett said nonchalantly and rebelliously: "Those two villages Become a Reformed. Understand what they want to believe, and the rest is simple—tell them what they want to hear.”

These words, which were even more evil than heretical theology, left Winters speechless. He couldn't help asking the lingering doubt in his mind: "I really can't figure it out, how could someone like you join the Catholic Church?"

"With the identity of a clergyman, it will be easier to walk. Businessmen will be blackmailed and farmers will be questioned, but no one will embarrass an old and poor priest." The mendicant monk who had converted to many religious sects said with a smile on his face. Smile: "In the East, I am sometimes a monk of the Bodhi Sect and sometimes a teaching scholar of the Xingyue Sect. On this continent, I am a priest of the Catholic Church. In fact, it is the same."

Winters couldn't believe it when Rhett admitted that he was a hypocrite in a relaxed tone.

Thinking about it carefully, there seems to be nothing wrong, but the old man's tone was too plain, as if he was talking about what the weather is like today.

After a long silence, Winters said half sarcastically and half praisingly: "You are quite pragmatic."

"I take this as a compliment." The old monk laughed.

…

After getting more manpower, Winters reorganized the search sectors and once again devoted all his energy to hunting for man-eating bears.

While the militiamen were searching the mountain forest inch by inch, two clergymen opened a bottle of wine in the church in Wolf Town and sat at a small table chatting.

"I'm afraid that boy is suffering in the mountains and forests, right?" Brother Rhett said with a smile.

"It should be." Father Carman echoed respectfully: "Teacher."

Brother Rhett took a sip of wine and asked casually: "Do you have any friendship with him? Why do you want me to help him?"

"No friendship, I don't know Lieutenant Montagne." Father Carman replied seriously: "But I think he sincerely wants to do something good for this parish."

"Many times," the old priest said lightly, "good intentions may not necessarily lead to good results."

"Don't you think we should help him?" Father Carman asked confused.

"What can I know? I'm just a foreigner living in a foreign land. If I really have wisdom, why can't I have a home and not be able to return?" A wry smile appeared on the old priest's face: "Let's see again."

…

Although they received full assistance from the other four villages, the bear hunting team found nothing for three consecutive days.

The militiamen beat on tree trunks and marched through the dense forest, more than ten meters apart, sweeping the forest floor like a net. They found excrement, hair, and broken trees. All signs indicated that the ferocious beast must be in this forest. However, they could not find the ferocious bear, not even the shadow of the bear.

It had been a full week since the last attack, and the militiamen were beginning to grow tired and their morale was decreasing day by day.

The village chiefs of Hedong and Hexi villages found Winters together, and they came up with an idea: "Maybe the bear escaped?"

I have to say that this is indeed a very convincing and tempting hypothesis.

The vigorous activities of the mountain search team scared the evil bear so much that it ran back into the mountains - it sounded reasonable.

But the hunter Ralph firmly opposed this idea. In his words, "Once a beast eats a human, it will become a ferocious beast. They will never forget the taste of human flesh." And judging from various traces, the bear obviously didn't go far and was wandering near Wolf Town.

The old hunter changed his previous attitude of "killing with caution" and opposed the cessation of large-scale mountain searches. He insisted on "killing the ferocious beast completely to eliminate future troubles." He believed that the man-eating bear was nearby, and it was just bad luck that he had not achieved anything in the past few days. As long as you keep searching, it's only a matter of time before you find that thing.

Like commanders throughout history faced with a dilemma, Winters agreed with the hunter—the bear was definitely not far away. But he also clearly understood that his militiamen had reached their physical and mental limits.

Searching the mountains is a hard job, and every meter of walking requires a lot of energy. Not to mention that when the militiamen abandoned their farm work to search the mountains, when they found nothing in the forest, it was their wives, children, and the elderly who worked hard in the fields. Therefore, the longer the delay, the more shaken the will of these farmers will be.

Stop searching mountains? Or force the militia to continue?

In the past, Warrant Officer Montagne only had to obey orders, but now the Montagne garrison officer needed to make his own judgment.

Winters called the village chiefs of the five villages in front of him: "As long as we continue to search, we will definitely find the man-eating bear. But the manpower in each village is exhausted and cannot continue the search. So the only way now is Just waiting for the next attack from that giant bear.”

There was one thing he didn't say clearly: there had been no attacks for a week, so the bear was probably hungry.

After hearing the news that the mountain search operation was suspended, the militiamen in Hedong Village and Hexi Village were full of complaints, and the villagers were also dissatisfied with Winters. On the contrary, the young men of the two Protestant villages obeyed the order without complaint, as if Really consider Winters "their guy".

After the old hunter Ralph learned of Winters' decision, he left the large group without saying a word and searched deeper into the forest alone.

For the first time, Lieutenant Montagne felt the pressure of making decisions.

…

On the third day after the mountain search ended, Langtun Town ushered in another Sunday. Although there was a dark cloud of wolf disaster hanging over their heads, villagers from the three villages still rushed to the church in the center of the town early in the morning to attend Sunday services as usual.

The church in Wolf Town is not big, but it is not particularly small either. The layout is similar to other single-bay churches. Two stone walls with windows form the nave of the church, and the structure of the vault eliminates the need for columns to support the nave. One end of the central hall is the vestibule, and the other end is the altar and ritual objects.

Because exposing the identity of the spell caster may cause unnecessary trouble in the closed and conservative Wolf Town, Winters will also sit with Girard in the church for a while during Sunday services.

This time, the young Father Carman was in charge of the sermon. He first led the crowd to pray for several victims of the wolf disaster, and then quoted the words of the saints and spoke some words of encouragement to the believers.

Seeing the believers praying devoutly hoping that the gods would drive away the evil bears, Winters somewhat understood them. This is essentially a feeling of powerlessness. For things that you can't do anything about, hoping for the help of a higher being has become a natural option.

The weekly bow and arrow training was canceled by Winters, so people hurried back to the villages after the ceremony.

Winters found Father Carman: "Although I don't know why, I still have to say thank you. The two villages of Hedong and Hexi have been very angry with me recently."

"There is nothing we can do about it." Father Carman explained gently: "The ferocious beasts are in the forest, but you are right in front of them."

Winters smiled bitterly: "My previous wish was to find a casual job until I retire, but now... now I would rather go back to the army and be a little centurion."

"There is always a reason why fate puts you in this position."

"I thought you were going to use the word 'Lord,'" Winters joked.

Father Carman also showed a smile: "Who makes you an unbeliever? Let's put it in a way that you can accept."

"But I don't believe there is such a thing as fate. If everything is determined, then what's the point of people's struggles? We can just lie down on the ground and wait for fate to happen."

“Perhaps human struggle is also part of destiny.”

"Sophistry." Winters sneered at this: "Don't there be logic classes in seminaries? You are saying that the future is both knowable and unknowable. You are describing a paradox."

Kaman wanted to say something, but an anxious knock on the door interrupted their metaphysical conversation.

Kaman glanced at Winters and said loudly: "Please come in!"

The church porter pushed open the door and came in: "Father! What's wrong...ah! The resident officer is here too!"

"What happened?" Winters asked.

"Sir!" the handyman swallowed: "Beacon Fire!"

…

"Where are you running?" Winters, who was running wildly, jerked the reins, and the red mane stood up in front of the head of Hexi Village.

The village chief did not dare to neglect, pointed to the west of the village and replied: "West!"

Winters spoke quickly: "When did it come? Are there any casualties?"

"It must have been during mass that the thing came in and ate a lot of food, biting a paralyzed old woman to death!"

Winters turned the war horse: "Call all the militiamen and follow me!"

"Okay, sir, okay." The village chief remembered something and added: "The hunter has already chased me first."

The militiamen in Dusa village also saw the beacon fire, and old Sergei immediately led the Dusa people to join the Hexi village soldiers.

Unlike the previous three times when it showed off its evil ways, this time the evil beast had just escaped, and the traces it left behind were clearly identifiable. Following the traces along the way, Winters led everyone towards the forest in the southwest.

In the shadows of the canopy, Winters could see broken brush and weeds. The bear was so huge that the trail it left on the shrubs and saplings in the forest was like a trail.

Guided by the traces on the ground, Winters pursued him all the way. At this moment, there was only one thought in his mind: kill this man-eating bear. Inadvertently, he even threw away the militiamen behind him for a long distance.

He clamped the horse's ribs hard, stepped through a hazel bush, crossed a cold stream, rushed up a dirt bump and then rushed down, letting the horse gallop through the forest.

On the back of a galloping horse, the pine needles scratched the skin like the sharpest arrows, leaving a blood mark with every contact.

The complex terrain in the forest was even more dangerous. Fortunately, Redmane had divine help, otherwise a small mouse hole would have broken his neck.

After climbing over several earth mounds, broken branches and shrubs first led Winters to a depression, where he made a sharp turn and suddenly started climbing again. Winters didn't know how far he had gone, but he could tell the terrain was rising rapidly.

The slope became steeper as they went forward, and Redmane screamed, pedaling with all his strength, his four hooves digging out deep dimples one after another in the soft black soil.

The horse was already beyond its strength, and Winters turned over and dismounted. He took two heavy matchlock guns and powder flasks out of the saddlebags and began to load them.

There was an eerie silence in the dark forest.

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from nearby.

Winters raised his musket and pressed the butt hard against his shoulder.

"Sir, it's me." The figure of hunter Ralph emerged from the branches and leaves.

Without any time to say nonsense, Winters asked directly: "Is it in front?"

"Should be in front."

"take me."

"You can't take the horse with you. There's too much noise." The old hunter explained: "That thing is so fast in the woods that even a horse can't catch it. Instead, it will startle it. If it scares away, we can only Wait until it dies from exhaustion.”

Winters took the two javelins out of Red Mane's saddlebags, gave one to Ralph, and kept one for himself.

Then he pointed the red-maned head in the direction he came from and whipped the horse's butt hard: "Let's go! Go home!"

Red Mane felt pain and ran away along the way.

"Let's go." Winters said to the hunter with the two muskets on his back and the javelin in his hand.

"Sir, I'm afraid the two of us alone can't kill that thing. We'd better leave marks along the way and wait for reinforcements to follow." In addition to a hunting knife and a single-body bow, Ralph's only weapons A javelin given by Winters.

It was then that Winters realized he had become disconnected from the rest of the militia.

"No matter what, let's find that thing first." Winters pulled out the Dussa Saber.

"Yes." Ralph nodded and walked in front, but he couldn't help but remind him: "Sir, you don't have a match rope on your gun."

The hunter's answer was a cold voice: "I don't need a match rope."

Horses are actually very good at climbing hills. I have seen horses climb up 60-degree slopes and even carry people (perhaps it is not actually 60°, only 45°, but it feels very steep). It's just that Red Mane is set to be a hot-blooded miniature horse, and its weight-bearing capacity is actually a little worse. Carrying two guns and a strong adult male uphill is a difficult task.

Thanks to the book friends who voted for recommendation before.

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Thanks to my book friends Xiaohongchen, Sky Lens, Living with the World, The Flower Planter’s Yellow Rabbit, Jiang Xue Diao Weng, Small Town Young Man, Kaka Kakajia, Kun Kun, Nothing is Xiao Gao, I don’t know what it is called, Black Computer Accessories , Book Friends 160420210016802, WhisperwindW, Calm Huiguo, Ami, recommendation votes worth rising.

thank you all.