Mercenaries and Adventurers

The people from the Yemei Town Government Office left with the carriage owned by Kiel's team.

They first passed through the camp where Kiel's team camped for the night, and came to the stone wall of the town. Unlike other places outside the wall, there was a gravel road under the stone wall paved with gravel left when the wall was originally built.

Vehicles carrying wagons, donkeys and carts full of firewood can move better here, as long as the old dirt accumulated against the walls is not considered. These dirty things are all excrement left behind by the guards on the wall.

After all, it is very troublesome to have to run up and down the fenced stairs every time you go to the toilet.

The wheels entered the gravel road, and then the convoy moved around the town wall toward the east side. There is no gate to the town on the south side of the wall. Unlike other towns where gates are built on the south, north, east and west, the gates of the wall in Yemei Town are slightly deviated from the angle. They are located in the northwest, northeast, southeast and southwest of the town. This direction is the entrance to the gate.

It wasn't that the Sasse family got the wrong construction drawings when building the wall, it was simply that the town's main trade route was in the northwest, so this gate was necessary. For the sake of symmetry, the other town gates were naturally changed to their current directions.

Dozens of armed guards gathered at the southeast gate of the town. They isolated the farmers outside the gate, which was open at night, and prevented these farmers from approaching or entering the town.

Whenever a farmer from outside the town wants to enter the town, he will be immediately forced away by the guards who are on guard duty with long guns, and no one will be allowed to get close.

If it were normal times, or even during the day, the guards would let the people in for some benefit, but that was not possible now, especially at night.

During the day, they can simply check the bodies and mouths of the people who enter the town, and use the methods arranged above to make bizarre checks to see if there are any 'robbers' outside the town. This is not possible at night, for fear of 'robbers' sneaking into the town, so Every night, the town would close its gates. Today, there was no way to open the southeast gate at night.

In fact, the guards crowded outside the gate of this town did not know anything about each other. Many of them had experienced previous 'bandit' attacks. Not to mention the news they had learned from each other when they were not on duty, some of them were on duty. In each of the attacks, I had witnessed them with my own eyes, or had fought against monsters in human skin.

Therefore, when the gate is opened tonight, the guards on duty are much more nervous than the surrounding farmers outside the wall.

"What's going on? It's already dark and you still haven't closed the door?" Someone murmured, looking warily at the hungry farmers outside the range of the thin torches, for fear that there might be food hidden among these people. Human monster.

"Who knows? But I must be related to the new outsiders over there. I just saw that the adults from the government office haven't come back yet, and the door is not closed. They should be waiting for them, right?" Someone next to them guessed, but Not long after he finished speaking, he could see the light of fire and the motorcade approaching the wall not far away.

Different from the thin lighting torches at the southeast gate of the town, the lighting torches were hot and bright before and after the approaching motorcade, which naturally illuminated the government office officials who were leading the way clearly.

Of course, the ordinary guards in the town did not know the government office men who were responsible for most of the town's affairs. They recognized the person by seeing the clothes he was wearing.

Before the motorcade even approached, the leading government office official said something to the assistant beside him, and then the assistant, also wearing government office uniforms, trotted to the guards first.

Unlike the cowering villagers and farmers outside the town, the guards did not dare to point their spears at the assistant. Even though he is an assistant, his power is much greater than that of the captain of the guards.

The assistant of an official from the Government Affairs Office fiercely waved the book in his hand and opened the spear beside him. He pushed away the guards who were blocking the way and shouted directly to a captain in the center of the guards: "A bunch of idiots are still blocking the way." What are you doing at the gate? Didn't you see the master coming back with the convoy? Get out of the way for me and get out of the way of the gate!"

After saying that, the assistant looked at the villagers and farmers who were gathered around him with disgust, waved his hand vigorously and ordered: "Drive away these gophers, drive them all away! There is no guarantee that there are spies of 'bandits' among these people." "

The assistant spoke vaguely, but the captain commanding the guard team naturally knew what he meant. The captain of the guard first saluted and smiled flatteringly at the government office assistant, regardless of whether the other party saw his behavior under the insufficient lighting outside the gate. Then he changed the flattering look on his face and became just as menacing. He scolded the surrounding men: "Disperse the team and be on guard, deputy team, you bring ten people with me to disperse all the surrounding farmers. A few more people will come with me to protect the convoy."

After saying this, regardless of the ugly expression on his deputy captain's face, he immediately followed the assistant of the Government Affairs Office with his cronies and went to protect him. This was actually to please the officials of the Government Affairs Office.

The dozens of guards gathered at the city gate quickly dispersed and made way for the incoming convoy to enter the town gate smoothly. Although the team dispersed, all the guards still held their spears pointed outwards, wary of anything outside the gate that could not be found in the light of fire.

Whether it's a monster in human skin or a nearby villager looking indifferently.

Some of the villagers don't have much food stored in their homes, so they have to carry their belongings to the town to sell them for money every three or five days. When entering the town during the day, not only did they have to undergo rough inspections by the guards, but they also had to bribe them to avoid excessive humiliation during the inspection. In the town, you sell your wooden furniture or other things for money, and then go to a store where food prices have been rising to buy food. When you leave the town, you have to accept the exploitation of the guards. If you don't take out a handful of food every time, it's basically impossible. He won't let anyone out of the town.

This caused conflicts between the guards and the villagers who had taken refuge outside the town to gradually accumulate.

For the guards, it was okay to be on duty on the wall or at the city gate during the day, but coming outside the town at night really made them very worried about something happening.

Especially the deputy captains of these guards.

The captain asked him to lead people to drive away the surrounding villagers and farmers. He really didn't want to do anything, and he didn't want to leave the siege of his men. But when the convoy came closer, the guard captain who was trying to please the officials from the government office saw that his deputy captain had not yet taken action, so he immediately stepped forward and kicked him. He kicked him: "What are you doing standing still? Hurry up and drive away everyone who is approaching you! Drive them away!"

The convoy approached the gate, and the surrounding villagers and farmers also subconsciously gathered around. To everyone's disappointment, this convoy that came from nowhere carried not the food that everyone desired, but carts of firewood.

However, there was a lack of fuel outside the town, and they needed this firewood very much. After all, the villagers fled here from the village, and the furniture they brought with them had to be taken to the town to exchange for money and food. It was too extravagant and wasteful to chop it and burn it as firewood.

But these days, all the flammable grass and trees from the outer wall of the town to the ditch have been taken by the villagers, not to mention a bush or a blade of grass. It is impossible to exchange valuable belongings for fuel and firewood in the town, so these days everyone asks the most skilled young people from each family to cross the ditch they built themselves during the day and go to the abandoned farmland outside the ditch to get some Using farm tools, they gathered lush wild grasses and flowers, dried them and used them as fuel.

But this is not a solution. As the evacuation days get longer, even the fast-growing weeds, wildflowers and shrubs in the farmland within a certain distance outside the trench have been cut down to pieces. There is not enough at all. I want to get plants that can ignite. For fuel, you have to run farther.

But this makes it easy for bandits to ambush in the grass. Some people go out and never come back. And the families of the missing people also know that those who don’t come back before the sun sets every day will probably never come back. Can't come back.

Having said so much, that is to say, the large amount of firewood on the carriage and carriage gradually attracted the attention of the surrounding villagers and farmers. The nervous guards noticed the large number of farmers approaching around them and immediately shouted threats, telling those approaching to get out.

"Get away! Those vehicles are all belonging to the town."

"It's not for you to spy on! Go away! If you come closer, I'll give you a stick!"

But in the past, the ferocious face and the curses and threats in his mouth seemed to be less useful today?

The captain of the guard kicked out the deputy captain and pointed with a cold face at the villagers and farmers who were getting closer and closer around him: "Kick them all away! Before the convoy all enters the town, I don't want any dirty hands to touch them. The things on the vehicle. My Lord just told me that those things are given priority by people in the town. If you, I, and everyone’s family want to have a hot meal, you have to protect every fiber on the vehicle. wood!"

The vice-captain gritted his teeth and drew out the long sword from his waist. Like the guard captain, he pushed and kicked out the ten guards and followed him out of the guard team, waving their swords and spears intimidatingly, forcing them to Retreat the surrounding villagers and farmers.

Snapped!

There were rocks on the ground outside the southeast gate of the town that were picked up by a farmer and thrown at the guards. The guards' soft leather jackets covered with guard smocks blocked the rocks. The guard groaned and held a threat in his hand. Sex's spear was swung to the left and right more urgently.

"Are you looking for death? Go back!"

These eleven people walked out of the team. Wherever they went, the people who gathered around them would retreat ten meters. After all, it was late at night, and the people who came near had nothing in their hands, so they could only pick up some on the ground. The rocks and soil were thrown away. Although the guards' equipment was not very good, the weapons in their hands reflected the firelight at the gate, making people look scared.

Even so, more rocks and soil were thrown. These throwing objects were thrown out randomly with no accuracy, most of them hit the empty space, and a few of them were thrown on the guards. Although they were just small stones and soil, the ten guards couldn't stand it and kept swinging them. Back away with your weapon. The deputy captain who led the team was wearing a ring-mail armor covering his torso under his guard blouse, and he was wielding a long sword in his hand, so he was not afraid of these things.

As soon as his men retreated, the deputy captain was pushed forward and turned into a prominent target, so soon all the rocks and soil were thrown towards this guy.

Phew—pah, pah, pah, pah.

After a series of random hits, even if this guy used his free left hand to cover his face, he was still very embarrassed. The hard leather helmet on his head was fine, but his limbs, including his nose and chin, were all bruised and broken.

The vice-captain of the guard, who usually bullied others, had never experienced this kind of pain. He roared angrily, rushed a few steps forward with his long sword, and cut off the wrist of the man closest to him with one strike of the sword.

"Ah! Hand—my hand!"

The screams scared away a large circle of people around them, and also made the retreating guards shout excitedly.

The vice-captain grinned half of his face covered in blood, glared at the cowering people in front of him, and then pulled the wailing man with a severed hand on the ground and walked back. As he walked, he kicked the man who was covering his wrist and wailing.

"Make you crazy! Make you crazy!"

"I saw it just now. You are the only one who is throwing stones at me, right? A stone, right? Doesn't it feel good! Ah! Does it feel good?"

While questioning, the deputy captain kicked the man he was dragging on the ground.

Originally, he thought that if he took a person back and beat him like this, the surrounding villagers and farmers would be afraid to retreat, but he didn't expect that the beaten man on the ground suddenly hugged his calf, and then opened his teeth that were damaged by rough grain and bit him fiercely. Go up.

The pain hit him instantly, but what rushed into his mind before the pain of being bitten was the deeds of those monsters in human skin that the fellow guards talked about during the break.

The deputy captain, who had not been on the front line of the bandits' attack on the town a few days ago, had never seen a real parasitic monster with his own eyes, but it was also night, still wearing the skin of a lowly farmer's body, and in his opinion, crazy. attacks, and bites that are not like normal people.

It made him think that the desperate resistance of this man with a severed hand was an attack by monsters.

And he is the first target of the monsters' attack tonight.

Fear suddenly took over the deputy captain of the guard who was holding a sharp sword. Subconsciously and without thinking, the long sword in his right hand slashed towards his feet as he roared.

Phew.

The man with the severed hand, who was biting the guard's thick cloth pants with his mouth open, now also had a large piece of his head missing. His body suddenly lost strength and fell to the ground.

But the frightened deputy captain of the guard could not guarantee that he could kill the difficult undead monster that his colleagues said with one sword, so he struck again and again until he chopped the head of the dead body on the ground into pieces, and then he stopped. Take action.

While panting violently, the vice-captain looked at the bright red blood on the ground and the white and red human brain fragments. He seemed to think of something and suddenly raised his head. As he expected, those damn outsiders who were shrinking and retreating in front of him suddenly appeared. The villagers gathered around one by one.

Although these people still had a look of flinching on their faces that he looked down on, the expressions on each of their faces became extremely terrifying.

He kicked away the dead man at his feet, turned around and ran towards the guards.

As he fled, lumps of soil were thrown at him chasing his figure. Accompanying these were the angry shouts of the villagers who were reluctant to light a fire at night in the darkness that was not illuminated by the fire.

Knowing that he had done something stupid, especially since the person who was hacked to death was really not a so-called monster in human skin, the vice-captain was frightened and wanted to shout loudly. He wanted to turn around and apologize, but also wanted to scold those people. He wanted to drop his hand. The long sword was stained with blood, and he wanted to turn around and rush forward with his sword to kill a few more to vent the anger in his embarrassed heart.

His mind was buzzing, and he knew that he should control the situation at this time, but the words he opened his mouth to say suddenly turned into the "words" that he usually said that confuse right and wrong: "That person is a monster! I Kill a monster! The monster is among those people!"