New Gods of North America

There are many indicators that can be used to measure population growth.

In today's western America, one of the indirect indicators is to look at the number of local wanted warrants.

After these years of development, coupled with the construction of railways and the fierce wars in the Old Continent in recent years, there has been an influx of population.

Although Kansas is still a sparsely populated country, its population has expanded nearly a hundred times compared to when it was first developed.

Therefore, the number of wanted posters posted in the Blackrock Town Police Station increased.

From just a few scattered pictures at the beginning to gradually covering an entire wall.

Now, not only has the entire wall been covered with posters, but if you want to see the contents of each wanted poster clearly -

You still have to "turn the page".

One of the reasons for the proliferation of wanted notices is:

Each small town's sheriff has law enforcement authority only within the local area in which he was elected.

If the criminals commit a crime and then run out of town, sorry, the sheriff has no right to enforce the law across the border.

So all they can do is report the case and offer a reward, and then either wait for the result, or take off their badge, tear off the wanted poster, and seek revenge as a bounty hunter.

"Officer Inesha, this entire wall is covered with wanted criminals, and I need you to write them all down first.

"If you see wanted criminals in Blackrock Town later, you can kill or arrest them by any means, provided that the safety of innocent townspeople and their property is guaranteed."

…

After assigning the homework to Inissa, Wayne went into the sheriff's office and, looking at the town map, began to think about what Pastor Huck had said about the pagans and large-scale bloody sacrifices.

This involves another issue - in a small western town, where are there more people?

Let’s take a very simple question as an example:

For example, there is a wealthy man on the East Coast who invested in and built a mine in a mine under the management of a western town. The mine can accommodate thousands of miners working at the same time.

So, when this mine operates at full capacity, how many people might this western town add?

The answer is likely to be “zero”.

Foreign investors may directly entrust local residents to manage the company, only enjoying shares and dividends, but not settling there.

As for the miners,

Feel sorry,

Indigenous people, illegal immigrants, and unregistered slaves were not considered "free people" and were not included in the population stats.

Slaves registered according to the law were counted as part of the population, but they could only be counted as “three-fifths” of an individual, not “one” individual.

Even if they were registered according to the law, slaves still had no citizenship and no right to vote in elections - the slave owner's vote represented the choice of all his slaves. The more slaves there were, the more weight the slave owner's vote carried.

However, Kansas City still does not have enough residents to be officially established as a state, so naturally it does not have any "state laws" in the true sense, and is not yet qualified to formally organize a referendum to join the United States of America.

According to the laws of the Commonwealth of America, Kansas is still a "place outside the territory" and "a place outside the law" in the true sense of the word.

Not to mention "registration in accordance with the law".

It is not impossible to register slaves as your legal property, but currently you can only go to other states.

In addition, even if they were only counted as free people, they were not necessarily officially registered "local residents".

There will also be travelers passing through or settling temporarily, shippers, gold diggers, bounty hunters, ladies of special trades, and so on.

Also not included in the population statistics.

Due to the steam train station, the proportion of "floating population" in Blackrock Town is actually quite high.

Therefore, Blackrock Town now has more than 3,000 registered legal residents, and is almost on the verge of officially upgrading from a "town" to a "city."

But only God knows how many living people there are within the territory of Black Stone Town.

Wayne thought about the original owner of his current body. He couldn't even do addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers mentally...

No, I guess even ghosts don’t know.

So Wayne circled several locations on the map with a pen. Apart from the town, there were large plantations, larger mines, and large estates of the rich.

If it doesn't work, you can only run them all once and see.

As for the territories where several indigenous people live, I dare not go there.

“Knock, knock.”

Inesha knocked on the unlocked door and appeared at the door of the sheriff's office.

"I have memorized all those wanted notices," Inissa said, "and what do I need to do now?"

Wayne stood there, blinking.

It's only been a few minutes?

What is the strongest brain?

"Ms. Inessa, have you ever been to college?"

"No," Inessa shook her head, "but I have a diploma from Woldingham College in Windsor - you can think of it as Eton College, which only accepts female students. I graduated early through an assessment."

"Have you ever thought about studying in college in America?"

Wayne continued to make wild guesses, how could someone like him who had failed math before be admitted?

If it were Inissa, wouldn't it be a matter of minutes?

"Before I accumulate enough contribution points to gain my freedom, I am not considered a free citizen and am not eligible to sign up. Any questions?"

"No problem. Even if there is a problem, it's not your fault."

Wayne rolled up the map of Blackrock Town:

"In that case, let's go out on patrol."

…

The clues came faster than expected.

Not long after the two horses ran out of the residential area of ​​the town, Inissa changed the direction of the horses, turned away from the main road, and took Wayne into the woods.

Then when Inissa stopped her horse, Wayne saw a large pool of obvious blood at the foot of a tree in front of her.

Inissa ran almost straight towards the pool of blood without turning at all.

Last night, Inissa said that she could smell blood in the air, and could tell that there were two people's blood at the scene...

Wayne was a little impressed, "That's amazing, Miss Inessa. If I let you smell the blood of everyone in the town, then you will be able to smell the blood and know whose blood it was from, right?"

Inessa couldn't help but glare at Wayne, but still answered his question:

"I am just sensitive to the taste of blood. I am neither a wine taster nor a sniffer dog. When I put different bloods together, I can compare whether they come from the same person, but that doesn't mean I can remember the taste of other people's blood."

"I see."

Wayne nodded. "Do you normally need blood? Do you only drink human blood, or is animal blood okay? I see you're not afraid of the sun, and you don't sleep during the day, so are you afraid of garlic?"

"I'm not a vampire," Inissa rolled off her horse, "but I do not like raw garlic."

Close to the blood,

After observing for a while, Wayne found that there was no particular problem except that the amount of bleeding was a bit abnormal.

This was not blood from a knife, axe, gunshot, or anything like that that would suggest a murder.

The bloodstain was quite bright, and had dried but not completely. Judging from the time, it must have been left there last night.

There was a paste inside that was so unrecognizable that it was clearly food residue, probably vomited out by someone.

There was still a faint smell of alcohol remaining. The person who vomited blood had drunk alcohol last night.

When I poked it with a thin branch, the blood seemed to be thicker than ordinary blood after it dried.

An idea quickly formed in Wayne's mind:

——Could it be that some unlucky guy who had dinner at the mayor’s house last night was forced to drink so much that he vomited blood?

Although there are also many fake whiskeys in the West that are mixed with syrup and alcohol, they are still sticky after drying.

However, if Wayne associates alcohol solely with the idea of ​​"becoming viscous after drying up", the first thing that comes to his mind is the beer that can only be found in the mayor's house in Blackrock Town.

The very faint smell of alcohol also seems to be an unreliable side evidence.

Whiskey is a strong liquor. The whiskey sold in western taverns can be mixed with water, but it also needs to be mixed with alcohol.

Otherwise, if only water is added, the fake wine will be too diluted and the tavern owner will be beheaded on the spot by angry drunkards.

And even the time point of "last night" matches.

Perfect.

After Wayne finished his imagination, he stood up again and said, "This doesn't seem to be anything interesting. Let's go."

But Inissa obviously didn't think so. She just shook her head:

"This blood has a special stench. Usually, only low-level Beyonders who have been corroded by the power of the Dark Realm as 'consumables' will begin to emit this smell when their bodies are on the verge of collapse."

Then she pricked her finger with the brooch and squeezed out a drop of blood which dripped onto the pool of blood.

After Inesa's blood dripped on it, the dried blood around the spot first grew many blood-like "roots", which absorbed all of Inesa's blood.

Then, suddenly, as if a seed had sprouted, the blood threads began to spread out gradually around like an active fungal blanket, displaying a vigorous vitality that made people feel very uncomfortable.

Until all the blood vessels extended outward as if their energy was exhausted, they finally stopped extending and dried up again.

Inissa nodded. "It is indeed the power of the 'dark' realm."

Wayne didn't understand, but he felt that her operation was very convincing.

Then Inissa looked down at the holes on the "mushroom" that seemed to have been deliberately created, and frowned:

"Why is there still 'holy' power belonging to the Holy Spirit inside? It seems to be of a high level.

"This person was already on the verge of collapse. He should have been easily burned by the power of the 'Holy Spirit'. Yet he swallowed this thing. Is he trying to commit suicide?"

The power of the Holy Spirit...

Wayne's expression gradually became serious:

"Ms. Inissa, if a so-called Fallen or Extraordinary accidentally drank a small amount of holy water, would they be injured like this?"