Dust of History Chapter 15: A World Without Thieves

"As a knight, you should win the victory by fighting the enemy head-on. Any other means of beating around the bush is an insult to your own character and chivalry." Rod Hart's face showed a heroic expression expression. "But from a tactical point of view, I am afraid that they will directly use the imperial envoy to blackmail us, so it seems that we should touch it secretly. What do you think should be done?"

"You can do whatever you want." Asa's answer was straightforward.

"I want to preserve my identity as a knight, but also want to complete the task perfectly... I must find a way to have the best of both worlds..." He held his head and thought hard.

"I chose to sneak in secretly. We are not violating the knight's open and honest law, but pay more attention to cherishing life." Rod Hart finally found a reason to connect the two methods, happily decided on tactics, and He was even more elated that he had been able to find this way. "I now have a deeper understanding of chivalry."

He took Asa to the place where it was said that the imperial envoy had an accident that day. It was in the middle of a scrubland, a shortcut naturally trodden by wagons and men who frequently passed through it. Such an environment is indeed very suitable for bandits to haunt. The imperial envoy dared to go here with only two or three entourages, obviously overestimating the local security.

Looking around at the surrounding environment, Rodhart said, "Thank God, it never rained. The magistrates were afraid of threatening the lives of the imperial envoys and did not dare to send people to search." He said triumphantly: "Now I can find traces of these bandits by using the tracking method I learned in school."

He bent down and began to examine the ground and grass. After a while, he stood up rubbing his sore waist, and said in amazement: "There is no trace, those soldiers in the city hall actually took my money and lied to me."

"That's right here. There are only a dozen of them. They didn't ride horses. They escorted the imperial envoy away." Asa had already discovered the footprints on the ground and the traces of the weeds after they were trampled down. "Follow me." Asa drilled into the depths of the woodland, and Rodhart hurriedly followed behind.

In the woods, Asa found the traces of the bandits almost without any effort and followed them all the way. This kind of thing is too simple for a person who once started a chase game with a werewolf in the most dangerous no-man's land on the mainland. In Asa's eyes, these traces were almost as obvious as if they were placed there and specially marked. He jumped and ran through the woods, as freely as an animal moving in its own territory, and Rodhart struggled behind him in his steel armor.

Asa stopped suddenly, and reached out to grab Rodhart who was following up.

Four very natural-looking vines extend from the bottom of the four trees to the top of the tree, and they are inconspicuous among other natural vines. The trap was of a fairly good standard, and it was clearly intended for use against people, traps for animals would not need to be so well concealed, nor would they be placed where they themselves had walked.

This is just a net trap, there is no mechanism to kill people. This kind of trap that can't kill people immediately is usually not very effective on people. As long as you have something like a knife on your body, you won't be trapped for a long time. In other words, there must be something like an alarm bell on the trap to notify the person who set the trap to arrest, so it must not be far from the bandit's lair.

Asa said to Rodhart: "Take off that armor of yours, it's too heavy to run fast."

Rod Hart shook his head and said, "No, this is the symbol of a knight."

"Then if you can keep up, I'll follow. If you can't keep up, go and delay the bandits coming here." Asa found that such a person was really troublesome, and didn't want to pay attention to him anymore. It's not a problem to deal with about a dozen bandits with skill.

Asa picked up a large dead branch on the ground and threw it to the pile of weeds in front of him. With a whoosh, a large net suddenly rises from the dead leaves and weeds in the ground and closes among the treetops, and at the same time, there is a faint sound of a gong in the distance.

Asa immediately discerned the direction and distance of the sound. He rushed out to the side, preparing to bypass the approaching bandit and sneak into the thief's den.

Rodhart reluctantly followed for a few steps, but watched Asa use his hands and feet together, shuttled through the bushes like a bobcat for a few times, and then disappeared. He shook his head helplessly, walked back to the trap and waited for the bandits to arrive.

After running for a while, Asa saw a few simple thatched huts in the forest clearing in front of him, with several piles of dying bonfires beside them, and several wooden houses on several big trees. These should be the thief's camp out.

It's just such a simple lair, these bandits are really not professional enough, they look more like a group of temporary mobs. He already has a plan, so he doesn't need to sneak in secretly, just rush in and knock them down one by one. A few figures could be seen through the trees and weeds, and Asa rushed out of the bushes.

But he immediately found that he didn't know which one to knock down first.

Several old men holding wood looked at him blankly. The clothes on these old people can no longer cover their bodies completely, their faces are covered with wrinkles of suffering, their backs are bent, and their waists can't be straightened anymore. Standing there majestically, it seems that they don't need to beat themselves anymore It will also fall down at any time.

Several children with runny noses looked at him from the tree house and shouted, some of them were wearing bark, and some were still naked. One of them was still peeing, and when he saw him coming out of the bushes, he shot at him enthusiastically, and made a panting sound, but the range of the shot was not as ideal as he expected.

Hearing the children's yells, more than a dozen women came out from the straw huts and tree houses, holding animal skins in their hands. They were not afraid when they saw Asa, but they all showed surprised expressions, and one of them came over. This is a middle-aged woman, her clothes are relatively complete, her hair is tied behind her head with a bunch of grass, and the simple and honest face of a country woman has some shrewd and intelligent temperament, she is probably a leader among women. She came over to Asa and asked, "Young man, did you set off the alarm?"

"Ah." Asa replied blankly. He didn't know how to react at all now, he couldn't rush into this group of old people, children and women and fight like he expected.

The woman looked at Asa and asked: "Are you lost? You don't seem to be a local. Are you a wanderer from other places?"

"Oh." Asa nodded tentatively. He carried the knife on his back and hid it under his robe, and he still wore the old robe that Sandro gave him. As for his hair, beard and face, he couldn't see it and never cared about it, probably not like a man of status people.

"Hungry yet? Come inside and have some soup to warm you up." The women displayed the hospitality of the rural poor. "My husband and the others went out to check the trap you touched. It was only used to deal with the soldiers. They will probably be back soon."

If you are not in the depths of this forest, no matter how you look at it, this place is just a small country village. Asa remembered that Rodhart was still there. When he meets a woman's husband and his gang, they will definitely fight, and the knight's steel armor with sword clearly shows that they are here to rescue the imperial envoy. He turned and walked back the way he came.

As soon as he took a few steps, he saw more than twenty men approaching. The same ragged clothes, with pitchforks, hoes and other agricultural tools in their hands, only two of the men held daggers and bows. Rodhart was surrounded by the crowd, talking to the men next to him very familiarly. He saw Asa raising his hand and waving at him from afar.

Waiting for them to approach, Asa stared at Rodhart and asked: "What's going on?"

Rod Hart smiled like a child: "Misunderstanding, these are folks from several villages near me. I haven't seen them for several years. This is Hunter Levin, this is Bang Brother Bu..." He introduced the men next to him one by one, like a prodigal son who just returned to his hometown with his friends.

After sitting and talking around the campfire for a while, I realized that they were all villagers from nearby villages. Because he couldn't bear the sudden increase in taxes in recent months, he fled into the mountains and forests to survive by hunting and occasionally robbing passers-by. Yesterday they saw a gorgeously dressed man and a few followers at the edge of the forest. They thought he was just an ordinary rich man, so they went up and tied him back. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be the imperial envoy sent by the capital, which made the local officials in the city tremble as if they were facing a big enemy.

"You must let people go. Kidnapping court ministers is absolutely impossible." Rod Hart advised everyone.

"No." Someone objected immediately. Asa remembered that this was a man named Brother Bumble introduced by Rod Hart just now. He is a fat man with a bald head and a face full of meat. It is difficult to see the slightest trace of poverty from the fat on his face. I just heard that he used to be a butcher, and the fat accumulated at that time may have been deeply rooted in his body. He himself is inseparable, even if he starves to death, he will not change his shape. He first stood up and said: "It is not enough to just let people go. Will the local officials let us go for such a big matter? We have been exploited so badly in normal times, and now let him lose face in front of the imperial envoy and lose his post. Don’t kill us all? We plan to use this opportunity to knock those guys out, and then everyone takes the money and goes away.” He is also what most people think. It drew a lot of approval.

"But this is against the law. As a citizen of the empire, you should abide by the law. And I also heard that the imperial envoy is a very knowledgeable theological expert. We are all believers in God. How can we make such a decision? Such a thing." Rod Hart probably felt that it was inappropriate for a knight to participate in this topic, and wanted to clarify his position.

"The local magistrates can legally starve us all to death." Hunter Levin is the leader here. He is a very lean little man, without a trace of fat on his body, but he seems to be able to squeeze out iron juice. His skin is pitch black, his hair is tied together strangely with a cloth towel, his face is painted colorfully, and there is a pinch of paint on his face. Small goatee. "When your grandfather was around, those guys were still a bit scrupulous, and they didn't dare to go too far. But recently, it seems that the officials above want to do something, and they want to make money from us. First, the tax on cultivated land will be increased, and then we will start business. The tax has also doubled, and finally they said that this forest belongs to the country, and hunting in it has to be taxed. Everyone doesn’t do anything, and they can’t even survive. In the end, we have to pay some kind of poll tax, no Handing over is illegal, and it is suspected of heretics. Their laws have forced us into this, and you still want us to abide by the law?"

Rodhart shook his head and said: "This is just the fault of these local bureaucrats. Because they are too far away from the king, these local officials will act so recklessly. And the king sent imperial ministers to inspect Theirs. As long as we report the matter clearly to the imperial envoy and explain our difficulties, he will definitely give us a fair one."

The woman who greeted Asa just now was the wife of Hunter Levin. She said with a keen anatomy unique to women: "Little Rhodes, you have stayed in your school for too long and studied too many books." What are those things? It’s just a few words, a few things drawn in ink, and what we see are all facts. Think about it, is this imperial envoy closer to those dog officials? Get closer to us? If he goes to the city, will he eat at our house and sleep at our house? Do you think they will protect us?"

Rodhart shook his head stubbornly and said: "No, there must be justice, justice must be done, and evil forces will definitely be punished as they should. My grandfather also taught me this way."

"In my seventy years of life, I have never seen what 'fairness' and 'justice' are." An old man said beside him. He has few teeth, and the words he speaks are out of shape, but they have a somewhat heavy taste. He looked around at the people and said emphatically, "Seventy years old."

Rodhart's face was already a little red, he didn't know whether it was excitement or something, it looked very similar to the face he had when he was in the mercenary tavern in the city. He said forcefully: "No, there must be. My grandfather told me that too." He suddenly remembered that there might be an ally next to him, and turned to Asa and said sincerely: "Asa My friend, you must also believe in justice and justice in this world, right?"

Asa frowned, searched vigorously in memory, looked at him, and replied very cautiously and honestly: "It seems that I have never heard of such a thing."

"No. There must be!" Rodhart was not intimidated by the disadvantage of fighting alone, but stood up more excitedly and said. "Think about it, if we politely send the imperial envoy back, he will be moved by our sincerity when he sees that we could have extorted money but didn't do so, and he will definitely uphold justice for us. Everyone should know, I heard that this imperial envoy once conducted research in a seminary, he must have deep wisdom and a great heart."

Everyone was silent. Probably seeing how excited he is, it's not good to pour cold water on him.

"What if everyone extorts a sum of money? Why don't you have to leave your hometown ~IndoMTL.com~ and hide in other places, and you will never have a chance to return to this piece of land. And every day Fearful, afraid of being discovered and caught. Is this kind of life okay? As long as the imperial envoy helps you adjust the tax back and punish the local officials, everyone can live the same life as before.”

The villagers are in a commotion, these few words are very tempting. For a native rural commoner, the feelings and way of life of his hometown are indeed irreplaceable. "It seems that what he said is also reasonable..." Some people have begun to agree with his words.

Rod Hart is almost begging: "Please believe me. I vouch for the honor of a knight, and I also vouch for the honor of my grandfather."

This guarantee is also very powerful. Rod Hart's grandfather seems to have a high reputation among the villagers. People began to talk about each other sentence by sentence. After a while, finally Hunter Levin nodded. "Well, since you said so, and the end result is to let people go anyway, let's just listen to you and take a gamble."

Rod Hart said firmly and confidently: "This is not a bet, it must be like this. Don't think this world is too dark, just like I heard people in the city say that there are a group of Are you all good people like vicious bandits? As long as we hold a bright heart, we will see that there are not so many bad people in this world."