Chapter 527
Chapter 527 - 507: The Wanderer
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8 min read
"...Refusing to relocate? Oh, I get it now."
The female Knight stood on the hill, looking at the village below and the villagers causing a ruckus, lost in thought.
The non-cooperation of the villagers was expected. These farmers didn’t even know who their lord was.
𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
All they knew was who the local landowner was, who they had to pay rent to after the harvest each year... The command of the lord Master? Who was that? Was he bigger than the landowner Master? How would they pay rent and buy seeds if they lost their fields?
The farmers held their farm tools and refused the Knights’ demands.
As the leader of the team, Catherine played with her red hair, which had been braided into pigtails and dragged them behind her cheeks. According to her new cat-eared friend, this hairstyle was popular in their world.
At the same time, there were also bangs that just covered her eyes and black-framed glasses... Catherine didn’t know if what Meow said was true, but she noticed that her current boss indeed looked at her more now.
However, facing hostile gazes, the female Knight dressed as a "good student" showed off her dominance.
"Not leaving? Burn everything."
Her calm words were the unstoppable will and resolution.
Immediately, the Sealing Knights began to act, throwing torches onto the houses one by one. A raging fire and thick smoke rose simultaneously, and within a few minutes, the village was engulfed in flames.
After a while, the Knights calmly suppressed the villagers and headed to the next village.
Cries and suppressed roars were heard one after another, but the Knights were too lazy to care... This was not the first time, nor would it be the last.
Leading the way, Catherine rode her horse, enjoying the hostile and even hateful gazes of the villagers while she lost herself in thought.
"Hmm, should I listen to Miss Meow and dye my hair black? I feel like something’s off... But even the alchemy potion for hair dye is just a casual purchase for everyday use in their world. Has their alchemy technology become so excessive? No, what’s even more intriguing is how such technology is casually used for civilian purposes..."
Along the way, Catherine was nonchalant but had subtly become the core of the team.
As a Holy Fire Knight, her position in the Knight Corps was quite delicate.
Although she was a member of the higher echelons of the Knight Corps and a famed strongman among the younger generation, she was destined not to become the Commander or Deputy Commander of the Knight Corps, and her influence couldn’t even match that of some weaker Knight Captains.
But now, her words were more useful than the Knight Commander’s... These young Knights who followed her were not originally her subordinates. She just said she wanted to go out and perform the mission, and these Knights willingly left their previous responsibilities and came to her side.
Yes, she had taken the initiative to do patrol missions while also avoiding increasingly hard-to-refuse troubles.
As for the original tasks of purchasing an agent...? She entrusted them to her mother.
In a sense, the seemingly young woman, who was originally more sophisticated in appearance, quickly recognized the situation after her initial confusion.
"... The Knight Corps is now the best combat power group under that man’s control, Catherine. You must seize it..."
Catherine’s mother saw much further than the "little girl."
If nothing went wrong, this patrol mission would probably be the Knight Corps’ last military mission.
After arriving in the Otherworldly, the corps’ organization would likely not be disbanded on the spot, but there would probably be a reorganization... In her mother’s clear eyes, this was seen as both a crisis and an opportunity.
Compared to the three famous and outstanding Knight Commanders, Catherine was obviously more trusted by Lu Ping’an. If Lu Ping’an wanted to further control the Knight Corps, promoting a new Commander was necessary.
At this stage, Catherine needed to demonstrate her abilities and prestige, at least establish some direct lineage and foundation within the Knight Corps.
"...Mom can be so annoying, making me run around for this. Oh well, she’s not wrong. Fulfilling some of my duties as a Knight will let me leave with a clear conscience..."
Reality was much crueler than fairy tales. In the end, when the crisis was at its peak, people often thought of their own interests rather than overcoming difficulties together.
"Although my daughter, you’re doing pretty well serving that new lord now, he won’t give up on you if you’re even more valuable. At this moment, it’s much more useful to help him seize control of the Knight Corps than focusing on internal affairs. You say there’s no need to win over the knights because they’re already respectful to you? Heh, there’s a difference between respect and loyalty. You need to give them a chance to pledge allegiance, only then will they truly be yours..."
As Marian had predicted, all along the way, knights continuously approached Catherine in private, saying various chaotic things, vaguely expressing their willingness to pledge loyalty... something like, "As long as you say the word, I won’t hesitate; your words will hold power among the knights."
Moreover, most of them squeezed out a gift of some sort, either cheap or valuable.
Loyalty? Pledging allegiance? That’s probably what they meant.
If Catherine had still been busy with Lu Ping’an, she wouldn’t have had such a convenient opportunity. What the knights said and gave wasn’t important; what mattered was that after their actions of "giving gifts" and "secret talks," they would be seen as Catherine’s subordinates within their small circles in the Knight Corps.
Among them, there were even two captains of the knights, whose positions seemed almost on par with Catherine... The middle-aged knight who had never shown her a good face before, suddenly acted as fawning as a businessman this time.
Originally, Catherine had looked down on them; in the past, they were loyal, righteous, and brave, never giving nor accepting bribes, and were knights worthy of admiration. They had a good relationship with the somewhat "naive" Catherine of that time... But now, with their heads lowered, offering gold necklaces, their expressions were ridiculous.
However, upon further thought, this man had a happy family, a beautiful daughter, and two somewhat foolish sons.
Catherine sighed and said nothing, accepting the gift directly.
The knight captain also sighed, but his face was visibly more relaxed.
"...After all, we’re all just trying to survive."
Even more cynically, Catherine vaguely felt that the motives of the Knight Commanders who had voluntarily taken on "patrolling" this time weren’t entirely pure.
Perhaps this was also an opportunity to seize military power while simultaneously showing the new boss that they were still good people who adhered to the knight’s spirit and dutifully fulfilled their responsibilities even at the last moment.
Speaking of their boss, Lu Ping’an, the female knight’s face brightened with a smile.
It wasn’t that she had any special feelings for Lu Ping’an, it was simply because...
"I’m glad they came... They seem like good people."
Lu Ping’an and his team were good people... In the literal sense. To locals like Catherine, these newcomers seemed to come from a peaceful world and could even be considered extremely rare and exceptionally good foreigners.
"No coercion, no vicious exploitation, no plundering, no auctioning off boat tickets, no enslaving everyone, no acting like an emperor..."
Don’t say their demands were low, because all of the above had already been done by other foreigners.
Some foreigners who arrived in this remote area with a few boat tickets just needed to buy off the local lords to make anything possible.
Once the news of "Doomsday" was confirmed as true, even more information began flying around, and inquiring about the "boat ticket prices" of others became a common occurrence.
Many of the hideous acts committed by these malicious foreigners spread everywhere... These were heinous deeds that relentlessly challenged the moral bottom line, and many of the foreigners didn’t even regard the locals as "intelligent creatures."
In fact, the knights didn’t care that much, at least not openly. What they were always concerned about was...
"After working under such good people in the future, we should be able to survive, right?"
Their demands were only at this level, just surviving, and with dignity if possible.
The Shepherd Silver people? They were a significant cause of misfortune; following them would lead to the death of many people. More importantly, they didn’t have any boat tickets.
Reality was a bit cruel, but that’s how it was. Without "boat tickets," the Shepherd Silver people were expelled from the category of "foreigners."
Catherine didn’t go far; she went around in a circle, moving several villages before preparing to head back.
She thought it would end there, but unexpectedly, an accident occurred in the last village.
— End of Chapter 527 —