Chapter 223 Moses Port
People may not understand what a country means, but hometown and homeland are something that everyone can understand.
Especially for those who have left their hometown, suffered hardships and indifference outside, it would be better if no one mentioned it. But if someone mentions the old days in their hometown, it is hard not to resonate and miss the world where they ran around in their childhood.
Newin Town is a port town. As it is adjacent to the Barcelo River, the town has a very developed water transportation. The boats from Newin Town can not only go directly to the territory of Count Odis next door, but also go downstream to the Nosk Federation.
Before the railway in Innadri City was completed, people who needed to go to the capital had to go to Newin Town to take a boat - of course, now Newin Town also has ships going to the capital upstream of the Barcelo River every year. Although water transportation is not as fast as the magic steam train, at least the freight is very cheap.
If there is any disadvantage of relying on water for a living, it is probably the flooding every spring and summer... Due to the lack of water conservancy facilities, when the water level of the Barcelo River rises in spring and summer, the land on the river bank side of Newin Town will be submerged in water, and even the houses in the town will inevitably be flooded.
When the city of Innadri was built, it was located on a plain more than ten kilometers away from the section of the Barcelo River that runs through the territory of Innadri, largely to avoid the annual flooding of the river. Although this would make it more difficult for the city to obtain water and require the construction of additional artificial rivers to divert river water to the city, it was better than being plagued by floods every year like the town of Newin.
This issue of Innadri Weekly appeared in a street bookstore in Newing Town the day after it was published. Because the hero published in the newspaper had a deep connection with Newing Town, the "Legend of Susan" spread at an incredible speed among the residents of Newing Town, where the illiteracy rate was as high as 90%.
When the Vio Shipping Company, which was owned by a baron, was loading cargo at the dock that day, a literate local from Newing Town was holding a newspaper and excitedly telling the dock workers during their lunch break about the heroic figures who had appeared in their town more than two hundred years ago.
The employees of Vio Shipping Company are all natives of Newin Town. For the sailors who run the routes to the Odysseus Territory all year round, it is an honor for them to have a legendary hero in their hometown, even if they don’t know anyone from the Ken Radisson family at all - it is normal for civilians to have their surnames interrupted. After all, not all civilian men can successfully marry and have children.
After a lively discussion about the legendary hero Susan for the whole afternoon, the sailors, having had a good rest, continued to load the cargo, filling the cabin with the goods that the ship owner wanted to transport to Count Odysseus to sell before and after the winter festival, and then weighed anchor and set off.
The Barcelo River does not freeze in winter, so shipping companies will not close down.
Two days later, the Vio Shipping fleet docked at the port city of Moses in the territory of Earl Odis, and the Innadri Weekly, which published the "Legend of Susan", was also brought over by the sailors...
The frequency of circulation of local newspapers between different territories is not very high. After all, these local newspapers mostly publish local anecdotes, which will not be of much interest to outsiders. If these crew members had not brought the newspapers here, then according to the normal "flow speed", it might take a month or two for the big news published in the Innadri Weekly to be known by the people in the Earldom of Odysseus.
Of course, since the second daughter and third son of Count Odysseus are visiting Innadri, perhaps this newspaper will circulate faster than the previous weekly newspaper... but it will also take half a month.
This port city, which is similar in size to Innadri, is not as closed as Innadri. Many outsiders live in the streets near the port, including many people who come from Innadri to visit relatives, study, and work.
Sapir, who worked as a bartender in the Sailors' Bar at the dock, heard about the "Legend of Susan" published in the newspaper the day after .
Sapir was shocked at first that there was a legendary hero in Innadri. But after learning the details of the "Susan Legend", the man in his early thirties was most shocked: "Are Innadri really full of dead souls? Are those who came to visit relatives not bragging??"
The Earldom of Odysseus was much richer than the Earldom of Innadri. Many women from Innadri married to Moses Port. Sapir's mother married from Innadri.
After a major change happened in Innadri, those who came to visit relatives in Moses Port did not hide the fact that the new Lord Innadri had an invincible army of undead spirits. However... in the eyes of the people of Moses Port who claim to be knowledgeable, the ignorant Innadri bumpkin did not seem to be telling the truth, but rather seemed to be bragging.
Spellcasters often pass by Moses Port, and it is not uncommon to see black magicians parading through the streets riding undead lizards or undead horses. Those black magicians at most summon a few undead servants to do some miscellaneous tasks, but no one has ever heard of a black magician who fought with an army of undead - those skeletons that fall down with a push can't even beat stronger men!
The drunken sailors were not able to control their words, and they immediately started to refute the bartender: "Do you think the undead of Innadri are the same as those undead outside? They are not the same. Those undead are different. Even the Knights of the Church of the Fiery Sun were defeated by them!"
"Yes, those are the undead from Tarantan! I heard that they helped the Gold Coin Church deal with all the backlog of strange incidents. Even the scary Red Wall Farm outside Newin Town was solved by those undead!"
"When the boatswain and I went to the city to do some business, we saw the paintings left by the Tarantan ghosts on the inner city walls. Those paintings looked like living things were pasted on the walls!"
"I have seen those undead with my own eyes. They are all wearing fine armor and holding brand new weapons. They look more majestic than the city defense army before!"
...In front of outsiders, the sailors could never say that they were actually very afraid of those undead who ran away immediately, and would run away if they unexpectedly encountered them from a distance when entering the city...
The bartender Sapir listened in amazement as the sailors boasted for a long time about how awesome the undead were. When these sailors were called to work by their captain, they hurriedly handed over the work at hand to their colleagues and left the dock in a hurry.
Soon, the bartender appeared in front of a townhouse in a civilian neighborhood in a hurry.
Like the townhouses in Innadri, the townhouses in Moses Port are also shared residences where the same building is rented to multiple households. And because the urban construction in Moses Port is more decent than that in Innadri, most of these apartments have gas pipelines entering the house, and most households have electricity.
Sapir knocked on the door of one of the residents several times. The haggard-looking hostess opened the door. Sapir took off his hat, nodded, and squeezed in.
After closing the door, Sapir asked with concern, "Lisa, how is Joey?"
Mistress Lisa lowered her head, covered her face with her hands, and shook her head slightly in fatigue.
Sapir walked past the hostess Lisa and walked into the room as if he was familiar with the place. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
The light in the house was very dim because the curtains were drawn in broad daylight, but the male owner Joey, who was lying quietly on the bed, looked very pale even in such dim light.
Sapir took a few quick steps to Joey's bed, bent down, and touched his brother's cheek with heartache.
The room wasn't cold, as the kerosene stove provided plenty of heat, but Sapir's brother Joey was still icy cold, and if you couldn't still feel his breath and see his open eyes, touching him would have felt like touching a corpse.
Not only was Joey's body temperature extremely low, but his reactions were also very slow. It had been a while since Sapir entered the room before the weak man lying on the bed finally focused his gaze on his brother with difficulty. His lips trembled, but he didn't have the strength to make a sound.
Sapir's heart was broken. No one would believe this if he told others about it - his brother Joey went to work normally ten days ago, but when he came home one night, he told his wife Lisa that he felt very tired and cold. He slept in bed all night and then he became like this.
Sapir tiptoed out of the room, took a deep breath again, made up his mind, and said to Lisa, "Pack your things, Lisa, let's go to Innadri. The church there may be able to save Joey."
"The church in Moses Port is helpless, so what's the point of going to Inadli?" Lisa said dejectedly.
In the past ten days, they have thought of many ways to save Joey. Lisa sold her gold jewelry to buy alchemy potion and went to the church to ask for holy water, but nothing could bring Joey back to life.
Under Lisa's crying and pleading, the pastor of the Gold Coin Church in Moses Port told her the truth. Joey might have touched something that should not be touched, or read a book on occultism that he shouldn't have read, and encountered an unknown curse that made them feel quite troubled. There were so many secret sects, and it was very troublesome to figure out which one Joey was involved in, let alone expel the curse for him.
If it weren't for the fact that his wife Lisa was not infected and the church's judgment that Joey's curse would not be transmitted from person to person, then Joey would never have been able to wait for death quietly at home and would have been taken away by the church long ago.
"I'm not sure, but... since the Church of Innadri can solve all strange events with the help of the undead, maybe they can also save Joey?" Sapir hesitated and decided to tell the truth.
Lisa was shocked: "What are you talking about, Sapir, what undead?"
Sapir immediately repeated the boasts made by the crew members of Vio Shipping in the bar, and urged them: "Anyway, we have no other choice, Lisa. Since the undead spirits from Tarantan are so different from the undead servants summoned by other black magicians, and they even know how to paint and bring back the lost heroes for Innadri, then maybe they really can save Joey?"
Lisa was a native of Moses Port. She had seen many strange people and things in this prosperous port city, which was one of the most prosperous in the Rhine Kingdom. When she was very young, she was taken by her father to the free market to see the rare magical beasts that the mercenaries dragged to sell.
Although it was hard to believe that an undead servant who was even dumber than an orc slave could save her husband, Lisa had no choice but to try her luck. She gritted her teeth and said, "Okay... I'll go borrow some money from my mother."
