Chapter 332 Newcomers
The first night as a captive was much simpler than Rhodes and the others had imagined.
There was no imprisonment, interrogation, torture, or even detention - after they agreed to abide by the rules set by the Nightmare Butcher and show kindness to the Tarantan Undead, Yang untied the strange straps that bound them and made them impossible to break free of.
No wonder Kenyans don't recognize this kind of cable tie... This unprepossessing little gadget is a Kevlar cable tie specially customized by Yang Qiu - it is heat-resistant and flame-retardant, anti-static, acid- and alkali-resistant, high-strength, high-wear-resistant, and highly tear-resistant, and it can easily trap ordinary professionals.
The only regret is that this product of Earth's polymer chemical technology cannot trap the caster... When the caster's mental power acts on the material world, it can deconstruct artificial or natural creations at the molecular level, and can also change the space in which it is located through universal space conversion magic. Conventional means of restraint can hardly restrict the caster.
Anyway, spellcasters are not cabbages, and it is even rarer for them to jump out and cause trouble for Yang Qiu for the sake of the church or a noble, so Yang Qiu just ignores it for now...
After this group of Kenyan night watchmen regained their freedom, Yang generously gave them clothes (except for the female warriors, none of them had any pants left, so they had to give them clothes) and arranged accommodation for them - a brick house built by the undead.
After leading the eleven people to the residential area of Life Lane and assigning them to four adjacent bungalows, Yang Qiu considerately introduced the precautions for living in Exile Town to these newly employed NPC tools: "Do you see that building with a tin roof over there? That is the canteen of the Undead Chamber of Commerce. It provides three meals every morning from 8 to 9, noon to 1, and evening from 6 to 7."
"Don't worry about the meal expenses. This part of the cost is included in your work remuneration. We in Tarantan are a place of order. No matter who you are, you will get the corresponding remuneration, and there will be no deductions."
"You can get all the daily necessities you need in the canteen of the Undead Chamber of Commerce, including women's supplies. The cost will be included in your salary."
"In addition..." Yang Qiu smiled at several young people , and said meaningfully, "In addition to the undead and zombies in the town, there are also some civilian women. These civilian women are important people of Tarantan. Their personal safety and property safety are protected by the Lord of Tarantan, that is, me. Please don't do anything that will embarrass me."
Gejier: “…”
Just tell me, why are you staring at me?! Do I look like someone who would bully a civilian woman?
Ross felt a little relieved after hearing this... The fact that he attached great importance to protecting civilian women showed that the Nightmare Butcher was not too crazy.
Of course Yang Qiu was not crazy, he was very rational - Miaobishenghua, this clever and brainy player had a very accurate interpretation of the mission, and he did not want these Night's Watchmen to enter the Exile Town without being disarmed; what if the plump and loyal civilians he had worked so hard to raise were killed in the exchange of fire, who would be held accountable?
He never thought that these civilians from the border town of the Principality of Shiga were useless - not to mention Mia, the housekeeper of Westerham's Logistics Department and a respected pillar; even the group of older grassroots students taken away by the national team have now been transferred to various villages in Westerham to serve as village officials. How much Westerham's autumn harvest this year will increase depends on them!
Now, the civilians who are still staying in Exile Town and Desolate Land are all learning culture bit by bit under the guidance of the two old men in the cafeteria. Don't expect that all of them will become successful, but it is no problem for them to be mediocre people and do some basic work. They can endure hardships better and know what is right and wrong better than young people.
After briefly explaining the rules that needed to be followed in Exile Town, Yang Qiu left with the lantern, leaving the night watchmen to convince themselves.
Worrying about them running away or something... doesn't exist.
Not only were all the lizard horses intercepted by Yang Qiu, but their equipment and weapons were also snatched away by players; in a place like Tarantan, they were able to run out of the town and survive for three days without looking back, so Yang Qiu had to respect them as real men.
If they don't know what's good for them and keep fighting... that would be a lot of trouble. Not to mention that there are still a dozen former thieves and more than 30 operators in the town, the players who are active in the town day and night are enough to make these guys suffer...
After Yang Qiu left, Rhodes and others did not dare to act rashly. They all gathered in a room to meet and discuss.
These brick and tile bungalows built by players to complete brick-moving tasks are at the same level as the shanty towns in Chinese cities thirty years ago... They can only be said to be barely habitable, and have no other advantages.
Although it was simple, the furniture was quite complete, including beds, cabinets, tables, and chairs. After all, there were many places in City A that were being demolished, and it was not expensive to buy these furniture that was ten or twenty years out of date at the second-hand market. If Exile Town had not had electricity, it would even be possible to move a lot of home appliances here at the price of scrap copper and iron...
Ge Jier sat on an old man's armchair that was found in the garbage dump of an unknown household in City A and then sold at the flea market. He said to his companions in a gloomy tone, "It seems that the Nightmare Butcher is really planning to keep us here. What do you think?"
"What else can I do? Do you still want to escape?" The female warrior pulled down her short-sleeved pullover (actually, it was a novice T-shirt worn by players) and said angrily, "The streets outside are full of undeads. I don't want to be tied up like pigs and sheep by those dirty skeletons again."
Gejier was extremely dissatisfied and wanted to say something, but Ross raised his hand to stop him.
"When we entered Tarantan, Bishop Harris had already reported our itinerary to the Holy Land." Ross said calmly, "We have lost contact with the Holy Land, and the Holy Land will respond. We just need to wait patiently."
Ge Jier wanted to say something, but stopped himself.
Ross glanced at him and soothed him, "Be patient, Gejier. A religious group and an investigation team have been lost here. The conservative priests of the Holy Land cannot object this time."
Ge Jier had no choice but to shut up in dismay.
Ross knew that his subordinates were just trying their best to remain calm at the moment. In fact, everyone was extremely uneasy about their current status as prisoners... This was understandable. After all, a few hours ago, they were Night Watch investigators who were treated with courtesy by the locals no matter which territory they went to on the continent.
Ross was actually not at peace in his heart, but he could not show it in front of his subordinates. He calmed everyone down with a calmer and more composed attitude than usual, and then Ross asked everyone to go and rest.
The female warriors were to occupy one of the four rooms, and the others had to squeeze in. Rhodes took the lead and left three people to share the room with him, allowing the remaining six men to allocate the other two rooms themselves.
It was not until the three people in the room started snoring that Ross dared to reveal his anxiety in the darkness. He stared at the ceiling in a daze with a gloomy face.
Where there are people, there will be conflicts, and even the holy land of the Church of the Fiery Sun is not immune to this.
In other words, due to the great expansion of the power of the Church of the Fiery Sun over the past four hundred years, the infighting within the Holy Land of the Fiery Sun is far more intense than that of other orthodox religious sects... Even the Nightmare Butcher, the mortal enemy of the Church of the Fiery Sun, has been disputed by priests with different opinions within the Holy Land.
Yang himself could sense that the Fiery Sun Church was using the lives of its knights to consume him, so how could the Fiery Sun Church itself not be aware of this?
The Inquisition did a very bad job, but the high-ranking priests in the Holy Land who were not from the Inquisition could not say anything - after all, the Inquisition had already lost several cardinals in the hunt for the Nightmare Butcher.
Ross, who was not sleepy at all, sighed slightly.
It sounds a bit weird, but this is the situation... The ones who are conservative about eliminating the Nightmare Butcher are actually the priests in charge of the Inquisition.
The cults that were thrown out as flags to consume the Nightmare Butcher were mostly people like Walton who were not "direct descendants" of the Inquisition and had no powerful families to rely on.
Walton's godfather, Priest Ham, was extremely dissatisfied with this arrangement. After the Walton sect lost contact, it was Priest Ham who joined forces with senior priests who were disgusted with the Inquisition's behavior and insisted on releasing the Night Watch Investigation Team.
Ross's godfather, Priest Jonathan, was well aware of the risks of this trip. Before the investigation team left, Priest Jonathan specially came to see his godson Ross and warned him not to take radical measures if there was a possibility of direct or indirect contact with the Nightmare Butcher. Although the Church of the Scorching Sun has been promoting the idea that the Nightmare Butcher is a madman with countless dead souls under his command, in fact, the senior priests of the Holy Land are very clear that this black magician is not crazy at all.
Seeing the Nightmare Butcher with his own eyes this time also confirmed Ross's assumptions about this person.
The Nightmare Butcher did not use some outrageous excuse like "the people from the Fiery Sun Cult broke into Tarantan and it was a crime", but instead used the rhetoric of "they hurt the undead of Tarantan"... It was obvious that this black magician was indeed not a person who ignored order as the outside world said. On the contrary, this black magician was trying to establish his own "order".
Although it was a little funny, Ross could see that... this black magician who had been demonized in rumors was indeed planning to establish and maintain a certain "order" that he recognized and pursued in the vast wasteland of Tarantan, among a group of undead and civilians who came from nowhere.
Compared with nomadic bandits, bandits who hope to rule the mountains somewhere are less threatening to local managers - the former are unscrupulous, while the latter will learn to communicate with official forces and compromise (be recruited) like proper politicians.
The Nightmare Butcher chose the latter path and occupied a mountain in the eastern part of the continent far away from the Fiery Sun Diocese. Logically speaking, the church could try to compromise with this man... But Ross knew very well that such a compromise was not advisable.
From the time he entered Innadri until he arrived at the Nightmare Butcher's lair, everything Ross investigated made the investigator deeply feel the huge threat that the Nightmare Butcher posed to the church.
If the Holy Land compromises with the Nightmare Butcher, it will not eliminate the hidden danger at all, but will only leave the hidden danger to erupt decades later - and by then, this black magician will only make the Holy See more wary and more troubled.
Rhodes never wanted to see that day come.
"Just like we decided when we came here... let's pretend to obey this guy first." Ross encouraged himself secretly, "As long as we don't get deceived like Walton, investigating from the inside may make it easier to find this guy's weakness."
The next morning, Ross got up with dark circles under his eyes, woke up all his subordinates, and led them to the Undead Chamber of Commerce cafeteria that the Nightmare Butcher showed them yesterday.
The fact that the food provided by the undead was edible was something that Ross and his companions had already specifically looked into when they founded the city of Innad... Especially the very sweet Tarantan cookies (moon cakes). If the store hadn't run out of stock, Ross would have been willing to buy some more as dry food.
As soon as they arrived at the small square in front of the cafeteria, Rhodes and others saw several middle-aged and elderly men and women with disabilities washing vegetables by the well next to the square.
Behind the well, in front of a building that looked like a warehouse, there were two undead going in and out helping to move things.
The two undead spirits saw Ross and his group. One of them seemed very excited, pointing at them and shouting something KABAKABA.
Ross stared at the two undead for a while, hesitated, and took out a rhododendron-shaped badge from his pocket...
——After all, these people are members of the Church of the Fiery Sun. Yang Qiu did not pull them into the matrix. He only issued them badges that could serve as temporary "entry permits" to facilitate their work as tool NPCs.
Just as he held the badge in his hand, the strange KABAKABA sound in Ross's ears turned into the impolite voice of a young woman: "Yes, it's them, the evil god apostles that spawned from the hidden quest I triggered! Vanilla boss and his team helped me complete the quest and captured them!"
Ross: “???”
Another undead made a strange gesture towards Ross and the others, and also spoke in the voice of a young woman, the voice of a young girl: "Are these NPCs also high-level NPCs? They look so poor. Won't their equipment and costumes be refreshed after they are dropped?"
"High-level NPC equipment won't refresh randomly, they're all out-of-print. Otherwise, why are the prices of attribute equipment so much more expensive than stock equipment?" Teacher Yuchi, who never misses the daily tasks in the cafeteria and uses the break time to complete tasks, said with a smile, "Huahua said that this hidden task was triggered probably because my reputation in the Chamber of Commerce is high enough. Remember to come here on time to complete the daily tasks in the future. This is the most stable place to increase the reputation of the Chamber of Commerce."
"I understand, teacher." Teacher Yuchi's new disciple said obediently.
Ross didn't understand most of what the two undead were saying, but the part he could understand was enough to make him feel annoyed...
There are women among the dead - no, this doesn't seem to be anything to be surprised about - the dead actually dislike that they look poor? !
Aren't you the dirty bandits who stole all our gear?!
Ross took a deep breath, thankful that no one else had taken out their badges yet, otherwise a young man with a strong sense of self-esteem like Gejier would have been furious.
He led his subordinates into the cafeteria in silence, and there, a lifelike-looking undead wearing an apron and sleeves greeted them.
"Good morning, you came here at noon...or last night, right?" Master Liu, who was the online GM and the canteen chef, waved to the investigators cheerfully, "Sit down first, the dumplings will be ready soon."
Ross silently looked at the undead in front of him who enthusiastically pulled out a chair and invited them to sit down.
He was a little confused for a moment, not knowing how to deal ...
"Oh, do you find it hard to get used to my skeleton?" Master Liu said with a good-natured smile, "Lord Yang said that you are from other places and have not seen many undead before. It's okay, you will get used to it."
Ross hesitated, nodded reluctantly, and did not respond to Master Liu's warm hospitality. He just waved silently and asked his subordinates to take a seat.
Master Liu was used to dealing with unruly former thieves, and he didn't care whether this group of "new indigenous colleagues" were impolite or not. He called a temporary kitchen worker to come in and help greet them, and went back to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
Soon, former thieves who lived in Exile Town and operators who came to help temporarily came to the cafeteria one after another.
Anthony, a tailor who was even more muscular than Walton, had a fierce look on his face and a bandit-like air. He glanced at the members of the investigation team who occupied two tables, ignored them, and took his own portion and that of the female workers in his tailor shop, and left.
Ma Nan, who also had a bandit-like demeanor, was somewhat interested in these newcomers and looked at them a few more times when he received his meal.
Unlike the former thieves who had to take care of the female workers they were responsible for, the operators all ate in the cafeteria. Since they had received the notice from Lord Yang through the matrix, they all greeted their "new colleagues" in a friendly manner.
This very normal and common way of treatment made the Kenyans feel uncomfortable... Really, if the followers of the Nightmare Butcher had spoken ill of them or made some offensive or provocative remarks, they would not have felt so awkward.
They were clearly robbed once by the Undead and then coerced and bribed by the Nightmare Butcher to stay and work, so why did it seem like they came here specifically to work?
After having breakfast with mixed feelings, Yang came over and assigned positions to them.
"The Walker Guild is seriously short of people, and half of you need to stay there to help."
On the way to the investigators' posts, Yang Qiu warmly and cordially introduced the new tools: "The so-called professional mentor is just a profession. Don't think too much about it. In fact you don't need to instruct the undead... Just give the undead designated tasks and settle the rewards according to the procedures."
"Our undead friends are generally very friendly and will not 'take the initiative' to engage in physical conflict with you. If they occasionally use disrespectful words, please do not mind. Our undead friends have no ill intentions, they just don't understand some of the etiquette of the material plane..."
"Our undead friends sometimes play some mischief. You should try to stop their excessive behavior..."
