Chapter 473 Black Stone Village
In April of the new calendar year 1033 in the alien world, in the territory of Tachia, a four-wheeled carriage departing from Creek City was traveling on a country road in the northern plains.
The carriage had no roof. Several sacks were piled on one side of the wooden board body, and several pieces of dead cloth were rolled up in waterproof oilcloth on the other side. In the small triangle between the sacks and the oilcloth, sat a man wearing a windproof hood with his legs bent and a box at his feet.
The coachman was a father and son. The father, who was in his prime, was a taciturn man, while his lively son, who wore a straw hat, was very talkative.
"If it's someone else's house, I might not know it, but if it's the White family, I'm very familiar with it, sir."
The young boy, who sat sideways on the fender above the front wheel, waved his arms and talked tirelessly to the passengers who paid for a ride with their family: "The White family lives in the red-roofed house not far from our home. Mr. and Mrs. White work on the farm next to the village. They have two younger sisters, one of whom is said to be a maid in a good family in town..."
The man in the car raised his head slightly, revealing a slightly pale and haggard face with stubble on his chin under his windbreaker. If it weren't for the fact that this man was very big and strong when sitting, one would really doubt whether he was a patient.
"I heard that White is serving as a soldier for the lord and has a high annual salary. Does his sister need to go to town to work as a maid?" the guest asked curiously in his hoarse voice, as if his throat had been burned by long-term illness.
"Ah, sir, what a coincidence, I just know this." The young boy tried his best to act like an adult and put on a sophisticated look with his childish face, pretending to be deep, "The eldest son of the White family can indeed send a lot of money home every year. That money is enough for many families to live an easy life, but their family is different... It's not enough just to pay off the debts!"
"The White family is in debt?" the guest asked in confusion.
"Yes, sir. When I was a kid..." the teenager said in a tone of reminiscence that would make adults laugh, "the White family was quite well off. But their luck was really bad. One year when mad sheep disease was prevalent, their family was unfortunately hit. Not only did they lose all their assets, but they also owed a lot of money..."
The guest's brow furrowed.
In the northern part of Taqiya, livestock raising is very common.
Compared with farmers who own land, livestock farmers always have a more comfortable life...but if they encounter natural disasters or man-made disasters, livestock farmers are always more likely to suffer - if an infectious disease breaks out among livestock in a certain year, a number of livestock farmers will go bankrupt.
Still, the White family's situation didn't make sense.
Private Elan White is a first-class archer in the main regiment of the Tachia Defense Force. He is an elite soldier with an annual salary of forty gold coins.
This income is still far from the middle class, but if Elan White's total income from six years of military service was still not enough to pay off his family's debts, something was obviously wrong - local livestock farmers could not own large tracts of land to grow pasture like farmers, so they could only rely on free-range breeding in the mountains and forests, and the flocks they raised were often not very large, with a hundred or so at most.
Even if the White family was unfortunately hit by mad sheep disease and all the sheep died, the most they lost was a hundred or so gold coins.
Losing so much money is really terrible for an average livestock farming family...but the White family's eldest son is still very capable, and he should have paid it back long ago.
If Elan White's family had a gambling-addicted prodigal son...that didn't seem likely, as his parents were still working on the farm and he had no other brothers.
After pondering the information about Private First Class Elan White for a while and comparing it with the information provided by the young boy, the guest hesitated for a moment and asked, "Whose money does the White family owe?"
"Master Bud's house." The young boy said without hesitation.
"Master Bud?"
"Yes, sir, the owner of the farm next to our village."
The young boy seemed to have found a new topic of conversation, and he started talking nonstop about the family of Mr. Bud... nothing more than how rich their family was and how they even had to hire maids from the city.
The hitchhiker - yes, I think some clever readers have guessed it - is none other than Miles, the night watchman who had taken on the background check job from City Hall.
Among the more than 30,000 defenders who participated in the battle that day, about 20% were from the private soldiers of various noble families... There was no need to investigate these people . After quarantine and observation and confirmation that they had no connection with the cult, they could be directly sent to build roads.
There is no need to investigate officers and non-commissioned officers. They can be sent to build roads after registration. Even if there are some "wrongly accused" ones, it doesn't matter. If they behave well, they can be released early and may even have a chance to be arranged for employment, so it's not too bad.
Among the remaining 20,000 soldiers, the vast majority of the lower-ranking soldiers did not have to do any effort. These lowest-ranking professional soldiers could hardly even get out of the military camp gate, and they had no chance to do evil.
Privates and corporals are the main subjects of background checks - especially corporals. These "veterans" are very close to the threshold of non-commissioned officers, are eligible to find excuses to temporarily leave the barracks, and often have sesame-sized power at hand, giving them the opportunity and conditions to do evil.
Captain Miles's trip to a small town called Wilkie in the north of Creek City was to investigate twelve privates who were from that town and the surrounding villages.
Among them, Private First Class Elan White, who was born in Black Stone Village, is Captain Miles' key target of investigation.
Before setting off, Captain Miles specifically checked the information of the country nobles in Wilkie Town, and found no such name as Bud.
"To own a farm in that area, he shouldn't be an unknown person... maybe he is the housekeeper of a family." Captain Miles pondered secretly while listening to the boy's mumbling.
The country people cannot tell the difference between the steward assigned to manage the farm property and the real owner of the house. In the eyes of the country people, any decent person who has a carriage and servants to serve him is a "master".
Before noon, the horse-drawn carriage that Miles hitchhiked on the roadside drove into Blackstone Village.
The villagers in the northern part of Tachia Territory are much better off than those in the southern part, and most of them have spare money.
When the carriage entered the village, Captain Miles just jumped off the carriage and prepared to say goodbye to the father and son, when he saw the young boy who had been chattering all the way take a breath, open his mouth, and shout to the village with an astonishingly loud voice: "The Dead Spirit Bra is back!!"
Captain Miles' head buzzed and he was forced to take a half step back by the shocking sound.
Many villagers opened their doors and ran towards the horse-drawn carriage parked on the threshing ground at the entrance of the village...
Buying rolls of undead cloth was still stressful for the villagers in the north of Tachia Territory, but if several families pooled their money to buy a roll and asked people in the village who were going to the city to help carry the goods, it would be more cost-effective than going to the town to buy it - the undead cloth resold by those unscrupulous merchants in the town cost twelve copper coins per meter, while it only cost ten coppers in the city.
Those families who had collected money in advance and gave it to the coachman and his son for "purchase" could take the rolls of cloth away and divide them up slowly at home by paying a "purchase" fee of ten copper coins.
After taking the cloth from each family, the villagers did not rush to disperse and still gathered around the carriage.
At this time, the taciturn driver had already climbed onto the cart, untied the ropes tied to the sacks, and poured out bags of white fine salt wrapped in plastic with cartoon skulls printed on the bags...
"Give me two packs!"
"We want four packs at home!"
The villagers surrounding the carriage became excited again and squeezed forward holding coins of varying amounts.
The coachman and his son fed the horses into the city before daybreak, of course not just to make some money by "purchasing" the dead cloth...buying cheap dead salt from the city and reselling it was the real business of this father and son.
Captain Miles, who was pushed far away, looked at the scene with a mixture of laughter and tears.
On the second day after the Undead regime took control of Creek City, Captain Miles was dragged by Mace to the port to help unload the cargo - the cargo that filled several large holds and was pulled from a cargo ship from Inadri.
Dead cloth, dead salt, Westram potato flour, Dutata fresh lotus root, Inadelli canned food... There are even Tarantan radios (Earth products) that are sold only in silver coins, and all-steel frame bicycles (Inadelli's own production) that also only cost a dozen silver coins.
As soon as these goods from the south were put on display for public sale, Creek City, which had been deserted due to the siege and the undead running around the streets, instantly regained its vitality...
The Gold Coin Parish is always the most popular trading area. Look, in just a few days, even the country people know how to resell these cheap and affordable southern goods.
Captain Miles waited patiently outside the crowd for a while, until a villager bought the salt of the dead and squeezed out of the crowd to go home, then he came forward and asked indirectly about the family traditions of the White family.
Just when Captain Miles was asking around in Blackstone Village for news about the White family... a group of uninvited guests came to the vast pastures owned by the farmer next to Blackstone Village.
"It should be this direction..." Miaobishenghua held the map he got in the town and looked around. "Butler Bard's lair is two kilometers east of Blackrock Village. Strange, we are not going in the wrong direction. Where is this village? How come we haven't seen an NPC in such a long time?"
Give Me Medicine followed behind Miaobishenghua with a sad face: "I say Huahua... I can't help much with this kind of non-combat mission, why don't I--"
"Not as good as you!" Miaobishenghua frowned, "Sister Ying is offline, Jialuo Xiaotang and the others are in class, if you don't help me, who will? Do you want me, a nurse, to run the mission by myself?"
"I feel like Sister Ying is technically offline... otherwise there's no way she would have been hacked to death by that weak NPC. Who can be fooled by her acting skills?" said Give Me Medicine with a squint.
"Well, you still want to alienate our sisterhood!"
"No, no, I don't mean that." The one who gave me the medicine waved his hands quickly. If he offended the nurse, he would be released. If there was no treatment to care for him, this fragile walker would die quickly. "This night watch mission we chose is too tiring. It's a never-ending process. I think we should change to another mission after this one. There's no need to fight to the death..."
"Brother Yao! Huahua!"
A player who was exploring the way ahead came back happily, waving his arms as he ran: "There's someone, there's someone! There's an NPC ahead!"
