Chapter 43: The Paradise of Hypocrisy (I)

Three months after the Great Tomb of Nasalik traveled through another world, the village of Karn

Another refreshing dawn has descended on this village on the edge of the forest. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

As usual, Ann Li, a sixteen-year-old girl from Karn Village. Emmett still got up early, for she was ready to prepare breakfast before the sun rose—and she was not yet as skilled as her dead mother when it came to making a fire, so she had to work harder.

What's more, the breakfast she needs to prepare now is far more than the amount of her and her sister's portions.

After the death of their parents in a sneak attack by enemy spies in the spring, the surviving Emmert sisters immediately found themselves in a serious dilemma: with the meagre strength of their small arms and legs, they could not do so much farm work in their fields. The rest of the families in the village, who had lost a lot of their labor force in the massacre of the Slian Sect's agents, were now too busy to even keep their fields busy, and they had no spare energy to help the poor little sisters.

- Unlike the original book, the orphaned Ann Li did not receive a horn from the Lich King Ainz to summon goblins, and without the help of a loyal and reliable new family (summoned goblins), everything had to be done by herself and her sister.

Fortunately, in the next few days, many people came from the fortress city. The refugees of Lanthir fled to the village of Karn one after another, bringing countless chaos and bad news, but also solving the original problem of labor shortage in the village. The Emmert sisters used the money and food left by their parents to hire a relatively honest refugee in the prime of life as a long-term laborer, and finally did not have to worry about the farm work in the fields for a while.

But as a homesteader living in a remote mountain village, Ann Li's inheritance is naturally very limited, and she can't afford to pay much commission for her time. In fact, with the little food she had hoarded at home, she could barely feed herself and her sister. And there will be no new income before the autumn harvest.

What's worse is that due to the terrible army of the undead. Because of the ravages raging in the kingdom of Yestijah, refugees from all over the country are still pouring into the remote village of Karn, making the old people in the village worry that their village will be eaten alive by so many mouths.

Thanks to the Endless Path, the Great Magician of Ainz who had previously sent the Demon Pet Cat to save the village received a royal decree (in fact, it was the Gurdjief Warrior who passed on the holy decree and made up the procedures after the fact) to take on the role of resettlement and management of refugees. So, Lord Ainz paid for his work, imported food from the Bajas Empire out of his own pocket, paid for the food, paid the grain as wages, hired refugees to cut wood and quarry, burned bricks and walls, built a mage tower in Karn Village, and by the way, built a number of houses in Karn Village for the growing number of refugees in the village.

Thanks to the generosity of the Archmage Ainz and his project, the refugees who fled from all over the kingdom to Karn Village finally had a way to live. And the hard and hectic manual labor also drains the energy of these people, so that they cannot pose a threat to law and order.

In addition, as a local, An Li also took the opportunity to take a job as a cook for laborers, although the income is extremely meager, but it can finally subsidize some families. In addition, she and her sister can eat some food together, which is more or less a little fat difference.

So, this morning, before dawn, An Li had already crawled out of the bed and began to prepare breakfast for more than 50 people.

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Before officially starting work, Ann Li first opened the curtains and opened the windows to let in the fresh air and sunlight.

Looking out of the window of his house, the village of Karn has completely changed, no longer quiet and serene, but much more noisy and noisy, with rows of simple cabins, like mushrooms after rain, popping up in the original glade.

-- In the early spring of this year, Karn was a small village in the middle of nowhere, with a population of just over 100 people, not to mention decent streets, not even shops and taverns. But today, more than 3,000 refugees have taken refuge in Karn from all directions, avoiding the army of undead that are wreaking havoc across the kingdom. With so many people pouring in, the size of Karn Village has increased tenfold at once. By the standards of this world, it is far beyond the level of a "village", and at least it can be called a "town".

However, at this time, the village of Karn, or the town of Karn, although the population has increased rapidly in a very short period of time, does not look chaotic, but rather orderly and organized. Because the Lich King Ainz has regarded this place as his first human territory, like a child building blocks or a schoolboy playing a game of SimCity, it has been carefully designed and planned - in the past few months, most of the refugees who have fled to Karn Village have been organized into construction teams, and according to the specifications of modern migrant workers' dormitories, combined with the actual construction technology level of other worlds, many single- or double-storey longhouses with mixed masonry and wood structures have been built, and each longhouse can be crammed into a dozen to dozens of families at most, As a result, neat communities have been formed. Vacant spaces were also reserved between each longhouse for future green belts and plazas, and ditches were dug for drainage.

Of course, such a dense dormitory is obviously very small, can only allow the refugees to temporarily have a shelter from the wind and rain, from the eyes of modern people, this is not so much a town, but rather a refugee camp or a prisoner of war camp, and because the living is too compact, the people in the longhouse can neither light a fire to cook or heat (fire prevention), can only go outside to eat a big pot of rice, water is also very troublesome, the only well in the village obviously can not meet the needs of 3,000 people, bathing and laundry can only go to the small river outside the village to do things in the open air, It really feels like living in prison.

So, Ainz has a long-term plan for the future, which is to make an otherworldly version of the Garden City...... But in a short period of time, let's make do with this kind of crowded refugee camp. In any case, having a roof is better than camping or sleeping in a tent.

However, even such a humble version of the building complex is already very prosperous in the eyes of the uninformed village girl An Li.

In the last three months, with the rapid influx of people from other places, a potential consumer market has quickly formed in the village of Kahn. And the Lich King Ainz who actually rules the place never remembered to collect a commercial tax - probably because he didn't like that little money.

Thus, under such liberal conditions, taverns, inns, grocery stores, bazaars, and more recently even brothels have opened - among the refugees who have fled the city, there are also some street prostitutes who have no other means of subsistence than to laugh and sell themselves. As soon as it was dark today, the newly built village had already woken up from its slumber and the smell of cooking smoke and breakfast wafted everywhere. Some individual vendors also began to carry their goods to the side of the road with a lot of people, set up their own stalls, and officially started their day's work for themselves and their families.

However, this deformed prosperity that suddenly appeared on the desolate frontier was bought at the cost of the destruction of countless prosperous villages and towns!

――Through small talk with the new refugees and businessmen, Ann Li vaguely learned that Li. A considerable part of the kingdom of Jestijah has now become a very terrible and miserable world. Everywhere the undead crawl out of the dirt and coffins, roaming the fields and pastures, bringing death and destruction to the living. Many villages were slaughtered by surprise, and large cities and fortified castles were not spared.

For example, she is more familiar with the fortress city of Yah. Rantir, the birthplace of this undead catastrophe, has now been completely transformed into a city of death shrouded in black mist, with an average of only one out of twenty inhabitants escaping...... Moreover, even if they managed to escape the undead, they had to say goodbye to their hometown forever with tears, because it was no longer the home of the living, but a paradise for the dead......

In this comparison, although her village of Karn was also unfortunately hit by the war, more than half of the villagers survived, and they were not kicked out of their homes, and they still seemed lucky to be able to continue living in their original houses.

But when she thinks of her parents who were hacked to death by the enemy to protect herself and her sister, Ann Li can't help but feel ashamed of her heartlessness.

After reaching out and taking a deep breath, Ann Li rolled up her sleeves, cheered up, and began to work by the stove.

The cabbage, onions and mushrooms are cleaned, the radishes and potatoes are peeled, and the vegetables are chopped into small pieces. Then he changed to a stronger knife, took a piece of hard salted meat, and chopped it into minced meat vigorously...... Although it seems to be a very ordinary housework, if you consider that this is a meal for fifty people, you know that this workload is not so easy for a young girl.

In fact, under the pampering of her parents, Ann Li was not particularly good at cooking in the past, but with the murder of her parents, she is now an orphan, and under the persecution of difficult circumstances, she quickly learned how to complete this difficult task on time and with good quality.

It can be seen that everyone's so-called natural talent is often forced out by the needs of the environment.

At the same time, in the "knock knock" of the kitchen knife hitting the board, her sister Nim was also awakened by the sound of her sister's cooking, rubbing her sleepy eyes and getting up from the bed, "...... Yes...... Good morning, sister. I'm here to help, too! ”

“…… Good morning, Nim. I don't need help here, so you might as well go get some buckets of water. ”

For a little girl, it is also very hard work to fetch water with a large wooden bucket, so a dissatisfied expression appeared on her sister's face for a moment, but in the end she did not complain, and agreed to her sister's request in frustration, got up and carried the big wooden bucket, and went out slowly.

Looking at her sister's back, An Li couldn't help but stop for a while. I felt an indescribable tingling in my heart.

Her little sister, Nem, used to be a lively and headstrong child. However, since that massacre, my sister, who was once innocent, has grown a lot in an instant, and has become very obedient to her sister, no longer coquettish, let alone noisy. The level of "good boy" is simply sad.

The smiling faces of her father and mother flashed clearly in her mind again.

Even though a few months have passed, the scars left in my heart by that incident are still far from healing.

If your parents die of illness, then you can be aware of it beforehand, after all, people are born, old, sick and die. If your parents died in a sudden natural disaster, then at least you won't resent others, and you may not be as traumatized as you are now.

But in fact, her parents died in the brutal slaughter of the enemy in order to protect her and her sister.

Obviously, such an incident cannot help but arouse resentment in the hearts of the people.

Moreover, the enemy who planned the massacre in Karn Village, the Council of the High Priests of the Slen Sect, who had sent troops to infiltrate the kingdom and burn and kill the plundered her, was a behemoth that she could not shake at all. Revenge for your parents or something is a joke at all. As for the murderer who directly killed him, he has already been killed. The only thing she can do is to try to live well with her sister and not live up to the sacrifice of her parents......

Ann Li closed her eyes tightly, trying not to let the tears flow. If anyone was around, she might be able to feign calm in order to avoid letting others see her weakness. But when she was alone, the boundless loneliness still pierced the scars in her heart.

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However, her busy life did not allow her to be so immersed in sadness, and after only a few moments, Ann Li wiped away her tears and continued with the work at hand: if breakfast was too slow, and the hungry laborers complained and caused her to lose this errand, then she would not be able to cry!

After cutting the bacon, Ann Li began to light the stove, taking the smoldering wick from a special clay pot and skillfully lighting the pre-chopped dry wood, quickly turning the small fire into a raging flame. The next thing is to put a large iron pot on the stove, fill it with cold water, pour in the minced bacon meat, and sprinkle a few large bowls of dried beans into it, so that the pot of thick soup has a little base. As for the fresh vegetables, they should be put at the end before being cooked.

At the same time, she took out another small iron pot and began to cook her and her sister's breakfast—the same as for the laborers, with minced meat soup and pre-made brown bread, with a little extra wild vegetables and fruit.

However, despite the same stove, the water in the small pot was obviously boiling fast, and when the heat was just beginning to rise in the large iron pot, Ann Li and her sister Nim were already sitting by the stove, dipping the hard black bread in the hot soup in the small pot, and eating it with great taste.

I have to admit that although life is difficult now, the content on the table is richer than when my mother cooked in the past.

The most noticeable change is that they now have meat for every meal. Although in the past it was occasionally possible to get some meat from the hunters of the village from some wild beasts and birds, such a good thing was really rare. As for the slaughter of livestock, it is a once-a-year event. The reason why they are able to eat so much meat today is first and foremost because the local population has a much larger range of activities in the forest than before.

The large forests surrounding Kahn have provided countless bounties to the villagers over the years – firewood for fuel, fruits and wild herbs for food, meat and fur for animals, and various medicinal herbs that can be exchanged for money. But the problem is that although there are countless treasures in the forest, there are also countless dangerous magical beasts, and they are not places that ordinary people can go into casually, otherwise they will be in danger of losing their lives. Even the hunters in the village are only active at the edge of the forest, and they are busy escaping at the slightest disturbance, so naturally they will not have much to gain.

However, with the arrival of hundreds of refugees and a large number of adventurers, the situation has changed dramatically: the adventurers are all professional monster killers, and in order to secure their new homes, they have launched a large-scale sweeping operation. The forest monsters that terrified the villagers were nothing to mention in the eyes of their veteran experts. Whether it's a goblin or an ogre, they're all slashed down one by one under the swords of the adventurers.

Even if he encounters an occasional powerful monster that adventurers can't handle, the Great Mage of Ainz will send his followers or pets, mainly the incredibly powerful cats, deep into the forest to defeat them, and each time come home in a big way.

And, just as a house cat would place a dead mouse in front of his master's house to ask for credit, Lord Ainz's talking cats often brought captured or killed monsters to the village for exhibition: a twenty-foot giant, a giant snake coiled up like a hill, and a spider bigger than a hound, all of which Ann Li, a village girl who had lived beside the forest for sixteen years, had never seen before. There's even a towering man-eating tree that amazes the newcomers and wonders how the natives of Karn Village survive.

As a result, as the monsters in the nearby forest were swept away, the range of hunters was greatly expanded. In a forest like this, which has been rarely inhabited since ancient times, the abundance of all kinds of prey is quite abundant. And when those skilled adventurers also join the hunting team, the amount of prey they get every day is enough to be called a good harvest. According to the conventions of this world, or the remnants of the traditions of tribal times, after the hunters have stripped the prey of the fur, claws, bones or horns that are easy to preserve, the remaining fresh meat and offal, which are not easy to preserve, are generously distributed to all the inhabitants according to the head. If the "natives" of Kahn Village are given additional preferential treatment, a little more allotment. Although the number is still small, the good thing is that the Emmert sisters do not have a large appetite, which is enough for them to have a beautiful meal and a tooth sacrifice.

In addition to hunting, in order to provide enough meat for the burgeoning population, the new refugees, or immigrants, began to raise pigs in the forests again. These pigs basically do not need feed, but are kept in large forests, and let them eat the rhizomes of plants and the acorns that have fallen, which is enough to raise them fat and strong. Moreover, the entourage of the Great Wizard of Anz seemed to have cast some kind of magic on these pigs, making them grow fat incredibly quickly, and in just a few months, they were almost ready to be slaughtered. Many people have begun to imagine the deliciousness of tonkatsu.

Then, as a by-product of the expansion of hunting, the range of wild vegetables, fruits, and mushrooms that women could safely gather in the forest also expanded. Although the number of people who need to eat has increased dozens of times at once, this vast and rich forest still has abundant production, which can meet the daily consumption of thousands of people. The contradiction between man and earth is simply a shadowless thing.

Now, Ann Li's family can put fresh fruits and wild vegetables on the dining table every day, and there are two jars of mixed fruit wine made from various wild fruits in the kitchen.

Although she was only a sixteen-year-old girl, Ann Li still knew very well that she was able to live such a nourishing life, not falling into hunger and embarrassment because of the loss of her parents, not being driven out of her home by the undead that were raging everywhere, and not being robbed by the starving outcasts, thanks to the powerful and generous Great Wizard of Ainzi, and his equally powerful and kind followers.

In Anli's mind, it was the Great Mage of Ainz and his followers who guarded the territory, defending it against the undead and sheltering the weak humans hiding here - in addition to hunting monsters in the forest, the cats sometimes dragged in a few zombies or ghouls with their heads smashed off to show off their achievements to the villagers; It is also the Great Magician of Anz who maintains the order of this small world and avoids all kinds of crimes; It was he who gave generously to provide work and food to all those gathered here. Even his own lives and those of his sister, as well as the number of people in the village who survived the massacre, were saved by Grand Wizard Ainz and his followers from the massacre in the first place. This kindness can be said to be higher than the mountains and deeper than the sea, so people don't know how to repay it, so they can only hide this deep gratitude in their hearts forever.

Therefore, at the same time as each meal, she silently prayed to the gods, hoping that the Grand Magician of Ainz and his followers, these rare good people in the world, would always have good luck, so that the relatively happy life in Karn Village could be maintained forever...... The village girl who has lived next to the forest for sixteen years has never seen it. There's even a towering man-eating tree that amazes the newcomers and wonders how the natives of Karn Village survive.

As a result, as the monsters in the nearby forest were swept away, the range of hunters was greatly expanded. In a forest like this, which has been rarely inhabited since ancient times, the abundance of all kinds of prey is quite abundant. And when those skilled adventurers also join the hunting team, the amount of prey they get every day is enough to be called a good harvest. According to the conventions of this world, or the remnants of the traditions of tribal times, after the hunters have stripped the prey of the fur, claws, bones or horns that are easy to preserve, the remaining fresh meat and offal, which are not easy to preserve, are generously distributed to all the inhabitants according to the head. If the "natives" of Kahn Village are given additional preferential treatment, a little more allotment. Although the number is still small, the good thing is that the Emmert sisters do not have a large appetite, which is enough for them to have a beautiful meal and a tooth sacrifice.

In addition to hunting, in order to provide enough meat for the burgeoning population, the new refugees, or immigrants, began to raise pigs in the forests again. These pigs basically do not need feed, but are kept in large forests, and let them eat the rhizomes of plants and the acorns that have fallen, which is enough to raise them fat and strong. Moreover, the entourage of the Great Wizard of Anz seemed to have cast some kind of magic on these pigs, making them grow fat incredibly quickly, and in just a few months, they were almost ready to be slaughtered. Many people have begun to imagine the deliciousness of tonkatsu.

Then, as a by-product of the expansion of hunting, the range of wild vegetables, fruits, and mushrooms that women could safely gather in the forest also expanded. Although the number of people who need to eat has increased dozens of times at once, this vast and rich forest still has abundant production, which can meet the daily consumption of thousands of people. The contradiction between man and earth is simply a shadowless thing.

Now, Ann Li's family can put fresh fruits and wild vegetables on the dining table every day, and there are two jars of mixed fruit wine made from various wild fruits in the kitchen.

Although she was only a sixteen-year-old girl, Ann Li still knew very well that she was able to live such a nourishing life, not falling into hunger and embarrassment because of the loss of her parents, not being driven out of her home by the undead that were raging everywhere, and not being robbed by the starving outcasts, thanks to the powerful and generous Great Wizard of Ainzi, and his equally powerful and kind followers.

In Anli's mind, it was the Great Mage of Ainz and his followers who guarded the territory, defending it against the undead and sheltering the weak humans hiding here - in addition to hunting monsters in the forest, the cats sometimes dragged in a few zombies or ghouls with their heads smashed off to show off their achievements to the villagers; It is also the Great Magician of Anz who maintains the order of this small world and avoids all kinds of crimes; It was he who gave generously to provide work and food to all those gathered here. Even his own lives and those of his sister, as well as the number of people in the village who survived the massacre, were saved by Grand Wizard Ainz and his followers from the massacre in the first place. This kindness can be said to be higher than the mountains and deeper than the sea, so people don't know how to repay it, so they can only hide this deep gratitude in their hearts forever.

Therefore, at the same time as each meal, she silently prayed to the gods, hoping that the Grand Magician of Ainz and his followers, these rare good people in the world, would always have good luck, so that the relatively happy life in Karn Village could be maintained forever......