Chapter 38: Deliberately Misleading and Raising Thieves with Self-Respect (II)

Because the fortress of the city yes. The undead scourge of Lantil first erupted from the cemetery near the outermost city wall, and then spread towards the interior of the city, invisibly blocking the escape route of most citizens. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 The tall and majestic triple walls of the fortress city can make the enemy unable to enter in normal times, but at this time of trouble, it also makes the people in the city so anxious that they can't get out.

So, despite the time buffer, not many citizens were able to actually find a safe gate and escape from the dead city.

Although Sebas, the dragon butler, and the adventurers he hired had been trying their best to organize search and rescue according to Ainz's orders, in the end they only managed to gather more than 1,500 people, less than one-twentieth of the original population of the city. However, if you add the more than 200 adventurers and handymen who were originally taken out of the city by him to go to Karn Village for construction, there are more than 1,700 people in total, which is already equivalent to the scale of a small town.

So, when the kingdom warrior captain Gerdjief. Storonov and his men circled the fallen fortress city of Je. After turning around, Lantil found that a temporary refugee camp had formed on the barren grassland, about five kilometers north of the city. The adventurers who left the city first took local materials, lit dozens of bonfires, boiled water and wheat porridge, and distributed them to the frightened refugees to keep out the cold and hunger.

――Even though it's spring, the wind on the grassland still feels a little cold.

Here, once again, he meets Ainz in a pitch-black robe and a strange mask. And as soon as the other party saw him, he greeted:

“…… Your Excellency Commander Stronov, don't come unharmed? ”

“…… Not very well, Lord Ainz. Especially after seeing the tragic state of the city today......"

Gurdjieff jumped off his horse and told the truth very honestly, while looking at the surrounding piles of refugees and the hot water and porridge being distributed to them, "...... When did Lord Ainz return? And what's going on here? He asked, seemingly casually.

“…… Oh, I just got here, and I've been surveying the environment in Karn Village before! As you know, Lord Warrior, I spent two days in Karn Village, and I felt that the scenery of the place seemed to be good, and I was going to build a mage tower there as a villa. So I instructed my butler, Sebas, to recruit craftsmen, coolies, and adventurers in the city, and take them to the village of Karn for construction. ”

Ainz replied calmly, "...... Who knew that Sebas had just recruited manpower, procured food, tools and building materials, and had not yet gone far from the city. This is what happened to Lantil...... Therefore, they camped here for the time being to see the situation, and by the way, they tried to save some people. And when I got the news, I rushed over from Karn Village as fast as I could...... By the way, Your Excellency Commander of the Soldiers, you are from the government, do you know anything about the cause of this tragedy in front of you? ”

“…… This one...... To be honest, I know very little, but such an undead catastrophe on the scale of destroying a city will definitely not erupt naturally. ”

Captain Gurdjief pondered for a moment, then replied, "...... There must be some powerful guy behind the scenes! ”

――In the civilized society of this fantasy world, undead creatures are not a rare thing, even more common than many beasts. Especially in a place like a cemetery where negative energy gathers. Even without the work of a necromancer, various naturally occurring spirits will appear from time to time. And in the face of the living. Out of an aversion to life, these undead monsters will instinctively attack these beings. So, in any large cemetery, there will be a night watchman. They are responsible for these undead - to bring these undead who have crawled out of their coffins back to earth.

Of course, no matter what era or place, there are situations of corruption, deception, and dereliction of duty. Because of the night watchman's absenteeism, undead creatures slipped out of the cemetery and poured into the city, causing panic in various places.

But if it is an ordinary corpse, the proportion of its natural undead is very low, even if it is a fortress city. In a public cemetery as large as Rantir, the skeletons and zombies that pop up every night generally do not exceed a single digit. Even multiplying that number by a factor of ten is not enough to pose a threat to a large city - generally speaking, skeletons and zombies in fantasy worlds are not as contagious as the post-apocalyptic zombie virus in film and television works. Moreover, undead creatures are generally sluggish and unresponsive, and their bodies are not strong. A healthy ordinary human, if he has excellent psychological qualities, can solve such a monster with just a wooden stick. So, a super-massive undead catastrophe that can engulf a city in just a few hours, and first and foremost erupt inside a city area, must be something behind it.

“…… That's right...... If that's the case, I might have some clues on my side...... Just this morning, when I was bringing people here, I came across some sneaky guys, and I fought them off, and after a fierce fight, I repelled them......"

In a pretended posture of pretend, Ainz ordered the maid beside him to present a few blackened helmets, armor, and damaged magic items, "...... These are the trophies captured in battle, can you see anything from them? ”

“…… This looks ...... Seems to be the equipment of the Slen Sect? And it's only the elite troops of the [Six-Colored Holy Codex] that can afford it! How? Didn't you learn enough from the last time you were in Karn Village? These haunted guys! Sir Aintz, have you captured any captives alive? ”

“…… Uh, I'm sorry, there were no living mouths, only a few charred corpses, would you like to take a look? ”

Then, reaching out and groping for the mutilated badge on the corpse's clothes, he connected with the agents of the Slen Sect who had come to the border of the kingdom to burn and kill and plunder the kingdom in disguise as a knight of the Bajas Empire, as well as his personal experience of being ambushed by the special forces of the Slian Sect's "Sunshine Sacred Codex" in Karn Village not long ago, coupled with a little subtle mental hint from Ainz, Captain Gurdjief was immediately fooled and lame.

“…… Could it be that this undead natural disaster was actually the work of the Slian Sect? O gods! They have always claimed to be the most devout of the gods! Will actually collude with the undead? It's a bit too appalling...... But...... They have always said one thing and done another, and the fact that they secretly sent people to infiltrate our country's border to massacre villagers is not appalling enough? Alas, it's really hard to judge for a while......"

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- Although the Slenists advocated human supremacy, the people of other countries generally did not have a good impression of it.

Because, although the Slen Sect upholds "human supremacy" on the surface, it advocates the extermination and expulsion of other "inferior races" by force (whether it can be done or not is another matter) and expand the living space of human beings. But the problem is that when dealing with other human countries, the Slian Sect has never seen them soft on their hands, and any slaughter and pit killing are common methods, as if the human beings in other countries are not compatriots.

Not to mention, they have recently infiltrated the borders of the kingdom, burned and slaughtered dozens of villages in one go, and killed at least thousands of innocent people before and after, with the goal of setting a trap to kill the warrior captain Gurdjieff and further stir up civil strife in the kingdom - as for whether this incident will affect the positive image of the Slen Sect after it is exposed, the priests who rule this country never seem to have considered it: probably in their opinion, such an indiscriminate killing of innocents has already been done a lot, and everything is nothing more than " necessary sacrifices".

What's more, in addition to human supremacy, the Slenched Church has a higher public goal, which is to unify all mankind, and this country really has this kind of strength - under the influence of previous generations of time-travelers, the Slenian Sect has established a modern state management and military mobilization system, with national cohesion and military combat effectiveness beyond the times, and its military and national strength are almost unmatched in the human world.

The reason why the Slian Sect has not been able to unify the human world so far is mainly because of the containment of foreign enemies - as mentioned earlier, the human beings in this world are not the dominant force, and the orc kingdom in the east rules the essence of the continent, and its civilization, national strength and combat power are far above the supremacy of human beings, and they want to flood the fragile human world like a flood at any time. And the Slen Sect is an outpost and a against the attacks of the Eastern Orcs.

Just like the Eastern Roman Empire in medieval Europe, which had a strong comprehensive national strength and an advanced political and military system, but because of its geographical location, it had to guard the eastern gate of Christendom against the pagans in the East, such as the Japanese side, and it was difficult to use troops against Western and Central Europe. The Slian Sect also guards the borders of the human sphere of influence on this continent, and is under the tremendous pressure of various orc nations in the east and south to invade the human world for many years.

Therefore, before completely disintegrating the terrifying offensive of these fierce orcs and southern elf tribes and freeing up their hands from the main battlefield against the alien race, the Slian Sect has no way to turn around and send troops to the west or the north for the time being, and launch a large-scale offensive against the other human countries behind it.

But on the other hand, for the Slenist Sect, which has already clearly put forward the strategic goal of "unifying all mankind", other human countries are also the next targets of conquest after all, although it is temporarily impossible to launch a large army invasion, but all kinds of small actions such as instigating civil strife and buying and inserting are also one after another, and there is no lower limit to the means, how to deal with orcs on the battlefield on the Eastern Front, and the same means against humans on the battlefield on the Western Front. Such a posture of "those who follow me will prosper and those who disobey me will perish" naturally made the upper ruling strata of all human countries very hateful, and regarded them as "a group of crazy murderers who are full of big truths."

In view of the above bad impression, Gerjeff was not sure for a while whether the Slian Sect had broken through the new lower limit and started to play the undead slaughtering the city!

“…… Well, the stakes are high, and I must report it to the king and let His Majesty make a decision. Is there anything else he has discovered? ”

After thinking for a moment, Captain Gurdjief, who realized that this matter was far beyond his authority, could only sigh and say so.

“…… Other findings...... Not for the time being. But I'd like to ask your Excellency Warrior Commander, what are your plans next? ”

Ainz stretched out his hand and pointed to the fortress city in the distance. Lantil, "...... In this case, do you want to continue to go deep into the city and crusade against the undead? ”