"As a knight, you should win by fighting the enemy head-on. Any other means of turning around is an insult to one's own character and chivalry. Rodhart's face was filled with heroism. "But tactically, I'm afraid they'll use Lord Chincha to blackmail us, so it seems like we should sneak in. What do you think should be done?"

"You can do whatever you want. Asa's answer was straightforward.

"I want to preserve my status as a knight and complete the mission perfectly.... We have to find a way to get the best of both worlds....", he thought to himself, holding his head.

"I chose to sneak in. In this way, we are not violating the law of knighthood, but we pay more attention to cherishing life. Rodhart finally found a reason to do so, happily decided on tactics, and he was even more proud that he had found it. "I now have a deeper understanding of chivalry. ”

He took Asa to the place where it was said that the accident had happened to Lord Chincha that day. It is the middle of a woodland, a natural shortcut trodden by horse-drawn carts and people who often pass through it. Such an environment is indeed suitable for bandits. The minister dared to go here with only two or three retinues, obviously overestimating the local security.

Rodhart looked around and said, "It didn't rain for God, and the magistrate didn't dare to send someone to search for fear of endangering the life of the minister. He said triumphantly, "Now I can find traces of these bandits by using the tracking methods I learned in school." ”

He bent down and began to scrutinize the ground and the grass. After a while, he rubbed his aching waist and stood up, and said in surprise: "There is not the slightest trace, and those soldiers in the city hall actually took my money and cheated me." ”

"That's it, there are only a dozen or so, no horseback, and they are escorted by the minister. Asa had already spotted footprints on the ground and weeds that had fallen on them. "Follow me. Asa burrowed deep into the woodland, and Rodhart hurried behind.

In the woods, Asa found the bandits almost effortlessly, and followed them all the way. This kind of thing is too simple for a man who has once played a chase game with a werewolf in the most dangerous no-man's land on the continent. These marks were almost as obvious to Asa's eyes as if they had been placed there and deliberately noted. He jumped and ran through the woods, moving around his territory as freely as an animal, and Rodhart struggled to follow him in his steel armor.

Asa suddenly stopped, reached out and grabbed Rodhart, who was following behind.

Four natural-looking vines stretch from the bottom of the four trees to the top, and stand out from the rest of the natural vines. The trap was quite adequate, and it was clearly against people, and the traps that caught the animals didn't need to be so well disguised, and they weren't placed where they had walked around themselves.

It's just a dragnet trap, and there's no lethal trap. This kind of trap that can't kill people immediately usually doesn't have much effect on people, as long as there is something like a knife on the body, it won't really be trapped for a long time. In other words, there must be an alarm bell or something on this trap to notify the person who set the trap to arrest it, so it is definitely not far from the bandit's lair.

Asa said to Rodhart, "Take off your armor, it's too bulky to run fast." ”

Rodhart shook his head and said, "No, it's a knight's sign." ”

"Then if you can keep up, I'll follow, and if you can't keep up, I'll delay the thieves who come here as much as possible. "Asa found that such a person was really troublesome, and he didn't want to pay attention to him, and according to his skills, it would probably not be a problem to deal with a dozen or so bandits.

Asa picked up a large dead branch on the ground and threw it at a pile of weeds in front of him. With a whoosh, a large net suddenly rose from the dead leaves and weeds in the ground and closed between the treetops, while a gong sounded faintly in the distance.

Asa immediately discerned the direction and distance of the sound. He sped out to the side, ready to sneak into the den of thieves around the approaching bandits.

Rodhart barely followed a few steps, but watched Asa use his hands and feet together, weaving through the trees like a lynx for a few moments before disappearing. He shook his head helplessly and walked back to the trap to wait for the bandits to arrive.

After a while, Asa saw a few simple grass huts in the glade in front of him, a few campfires that were about to be extinguished, a few large trees, and a few wooden huts, which were supposed to be the thieves' camp.

It's just such a simple lair, this group of bandits is really not professional enough, and it looks more like a group of temporary rabble. He already had a plan, so he didn't need to sneak in, just rush in and knock him down one by one. Several figures could already be seen through the trees and weeds, and Asa slammed out of the bushes.

But he immediately realized that he didn't know which one to take down first.

Several old men holding the wood looked at him blankly. The clothes on these old men were already difficult to cover all their bodies, their faces were full of wrinkles of suffering, their backs were hunched, their waists could not be straightened, and they stood there majestically, as if they would fall down at any time if they didn't need to beat themselves again.

A few children with runny noses watched him cry out from the treehouse, some dressed in bark, and some naked. One of them was still peeing, and when he saw him peeing out of the bushes, he shot his urine at him enthusiastically, and let out a cry of exclamation, but the range was far less than he had hoped.

Hearing the cries of the children, a dozen women came out of the huts and tree huts, still holding animal skins. When they saw Asa, they were not afraid, but they all looked surprised, and one of them came over. This is a middle-aged woman, her clothes are relatively complete, her hair is tied behind her head with a bunch of grass, and the simple and honest countenance of the country woman has some shrewd and capable intelligent temperament, probably the leader among women. She came up to Asa and asked, "Young man, did you touch the alarm bell?"

"Ahh Asa replied blankly. He didn't know how to react now, and he couldn't rush into this group of old people, children, and women to fight as expected.

The woman looked at Asa and asked, "Are you lost? Is it a wanderer from out of town?"

"Oh. Asa nodded indiscriminately. The knife was hidden under his robe on his back, and he still wore the old robe that Sandru had given him, and as for the hair, beard and face, he couldn't see it himself, and he never paid attention to it, probably not like a person of status.

"Are you hungry? Come into the house and have some soup to warm up. "Women show the hospitality of the rural poor. "My husband, they've gone out to check on the trap you touched, it's only for the soldiers, and they'll probably be back soon. ”

If it weren't for the depths of the woods, it would be just a country village. Asa remembered that Rodhart was still there. When he met the woman's husband, his group would definitely fight, and the knight's steel armor and sword made it clear that he had come to rescue the chincha. He turned and walked back the way he came.

As soon as he walked a few steps, he saw more than 20 men approaching. Also ragged clothes, with farm tools such as pitchforks and hoes in their hands, only two of the men were holding short swords and bows. Rodhart was surrounded by the crowd, talking to the men next to him very familiarly. He saw Asa in the distance, and immediately raised his hand and waved it.

Waiting for them to approach, Asa stared at Rodhart and asked, "What's going on?"

Rodhart smiled like a child: "Misunderstanding, misunderstanding, these are the villagers from several villages near me. I haven't seen them in years, this is Levine the Hunter, this is Big Brother Bangbu......" introduced the men next to him one by one, like a prodigal son who had just returned to his hometown with his friends.

After sitting around the campfire and talking for a while, I realized that they were all villagers from a nearby village. Unable to stand the sudden increase in taxes in recent months, he fled into the mountains and forests, making a living by hunting and occasionally robbing passers-by. Yesterday they saw a richly dressed man and a few attendants at the edge of the forest, and thought they were just ordinary rich men, so they went up and tied him up. Who knew that it was actually a minister sent by the royal capital, which made the magistrates in the city seem to be on the verge of a great enemy.

"You must let people go, it is absolutely not okay to kidnap the ministers of the imperial court. Rodhart advised the crowd.

"No, I can't. Immediately, there was opposition. Asa remembered that it was a man named Big Brother Bangbu that Rodhart had just introduced. It is a bald fat man with a face full of meat, and it is difficult to see the slightest trace of poverty from the fat on his face, but I heard that he used to sell meat, and probably the fat accumulated at that time has been deeply rooted in his body, and he is inseparable from himself, even if he starves to death, he will not change his body shape. He was the first to stand up and say, "It's not okay to just release people." Will the magistrates let us go for such a big matter? We have already exploited us so badly in normal times, and now let him lose face and derelict his duty in front of the Qincha, and will not exterminate us completely? We plan to use this opportunity to knock those guys a good hand, and then everyone will take the money and go away. "That's what most people think. It attracted a lot of approval.

"But it's against the law. As a subject of the empire, you should obey the law. And I also heard that the minister was a very learned theologian, and we are all believers in God, how could we do such a thing. Rodhart probably felt that it was unseemly for a knight to be involved in this topic, and wanted to make a statement about his position.

"If the magistrate could legally starve us all to death. "Levin the Hunter is the leader of this. He was a very lean little man, with no fat on his body but as if he could squeeze iron juice, his skin was dark, his hair was strangely tied together with a clothcloth, his face was painted with colorful paint, and he had a little goatee. "When your grandfather was here, those guys still had some scruples and didn't dare to go too far. But lately, it seems that the officials above are going to make some moves, and they are trying to make money on us. First the tax on cultivated land was increased, then the tax on business was doubled, and finally he said that the forest was also a state, and hunting in it was also taxed. Everyone didn't do anything, they couldn't even make ends meet, and as a result, they asked us to donate a poll tax, and if we didn't pay it, it would be illegal, and we would be suspected of being infidels. The laws they have set have forced us to be like this, and you still want us to abide by the law?"

Rodhart shook his head and said, "It's just the fault of these bureaucrats at the local level. Because they are too far away from the king, these magistrates will be so unscrupulous. And the royal capital sent ministers to supervise them. As long as we report the matter clearly to Lord Chincha and explain our difficulties. He will definitely give us justice. ”

The woman who had just greeted Asa was the wife of Levine the Hunter, and she said, with a feminine acuity, "Little Rod, you have been in your school for too long, and have learned too many rigid things in books. What are those things? It's just a few words, a few things drawn in ink, and what we see is the truth. Think about it, is this Qincha closer to those dog officials or closer to us? If he goes to the city, will he eat at our house and sleep at our house? Do you think they will defend us?"

Rodhart shook his head stubbornly and said, "No, there must be justice, justice will definitely be served, and the evil forces will definitely be punished." That's what my grandfather taught me. ”

"I lived to be 70 years old, and I have never seen anything like 'justice' and 'justice'. An old man said from the side. There were few teeth left in his house, and the words he spoke were leaky and out of shape, but they smelled heavy. He looked around at the people around him and emphatically said, "Seventy years old." ”

Rodhart's face was already a little red, and he didn't know if it was excitement or something, it looked a lot like the face he had in the mercenary tavern in the city. He said forcefully, "No, there must be." My grandfather once said the same thing to me. He suddenly remembered that there might be an ally next to him, and turned to Asa and said very sincerely: "Friend Asa, you must also believe in justice and justice in this world, right?"

Asa frowned, searched his memory vigorously, looked at him, and replied cautiously and honestly: "Well-like-nothing like this has ever been heard." ”

"Nope. There must be!" Rodhart was not intimidated by the disadvantage of fighting alone, but stood up more excitedly. "Think about it, if we had sent Lord Chincha back politely, and he would have been impressed by our sincerity when he saw that we could have extorted money and had not done so, he would have done justice for us. You know, I have heard that this Chincha has been engaged in research at the seminary, and he must have had a great wisdom and a great heart. ”

The crowd was silent. Probably seeing that he was so excited, it was not good to splash him with cold water.

"What if you extort a sum of money? It's not like you have to leave your homeland, hide somewhere else, and never have a chance to return to your own land. And every day I have to be scared, afraid of being discovered and caught. As long as Lord Chincha helps you adjust the taxes and punish the magistrates, you can live the same life as before. ”

The villagers were in a commotion, and these words were very seductive. For a native of the countryside, the feelings and way of life of his hometown are indeed irreplaceable. "It seems that what he said has a point..... and some have begun to approve of his words.

Rodhart was almost pleading: "Please trust me. I vouch for it in the name of a knight, and I vouch for it in the name of my grandfather. ”

This guarantee is also very powerful, and Rodhart's grandfather seems to have a high reputation among the villagers. People started talking about it, one by one. After a long while, Levine the Hunter nodded. "Well, since you say so, and the end result is to release the person anyway, let's just listen to you and gamble. ”

Rodhart was firm and confidently said, "It's not a bet, it has to be like this." Don't think of this world too darkly, just as I heard people in the city say that there are a bunch of vicious bandits here, aren't you all good people? As long as we have a bright heart, we will see that there are not so many bad people in this world. ”