Chapter 1284 - 1204
The Holy Alliance is still lauding purchase power over there, but things are different here in Windmill Land.
Although both are testing purchasing power, the situations couldn’t be more different.
"What do you mean by this?" Mathis slapped the counter heavily, "Four pounds of bread and you’re charging one Dinar?"
Mathis’s hand was so forceful that dust fell from the beams of the shop when he hit the counter.
In this small bakery, there was only a shop assistant with a handkerchief covering his face, who could only offer a sheepish smile: "No, sir Priest..."
"Don’t call me sir! I asked you why?"
"That’s just the price. No matter where you ask, it’s the same price."
"I asked you why it’s this price?!"
The shop assistant, seeing Mathis wouldn’t relent, simply plopped down on the ground: "If we don’t sell it at this price, how do we make any money?"
Mathis grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up: "One Dinar used to buy at least eight pounds of rye bread, and now you’re giving me only four pounds? Are you fooling me?"
"Priest, sir, it’s not like that." The shop assistant was completely exasperated, "Look around, who dares to transport grain into the city, aren’t they afraid of catching the plague?"
"Why not use the sea route and transport it by ship?"
"Even sailors are afraid of getting infected, let alone spreading it elsewhere, and besides, aren’t there sea monsters too?"
After the shop assistant said this, both Lemmings and Mathis fell silent.
"Even the little grain I have here was secretly transported from the Navy warehouse. If I don’t sell it at a high price, I can’t afford to buy another batch, understand?"
Feeling that the two had lost their momentum, the shop assistant perked up immediately.
"You little..." Mathis started to roll up his sleeves but was held back by Lemmings.
"Let’s go."
As they opened the door of the bakery and stepped outside, the warm summer sea breeze swept across the streets.
Feeling the scorching sea breeze, Lemmings didn’t feel comfortable at all.
Under the blazing sun, stepping out from a dark room, he struggled to see clearly at first.
But when he finally did see clearly, he felt somewhat disoriented.
The shop sign swayed, the withered grass lay low, half walls connected to more half walls, still marked with burns.
The solitary wooden frame of a house stood in the open, surrounded by butterflies and bees, teetering on the verge of collapsing.
Once, this wasn’t the busiest street, but at least you could still see people walking around, carriages coming and going, and farmers driving livestock.
Among them was a red house restaurant, a favorite of the local dockworkers.
Even if they had to take a detour, they would come to the red house restaurant for pies, which Lemmings also loved.
But now?
Standing in front of ruins, Lemmings turned sideways, the windswept grass brushed past his mouth, pulling at the muscles in his face.
The red house had collapsed, crushed by a marble church pillar thrown by the sea monster, and not one of the shop owner’s seven family members survived.
From now on, the red house pies were lost to history, never to be tasted again.
The consequences of the sea monster’s attack were far more than these, or rather, the disaster brought by the sea monster was far more than these.
The sea monster’s attack predominantly caused major damage to the Dam City port.
Compared to the residential area, the damage was relatively minor.
What truly led to this state was the invading looters and deserters taking advantage of the chaos!
The sea monster not only destroyed the Falan Navy but also the law enforcement force in Dam City.
Initially, fearing the disobedience of the Windmill Land folk, the Falan withdrew the Night Watchers from Dam City, leaving the military solely responsible for security.
Following the sea monster attack, the army lost control, and hordes of refugees began to loot the city.
Initially, it was just the outskirts, but then they moved deeper and eventually began bloody conflicts with local residents.
Luckily, before long, the Falan Navy arrived, using Dam City as a base to launch a massive naval battle towards the Xilan Islands.
Although Lemmings considered the Falan as enemies, at that time he sincerely prayed for their victory.
For this, he even joined the City Hall for the first time, helping the Falan to control the militia and local security.
Unfortunately, in the naval battle of the Xilan Islands, the Falan lost.
They left in disgrace, not even returning to the port of Dam City, and took a large portion of the previously stationed navy with them.
It’s known that Windmill Land was famed throughout the empire for its wealth.
With Leia and the Falan withdrawing one after another, Windmill Land had become a truly desirable treasure.
Heroes, adventurers, and robber knights from all over flocked here to participate in the conflict.
From the city to the countryside, from streets to fields, fighting could be seen everywhere.
More alarming were repeated reports of small towns being ransacked by the very mercenaries they hired.
The people of Windmill Land, accustomed to a peaceful life of coin purses and quills, were extremely unfamiliar with wielding swords.
Wherever the bandit army went, it was as if a swarm of locusts had passed by.
In this bustling scene, it turned out that the Black Corps led by Jill and Todd (as detailed in Chapter 958) made a name for themselves.
While suppressing bandits, they recruited manpower and established mutual aid organizations in various places.
With the windmill region Holy Path Brotherhood network created by Armand in previous years, their expansion was extremely rapid.
Centered around Branded City, it was said that combined with regional Defensive Army and specialists, there were almost ten thousand people.
The entire windmill region, which was under Black Corps jurisdiction, had the best public order.
Small thieves would be dealt with by the militia upon entering.
When large gangs of robber knights came, the militia could summon the Black Corps for exclusion and strike.
If it weren’t for disagreement in political views with Jill, Livingston would have joined the Black Corps long ago.
But before he could set out his ideological construction last night, a dreadful disaster befell the people of the windmill region.
Due to the confrontation with bandits, there were too many corpses in various places, and the church system had become dysfunctional.
This led to a plague that even the Shepherd Leader could not contain, which completely broke out in the coastal areas of the windmill region.
Now it was bad, plague, bandits, vampires, all these tragedies hit them.
The rural areas were better off, as people were spread far apart, a village would die out naturally stopping the plague.
But in the highly urbanized windmill region, crowds packed densely in cities caused the plague to continue from winter until now.
Due to the disturbance by bandit drifters, last year’s harvest was already problematic.
When the plague broke out, planting in the spring became even harder.
A large number of public register farmers and even armed farmers had no choice but to flee and join the ranks of bandits.
Under such circumstances, who could transport food to the city? Who dared deliver food to the city?
But what made Livingston both angry and disheartened were the El people and speculators in the city.
They were still hoarding grain for profit!
The remnants of the Falan navy, whether intentionally or unintentionally, stabilized the grain prices in the windmill region to some extent.
Livingston knew there were definitely large amounts of grain stored in many citizens’ warehouses.
Yet they would rather let it rot in the warehouse than take it out to help the common people.
The reason was obviously the fear of losing money.
Their loss wasn’t actual income loss, but reduced profit.
The grain in the warehouse would be sold whenever prices rose, then locked up again.
They even sold to higher-priced regions to make greater profits.
Earn, earn insanely, but the people of the windmill region could also die out.
Do they really have no care for their fellow townsfolk and fellow citizens at all!
"Alas—" Stretching out to touch the remaining red door frame, Livingston continued forward with Mathis.
"Let’s go buy some potato starch. Now the only ones daring to bring in food are the relief ships of the Holy Alliance."
"Okay."
They got a donkey, Mathis helped Livingston onto it, heading towards the inner river pier.
By the time they reached the pier, they could already see countless citizens waiting.
Most covered their mouths and noses with handkerchiefs, many of which were stained with blood.
A few doctors wearing raven masks carried herb boxes, moving among the crowd, while monks were sprinkling Holy Water.
The church and the Holy Sect were once the biggest enemies, but now they no longer had the energy to argue.
They were simply waiting quietly for the ships to arrive.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, yet they must first secure a good position.
Waiting, continued waiting, long waiting.
Until the river water turned from emerald green to golden red, yet the once crowded waterway remained silent and empty.
Citizens sat slumped on the grass by the street, woodily holding their knees, gazing at the quiet river.
Including Livingston, who had already sunk into numbness in the waiting.
"A ship, a ship is coming."
Someone shouted, making Livingston immediately look towards the direction of the inner river.
But he gazed for a long time without seeing a ship.
Was this another citizen hallucinating?
He chuckled bitterly, slowly turned his head, and a shadow was cast across his face.
The shadow of a giant warship blocked the sun, it was coming from the sea.
Livingston’s hand trembled, he slowly raised his head and saw, on the deck behind the ship’s side, people wearing hooded robes despite the hot weather.
At the top of the hooded robed person, gradually clear with the setting sun, was the red Holy Chalice flag of the Royal Court.