Recruiting Leaders

Chapter 84 Recruiting Citizens (Seeking monthly votes and subscriptions)

Knight Conrad and old Sam, accompanied by several mercenaries disguised as merchant guild guards, arrived in the White Forest in the North, travel-worn and dusty.

The moment he stepped onto this land, even with Conrad's unwavering resolve, he felt a suffocating sense of oppression and heaviness.

The scene before my eyes was even more tragic than the rumors had described.

In late spring, the fields, which should have been full of life, were as barren as the Gobi Desert.

Displaced people can be seen everywhere, and occasionally you can see some people who are still alive. They are ragged, emaciated, and have empty, numb eyes. Like walking corpses, they rummage through the ruins for anything they can eat: tree bark, grass roots, and even soil.

The child cried loudly from hunger, his voice so weak it sounded like a cat's meow. The mother could only hold her child and weep silently, her eyes already dry of tears.

The air was thick with the scent of despair and death.

"What a tragedy!" Old Sam reined in his horse, unable to bear the sight. Even back in the days of Ashstone Ridge, at least people could make a living off the mountains, and it had never turned into such a hell on earth.

Conrad's face was somber. Although he had witnessed too much life, death and suffering, his sense of justice as a knight made him feel extremely angry and ashamed about the suffering he was experiencing before him, brought about by the tyranny of the nobility and natural disasters.

They eventually stopped at a refugee settlement near an abandoned town.

This place is crowded with refugees who have fled their homes due to heavy taxes and corvée labor, or natural disasters and plagues.

The rows of shacks made of rags and branches stretched out, lifeless and desolate.

Conrad gestured to his men to put up a simple job posting in a relatively open area.

Old Sam took a deep breath and shouted in a voice as calm as possible, but loud enough for the nearby refugees to hear: "The Black Bear Merchant Guild is hiring! Work in the newly reclaimed lands south. Food and lodging provided. Earn your living through labor. Those with a clean background, honesty, and a skill will be given priority!"

At first, all they received in response was deathly silence and countless numb, doubtful gazes.

Long-term suffering has extinguished the hope of most people, and any promise sounds like a distant dream to them.

They even suspected that this was just a trick by unscrupulous merchants to deceive people, giving them some food and then selling them off.

Old Sam was not discouraged. He took off a small bag of coarse barley bread that he was carrying with him, broke it into small pieces, and gave them to several children who were huddled around their mother and were so thin that only their big eyes remained.

The aroma of the food and the soft whimpers of the children as they greedily ate, like a pebble thrown into stagnant water, finally stirred up ripples.

Old Sam continued to call out, and some people who still had the strength began to drag their weak bodies and hesitantly gather around, their eyes flashing with doubt, yet unable to completely suppress the light of survival.

Conrad raised his hand to signal everyone to gather in front of him, but unfortunately only a few people came up to him.

His questions were concise and crucial, carrying an undeniable seriousness: "Name? Where are you from? What did you do before? What skills do you have? Who else is in your family?"

"Sir, my name is Mick, and I am a stonemason." The speaker was a man of about thirty-five or thirty-six years old, with a sallow and thin face, but relatively clear eyes. He carried a long object wrapped in rags on his back, and his knuckles were large, covered with calluses and old wounds.

"I used to work in the Earl's quarry, where I learned to chisel stones and build walls."

Conrad's eyes flickered slightly.

Stonemasons are exactly the kind of talent that territory development urgently needs.

"Where are your tools?" Conrad asked.

Mick carefully untied the rag, revealing several chisels and hammers that, although rusty, had clearly been carefully sharpened.

"These are the few tools I have left to make a living. I haven't been able to bear throwing them away." His eyes revealed a trace of cherishing his tools, the last vestige of dignity for a craftsman.

Is anyone still at home?

Mick's eyes dimmed instantly, and his voice lowered even further: "Gone—I'm starving. I'm all alone now."

He paused, then looked up, his eyes filled with an almost pleading earnestness. "Sir, I can do any kind of work. As long as you give me food and a stone to chisel, I can build you the strongest wall!"

Conrad wrote "Stonemason—Mick" on the register and nodded: "Okay, stand on the right. They'll give you a stone to carve."

Mick's cloudy eyes instantly lit up with joy. He hugged his tools tightly, bowed deeply, and silently stood in the designated area, his back seemingly straightening a little.

Behind Mick was an elderly farmer and an old woman with little skill. Because of their advanced age, Conrad could only shake his head regretfully. After all, he was not a saint; he came here to introduce good people, not to save those suffering.

The fourth person to approach Conrad was an unusually thin girl, about eleven or twelve years old.

She timidly pulled an even smaller boy along and squeezed to the front of the table.

She wore a tattered linen dress that barely covered her body, her face was dirty, but her light blue eyes were as clear as a washed sky.

"Master—" the little girl's voice was barely audible, filled with nervousness and pleading, "I—I'm very capable! I can gather firewood, dig for wild vegetables, and take care of my little brother!"

She held tightly to the boy behind her who looked only five or six years old, timidly clutching the hem of his sister's clothes.

Conrad was touched, but his tone remained calm: "Child, where are your parents?"

The little girl Lina's eyes instantly welled up with tears, but she stubbornly refused to cry: "Daddy was taken by the tax collectors to build a castle and never came back—Mommy—a few days ago she was so hungry she couldn't walk and was lying in that shack over there—"

Her little finger pointed deeper into the gathering point, her voice choked with sobs, "Sir, please, please give me some food, just a little bit, for my mom—I—my brother and I don't need any! We're very good, really!"

These words, spoken with a childlike innocence yet carrying immense weight, caused several of the displaced people listening nearby to turn their heads away and secretly wipe away their tears.

Old Sam's eyes reddened, and he couldn't help but reach for his food bag.

Conrad, however, fell silent.

Just then, the temporary calm was broken by the rapid sound of horses' hooves and the scraping of weapons.

A dozen or so well-dressed but fierce-looking men, led by a leader with a curved knife at his waist and a face full of scars, surrounded the gathering point.

"We don't want ugly women, and we don't want disabled men either," the leader shouted arrogantly.

He immediately dismounted with his men, drew his sword, and headed straight for a few relatively young women and men who looked to be still strong in the crowd.

"The slave traders are here! Run!" A chorus of terrified shouts erupted throughout the gathering point.

The crowd began to scatter and flee, but they were already skin and bones from hunger and could hardly run.

"Ah—let me go, let me go!" a young woman cried out in terror.

"You damned bunch, let go of my granddaughter!" An old man tried to stop the slave trader who was trying to capture his granddaughter, but was killed on the spot by the other party with a single blow.

This single strike silenced the surroundings for a moment; everyone seemed stunned by the fear of death.

"Damn it, I kidnapped your granddaughter to save her life, and she doesn't know what's good for her!" the killer cursed, then grabbed the woman who had collapsed and was wailing beside the old man. "Hmm, not bad looking, can fetch a good price. Come with us obediently, and I'll make sure you have food to eat."

"Stop!" Conrad roared, his voice booming like a bell, as if instantly silencing all the shouts and commotion.

He drew his sword from his waist and strode forward. Although he was somewhat lame, his aura as a knight was still very powerful.

The slave trader leader, Barton, paused for a moment, then noticed Conrad and his group, as well as the job posting sign next to them. His expression immediately turned even colder: "Oh? Who came from here, daring to recruit workers on my Barton's turf? They're tired of living!"

Conrad didn't waste any words, just stared coldly at him: "The Black Bear Merchant Guild is here to recruit workers, shouldn't you consider the order of arrival?"

"The Black Bear Merchant Guild?" A hint of apprehension flashed in Barton's eyes. The Black Bear Merchant Guild was quite influential throughout the western province, but greed had overridden everything. Besides, the man before him was just a sickly fellow; he didn't take him seriously at all. "Hmph! This is the territory of the Esther family, not the Kress family. If you know what's good for you, get out of here, or I'll take care of you all!"

After saying that, he gave a wink to the thugs behind him, and two burly men stepped forward with a sinister grin, reaching out to push Conrad aside.

A cold glint flashed in Conrad's eyes.

He sidestepped the grabbing hand with lightning speed, his right hand forming a knife-like shape as he precisely slashed at the wrist joint of the first thug.

With a sharp "crack!" accompanied by a piercing scream, the thug's wrist bent at an eerie angle.

Almost simultaneously, the sword in his hand struck the side of his other knee like a steel whip.

The man groaned and fell to his knees, clutching his knees and howling in pain.

In the blink of an eye, the two ruthless thugs were rendered incapable of fighting.

Barton's expression changed drastically, and he subconsciously took a step back, his hand resting on the hilt of his knife.

It was obvious that although the other party was lame, he was a master swordsman. If he had just decided to kill, his two henchmen would probably have been killed on the spot.

"Would you like to have a personal duel with me?" Conrad's voice was deep and filled with undisguised killing intent. The longsword in his hand, gleaming with a cold light, made Barton's heart skip a beat.

"I advise you to be sensible. This man was once a true knight," Old Sam said, stepping forward with a crossbow in hand. They didn't want to actually fight him, so scaring him away would be best.

Patton was no fool, and he could tell that Conrad was no ordinary man. Moreover, seeing the strangely shaped crossbow in Old Sam's hand and the reputation of the Black Bear Merchant Guild, he was also unsure of himself.

"Hmph! Fine—you win! Let's go!" Barton spat, his words a mixture of bravado and fear, glared at Conrad, and led his injured men, slinking through the crowd and running away.

The gathering point, which had been engulfed in panic, fell silent for a moment, then erupted into suppressed cheers and expressions of gratitude. The way these people looked at Conrad had changed.

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