For those who have never experienced troubled times, it must be difficult to imagine exactly what it is like.
It cannot be fully encompassed by a single straightforward description, and even the so-called 'chaos' is not necessarily accurate - in most chaotic times, there are actually small groups with various rules of their own.
When the fixed political power and people's common cognition in a certain area collapse, a large collective splits into countless small groups, and it seems impossible to restore the past order in the short term, what people call troubled times has arrived.
Humanity is always unified by a common enemy or goal. When Crescent Continent was defined as "harmony" and the rest were "barbarians", people all followed the laws and traditions of the Moon Country.
And when this subject is split into civilians and nobles, into locals and strangers, into you and your family and 'everyone else'.
The wills, desires and ambitions of different people will be mixed together.
Therefore, troubled times are not completely disordered as ordinary people imagine. Instead, almost everyone has or wants to establish their own order. At the same time, they exclude or even persecute those who do not agree with their own order.
Those who belong to larger groups try to coerce smaller groups into joining them to expand their influence, while those who belong to smaller groups have their own insistence and are unwilling to obey and believe that they are being persecuted.
Depending on which group you belong to, this can be defined as a "glorious unity" or a "death struggle for free will" - and that's the problem.
After an unbreakable concept with public knowledge was overturned, everyone believed that the Amyrlin throne of the correct answer was vacant, and they were the ones who could potentially give the correct answer.
Everyone feels they are right. Because of this, they cannot tolerate any refutation or challenge to themselves. Conflicts develop from this, and chaos takes root.
So what is the concept of troubled times?
That is, even if your creed needs to be realized by murdering innocent people in large numbers and maiming compatriots in large numbers.
You can also find times of followers and approvers.
Freedom is important, but there is no limit to freedom.
It will unshackle and release all the vile things in human nature.
Jeju is in chaos.
The existing order has undergone earth-shaking changes in the short period of time Henry and his party escaped from Minamata. The Chinese and noble clans in old Jeju were almost completely wiped out. The army of the newly conquered vassal was still adjusting and they had no intention of ruling the local area. The use of force to recruit strong men into the army actually only increased the instability of the situation.
The flames that were lit in the past are now burning spectacularly.
The civilians noticed.
The distance between him and the samurai master is not as far as he thought in the past - those blue-haired beings who claim to be the descendants of gods walking in the world are neither too bright to be seen directly nor are they completely indestructible.
Civilians can kill samurai.
Their long-deformed and poorly tempered armor and martial arts failed to overturn the battlefield balance in the face of overwhelming numerical disadvantage. Inexperienced warriors can still effectively kill them with bows and arrows from a long distance. Once civilians are approached and several people pounce on them with the courage of ordinary men, they will be caught off guard and stabbed to death with bamboo spears from the weak point of the armor.
After being pulled off the altar and losing their awe, the aristocratic gentlemen whose appearance was obviously different from that of the common people were just mortal beings.
The vigorous lower-level movement came to an end in the main urban areas of Jeju after the feudal army landed. The civilians who had no way back did not look at the feudal kings differently, but when they tried to attack the feudal army in the same way, these warriors were far more sophisticated in martial arts than the samurai in the directly-governed states and their armors were mainly practical and simple. In "The Legend of Wu Yong", people from a backward era used brutal and efficient professional military operations to directly defeat a mob that was several times their size.
Realizing that the fighting capabilities of the feudal samurai and the samurai of the directly-governed prefectures were not comparable, this ragtag group immediately dispersed.
During the time when Henry and his party fled to an uninhabited place without being seen and heard, and encountered a fight with the Placia swordsmen, the matter quickly fermented and spread in places where they could not see.
Even though there was no direct source of information about the current situation, when he came to this ruined town and met a group of people led by Bishop Pedro who could smell a strong religious fanaticism upon meeting, he was as keen as Our sage, based on his previous knowledge, more or less guessed the development of the situation.
Bishop Pedro's wishful thinking was as clear in the eyes of Henry and Narumi as the scene reflected in a fine Japanese bronze mirror.
Their entire refugee camp is huge, but almost all of them are people from the bottom class. People who live in rags and live in poverty are the most suitable candidates for making promises and developing into believers. The white church has always been good at using two faces - they are angels who bring the gospel to the hungry people at the bottom, and when their influence develops to a large enough level, they become believers. The exchanges between local nobles are like businessmen, and every word is filled with interests.
People at the bottom are easy to thrive, and presumably these are the people who the church forces will prioritize to ensure survival when a disaster occurs in the town behind them. Believers are the foundation, and the rest will fend for themselves. This substantial 'salvation' created a more unbreakable belief. A fanatical atmosphere permeated the entire camp. They had been indulging in prayers in broad daylight and signs of holy symbols were everywhere - but the problem remained. exist.
A camp with thousands of people needs not only resources, but also talents.
When common people all live in small towns and only come to pray on weekends. Just pour some ecstasy soup into them during the moment when they listen attentively, talk about pain as a test given by the gods, and there will be a better life in the next life, and maybe give them some cheap rations called Holy Communion to get through it.
But when the foundation of their own lives is gone, running a refugee camp with thousands of people is not something they can do just by praying.
People have seven emotions and six desires, food and drink needs, subtle contradictions, and a series of small problems accumulated may cause the camp to fall apart at any time. And by that time, the higher his original personal reputation is, the deeper people's hostility and hatred towards him will be.
But he can't delegate power.
The diocesan bishop of the empire is a title equivalent to the title of baronet among the nobility. It stands to reason that the power Pedro once possessed was not small. But the White Church has existed in the empire for too long, and people have become accustomed to its existence. Believers are becoming more and more perfunctory, and various people within the church are showing off.
Like a huge and redundant Raman waterwheel, the gears are creaking but no one pays the necessary attention.
The influence of the church has been greatly reduced, and the real power held by the diocesan bishop is actually far less than that of the baron.
All he got in exchange for his dedicated life was an increase in gray hairs. Therefore, when he had the opportunity to go to a land where the light of the gods had not shined to develop his ambitions, he did not hesitate to abandon everything he had in the empire.
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Although most Kazuto commoners and nobles did not buy into the church, when he set his sights on the poor at the bottom, he felt exactly what he had always longed for from these people.
The feeling of such fanatical worship and praise that one is even willing to hand over one's life, and rush forward to fight the enemy without hesitation at one's own command.
That unparalleled sense of authority as a derivative of God's will as a human being, where one's own thoughts and will are accurately executed.
Let him indulge in it with knowledge and taste.
But after all, he is not young anymore, and he is not immature enough to only see this beautiful side. He knew that these people would be easily overthrown if they rebelled against him. He could use religious precepts and divine tests to get through it now, but what about later?
He needs talents, warrior nobles who know how to manage civilians and military training; because many people just escaped from the disaster and lost their lives, he also needs herbalists who know how to treat the wounded.
After all, the poor are struggling at the bottom. They are fanatical but do not possess many precious skills - and Henry and the Qingtian family are exactly the talents that Pedro urgently needs.
He hid it well, the old bishop's palace was very deep, and he perfectly packaged all this into some kind of ceremony, as if he had given Henry and his party a gift, and they should be grateful for it.
But the group of people had already seen through his purpose.
It's just that this was never performed for them.
The 'gift given by the distinguished bishop' attracted the envious eyes of many poor people around. If they did not give Pedro face when surrounded by these people, they would most likely be killed by hundreds of people in a short period of time. surrounded by civilians.
It is feasible to break through before this with the fighting power of Henry and his party, but looking at these skinny hungry people with only shining eyes, there are also women, children and the elderly among them.
Even after fighting, the samurai may still be unable to swing their swords.
Perhaps the other more 'common' nobles, like the human nobles, regard civilians as livestock and can ruthlessly slaughter them with their swords. But precisely because of their experience in battles, and more importantly, what they heard and heard while traveling with the sage and others, the Qingtian family gradually became an anomaly among the samurai tribe on the Crescent Continent today.
They can understand the feelings of civilians and treat each other as human beings, but they also have weaknesses because of this.
If you blindly follow the tradition and follow the mainstream practices and follow the predecessors, it will indeed be easier.
But the old order has been shaken. If you are still unwilling to change and embark on a new path, then only destruction awaits.
No one said this would be an easy path to take. The right thing to do is often difficult.
But given the choice between easy and correct, they chose the latter.
So they fell into a predicament where if there were warriors and nobles from other directly-governed states or even vassals present, they would laugh loudly at their stupidity - because they did not want to use force and did not want bloodshed, they were surrounded by a group of mobs and could not Get away.
It's just that Pedro's wishful thinking has clicked, and Henry and his party are still thinking about the timing of the response plan.
A third party intervened.
The wind has changed and the weather has been unsettled these days. The wind blowing from behind brought a hellish stench - it was an extremely strong smell of death, a mixture of burnt hair and flesh, just like the previous experience in the ruins of the town.
Pedro and the refugees thought they had escaped to a safe distance, and Henry and his party thought they had escaped their target.
But it caught up.
Fear replaced fanaticism. Facing the fashionable and ferocious expressions of human beings, the poor people screamed and dropped their pitchforks.
"I see, that irregular meat ball-like thing." The only non-combatant who could still remain calm was the doctor who looked at the behemoth and began to analyze it with a scholar's mentality - she continued:
"It turned out to be an unformed embryo."
"As expected, they are very similar. They grow and absorb according to the environment. If you think about it this way, then they should be of the same origin, but what kind of environment would give birth to such a creature that needs to change its form multiple times——"
"Can we wait until later to analyze it? Scholar, get in the carriage quickly." Sakura urged from the side. The hungry people around them dispersed. When the people in the camp saw the monster chasing after them, they screamed and ran away quickly. Pedro shouted: "Don't panic!" But his influence seemed to disappear at this moment. Suddenly it failed.
Stepping over the pitchfork that fell on the ground, Henry and the others who got off the carriage all climbed back up.
"The earth dragon actually lost?" The Luoan girl was a little shocked when she saw the image that the huge meat ball weighing several tons had evolved into in a very short period of time.
The three-headed dragon was completely absorbed by it, and the countless waving hands and feet gathered near the dragon's head and neck. The thick limbs and strong body did not look as stupid as before - but this image was too easy to associate.
And she's not the only one who thinks so.
"Cerberus, Gatekeeper of Hell!" Perhaps the stress and anxiety that he had been feeling finally reached its peak at the moment of watching the camp collapse, leading to a mental breakdown. Bishop Pedro shouted loudly at the hybrid monster. This sentence.
"I am the servant of the Lord. Obey me. Get away from me, you filthy thing!" He waved his wooden staff randomly and rushed past in front of humans like an ant.
"Snapped--!"
Then, not surprisingly, he was slapped into mud by the monster with his forepaw.
The three-headed monster with exactly three eyes in total bent down and licked the muddy archbishop off the ground, followed by a "whoosh" sound in the air.
"Take——!" A broad and heavy arrow hit its neck.
"Ang - ah ah -" The pain and the blood that immediately flowed out angered the monster. It sniffed with a dragon head with a rotten face, while the other two heads immediately looked at where Henry and the others were - the carriage convoy had already After sorting it out, the warriors stood behind with bows and arrows ready, and then shot out several more.
"Hiss——" The scarred dragon head showed his emotions with a bared teeth.
"This thing remembers us." Our Luoan girl, who is extremely sensitive to magic, said this intuitively.
"Crack-" An arrow hit the remaining eye of the middle head. Only the left head of its three heads still had vision, and the severe pain caused the monster that looked like a three-headed hell dog to struggle and roar.
"That's good, lure it away." Narumi quickly gave the order.
"How do you decide!" Henry yelled at the missionaries who were still in a daze on the ground.
"Anyway, we are going to die. Should we continue walking together or should we follow the poor people?" he asked, while several people looked at the backs of the poor people who fled in a hurry and the other priests who had disappeared among them, and then looked at the team here.
"Oops!" the old missionary sighed, and then they climbed onto the carriage on their hands and knees, holding the hem of their large robes.
"The body is lowered, this guy is ready to jump! Mitya!" The Luoan girl saw the posture of the three-headed dragon, and shouted, and the little unicorn came over, and she skillfully grabbed the opponent's arm. Horsehair climbed up.
"Give me a spear." After turning around and saying this to Ashigaru, Mira caught the short spear that was thrown over.
"Cover Miss." The warriors worked together and fired several rounds of arrows at an increased speed without fully drawing their bows. They interfered with the three-headed dragon's movements and bought time for Mitya's charge.
"The carriage goes first." Mira's counterattack was to buy time for the missionaries to get on the carriage and for the slow carriage to accelerate. The warriors put away their bows and arrows to prevent them from falling off the carriage. When the wheel was turning, the white-haired girl also rushed in front of the three-headed dragon, which was temporarily stopped by the arrow.
"Haah!" She shouted to shake off the tension in her heart, and then when the little unicorn reached its peak, she spun and threw the short spear in her hand.
"Pfft——!" The sharp and heavy short spear pierced the gap between the middle dragon head and the left dragon head, and blood immediately overflowed. The agile and strong unicorn even revealed its unicorn in conjunction with Mira's attack.
"Bang——!" A holy white light appeared. It seemed to have caused some kind of harm to the three-headed dragon, causing it to close its two remaining eyes in pain. Mithiya took advantage of this gap to turn around and lead Mira back to catch up with the team.
"Following me!" Medea, who had used magic so that her horn could not be hidden for the time being, was revealed as it was. Even the warriors could not take their eyes away from it, let alone the missionaries.
But their attention was immediately drawn back by the earth-shattering footsteps - the meat balls that absorbed three small Otolo earth dragons merged into a monster with the physique of a large earth dragon weighing several tons.
They have virtually no weapons that are effective against an opponent of this size.
Apart from.
Kramer.
