Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 123 Mendicant Monks
Winters never expected that the "Red Brothers" that Kaman mentioned would actually be such a weathered old man.

There wasn't a single black hair left in the old man's beard, and his skin had become loose, as if it were hanging down on his bones.

Due to his advanced age, inevitable bone loss has made his body slightly hunched, but his eyes, hidden among the wrinkles, are still bright and clear.

The mendicant monk, dressed in a coarse gray robe, calmly surveyed the Wolf Town government office and the two officials, as if he were the master of the place.

Compared to this old man, Gerard and Sergei were just young men. Kaman called him "Brother Red," but in reality, the old man was old enough to be Kaman's great-grandfather.

"Sir, how old are you this year?" Winters asked politely. Considering that many elderly people have hearing impairments, he deliberately raised his voice by seven-tenths: "Seventy? Eighty?"

"Please rest assured, sir, I'm not so old that I'm hard of hearing," Brother Reid said with a hearty laugh. "To be honest, I'm already ninety-five this year!"

Father Kaman explained, “Brother Reed was consecrated after he turned sixty. He took his vow to become a mendicant monk and was still traveling and preaching even at the age of ninety-five.”

"Ninety-five? Have I met a living saint?" Fifty-four-year-old Gilard was taken aback and quickly pulled up his chair for the old monk: "Please sit down, sir, you look quite young..."

Brother Reid didn't stand on ceremony and sat down quite casually.

Winters was quite shocked by the ninety-five-year-old mendicant monk, but he noticed another anomaly: the old man spoke with an awkward accent, as if he were imitating the pronunciation of Common Tongue in another language.

“Brother Reid? You’re not a Cynas, are you?” Winters frowned.

The old monk smiled and replied, "No, it's not."

"Are you a Celica? A person from the East, from the East?"

“You are indeed very knowledgeable,” the old monk said with a smile. “Few people can tell that I am from Celica. Most people, even if they recognize that I am not a Senas, think that I am a Saracen from the East.”

Just as I expected! Winters thought to himself.

For the Senas or the Imperials on this continent, "Easterners" generally refers to the Saracens of the Near East, and "Eastern" naturally refers to the territory of the present-day Freman Empire.

The Far East, the easternmost point of the East, the turning point of the monsoon route, the land of spices, silk and porcelain, the far east, is referred to by geographers as the Far East.

However, most people in this era were unclear about the difference between the East and the Far East, nor did they need this knowledge. Apart from scholars, only merchants knew that there was another powerful empire in the Far East.

To others, the Celica of the Far East and the Saracens of the Near East were no different.

But from the moment the mendicant monk entered, Winters felt that the old man was from the Far East.

Although appearances vary from person to person, there are subtle differences in facial features among people from different regions. Even if one cannot clearly explain the differences, one can still recognize them intuitively.

But the mendicant monk was far too old; his loose skin, layered wrinkles, and accumulated pigmentation obscured his foreign features.

Therefore, to those with less keen insight, Brother Reid was nothing more than an old man with a strange accent.

“It’s nothing. I just met some Celica merchants from the Far East in Veneta.” Winters didn’t accept the compliment; instead, he found the old man even more suspicious. “I’m quite curious, how did a Celica person receive Catholic ordination? Has the Church spread to the Far East?”

“Oh, that’s a long story. I could probably talk about it for three days and three nights.” The old mendicant stroked his long beard and said with a smile, “I was converted, ordained, and consecrated on Rhodes Island. As for why a Sericaian would become a Catholic mendicant, I don’t know either. It was probably the Lord’s arrangement.”

Winters wanted to press for more information, but Girard interrupted him.

"You...you come from the easternmost part of the world?" Old Dussac's attitude became awe-inspiring and respectful.

“In a sense,” the mendicant monk stroked his beard and smiled, “yes.”

Gilard's expression grew increasingly respectful, almost to the point of kissing the mendicant's robes: "You...you are a living saint?"

"No."

Seeing old Dussac's knees buckling, Winters was furious.

He coughed twice and asked the old charlatan in a lukewarm tone, "I thought the Red brothers that Kaman mentioned were young people. You're ninety-five years old, are you still going to be my scribe?"

"What?!" Girard exclaimed in alarm, jumping up and shouting, "How can you let Brother Reid be a scribe?"

“Mr. Mitchell, please calm down.” The mendicant waved to Girard, and old Dussac immediately quieted down like a docile puppy.

Then, Brother Reed said calmly, "I'm here to apply for a job as a scribe. I plan to spend the winter in Wolf Town this year, so I'm looking for a job that can support me."

“How can you do the work of a scribe? Please come to my house. I’m willing to support you for as long as you need,” Gerard said eagerly.

“Mr. Mitchell, I am a mendicant monk.” Reed smiled and shook his head. “I have sworn to live a life of poverty, and I will not eat unless I work. I will not accept offerings from others.”

Upon hearing this, Gilard was even more moved. He even knelt down involuntarily, lifted the hem of the mendicant monk's robe to his lips, his eyes reddening, and he was on the verge of crying.

Winters felt a chill run down his spine when he saw this, and involuntarily rolled his eyes. He thought to himself, "Well, now this old charlatan would probably jump off a cliff without hesitation if he asked Mr. Mitchell to do so."

Looking at the old charlatan before him, Winters grew even more annoyed. He asked sarcastically, "Brother Reed, the work of a scribe is very arduous. I'm afraid an old man like you can't do it."

"Please rest assured, Mr. Montagne. Despite my advanced age, my mind is still sharp, and my hands are still usable." The mendicant's smile grew even more benevolent and kind: "Copying documents and keeping accounts are a piece of cake; I have expertise in both internal and external medicine, as well as treating difficult and complicated diseases; Mass, confession, baptism, and blessings are my duties; and even exorcism, dream interpretation, divination, and fortune-telling are things I know a thing or two about..."

The old mendicant monk's endless, tongue-twisting monologues left Winters and Gilard speechless.

The more Brother Reid spoke, the more respectful and humble Gilard became.

But the more Winters listened, the more he felt that the old charlatan in front of him was not like a clergyman at all, but rather like a conman.

Winters looked at Priest Carman suspiciously, to which the young priest responded with an awkward smile.

Winters and Kaman remained silent, Gilard listened attentively, and the old mendicant stroked his beard and smiled. For a moment, the town hall fell silent.

The door was suddenly pushed open, and the panicked grocer brought bad news once again: "Sir! Beacon fires! Beacon fires have started again!"

"Beacon fire?" Girard was both shocked and furious. "Were those wolves from yesterday starving? They dare to come back?"

"I'll go see what's going on." Winters immediately took out his musket and ammunition, and without even saying goodbye, ran to the backyard to fetch his horse.

Gerard Mitchell stayed at the town hall to receive Brother Reid and Father Carmen.

Winters, riding his red-maned horse, didn't realize something was wrong until he ran out of the town center—the smoke signals were rising in the direction of Dusa village.

...Old Sergei led Winters to the public pasture, where the young horse groom Anglu was kneeling beside a horse carcass, weeping sadly.

Seeing the blue mane, Winters recognized the horse carcass on the grass.

It was Teleqing, that magnificent blue horse, the leader, father, and protector of the herd.

"It must have been early this morning when that beast broke in, killed Teleqing, and dragged him into the forest." Sergei said, his usual smile gone and his face grim. "Little Hook woke up this morning and found a horse was missing, so he called us to go find it. When we found it, its belly had been ripped out."

"Anglu!" Winters dismounted and walked to the young stable boy. "Do you see what that is?"

The young horse herder wiped away his tears and shook his head.

Seeing the young stable boy kneeling beside the horse's carcass, sobbing uncontrollably, Winters grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up from the ground: "Stop crying! If you're a man, don't cry! This isn't your fault, but you should use the energy you use to shed tears to take revenge!"

Winters wiped away the young stable boy's tears with his sleeve, then returned to his horse and asked Sergei, "Were there any other casualties?"

"The Rostov family's youngest son and the Yushka family's daughter are also missing." Old Sergei's expression grew even more somber. "That drunkard Rostov never even realized his son had sneaked out last night... Those two kids always hang out together, who knows if something happened to them..."

Who would dare to have sex in the woods at a time like this?!

Winters was both anxious and angry: "When did they run out? Did anyone see where they went?"

"No." Sergei shook his head in a muffled voice.

Where was the horse carcass found?

"In the woods south of the village."

"Gather all the Dusaks and come with me!"

Without any mobilization, the anger and shock of the Dussacs had reached their peak, so all the men who could still ride horses, regardless of age, led out their warhorses, carrying spears and hunting rifles, and gathered in the village square.

In the eyes of the Dusaks, they are the predators, the ones who provide aid and protection.

No one expected that Dusa Village would be attacked—the Dusaks would never have even considered it, and Dusa Village hadn't even prepared for a beacon fire.

It was this blind arrogance that made Dusa Village complacent and allowed young people to have secret rendezvous in the woods at this time.

It's too late to say anything now.

After sending riders to inform Girard and gathering militia from the other four villages, Winters led nearly a hundred Dussacs into the woods, searching in groups of three for traces of the missing men and women and wild animals.

In the deep, dark primeval forest, the riders carefully searched within their respective fields of vision, then lowered their heads and disappeared among the branches and leaves.

The group used sticks and spears to strike the tree trunks, both to scare away wild animals and to determine the distance between themselves and their companions.

Winters and hunter Ralph and Sergei are in a group.

Seeing Winters' gloomy face, Ralph cautiously advised, "Sir, please don't worry too much. Those two children will probably be fine. They were probably just having too much fun and forgot to go home."

"why?"

"Because wild animals rarely kill for the sake of killing," the hunter explained cautiously. "Even if you throw a rabbit in front of a satiated beast, it won't pay any attention to it. That thing only abandons the horse carcass after it has eaten its fill, and it shouldn't attack people unless provoked."

Old Sergei's expression softened somewhat after hearing the hunter's words.

The old man slammed his stick against a tree trunk and said angrily, "First the wolves, then this thing, why are all these beasts running out of the forest like they've gone mad?"

Ralph thought for a moment and slowly replied, "The most likely reason is that they are not getting enough to eat. Unless they have tasted human blood, even the fiercest beasts are afraid of humans. Also, wild beasts have territories. If a more ferocious creature takes over their territory, the original beasts will have no choice but to flee. I think... that pack of wolves was very likely driven out of the forest by the thing we are looking for."

Winters's mind raced, and he asked the hunter, "You mean the territories of wild beasts fall one after another like dominoes?"

“That’s not what I meant. If a wolf is driven into another bear’s territory by a bear, it still can’t beat the other bear.” Ralph scratched his head and said in distress, “I can’t explain it either… Sigh, there are too many secrets in this primeval forest. I don’t really know anything.”

"Hey! What's there to think about? It's just a wolf problem. Wild beasts can injure people anywhere, right?" Sergei curled his lip and said disdainfully, "Do you think someone hunted all the rabbits and roe deer in the forest, leaving the wolves and bears with nothing to eat, which is why they came out?"

Just as the hunter was about to say something, a shout came from the unseen depths of the forest: "Here! Here!"

The three of them immediately moved toward the direction of the sound.

A Dussac found rags hanging on a bush... and bloodstains.

Following the trail of blood, the group found the body.

Two corpses.

A roughly intact male corpse, with its neck severed above the neck, and its head missing.

There was also a corpse whose gender was indistinguishable, and which could no longer be called a "corpse".

Because only two legs remained, the rest of the body was torn apart, and organs and bits of flesh were scattered across the woods like rain.

Rostov was devastated, holding his youngest son's cold body tightly, refusing to let go. This was the first time the chronically alcoholic man had regained his senses, but only after experiencing the pain of losing his son.

The girl's father fainted upon seeing this.

Sergei clenched his fists and glared fiercely at Ralph.

The old man didn't speak, but the hunter wouldn't misunderstand his gaze: "Didn't you say nothing would happen?! Didn't you say that?!"

After examining the two bodies, Ralph spoke with difficulty: "The beast must have dragged the girl away first, and the boy, wanting to save her, chased after it, but was also bitten to death by the beast."

Upon hearing the news, the scattered Dussacs rushed over. People gathered around the remains; two young lives had been lost, leaving behind only endless grief and anger.

"Leave a few men to help the family take the body back." Winters suppressed his emotions and remounted his horse. "The rest of you, follow me!"

Thank you to all the readers who voted for this book before, especially readers 20190816233921971, Tianjingtou, Kunkun, I don't know what to call them, reader 161120205936216, and Yellow Rabbit from the Flower Country. Thank you everyone.

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(End of this chapter)