Chapter 398

Chapter 398

At this point, the number of practitioners visible on the road began to increase.

The group of farmers, like a flock of timid quails, walked cautiously along the road with their necks tucked in, watching the practitioners, whom they rarely saw in their daily lives, coming and going around them. Although few would look directly at them, Alfred and the others still felt a mix of novelty and fear.

Such a place, such an atmosphere, was a realm they had never encountered before.

When the group arrived outside the fortress camp, the practitioners, who had seemed omnipotent and were treated with reverence by the officials, now bowed respectfully as they approached a few people dressed in strange attire to hand over their duties.

As for the officials, they hung their heads, not daring to look directly at those respected warriors.

Seeing those who had previously been so arrogant now so submissive, the farmers behind them became even more cautious, each one slowing their breathing, afraid of disturbing those respected warriors.

Among the farmers, there were some who were experienced, at least having entered large cities.

Alfred was one such person. He often followed villagers into the nearest city to purchase supplies, and if one had to say, he could be considered fairly knowledgeable.

Seeing the markings on these people, he couldn't help but widen his eyes in surprise.

"This is the mark of the Blue Star Pet Shop! Do you know the Blue Star Pet Shop? It's the one that's now stronger than those mages and knights, those esteemed practitioners!" Alfred whispered to the person beside him.

He himself only had a superficial understanding of Blue Star, not even clear on the relationship between practitioners and organizations, but this didn't stop him from having seen the Blue Star Pet Shop's mark in the city and knowing it was a remarkable organization.

At least it allowed him to show off to others at this moment, briefly satisfying the small vanity of this farmer who claimed to have 'noble practitioner lineage.'

But further details, Alfred did not know.

Even concepts like what a beast pet was, or what a beast tamer was, Alfred had never heard of.

Even so, in the hearts of those remote villagers of the empire who didn't even know what the Blue Star Pet Shop was, Alfred's image suddenly became much grander.

For those who were knowledgeable, those who had never seen the world would always show a bit more respect.

Alfred raised his head proudly, feeling satisfied that he could stand out in front of so many people.

The newcomers were several employees from the pet shop, here to receive a group of laborers gifted to Blue Star by the church.

These young men, who had left their hometowns, would henceforth be free from the church's jurisdiction, completely belonging to Blue Star, becoming its subjects. From now on, whatever Blue Star wanted to do, the church would not interfere.

What the church gifted to Blue Star was naturally all the people from several villages, besides these able-bodied men, there were also the women and children left in the villages.

The reason only these young men were brought here now was to allow them to contribute to the development and transportation at the Black Forest frontline.

Although at the Black Forest frontline, since the introduction of beast pets, the efficiency of clearing out beasts and felling trees had rapidly increased, transporting the felled trees to the fortress storage still required more manpower.

Originally, Lorant had planned to assign another group of Windbreaking Horses to assist in this task.

But when Benfica learned of this extravagant plan, he immediately stopped the store manager, who wanted to use beast pets at every turn, with great reluctance.

And successfully persuaded him to save a batch of Windbreaking Horses and instead address the issue by adding more workers here.

For this, he even took the initiative to offer to gift Blue Star a batch of the church's long-standing population.

Of course, as a reciprocal gesture, Lorant allocated half of the reserved Windbreaking Horses to the church for lease.

So this batch of young men would work on the frontline until the entire forest had been cleared and the road completely paved.

After that, Blue Star would allocate resources to move the families of these young men to its own territory.

These individuals were also part of Lorant's plan to become the first batch of initial settlers in the city closest to the fortress at the Lopulo Pass in the Blue Star territory.

After the employees of Blue Star took custody of these young men from the church, two low-level practitioners immediately went to the fortress to claim their task rewards and also took on several transportation tasks between the fortress and the outposts, planning to make a good profit before leaving.

Alfred and his group of farmers were not as happy; each of them was filled with apprehension.

From the interaction between the officials and the staff of the pet shop and their conversations, it was clear to these people that they would henceforth become residents of the Blue Star Pet Shop instead of the church.

These people included both freemen and church servants, the so-called church servants being just another term for 'slaves,' a euphemism within the church to make slavery sound more palatable.

In principle, freemen had the right to choose their place of residence and their lord, and they did not belong to any lord; they were free and could not be bought and sold by lords as simply as slaves.

But the reality was that when the church issued a mandatory draft notice, these so-called freemen still had no room to resist.

Of course, they could choose to report this to the Imperial Parliament, which would be willing to address and resolve the matter.

Then, perhaps before the grandchildren of these ordinary people died, with enough luck, they might receive a response from the Imperial Parliament.

The Imperial Parliament might strongly condemn the church's actions at this time and insist that the church compensate the coerced freeman with about two or three gold coins.

As for when the church would issue this compensation, that was beyond the control of the Imperial Parliament.

Therefore, any sane and clear-headed freeman would not engage in such futile endeavors.

Accepting their fate and being at the mercy of the strong is the only choice for the people at the bottom of this world.

Regarding their situation, all Alfred and his companions could do was pray that their new lord would be merciful, so that their future would be bearable.

The pet shop staff led these compliant farmers and did not linger too long in front of the fortress, immediately heading towards the Black Forest.

Along the way, they could see many practitioners and a large number of farmers like themselves on the road connecting the Black Forest and the fortress at the Lopulo Mountains.

These people were laborers temporarily recruited by the church from villages closer to the Black Forest fortress than theirs.

Alfred, looking at the tattered clothes on these people similar to his own, realized that their status should be the same as his.

However, these people did not seem to have the sense of prolonged oppression or look emaciated; instead, there was a hint of happiness in their expressions that was hard to detect.

Alfred blinked, feeling that he might be imagining things out of anxiety. How could anyone feel happy in a place obviously meant for heavy physical labor?

Fear and apprehension would be more appropriate, or at least an expression of resignation.

After walking down this road leading to the Black Forest outpost, soon a busy and unusual Black Forest outpost appeared in the eyes of these farmers.

What made it odd was that as an outpost guarding the border of the Black Forest, the surroundings were empty, leaving only pits and some people busy filling soil or digging up tree roots around the pits.

Further ahead, a pale barrier could be seen completely separating the Black Forest from the outpost.

After some delay, due to Lorant's return, the Magic Parliament finally ceased delaying and reluctantly delivered the set of magical equipment promised to the pet shop.

This might also be partly because Jacqueline occasionally made trouble for them.

Great Mage Jacqueline, who returned from beyond the Lopulo Mountains, was full of energy.

She not only held an exhibition of a new type of beast that caused widespread astonishment among the upper echelons of practitioners, eliciting countless envious exclamations from high-level practitioners who knew her.

She also conducted several workshops among high-level practitioners, primarily discussing her experiences from this trip beyond the Lopulo Mountains.

According to Lorant, at these private discussion meetings, Jacqueline distributed a travelogue by Fa Meng to all her friends as a supplemental 'guide,' which had Little Qing and Little Black beaming with pride for quite a while.

Jacqueline was so enthusiastic about organizing these events, partly to soak up the admiration from others, but mainly because she hadn’t given up on her desire to explore beyond the Lopulo Mountains.

This journey indeed rekindled some long-buried exploratory desires in Jacqueline.

With the emergence of a beast pet, and even having bred one herself, Jacqueline’s obsession with the Beast Tower had lessened, and her thoughts naturally turned more active.

So she was actually considering, after making thorough preparations and helping Lorant stabilize the new Lopulo Mountain Pass, to head out with her friends to explore the other side of the Lopulo Mountains again.

This time, she wanted to go further than she did in her youth. With the existence of the Wulu Shell, a magical beast pet, Jacqueline could relay everything from beyond the Lopulo Mountains in real time.

Every time Jacqueline looked at the little creature quietly dozing on her wrist, she couldn’t help but think that this exploration beyond the mountains was sure to go down in history!

With such anticipation, Jacqueline became even more attentive to the affairs of the beast pet shop.

As long as the beast pet shop was doing well and on the right track, Lorant would have more time to handle other matters, and perhaps, as she wished, take over the Beast Tower, freeing her to focus on her experiments or chase the exploratory life she craved.