Long after the bard left, Brutus was still sitting at the bar writing today's notes. He found that he seemed to have completed all the town's correspondence needs in the past half month and had to find something else to do.
"Brutus, come with me." Juno hurriedly ran into the Lion Tavern, saw Brutus among a group of customers, and then pulled him out of the tavern.
Brutus followed Juno's pull and walked out of the tavern, then grabbed her in turn: "Wait, Juno, what happened? And how did you know I was here?"
"There's no time for this, Brutus. We have to hurry up, or something big will happen."
She looked quite anxious, something must have happened... Brutus observed Juno's expression and nodded.
"Then let's talk on the way, you have to tell me the situation first so that I can know how to solve it."
Juno pulled Brutus and trotted along the road. She was out of breath and introduced the situation to Brutus.
"It's Kaya. Kaya was bitten by a bat."
"Bat?" Brutus felt that this was a bit outrageous. The town of Tatto was located on a plain, so how could there be cave-dwelling animals like bats? "Are you sure?"
"Other guides saw it with their own eyes, and they all said they saw bats."
"Wait, are you sure they know what a bat looks like?" Brutus still felt something was wrong, this was not common sense at all, "And if she was really bitten by a bat, you should go to the pharmacist instead of coming here
Find me."
"Other guides have already gone to find the apothecary, but I came here specifically to see you."
Brutus didn't understand why he was being pulled over, but since he was already here, he might as well follow and take a look at the situation.
They ran all the way to the guides' residence, a leaky house where the children gathered on the floor to sleep at night.
Brutus looked up at the dilapidated state of the house and shook his head. How could anyone live in such an environment? Maybe one day this dilapidated house would collapse.
"She's fine. Well, she just needs to be careful in the past few weeks to avoid getting water on her wounds." When Brutus and Juno rushed to the door, the pharmacist and other guides came out.
"Although I don't understand why bats appear in Tatto, I will report your findings to the guard camp. Although the atmosphere has been much peaceful recently compared to half a month ago, there may still be potential crises."
The pharmacist handed a few bottles of medicine to the nearest guide, and then told him how to use it. Finally, he got to the point: "These bottles of medicine cost 45 copper lats. It can be cheaper if you have citizenship."
.”
When it came to money, the guides all looked embarrassed, and now Brutus knew why Juno had called him here.
He shook his head slightly, walked forward, took out a silver coin and handed it to the pharmacist: "Just record the remaining money in my account."
The pharmacist knew Brutus. He smiled and nodded, then took the medicine box and left. Now only Brutus, Juno and a few guides were left in front of this dilapidated house.
"Sorry, Brutus, my salary won't be paid until the end of the month, and they don't have much money. I originally wanted to borrow some from Will, but when I saw you -"
"Juno, they have to pay back the money." Brutus sighed imperceptibly and looked at the guides, "But you don't have much income now, right?"
The guides nodded silently, and one of them whispered: "But Mr. Brutus, we will try our best to return it to you."
"Come on, don't think about cheating again. I think you have learned your lesson."
Naturally, what they did before was caught by the guard battalion when they were trying to calm down the chaos, and the guards at the inner city gate were punished and fined for it.
Brutus thought for a while, but still felt that he might have to do something: "First let me go in and see Kaya, and describe the bat you saw."
Although Brutus didn't know medical skills, he could tell whether the situation was serious or not. After listening to the descriptions of the guides, he nodded. It was indeed similar to the bats he knew.
"So how do you know bats?"
"It's me, Mr. Brutus." One of the boys stood up. "I fled here from a mountain village on the border of Turner Province. I saw a lot of bats there."
The province of Turner is the northwestmost border province of the kingdom. To the south is the province of Wilson, where the Viscounty of Strathfield is located. The interior of the province is mostly hilly and mountainous, with only a narrow road on the west side.
plain.
"How is the situation in the province of Turner?" Hearing the word "escape", Brutus took out the manuscript and quill he carried with him and began to investigate, "especially in the border areas."
"It's very bad, Mr. Brutus." The boy's name was Cole. He recalled his painful experience and told Brutus in detail, "There are too few places for farming.
Most people don't have enough to eat, and due to increasing border frictions, tax and military service burdens are getting heavier and heavier. My father died in a border conflict, and my mother was abducted by orcs who broke into the village one day."
"My mother -" Cole's voice became more choked up, "my mother tried her best to lure the orcs away, but I hid in the secret passage under the bed and escaped."
Brutus didn't know whether he should stop asking questions and comfort Cole, but he felt that such a weak comfort was far less useful than a detailed investigation: "Do orcs cross the border frequently?"
"No, Brutus. Orcs are quite rare. The most common ones in the border areas are actually the barbarians, but I heard that they will also be attacked by orcs." Juno saw that Cole was already crying and said no.
When something happened, explain it to him.
"So who is the kingdom at war with?" Brutus became more and more confused, why did he get different information in each place.
"Strictly speaking, we are at the end of peace now, Brutus." Violet, who came in at some unknown time, came over and checked on Kaya who was sleeping on the bed on the ground. "Fortunately, it has not been eroded by the darkness.
"
"After the immigration order is issued, there may be a full-scale war again in a few years." She continued to explain the previous topic, "The previous peace was just an illusion caused by insufficient population and the inability to expand."
Brutus is becoming more and more confused about the current situation, so what has the kingdom been doing in the past few decades? He urgently needs to find someone or a history book to learn more about it, and it seems that the Violet in front of him is like this
people.
Violet noticed Brutus's gaze and explained to him: "To put it simply, the peace in the past few decades was purely because the barbarians had insufficient population to expand, and the population density in the core area of the kingdom was not required.
Evacuate excess population to the border."
"But it's different now. Dimensional rifts that appear out of nowhere are sending dark creatures into the world continuously. They are encroaching on areas not occupied by humans, and the kingdom also needs to reduce the population pressure in the core areas."