Chapter 83 Pastor Jacques (Two in One)

"Two leagues away, there were indeed two giant wolves. I killed the female wolf, and the male wolf ran into the mountains to the west, but he probably won't survive for long."

Fang Yu said easily.

From what Pop said before, there are various temples here, which means that this is no longer the main plane that Yuzu is familiar with.

At least it sounds like the power of various temples has penetrated into every aspect of the secular world.

The effect of this magic energy explosion is a bit too weird. Before figuring out what is going on in this world, Fang Yu decided not to reveal this spell in front of others.

In a strange world, it is always right to be overly cautious.

"He actually killed two giant wolves by himself!?" The farmers looked at Fang Yu in front of them in shock, whispering to each other.

"Sir, are you an adventurer?" Pope was obviously more knowledgeable than the others. He just took a breath and a faint red light appeared on his head again.

Fang Yu shrugged and said, "I'm just an ordinary traveler. Well, sir, thank you for your directions. In that case, I'll go to Astley Town first."

Judging from the knowledge of these farmers, they should not be able to get anything out of them. Since Astley has traveling merchants, he will definitely be able to find out more information.

Maybe you can even buy a map or something.

Seeing Fang Yu turn around and leave, Pope breathed a sigh of relief.

"Pope, that's a whole giant wolf! The skin of a giant wolf can offset our village's territory tax for half a year!" The farmer who was glared at by Pop couldn't help but say.

"He's an adventurer! Little Beto, you idiot! What are you trying to do? Have you forgotten? Six years ago, the entire village of Berna, five leagues away, died overnight because they provoked a powerful adventurer! Do you want to bring disaster upon the entire village?"

Pop grabbed little Beto by the collar of his underwear and glared at him viciously.

Little Beto raised his hands. "I'm simply suggesting we buy his giant wolf. The fur is of excellent quality, and after tanning it should make a fine wolfskin rug. Abbot Jacques of the Harvest Temple will surely appreciate it. He's the one who verifies our tithes this year."

Pope loosened Beto's collar, his expression slightly relieved. "Buy it? Where can we get the extra money to buy a giant wolf? Tithes, temple taxes, territory taxes, redemption taxes, stove taxes, window taxes..."

"The annual harvest isn't even enough to pay these taxes. If it weren't for the rotation of territory exemptions implemented by Baron Capet, we wouldn't even have enough food to last winter."

"A giant wolf costs at least 10 gold dukes, and our village simply can't afford that kind of money right now."

The rotation exemption of territory is a new policy implemented by Baron Capet the Younger in his own territory after he inherited the title - every year one-tenth of the villages in the territory can be exempted from territory tax and manor tax.

Little Beto rubbed his collar and argued, "You said he was an adventurer. Wouldn't he be tired dragging such a heavy wolf for such a long distance? Perhaps he could agree to sell it to us at a lower price?"

"How do you know if it works if you don't try?"

Pope was also a little tempted. These adventurers were a bunch of lazy people who were unwilling to do hard work. He had indeed heard that many adventurers would sell some unimportant but cumbersome spoils cheaply to the nearby market.

Seeing that Pope no longer objected, Little Beto called out to Fang Yu, who had not yet left, "Adventurer, please wait a moment."

"My Lord, my name is Berto Lebrun the Younger. My father, Berto the Elder, is the mayor of Viplaine."

"Dear adventurer, thank you very much for helping our village eliminate these two giant wolves."

"It's still at least a league to Astrae. Let's rest in our village and drink some water before we go on."

Little Beto caught up with Fang Yu with a slightly flattering smile on his face.

Pop, that idiot whose brains are all about muscles, the clothes worn by this adventurer are more advanced than those of the priest in the Temple of Harvest in Merckford, and the skin exposed is even smoother than that of the coquettish girl in the Five Corners Street in Merckford. How could he be an ordinary person?

Maybe it's a young master from a noble family who wants to be an adventurer.

If you curry favor with such a person and give him something, if you are lucky, it may be worth the village's annual harvest.

If a noble lord takes a fancy to her and takes her to the city, it would be a great opportunity to rise to fame overnight.

This kind of thing has happened before. Astley was not as good as Viplain back then. Wasn't it because Etienne, the son of the village chief of Astley, met the young Baron Capet who came hunting when he was a teenager, and was taken to Mercfore?

Now Etienne has become Sir Etienne, and Astley has become the largest village in the vicinity.

Even if this young man is not a noble young master, what loss can he suffer?

If he really is an adventurer with malicious intentions, will there be no danger if we don't let him into the village?

Pope is such a fool.

The spell effect of malicious detection still exists. Fang Yu looked at the top of little Beto's head and found that there was no malicious intent.

"Okay, thank you for your kindness." Fang Yu smiled, pulled the cart, and followed little Beto and other farmers into the wooden wall gate of Viplain Village.

Although Pope was still a little worried, he did not stop it.

Just as Fang Yu saw through the drone, this was indeed a small village, and the largest building in the village was the barn.

Probably to prevent fire, the barn was built next to the pond in the village, and the foundation of the barn was raised very high to prevent moisture.

"Sir, please have some water." Little Beto used a wooden ladle to scoop a ladle of water from the large vat at the door of the barn, poured it into a wooden bowl, and handed it to Fang Yu respectfully.

Oh my god, will I get stomach upset after drinking this?

Fang Yu took the wooden bowl and silently performed a water shaping spell, condensing all the impurities and microorganisms in the water into a small black ball. He threw the ball away and then opened his mouth to drink the water.

Little Beto took out a bowl of roasted wheat grains and some strange dried fruits from the barn. "Sir, this is a specialty of our Viplain, the dried yellow poppy fruit. You can try it too."

Yellow poppy fruit?

This seems to be one of the ingredients for the First Ring of Wisdom Potion, right? Is this thing here?

(Under the spell of knowing languages, the names of different items will automatically be unified into one. In other words, when little Beto said yellow poppy fruit, he might have said something else, but to Fang Yu, it was just yellow poppy fruit.)

The core of the brown dried fruit has been dug out, and it is no longer possible to tell what the fruit looked like when it was fresh.

Fang Yu picked up a piece of dried fruit and put it in his mouth. It should have been just sun-dried, as if it had been pickled with a small amount of salt before being dried. It tasted a little salty but not obvious.

It seems that salt is also a scarce commodity here.

"Sir, excuse me for asking. What are you going to do with the giant wolf you killed?" Little Beto looked at Fang Yu eagerly.

Fang Yu shrugged. "I plan to drag this giant wolf to Astley. Didn't Lord Pope say that there was a caravan passing by? I plan to sell it to the caravan over there and see if I can get a good price. This giant wolf is too heavy. I can't drag it to Mercfore."

Little Beto shook his fist in his heart, as expected!

Little Beto said anxiously, "Since you plan to sell this giant wolf, why bother dragging it so far? It will be the same if you sell it to us, Viplain."

Fang Yu hummed, "If the price is right, it's not impossible. Mr. Little Beto, how much are you willing to pay for this giant wolf?"

Little Beto gritted his teeth and said, "Five Golden Dukes."

Fang Yu chuckled: "Five Golden Dukes are too little. I think if we take it to Astralee, it should be at least twice the price you offered."

Little Beto showed a look of disappointment on his face. Now Viplain could only come up with 7 gold dukes, and they would soon have to pay 2 gold dukes of crop tax. Before the autumn harvest, they could not come up with more money to buy the giant wolf's body.

"However," Fang Yu smiled, "Compared to Jin Duke, I'm more interested in other things. If Viplain has something I'm interested in, I can sell you the giant wolf's body at a lower price."

Little Beto was cheered up when he heard this: "Sir, I wonder what you are interested in?"

Fang Yu thought for a moment and said, "Do you have any books? Any books will do. As a traveler, I'm most interested in the history and culture of various regions."

Little Beto was a little discouraged: "Sir, Viplain is just a small village. Only the temple and the knight's house nearby have parchment. Our entire village is made up of farmers, and no one can read."

Fang Yu nodded in understanding and took out a piece of paper from his pocket, on which were copied dozens of different medicinal ingredients.

"In that case, let's check and see if Viplain has what I need."

"Have you heard of North Shore Kumquat? Um, no..."

"Have you heard of dewdrop grass? Have you heard of it but never picked it? Okay, I'll mark it..."

"Mist Collar Juncus"

"Leaves of the Moon Shadow Fir"

Stone Heart Vine

"Green Spring Moss"

"Fruits of the Silver Cypress"

"Yellow poppy fruit, this one exists, needless to say..."

…

Fang Yu asked about sixty or seventy kinds of raw materials in a row, but in the end, the farmers had only heard of five or six kinds.

But this has already made Fang Yu feel that the trip is worthwhile.

Because there are fruits of the silver cypress in it.

Together with the Silvermoon Grass and Borina Root found on the road, the main materials missing for a ring of healing potions were complete.

The other materials needed are all available on Blue Star.

There aren't many of the small-needle silver juniper's fruits in the village of Weplain. No one wants them because they're inedible. In autumn, they're scattered everywhere in the woods outside the village.

But it is spring now, and it will take less than half a year for the fruits of the silver juniper to mature.

Finally, a child in the village remembered that the core of his pillow was made of the fruit seeds of the small-needle silver cypress.

Fang Yu did not despise it. After Youzi used the identification technique to confirm that the fruit inside was indeed the fruit of the Silver Cypress, he immediately agreed to sell the wolf corpse for 5 gold dukes.

This corpse cannot be brought back to Blue Star. Fang Yu brought this wolf corpse to Viplain because he wanted to use it to contact the locals.

Under Fang Yu's deliberate guidance, although the farmers had little knowledge, Fang Yu still learned a lot about the local situation.

The area where Fang Yu is currently located is a country called Luwak.

The farmers don’t know the history of this country. They only know that they have been living on this land since their ancestors, at least for hundreds of years.

This is already the northern border of Loire. It is said that hundreds of miles to the northeast is the vast uninhabited area of ​​the Viltin grassland.

Luwak is not a country with a unified religion and politics. There are also many kinds of beliefs in the country, with dozens of temples of all sizes. Viplain, who is mainly engaged in agricultural production, believes in one of the middle gods - the god of harvest.

The Harvest Temple has its own branch temple in Mekfore. The parish priest of the Mekfore branch temple will bring his custodian to his pastoral area regularly to collect tithes and temple maintenance fees.

At the same time, the priests of the temple will also provide some paid spellcasting services to believers, and help believers preside over weddings and funerals, which can basically be considered mutually beneficial.

Generally speaking, perhaps because there are too many gods and the competition is fierce, the temples in this world are not too extreme and the exploitation of the people is not too serious.

"Spellcasting services? What kind of arcane services do priests generally provide?" This is what Fang Yu really wanted to ask.

"Arcane?" Pope was stunned. "Are you talking about divine magic? The priests of the Harvest Temple charge five gold dukes for a Holy Water spell. While it's expensive, it's very effective against evil creatures and can also cure some illnesses. Every spring during the sowing season, they also come to help us cast a blessing spell for free. The harvest of blessed farmland will be 30% better than usual."

If the harvest is good, 30% of it will be used as tithe and temple tax, which sounds quite benevolent.

"Blessing spell? Holy water spell?" Fang Yu was confused. It sounded like these two spells were not advanced spells, but he had never heard of them before.

Fang Yu used the communication technique to ask Youzi, and Youzi also said that he had never heard of it.

However, after all, sixteen thousand years have passed in the main plane, so it is not surprising that some new spells have appeared.

"By the way, this afternoon at the hour of Holy Hour, Abbot Jacques will come to Weplain to perform a blessing on our spring wheat. If you're interested, you can watch from the sidelines, as long as you don't interfere with Abbot Jacques' blessing."

Little Beto introduced enthusiastically.

In the Luwak language, 3 p.m. is generally the time when believers pray to the god of harvest, so it is also called the holy time.

Fang Yu looked at the time. There were four hours and ten minutes left in the countdown. It was already 1:30 in the afternoon, so there were still two hours left, so he could wait.

After chatting for a few dozen minutes, Fang Yu also commissioned the farmers to help him buy or pick the materials he had just checked with them, 10 libras for each material (1 libra is about 1 jin), and Fang Yu agreed to pay them 1 gold duke for each material.

These materials are actually not valuable, but no one pays attention to or collects them. In addition, due to seasonal factors, it is difficult to collect them.

No matter how troublesome it is, it is not as troublesome as farming. You can get 1 Gold Duke for 10 Libra materials. Where can you find such a good thing?

Fang Yu walked around the village again. The village was quite clean and no one urinated or defecated anywhere. They probably used the waste as fertilizer.

More than an hour later, the village chief, old Berto, who had gone to Astrae, a mile away, to pick up Parson Jacques, drove a donkey cart into the village. On the donkey cart lay an old man in an earth-colored robe, fast asleep.

It was Abbot Jacques.

Abbot Jacques looked to be at least fifty or sixty years old, with completely white hair and a big red nose. When you approached him, you could smell the alcohol on his breath.

"At noon, Abbot Jacques was given too much by those Astley bastards." Old Beto jumped off the donkey cart and said to the villagers in a bad mood, "Damn it! If we miss the holy time, the blessing will be at least 20% less effective."

"Ah~" Abbot Jacques on the carriage opened his eyes and yawned. "Don't worry, we won't be late. Bring me a glass of water."

Little Beto hurriedly handed over a glass of water. To everyone in Viplain, Abbey Jacques was a big shot who could be compared with Baron Capet the Younger, and they could only see him once or twice a year.

"Yuzi, use the identification technique to see what his condition is. Why do I feel like he is just an ordinary person? I can't sense any magical fluctuations from him." Fang Yu gave Yuzi instructions using the communication technique.

Ever since returning to the main plane, Yuzu's spellcasting delay has been quite serious. This time, it took nearly a minute for the identification spell to take effect.

"Huh?" Yuzu asked in confusion, "How strange! He's indeed an ordinary person, yet he's not. All his physical attributes are those of an ordinary person, but he can indeed cast spells. Let me take a closer look..."

"No, I can't analyze the reason for this situation. I can't access the magic network information now, but there is no similar situation in my database."

"When he casts the spell later, we can observe him again. We might get some new insights."

(End of this chapter)