Chapter 283: Chapter 262 Everything on the Ground is Mine_2
One kick after another.
Wei Bulun finally understood the thief Terence’s intentions. He isn’t helping me drive away the bandits at all; he wants to hoard all this Gold for himself!
"Lord Terence," Wei Bulun couldn’t bear it any longer and questioned Yan Xing, "how much Gold do you actually want?"
After kicking a box off the carriage, Yan Xing replied to Wei Bulun, "How much Gold I want is determined by how much Gold there is on the ground. This is part of our commission agreement, Mr. Wei Bulun. Why do you ask what you already know?"
Wei Bulun stopped his men from moving the Gold and said to Yan Xing, "Lord Terence, you are indeed very powerful. But excessive greed will bring you misfortune. Please don’t take what does not belong to you."
Sparks leaped, and music began to play.
Then, at a certain moment, it all suddenly stopped.
The electricity that then surged forth writhed chaotically like a swarm of snakes, blasting open all the boxes of Gold on the carriage.
Wood splinters flew everywhere, and Gold Coins poured down from the carriage like water.
Only then did Yan Xing say, "The Gold on the ground is mine. I only take what belongs to me; I’m never greedy..."
Before he could finish his sentence, more electric bolts tore apart the wooden carriage, causing all the scattered Gold Coins on it to fall to the ground.
Wei Bulun’s mouth fell open, unsure what to say.
Fighting... that’s definitely not an option. But should I just accept the theft of the Gold? How can I explain this to the Orcs? The Barbaric Orcs went to such lengths, painstakingly making a huge detour around the Silvermane Principality’s territory to transport it here.
At this moment, Wei Bulun realized that the thief Terence hadn’t just been passing by coincidentally; he had come for this Gold. So he must also know to whom the Gold belongs.
"Lord Terence..." Wei Bulun shed his reverence for the powerful man. He puffed out his chest and lifted his head, adopting the stance of a victor as he spoke, "I believe you must know that this Gold belongs to the Orcs, and their army will soon breach Storm City and then occupy Nuta City. At that time, you won’t be able to take so much Gold away from here. No matter how strong you are, you can’t confront the Great Army of the Orcs. I am willing to pay thirty thousand Gold Coins for your help this time and promise that you and your property can leave Wildwind Highlands safely when the Orcs arrive."
Wei Bulun was threatening Yan Xing.
The Orcs’ victory is in sight, he thought. The suffering I’ve endured will finally pay off.
Then, a bolt of lightning struck the ground right at Wei Bulun’s feet.
Yan Xing dropped the pretense and sneered, "Whether the Orcs can take Storm City is your business. Whether I can take this Gold is mine. I want all the Gold here. Have your men work faster. The sooner you gather the Gold, the sooner you can leave. Although the men from ’Shortgun’ have left, they definitely won’t let you go. If you want to live, work quickly. Otherwise, I’ll kill you myself."
The threat was ineffective; moreover, the other party even knew those men were from "Shortgun."
Wei Bulun, understanding the situation, had his subordinates continue moving the Gold. Then he asked Yan Xing, "For whom are you working?"
Yan Xing answered, "I work only for myself. But I’m curious: why do you, a human, betray your own kind to help the Orcs slaughter your people?"
Wei Bulun looked at Yan Xing. Seeing that things had come to this, he felt there was no longer any need to hide the truth.
While his subordinates were busy moving the Gold, Wei Bulun shared his story with Yan Xing.
"Farmers offer taxes and labor, and Lords provide food and protection. This is the fundamental rule in human territories. Most Lords adhere to this rule for the sake of their own governance. After all, the God-given gold coins offered by the peasants each week are the bedrock of a territory’s stability. But as for how to treat peasants, different Lords have different ideas.
"Lords like Count Theodore, who vigorously develop city commerce, enhance urban prosperity, and ensure balanced development in all aspects of their cities, are rare. Limitations due to a territory’s location, available resources, and environment, coupled with the limited abilities of both the Lords themselves and their retainers, meant that most human territories did not achieve a high level of development.
"When cities had low prosperity and thus yielded few God-given gold coins, some Lords became content with the status quo. However, other, more ambitious Lords would resort to extreme measures to obtain more God-given gold coins. It wasn’t rare for Lords to practice ’peasant farming’—treating them like livestock. In some territories, vast numbers of peasants were kept in prison-like enclosures, like animals. Their purpose was to breed more peasants and contribute taxes...
"This had a detrimental effect. The people’s loyalty to their Lord decreased, and the laboring peasants would try every means to flee the territory. To prevent them from escaping, Lords would severely punish those caught and brought back. The entire territory would be under oppressive rule, commerce would collapse, and the people lived in misery. These Lords ignored commerce and the people’s welfare, focusing solely on ’farming’ more peasants to collect more God-given gold coins, building stronger armies to maintain their rule, or to go plundering.
"I was once a peasant locked up in one of those prisons," Wei Bulun said. "The food produced in a territory was limited, so most male infants were killed at birth... Lord Terence, having traveled so extensively, you must have seen such prisons. I never want to lay eyes on such a place again as long as I live.
"True, such Lords are few, and they rarely meet good ends. Yet, they continually emerge, and other Lords simply turn a blind eye to such territories. In the eyes of all Lords... peasants are merely livestock that contribute God-given gold coins. The only difference is that some Lords treat their livestock slightly better.
"I was fortunate. The invading Orc army conquered the territory I was in. They killed our Lord and took us peasants to the barbaric grasslands in the north. I initially thought the Orcs would lock us up like our former Lord did, raising us like livestock, only to eat us when we died. But the Orcs didn’t do that.
"They brought us to their cities in the wilderness and simply granted us freedom. Except for returning to human territories, we could do whatever we pleased. The Orcs even enacted laws forbidding any Orc from bullying naturalized humans.
"It was with the Orcs that I truly felt like a person for the first time. Isn’t that ironic?" Wei Bulun finished.
Yan Xing couldn’t laugh.
As a human himself, Yan Xing naturally sided with the humans of the Magic World and held an innate prejudice against Orcs. If human society here is so backward, he mused, then the Orcs’ society is probably only marginally better than that of primitive humans.
However, after hearing Wei Bulun’s account, Yan Xing suddenly sensed that the Orcs’ ambitions were vast.
Humans possess a treasure they don’t cherish, Yan Xing reflected. They believe it’s divinely ordained for peasants to contribute taxes, and their treatment depends entirely on the Lord’s mood and character. One couldn’t judge how Orcs treated captured humans based solely on Wei Bulun’s testimony. However, seeing these humans willing to die for the Orc Treasury, it was clear that the Orcs’ assimilation policies were remarkably successful.
Wei Bulun and his men were definitely not isolated cases. Humans who had endured such conditions would become fiercely loyal if granted dignity. They were peasants, yet they could awaken as heroes, or even become Lords themselves. With a large population of peasants contributing God-given gold coins, the Barbaric Orcs could recruit even more formidable warriors.
Perhaps the Barbaric Orcs have already formed an army of humans loyal to them and filled with hatred for other humans. If such an army were deployed by the Orcs against other humans, one could only imagine the expressions on the faces of those arrogant human nobles.
Wei Bulun likely didn’t grasp the deeper implications of this Orcish policy. He only felt reborn thanks to the Orcs’ rescue and was thus devotedly serving the Orcs in their war against humans. He had shared all this with Yan Xing not only to justify his actions but also with the hope of recruiting this extraordinarily powerful thief.
Yan Xing listened quietly. After Wei Bulun finished speaking, he waited a moment before saying, "I’m not in a position to judge whether your actions are right or wrong, nor am I particularly interested in your story or your suffering.
"Right now, I only care about this Gold.
"Don’t try to be clever with me about the money. I despise it when people cause me trouble over financial matters.
"Once this work is done, you can all leave.
"We’ll act as if we’ve never met!"