Chapter 162 A commission from the lord (this cat is starting to gain weight for the winter)
It didn't take long for a piece of news to explode across the entire Skyrim Province.
Rumor has it that in Thalmor's castle, the north tower fortress used to hold rebels and prisoners was burned down overnight, and flames shot into the sky. When the soldiers arrived, all they saw was that they had been completely engulfed in flames. The ruins of the engulfed castle, as well as the bodies of Thalmor soldiers pierced by spears on the outside of the castle, stood on the snow.
As for the prisoners, they have completely disappeared.
This naturally caused a strong shock in the empire. Soon, soldiers were sent out to search. Some prisoners who were originally held in the North Tower Fortress were rearrested and then tortured and interrogated. However, their confessions were Everyone was shocked - according to these prisoners, they had no idea what was happening. They just slept for a while, and when they woke up, they found that they were no longer in the cold underground prison of the North Tower Fortress, but It is on the grassland illuminated by the sun.
Because of this, these prisoners insisted that Talos appeared and saved them, which made the soldiers of the empire also bewildered, and some did not know what to do. After all, this continent is indeed protected by gods. Although the appearance of Talos sounds a bit nonsense, it doesn't seem to be incomprehensible.
After all, the facts are there. There was indeed no trace of prisoners escaping around the North Tower Fortress at that time. They simply seemed to have evaporated out of thin air. After that, these prisoners appeared in the center of Skyrim Province again. Unless these prisoners had wings and could fly, only miracles could explain it.
Not only that, after that, the Thalmor elves' fortresses all over Skyrim were attacked. No one knew who attacked these places, but every Thalmor fortress was completely destroyed, and those Thalmor elves The soldier's corpse was also penetrated by a spear and stuck on the ground, just like the other.
This immediately excited the people of Skyrim Province. In fact, even within the empire, there was a somewhat contradictory attitude towards this matter. On the one hand, they naturally don't like the arrogant look of those damn bean sprouts from Thalmo, but on the other hand, they are also worried that this will arouse the dissatisfaction of Thalmo.
In fact, the Thalmor ambassador has summoned the king and asked for a thorough investigation of the matter. Otherwise, the Thalmor elves will send out an army to completely destroy the empire!
"Are we really going to keep waiting, Mr. Knight?"
Sitting in the tavern, Gu Leya fidgeted with the wine glass in front of her uneasily, while Duanmu Huai nodded.
"That's right, destroying all the Thalmor strongholds and killing the Thalmor elves is all to encourage the Thalmer to launch a war. Once their army gathers, then I can completely destroy them. A few Thalmer fortresses can't even do anything. It’s not our goal, this is just a bait arranged for them to eliminate the Thalmor.”
"But on the empire side...are we really not going to tell them?"
"This is an issue between the Inquisition and the xenos, not the Empire."
Duanmuhuai shook his head.
"I will not let the empire mistakenly think that I am on its side. The Tribunal protects mankind, not a certain political power. Basically, we will not take the initiative to intervene in local political disputes. If the empire can take the opportunity to stabilize The position is of course the best, but if the empire is incapable of being overthrown, we don’t care... Do you understand?”
"…………Yes, I understand."
Gu Leiya is not stupid. As a princess, she certainly understands what Duanmu Huai means. If Duanmu Huai contacts the Empire, then no matter what, it will form the impression that he is cooperating with the Empire. And the Empire is very likely to rely on the support of the Inquisition to dominate, and then the Inquisition will take the blame for the Empire's atrocities.
That's why Duanmuhuai completely separated them. As the saying goes, you do yours and I'll do mine. As Duanmu Huai said, the Tribunal protects humanity, not the empire, and the continuation of the imperial regime is indifferent to the Tribunal. If there were a better regime for humanity than the Empire, the Inquisition would have no objection to their overthrow of the Empire.
Of course, the premise is not to collude with the Chaos Demon.
"Deng, Deng, Deng————!"
At this moment, the crisp sound of the piano sounded. Duanmuhuai turned around and saw a bard standing by the campfire, playing and singing.
"The next song is dedicated to the fearless warriors!"
As he spoke, the bard began to play and sing.
"On the snow-white wilderness of the sky, there is a wave of freedom.
People drank gulps of ale and praised blood and glory.
However, the jackal came looking for food and tried to ruin the lively banquet.
The guests screamed and ran away.
The jackal was so proud and proud.
But the great god saw this group of jackals.
His warriors descended from the sky in dark steel chariots.
They brandished weapons, skinned and deboned the jackals, and exposed their corpses to other places.
The skinny jackals ran away with their tails between their legs, not even daring to look back.
Because they know that behind them is the butcher knife wielded by the gods! ”
Soon, the song ended, and at the same time, the guests in the tavern raised their glasses and cheered.
Duanmuhuai sat on the chair and nodded with satisfaction.
"Well, this is a good singing."
In fact, this bard became popular after the Thalmor's fortress was destroyed. The jackals in the song imply that the Thalmor are a group of uninvited and annoying high elves. Rumor has it that after Ambassador Thalmor learned about this poem, he was so angry that he smashed his cup.
Normally, those Thalmor elves would have used various reasons to arrest the humans who dared to sing this song. But now that the Thalmor Fortress has been destroyed, this group of arrogant and arrogant high elves can only huddle in the embassy shivering, not even daring to leave a step, for fear that the next one will be penetrated by a spear and stuck in the snow. Own.
This naturally made the people of Tianji Province applaud and praise him, and they also let out a sigh of relief.
Amidst the cheers of the drinkers, Duanmu Huai saw the tavern owner walking over with a serious face. He came to Duanmu Huai's side and whispered.
"Sorry to disturb you, this warrior, the lord has something to ask you..."
"Oh?"
Hearing the message from the tavern owner, Duanmu Huai was stunned for a moment. Although there were adventurers on this continent, there was no such organization as the Adventurer Association. Generally speaking, if adventurers want to find a commission or a job, they will go to the tavern owner, and these owners will usually get some wanted or bounty orders from the lord's men.
The Falkreath where Duanmu Huai is currently located is one of the nine territories in Skyrim Province. It is located in the deep mountains and old forests. Although the transportation is inconvenient, it is very suitable for recuperation. So while Duanmu Huai is waiting for Thalmo to launch the war, He has been staying in Falkreath. Of course, occasionally he will accept some commissions and go out to kill some bandits or eliminate some beasts that the locals cannot deal with. He has become more or less famous here.
It's just...what's the reason why the lord came to see me?
Could it be that he was planning to let him investigate the murderers of the Thalmor elves? Hahahahaha... No way? "I know, I'll go over and have a look."
Thinking of this, Duanmu Huai also stood up, led Gu Leiya out of the tavern, and walked towards the Lord's Hall.
After staying in Tianji Province for such a long time, Duanmu Huai has a preliminary understanding of this land. To put it simply, in one sentence, it is - vast land and sparsely populated areas.
Take Skyrim Province as an example. Skyrim Province is divided into nine territories, ruled by nine lords, and these nine lords are responsible to the Supreme King of Skyrim - this title sounds grand, and to put it bluntly, it means a high-ranking official. And nine lords are equivalent to the mayors of nine cities.
Basically, in an area that a lord is responsible for, apart from a central city, there are only two or three villages. There are less than one or two hundred people in each village. The population in the city is slightly larger, but at most it is only about a thousand people.
As you can imagine, with such a small population, there are naturally not many soldiers. There are only a few hundred soldiers directly under the lord, and the security guards of each village can only support dozens of people.
In comparison, the Holy City area where Lorena is located has a population of fifty thousand in the central city alone, and the villages and towns radiating in all directions also have a population of three to four thousand.
The two central cities in Manalia have a combined population of at least one hundred thousand, not to mention that the surrounding villages and towns have a population of at least one or two thousand.
Although it is incomparable to modern metropolises with hundreds of millions of people, it can be seen that, at least at the current level of civilization, Manalia and the Holy City are both in terms of population quantity and quality. They are all crushing Skyrim Province—even the Empire.
To put it simply, the empire currently has a large territory. In fact, due to the continuous wars, it does not have many military resources.
The same is true for Falkreath. The total population of Falkreath City is less than 3,000, which is not even as large as the population of a school in Duanmuhuai's time.
Soon, the two came to the lord's hall and met Sid Gale, the lord of Falkreath.
Compared to other lords in other places, Sid Gale is relatively young and looks to be around 20 or 30 years old. Originally, his uncle was the lord of Falkreath, but because his uncle was old, West Gale was De Geer just became the new lord.
Well, none of that matters.
"Are you the rumored Iron Warrior?"
Seeing Duanmu Huai, the young lord was also surprised. He widened his eyes in surprise, looked at Duanmu Huai up and down, and then nodded again.
"I have heard a lot of rumors about you. I originally thought the rumors would be exaggerated, but now it seems that they are not that exaggerated."
Faced with the lord's words, Duanmu Huai was speechless - this was the advantage of being fierce. Others believed that he had killed a dragon.
Although he did kill.
"Then let's get down to business."
Having said this, Sid Gale calmed down his expression, stared at Duanmuhuai seriously, and explained his commission.
To put it simply, this is a commission about a small town he rules - Rocks Town.
According to Sid Gale, a strange situation has appeared in Rocks Town since a few months ago. First, the corpses in the cemetery were missing. Their graves were dug up, and all the corpses inside were missing. And when the angry town residents tried to find the priest guarding the cemetery to ask for an explanation, they found that the priest was also missing.
After that, in order to understand the situation, the residents of the town spontaneously formed a patrol team and patrolled late at night, but...someone disappeared.
So now, the entire town has almost fallen into a state of panic. Every night people kept their doors closed and did not dare to go out, and they also sent people to ask for help from Sidgel several times in a row.
"Although I sent soldiers several times to check and suspect that the Necromancer was behind it, nothing was gained. Not only that... even my uncle was killed!"
Speaking of this, Sid Gale clenched his fist angrily and slammed the armrest of the chair. During the last patrol and search, Sid Gale's uncle personally led the team as a military guard to investigate. However, the day after he arrived in the village, he was found dead quietly in bed by the guards.
"This is simply a provocation to Lord Severik! We will never tolerate this kind of behavior!"
In this case, Sid Gale certainly would not choose to back down. It happened that he heard about the deeds of Duanmu Huai, the "Iron Warrior", and found him.
"My request is very simple. Investigate this matter thoroughly to find out who is behind it! The murderer of my uncle must be arrested and brought to justice! As long as you can complete this task, I will be in the West Frek Territory I will give you a piece of land and appoint you as a baron!”
Look, it’s good to have a large land and a sparse population. Land is given away casually.
It's not worth anything anyway, right?
"I understand, I will go and check the situation."
Although he doesn't care much about the reward, Duanmu Huai is quite interested in this commission. After all, compared to dealing with robbers or wild beasts, isn't such a story very interesting?
"Mr. Knight, do we really want to go?"
When she walked out of the lord's hall, Gu Leiya's face was a little pale. It had to be said that the story Sid Gale told just now really frightened her.
"Of course, don't you think it's interesting? Besides, I'm also idle. Wouldn't it be nice to have such an interesting commission to pass the time? At least it's better than dealing with bandits and bandits."
"…………Indeed."
Duanmuhuai did not tell Gu Leya that in addition to the interesting story itself, the reason why he accepted this commission was because it triggered the system's task prompt.
[Inspire the hidden mission "Dark Haze"]
[Mission goal: Investigate the secrets hidden in Rocks Town]
[When you embark on the journey, you will not think that what you are facing this time is not an ordinary adventure]
No, didn’t you say it all?
Looking at the system prompts in front of him, Duanmu Huai also complained silently.
But in any case, it's obvious that what happened in Rocks Town is not that simple.
(End of chapter)