CHAPTER 44: CHAPTER 44: RETURN TO MAPLE HILL COUNTY

The villagers of Yatai Village obviously do not understand the nobility, they do not know that nobles can resort to any means to achieve their goals.

For Earl Santos, compared to maintaining the reputation of his domain, a small village is really nothing.

The matters here will inevitably not be concealed, in the end, they will certainly be discovered by Earl Santos.

Even if they could have killed those soldiers just now, the disappearance of these soldiers would still attract others to investigate.

With the mental fortitude of the ordinary villagers of Yatai Village, a little questioning will reveal the entire process of the matter; there isn’t even a need for torture.

By then, no matter what these villagers say, they would find it hard to escape death.

From the moment those soldiers arrived in the village, the fate of these villagers was already sealed.

Vivian instantly figured all this out, which is why she suggested that the villagers leave with her.

Generally speaking, commoners are not allowed to leave the confines of their domain freely; most are bound to the land.

Even when moving between different cities within the confines of the domain, commoners need to report and apply, and only after permission can they go to other cities.

To move freely within the entire kingdom, aside from nobles, adventurers from the Adventurer Association also have such privileges.

As the Count’s Daughter to Earl Hardy, with her power, it was extremely easy for Vivian to settle some commoners.

However, the villagers of Yatai Village never thought of leaving from beginning to end, even though they almost faced a massacre today, many were still naively hoping that nothing would happen.

Duke and Vivian persuaded for a long time, but only Uncle Doyle’s family of five was willing to follow.

This was still after Uncle Doyle’s son persuaded them, including Doyle himself, he was unwilling to leave the village.

In fact, both Duke and Vivian could understand, after all, they had just come to this place, and suddenly asking these people to follow them to an unknown domain was indeed a bit too much.

Most people’s activities in their lifetime are just around the village, Maple Hill County is an extremely distant place for them, filled with unknowns.

In the end, Vivian had no choice but to leave with Uncle Doyle’s family.

Uncle Doyle’s family had a donkey, his wife, granddaughter, and daughter-in-law sat on the donkey cart.

The cart didn’t have too many things; they didn’t have much property, and they quickly finished packing.

"Sister Vivian, you come up to sit too." Uncle Doyle’s little granddaughter Yala invited.

"I won’t go up; the armor I’m wearing is very heavy." Vivian smiled and declined.

With the weight she was carrying, the donkey wouldn’t be able to go very far.

Uncle Doyle’s son was named Fok, he followed behind the donkey cart, looking back at the village, his face was full of worry.

Fok, in his twenties, had traveled south and north with the Commerce Association over the past few years, and had more experience.

He knew that what Vivian said was likely to become a fact, which is why he desperately persuaded his father to leave.

Fok had no doubt about Vivian’s identity; he recognized that the armor Vivian wore was actually made of Starlight Iron.

He knew that Starlight Iron was an extremely rare mineral, with a price higher than gold of the same weight.

In other words, Vivian was essentially wearing hundreds of pounds of gold, and once Fok thought of this, he had no doubts about Vivian’s identity as the Count’s Daughter.

Fok looked at the distant village and said, "I don’t know how those soldiers will distort the facts when they return, the people in the village..."

Duke understood his meaning; those soldiers would certainly exaggerate and distort the facts to shift the blame.

He sighed and said, "We’ve done all we can, now we can only hope that Earl Santos has a shred of humanity left."

...

It took Duke and his party half a month to finally reach a border town within Maple Hill County, Loba Town.

Loba Town was different from other small towns; normally, the military presence in small towns was just militia, but here it was guarded by the Personal Soldiers of Earl Hardy.

Due to its location on the border, the defensive force was stronger, and three squadrons of troops were stationed here, totaling over forty people.

Combined with the more than eighty local militiamen, it was quite a considerable force.

For the soldiers here, their main purpose was to be able to convey information back if a war broke out.

"Halt!" An arrow landed in front of the group, a squad of ten Personal Soldiers appeared ahead, the captain was a middle-aged man with a full beard.

Uncle Doyle’s family was very nervous, Fok tightly held onto his daughter, using his body to protect her as much as possible, to ensure that if an arrow came, he could use his body to block it.

"Are you coming from Silver County? Present your merchant credentials or other travel permits, otherwise, I will detain you for the crime of illegal migration," said the squad leader, his hand already on the sword hilt.

Vivian came forward from the back; before she even spoke, the squad leader’s expression changed immediately, and he knelt on one knee.

"Miss Vivian!"

This squad leader had seen Vivian before and had a deep impression of her armor.

On the contrary, the soldiers alongside him hadn’t seen Vivian before, looking somewhat bewildered.

Vivian merely glanced at them, her voice cold, "Provide us with two carriages."

After saying that, she gestured for Uncle Doyle’s family to follow her, heading into Loba Town.

Uncle Doyle’s family saw all these soldiers kneeling honestly on the ground, keeping their heads down, not daring to look at Vivian, only then did they have a personal understanding of Vivian’s noble identity.

During this period of interaction, they had only regarded Vivian as a very friendly Female Knight, without associating her with the lofty nobility.

When Vivian appeared in Loba Town, the whole town was like a boiling pot, with the local civilians, merchants, militia, all coming out, wanting to see what Earl Hardy’s daughter, rumored as such, looked like.

Unfortunately, Vivian’s armor covered her tightly, and the crowd could only see a suit of armor.

On Vivian’s indication, Uncle Doyle’s donkey cart was proactively purchased by a merchant for a high price of twenty gold coins.

They were to continue their journey by carriage, taking this donkey along would have been too troublesome.

Uncle Doyle held that bag of gold coins, looking at the gleaming gold inside, still feeling a little incredulous.

Since when was a donkey so valuable that it could sell for a whole twenty gold coins, enough to last their family many years.

Normally speaking, it was very difficult to find two carriages in a place like Loba Town.

But since Vivian had spoken, getting this done wasn’t difficult at all.

Two carriages soon appeared in front of Vivian, she and Duke took one, Uncle Doyle and his family took the other.