Chapter 212

Sergey, having just heard about the grand failure with the bishop, was in no hurry to return to his quarters, where he undoubtedly would need to administer preventive "spankings" to his subordinates. Maria, having looked at the mess created by her stomach, used magic to clean it up and, as she was leaving the hall, gave Konstantin a punch on the shoulder with her fist, showing that she was still upset with him.

The next morning, a released monk arrived in the village. A real one, not a substitute. Igor, who had been playing the role of such a monk in the vampire village, was initially a bit flustered but quickly slipped his "brother in faith" some sleeping potion and drank his blood.

The guest turned out to be a fanatical true believer, with not a shred of common sense or any attempt to understand the church's dogmas. It was precisely because of his overly direct convictions that he fell out of favor. People with atrophied brains are not needed in any serious organization, and this monk had even dared to accuse the Vicar of heresy.

He was from Orod, and ten years ago, when he was given a red scarf and sash, he was strongly advised to leave the kingdom. And so this person, wandering the foothills of the Elur mountains and seeking to apply his energy in exterminating non-humans, heard about a settlement of powerful mages.

Neither robbers nor hunger posed an obstacle to him, and he ended up here. Moreover, he didn't even glance at Savoyardi, crossing the river via a ford in Tanok, as he didn't want to have a conversation with the local bishop, whom he preemptively categorized as a heretic due to the goblins wreaking havoc on his lands.

The monk did not come to the mages' village to bring the light of faith. He believed that everyone already had it, and those who did not were heretics who needed to be burned to show the light. So he arrived at the mages with the intention of leading them in the fight against the goblins. Leading them. The monk did not doubt for a second that he should be the head of such a campaign, rather than some worldly knight. He planned to simply kill his rival, the monk already living in Lesnoi, if the latter did not help him achieve such lofty goals.

The monk woke up in the prisoners' barracks. Two of the three triumvirs present in the village held a quick trial of the sleeping figure and made their decision. Such fanatical fellows are of no use to anyone, so they would treat his rigid mindset with the crookedness of manual labor, or rather, with hard physical work.

This hasty decision proved to be a mistake. The vampires had already grown accustomed to the passivity of their prisoners and to all of them resigning themselves to their fate. The factor of faith was once again not taken into account by the pragmatic inhabitants of the twenty-first century.

As soon as the monk realized he was in captivity among non-humans… the man became so active that if his energy and organizational talents were used for peaceful purposes, mountains could be moved and seas could be dug. The fanatic didn't even spend time assessing the situation or conducting reconnaissance.

He simply started hammering everyone with the notion that they would doom their souls to darkness if they continued serving non-humans, instead of killing them and thereby performing a godly task. Within two days, the vampires faced their first uprising and simultaneous escape attempt. Moreover, the prisoners did not plan any special tricks or meticulously strategize. They simply tried to overwhelm the guards with sheer numbers.

To the credit of the gendarmes tasked with guarding, they did not falter. None of the guards were knocked down or defeated. The training of Oleg and Leonid proved to be highly effective. Unarmed people were simply scattered by "air punches" and "gusts of wind," while the gendarmes protected themselves with a reliable and simple "air wall." None of the gendarmes even drew their weapons, though they handed out quite a few well-aimed blows.

By the time the alerted sleeping vampires were up and about, the bulk of the rebels had already been gathered in a heap in the central square of the settlement and surrounded by soldiers. Unfortunately, not everyone was there. Firstly, the dead were missing; despite the relatively mild suppression of the rebellion, some spells had been cast with such force that they had resulted in broken necks. The second group of absentees were the fugitives.

This group was led by the released monk, who evidently decided that the rebellion could manage without his direct intervention and that moral support would suffice. Having persuaded one of the paladins and a few stronger fellows, he attempted to seize a boat. Fanaticism rarely aligns with analytical thinking, so the monk only knew about the boat and the village of people downstream; the details about the boat being in the castle's cellars were no longer of interest to him.

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