Chapter 24

"Young Master! Has Daniel been here?" Old John's voice came from outside the door, accompanied by hurried footsteps.

 Judd, who had just requested more knowledge from Dumina with a solemn tone, was still staring at Dumina, waiting for his answer.

 Dumina nodded solemnly at Judd.

 "I will.

" The panic of being rejected that was originally on Judd's face finally dissipated.

 His expression was not obvious, but not completely absent, so Dumina could still see it.

 Finally, Old John, carrying a large basket of things on his back, entered the room.

 He was about to put down the things on his back when he noticed that there were more people in the house than he expected.

 Dora had said she would come to study with Dumina, so her presence was expected by Old John.

 Tate and Judd, on the other hand, were complete surprises to Old John.

 But soon, Old John regained his composure.

 As he unloaded the large bamboo basket from his shoulders, he spoke to Dumina.

 "Young Master, these are various grasses I collected for you this morning.

 I gathered all the grasses I could find nearby.

 If you want more variety, you'll have to go up the mountain.

" "Daniel mentioned that there have been many wild beasts on the mountain these days, and our village may be attacked by monsters.

 It's not suitable to go up the mountain recently.

 We should wait for the monsters to pass, or for the area to calm down before considering going up the mountain to cut grass.

" As Old John spoke, he quickly surveyed the stone house.

 Dumina had already packed the items he needed to take to the safe place, placing them conspicuously, and Old John had seen the bundle Dumina had packed.

 Just by looking at the bundle, Old John knew that Daniel had definitely been there.

 Dumina approached the bamboo basket that Old John had unloaded, took out some grass, and examined it carefully.

 Just by looking at it, he couldn't determine if these grasses were suitable for making paper.

 However, he vaguely remembered the materials commonly used for papermaking in his previous life.

 Plants like flax, hemp, tree barks from trees like paper mulberry and mulberry, vines like rattan and white rattan, and bamboo like hairy bamboo and bitter bamboo could all be used for papermaking.

 They all had characteristics of rich cellulose, wide availability, and easy processing.

 Hemp was a typical representative among them.

 Dumina was now conducting a preliminary observation, just trying to quickly identify if there were any plants similar to hemp from his previous life.

 And he actually found some.

 He also noticed that there were quite a few plants similar to hemp stuffed in the bamboo basket by Old John.

 If it was not easy to find such plants around, Old John should not have been able to collect a sufficient quantity so easily.

 So...

 there were quite a few of these plants? But now was not the time to delve into these issues.

 Old John had already greeted Tate and the others, and was ready to go to the safe place.

 It was time for Dumina to follow them.

 During the period of hiding in the safe place, it was definitely not suitable to boil grass in pots, so they could only wait until after the monsters had passed.

 On the way to the safe place, Tate briefly introduced Dumina to the situation at the safe place.

 Currently, there were two safe places in the village, with a certain distance between them.

 One of these safe places was originally the residence of the people who looked after the silver heart grass.

 The other safe place was the residence of the Iron Armor Mercenary Group.

 When the Gray Rope Village was forced to grow silver heart grass for the Hall family, the Hall family sent someone to watch over the silver heart grass fields.

 If anything happened to the silver heart grass, the person responsible for guarding the village would be in trouble.

 Therefore, the person in charge of guarding would be very diligent.

 However, at the same time, he would transfer the pressure to the villagers of Gray Rope Village.

 Once he noticed that the silver heart grass was not growing well, whether due to natural reasons or not, he would immediately scold the villagers of Gray Rope Village, and even beat them.

 The villagers of Huisheng Village are actually stronger than him, but they are hindered by the fact that behind him is the Hall family, so they can only endure silently.

 It is also because there is a guardian present that if anything unexpected happens with the Silverheart Grass, the guardian will immediately seek help and invite someone with more experience in planting from the Hall family to help assess the problem, so that Huisheng Village can barely hand over the Silverheart Grass in full.

 During the guardian's stay in Huisheng Village, the villagers had to build a very large house for him.

 He also decorated the house very comfortably.

 The Hall family no longer needed help from the lower class to plant Silverheart Grass.

 When the guardian left, he never returned to this stone house.

 The villagers have their own houses and no one lacks a place to live.

 The villagers were also worried that the guardian would return.

 Therefore, the guardian's large stone house remained empty.

 Later, Old John accompanied the Iron Armor Mercenary Group to Huisheng Village, and this stone house became Old John's residence.

 The Iron Armor Mercenary Group had a large number of people, and even though the stone house where the guardian lived was larger than the other villagers' stone houses, it still could not meet the needs of the Iron Armor Mercenary Group.

 Initially, the mercenaries squeezed in with Old John, then took over some of the villagers' houses, and later had the villagers build even larger stone houses for themselves.

 However, unlike the guardian from years ago who left all the house-building work to the villagers, the Iron Armor Mercenary Group was arrogant and combative, and impatient with the slow pace of the villagers in building houses.

 While searching for unknown things on the mountain, they also helped the villagers build stone houses.

 This stone house is currently the largest in Huisheng Village.

 After the Iron Armor Mercenary Group left, both of these special stone houses remained vacant.

 The defensive capabilities of these two stone houses are better than those of the villagers' stone houses.

 Like the stone house built by the Iron Armor Mercenary Group, the land in the basement was hardened by the only magician in the mercenary group, and there were defensive runes left by the magician on the walls and floors of the basement, even on the walls of the stone house.

 Therefore, after the Iron Armor Mercenary Group left, the villagers of Huisheng Village bravely transformed it into a refuge and stored many foods that could be preserved in the Qingshui River inside.

 The villagers also regularly replaced the items stored inside.

 If the monsters came too suddenly and everyone had no time to prepare, then so be it, all the villagers would just hide in their own houses.

 But as long as there was time to react, the villagers would consider sending the most vulnerable people to the refuge.

 Children, for example, are particularly worthy of protection.

 After using the stone houses previously occupied by the Iron Armor Mercenary Group, Huisheng Village then utilized the stone houses previously occupied by the guardian.

 The former is now called Shelter No. 1, and the latter is now called Shelter No.2. Tait now has to take Du Mingna and others to Shelter No.1.

 When he first mentioned how the village was forced to grow Silverheart Grass for the Hall family, he immediately covered his mouth as soon as he spoke, afraid that what he said was unforgivable and would anger Du Mingna.

 But Du Mingna's expression remained unchanged, and Old John secretly signaled him to continue speaking, so he dared to continue.

 Later, Tait also found that Du Mingna really didn't mind them speaking the truth about what the Hall family had done, or about how the Iron Armor Mercenary Group had been in Huisheng Village.

 It was only then that Tait's tone of speech returned to normal.

 By this time, they had already entered Shelter No.1.

 The others who would come here were some children still on the mountain.

 Hausmann and others who were taking the children up the mountain for training should have already received the message to return to the village, but they were too far from the village, and some of the children were not able to move quickly.

 However, they did not make Du Mingna and the others wait long.

 Soon, sitting inside Shelter No.1, Du Mingna, who was teaching Dora and Jade basic perception knowledge, heard a commotion outside.

 There were messy footsteps and chattering voices.

 Most of them were children's voices.

 They carried both unease and curiosity.

 Then, outside the first shelter, there was a man who was almost as burly as Daniel.

 He was surrounded by a large group of children.

 The children varied in height, and their expressions were different at this moment.

 Some of the younger children couldn't hide behind the burly man at the door and had to hide behind older children.

 But they only hid their bodies, their heads still peeking out, curious to see through the people in front and into the room.

 Some children didn't hide their curiosity at all.

 If the only burly man among them didn't block the way and let them in, they would probably be inside pestering Du Mingna with questions.

 The burly man's eyes were filled with killing intent.

 He stared at Du Mingna.

 But Du Mingna remained calm, still sitting inside, smiling at him.

 Du Mingna's calm demeanor made the burly man's probing seem like a clumsy offense.

 The burly man's gaze gradually softened, but the killing intent remained.

 Du Mingna pondered silently.

 In his past life, he had never encountered anyone with such killing intent, but the original owner had.

 He was a member of the Viscount Hall's castle, not a castle guard, but someone who specialized in slaughtering livestock in the kitchen.

 The Hall family had high standards for food quality and often required fresh slaughter.

 Therefore, there were people in the castle specifically responsible for slaughtering livestock.

 It was not easy to kill with one blow during the slaughter of livestock.

 As the livestock were slaughtered, the people responsible for slaughtering also absorbed the killing intent.

 This was similar to the killing intent of the burly man now.

 Du Mingna didn't think that the villagers born and raised in Huisuo Village would exude killing intent by killing people.

 As for outsiders? It was also unlikely.

 If there were outsiders with such intimidating killing intent, the villagers of Huisuo Village might not be able to accept them so easily.

 The population flow in this world was very low, and people in each place were wary of outsiders.

 Mercenaries who often went out on missions and moved around usually needed to use force to intimidate the locals to get their help.

 This was also a major reason why mercenaries often had a bad temper and were quick to resort to violence.

 If they showed weakness, they might be collectively ostracized by the locals.

 Although the locals would still ostracize them after they resorted to violence, at least they could live more comfortably.

 Du Mingna now leaned towards the idea that the burly man had killed many wild beasts, hence the killing intent.

 In theory, Daniel, Ges, and others should have a similar fierce temperament.

 But Daniel seemed more like a brute who would punch you at the slightest provocation, but when he wasn't, he seemed more like a simpleton.

 Ges's temperament leaned more towards gentle and round, making it easy for people to overlook that Ges was not much weaker than Daniel.

 The burly man in front of him exuded an unmistakable killing intent that couldn't be concealed.

 Even if the burly man showed goodwill towards Du Mingna now, the killing intent on him was still uncontrollable.

 Suddenly, the burly man placed one hand on the other shoulder, then knelt on one knee, bowing his head.

 "Young Master, I have already heard from Sharp who brought us the news about you.

 Please allow me to introduce myself.

 I am Hausman, the captain of the Huisuo Village militia.

"