Chapter 15: The Green Piper

Sitting on the ground in a strange posture, Horn could feel his flesh and blood alternating between hot and cold. The muscle aches and shortness of breath from previous exercise were all gone.

He exhaled gently, and the feeling of alternating hot and cold gradually dissipated. Horn opened his eyes and heard a continuous rumbling sound in his stomach.

He quickly threw a few berries and dried meat into his mouth to fill his stomach for the time being.

The Knight Breathing Method has very high requirements for food. Not only does it require sufficient intake of meat and fat every day, but rice and flour are also essential.

This means that if an ordinary person wants to practice breathing techniques, he or she must either be gifted like Jeanne and gain weight even by eating shit, or he or she must have meat and vegetables for three meals a day and have time to practice.

This is why the practice of Knight's Breathing Technique is so widespread, but the vast majority of practitioners are from armed peasants and above.

Ordinary people cannot afford such high food consumption.

However, since the end of the Hundred Years of the Zi War, the wages of laborers and craftsmen have risen sharply, resulting in the emergence of first and second stage breathing practitioners among ordinary laborers and even refugees, and the mercenary industry has emerged.

The Imperial Parliament of Aristocrats hurriedly passed two laws, the Fugitive Slave Law and the Labor Law, to impose restrictions, out of fear that this group of lower classes would gain extraordinary powers.

In this world, super strength equals violence equals power.

After eating the last two bites of the rough bran bread and washing it down with water, Horn burped and exhaled a lot of unpleasant sour smell.

With his eyes closed, Horn slowly recalled the previous feeling.

According to Jeanne, the sign of a successful breathing technique is the ability to activate this feeling at will.

By then, physical endurance will be greatly enhanced.

"Master Saint Grandson..."

Horn opened his eyes and Jeshka's large, wrinkled face popped out.

"Is everyone here? If so, let's set off." Horn thought Jessica was here to urge him to get going to the forest.

But Jieshka shook his head with a bitter face: "The people are not all here. When we were collecting the cages this morning, two members of the hunting team disappeared."

"Missing? Did he run away? Have you looked for him?"

"We only found one, but he had fainted. We just took him to Father Cosset. We hope that Father Cosset's blessing can wake him up."

As soon as Jeshka finished speaking, Horn heard a clear and loud "pop" sound not far away, followed by a crying wail and the villagers' continuous admiration.

Tucked his handkerchief into his belt, Horn stood up and walked towards the open space where the villagers were gathered.

When they were halfway there, they saw seventeen or eighteen villagers, surrounding Father Cosset, and two strong men with a young boy between them, walking towards them.

The young man had a crooked nose and slanted eyes, with two lines of tears flowing from the corners of his eyes. There was a high, swollen, blood-red slap mark on his right cheek.

"Tell me in detail what happened?" Horn walked up to the young man who was stunned by Kosei's slap.

"I don't know what happened. My brother and I were collecting prey cages in the woods. Then, I felt dizzy and heard the sound of a flute. After that, I didn't know anything."

Before the young man could finish, Father Cosset, who was standing beside him, murmured with a pale face: "The Green Pied Piper, it must be the Green Pied Piper."

Whether it was Jeshka, the other villagers who came from the other side, or even the fearless Jeanne, their faces suddenly changed.

The Pied Piper in Green?
Based on this keyword, Horn quickly searched for related memories in his mind and soon found them.

This Green Pied Piper is similar to the legend of the "Butterfly Boy" in Horn's hometown.

Legend has it that the ancestors of the people of Qianhe Valley were besieged by a group of giant rats on their way to migrate from Xiongbao Lingkushi River to Qianhe Valley.

The chief of the Thousand River Valley people hired a green-clad flute player to take away the rats with one hundred pounds of silver.

The flute player accepted the chief's request and took the giant rat away while playing his flute.

But the patriarch did not fulfill his promise, so every few years, the angry piper would raise the fog, play his flute to kidnap children, and push them off the cliff.

In Horn's hometown, this legend is just used to scare disobedient children.

But in this world called Middle-earth, this does exist, and there are basically a bunch of unlucky people every few years.

Whenever there is heavy fog, children under the age of twelve are locked in their homes and not allowed to go out.

However, considering that the Thousand River Valley was the second most active region for secret parties and cults in the entire empire, it was not difficult for Horn to guess the origins of these "piped players".

Thinking of this, Horn's eyes couldn't help but fall on Cosse.

He remembered that Father Cosset's twin daughters, Anna and Lina, were abducted by the Pied Piper in this way.

Father Cosset, who had always been indecisive and fence-sitter, was staring at Horn steadily, which made Horn a little nervous.

How come a witch and then a monster suddenly appeared? Horn really didn't expect that a small Moulin Rouge Village could give birth to so many talented people.

Nowadays, the food that can be obtained from the forest is already scarce. If the news spreads, will anyone dare to enter the forest? If people lose their morale, it will be difficult to lead the team.

Scratching his philtrum with his thumb, Horn thought for a while, and when he looked up, he found that everyone was staring at him.

No one said anything, they were all waiting for their decision.

Without further hesitation, Horn drew out the sword hanging from his waist, pointed it high up at the forest, and said solemnly: "This is no longer an ordinary demon, we must strike hard! Each ten-household collection team will temporarily stop collecting, and the heads of the ten households will immediately select young and strong men to serve as... bodyguards, and follow me to eliminate the demons!"

A few brave young men immediately began to cheer.

Horn had a confident smile on his face.

Anyway, no matter what kind of monsters you are, in front of the witch, they are just small devils meeting big devils.

In countless witcher stories and adventure poems, a very prominent feature of witches is that they can suppress or even drive some monsters.

The gold content, the gold content of the head of Messiah's enemies!

After some preparation, Horn, Jeanne and thirty strong men each took fishing nets, pitchforks, flails, axes and torches and set off.

Old Kosei, who always seeks good and avoids danger, did not escape this time. He actually picked up a butcher knife that he had not used for a long time and went into the forest.

The sky was gloomy and it was not raining. Occasionally a few drops of water passed through the blazing torches, stirring up bursts of green smoke.

Walking through the black pine forest covered with morning mist, the only sounds in my ears were the annoying cries of the jays and the slippery sound of my shoes on the slippery ground.

It felt like a sticky tongue licking one's ear. At least that was how Horn felt at the moment.

He put on the leather vest of a knight and walked in the second row with a long sword slung over his shoulder.

Beside him, Jeanne, wearing leather armor and holding a long stick with a sharpened and blackened tip, looked around and walked forward silently.

"Master Holy Grandson, look, they fainted here." Jeshka said, pointing to a simple wooden cage trap.

Following the direction that Jeshka pointed, we could see that it was a beech tree.

Stepping forward, Horn looked around cautiously, and used his hand half a sword to push aside a patch of grass, revealing a clear footprint submerged in the mud.

"go!"

Following the direction of the footprints, Horn and others set out again with torches in hand.

As Horn and his companions moved forward, there were more weeds and bushes, and the fog became thicker.

The chaotic footsteps stopped from time to time, and Horn and others had to stop frequently to cut a path or jump over stream ditches and moss-covered fallen trees.

Reaching out and holding Jeanne's hand, Horn pulled him across a ditch.

Jeanne's face turned visibly red, but she did not struggle, but instead held Horn's hand tightly.

"Follow me closely." Horn would feel more at ease holding a powerful weapon like the Witch in his own hands.

The cries of jays beside my ears disappeared at some point, even the sounds of insects began to become distant, and the footprints on the ground were still one step deep and one step shallow.

Following the footprints, Horn and his team stopped by a stream, where the footprints disappeared.

Did he jump into the stream?
Anyone who has seen a horror movie knows that in this situation, dividing the troops is a taboo. Horn frowned. He was about to call out to the young and strong men to go upstream.

But suddenly, he felt his earlobes were a little wet, and a strong wind came from nowhere, making the leaves and grass rustle.

"Om-"

What was that? Amid the whirring of the wind, Horn seemed to hear something strange, like a window left open on a hurricane night.

No, it's the sound of a flute.

The sound of the flute is light and melodious, quietly drifting into people's eardrums.

After the strong wind, Horn felt as if everything was quiet. Even the footsteps stopped, not to mention the sound of the young men whispering to each other.

Horn turned his head at the faint sound of the flute, and his hair stood on end.

All the young men present had come to a standstill at some point in time. They looked dazed, and were swaying slightly in the wind as if sleepwalking.

It was as if thirty robots suddenly got stuck, stopped all movements, and remained motionless in their original posture.

After the sound of the wind, the air suddenly became quiet, so quiet that it was even a little creepy.

The faint sound of the flute faded into the distance. Horn swallowed and said, "No, are you serious?"

(End of this chapter)