Chapter 15: Additional Compensation from the Dead

As Nio had expected, the townspeople of Tulip Town arrived around 3 p.m., most of them utterly exhausted. Tulip Town was less than 10 kilometers away, a relatively short distance. At a normal walking pace of 3–5 kilometers per hour, it should have taken them no more than 6 hours to get there—such a slow pace that it could be described as snail-like.

“Come on, everyone! Line up and get your food. There’s soup, hot water, and bread. See those bonfires? Gather around to warm up and eat. Stay orderly…” It was a woman from Croop who called out to the crowd, with Milien leading the way. Upon seeing Milien dressed in practical attire, the townspeople took off their hats in greeting. Milien responded with a smile and a nod without saying much. She had her own tasks to attend to. Many of the townswomen voluntarily joined in the work, while the men murmured among themselves. Where were the men from Croop? Why had they left the women to handle everything?

The men from Croop were soon found—they were mostly working near the woods in the west, cutting wood and expanding the village’s blacksmith shop. Although time was tight, adding more low-temperature furnaces and heating furnaces was relatively easy. Moreover, most of Croop’s iron materials were gathered here; even some iron items from households were dismantled and melted down to create various components based on the designs drawn by Nio. Croop’s blacksmith, Woodro, had average skills and was currently responsible for rough processing to create basic shapes.

“Huh? Where’s Nio?” Macken asked as he saw Ebute. As a town militia member, he was quite familiar with the guards from the Manmoris family and spoke to them freely.

“He went to the Gale Squad. He’ll also set up some traps in Tulip Town on the way.”

“The Gale Squad?”

Ebute smiled slightly. “Rest, rest! Since Nio isn’t here, you’re our master blacksmith!”

“Yeah, no problem. I’m fully committed to serving Lord Manmoris!” Macken said, patting his chest.

Ebute nodded and corrected him, “It’s Lord Div who’s in charge now”……

Meanwhile, in Tulip Town, one of the main items Nio was searching for was iron—arrowheads, spears, swords, armor, and fastening parts for vehicles—all required iron. He searched the entire town. With his strength, he could easily break beams and columns. Of course, he didn’t actually need to do that, as the townspeople weren’t extravagant enough to use iron for such things, even though the region of Edrith was known as the “Hometown of Black Iron.”

After searching the whole town, he managed to collect quite a lot—enough to fill two large carts, mostly black iron, which could be smelted into a versatile base material. As for destroying houses to gather materials, Nio didn’t care at all. If time allowed, he would have even razed the entire town rather than let it fall into the hands of barbaric foreigners.

Nio didn’t even want to miss the mine pit in the small square. Surprisingly, he found some iron there. He decided to dismantle it from the inside out to avoid the risk of cave-ins in the mine tunnels.

The lighting in the mine tunnels had long been removed, but darkness posed no obstacle to Nio. His vision in complete darkness could cover more than 10 meters, which was sufficient in the narrow tunnels.

“Hm?” A faint white light caught Neo’s attention. They were in the deepest part of the underground excavation site, but the light didn’t come from anywhere in the excavation area—it came from Neo himself.
Neo took out a small pouch from his waist; the white light originated from there, still clearly visible even through the cloth.
Before heading to Tulip Town, Neo had visited the Hidden Soldiers Valley, where he left behind some trinkets looted from the Dark Claws. His plan required money, and he could find some valuable items among those trinkets, so he went the extra mile.
What was glowing was a metal pellet, round in shape, with a hole slightly larger than a needle tip at one end—light emanated from there.
“Why is it glowing? Is it glowing all the time or just now?” Neo wondered. Then he noticed that the light projected onto the wall formed a sequence of characters.
“Numerals?!” Though Neo couldn’t claim to be well-versed in books, he had learned quite a bit of miscellaneous knowledge. These characters were part of sacred script—very complicated, called Arabic numerals. It was said that the modern number system originated from them, but Neo didn’t know their meanings. That was a field reserved for those in the Church who specialized in studying divine culture.
Beeep!
If it hadn’t been quiet enough here and Neo’s ears not so sharp, he wouldn’t have heard this sound at all.
“What sound was that?” Neo wondered. The sound came once and then disappeared. He didn’t think about it for a while, but he was sure he had indeed heard it.
“What did I do just now?” Neo recalled his instinctive action earlier—the light had been directed at a certain spot on the wall.
Beeep!
This time, Neo found the source—deep in the soil.
He pulled out an iron rod and dug deeply, but found nothing after several meters. Yet the sound grew clearer. He continued digging—over two meters down—and an object appeared: a crystal stone wall. Something similar to this had been in the large hall filled with assembled artifacts during his last visit, but this one was clearly of better quality—smooth, transparent, and hard. Just by touching it, Neo knew that even his steel sword might not be able to scratch it.
“Damn it, at least now I know the real purpose of the Dark Claws coming to Tures. A miracle—they’re digging up a miracle!” Neo kept digging furiously. He knew that once these artifacts fell into the hands of the Dark Forces and were studied, they would become even more powerful and terrifying. This was definitely something the beings of the Aemera continent didn’t want to see.
“Brutes! Betraying faith, betraying the God-Lord…” In Neo’s simple worldview, the Dark Claws could find these relics only because of their master, the Devil. The higher-ups of the Devil used to be staunch believers of the God-Lord, and even their lives were created by the God-Lord. Because they were closest to the God-Lord, they knew many of the gods’ secrets.
The object was finally unearthed—it was rectangular, wider at the top and narrower at the bottom. Neo frowned. “This… looks like a coffin used by vampires, but obviously an ancient style, with a curved lid instead of a flat one…”
Neo saw a glow coming from inside the coffin-like object, at a steady frequency. That was the source of the beeping sound.

He tried to match the light from the metal bead with the flashing points, and a glow began to flow across the surface of the “coffin.” Once cleaned, the full image appeared before Neo, and then the curved front surface of the coffin disappeared, leaving a coffin without a lid.
“The energy therapy chamber has been activated. Identity confirmed. Biological scan failed; entering self-destruction sequence…”
Neo stood there in shock. There was no one around, but he heard a clear, gentle female voice—beautifully melodious, though he didn’t know what to say. “What language is this? What does it mean?”
“10 seconds left for self-destruction sequence. Scanning for nearby energy sources: 1. Fragments of intelligent growth crystal. 2. Third-grade crystals of wind, fire, water, and earth. 3. Energy attributes of top-tier user Zhang Fang—very weak…”
Neo scratched his head. He thought the “coffin” was telling some story, like those “magic mouths” left by archmages to inform later generations about what had happened here, what it was, or simply messages left by the archmages. But what ancient language was this? It was completely incomprehensible.
“…Confirmed to match the seventh existence scheme. Absorbing third-grade crystals. Setting changed to activating the energy imprint of a top-tier user. Combining with fragments of intelligent growth crystal. Folding sequence countdown: 5, 4, 3…”
As Neo heard the words spoken one by one, he instinctively thought of the counting system of this era: “Hāqiān (1), Nǔgài (2), Lèi (3), Sābài (4)…” This made him realize something bad might happen. But by the time he tried to leave, it was too late. A beam of light shot out from the coffin, melting the leather jacket on his chest and abdomen. Then, the thin metal box he carried, obtained from the demon-transformed Ya Heng, glowed with intricate magical patterns under the light before folding into many small squares and eventually shrinking into a cross-shaped frame. At the top of the frame were four small, thumb-sized crystals—gold, silver, red, and blue—each with vibrant colors and a liquid-like flow.
Then, along with the frame, the treasure was taken away by the “coffin.”
“Ah!” Neo felt a sharp pain in his chest and neck. When he pulled open his collar, he saw that his mother’s heirloom, the moonlight pendant, had melted, leaving a crescent-shaped mark between his collarbones.
Before Neo could figure out what was going on, a flash of light appeared before his eyes, followed by a searing pain in his head as if it had exploded, and he lost consciousness.
When he woke up, Neo didn’t know what time it was. The surroundings were empty, and the “coffin” was nowhere to be seen. But he no longer cared about that. He first checked himself and found he was unharmed, then worried that he had been unconscious for too long, so he rushed outside.
When he stepped out of the mine tunnel and looked at the sky, he realized he had only been unconscious for a short time. Looking at the holes in his leather jacket and the metal bead in his hand, and feeling his neck, he realized the pendant was gone. Filled with frustration, he thought it was his mother’s only heirloom. In the past, he had transformed using its moon energy; otherwise, he could only turn into a werewolf under the moonlight.

“Great! Because of your curiosity, you stood there stupidly right in front of a miracle… Let this serve as a reminder to you. Otherwise, the next time you’ll die without even knowing how!” Neo scolded himself a bit before using the metal bead as a pendent and inserting it into the original slot…

After such a setback, the task of collecting iron materials was effectively over. Neo headed straight to Manmoris’s manor. Valuable items were his targets this time. Moreover, Lord Manmoris indeed had a small treasury. Millian and Dave, after some investigation, roughly guessed its location—it was in Xavier’s study. Under normal circumstances, it would be hard to find, but today Neo was the epitome of a forceful intruder, unafraid of anything. After a violent search, he found the small treasury, along with Manmoris’s family gold seal, noble gold certificates, family lineage scrolls, bank deeds, a large bag of gold coins, and some gems.

“Wow!” Neo raised his eyebrows. Manmoris’s wealth was much greater than he had estimated. Clearly, Xavier was at least a successful businessman.

By the time Neo returned to Croop with a small convoy, the villagers of Croop and those from Tulip Town had just witnessed a bloody scene. Dave Manmoris, the talented heir to the title since childhood, had personally killed six bandits, including Zakley, in front of everyone.

The word “killed” was truly apt—just like slaughtering pigs. No matter how loudly the bandits begged or cried, even to the point of losing control from fear, Dave still slit their throats and drained their blood. In the end, the dead were burned to ashes, and their blood spilled in the northeast direction, where the bandits had first wreaked havoc, looting and killing people.

Even those who escaped death were not spared a beating—on their backs, their skin was torn open, their clothes soaked in blood, as they cried out in agony. This public punishment of the enemies scared many people. They realized that although the heir was young, he was even more severe and cold-hearted than Lord Manmoris…

“In times of chaos, strict laws are necessary! My father has told me more than once that Thures is not only Manmoris’s territory but also everyone’s home. All who live on this land are one family. Anyone who humiliates our family members will be declared an enemy of the Manmoris family. Also, anyone who tries to hinder our migration for refuge will be severely punished!”

Everyone listened carefully to Dave’s words, and most understood the underlying message: If you don’t cooperate, you’re hindering our migration for refuge, and you might face severe punishment!

“Neo!”

“Neo! What’s going on outside?”

“What are you doing bringing these things back?”

Many people greeted Neo upon his return. Information spread quickly among the people, and since Dave and Ebute had intentionally stirred things up, everyone now knew about the Swift Wind Squad.

“The Swift Wind Squad will go ahead of us. Don’t worry; we’ll be notified if anything happens…” As usual, Neo always provided reassuring and definite information, which might be one of the reasons why he was so popular—even reasons the townspeople themselves weren’t fully aware of.

Not long after Dave’s performance ended, Ebute took the stage, gathered the militia, and assigned tasks. All 716 people under Tures’ leadership tonight would have to stay here, and there was a lot of work to be done—armed self-defense forces were the top priority.

In the expanded blacksmith shed, Nio saw Zhanza. This hero wasn’t skilled in blacksmithing, but he was strong and had good control. With a little guidance, he could be a great help swinging a hammer. Thanks to his amiable attitude and eloquence, Zhanza got along very well with everyone, and many already called him by his name affectionately.

Seeing Nio, Zhanza wanted to approach and chat. He wasn’t in a hurry to find out more about the Gale Squad, nor did he want to stir up the crowd at this moment. He just wanted to get to know Nio through conversation. Unfortunately, Nio only greeted him, exchanged a few pleasantries, and left in a hurry.

It wasn’t that Nio was arrogant or suspicious of Zhanza—he still had a very good impression of him and thought he truly deserved the title of “hero.” It was just that Nio was too busy to spare time for small talk.

Dave was surprised at first to see the money Nio brought back, but soon he felt sorry for it. It was the fruit of the Manmoris family’s hard work, and soon most of it would be spent!

Nio said solemnly, “Money can be made again. But if we miss this opportunity, it will be hard to win the people’s hearts, no matter what.”

“Will people end up hating us because of this?”

“I think at first, some people won’t understand, but that’s temporary. Once results become visible, the discordant voices will fade away…”