Chapter 48: A Cry for Help

In the following days, Su Chen and Iron Cliff camped out in the nearby area, searching for Vicious Beasts to kill to raise their cultivation bases.

Su Chen returned one time and brought a large batch of staple necessities with him, using the necessities to exchange resources with the villagers.

To the villagers, this was much more useful than Origin Stones, and their resentment towards Su Chen for his unwillingness to help them subsided a bit. Their trust in him gradually began to increase.

In reality, some things needed to be built on trust in the first place.

Domesticating Vicious Beasts was West River Forest Village’s key to survival. If they handed it over to anyone who came by and claimed that they had a common enemy, then they really were addled in the head.

That was why Su Chen wasn’t in a hurry to get an answer. Instead, he lived together with them, increasing his interactions with them as well as their understanding of one another.

Just like when he was in the Scarlet Mountain Range.

Most of the time, Su Chen wasn’t actually hunting. That was Iron Cliff’s job. Su Chen was just looking for a place to perform his experiments.

West River Forest had an abundance of resources, and he could perform a lot of experiments with the local resources alone.

Occasionally, Su Chen would concoct a few medicines.

Even though West River Forest had an abundance of resources, it lacked people who knew how to utilize these resources and convert them into high-quality items.

Many of the villagers hoarded large stores of resources, but they still died from minor illnesses and wounds. It was like they were dying of starvation atop a mountain of gold.

The medicines Su Chen concocted, to the villagers, were immensely useful.

Today, just like normal, Su Chen was performing his experiments when he suddenly heard a commotion from outside.

The situation in the forest was pretty simple, so Su Chen wasn’t doing any complex experiments. He stopped what he was doing and watched as a few villagers charged in from outside.They were bearing two men on stretchers behind them.

The villager at the very front knelt down in front of Su Chen and said, “Sir Su, please save my brother.”

Having known Su Chen for so long, they no longer called him Knowledge Executor. Instead, they directly referred to him as “Sir.” To the villagers, “Sir” could be used to address a scholar, who Su Chen clearly seemed to be.

Su Chen got close to take a look and found the two of them covered in wounds. One of the injured people had a large cavity in his chest, while a handprint could clearly be seen on the other person’s body.

“They were wounded by other people. What happened?” Su Chen asked.

“What else could have happened? It’s those Bloodline Nobility Clan dogs! They’re here again!” one of the villagers said angrily.

Not long before, those Bloodline Nobility Clans had sent some people to attack Happiness Residing Fort. Even though they had driven back their opponents with the help of the Vicious Beasts, they had paid the price with six deaths and two gravely injured.

“How many people did they send?” Su Chen asked.

“Just one. Just one person was enough to send the entire fort into an uproar,” the villager cried bitterly.

Su Chen remembered him. He was called Yi Liang, an easygoing, carefree youth. Now, however, he was weeping bitterly.

“One person?” Su Chen murmured. “Were your Guardian Angel Beasts unable to drive him away?”

Yi Lang nodded. “He was too fast, and the Guardian Angel Beasts couldn’t keep up. He took advantage of that to attack us. He treated killing like a game, and he said that he wanted to take his time toying with us. Because of this, he won’t kill more than ten people a day. He’s going to be back tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Su Chen replied noncommittally, turning his attention to the two wounded individuals.

“Bring them over to me,” he said.

When they saw him like this, everyone else was a bit regretful.

Su Chen knew very well what they were thinking, and he knew even better why they had brought their wounded here.

It wasn’t just so that he could save them. They hoped that he would sympathize with them.

Unfortunately, Su Chen’s stance was unyielding on this matter.

The two wounded individuals were placed on the table. Su Chen began to work on healing them.

He enjoyed healing the wounded not merely because tending to the sick gave him a sense of accomplishment but also because it helped him better understand the human body, Origin Energy, and life in general.

The two casualties weren’t injured lightly, but Su Chen was still able to snatch them from the jaws of death.

“Alright, take them back and let them rest for a few days. During this period of time, feed him some porridge, but don’t give him anything with too much substance. Same rules as always – five hundred Origin Stones per person. You can pay either in resources or directly in Origin Stones,” Su Chen said as he wiped away the blood on his hands.

A villager had already tactfully pulled out a thousand Origin Stones and placed them on the table.

With the twenty thousand Origin Stones Su Chen had given to them last time as reparations, they could still afford to pay that price.

“Sir Su, that person will come back tomorrow……” Lang Yi said as he stared anxiously at Su Chen. “You have a lot of ability and aren’t afraid of them. Please, help us. We really can’t give you the method to control the Guardian Angel Beasts, but if you have any other requests, we will absolutely satisfy them.”

“Is that so.” Su Chen lowered his head in thought for a bit before nodding and saying, “That’s fine. Tell me, what is the situation surrounding that guy? Roughly how fast is he? Did you notice anything unique about the way he fights?”

Lang Yi answered him one by one.

The villagers didn’t have much experience. They couldn’t even figure out the level of his cultivation base, but they could use very basic terms to describe their opponent’s strength.

For instance, they could describe his speed by comparing it to that of another Vicious Beast’s or to the speed of an arrow shot from a bow. He could destroy a boulder with his bare hands, and the transparent barrier he placed on himself could resist nearly seven or eight crossbow volleys, etc.

After thinking it over, Su Chen very quickly made an estimate of their opponent’s strength. “He’s an agility-type Blood Boiling Realm cultivator. He isn’t actually that scary, but his movements are quite explosive. It’s not that he’ll only kill ten people a day but that he can only fight for that long. If he goes on for any longer, he’ll slow down due to a lack of energy. After he loses his speed, he’ll be torn to shreds by your Vicious Beasts.”

“But he leaves before he slows down.” Lang Yi could at least make such a basic observation.

“That’s right, so I’ll teach you something,” Su Chen said. “People who rely on speed often like to utilize the terrain. To avoid your Vicious Beasts, he was probably jumping from house to house, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Fine, then find a room and prepare a trap for him there. Set up the trap like this – find a few pieces of bamboo and place them alongside the windows, with the pointy ends pointing inside. He won’t be able to tell from the outside and will impale himself as soon as he enters the room……” Su Chen taught them step by step how to set up such a trap, causing the villagers to be extremely excited.

“…… Use crossbows to attract his attention, then find some poison and smear it on the tips. Don’t you use some kind of numbing poison when you hunt? It can make a wild beast dizzy and greatly reduce its speed, right? If you use it on this guy, it might not be as effective as against a wild beast, but it should be more than enough to reduce his speed by thirty percent. Once he slows down, then use those Vicious Beasts to surround him!” Su Chen gestured dramatically. “That should resolve the issue.”

On the dusk of the second day.

Happiness Residing Fort sent some people over again.

This time, however, it wasn’t a cry for help; they brought a beast they had freshly slaughtered, along with some herbs that they had collected to express their gratitude.

Su Chen didn’t stand on courtesy and accepted it.