Chapter 1142 Rejoice, the Noble Lord of Plague Is Here to Save You!
"What? You still need to collect taxes when there's a famine like this?"
Grete finally had some sense and did not ask this question. However, Serila beside him already ignored him and blurted out:
"Don't they care if you starve people to death?!"
A flash of embarrassment flashed across the old priest's face and he remained silent. Grete waved her hand gently, signaling Cerrela not to ask further questions, but Bernard intervened:
"Hey, those big tribes collect taxes, who cares whether the small tribes below live or not. It's like this even in the wilderness - you need his protection, you need his help to kill the monsters, in short, you want To survive, you have to pay.”
The old priest breathed a huge sigh of relief. Obviously, the news that "there are too many bastards in the world, and our kingdom is not the only one" has greatly appeased his pride. He turned his head and coughed twice:
"Actually, we are fine... We are far away and the place is barren. We only need to pay for some beast skins, teeth and other warcraft products. The core area of the kingdom, alas..."
This sigh made all sorts of twists and turns, causing Gretel's imagination to soar in an instant. The poll tax, land tax, and war tax have been received 80 years later;
Why sell your sons and daughters if you can’t pay the taxes, demolish your houses and raise the cows? No, there seems to be no cows in this continent, so that means demolishing the houses and raise the alpacas;
The taxes paid by the nobles are paid back in full, and the taxes paid by the common people are divided into 37%...
Of course, Gretel has no grand goal of liberating all mankind, and he doesn't want to comment on how the indigenous kingdoms collect taxes. He just nodded slightly and asked the old priest as if casually:
"What about now, has the potato harvest situation improved?"
Well, if his memory is correct, the potato rot and crop failure seem to be related to some kind of bacteria - or some kind of fungus. The Great Famine in Ireland in the previous life seemed to be the widespread spread of this bacteria...
"No..." The old man sighed sadly. He rubbed his hands, and his whole body seemed to be a little more stooped, hunched over, and huddled up:
"We brought in some new potatoes from the mountains and replanted them. We did get a lot of harvest at first. But this only lasted for one year. Most of this year's potatoes were rotten..."
Hmm, that sounds more and more like it. Grete held up his chin and muttered:
In my impression, if potatoes are constantly planted with tubers from the previous generation, the varieties will be too single and the disease resistance will gradually weaken.
At this time, there is another potato disease, which is mutually contagious. It would be slightly better to replace it with new tubers, but Gretel strongly doubted that the fields where they grew potatoes had not been disinfected at all...
"Can you show me some raw potatoes?" He leaned forward and lowered his voice. Next to him, Idian and Serira coughed at the same time:
Just look at the potatoes, why are you acting like a thief? If distinguished guests like us want to see some potatoes, can we not let them see them? !
Gretel turned a deaf ear. Although he is a healer and not a natural priest in the traditional sense, he can still try to treat potatoes occasionally.
Of course, the premise is that the reason for the failure of the potato harvest is what he guessed, and not some inexplicable factor. For example, if a little demon gnaws potatoes or something, it would be completely inappropriate for the Plague Lord to solve these problems.
Obviously, treating humans might be unpopular, but looking at potatoes is less of a problem.
Idian did not speak to stop him. He watched the old priest give a few instructions and asked someone to bring a basket of raw potatoes. He also took one, holding it in his hand and turning it around:
"Did you feel it?"
He turned and asked. Grete shook his head very honestly, looking left and right, trying to find a place to put down the mage's cabin, opening his workbench, centrifuge, microscope, and a complete set of equipment——
Feel?
What is feeling?
He doesn't know whether the shape of a potato in his hand is normal or abnormal, whether the wrinkled skin is sick or has been stored for too long, whether the skin is a little blue and has gone bad...
He has no idea!
"Not very alive." A voice suddenly sounded next to him. Gretel quickly turned around and saw the elf spellcaster who was traveling with her, the taciturn Ms. Losia, speaking in a rare voice:
"Contaminated."
"Yes, I feel the same way." Yudian nodded repeatedly:
"There's something eroding and devouring its vitality, making it impossible for the potato to grow normally. It's okay to store it like this now, so it won't rot immediately, but once it's buried in the ground..."
After being buried in the ground, with abundant water and nutrients, these things that erode the vitality of potatoes will be more active than the potatoes themselves.
Without waiting for the potatoes to take root, sprout, complete a life cycle, and produce new potatoes, these things will eat them up and let them rot in the ground.
"Yes, I feel it too." Idian nodded lightly. As a warrior, his mental power is not as delicate as that of a spellcaster, but it is still sharp enough.
After saying this, a hazy green light shrouded the egg-sized potato in his hand:
"Well... let me see if I can save it with the power of nature..."
The green light shrouded, sweeping back and forth, sweeping away. Next to him, seven or eight pairs of eyes were staring at the potato:
The old priest, the young warrior who was ordered to deliver the potatoes, and the indigenous women looming outside the clearing outside the bonfire.
Before Gretel set out from Nevis, he had already imbued himself with various magics such as "twilight vision" and "dark vision". He could see at a glance that there were also indigenous children pulling on their mothers' skirts and looking at them eagerly. Potato swallows:
"Can you still eat these potatoes?"
It looked dry and wrinkled, and there seemed to be mold spots in some places, and there seemed to be sprouts in some places, and it was a little green. As far as Grete's common sense in preserving potatoes is concerned, this thing can't be eaten, right?
"You can eat it, you can eat it!" The young soldier who brought the potatoes nodded vigorously:
"These potatoes are still fine, enough for a meal! - Of course, this one is a bit inappropriate, but after being purified by the noble Lin Xing, it will definitely be fine!"
Gretel sighed silently. Even eating moldy potatoes like this shows that the life of the local indigenous people has reached a certain level of misery. In other words, I would rather die of poison than starve to death...
Hope they can help.
He looked at Udian, who had obviously finished casting the spell and nodded with satisfaction. Turning sideways, he handed the potatoes in his hand to Luo Xia:
"Can you feel it?"
The female elf mage rolled her eyes at him. Instead of reaching out to pick it up, he slapped it with a cleaning technique and rolled up the dust and dirt on the potatoes. Idian smiled sheepishly and said:
"forget……"
Losia said nothing, her slender fingers fell on the potatoes and stroked them twice. The female elf pondered and nodded:
"It's okay. But, how much power do you have to deal with the potatoes that a tribe wants to grow?"
"..."
Idian was silent for a moment. For a moment, he worked hard to exercise the muscles on his face and smiled at the spell caster beside him:
"Isn't it you..."
"I won't do it." Luo Xia's eyes instantly turned cold. The female elf shook her long silver hair, turned away, and no longer participated in any discussion.
"Why--"
Idian subconsciously reached out to retain him. Unexpectedly, Luo Xia walked a few steps quickly, jumped onto an old tree outside the cave, closed her eyes and fell asleep.
Udian: "..."
He shrugged, turned back and smiled at Gretel as if nothing had happened. He spread his hands and made a helpless gesture:
"There's nothing you can do. That's how pure naturalistic spellcasters are. Even opening up farmland to plant crops feels like they're destroying nature - Hey, Grete, what can you do? What are you doing?"
Gretel had already unfolded the mage's hut and got into it, leaving only Idian's back behind. Behind him, Cerela followed suit and followed quickly. She stopped slightly at the door of the mage's cabin and turned to give Idian a sweet smile:
"Let's go research! Research~~~research! Don't worry, Gretel is awesome, and he will definitely figure it out!"
It's not that I'm worried... Idian's raised arm fell weakly:
But, little Gretel, you took away all the potatoes! Although I am just a warrior, I - according to human terms - am also a three-ring nature priest, and I can also be studied together!
But Grete obviously had no intention of taking him to study together. He and Cerela entered the mage's hut one after another, and the door of the hut disappeared and turned into a wall. The attitude is very obvious, that is, "outsiders should not be disturbed."
Idian's long pointed ears stood up and then fell down, fell down and stood up again, but he couldn't hear anything. He snorted unconvinced, sat down on the spot, and closed his eyes——
Well, this time, the shaking of the earth gave him the answer. The people inside were walking around, and something hard made a clicking sound, maybe they were chopping potatoes——
Buzz buzz, buzz buzz. Idian pricked up his ears and guessed curiously. This movement. Maybe it's crushing, this movement might be grinding, this movement, could it be that the centrifuge is spinning?
"Don't wait too late!"
He shouted in vain across the mage's cabin. He didn't know whether the sound transmission function of this thing was turned on or whether the people inside could hear it. Turning around, Bernard looked at him with an incomprehensible expression:
"Sir, the boss and Miss Serira, they are not like this..."
"Of course I know!" Idian rolled his eyes at him:
"I want to remind them not to spend all day and night as soon as they start researching. Pay attention to rest! Gretel should remember that he is still a mage and needs to get enough sleep, right?"
Idian didn't know if his worries had come true. He only knew that the next morning, just before noon, Grete came out with disheveled hair and a basket of potatoes:
“Where are the potato fields here?”
"Did you come up with the results of your research?"
****
Please subscribe, ask for monthly tickets, ask for recommendation votes, ask for book reviews, ask for all kinds of...