"These villagers have been able to resist in an orderly manner because of your Discipline ability, right? Making them obey your command?"
"Of course, but objectively speaking, they really don't want to be looted by these thieves, so they have been holding on according to the plan I gave."
"These thieves left and then returned to attack when you were unprepared, which caused them to break through the village, right?"
"Yes, the villagers thought that the thieves had something to leave and would not come back, but after relaxing their vigilance, they didn't expect the thieves to suddenly kill back a few days later."
Aponia nodded, fully agreeing with Mr. Niu Zida's guess. Of course, Mr. Niu Zida knew all of this. His saying this also meant that Mr. Niu Zida did indeed harass the thieves and force them back. Both parties are smart people, and these words are almost self-evident.
"Leave the rest to me. You send a villager to be my guide and let me know where the thieves' lair is."
"Please be sure to ensure the safety of the children."
"Don't worry, I said, if I can't bring every child back, the previous conditions will be void, but if I can bring the children back safely, Aponia, you will be my maid, right?"
"Yes, of course, that's our agreement, and I will abide by it."
"Okay, if possible, choose someone to go with me as soon as possible. If you want to save people, the best way is to quickly raid, taking advantage of the fact that the thieves have just returned and have not yet established a security line. They will definitely not expect that someone might attack them on the same night they return to their lair."
"Okay."
Aponia also agreed with Mr. Niu Zida's opinion, and soon brought in a grizzled uncle in his fifties, telling Mr. Niu Zida that his child had also been taken away and that he would lead them.
"Lady Aponia, I don't mean to distrust you, but are these outsiders really reliable?"
"We can only rely on these outsiders at the moment, otherwise, we won't be able to rescue the children."
Aponia's words blocked the middle-aged man's distrust of Mr. Niu Zida. If they wanted to save their children, they had to trust this Goblin. If it were in the past, these villagers might still not want to cooperate because they hated Goblins, but right now they had no choice, and they didn't even need Aponia to use her Discipline ability to persuade them.
The middle-aged man simply packed up and led Mr. Niu Zida and his party out of the village, heading north. According to the villagers, the thieves' lair was about forty or fifty kilometers away along the mountain road, and they might not even be able to reach it today.
"You seem to be very familiar with it. Have you lost someone there before?"
"Before the war started, this was originally a very peaceful mountain village. Everyone followed Lady Aponia here to cultivate the land. If there was any pain, everyone could quickly forget it under Lady Aponia's comfort and prayer. Those days were poorer, but they were very happy, until after the war started, most of the young and middle-aged people here were captured to the battlefield, and only then did the days really become difficult."
"More than a year ago, a group of bandits came here. They first demanded grain and valuables from the village. Based on the principle of not wanting to cause trouble, the village reluctantly paid the amount extorted by the bandits. Unexpectedly, the other party became even more aggressive, coming to extort more and more frequently. This time, their demand was for Aponia and the remaining women in the village. It was only then that the village could no longer tolerate it and decided to resist."
"However, there are too many elderly and weak people in the village. Besides some women and children, there are only old folks like me. There have been too many conscriptions, and the young men in the village have been taken away. Even many young girls have been forcibly taken by the army. Now, our entire village, including children, only has a little over a hundred people. These children are the future hope of our village. If anything happens to these children, our village will have no future. And how can I explain it to my son and daughter-in-law who were taken away? I can't even protect the children they left behind."
At this point, the uncle began to choke up. In fact, Mr. Niu Zida did not expose him. Rather than saying the uncle wanted to protect the children for fear of not being able to explain to his son and daughter-in-law later, it was more likely that he already knew his son and daughter-in-law might never return, and this child was his only relative in the future. The rest were just excuses.
"I will rescue your child."
"To be honest, if it weren't for Aponia, I wouldn't want to trust Goblins. Before the bandits came, the greatest harm to our village came from you Goblins. Almost every year, one or two young girls disappeared from the village, and it was all your Goblins' doing."
Hearing this, Niu Zida could only smile bitterly. There was nothing he could do; he was a Goblin. Although he couldn't say he was closely related to the Goblins of this world, he could only say he had no relation at all. But now he was in this body, and he could only generally bear the resentment of humans towards Goblins.
"Last time we came to the village, if you had listened to our advice, perhaps this disaster could have been avoided, couldn't it? At that time, we helped you repel the bandits, but you treated us as accomplices of the bandits and drove us away, and you also misjudged the situation, which led to the bandits successfully ambushing and breaking into the village."
"Alright, alright, the most important thing for us now is to rescue the children. Let's talk about whose responsibility it is after the children are safely rescued."
Hearing the uncle still bringing up old matters and dodging the real reason for the village's attack this time, the proud Misato Shizuku couldn't help but speak the essence of the problem. The uncle was speechless by these words, and it was Niu Zida who gave him a way out and ended the topic.
Because they had to take care of the uncle's legs, the group walked very slowly. They set off from the village in the morning and didn't reach the bandits' location until late at night. The uncle said that the bandits' stronghold was in a cave. He knew this because he had previously delivered extorted grain there.
This should be to the northeast of Niu Zida's farmstead stronghold. No wonder after a few bandits came before, no one else came. From this stronghold, they had to bypass a large area of cliffs to reach the farmstead. Although the linear distance was short, the actual journey was even longer than going south to the village. The bandit dressed as a hunter he encountered on the road that time was probably also heading south to gather intelligence on the village, and they met by chance. If he hadn't killed a few of them then, they probably wouldn't have coincidentally found Aunt Lidell's farmstead.
Outside the cave, Niu Zida didn't rush in immediately. He first observed the defensive situation outside, deciding to wait until the bandits were sound asleep in the dead of night before taking action. He and Yor and Misato Shizuku would go in to rescue the people, while the uncle would act as a lookout outside.
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