Chapter 639 Population Is Also a Resource
It was not surprising that there were cities in the Realm of Devils.
After all, there were numerous intelligent races here anyhow, even if the environment was quite harsh.
But what made players like Roland wonder was what the city did.
They had the city gates wide open and had raised a white flag.
On the hard rock walls made of black material, a large white flag fluttered in the wind.
At first, the players thought this was a ploy; after all, the devils were so famed for their fighting prowess that everyone on the main plane feared them.
Almost all devils were warrior races, and even the service industry ones like the succubi were quite strong in battle.
So when the human soldiers were under the city, the battle hadn’t even been fought yet and the other side was flying a white flag—who would believe it.
The people of several guilds were placed about 500 meters away from the city walls.
Because of the relatively flat terrain, those on the walls could see these regiments stationed a short distance away.
“It’s most likely a trap.” In the conference room of the vanguard army meeting room, Solisa of the Phoenix Guild shrugged. “Most of the devils we’ve come into contact with recently have fought to their deaths, except for the succubi.”
Speaking of the succubi, Solisa’s expression soured a little.
She had noticed that there seemed to be more succubi in the human world now.
Although it was true that there were no succubi on the front line, the male players were clearly in an exuberant mood.
What they were looking forward to, one could guess without thinking.
“How about we send someone to scout?” Moogle of Fatter Cat looked at Roland. “After all, we also have professional scouts.”
Indeed, Roland’s three little spiders were now well known to everyone.
Many Mage players were on their knees in the forums begging Roland to post the spell model, but Roland wasn’t willing to do so anymore. This kind of improved spell with special functions was better kept for himself.
“There is no problem with reconnaissance…”
Roland was talking, when a player in charge of passing along orders came in from outside and said urgently, “The enemy has sent a messenger, a human.”
Hmm?
The crowd was a little surprised, then nodded and agreed to let this messenger in.
After all, only one person from the other side had come, and it was indeed bad form not to greet them.
Slightly tidying up the council chamber, a dozen players sat in the rocky stone chairs they had just made.
Then someone guided the messenger in.
This messenger was a male with a long black beard. His face was barely visible, his figure was lanky, and he looked deeply fatigued.
But when he saw the crowd of players, his eyes instantly became joyful.
Even his expression was ecstatic.
“You are the messenger sent out from that city ahead?” Moogle asked. “What is your reason for coming?”
The man didn’t speak but simply dropped to one knee.
His expression was reverent and there were tears in his eyes. “Is it true that humans have attacked the Realm of Devils?” “It is.” Moogle pointed to the dozen players around him. “You should have seen the army outside. You still don’t believe it?”
It wasn’t a surprise that there were humans in the Realm of Devils; after all, there had always been plenty of humans taken captive by devils in previous invasions.
Especially women.
The man tried to speak, but when he did, it turned into a cry of pain.
The players looked at each other.
After waiting for a while, the man held back his emotions, he wiped his tears with his patched-up sleeve, and then said, “Sorry for making your excellencies laugh. Since you are here, would you take us back to the main plane? We’d even be willing to be your servants.”
The players were astonished… They weren’t stupid, and they were keen enough to notice a word in this man’s words.
We!
“Are most of the people in that city ahead of us human?”
The man nodded vigorously. “Yes, a total of eighty-three thousand people, all of them are humans.”
“You guys are impressive, to be able to build a city in the Realm of Devils.” The crowd was quite impressed. It was a very impressive thing.
Unexpectedly, the players’ praise instead made the man’s mood sink even lower.
He said despondently, “We’re not impressive, and we didn’t build that city. It’s just a cage.”
“What do you mean?”
The messenger’s eyes were red and he almost cried again.
But soon he suppressed his sorrow and spoke of the city.
It turned out that every time the devils invaded, a large number of people would be taken captive to the Realm of Devils.
These humans would then be concentrated in captivity.
If the vampires kept humans just for blood, then the devils kept humans purely for meat.
There wasn’t much atmosphere of the dead in the Realm of Devils, and there was a small rainy season every year, after which a black moss was born that could be eaten raw or dried in the sun, but only humans could eat it.
For the devils, that thing was a nasty-smelling poison. It was just like how people could eat chocolate but dogs couldn’t.
The annual production of this moss was so much that the devils came up with an idea… To raise humans as pigs, and when there was no food, they would take them and slaughter them for food.
The city had an almost constant population of over 80,000 people, and not a single human could live past the age of twenty.
And sometimes the devils would eat children and babies in pursuit of fresher and tastier food. It was quite cruel.
“F*ck!”
Hearing this, a dozen commanders were seething with rage.
Each one of them was in a murderous mood.
At this time, a question suddenly occurred to Moogle. “Will the succubi also eat you guys?”
“No.” This messenger shook his head. “Succubi are the only devils that don’t eat us. They are only interested in our essence. Before, the happiest thing for us was to be bought by the succubi. Even if they fed on our essence every day, we could at least live until we were thirty or forty years old.”
Many men sighed in relief.
Solisa grunted in displeasure.
“So, are there any devils in the city now?” Roland asked.
This messenger shook his head. “There were originally some bone devils and mind flayers, but they all ran away a few days ago, and then we learned that some of our kin from the main plane had invaded.”
“Are there many human cities like this?”
“Many!” The messenger nodded vigorously. “There is a human breeding city about three hundred kilometers away.” Solisa stood up. “There is no time to lose. Organize a rescue escort team immediately and transfer all the humans in the cities ahead back to the human world.”
“People should be saved, but there is a problem.” Roland gently tapped the table and said, “More than eighty thousand people… Wetland City can take them, but how many breeding cities are there in the Realm of Devils? With so many people… Wetland City can’t fit all of them, and other cities may not be willing to take them.” The crowd was a little dismayed.
Needless to say, this was a very real problem.
It was Solisa who finally asked, “So we’re just going to stand by and let the other breeding cities go?” Roland thought for a moment and said, “No matter how many people there are, let’s save as many as we can. First, we will escort all the people in this city in front of us to the teleportation array, then pull them back to the main plane and put them in Wetland City. As for the rest… I will go to Fareins and contact the royal family there to see if they have any need for people.”
Fareins, as the world’s largest human country, had a lot of lands, so there probably wouldn’t be a problem putting in an extra 100 or 200 million people.
Besides, in the whole Realm of Devils, there probably weren’t that many humans.
All of them nodded. “Then let’s do that first.”
Roland stood up. “You guys decide the rescue plan. I’m going to go to Fareins now to talk to someone about this.”
All of them agreed.
Solisa even stood up. Her pretty face was filled with anticipation. “Roland, it’s up to you.”
“I’ll try my best.”
Roland felt a great burden.
When Roland left, the people in the meeting asked the messenger some more questions, and finally, they immediately started moving, with several groups of guild members heading over to the city.
The messenger was in the forefront, and he waved his hand toward the walls, making a strange gesture, and the gates opened.
A strange, foul odor rushed out with the opening of the city gates.
It was obvious that the air inside was murky; it even bore a slight yellow tinge.
This stench was intense. Mages who knew Detoxification started to cast it or Magic Shield to isolate the smell.
Players loved cleanliness.
But when they got into the city, they suddenly felt so f**king pretentious for what they had just done.
There was not a single building in the city that was intact. They were all little cages built of rubble.
WIth no sewers and few streets, people urinated and defecated in the open road, which was dry and thick with excrement, turning all the red land black.
The vast majority of humans slept on the dry excrement.
They had no clothes, let alone furniture.
They were covered with black stains, hair bonded into slabs, and oily slick.
Skinny little girls who were probably less than fifteen years old held and fed even skinnier babies.
These babies were also quite emaciated.
In the city, every ten or so meters, there was a wooden pile about two meters high with a stone trough hanging from it.
When Solisa saw someone who was hungry, they’d go to the top and pat the stone trough, and a black powder would float down.
Those waiting below opened their mouths to catch it, and after swallowing a few times, they went back to sleep.
Most of them seemed muddled and displayed no intelligence to speak of, acting only on instinct.
It almost felt like they had degenerated into wild beasts.
Seeing this, the players from several guilds were too shocked to speak.
“My lords, my lords, please save them.” The messenger knelt in front of them again. “They might look like this but as long as they lead a normal life, they will become human again. Please take them away, will you, please.”
Looking at the messenger who knocked his head heavily on the ground, Solisa’s lips trembled and stammered, “This… is… a disgrace… to humanity.”
She wasn’t fearful but angry, so angry that it caused a temporary loss of verbal ability.
“We’re not pigs, so please let us go back to the human world.”
The messenger wept bitterly.
A guild chairman pulled the messenger up as he said lightly, “Don’t worry, they will be saved immediately, and as for the other humans, we will also save them.”
After the shock, several guild groups set about preparations
First, they fished people out of this filthy environment.
Over 80,000 people seemed like a lot, but it wasn’t that much.
All but a few humans, who still possessed intelligence, had become animals who only instinctively followed orders.
And the more this was the case, the more smoothly the rescue plan went. The Priests formed a barrier at the gate for Detoxification and Cleansing while the Warriors and other professions commanded and controlled the actions of the less intelligent humans in the city.
… Telling them to walk outside and telling them to line up.
Summoner girls patrolled the area to prevent any devils from coming over to kill and cause trouble.
And more players rushed over from the portal.
Because of livestreams, the entire player base was now aware of this.
A discussion on this was held in the forum.
It was not a discussion of whether people should be saved or not, but a discussion of how, after saving the people, they also had to be responsible for teaching them to survive.
“Epidemic prevention is important. The environment of the breeding city is too dirty. Everyone must enjoy Detoxification and Cleansing at once.” “Now that all the Priests in the guilds are heading to Sisilia, there should be no problem in terms of numbers.”
“The most important thing is the recovery of intelligence. You can’t save tens of thousands of fools and then have to feed them for the rest of their lives.”
“It’s not too hard. Wolf children can communicate normally after two or three years back in the human world.”
“I’ve heard that Mages have Awaken, a level-6 spell!”
“In that case, it’s time to find a master Mage, @Roland.”
“He’s busy now. He has to find a place for those people to live. Let’s leave him alone for now.”
“No matter what, daring to raise humans like pigs and eat them like pigs, none of the devils will live… I’ll make a promise now to kill all the devils in the world. By the way, the succubi are the exception.” “Ditto, I’m also switching from a casual profession to a combat profession.”
“So that’s what’s going on with the Realm of Devils Expedition, I see.”
At this time, Roland was already in Fareins and had found the First Princess Stephanie.
She was having afternoon tea with some noblewomen.
Roland was brought directly to her by the butler.
“Please sit down.” Stephanie smiled brightly. “What could have brought you, such a busy man, to my place?”
A couple of noblewomen nearby looked at Roland with extreme interest.
After all, according to the rumors, it seemed that it was this man who had a rather ambiguous relationship with the First Princess.
Roland shrugged: “We see each other often, okay… I would like to ask, if I had hundreds of thousands or even millions of people that I wanted to put in Fareins, would you take them?”
The noblewomen froze.
Stephanie even looked like she had seen a ghost. “You are planning to be a slave trader? No! Even if you are a slave trader, you can’t have such a large population, so where are you starting a war of annihilation?”
In Stephanie’s mind, the only way to get a large population in the millions in a short time was through war. “We, the Golden Sons, are fighting back against the Realm of Devils.”
Pu!
Stephanie spewed out a mouthful of fruit tea, but it hit Roland’s Magic Shield and bounced back.
It got a lot of drops of water on Stephanie and the noblewomen sitting across.
“What did you say? A counterattack on the Realm of Devils?”
Because Hollevin was a bit far away from Fareins, the news spread a bit slowly.
Besides, even the mayor of Sisilia was not sure what the Golden Sons were up to when they gathered together. He was having a headache and was shaking with fear.
“Yes! Just like you heard.”
Stephanie immediately understood where this large population was coming from. “There’s no problem with that! But you’ll have to come into the palace with me and talk to Father.”
