Chapter 956: Chapter 540: Alarm Bell (2)
And right now she had to rally every possible force, and Sela’s group was undoubtedly among them. No one knew the Supernatural Power of this ship better than Amanda.
Amanda hadn’t lied; the monster really was coming from the sea.
But Amanda had played a little trick, namely with timing and direction.
The Heretics’ lair was to the north of Hamlet, while Sela was heading south; their routes only intersected at this single point: Hamlet.
On top of that, a Romani ship was no ordinary vessel. If Sela really sailed off as planned, she might very well miss the monster entirely and escape successfully.
If you honestly tried to persuade them to stay and help, even if you offered an outrageous price, Sela would turn around and run on the spot.
But using "the cargo hasn’t been paid for yet" as a reason to talk her out of going to her death would at least make her hesitate.
There was no need to truly make her voluntarily stay and fight the monster; she only had to stall until the time gap closed and the monster poured into the docks, and then Sela wouldn’t be able to leave even if she wanted to.
Bind them to this ship called Hamlet, and they’d still have to say thank you for it.
Using the truth to confuse the other side was an instinct every Rom was born with; they didn’t even need to learn it.
Amanda walked down from the ship and immediately went looking for the soldiers in charge of patrol here.
"Stop! What do you want?"
A five-man squad holding torches shouted for Amanda to halt as she tried to approach, their Spears already leveled at her.
During militia training the old soldiers had warned them over and over: don’t let unknown strangers get close to you—that was a harbinger of death.
By torchlight you could see they were basically in ordinary clothes; the only special thing was the red cloth tied around their arms, with "Joint Defense" written on it.
They were the coastal patrol, a part of the militia.
Everyone knew the Navy only had a handful of men; they couldn’t possibly waste manpower on patrols. This was a department Lance had set up to deal with Hamlet’s long stretch of coastline.
The patrol members all had normal jobs, like fishermen or similar trades, and in their spare time they received basic militia training.
"Joint Defense" meant their work was mostly early warning: bringing the Lord news from the sea, or keeping an eye on strange types.
And taking part in these patrol missions came with a stipend. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make up their losses.
Some young men also refused to be just fishermen; they joined these actions actively, hoping to enter the army or pass the civil service exam.
Militia training gave them an edge, and doing this kind of task also made their résumés look better.
"Wake up the Navy at once and assemble the troops. Get everyone at the docks out of here—there’s a monster about to land from the coast."
Amanda tossed out this line, leaving the squad a bit at a loss; the glances they exchanged were all tinged with strangeness.
A monster landing?
To be honest, some of them didn’t even know who Amanda was, let alone mobilize the troops just because someone said so.
Military management was strict, and the authority to move troops was tightly locked down. It wasn’t something that could be swayed by a single sentence from a Rom who suddenly appeared here in the middle of the night.
If anything went wrong, the message they relayed would become a joke.
"Damn it! Get your asses moving and report it, wake people up first." Amanda’s temper was only considered decent in front of a few people—hadn’t even Sela just gotten yelled at?
She had no time to waste on these people. She trusted her own instincts; the monster could show up at any moment.
Their hesitation was a complete waste of precious time, but she also understood that she had no way to truly convince them.
So after throwing those words down, she pulled away immediately, leaving behind a bunch of utterly baffled coastal patrolmen.
That woman’s got a screw loose, right?
"Captain, should we report this or not?"
"The sea’s calm as a millpond. What monster? If we really pass this up the chain, we’ll be laughed to death—letting a lunatic lead us around."
"Exactly. If she’d said Pirates, that might be possible. How could there be monsters in the sea?"
"..."
Just as the squad members were grumbling about what had just happened, a sudden peal of bells made them tense up at once. They looked up and immediately realized something.
"That lunatic is ringing the bell!"
That’s right—seeing they wouldn’t listen, Amanda had simply rung the alarm bell at the docks.
The Lord had long been on guard against enemies from the sea, so a warning bell had been installed here to signal emergencies.
It wasn’t that Amanda didn’t want to get Grendel over here; she just didn’t have time for a trip back.
The moment the bell rang it alarmed a lot of people, and more and more coastal patrolmen began converging on this spot.
The soldiers at the Navy garrison were also jolted from their sleep. They’d been through plenty of these surprise drills in the dead of night; confused or not, they all got up as fast as they could.
One way or another, Amanda had achieved her goal.
......
"According to Hamlet’s public security regulations, you’re not allowed to sleep on the street here, understood?"
"I told you two in the daytime not to beg—how come you’re sleeping here at night?"
"If you’re in trouble, you can apply for aid. With two hands and two feet you’re not going to starve to death here."
The night-shift sheriff soon left, and the street of Hamlet was left with just the Mendicant Monk and the Candlelight Priest.
"Not even the brightest Holy Light has managed to shine into this place. Has the Holy Light abandoned its faithful?"
The Mendicant Monk was sighing, while the Candlelight Priest beside him remained silent, but his eyes burned with anger, as though he were ready to purge this place.
The reason for their reaction was simple: the two of them couldn’t even find a place to rest for the night.
They had just sat down to take a break when someone came to question them and warn them that they couldn’t just sleep on the street.
Do they know who he is? His status in the Church was so high that even Bishops had to behave themselves in front of him.
And yet in Hamlet he wasn’t even allowed to sleep on the street. The locals were downright rude!
Their experiences today had been rather rough, to say the least.
Before coming, they’d thought this was a town ravaged by plague; they were here to save struggling believers from arrogant blasphemers, to deliver them from divine punishment and bring them back into the Church’s embrace.
But once they arrived, they realized something was off. The place was thriving, with no signs of divine punishment or any other plague.
Over his long years the Mendicant Monk had seen all kinds of situations. He’d suspected this was a prosperity fabricated by a Demon, but after disembarking he didn’t sense any evil power from the people.
This wasn’t a disguise; it was another lie. He even began to suspect that the Bishop of Totnes had deceived him.
But very soon he discovered something truly frightening here.
The people of this place had completely abandoned their sacred faith; the Holy Light could not find a single believer here.
They tried approaching the townsfolk, but no one was willing to have anything to do with them. At first people would make a few excuses, but later, perhaps as word spread, they would avoid them at the mere sight of the two.
So the Mendicant Monk tried begging for alms to show that he was different from those decadent figures in the Church, hoping to narrow the distance between them.
But no one paid him any mind; instead, it only stirred up more disgust.
Some even criticized them for begging with two good hands and feet and then turned around and reported them, which directly brought the sheriff down on their heads.
That last scene had completely convinced the two of Hamlet’s wickedness.
This situation was even more terrifying than a spreading plague.
He was a begging monk, a Mendicant Monk bound by a vow of poverty—how could he possibly have money?
So as they walked the world, they survived entirely on the charity of the faithful or by finding a church to rest in.
But now they had lost all support; the power the Church prided itself on had vanished.
It wasn’t that they truly lacked this one meal or this one place to sleep. When preaching, they deliberately went to the poorest places, and they could remain calm in far harsher environments.
The problem was that these people had abandoned their faith. They were even more terrifying than heretics, and a heavy hand was needed to drag them back into the Church’s arms.
Just then, a faint bell chime drew the Mendicant Monk’s attention. He turned to look that way and murmured:
"A great evil is drawing near..."
