Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 517: Judge Knight in Action

The day's work was very hard. Even though the working hours of the workers in the North had been greatly shortened, everyone was still exhausted after a whole day's work.

But apart from fatigue, there was no sadness on their faces. Instead, there was a kind of satisfaction and happiness that was beyond words.

This is easy to understand. People are always easy to satisfy. When you have a stable job that can support your family and don’t have to worry about your livelihood and survival, you will also feel satisfied and happy.

At least for little Jimmy, he is very satisfied and content with his current life.

For an orphan who was once helpless and almost starved to death in the winter, his current life is unimaginable even in his dreams.

Although he had a small house, it was big enough to shelter him from the wind and snow. Although he had a job that paid a low salary, it was enough to support himself and his sister. Although he could not be called rich, he could still provide himself and his sister with food and clothing without any worries...

What more could you ask for in a day like this?

People should be content. His mother once taught him that people should cherish the blessings they have while alive, so that the blessings can last forever.

Those who do not cherish their blessings and squander their good life will not last long.

Not to mention those who are always greedy, who have a good life but always feel it is not enough and want more. Such people cannot feel the beauty of life, let alone happiness.

Little Jimmy kept his mother's teachings in mind. He knew that some things did not belong to him, and if he continued to ask for them, he would end up losing even what he had now.

So he never asked for things that he thought he didn't deserve. For example, if he could go to school, he just let his sister go while he worked hard.

Because he felt that a life where both of them could go to school was too luxurious for them.

However, if some people are content, there will naturally be others who are not.

Little Jimmy is satisfied with his current life and feels very happy. Naturally, some people will feel that their current life is still not satisfying enough.

When little Jimmy was going home, he noticed someone on the road promoting a certain religious belief.

Little Jimmy was not interested in this. His mother had taught him that there should be no other gods besides the Heavenly Father. Not to mention that in little Jimmy's opinion, believing in gods was actually useless.

When he and his sister were about to freeze to death and starve to death, it was the kind-hearted people in the North who saved them and gave them clothes, food and the good life they have now. If they want to thank or worship, they should worship the Earl of the North who created all this, not these meaningless gods.

Only little Jimmy can resist these heresies, but those who are not so satisfied with their current lives cannot.

It is easy to say that children have simple minds and do not have so many messy thoughts. However, it is different for adults. Adults have more complicated minds and think about more things. Naturally, they have more desires in their hearts, and the temptations they face also increase accordingly.

These guys who promote a certain religious belief say that if you believe in their gods, you will be able to obtain the gods' blessings. As long as they are pious enough, they can ascend to the gods' kingdom and enjoy life in the kingdom of God forever.

There people do not need to work, the river flows with honey and milk, and they only need to lie under a tree and the ripe fruit will fall into their mouths by itself. No one will die or get sick, and all people's desires will be satisfied.

As long as you believe in God devoutly, you will be qualified to enter the kingdom of God.

Such words are very misleading to ordinary people at the bottom of society who have no knowledge. Even to the middle class who have certain knowledge and relatively affluent life, such words are very misleading.

Only the truly powerful and wealthy have no interest in this. After all, for them, the so-called kingdom of God has no appeal to them other than the fact that they will never grow old, get sick, or die.

In the mortal world, they can also have everything they want, and what they eat are delicacies from mountains and seas, not unwashed wild fruits.

As for honey and milk? Who would drink such ordinary things and drink them without any image by lying by the river?

Therefore, this inexplicably rising religion was only spread among ordinary middle and lower class people, while the upper class people just ignored it.

At the same time, because of the missionary activities of this religion, they were soon targeted by official agencies in the North.

After all, their missionary activities were too blatant. They started preaching in the northern border without any disguise, which naturally made it easy for them to be noticed by official agencies.

There is no such thing as freedom of religion in the Victoria Empire, and the church has entered the North because of a cooperation with Perfectcot. Now someone is trying to steal the business. How do you think the church will react?
Apart from anything else, the church's inquisition sent a judge to investigate the matter, and also dispatched a group of inquisitor knights for this purpose.

The church certainly has armed forces, but because they are just a religious group, the size of these armed forces is strictly limited.

Generally speaking, the church is allowed to keep certain self-defense weapons in monasteries or churches. After all, in the past, robbers and bandits were quite rampant. The reason why the church built the church so solidly was naturally out of practical needs.

However, in addition to these, the bishop of a diocese usually has a certain number of armed monks or parish guardian knights.

There aren't many of them, but if they were gathered together they would probably be the size of a knightly order, responsible for protecting the parish from all kinds of evil spirits.

Generally speaking, these people are mainly knights or armed forces who believe in the All-Father and volunteer. Many of them are even local nobles and their knights.

To put it simply, the local armed forces are covered in a layer of religion.

But the church itself is not without real power, such as the Inquisition and the Knights of the Church.

They are an elite force composed of direct descendants of extraordinary people trained by the church. They possess strength comparable to that of the regular army. At the same time, due to the church's strong financial resources and knowledge, they have far better equipment than the average kingdom's army.

Therefore, in the era of cold weapons, the church's knights have always been synonymous with well-equipped and powerful strength.

Such armed forces once became an important basis for the church to be superior to other countries. Even the king's succession to the throne required the church's coronation to have legality. However, with the rise of firearms, the knights of the past have gradually been eliminated by the times. This is true for the noble knights of various countries and the church's knights of defense.

Although the church is upgrading their equipment and trying to improve their strength and adaptability in the era of hot weapons, in general the church's armed forces no longer have the deterrent power they once had.

But this is only compared with various countries. If it is facing various evil sects, the church's knights are still synonymous with power.

And because the church and Perfect had reached an important cooperation, the church even formed a knight group composed of the judge knights of the Inquisition specifically for her, and the knights of the church were now using steam knight armor.

These church-special edition steam knights are different from ordinary steam knights. The church is involved in the production process of their armor.

Not only are the parts of the armor consecrated, but also scriptures are copied on the surface and inside of the armor that are not easily scratched or worn with melted holy silver, or after the final assembly is completed, a figure at the level of the diocesan bishop will hold a mass and blessing for it...

In short, just as the church used to create sophisticated weapons and armor for the Knights of the Church, it is now also using the same system on the Steam Knights' armor.

This also makes the steam armor equipped by the church knights look more gorgeous and majestic than the armor of ordinary steam knights, but also more dangerous and deadly.

After all, these guys from the church are willing to spend a lot of money to participate in the production of these steam knight armors, and they also consume various precious resources, and of course it is not for the sake of looking good.

This is one of the church's most secret skills, the manufacturing technology of divine weapons.

Although this part is only a very low-level divine weapon manufacturing technology, it still makes the church's special edition Steam Knight Armor about 10% to 20% stronger than ordinary Steam Knight Armor in performance and power, and has special attacks against various evil beings.

If there were no return of the Old Gods and the evil cult, neither the Victoria Empire itself nor Perfect would have been able to sell such an important strategic weapon as the Steam Knight Armor to the church.

However, facing the threat of the Old Gods, the power of the Church is undoubtedly very important. After all, only the Church has been fighting against the sects of the Old Gods for so many years.

Their combat experience and these experienced hands are extremely valuable assets.

For this reason, when the church proposed cooperation and sent her a whole group of judge knights, Perfect immediately upgraded their equipment and allowed these judge knights to enjoy the treatment of steam knight armor.

There are evil cults active in the North now, so these Judgement Knights, who were originally designed to target these evil cults, will naturally not sit idle.

They followed the judges sent by the Inquisition and, with the cooperation of various departments in the North, began to investigate and clean up the religious propagation in various parts of the North.

If it is just a general folk belief or something like that, as long as it has nothing to do with the old gods, it is mostly not a problem. All you have to do is destroy the statues, prohibit illegal worship, and then fine the believers.

As for what punishment the lords who rule them will impose on them, that is the lords' own business.

Apart from that, there is no such politeness.

If it is a genuine evil cult, then the Judge Knights will let the other side have a taste of what it feels like to smash down with their upgraded watermelon-sized hammers.

After all, the knights of the church are all similar, and their initial upbringing and training are the same, but as they become official knights, some of them serve as the face of the church and regular armed forces as knights of the church, while others are stuffed into the Inquisition and become Inquisition knights who specialize in fighting against evil cults.

This difference in functions also leads to differences in style and experience between the two.

Most ordinary knights who protect the church have no practical experience. After all, after the church has become powerful, these ordinary knights who protect the church have basically no chance to go to the battlefield. They mostly serve as guards for important church personnel or ceremonial guards of the church.

In fact, the church originally planned to arrange a team of knights to protect Perfecto.

After all, they are relatively experienced in protecting important people.

But considering that Perfectoct had to face the problem of the evil cult, the cardinals of the church discussed it and finally sent this group of judgement knights.

They did not use ceremonial weapons such as lances or swords used by ordinary knights, but preferred heavy weapons such as one-handed battle axes and maces that were more lethal at first glance.

This is mainly due to the influence of the combat environment of the Judge Knights. The situations they encounter do not allow them to use lances. Short-handled weapons such as maces are much more useful in close-range indoor combat than a fancy-looking knight's sword.

And even in actual combat, the effect of the nail hammer hitting the knight's sword is very good. You can catch one or two hammers, but you can't catch eight or ten hammers.

Can't be hammered down? That's just because you haven't hammered it enough.

The mace, in particular, is useful for breaking down doors, clearing obstacles, and smashing up certain hidden areas. Plus, it is an armor-piercing weapon, so the mace is very popular among Judge Knights.

So much so that when Perfecto upgraded them to Steam Knights, they were unanimously required to be equipped with maces as their weapons.

Perfectote also readily followed suit and equipped them all with heavy-duty maces, ensuring that with one blow, even an ordinary knight in full armor could be smashed into a pool of minced meat.

It has to be said that these Judge Knights and Inquisitors are indeed very experienced in investigating cults. They quickly joined forces with the intelligence department of the North to figure out what was going on with this suddenly emerging sect.

Most of them were early immigrants from the lower and middle classes who were not doing well in the North. They had originally been unable to make it in the Empire itself, and after arriving in the North, they discovered that conditions there were harsh, and that they needed to work much harder than in Langton just to live a barely decent life. So these people inevitably began to complain and blame others.

Originally, Perfect was too lazy to take care of these people. Even the reports about these people were not qualified to be sent to Perfect, so the officials below handled them on their own.

But some evil cults noticed this and sent people to incite these people, trying to lure them with the so-called kingdom of God.

In order to make the people in the North believe them, they even made up a story that all of Perfecto's current achievements were the result of the blessings of their gods. However, after receiving the benefits, Perfecto disrespected the gods, and the believers of the gods would sooner or later attack her.

(End of this chapter)