Ron looked at Helen, and the girl's face still retained a lingering confusion.

He asked first:"Helen, I remember it was you who found me, right?""Ah, yes, Mr. Ron. I was chosen by the knight to explore the way," Helen said as she also looked at Ron and blinked innocently.

She was taking the opportunity to observe the man in front of her, secretly measuring in her heart what attitude she should take.Equality, a little dependence, or apparent obedience?

But Ron didn't give her time to think and continued to ask:"Are we just going to wait here?"He was referring to the fact that the team had stopped.

Helen replied looking a little flustered:"Yes, it's break time."

The two people who had just been called had left the team, and while Ron was talking to Helen, a knight in the distance also stood up.

He whispered a few words to his two companions, carefully controlling the volume of his speech. Even with Ron's enhanced senses, he couldn't hear what was said.

Just now Ralph had said that there had been cases of explorers losing their lives. The two selected civilians also looked terrified. So it seemed that exploring the way was a dangerous job, and Helen was doing this before she found him.

"When you found me..." Ron asked.

Helen obligingly replied:"Raymond and I had just started exploring the way, but we hadn't gone far when we came across you. So we were able to return to the team. I'm sorry, but in that situation, we had no other choice."

No matter how nice Ralph and the others said it, Helen's words now revealed the harsh truth - being a member of this team was an unfortunate thing.

The girl slightly lowered her head to avoid direct eye contact with Ron. She hadn't fully reacted yet. Just now Ralph had reprimanded Ron a few times, but now he wanted her to accompany him.

From the simplest logic, it might be that Ralph wanted to use the "ignorant" outsider Ron to achieve some purpose, but she couldn't think of what Ralph could do under the knights' supervision.

And if this wasn't Ralph's conspiracy, it could be simply inferred that Ron was definitely not as simple as he seemed.

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When she was chosen to be the subject of the blood tax collection, she managed to inquire about a lot of information about the nobles, including the value implied by her appearance. And Helen believed that Ralph must know this value.

If he hadn't lost in the competition, Ralph would never have become the subject of the blood tax collection.

So, maybe Ron also knew the value of this, but the question he just asked made Helen confused.

If it were someone else in the team, they might not see any problem, but Helen instinctively sensed that Ron might be subtly fishing for information.

Could he be from outside?

Whatever the truth was, Helen planned to maintain her original image and try to make Ron have a certain degree of affection for her. In this way, no matter whether Ron was valuable or not, it wouldn't do her any harm.

At this time, the knight who had stood up in the distance finally moved. He set off firmly in the direction where the two explorers had left.

Ron noticed that there was a time lag between the knight's departure and that of the explorers, and he seemed confident that he could catch up with the two mortals.

He turned back to look at Helen. Although Ron didn't know what Helen had just been thinking, he also knew that Ralph and she must know many things that he didn't understand.

And as long as the other party was a little smarter, they would surely notice that he lacked a lot of information.

So he didn't plan to hide this:"Can you tell me about the blood tax?"Helen asked in surprise:"Don't you know?"Ron said naturally:"I've heard rumors before, but I don't know the details."

Helen's surprise gradually faded, and an understanding expression appeared on her face:"The blood tax is a tradition in our Blood Plain. The great noble lords bear the responsibility of protecting the civilians, and we also have to pay them blood to ensure that the noble lords can meet the needs of war."Generally speaking, the blood tax is collected from the villages and towns in the noble's territory and escorted by knights to the noble's residence. After arriving there..."Her voice became much lower, and her speaking speed also slowed down."... the noble lord will select the civilians worthy of living to serve as servants or other members in his mansion. But I heard that only a few are selected in many blood tax caravans."And the remaining civilians will live in the basement as blood donors and have their blood drawn once a month. There is also a saying that the selected civilians will have all their blood drained as soon as they arrive at the castle to supply the noble lords."And the most terrifying rumor comes from the wanderers. They say that the ultimate fate of the blood donors is to become those ugly corpse-eating monsters, degenerating to the point of crawling on the rotting corpse pile and gnawing at their former compatriots."But no one knows what is true."

Ron slightly lowered his eyelids.According to Helen's statement, for them, this was almost a journey with death as the end point, but everyone seemed to have accepted their tragic fate.Maybe it was because of the three blood servant knights, or maybe there were other reasons he didn't know. In short, the civilians living in the territory of the blood nobles had no basic human rights and no idea of defending their lives.And now, he had also become one of them.

"Mr. Ron, why did Mr. Ralph ask me..." Helen looked at him timidly, like a girl afraid of being scolded.

Ron said gently to her:"Because he's afraid of me."

Helen showed an astonished expression.Others had heard his initial question, but they couldn't understand what it meant. And due to the distance and vision problems, they couldn't clearly see his speed.And except for Ralph, no one knew what the power he showed could determine.

He continued to explain:"We had a conversation that others didn't hear. Although I can't compare with the knight, it's not difficult to break his arm. After all, if I didn't have a strong body, I wouldn't have been able to wait for you to find me, right?"He smiled at Helen.

Helen nodded as if she understood:"I see."Her expression had no flaws, and it was difficult for Ron to judge what she was thinking from it.But since becoming the blood tax was such a bad thing, Helen's excited expression when she saw him was particularly conspicuous.Before telling him the truth about the blood tax, Helen could say that she didn't know about it, but now, she had exposed her thoughts at that time. But actually, this was also normal.Because finding Ron meant that Helen could return to the safe team. And when facing life and death, it's hard for anyone to control their emotions. She didn't expect to be "assigned" to Ron by Ralph at that time.

Ron whispered to Helen:"But you mustn't tell anyone else about this, okay?"Helen immediately nodded repeatedly:"Of course, I definitely won't say anything."They had vaguely reached a fragile tacit understanding.