Mercenaries and Adventurers

That place is the metal weapon used by the bandits outside Bingxun Pass.

If these robbers who robbed others were robbed by him again, no one would care.

Where will those bandits be at this moment? According to the information I heard before, those bandits, no matter how big or small their gang is, will retreat to deeper mountains after the militiamen start training to avoid being cleared by the militiamen.

Zhao Ji felt that if he went to look for bandits around Bingxun Pass now, it would be very difficult to find those bandits. But if he went south from the road west of Kendal, he should have encountered a large number of bandits after just turning over a hill or two.

After all, judging from the map of Kendall County he drew, after passing through a large forest and a small number of mountains, he will jump directly from the area near Kendall City to the west side of Bingxun Pass.

It's not easy just to cross a few peaks.

But since those bandits can occupy there every winter, why shouldn't he.

--

The next day, Keir got up early, went out to watch the combat training of the militia after eating.

He wouldn't watch the entire militia training, just to satisfy his curiosity and gain a preliminary understanding of the large-scale local battles.

This time he brought a small wooden stool and some slices of bread with pickled cucumbers as his lunch.

Before Todd came, Keel set up a small stool in a place with a good view outside the militia training ground, wrapped himself in a warm cloak, and watched the militia training curiously.

Teams of militiamen, led by their flags, dressed neatly and held weapons, began to run around the vast training ground.

The Claw Knight's requirement for them is that during the long run, the entire team must be firmly surrounded by the team flag, and there must be no lagging behind or confusion.

After two days of training, these militiamen could barely meet the minimum requirements of Crow Knights. A large number of militiamen with insufficient physical strength will still run and can't keep up with the team, so they have to wait aside and wait for the next round of teams to run over, and then join in at the right time.

After a while, seeing that the militiamen were almost exhausted, Knight Crowe ordered them to start eating breakfast.

Cans of fatty meat strips soaked in the jars were taken out and put directly into the hot iron pot. After the fat meat of several kinds of animals was fried, each militiaman took the broken pieces The baked bread came together, and everyone had a big piece of fat sandwiched in the bread. When the militiamen started eating the bread and fat meat, the iron pan full of fat was poured into a large amount of food. Clear water, followed by diced rhizomes and pounded chunks of dried fish are poured into iron pots.

Kiel, who was watching from a distance, was drooling. No wonder young people in the county couldn't wait to join the militia training, and it was full every year. It turned out that the food I ate during training was so good.

This is the reason why the training ground is close to Kendall City. If you go out of Kendall County and go to fight in other places, you will definitely not have the logistics with sufficient food like now.

Todd wandered over slowly at this time, and he was also attracted by the smell of food eaten by the militiamen. After finding Kiel, he complained to Kiel that the food they ate in militia training at that time was far from what it is now.

They are all big pots of boiled vegetable soup, and they can eat whatever they can buy in the market that day.

Unlike now, the food is all prepared early in the morning, and the pickled fat meat is reserved for the government affairs office by the butcher in the city to prepare early, and two bakeries in the city have also been hired. Started making the bread that the militiamen eat today.

After the militiamen had finished their meal, the loud voice of Knight Crowe remembered again.

Since many militiamen have not received weapons training, and some melee militias who have received weapons training have not been coordinated by large teams.

Therefore, Knight Crowe first asked the Kendall guards to form a team of ten or twenty people to show what a team battle looks like when it is different from an individual battle.

The guards first took out their prepared spears and stood in a line a little one meter apart. Then they raised their spears obliquely and marched forward in neat steps. After Knight Crowe changed his password, the guards in the front row plunged the bottom of their spears into the soil, and then squatted halfway, allowing the spears to stretch forward at a low angle.

Then the guards in the back row slanted their spears on the shoulders of the guards in the front row, so that a layer of gun forest was erected on the ground.

This is a defensive formation.

Changing orders, the guards raised their spears obliquely forward in a triangular impact.

This is the impact formation.

After changing the order, the guards dispersed at an extremely fast speed, and the distance between everyone was at least kept at a distance that could not be stabbed with a five-meter-long spear.

This is an evasive formation to avoid being attacked by magic and monsters approaching.

The order was changed, and this time all the guards gathered around the leading guard, and then they ran quickly as a whole, obviously running with all their strength, but the whole team did not disperse.

This is a fast moving formation.

At the last command, the guards ran to some large boxes that had been opened, and they rushed up one by one to pick up the crossbows and the crossbow bags with belts in the boxes.

The crossbow is not too big or too small, so it can be carried behind the back with the rope on it, and the bag full of crossbow bolts is tied with a belt. The guards simply wrap the belt around their waists and quickly tie a knot to finish Attacked.

After all the guards were equipped with crossbows, a few simple wooden walls were raised in the open and distant field. It turned out that someone had propped up wooden poles behind the wooden walls.

Then these people ran away quickly, and the guards had dispersed into the previous evasive formation. They turned the crossbow behind their backs to the front of their bodies, drew two crossbow bolts from their waists, and then pulled the crossbow with the upper and lower two. After bowstring, place two crossbow bolts in the grooves of the crossbow body and aim briefly at the distant wooden wall.

The wooden walls were painted with red paint in human and horse shapes, and there were also huge animal shapes two people tall.

Knight Crowe stood behind the guards, seeing that all the guards were ready to attack, he shouted: "Shoot!"

The guards listened to the order to pull the mechanism of the crossbow, and each shot a crossbow bolt.

Whoosh whoosh.

In a very short time, dozens of guards fired a crossbow arrow, and the neat rain of arrows was like a horizontal rain curtain. After flying for a short moment, they crackled and hit the simple wooden wall in the distance.

"Oh!!!" The militiamen watching from behind let out a sound of surprise.

In fact, when the guards showed off their movements, the surprises never stopped, but they were sporadic. It was obvious that some people didn't think those things were so difficult.

At this time, a salvo of crossbow arrows was fired, and everyone couldn't hold back the appearance full of visual effects, and they all exclaimed in unison.

Keir's observation angle was different. Although he felt that the various formations and actions before were okay, he didn't find anything that surprised him.

But this shooting was different. It wasn't the salvo that surprised him, but the formation in which the guards fired made him feel strange.

Unlike his imagination where everyone stood neatly and fired in salvo, these guards fired at distant targets while maintaining an evasive formation.

This is very interesting, what does this mean.

It shows that when the guards are shooting long-range, they have to avoid the opponent's counterattack, and then think of the things drawn on the wooden wall opposite. Keel felt that the long-range strike force in this world might be beyond his imagination.

After all, during Knight Crow's training of the militia, he noticed that Knight Crow paid special attention to the team's overall gathering and dispersal training. It is necessary to ensure that all teams can spread out in a very short period of time, and can gather together in a short period of time.

This shows that the regular wars in this world all have long-range forces that far exceed the development level of the times.

Especially when I heard Todd say that all militiamen have to undergo crossbow training and equip all militiamen with crossbows.

Thinking of this, Keir felt that in a regular war in this world, the main strike force should be various long-range weapons.

However, he saw Knight Crow again, and thought that in the case of the prevalence of extraordinary power, ordinary soldiers should indeed focus on long-range strike power.

After all, if it's just close combat, thousands of people may not be able to defeat a knight-level powerhouse like Crow Knight wearing super heavy armor in close combat.

But what about thousands of soldiers using crossbows?

Thinking of the scene where more than a thousand crossbow arrows shot at you in an instant, Keir shuddered and figured it out.

--

Knight Crowe was not satisfied with the effect of the first wave of crossbow arrows, and cursed loudly. The guards focused their attention and tried their best to satisfy their captain of the guards, Knight Crowe, with the second wave of shooting.

"Average shooting! Don't shoot the one with the largest target. Can you guarantee that the humanoid target is not really dangerous? Now, shoot!" Crow Knight yelled.

The guards moved the crossbow mechanism, and the second wave of crossbow arrows shot out.

Whoosh whoosh.

This wave is obviously much stronger than the last shot.

Crowe Knight is more satisfied.

The guards who put away their weapons put the crossbow and quiver back into the big box, and at the same time returned the spears of the militiamen, chatting and laughing in low voices and continuing to guard the training ground.

Then, Knight Crowe began to let the various militia teams take up weapons and carry out simple formation exercises. He patrolled the training ground and constantly adjusted the training progress of each team.

Only after a team has practiced the formation at hand well and looks decent, will he allow the team to train for the next formation.

As for the melee militia, Crow Knight asked the clerk who provided the logistics and the militia in the city to bring the wooden weapons and equipment that had been prepared, and let the militia wearing armor form two teams to fight against each other.

However, the battle of the team is not about street gangsters fighting for territory. Even if it is a battle of several people, there must be a fighting logic to win.

Although it is important to win in multiplayer battles, saving yourself is a necessary prerequisite for winning.

Knight Crowe asked the militiamen to hold on to their shields and get close to each other, but not too close. It is best to support them with a step between the two.

If the opponent makes an assault, quickly let several people approach with shields, and use the shields to block the opponent's assault breakthrough.

At the beginning, the melee militiamen were still in a mess when they fought. Often a few people rushed up directly while shouting, and then were beaten down by the crowd. Although they were not injured, they were also knocked out.

The onlookers laughed, and Todd couldn't help laughing either. He told Keel that even though he had been training for a long time, there were still a few people in his team who rushed to their heads every time they fought against each other. Regardless of the formation, the first one to rush forward will be the first to be knocked down.

Through these training scenes, Keir learned how to win in multiplayer confrontations.

Although Knight Crowe has spoken out the truth and told everyone, whether it can be used in the actual battle is something that the captain of each small team considers.

Keir watched it for a long time, and after asking Todd, he knew that he would mainly practice these things for a while. Although there were not many things to teach, they were all very important basic contents. In addition, the militiamen are basically illiterate, and it is difficult to learn more profound content in a short period of time.

So the next period of time will be a process of consolidation and integration. However, in the later stage of training, the shooting and maintenance of the crossbow will also be taught, and those are the most important.

After bidding farewell to Todd, Keir returned to his house. He packed up everything, and then set out to 'borrow' some metal from the bandits with only armor, weapons and necessary supplies.

Anyway, holding those metal swords in their hands would only harm ordinary people, so it would be better to get them into his hands and let him build his first set of all-metal full-coverage armor.

According to the plan last night, after Zhao Ji left the city, he first walked west along Kendall City, and then turned to the southern forest to enter after walking halfway.

After passing through a large area of ​​forest, you only need to turn over one or two mountains to reach the place where other bandits, except for the bandits in Luobagdong, hid from the militia for the winter.

Not long after leaving the city, Zhao Ji looked up and saw the first snow of this winter began to drift sporadically from the sky.

The snowflakes are extremely beautiful. After Zhao Ji received them, he carefully observed them. The delicate and complicated micro-structure of the snowflakes made him feel better for some reason.

Hope this trip goes well.

"It's really a good snow." Zhao Ji said in admiration.

---

At the same time, in the forest to the northeast of Gloomy Forest Village, since scattered snowflakes fell on the back of Lanisa Knight's hand through layers of branches, Lanisa Knight frowned and complained: "What a disaster!" The snow came at an untimely time."

An old hunter who was also hiding in a half-hole beside her said: "Master Knight, although it is snowing at this time, it is not convenient for us to ambush monsters. But it also brings us other benefits."

Frowning, Lanisa Knight asked: "Is there any benefit?"

"Yes, when the animals in the forest see the snow, those with nests will hide in their nests. If that monster wants to hunt outside, the prey it can choose will be greatly reduced The tied animals we have arranged in the surrounding traps will appear very attractive." The old hunter said slowly.

Don't look at the old hunter talking in the place where they were ambush, but in fact the old hunter made his voice very soft, almost as long as he could hear it. But he knew that Lady Lanisa, who was a knight, had sharp eyes and ears, and in a quiet situation, the other party could hear no matter how small the sound was.

There was a shooting competition between their hunters and Knight Lanisa. As a result, Knight Lanisa was able to hit the target with multiple arrows from nearly 700 meters away, far surpassing ordinary hunters like them.

If it exceeds a hundred meters, it will be difficult for them to hit a target the size of a wild deer with just one arrow. After the arrow exceeds a hundred meters, it will be greatly affected by the wind. Basically, it is impossible to shoot accurately without a heavy bow. target.

"That's right. From this point of view, if the gigantic magical beast that I heard reminded me wants to maintain normal activities in winter, it has to hunt animals non-stop. Our trap should attract it soon." Dian Dian Nodding, Knight Ranisa laughed. She is very happy to be able to complete this hunt for monsters as soon as possible. After all, in this kind of forest where there is nothing, you can’t eat good food, and you have to watch out for possible attacks by monsters when you sleep, and she has to pay attention to the behavior of her subordinates. Safety.

Although they are all old hunters who have been hunting all their lives or are brave hunters, it is still too dangerous for them to go so deep into the forest.

There is everything in the forest, and anything can appear.

Although there is already a monster in this forest, there is a high probability that there will not be a second monster. But other small things, such as all kinds of ferocious strange insects that are not afraid of the cold, or some shadow forest leopards that will hide with the environment, are very dangerous.

Fortunately, they are now entering the forest in winter, and there are no other large animals and beasts here, otherwise it would be troublesome enough to deal with these things normally.

Just as Knight Lanisa let go of her thoughts, a miraculous white mist enveloped their surroundings.

coming.

Knight Lanisa looked aside, and the figure of the old hunter next to him was also covered by the fog, but she could still see him clearly and nodded to her, confirming that this was the first time he had received from the village steward. First-hand intelligence.

This pure white mist is the preemptive means before the monster makes a move.

Ordinary businessmen or travelers may think that fog at night is a very common thing, but hunters who have lived in the wild all year round can see the unreasonableness of this fog at a glance.

The temperature had already dropped below freezing point a few days ago, and it seemed unusual for fog to appear in the damp forest.

It's just that none of the humans who were attacked by monsters survived, so even if someone saw something was wrong, they didn't expect that it was a very huge spider-like monster lying on a tall tree, or it pulled out It was hung on a silk thread, and then secretly poked and attacked from the top of the human's head.

Thinking of this, Knight Lanisa didn't deserve to die for her three hunters.

After the three of them were attacked at that time, only three pairs of feet remained, indicating that they had noticed something wrong with the mist and stood up to be vigilant. But it still never expected that the monster would launch a sneak attack from the top of the blind spot of human vision.

Just let them die carelessly and be eaten.

Touching the armor-piercing rapier at his waist and the one-handed epee on his back, Knight Lanisa waited for further actions from the monster.

According to the plan, the first few traps are just a means to spread out to lure the monsters over. Although they also ambushed people, those hidden hunters are not allowed to act. They have to wait until the monsters eat the tied animals they captured one by one, and arrive at the place. Before and after the knight, when the knight felt that the timing of the attack was right and launched the attack, the other hunters would shoot at the monster itself with bows and arrows stained with burn-resistant grease.

And the pitfalls don't stop there.

The place they chose was an open space in the middle. After the monsters entered the trap and the knights attacked, other peripheral hunters would light the firelighters that had already been carried to the branches and trunks, so that the raging flames would lock the monsters within the range of the trap. within.

You can only fight them, not run away.

After all, if such a large monster wants to escape from injury, it will be difficult to stop it without special means.