Mercenaries and Adventurers

The next day, the snow fell heavier than in the previous days.

However, this does not affect the people living in Kendall. People here are highly dependent on the low-priced firewood supply provided by a chamber of commerce for heating. The Kendall River froze in winter, but the chamber of commerce had already accumulated the heating firewood needed for the whole city in winter before the river froze. They are all piled up on a piece of land of the Chamber of Commerce in the north of the city, which is close to the river and the city wall.

Since he was going to Knight Lanisha to discuss the future hunting matters today, after getting up in the morning, Kil just ate first, then took the time to take care of his three horses, and then locked up the stronghold with the other hunters. Gate, and go up the street together to the Villa de Chevalier in the upper town.

This time, since they came with other hunters, the guards at the gate of the upper city did not stop them, but personally led a group of ten of them to the door of the female knight's house.

After confirming with the attendants of Knight Lanisa's family that the hunter team came under the orders of Knight Lanisa herself, the dedicated inner city gate guard left them and returned to the city gate.

The old hunters were very familiar with Knight Lanisa's family, but it was the Lord Knight's house after all, so both them and the young hunters kept their mouths shut and just followed the attendants who led the way to the place where Knight Lanisa told them.

I don't know if there are other female relatives in the house, so the discussion place is not in the main building of the knight's house, but in a two-story house next to it connected by a wooden passage.

-

As soon as you enter this house, you can see a large wooden table with a large map unfolded on it.

After the attendant led everyone here, he asked everyone to sit on the wooden chairs around the big wooden table. He himself sat next to a small chair at the door.

The young hunters were a little reserved after sitting down, while the old hunters were much more casual. The four of them looked at the map on the table and introduced to Keir that this map was made by all of them in the field over the past few years.

Keir curiously went over to observe and found that it was a map carefully drawn on a whole piece of paper. Mountains and terrains, forest plains, towns and villages, etc. are marked on it.

There are also some markings on the map that are replaced by wooden wolf head chess pieces. In addition, there are several chess pieces represented by small wooden swords.

Seeing that Kil was paying attention to these, the old hunters next to him explained to Kil that the wolf head chess piece represented the area where they had discovered large groups of wolves in the past few years. The small sword chess piece represents the place where they fought against the wolves in winter.

Kil noticed that the chess piece representing the small sword had time information carved on it. He looked at the time on the three chess pieces and read them out one after another: "Year 780, 781, 782." He said. He scratched his head and asked, "By the way, what year is this year?"

A young hunter next to him said: "The Empire is in the year 783, and it will soon be the year 784."

Kil pointed out the positions of several chess pieces on the map and said with a smile: "So, we have been driving the wolves into the northern mountains and forests in the past few years, right? It's really awesome."

However, an old hunter, Quilindo, rejected Kiel’s simple judgment: “It’s not that simple Kiel, although it seems that the place where he has been fighting wolves in winter in recent years is in the mountains and forests far away from villages and towns. But in fact, for the wolves, this has little bearing on their usual intrusion on villagers and caravans.”

Another person said: "Wolves are cunning and good at running long distances, so although their home nest may be in the mountains and forests, they often travel very far away when hunting. They will even occasionally cross Wumi Lake and Wumi River. Attack the passing caravans."

Wumihu Kil knew that it was the knight territory of Knight Lanisa and her family. There was a village on the south side of it - Wumihu Village, but Wumihe did not know which river it was.

Regarding Kil's doubts, an old hunter happened to introduce the place on the map to Kil before the female knight arrived, so as not to be confused about the place during subsequent discussions.

If the Kendall River flowing in the northwest and southeast direction is used as the identification direction, then far to the northeast of the Kendall River is the vast Umi Lake. On the south side of the lake is Umi Lake Village, and the north side is undeveloped.

In the southwest of Lake Umi, there is a river that flows southwest, from the lake to the southwest, until it meets the Kendall River.

This river is called Wumi River.

And at the confluence of the Umi and Kendall rivers is a lush bayou town, a three-way intersection. From here, walk northeast along the Wumi River to reach Wumi Lake and Wumi Lake Village.

Going northwest from there, you will reach the large logging camp in the north of the county and the most important Imperial Knights garrison. This is already the border of the kingdom, not only the border, but also the geographical border of the entire human world.

Going south from Hekou Town, you will continue along the river to Kendall City.

In addition, to the north and northwest of Wumi Lake are large areas of mountain forest. Although it is still within the geographical boundaries arranged by the gods for humans, there are actually no villages, towns or settlements. Some are just continuous mountains and forests.

The only ones who can move freely there are generally the Imperial Border Knights who maintain the security of the vast border.

Of course, in recent years, Knight Lanisha and her hunters will also enter this mountain forest to fight against the wolves that infest humans.

After listening to everyone's descriptions, Keir stroked the light beard on his chin, thought for a while and then said: "So why do those wolves in the mountain forest on the north side of the vast Wumi Lake come out to attack humans?"

"Who knows? Maybe it's because humans are easier to catch than other animals?" A young hunter made a joke.

Some people also thought of the previous Warcraft: "Maybe there are powerful Warcraft deep in the mountains and forests, and they are developing southward in order to survive?"

But this was also overturned by others: "Impossible. If that's the case, why don't those wolves move their nests out of the mountains and forests, so that they don't need to travel long distances to hunt."

An old hunter knocked on the wooden table and said: "Don't forget, everyone, compared to the monster we dealt with before, the leader of the wolf pack, the Wolf King, is not inferior to him at all. He can have the upper hand against the Lord Knight alone. , which shows that the strength of the Wolf King is even higher than the previous Warcraft."

While everyone was discussing, the door to the room opened, and the cold wind from outside poured in. Knight Lanisa walked in wearing a female knight's uniform.

Behind her was an elderly housekeeper whom Keir had seen.

The attendant closed the wooden door and immediately ran to the corner of the room to light the fire in the stone fireplace.

Knight Lanisa took off her female knight's uniform coat and handed it to the housekeeper behind her. She complained casually: "Are there even one knight among those who designed the clothes? They were stumped by the unnecessary warmth measures. I wonder if the knights are not afraid of the severe cold in winter? I remember that the coldest winter in our kingdom is not that cold. We are not our neighbors to the north."

After the butler took the thick-looking knight's uniform jacket, he arranged it a little and hung it on the clothes rack at the door. He did not answer the female knight's complaints.

When the others saw the Lord Knight coming, they all stood up and saluted neatly, and Kil also saluted with everyone.

"Everyone, please take a seat. Today, let us discuss the preparations for dealing with the Northland wolves this year." After speaking, everyone sat down neatly, and then looked at Knight Lanisa.

Knight Lanisa first pointed at Kil: "Although in the previous battle against spider-like monsters, a young hunter died at the hands of hateful bandits. But we just happened to have a new young warrior who uses a sword and shield. . Joe Kil, everyone has fought together, so I won’t say much. Kil, your task in the team is to act as a strong shield for the hunters just like you did with the bandits before. , to withstand any enemy who breaks through them and rushes towards them with arrows. Of course, most of them are wolves."

"Secondly, because of your good skills, when you fight with me against a strong enemy, you serve as my deputy, harassing the strong enemy, distracting it, looking for possible flaws, and creating opportunities for me to severely damage the enemy."

"Understood!" Keir responded immediately.

"Very good. The next important thing to discuss is the three horses that were seized from the bandits. Originally, these horses were to be delivered to the knights in the north by the Baron or Knight Crow. But since Kiel has made contributions before, He wanted horses again, so I made the decision and put these three healthy horses into his possession.”

Speaking of this, Knight Lanisa took a piece of paper from the housekeeper, which listed many things in different categories: "Of course, as I said before, when it comes to fighting against the wolves in the north in winter, Kil's three horses must The first application is in this area.”

"This is necessary." Kiel said quickly.

Nodding, the knight then pushed the paper in his hand to others for viewing: "So, with three horses, our logistics supply and transportation capabilities have been greatly enhanced. I studied it carefully and believe that the things on these papers can be used as our Great help on this hunt.”

Several old hunters took the paper, and a literate old hunter read out the contents to the others.

But Kil didn't need to. He knew the words here, so he leaned over and read the content written on it carefully.

-

In fact, it is not complicated. Knight Lanisa considered that the supply transportation that the three horses and carriages could carry was greatly enhanced, so according to the new transportation capacity, they were required to prepare some things that they could not bring with them when they set off before.

First is the food.

After they crossed the Wumi River from Wumihu Village, there was a supply point there. There they would carry less than ten days' worth of rations into the vast mountain forests on the north side.

Although Knight Lanissa's horse is also a horse, it is a war horse and is heavily armored. Secondly, horses eat an astonishing amount of food, and all the weight of supplies they can carry is used to carry their own food.

The food for the war horses cannot be just hay, but some beans that are rich in nutrients and easy to carry must be prepared. Root foods are not impossible, but water accounts for a huge amount of weight in root foods. After removing the moisture, the dry material is not as much as beans.

In the mountains and forests in winter, there is clean snow everywhere. As long as you don’t feel cold, you can get snow everywhere to quench your thirst.

Now, with three extra ordinary horses, they can carry more supplies from villages and towns at one time. Although it is impossible for horses to carry them into the mountain forests full of wild beasts, with the carrying capacity of horses, they can carry the supplies in the wild. The supply point extends greatly into the edge of the mountain forest.

In this way, although they can only carry less than ten days' worth of food, everyone in the team can go deeper into the mountain forest in one operation, and can also tangle with cunning wolves in the mountain forest for a longer period of time.

Wolves are carnivores, and humans can survive for a long time with the food they carry with them, but they are just ferocious animals with no chance of hunting, and entangled with hunters will only make them weak and exhausted.

Everyone was discussing around the map, and they all felt that with the carriage and sufficient horse transport capacity, we could not set off directly from Wumihu Village.

the reason is simple.

There is no bridge over the Umi River.

Although horses could cross the river, it was not possible for the carriages and the materials transported on the carriages to cross the river on human shoulders and horseback. After all, the Wumi River is deep and rapid, making it difficult to cross.

So after everyone discussed it, we decided to start from Hekou Town and go along the other side of the Wumi River, thus eliminating the trouble of crossing the river.

"But I still have to go to the village. It's impossible to prevent my villagers from knowing about my actions. Otherwise, they will be afraid." Knight Lanisa said.

She is the leader, and everyone agrees with her decision.

So it was decided that after everyone arrived at the first supply point, they would unload the supplies and then return to Hekou Town to transport the second supply. And she crossed the river to visit the village, not only to appease the villagers, but also to ask a few villagers to guard the safety of the supply point for them.

After all, Knight Lanisa has to prepare more than just food and supplies this time, but also other things. We can't help but beware of some daring guys who steal the supplies they put at the supply point when their group enters the forest to fight against the wolves.

Regarding this decision, everyone thought that this was indeed the case, because the second part written on the paper was the other preparations of Knight Lanisha.

-

After the food, there are traps specially designed to fight against wolves.

The wolf pack ravaging the Northland is huge, much larger than the wild wolves in other places. So Knight Lanisha asked Baron Kendall for a batch of iron, and specially asked craftsmen to rush to make a batch of hunting clips.

These are very effective at ensnaring less intelligent animals, especially when they are about to attack.

Every time the clamp is closed fiercely, it can cut off the legs and feet of the animal, and the heavy metal clamp makes it impossible for them to run and move with this thing on their feet, and it will only become the favorite fixed target of hunters.

But these effective gadgets also have some drawbacks.

They are very heavy.

Knight Lanissa has seen a well-made iron clamp. Each one is twenty-five centimeters high when closed. It is enough to trap the feet of the Northland wolves who step inside. They cannot easily escape. .

Each clip weighs seven kilograms, not an easy weight for a wild wolf that weighs about the same as a grown woman each. Not to mention the pain and the severed legs and feet, even the weight of these seven kilograms would make it difficult for a wild wolf to run fast.

At this point, Knight Lanisa smiled confidently: "I plan to bring fifty of these iron clamps, and then prepare a trap to lure wild wolves to attack in the mountain forest. This will definitely greatly weaken the Wolf King. Those subordinates. In addition to Kil, a close-combat warrior, they also have the smallest number of adult wolves at this time."

"This year, I will go straight to the lair of the wolves. Not only will I eliminate those huge wolves, but I will also look for opportunities to defeat that guy. Not only because it has been ravaging the north, but also because it has defeated me many times. Drive me away. It’s because of that.” After saying this, Knight Lanisa clenched her fists tightly, making a crunching sound as she clenched her fists.

The knight's butler lowered his head and said something in the knight's ear, which made Knight Lanissa calm down.

"It's okay, don't look at me. Let's concentrate on discussing these iron clamps." Knight Lanisa awkwardly changed the subject.

Kil believed that everyone saw that the knight himself had a deep hatred for the wolf king, but since the other party did not want to explain, everyone had to change the topic.

However, everyone has vaguely heard the rumors about Lanissa Knight. Her father, Birkenstock Lanissa Knight, was rumored to have disappeared in the mountains and forests of the north.

In this society, if someone goes missing in the mountains and forests, people basically assume that the person involved is dead. Especially after being missing for so many years, it is basically impossible for a middle-aged knight who is experienced and strong to survive.

A few years ago, knight Jenny Lanisha, who was still studying abroad, had to attend a funeral without a body. Then she tried her best to take over the family's burden, became a new knight, and went to the northern mountains and forests many times to explore.

Thanks to the solid foundation laid by her father when she was young, young Jenny became a newly promoted knight, retained the family territory, and had the opportunity to explore her father even though she had been away studying for many years without training. Possibility of missing.

Everyone discussed in the room until noon, and finally agreed on the plan and preparations for this crusade.

In addition to the iron clamps that Knight Lanisa valued, everyone also came up with their own ideas and came up with some methods that could be used in subsequent crusade operations.

It wasn’t that everyone couldn’t come up with new ideas before, but it was limited by the long journey distance and the weight of the materials they could carry. Now that there are horses and carriages, not only the transportation capacity has been greatly enhanced, but if the first time everyone goes to the supply point is not considered, then the carriage only needs to carry all the accompanying people on the car, and the journey time from Hekou Town to the supply point is , will also be greatly strengthened with the traveling speed.