Mercenaries and Adventurers

Everyone repaired at the wooden sentry tower camp for about a day, and then planned to return south to the town.

After all, knight Lanisa and the hunter were both injured, and these injuries had to be healed quickly by divine magic at the church in the town. The burns on the female knight's body were fatal injuries to most people, and they couldn't be delayed for a long time.

But Kil was thinking about the secret he had discovered in the rocky mountain, and he was thinking that the rocky mountain in the middle of the forest was still too far away from Kendall City. Even if he rode a horse back and forth, it would be difficult to get back and forth quickly.

At this time, I am following Knight Lanisa and her group back. I don’t know when it will be when I come back again. And he really wanted to take the opportunity to explore the secret behind the rocky mountain.

Therefore, when everyone gathered together for dinner in the evening, he took the initiative to take the carriage back to Rock Mountain to collect the supplies and a large number of metal clips left on the Rock Mountain, as well as to deal with the buried Northern Wolf. Dig out the skin and bring it back together.

"These actions are risky, you know?"

Knight Lanisa asked, sitting on the wooden pier beside the fire pit at the bottom of the watch tower.

Kil nodded: "I understand, but it won't take much time to take out the left things. Go in and out quickly. With the carrying capacity of the carriage, everyone is sitting on the carriage. Counting the time to go, it will be up to the fourth day." Just came back.”

Keir's words made the young hunter think it was feasible.

Seeing someone's intention, Knight Lanisha had no objection: "But I have to take people back. Well, let's do it like you said, Kil. You take some people and go there in a carriage, while I Take the people away and bring the people in the territory back to the village first, and celebrate in the village for a day, and then we will return to the outpost, which should be about the same time as you return to the outpost."

"When the time comes, let's go south from here and return to Hekou Town."

She thought this was okay, so she decided with a wave of her hand.

"Pick two people to go with you. Those things are neither too much nor too little. Just avoid them if you encounter danger. Although there are no easy roads in the forest, it is still flat and the ground is dry and hard in winter. Wagon wheels can travel.”

So Kil called two young hunters who were close to him. One was Fick, who hunted the tenacious big lizard with him, and the other was Daeron. This hunter died with Kil on the rocky mountain. The companion carved a small stone sculpture with a blessing meaning, and the two became friends.

Although other hunters have a good relationship with Kil, because Kil is the youngest among them all, although they are far less powerful than Kil, they always treat him more as a kid who needs to be taken care of.

Only these two people could talk and laugh with Keir on the road.

So as soon as Kiel called, they both stood up and expressed their will to act together with Kiel.

-

Early the next morning, Kiel and the others set off into the forest with a carriage drawn by two horses.

The carriage was packed up last night and was empty. It only brought some food and firewood for heating, but nothing else. They took two of the three horses to pull the cart away, and left the remaining horse with Knight Lanisa and the others to carry the body of their dead companion.

As for how to deal with the dead bodies of her companions, Knight Lanisa did not make a decision. She just said that she would take them with her temporarily. After arriving at Umi Lake Village, she would ask a young priest from the Church of the Lord of Lakes and Rivers in the village to deal with them to prevent Some bad changes occur to the body after death. After it reaches Kendall, it will be disposed of in accordance with the beliefs of the family and the deceased.

There has been no snowfall recently, so Kiel and the others can clearly see the traces of their previous walks on their repeated trips to and from the rocky mountain.

The traces of carriages from many days ago can still be clearly identified.

Kil drove the carriage very fast. Because the terrain was flat, he didn't need to do much. After sitting in the front seat of the carriage, he just let the two horses follow the obvious traces of traffic at will.

Two good young hunters were sitting in the carriage, using their pocket knives to repair some twigs and attach some extra metal arrowheads to them.

Although there were still some unused spare arrows in the sentry tower camp, and they re-entered the forest to replenish some, the two of them were idle, sitting in the carriage and getting busy.

When they returned from fighting the Wolf King a few days ago, they walked tiredly through the forest for four or five days before crossing the forest and returning to the sentry tower camp.

But now, the horses that had been raised for many days were flying through the forest quickly. It only took Kiel and the others one day, from dawn in the morning to darkness in the evening, to reach the frozen east side of the rocky mountain. At the waterhole.

Knight Lanissa once said that she saw many northern wolves freezing to death in the rocky passages of the rocky mountain. Therefore, Keir did not dare to venture out during the night. After all, although he liked adventure and excitement, he did not stupid.

A large number of northern wolves died mysteriously, and this power was not something he could handle now.

So they settled down at the frozen pool and managed to survive the night with the help of the campfire they had left behind.

-

Early the next morning, Kil asked his two companions to stay where they were, and he planned to go over and investigate first.

If nothing strange happens like when Knight Lanisa went there before, he will take someone over to take out the supplies. If he encountered something strange and dangerous that he couldn't handle, he planned to give up these supplies and wait until Knight Lanissa came to pick them up in person.

Although he couldn't complete the task he requested, it was still better than dying out of nowhere.

Kil walked for a while and came to the forest outside the rocky mountain. It was already morning, and the sky was covered with clouds, and there was no good weather to see the sun.

The flat ground around the rocky mountain was still shrouded in a thin layer of strange fog. Kil felt that if he walked in like this, it would be difficult to find the landing point where they had evacuated through the rope escape tunnel.

Therefore, he walked around the edge of the outer fog and found the entrance to the rock passage of the rocky mountain from a distance.

These strange fogs only cover two or three meters of the ground, and cannot block the tall mountains at all.

Keir saw the right direction, so he boldly stepped into the mist.

He held his sword and shield, ready to resist the unknown attacks in the mist and also to counterattack.

The thick full-coverage armor on his body gave him a sufficient sense of security, even if it was just not a reliable enough sense of security.

The flat land outside the rocky mountain was not very wide, so even if Kil carefully slowed down, he quickly passed through the fog that blocked his view.

But what appeared in front of Kiel was not the entrance to the rock passage that he had been optimistic about before.

Instead, it is a tall rocky mountain that gradually rises.

This gave Kil a layer of goosebumps all over his body, and he muttered the name of the church that he heard in the local area, as well as a limited number of names of gods. I carefully inspected the mountain.

However, Kil quickly recovered and remembered some knowledge he had learned in his previous life about the difficulty of humans walking out of a straight line.

This made him calm down, think carefully, and then walked counterclockwise against the mountain.

After walking a few steps, he saw the rocky passage reappearing in sight through the mist.

"Phew. It scared me to death. I really scared myself the most."

After touching his nose, Kil walked into the rock passage and strode up this familiar road.

-

After passing through the burning remains of the first wooden wall, Kil discovered the frozen northern wolf that Lanissa Knight said had died.

He stopped and checked several corpses, and found that the entire northern wolf was frozen solid, which was not like what should be frozen in today's ambient temperature.

Lanissa Knight didn't say this, probably because she didn't realize it at the time.

Keir tried to use a dagger to remove the skins of these frozen northern wolves, but found it very difficult. To remove the skins, their bodies had to be warmed up first.

It can be easily peeled after thawing.

But Keir didn't want to stay here at all, so he had no time to do this.

So he left these northern wolf carcasses behind and walked quickly up the passage.

Pass through the remains of the second wooden wall, the third wooden wall, and the fourth wooden wall where the original camp was located. Kil also discovered the frozen corpses of at least dozens of northern wolves along the way, which made him feel even more uneasy.

But there were no unexpected dangerous situations around.

With the weird environment on one side and the calm actions on the other, Keir felt a little uncomfortable.

In this way, he found the supplies everyone had hidden.

These supplies were hidden in a rock crevice high in the rocky mountain, and were slightly covered with stones. After removing the blocking stones, the contents inside were still the same as before.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Kil left them alone and walked towards the top of the rock.

He grinned and the exciting adventure began. Because he was with everyone before, he didn't properly explore the hidden places he discovered.

Now he was the only one around, and no one was watching what he was doing!

Arriving at the top platform, the wind here is still very strong, but the view is extremely broad, and you can have an unobstructed view of the surrounding forest.

Here he even saw a curl of smoke rising from the forest not far to the east, where his two companions were obviously waiting for him.

Without wasting any more time, Kil found the rope on the edge of the mountain top. He first pulled up the hanging rope and carefully inspected the condition of the rope. I found it to be in good condition, and there was no damage caused by being left outdoors for a long time at low temperatures in winter.

So Kiel knotted the rope again and put it in the groove he had made previously.

After fixing it, it felt very secure. After putting away his sword and shield, Kil carefully grabbed the rope and climbed down.

Sliding down the rope, as soon as Kil landed, he took out several prepared torches from the backpack on his back. From the sheltered area of ​​the platform, he carefully took out the dry grass blades that ignited the fire, and then Kil used a flint to ignite them.

Carefully protecting the weak sparks on the grass blades with his body and palms, he waited until the grass blades emitted smoke, then carefully blew on them to ignite the flames. Then he immediately put the torch over and lit it.

Simple torches made with a small amount of grease from the Boreal Wolf's body are very resistant to burning and are not easy to extinguish. Keir inserted the burning torch into the gap in the rock mass nearby to provide sufficient illumination for this backlit mountain sunken platform.

Arriving at the place he had discovered before, Keel found the loose stone on the rock wall, shook it from side to side and forcibly removed it from the rock wall. Then he threw the stone aside and ignored it.

The first few rocks were solid, but once Kiel got through them, the next ones became much easier.

Soon, Keir dug out a passage that was half a person tall.

There was a slight wind blowing inside, and it was pitch black.

But Kil was not afraid of the darkness inside. He picked up the torch stuck on the side, with a torch in one hand and a sword in the other, and went straight into the secret cave.

Considering that the entire rocky mountaintop is not large in size, Keir also had an idea of ​​the size of the place near the mountaintop.

As he expected, the place was not very big, especially the height. When Kil stood up straight, the helmet on his head could just rub against the top.

Marking the height, Kil knew that this was the place where the dwarves built the place that the gryphon knight did not mention.

It is estimated that the entire rocky mountain was built by them, so even the walking passages in the mountain were designed according to the stature of a dwarf. At the appropriate height for dwarves, humans would feel a little short.

But it doesn’t matter.

Kil swept the torch left and right, carefully exploring the passage, which was only three meters wide and only suitable for one or two people walking side by side.

There were some metal fragments on the ground. Kil picked them up and examined them and found that they were just some broken weapon fragments. But soon, he found something on half of the corpses beside the passage wall.

This corpse only had a headless upper body and no armor or anything like that. It only wore some long-broken fur clothes, and the bones inside the clothes had long been reduced to dead bones.

With a quick look at the broad, stubby bones, Kil guessed that they were left behind by the corpse of a dwarf, and he was not surprised.

After looking at it for a few times, he no longer paid attention to the dwarf's corpse. Instead, his attention was attracted by the few metallic reflections in the bones. He picked up the long sword and pushed aside the broken and dried bones. When he took a closer look, he found that it was a strange square currency.

I don’t know what it is made of, but it has been kept in such a ghost place for decades. It is obviously a currency thing, and the surface is bright and shiny, without any change.

After a little inspection, Kil found a linen bag from the backpack on his back and put the dwarf coins in it.

These coins are obviously not made of gold or silver. They are probably made of some unknown metal. They reflect an orange-yellow luster as a whole. One side of the coin was a simple building that he had never seen or heard of, and the other side was cast with fine characters and geometric patterns. They are all made of the same material, but the face value seems to be distinguished by size.

The larger coins are made more finely, and some corners are even filled with scattered different minerals and cheap fine gemstones, which look very different. As for smaller coins, they are basically made in batches using molds.

After putting away the coins, Kil hung the bag on his waist again and continued moving forward.

After that, along the passage that was obviously sloping downward and curved in one direction, Kil found several more dwarf corpses. Unfortunately, these were probably dwarves who were killed in the battle, and all their equipment was taken away. Kil could only find some coins and useless amulets or souvenirs hidden close to their bodies.

Only some fragments remained, and everything else was probably looted by the victorious knights at that time.

After feeling like he had dropped about fifty meters, Keel reached the end of the spiraling downward passage.

-

At the end are two broken stone doors that collapsed on the ground. Walking through, there is a space like a medium-sized hall.

Miraculously, around the top of this hall, there are some luminous whole stones hanging.

These luminous stones are connected to the built hall, providing the hall with a faint light that is not very bright, but enough to see things. Coupled with Kiel's torch lighting, the entire hall can be seen clearly.

There are some short stone benches arranged around the hall, which are obviously for people to sit and rest. They are very low and obviously for dwarves to sit and rest. Other than that, there is only a downward spiral staircase in the middle of the hall.

But what Keer didn't expect was that the stairs leading down were submerged in the water that filled them, and now the water has long been frozen, whether because of the low temperature in winter or something else.

The answer came quickly.

Keir found some fist-sized blue rock balls on the pure frozen ice. These things were embedded in the surface of the ice, and the surface of the stone material was covered with small unknown lines and unknown words, slightly. Emits a deep orchid blue light.

Kil touched it lightly with the long sword, and a white line immediately ran from the tip of the long sword to the body of the long sword. It was not until it came into contact with the white light of divine power flowing on the surface of the long sword that these extremely cold and icy auras retreated.

This frightened Kil to take his sword away from the weird and dangerous thing. It was obvious that this thing was still working, and judging from its power, ordinary people would die if they touched it.

This made Kiel not dare to think about those blue rock balls, even if they were placed on the ice and embedded in them.

Keir walked around the ice-frozen spiral staircase and found that a total of six blue rock balls were placed on it, freezing the entire circular spiral staircase entrance to death.

Kil carefully lay on the edge of the stairs, raised the torch and looked down through the pure ice, and was immediately startled.

Not far from the stairs, you could see through five or six meters of pure ice that a whole group of dwarf warriors who looked like they were about to run up the stairs were frozen there.

"Huh." Exhaling a white breath, Kil guessed that this was the exit of the underground passage where the dwarves had passed through, but it had been completely frozen by someone using what was probably a magical prop. Even the last few dwarf soldiers who came for support could not rush out of the stairs, and were frozen in place by the extremely cold ice water coming down from above.

Thinking of this, he looked up and looked around, feeling a little strange.

Not to mention the ice that froze such a deep passage was obviously caused by those magic props, but where did the frozen water come from?

He was puzzled.