Mercenaries and Adventurers

When Keir came up in the morning, he felt weak.

The hard cowhide armor that had been worn on my body before seemed like nothing, but now it felt as heavy as iron armor. He fell asleep like that in a daze last night. When he woke up in the morning, he felt very uncomfortable besides being weak.

But the whole camp was already up, and it was impossible for him to stay in the tent and not come out.

There's no reason to leave him here alone.

Kil had no choice but to take off the armor he was wearing, and simply wore linen clothes with a long sword hanging on his waist. He stuffed other things into the carriage, then endured the discomfort and went to eat.

You have to eat, especially when you feel uncomfortable. All actions of the body require sufficient material and energy supplements.

Therefore, eating is a must and cannot be delayed.

Slowly pouring the thick soup into his stomach, Kil ordered a small piece of dry wheat cake and ate it.

After returning, he rested against his two horses for a while, then took down his tent, rolled it up into a ball, and stuffed it into the hood of the carriage.

Knight Crow's bodyguards had already cleaned up and fed the two horses for him, so Kiel was spared this troublesome matter.

Knight Crow happened to be wearing a suit of steel armor and walked over from the direction of the baron's camp. Looking at Kil's tired face, he laughed and asked about Kil's physical condition at this time.

"As you can see, I feel like I have no energy in my body and I feel so weak."

"This is normal. Don't worry. You will get better in a day or two. When you feel better, come to me. Training must continue. But you can't stop contacting your life just because you don't like a weak body. The induction of energy.”

"Hmph, no one else has this opportunity. There are many guys in the Kendall Guards who want to become knights. Don't look so reluctant. If you can work harder and use the dolls to communicate with each other on a regular basis, learn to follow them early. By controlling and communicating with your own life energy, you can avoid this training earlier.”

"Do you understand?"

Kil replied lazily, and Knight Crow left with satisfaction.

He didn't care about Kil's weakness. This was how he came here, but when he was in the army, this training was done together with supplementing Warcraft meat and drinking the tempered Warcraft flesh and blood potion.

Part of the life energy lost by his body could be immediately replenished from the small amount of Warcraft meat he ate that day, so he did not remain in this weak state for long.

In particular, a weak physical state will be reflected on the human spirit and will, which will delay the progress of the person involved in mastering the control of life energy.

But Knight Crow knows that he knows nothing, and there is nothing he can do. After all, this is a march in the wild, and he himself does not have the support of the entire training system of the kingdom's army.

Without the Warcraft meat and the Warcraft flesh and blood potion carefully crafted by the pharmacist, Kil's situation was a bit miserable, but the advantage was that it was simple and cheap.

Back in his camp, Knight Crow was thinking about whether he should find something to replenish Kil's supplies these days.

But the march of the entire army cannot be delayed.

-

In this way, Kiel dragged his lazy body every day, sat unsteadily on his horse, and followed the logistics team.

Knight Crow didn't let him go with the forward troops anymore. After all, with Kiel's physical condition at this time, he couldn't help much.

Knight Rumi and Baron Kendall both knew what was going on with Kiel at this time, so they did not give Kiel any work, but simply asked him to follow him.

Knight Rumi, who also became a knight in the army, criticized Knight Crow's inadequate training. He and Knight Crow often quarreled in front of Baron Kendall at night. He felt that he was not fully prepared and carried out knight training under such conditions. It was simply to embarrass the young man Kiel.

But Knight Crow did not admit this statement.

"Well, if you think my method is not good, how about I leave Kil to you and you train him for me?"

After asking this question, Knight Rumi stopped. He himself is just an ordinary knight, not as far as Knight Crow can go on the road of knighthood.

At this time, he had no preparation or intention to train a knight himself.

This is bad for knights like him and Knight Crow who came from the Kingdom's army. Their family is not a knight family and has no long-standing inheritance. Although they are knights, they do not have the knowledge and experience to train their heirs to become similar knights. .

However, Knight Crow is stronger than ordinary knights and has a wide range of knowledge, so he has the ability and confidence to train Kil to become a new knight.

The situation is different for nobles like Baron Kendall.

The basis of their rule is not to become knights themselves. Although knights are needed to maintain their rule, there are many ways.

For example, recruit retired military knights as your subordinates, or take stray knights into your own hands, or find superior nobles to arrange for knights to come over, or even find the noble council and the god of nobles, and spend some resources to have yourself or your family members trained by the council. A strong knight.

Although the Baron was a little curious about this matter, he actually didn't care. In addition to reading some of the books he carried every day, he mainly followed the army's priests to talk about the church behind those priests. Or slow down and chat with the merchants who are following the army, and learn from the chat some knowledge of the places the merchants have been. And make good friends with some of the larger merchants in the caravan to lay the foundation for future development.

In the evening, he would discuss the marching affairs of the army with the two knights and the logistics clerks, mostly the wear and tear of the militia's weapons and equipment, the stock of hay for the horses and donkeys, as well as food and drinking water.

When the soldiers got sick, he had to arrange for the priests accompanying the army to use magic to cure the soldiers' illnesses. You also have to choose multiple roads on the kingdom map, and discuss with the knight which road is the fastest, which road can supply the most villages, what is the road condition of which road, and whether it will affect the team's forward speed.

This map was specially made by him because he was responsible for the hydrological affairs of the province. At this time, this extraordinarily detailed map comes in handy.

The situation of some bandits that we inquired about when passing through the village must also be taken into account. Should we eliminate them at the same time as we advance? It is better to ignore them and go straight through the road with bandits, or send someone to negotiate and explain the situation, not to conflict with the bandits, and to show that one's own army has nothing to do with annihilating them, but it is not easy to mess with.

These days, after the army passed through the territory of Knight Gulov, these things gradually increased.

Knight Gurov naturally belongs to another baron, but that baron's county territory is much smaller than that of Kendall County, and the terrain has become strangely uneven due to the obstruction of the mountain collar. It is far different from the border areas. Noble Lords are very different.

In the border areas, the land of counties like Baron Kendal is very large, and the territory covers far more than the territory of ordinary baron or even viscount nobles. But this is simply because most of the land in their territory is dangerous mountains and forests, or wasteland that lacks water sources and makes it difficult for people to settle down. It is far inferior to the more densely populated noble territories in other places.

The closer the kingdom is to the east, the smaller the nobles' territories are, but the number of people living in the territories is actually larger.

And the closer it is to the empire, because in terms of the difficulty of migration when the country was founded, the closer it is to the land of the empire, the longer it will take for the land to be developed by the relocated people.

Roads, bridges, checkpoints, castles, finely divided fields, evenly distributed villages, concentrated towns, and cities where rulers live. Everything is much better than the western border of the kingdom.

-

After nearly ten days of marching at a steady pace, the entire army arrived at the border between the northwest and western provinces of the kingdom.

The border between the two provinces is a natural dividing line, the Angry River.

This river flows eastward from a high mountain on the western border. The flow of water is large and rapid, directly eroding the place where it flows through to create a long and winding water-eroded canyon.

Although it is only a small canyon, it naturally separates the Northwest Province and the Western Province.

It has been difficult to cross over the years, much to the annoyance of the first settlers, so the river is called the Angry River. Before a stone bridge was built across the Angry River, the connection between the two adjacent provinces was not even better than that of the Central Province to the east of the two.

However, more than ten years ago, through the efforts of many people, a wide and strong stone bridge was built at the place where they are now.

The trade route from the northwest province to the south must pass through here, and it has naturally become a key area connecting the two provinces.

At both ends of this stone bridge, the rulers of the two provinces, the earls, established a checkpoint managed by their own side next to the stone bridge.

On the north side of the stone bridge, on the land belonging to the Northwest Province, the thin pass made of rocks and wood is called Angry Beiguan. The southern part, which belongs to the Western Province, is called the Angry South Pass and is made of huge mounds of earth and wood.

The trade route connecting the two western provinces passes through here. Caravans come here all the time along the busy road. What’s funny is that the merchants have to cross the two checkpoints on the north and south sides every time. One-time export tariff and import tariff.

If it is a caravan belonging to the northwest province, the export tariff will be reduced, but the import tariff from the south will be a little bit higher.

If it is a caravan belonging to the western province, the export tariff will be a little bit higher, but the export tariff on the south side will be reduced.

And if the caravan is neither a caravan from the Northwest Province nor a caravan from the Western Province, it will have to pay a lot of taxes in order to cross the Angry River from this stone bridge.

But if you don’t go here and want to save the customs tax, you have to spend nearly a month walking eastward along the Nui River, just like many years ago, looking for the water of the Nui River in the central province. Only at a gentle ferry can you cross the river by boat.

Keir was riding a horse, looking at the two checkpoints built on a bridge, as well as the chaotic villages and towns formed spontaneously by caravans outside the checkpoints, similar to gatherings.

It is said to be a village market town, but there are basically no fields and no one is farming here. There are only some large poultry pens surrounded by tall fences, and valuable livestock pens, which contain many large livestock, ranging from gray-haired ones. From domestic pigs to sturdy cattle, from hooting donkeys to strong horses wagging their tails.

Not only that, looking from a distance, there is actually a huge bipedal walking bird three to four meters high that is also kept in a separate enclosure.

In addition, there is a separate wet mud pond far away from the river bank. The sound of frogs inside is loud, and a kind of earth-yellow and earth-green frog that is larger than a human is kept in it.

Keir was dumbfounded and didn't know what to say.

At this time, Kiir was in the militia army, following the Rumi knight. Because he had to undergo knight training, his physical strength continued to be weak these days, and he was unable to keep up with the various tasks of the forward team in charge of Knight Crow, so he was assigned to Knight Rumi.

He doesn't need to do anything. He just needs to hold the wooden doll given by Knight Crow every day, hold it in his hand and carefully feel the life energy of the aggressive knight himself on the wooden doll.

Knight Rumi saw that Kiel and many surrounding militiamen were surprised by the huge walking birds and frogs that were larger than humans. Some of them felt a little cowed and frightened. He opened his mouth and explained to everyone this kind of thing that the Kendall people had never seen before.

"Some people may have heard about it from the bard's stories, but I don't think you have seen these things very often, right? The tall bird that was kept in captivity, the correct name is Megapod. It was originally a bird. It is a rare bird on the eastern island of the empire, but after it was discovered a long time ago, it was taken out and specially raised and bred."

"This giant-footed bird has a unique character. It is docile to its keepers, but is extremely fierce to other strangers, so it is particularly popular with large caravans. It can usually be used to pull carts, and it can also rescue people when it encounters danger. Open the reins and use them for battle.”

"Look, it has such a huge beak on its head. If you peck it, its bones will be smashed."

Knight Rumi pointed at the giant-footed birds that were imprisoned and raised from a distance. Those giant-footed birds were not surprised by the large army of Kendall people. They have seen countless caravans coming and going every day, and these little humans are no longer strange to them.

Then Knight Rumi pointed at the huge croaking frog in the quagmire in the distance: "I heard that this is a special monster in the central province of the kingdom. It lives in the huge swamp there. As long as it can be swallowed by its mouth, They eat everything.”

Seeing the surrounding militiamen panicking and looking ugly, he laughed loudly: "But they are wild. These huge raised frogs are called swamp walkers. Now I heard that they are specially used for boating in rivers against the current." Beasts. Although they are not much bigger than us humans, in fact, in the water, just kicking off the legs is far more powerful than a dozen strong men shaking the oars. "

He was joking with Baron Kendall who was not far away: "I heard that many places are in need of this kind of fiber-drawing beast. It can save a lot of manpower and also provide cabin space for river ships."

Baron Kendall stopped the painting in his hand, nodded and admitted: "Yes, if you only use swamp walkers to travel up the river in inland river ships, how much manpower and water space can be saved? Moreover, the structure of the ship will also change. , by saving the original rowing warehouse section under the deck and replacing it with a small pool for raising swamp walkers and more warehouses, how much more money can the merchants make in one trip?"

The baron was describing the checkpoint buildings on the north and south banks of the Angry River and the surrounding scenery in a medium-sized book. After he finished speaking, he continued to ride on the horse and carefully painted the picture. The attendants around him carefully provided their master with paints and brushes of various sizes.

Keel felt amused and drove the horses closer to the stables where the animals were kept.

But before he could get close, there were a few dirty boys holding whips without heads and waving their hands to block Kil's approach.

"Sir, don't get close to our master's animals, they are dangerous!"

The teenagers looked at Kiel who was riding on horseback nervously with dirty little faces.

Although he was a little regretful, Kil nodded to them, took out a few iron coins from the money bag around his waist, and scattered them to them.

"Thanks, I just haven't seen these animals. I'll give you this money."

After saying that, Kiel turned around and returned to the army.

The boys judged that Kil really left and was not playing tricks on them, so they immediately pounced on a few iron coins in the soft mud on the ground.

"Mine, mine."

"I was the one who spoke to my master just now, and he gave it to me. Don't grab it."

"I don't care who picks it up!"

A few teenagers were making a mess, and the giant bird in the pen next to it stuck its head out of the fence, curiously watching the humans who usually feed them making a ball for a few shiny little things.

"Whoa whoa!"

They also want those little shiny pieces of iron held in man's dirty hands. But it's not for the value behind it, but maybe it will be easier to digest if you swallow it?

This is what their instinct tells them.

What no one knows is that in the distant hometown of these giant-footed birds, wild giant-footed birds will come to the coast of the island and peck at hard shells of suitable sizes on the beach, relying on these things to assist digestion.

-

Angry Beiguan is a stronghold directly under the earl of Baron Kendall, so although the baron has a bad relationship with the earl who has many titles above him, he still faces two knights, as well as hundreds of well-equipped soldiers and convoys to make way for the level. the way.

In the market towns and villages that relied on the checkpoints, the merchants and clerks traveling from north to south gave way to the main roads and did not dare to collide with the army.

They looked curiously at this well-armed army and the proud caravan following behind it.

Facing the army, they did not dare to talk, but as they were also caravans, they were very courageous. They immediately got together, gave some small and worthless gifts, and started talking immediately.

The vanguard of the team was talking to the soldiers and stationed knights at the checkpoint. Baron Kendall asked Knight Rumi to tighten the team to make sure no one got lost, and then he led his men on horseback and rode closer.

"Sir, why are you here?"

Knight Crow was curious as to why the baron was here.

"It will be ready soon. This is Knight Bota. He has been responsible for the management of Angry Beiguan in the past two years. He needs to record and register our team's situation, and then he will notify Nanguan on the other side of the bridge to send incoming and outgoing passengers first. The caravan has stopped and a period of time has been set aside for our army to pass through."

Baron Kendall looked at the Pota Knight opposite.

This is a young knight with obvious aristocratic style. Riding a giant bird, wearing a thin set of stainless steel reflective armor. The armor is decorated with colorful cloth, and together with the brightly colored giant bird that is also decorated, it looks very conspicuous.

Knight Botta and Baron Kendall obviously knew each other. The knight first made a courtesy to the baron, and then rode a giant bird towards him.

"Sir Kendall, it's been several years since we said goodbye to Organ Castle? Hey, I didn't expect that after being assigned to this remote place, I would be able to meet my old friends before returning to Organ Castle."

Baron Kendall immediately put on a businesslike smirk on his face: "Ah, my friend, who told you that you are extraordinary? This angers Beiguan's position is so important, there is no way, Lord Earl, he will not arrange for a reliable and powerful person." How about a knight acting with authority in his stead? Who else in the Organ Castle can securely hold this position besides you?"

The two of them had only been casual acquaintances in Organ Castle before, but this time they met after not seeing each other for many years, they started to compliment each other.

Knight Bota looked at the army waiting for orders behind Baron Kendall, and the envy in his eyes was unstoppable.

"I haven't seen you for many years. I didn't expect you to have such elite soldiers now. It's really good. Look at my men, who are they?"

He also did not avoid the checkpoint soldiers watching the fun at the checkpoint. Apparently, he did not regard these big soldiers as anything important.

"They are all the old, weak, sick and disabled soldiers left behind by the previous one. The young and strong soldiers who were willing to work were all taken away by the previous one before I came. Well, the past two years have been really difficult."

The two of them were chatting here, while the clerk and steward of the checkpoint smiled flatteringly at Knight Crow who was guarding them, and then carefully recorded the situation of Kendall's army waiting to cross the bridge one by one.