Mercenaries and Adventurers

Facing Kil's question, Bloodfangster explained with a grimace: "Sir Knight, Kil, although these harpies look similar to humans, they are not smart and are similar to beasts, but they have very strong abilities. Revengeful, as long as a harpy monster is killed, the monster will scream loudly with its last strength before being killed, and other harpy monsters patrolling and hunting around it will rush over to avenge it."

Knight Crow showed his original expression: "This thing did scream loudly before it died, but other harpies didn't appear around it. What's the reason?"

Sturt guessed and said: "Perhaps this is a lone monster that hunts alone? It would be great if that's the case. In this way, we won't be entangled by monsters today."

Hearing these words, Knight Crow was very dissatisfied. As a powerful knight, he was quite disdainful of such behavior of being afraid or even afraid of monsters, so he lost interest in talking to this man again.

The knight patted Kil's shoulder and whispered to Kil: "Although this may be the case, you still have to be careful today and don't lead the way in front of the team. You take this local with you, and I will ask the baron for five more horses. Guards, you and your men will ride around the team and provide support wherever trouble occurs.

Rumi would direct the forward team, while I would rest on the logistics carriage, calling me when something happened. understand? "

Kiel put his heels together, punched his left chest with his right fist, and saluted: "I understand, sir."

The knight then asked Kil to find something to cover the body of the harpy and hide it in their Kendal carriage. Because judging from Bloodfangster's reaction, it was clear that the locals did not dare to deal with the harpies. In order to avoid causing panic among the local caravans, cover was necessary.

He stared at Bloody Fangster for the last time and said to the man directly: "Don't tell anyone about this matter. Shut your mouth, if you still want to eat with it!"

Bloody Fangster immediately knelt on the ground and swore an oath not to tell anyone.

Although he had a sad look on his face, he was worried that things would not turn out well.

"Kiel, remember not to let this man talk nonsense and look at him." After warning, Knight Crow walked away from this place where his view was blocked.

-

Seeing the knight walking away, Kil pulled up the Bloody Fangster and said: "Don't worry, they are coming, then fight them, otherwise can you still think that the monsters will accept the surrender of humans?"

"By the way, since you know the consequences of killing monsters, it is obvious that other people have defeated such monsters before. What were their final results?"

Kil asked curiously while rummaging through the surrounding carriages to find a roll of tarpaulin for the roof, and then taking advantage of the light wind around him, he and Bloodfangster wrapped and tied the monster's corpse.

"Hey, it's not like there weren't strong warriors who killed this kind of monster on this grassland in the past, but most of them met a bad end and couldn't get out of here. However, some people directly offered sacrifices equal to the number of people in their team to the harpy monster. The same livestock, I heard the monster spared that group of people.”

Regarding this answer, Keir shook his head. He thought it was unlikely. If it was a caravan with a small number of people, it might be possible. It would be okay to buy a small amount of sheep from the villages along the way. But buying sheep in large quantities is probably not possible.

After all, other villages also rely on this kind of livestock to survive. If they sell all the sheep, how can they survive?

‘It seems that if you are unlucky, you will have to go head-to-head with this monster. ’

With this thought in his mind, Kil dragged the wrapped monster corpse and walked forward.

At this time, the surrounding strong winds weakened, and there seemed to be a window period of weak winds. Therefore, a large number of humans poured out of various underground buildings in the village.

A large number of horses and livestock from the army and caravans were also driven out by the villagers. After confirming the number and markings, they were quickly delivered.

The militiamen and caravan men all took action to untie the ropes between the carriages and hitch the horses to the carriages. Kendall's army was faster, but the caravan was much slower, because not only did the merchants have to find their own people among the strangers they didn't know, but they also had to drive the villagers away from the underground buildings in the middle of the village. The sheep that were exported were counted in batches and delivered to the caravan stewards who bought the sheep last night.

Keir noticed that a relatively large number of sheep were handed over by the villagers to the caravan of the Kendal people.

The connotation behind handing the sheep over to the army would inevitably make people look down on them, so the sheep were handed over to their own caravan in the chaos before departure.

This turned a corner, and the Kendal people bought sheep just in case, without losing face.

After all, it is an army. If it is just afraid of monsters, it will not look good.

“Woo——————————”

A loud horn sound was blown, which was the sound that Knight Rumi asked the baron's personal guards to blow to set off.

If the surrounding wind is light, you can use the horn to signal everyone in the team.

I don’t know if they bought the sheep from the villagers. Just after the huge team left Tor Village, the local merchants in the Western Province jointly proposed to Baron Kendall, hoping that the caravan and the Kendall army would be separated. move.

Just like before.

Baron Kendall, who had just inspected the body of the harpy monster while riding a horse on a logistics vehicle, smiled disdainfully and waved his hand to agree to these people's request.

"No one was prepared yesterday, so they had to walk with us. It seems that such a close distance made the local businessmen very uncomfortable. As soon as I bought food that can be 'contributed' to the monsters today, I immediately wanted to Separate." After sighing mockingly, Baron Kendall said to Knight Crow.

"It seems they are afraid of a real conflict between the army and the monsters, and I don't know which side they are on."

Knight Crow said the answer to the point: "The side with interests."

"It is reasonable for businessmen to be afraid. The military management in various places has not been very good. Less than half of the casualties among merchants often occur when dealing with various military garrisons."

"A small half? What else is there?" the baron asked curiously.

"Others, there are bandits who are also the big ones, but when you meet bandits, the caravan will either lose all, lose all the goods, or buy the bandits with money. Either the people will not be injured, or all will be lost."

"In addition, there are diseases, accidental deaths, and wild beasts, including monsters that are difficult for ordinary caravans to deal with." Knight Crow explained the news he heard from Ice Flood Pass.

Baron Kendall rode on his horse and waved his men to wrap the body of the harpy monster again, and then said: "Claw, what do you think of these monsters?"

"Sir, what are you talking about?"

"In all kinds of ways."

Knight Crow, who had been on duty all night, was a little tired, but it didn't matter. After thinking for a while, he shook his head and said: "This place will definitely be completely destroyed in the future, unless the local Earl is willing to bring back the standing army on the Caohai front line. Otherwise, it won’t be long before everyone here, in the Strange Wind Grassland, and in the Cavern Territory a little further south, will be in danger.”

"How do you judge? Tell me." The baron reached out to get a newly drawn map from the guard, and found their current location on the map - Thor Village on the Strange Wind Grassland.

This is just a place that the trade route running through the western province from north to south must pass through. And Thor Village is just the first stop through the Strange Wind Grassland. If everything goes well today, they will march to Nianyan Village, and tomorrow they will arrive at the Strange Wind Town in the middle of the Strange Wind Grassland.

Basically, if everything goes well, it will take five days to cross here and reach Cavan Territory, which is a little south.

Unlike Strange Wind Grassland, which is not suitable for living here, Cavern Territory is a viscounty territory with a vast area and a large population. The topography is more complicated than Strange Wind Grassland.

The Baron and Knight Crow rode horses side by side. They gestured around the first two places and found that the two places were connected and there were no obstacles. It was simply a strange wind. The strong wind on the grassland only blew here. Whether there was a strong wind or not became a strange thing. The main difference between Wind Prairie and Cavernland.

But this doesn't mean that the harpies will be easier to deal with without the strong wind, quite the opposite. As long as they are flying in the sky, there are no enemies that are easy to deal with.

Not to mention monsters, even trained falcons are very difficult to detect or attack.

"This is my first time here, so I can only give you my guesses and judgments, sir."

"You tell me and I listen."

"Yes."

Knight Crow first pointed to the corpse of the monster on the carriage behind him: "I fought with this thing, and although I killed it easily, it does not mean that others can defeat this flying monster with normal means. "

"Have you seen its pair of claws? The whole body is strong and powerful, and the sharp claws are as long as one hand. Regardless of the monster's claws, solid claws of that length fall from the sky and attack the soldiers. Soldiers It’s hard to guard against.”

The knight made a motion of stretching his hand from top to bottom.

"Human beings are creatures that live on the ground. Most of the enemies only include enemies from the four directions, front, rear, left and right. Therefore, the vast majority of people do not respond to attacks launched from the top of their heads. Even if they face the enemy head-on, they still can't do much, either with a shield or with a shield. Defense, or attack with spears. You can’t attack and defend at the same time.”

"Where's the crossbow? Shoot them with a crossbow?" the baron suggested.

But he immediately shook his head: "Bows and crossbows are all projectile weapons. Not only is the shooting height limited to enemies above your head, but the falling crossbow arrows will also hurt your own people."

Knight Crow added: "Sir, when monsters fly low and attack, the crossbows fired with low trajectories will probably kill a large number of their own people in actual combat. Although it's hard to say, if there is no other way, use one soldier for one Harpy monster, I guess it’s feasible.”

The Baron frowned and said nothing, but stretched out his hand to signal Knight Crow to continue what he had just said.

"Sir, just a brief analysis of ordinary soldiers' methods to fight against this monster. The bigger trouble lies here. That is, we, including the passing merchants, and the local people who seem to be safe, but are actually just surviving, don't know an important thing. information."

"How many harpies are there exactly here?"

Baron Kendall was a little confused when he heard this question, but after thinking about it with a frown, he gritted his teeth and remained silent.

This is why Knight Crow said that the southern Cavan Territory would also suffer.

"Monsters are also wild beasts, but they are difficult beasts with special abilities. Generally speaking, the number is completely related to the food supply and output in the area where the monster lives and operates. Sir, just like the water power you are familiar with, the monsters here are stored in water. There are no knights, nobles or troops on the Strange Wind Grassland that can limit their number. Sooner or later, when the water here is full, it will overflow."

"If we just follow Man and Suiman, Kawen Ling should be able to respond in time and push back the monsters that came out."

The baron continued: "But the trade route under our feet has brought a steady stream of vitality and resources to this place. The merchants want to pass here safely and quickly, so they use the method of donating living animals to build monsters that can easily obtain meat. There were no explicit rules. Therefore, the local villagers relied on providing supplies and sheep to the caravans, and gained the wealth to survive."

The baron suddenly realized: "I see, I know how the immigrants from the empire who moved here settled down here, and also had the wealth and resources to build underground buildings of that scale. This is a lot of money. And The provider of this money, I guess, is either the church of the God of Wealth, or a large local or kingdom chamber of commerce, or even a merchant guild."

"After all, this trade route will continuously produce wealth, and it is normal for some people to invest in it."

Knight Crow said coldly: "But it fed an unknown number of harpies."

"Those live sheep that were contributed as tribute are just floating soil on the dam. The higher it is piled, the more water will be stored. Once it becomes unsustainable and the balance between the two parties is broken, just like floods will submerge fields, villages and towns, it will be strange. The hungry monsters emerging from the wind grassland will kill and eat everything they can fly to."

Baron Kendall remained silent, just brushing the map in front of him with his hand.

On the map, the northern part of Strange Wind Grassland, which is the direction from which the Kendall people came, has frequent rainfall all year round, which is not suitable for the movement and habitat of harpies.

To the east is the uninhabited land of Strange Wind Grassland that extends all the way. There is not even a human settlement in that direction. The grassland extends from here to the border of the central province, but it is blocked by mountains and forests. The mountains covered with dense forests should not be conducive to the liking of flying monsters such as harpies.

Because the wings that are too wide are not conducive to the monster's flight in the forest, this place is dominated by small raptors.

The broad and unobstructed landscape is a favorite and very advantageous activity area for harpies.

Further west in the Strange Wind Grassland is a place that doesn't even have a map. It is the mysterious Caohai that makes people in the western provinces talk about it.

The sea of ​​​​grass where monsters and warcraft are entrenched is more troublesome than the troubles in the strange wind grassland. Presumably the harpy monsters have suffered a lot there.

In this way, only the Cavern Territory area to the south maintained the current peace and stability before the number of harpies reached its limit simply because there was no strong wind.

Seeing that Baron Kendall fully understood what he meant, Knight Crow said, "Sir, if we don't talk about it now, when we arrive in Cavan Territory, do we want to inform the nobles there of this information?"

The Baron hesitated, but still nodded: "Although the people there have nothing to do with us, whether I am a human or a member of the Noble Council, I should tell the truth about the situation. As for whether they listen or not, that's up to them. It’s your own business.”

Speaking of this, the Baron guessed: "Do you think the nobles of the Cavern Territory would already know what we can discover?"

But Knight Crow shook his head straightforwardly: "How is it possible? If they knew, would those adults still allow the caravan to travel in this way? They should take measures, either to limit the size of the caravan, or to organize mercenaries Or adventurers may offer bounties to hunt harpies to limit the number of monsters.”

"But look, they didn't do anything."

But Baron Kendall sighed secretly and had something in his heart that he didn't say: 'Perhaps it's not that I don't know, but that the benefits of business travel are huge. Compared with not knowing when the losses will occur, it's better to seize the immediate profits first. The opportunity is what some people think and actually do. ’

‘Even if some people want to do something, when only a few people want to do something, they will naturally be hindered by other nobles whose interests are harmed. Over time, no one took the initiative to do anything. And everyone may know that a fatal crisis will come one day, but before it comes, no one will do something for everyone at the expense of their own interests. ’

‘Even if it’s a matter of life and death. ’

Both of them stopped talking about the Cavern Territory and turned to studying how to deal with the Harpy attack.

-

On Kiel's side, he was currently patrolling in a circle around the advancing army with Bloodfangster and five horse-riding baron guards.

Considering that the opponent's harpy monster might be flying in the sky, everyone prepared spears and crossbows. Kil also took the opportunity to go to the carriage and pretended to change armor. In fact, he entered a dream, changed the armor, and brought Use the two-handed ax to deal with the monster's water-crossing head.

In order to reduce the burden on the horse he was riding, Kil put all the unused items on his carriage, including the equally heavy hunting sword.

To deal with this kind of monster, a two-handed ax as a spiritual weapon should be enough.

When the Kendall people first set off from Tor Village, there was no strong wind blowing on the grassland. Therefore, Knight Rumi who led the team asked the militiamen to speed up their pace during this period, hoping to wait until the strong wind blew. A few steps away.

In fact, the speed of the army at this time was all hindered by the militiamen, but it was impossible to actually allocate carriages to everyone, so the actual situation could only be like this.

Different from yesterday afternoon, after setting off today, a large group of caravans composed of local people took the initiative to leave the group and followed from a distance. Therefore, the army's marching queue also changed at this time.

Although Rumi Knight does not have as complex and powerful team control methods as Crow Knight, it allows the army to move complexly after it is deployed. But he is not a fool, and naturally he will not let the army line up in a long line as usual, without taking care of both the beginning and the end.

That kind of long queue is the optimal solution when the road width is limited, but it is not necessary on the open and gentle grassland. As the main body of the army's long-distance movement, the logistics carriage is surrounded by everyone at the center. The logistics carriage was also followed by some caravans of the Kendall people. Unlike the local caravans, as the caravans of the Kendall people, they did not feel that their own army was very dangerous. After all, their experiences along the way made them They were particularly at ease with the baron's troops.

Naturally, this is also affected by the previous incident of Keir in Grass Rat Town.

Outside the logistics carriage and the accompanying caravan, Knight Rumi divided the militia team of 500 people into five easy-to-manage parts, which were deployed on the front, rear, left, and middle carriages.

There were 150 people in the front, 100 people on the left and right, and 100 people in the back. In the middle, there were 50 people standing in front of and behind the carriage, squeezing in with the others and barely able to ride in it.

At the same time, all the militiamen riding in the middle were using crossbows, and half of the surrounding militia teams were using spears and half were using crossbows. People using different weapons were mixed with each other. The spears were used to prevent the monsters from approaching. Although the crossbows were effective against flying Not very effective with monsters, but slightly better than nothing as an offensive means of attacking monsters.

After the arrangements were made, Knight Rumi asked the army to speed up their march.