Mercenaries and Adventurers

Regardless of how his men killed the bandits who escaped and were captured, Kiel came to the river bank again and commanded the second carriage to prepare to rush up the river bank.

He first came to the horse pulling the cart and whispered some words of encouragement to the familiar horse. The Northland horse, which was obtained from bandits near Bingxeng Pass, rubbed its face against Keir's helmet affectionately. Then nodded.

"Work hard!"

Encouraging the horses, Kil came to the rear of the carriage, took a deep breath of moist cool air, then lowered his body again and grabbed the rear of the carriage: "Let's go!"

The young man driving the cart immediately shook the reins and urged the horses to pull the cart with all their strength. As their hooves churned, the soft riverbank soil splashed.

Keir also straightened his waist and raised the rear wheel of the carriage with both arms. As the carriage moved forward, he moved his legs one step ahead, lying across the current of the creek and the mud and pebbles at the bottom. While lifting the carriage upward, he also gave the carriage a push forward.

Kiel's two northern horses were not as strong as the prairie horses of the Western Province, so this time Kiel worked harder to lift the carriage and push it forward.

"Lulu Lu!"

The Northland horse also exerted all its strength, shaking its head and tail to pull the leather lasso around its body.

Soon, the second carriage came up.

The young man driving the carriage also took the initiative to let the horses relax the moment the carriage got on, so as to avoid rushing a long distance in one breath.

The people who had been waiting on the river bank helped each other climb into the carriage again after the horses pulling the carriage relaxed and quieted down. They honestly and proactively stacked the messy materials in the carriage, and then sat on them next to each other.

The four rescued girls, who were weak and frail, were also pulled by the young man driving the carriage, and finally climbed onto the carriage with great difficulty. Although they were mentally weak, they still opened their eyes and curiously observed a somewhat different young knight like Kil.

What is the specific difference? Their shallow life experiences can't figure it out, but they intuitively feel that they can trust the young knight who just killed a bandit.

"How should I call this Lord Knight?"

The slightly older girl in the lead asked the young man driving the bus.

But in fact, this young man only met Kiel today, and he couldn't even pronounce Kiel's name.

"Uh, ah uh, um."

After hesitating for a while, he couldn't explain why, and then he lowered his head with regret.

However, an old man holding a sleeping boy in the same car answered the rescued girl's question. The old man held on to the waterproof animal skin hat he picked up to block the rain: "I heard a young knight say it once, it seems. His name is Joe, Joe Keel. His accent sounds like he’s not from around here, but rather like someone from the north of the kingdom.”

No one else paid attention to the accent. Instead, the old man who had traveled all his life analyzed it.

The carriage walked a few steps away from the climb up the river bank to avoid colliding with the last carriage. Not far behind, young men with weapons escorted the silent bandits from the grassy side of the river, and then were tied to the back of the carriage again, while the three corpses were dragged across the river, tied at the waist. Put on a piece of rope and prepare to hang it on the back of three carriages to accompany the bandits.

This is a naked warning, telling them not to be careful, as this is the consequence of escaping.

The old man's voice sounded: "The kingdom is young, and most of the population has migrated from other places, with the largest number of people from the empire. However, although the people in the empire also speak in common language, they still speak slightly differently in different places."

Although the old man was just talking to himself, the people around him were fine anyway, so they all pricked up their ears to hear what the old man had to say to avoid them recalling the memory and pain of being tortured and imprisoned by bandits.

"The eastern part of the kingdom has the largest population, but most of the population comes from the adjacent western part of the empire. If you go to the royal capital in the future, you will find that the towns outside the royal capital are no different from the empire. What is the empire like? , it’s just like outside the royal capital.”

"The people there speak with the accent of the population in the western part of the empire. As for the people in the southern provinces, they are people who fled from the Holy Land in the southwestern part of the empire, and their accents are a bit mixed. When I was young, most of the people in various places still spoke with the same accent. A relatively uniform accent. But when I get older and decades pass, the accents of the people in the southern provinces will be very different."

A smile appeared on the old man's ravaged face: "After everyone settled down, they stopped moving around, and each place slowly developed its own accent. Oh, it's so fast, but in my short life, the kingdom was founded. In less than half the time, everyone has differentiated into different ways of speaking.”

He shook his head, as if he felt that the future of the southern province was not very good, let alone the current chaotic situation that led to his rescue. There was a huge defeat last year, which forced the noble knights from all over the province to gather on a large scale and gather more troops than last year before they dared to launch an attack.

But if we lose this year, it will really be all over.

In the next ten years, except for some areas in the provincial capital, peace will be maintained. It is estimated that chaos will occur in other places.

Including, but not limited to, bandits from various places took advantage of the situation to grow in size and became local threats; secondly, defeated troops who fled back to their hometowns occupied small towns, leading to war; in addition, the deaths and injuries of knight families resulted in a long-term vacancy of the power to pacify a place.

On a deeper level, the loss of the local lower-class nobles will inevitably lead to the expansion of the upper-class nobles, and the royal party will inevitably suppress the noble parliament in the southern provinces.

The old man did not dare to think about it anymore. He shook his head and turned to talk about the population sources and accents of the western provinces.

"In addition to some relocation migrants from the southern and central provinces, the people in the western province are actually more landless people who fled from the southern countries. Although the population composition is the most complex, it is precisely in the western province that On the contrary, the province has no accent."

"why?"

The boy in the old man's arms woke up at some point, and he asked curiously.

Perhaps, this young man actually never fell asleep.

"It's very complicated. Based on what I saw in the Western Province when I was doing business, haha, the terrain there is flat, there are many people doing business, the land is suitable for grazing but not farming, and the population flow is also very large. Everyone sees each other all day long, but they don't know each other. There are so many people here, and when they talk to each other, their accents naturally disappear.”

Seemingly seeing the confusion in the young man's eyes, the old man explained carefully: "Think about it, if you speak your hometown dialect, will a customer who bought something from you today come back again?"

The young man shook his head.

"That's right, the other party will only find a shop stall where he can communicate smoothly next time. Because he can't understand you, he is also afraid of losing money in the transaction. Only when both parties feel satisfied and beneficial will the transaction continue. Once one party feels something is wrong, this invisible line of transaction will be easily broken."

"In addition, the two powerful external threats in the Western Province have also helped communication between various places. Do any of you know which two existential crises the Western Province faces?"

Facing the old man's question, the young people in the car all shook their heads shyly. Only then did they realize how shallow their book of life was compared to this old man. Not to mention a classic tome, it can't even compare to the accounting book in the hand of a vendor.

Even the young refugees holding weapons next to the carriage raised their heads and pricked their ears, hoping that the old man could tell more news they didn't know.

Finally, a frustrated middle-aged businessman in the corner of the same car rubbed his face and said with a frustrated look: "I have been to the Western Province, visited Montauca City twice, and heard people talking about them in the tavern. Every year, soldiers have to be selected and handed over to the local earl to fight against what kind of sea?"

"Sea of ​​Cao."

The old man nodded and explained again: "It's called Caohai. This mysterious place is in the central area of ​​the Western Province. In short, it is a magical place. I heard people there say that even knights ride horses and circle around the boundless grass. It takes at least a month to run around the sea. Hahaha, this must be an exaggeration. After all, it takes less than a month to circle half of the western province on horseback. But it is too mysterious and mysterious, and there are all kinds of interactions with each other. There were conflicting statements, but everyone agreed that they were right.”

"Every year, a large number of wild beasts and monsters rush out of Caohai and go straight to the human towns and settlements closest to Caohai. Therefore, soldiers from all over the Western Province have to be transferred to serve and uniformly obey the command of the count."

He continued: "So, young people from all over the country gathered together, faced the same inhuman danger, got to know each other, and then returned to their hometowns, which made the western provinces no longer have differences in accents."

"What about the other one?"

A girl opened her eyes like a deer, huddled in the arms of her sisters, and mustered up the courage to ask about the existential crisis of another western province.

The old man smiled and stretched out his hand towards the place one meter three to four meters in front of him and gestured: "The other one is a dwarf. But I have never seen dwarves outside the kingdom, but I heard from familiar friends that the people from the Western Province Beyond the border of Shenli in the west is the kingdom of the dwarves. They will launch a military attack in a few years, and they will be very fierce."

At this time, the old man suddenly thought of something. He coughed twice and said with a smile: "Speaking of which, if this southern border war had occurred in the Western Province, it would have ended last year, right? The neighboring country to the south is just a small country. How could a country be like this? Hey, they are all provinces of the kingdom, but they are so different in terms of strength. What is the problem?"

Even this knowledgeable old man didn't know the answer, and the young people around him naturally couldn't tell.

They were aroused to talk, and turned to talk about the appearance of the dwarves in the stories they heard.

Dwarves in human stories have always been clumsy and arrogant. No one among them has seen or understood what they are like.

-

Keir finally lifted the third carriage up.

He rinsed his combat boots and palms by the river, then rode on the blood-licking grass and ran towards the river bank.

"Set off!"

Keir shouted, and the team identified the east-west direction and walked west along the trade road.

The team walked much faster on the flat trade road, the carriage no longer creaked and rocked, and the young people did not have to worry about being frightened by venomous snakes that suddenly jumped out of the grass on the flat trade road without grass.

The bandits were miserable. They looked at the corpses of the bandits being dragged behind the carriage and beside them. They were so sad that it was hard not to think that they might end up like this before too long.

The bandits all believed that despite the young knight's promise to surrender and avoid death, judging from the opponent's ruthless style and the young refugees around them who often cursed and followed them, surrender might only slow down the time of death.

Several bandits regretted it. If they had known that they would inevitably die in the end, they should have died with their brothers, so that the bodies could be burned together with the flames after death, and the souls might also be able to be companions when they go to the afterlife. .

Although it is inevitable to compete with the young refugees who died at the same time.

In this way, the team walked for an hour in the thin rain, and finally saw a continuous fire in the distance in the endless dark rain.

The fire was only a small point when seen from a distance, but as they got closer and closer, it grew in size.

The rescued people on the carriage saw too many people who were beyond their expectation.

"This size?"

The old man moved his unsuitable large waterproof animal skin hat and muttered to himself.

"No wonder, no wonder they can defeat the bandit team. No wonder there are so many people here." The old man was surprised that the young knight led so many people, but a frustrated middle-aged man in the same car blinked his eyelids and his eyes were in his sockets. Turn slowly.

This man's intuition is sending him the last and most important chance to make a comeback at this point in his life.

"People, so many people. The young knight's men." He murmured to himself, as if he had caught something, but he didn't seem to have missed it.

After hearing the man's soliloquy, the old man turned his head and glanced at the frustrated middle-aged man. He was kind-hearted and reminded: "Look at the size, there are at least hundreds of people. The food and clothing expenses of so many people are exactly what we need." It’s time for businessmen to cheer up and show their skills. Young people, seize this opportunity.”

His eyes quickly changed from confusion to clear and alert. The middle-aged frustrated businessman stared straight. He first confirmed again that there were hundreds of people beside the fire in the distance, hundreds of people listening to the young knight. Then he looked at the old man holding a shrinking boy.

He knew that if the old man had not driven away the mice, the young man would have been bitten into the throat by a mouse as big as a cat while he was unconscious. And then the old man also gave a lot of his food to the lost young man.

Everyone saw all this, but at that time everyone was in danger, and no one cared about the old man's 'meaningless' behavior. Only when the old man persuades the young man to eat, he will repeatedly tell the young boy comforting words such as the opportunity to change his destiny.

But no one expected that the tragic situation would reach the most desperate moment during the civil war between the bandits. However, at the most desperate moment, they were rescued by a young knight who suddenly appeared.

"You, aren't you also a businessman? And what you said just now, you must be very capable! Why?"

The middle-aged people don’t know, why don’t the old people who are also businessmen take this opportunity to make a comeback?

Remind him in vain and give him the opportunity to do it.

You must know that among the people who were rescued, except for the young man and the wife of a middle-aged wealthy businessman, the others were all chamber managers and leaders captured by the bandits.

Some are even the founders of small chambers of commerce.

Faced with the middle-aged man's doubts, the old man pointed to himself with a smile: "I am already quite old. This time I was robbed and captured by bandits and imprisoned and tortured for half a year. It is impossible for me to return to my hometown alive. After all, the journey is long. It’s so far away, I’m very satisfied if the ashes can go back.”

"And I don't have to worry about my family. To be honest, if I hadn't been a businessman all my life and couldn't rest when I got old, I wouldn't have had this disaster and suffering. I should have enjoyed happiness at home long ago and raised the younger generation. "

Having said this, the old man touched the hair of the shivering young man in his arms: "But it's not bad now. All the experience and knowledge of the old man in this life are also shouldered by others. He is not afraid that nothing will be left behind after death."

The middle-aged man nodded: "Do you need me to take your letter and that one back to your hometown later? Do you think I can repay this kindness?"

The old man shook his head and deliberately glanced down at the young man, only for the middle-aged man to see: "This is it."

"so?"

"so."

The middle-aged man nodded understandingly, and then quietly talked to the old man about how to be the first to catch the eyes of the young knight in the next opportunity.

The old man didn't say much, he just gave the man a few key points that he had observed. For the rest, the other party was not a fledgling young businessman. He naturally had his own abilities, so he didn't need to remind him.

The middle-aged man took a deep breath of the cold air and looked at the clearing and fire, as well as hundreds of young people, getting closer and closer.

He feels that the opportunity to turn his life around is right in front of him, and it must be his, and it will definitely be his.