Mercenaries and Adventurers

The next day, the snow in the sky was heavier than the previous few days.

But that doesn't affect people living in the city of Kendall, who are highly dependent on a well-established supply of low-priced firewood from a chamber of commerce for heating. The Kendall River freezes in winter, but the chamber of commerce has already accumulated firewood for the whole city to use in winter before the river freezes. They were all piled up on the land of the Chamber of Commerce near the river and the city wall in the north of the city.

Since I'm going to Knight Lanisa to discuss the next hunt, after waking up in the morning, Kiel just had a meal first, and then took the time to take care of his three horses before locking up the stronghold with the other hunters. Gate, and go up the street together to the Knight's Villa 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 led a group of ten of them to the gate of the female knight's house.

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

Curiously, Keel leaned over to observe, and found that it was a map carefully drawn on a whole piece of drawing paper. The topography of mountains and rivers, forest plains, towns and villages, etc. are marked on it.

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

Seeing that Kiel was paying attention to these, the old hunters next to him explained to Kiel that the wolf-head chess piece represented the area where they had discovered large packs of wolves in the past few years. And the small sword chess piece represents the place where they fight the wolves in winter.

Kiel noticed that the chess piece representing Xiaojian had time information engraved on it. He looked at the time on the three chess pieces and read them out one by one: "780, 781, 782." He Scratching his head, he asked, "By the way, how many years has it been this year?"

A young hunter beside him said, "783 of the Empire, it will be 784 soon."

Kilby drew the positions of several chess pieces on the map, and said with a smile: "So, we have been driving wolves to the northern mountains and forests in recent years, right? It's amazing."

However, an old hunter, Quirindo, denied 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." What happened in the middle of the day, but in fact, for the wolves, it has nothing to do with their usual harassment of villagers and caravans."

Another person interjected: "Wolves are cunning and good at running long distances, so although their nests may be in the mountains, they tend to hunt very far away when they hunt. They even occasionally come across Wumi Lake and Wumi River. Raid the caravan passing by."

Umi Lake Kiel knew that it was the knight territory of Knight Lanisa and her family, and there was a village on the south side of it - Umi Lake Village, but Umi River didn't know which river it was.

Regarding Kiel's doubts, an old hunter happened to introduce the place on the map to Kiel before the female knight came, so as not to be confused when discussing later.

If the Kendall River flowing in the northwest and southeast is used as the identification orientation, then in the northeast of the Kendall River is the vast Wumi Lake, the south side of the lake is the Wumi Lake Village, and the north side has not been reclaimed.

In the southwest direction of Wumi Lake, there is a river flowing in the southwest direction. From the lake to the southwest direction, it has been converging with the Kendall River.

This river is called the Umi River.

And at the confluence of the Wumi River and the Kendall River, a lush estuary town, here is a three-way meeting place. From here, go 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 station of the Imperial Knights. This is already the border of the kingdom, not only the border, but also the geographical border of the entire human world.

From Hekou Town to the south, you will reach Kendall City along the river.

In addition, to the north and northwest of Wumi Lake, there are large areas of mountain forests. Although there are still within the geographical borders 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 the Imperial Border Knights who maintain the security of the vast border.

Of course, in recent years, Knight Lanisa and her hunters will also enter this mountain forest to hunt down the wolves that harass humans.

After listening to everyone's description, Kiel touched the shallow beard on his chin, and after thinking for a while, he said, "So why do those wolves come out to attack humans in the mountains and forests on the north side of Wumi Lake?"

"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 monsters: "Maybe there are powerful monsters deep in the mountains and forests, and they are developing south in order to survive?"

But this was also overturned by others: "Impossible, if this is the case, why didn't those wolves move their nests out of the forest, so that they don't need to go back and forth for a long distance to hunt."

An old hunter knocked on the wooden table and said: "Don't forget, compared to the monster we dealt with before, the wolf king, the leader of the wolf pack, is not inferior to the opponent at all. Being able to fight against the knight alone has the upper hand , which shows that the strength of the wolf king is even higher than that of the previous Warcraft."

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

She was followed by an elderly butler Keel had seen.

The servant closed the wooden door, and immediately ran to the corner of the room to light a fire in the stone hearth.

Knight Lanisa took off the jacket of the female knight uniform, and handed it to the housekeeper behind her, complaining casually: "Is there even a knight among those who designed the clothes? They are stumped by extra heat preservation measures." Don’t you know that knights are not afraid of the severe cold in winter? I remember that our kingdom’s winter is the coldest and it’s not too cold. It’s not a neighbor to the north.”

The butler turned out to be a thick knight uniform coat, and after a little tidying up, he hung it on the clothes hanger at the door and put it away. He didn't answer the female knight's complaints.

When the others saw the knight coming, they all got up and saluted neatly, and Kiel also saluted with everyone.

"Everyone, please sit down. Today, let us discuss the preparations for this year's wolf pack." After speaking, everyone sat down neatly, and then looked at Knight Lanisa.

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

"Secondly, because you are skilled, so when you fight against a strong enemy with me, as my deputy, harass the strong enemy, distract it, look for its possible flaws, and create opportunities for me to severely injure the enemy."

"Understood!" Keel responded immediately.

"Very well, the next important thing to discuss is the three horses that were seized from the bandits. Originally, these horses were to be handed over to the Knights in the north by the Baron or Knight Claw. But since Kiel made a contribution before, He wanted horses again, so I made it my call to give him these three healthy horses."

Speaking of this, Knight Lanisa took a piece of paper from the steward, which listed many things by category: "Of course, as I said before, when it comes to fighting against the wolves in the north in winter, the three horses of Kiel must Apply to this first."

"This is a must." Kiel said quickly.

Nodding, the knight then pushed the paper in his hand to other people to watch: "So, with three horses, our logistics and supply transportation capacity has been greatly enhanced. I have studied it carefully and believe that the things on these papers can serve as our Great help on this hunt."

Several old hunters took the paper, and an old hunter who could read read the content on it for others to listen to.

And Keir didn't need it, he knew the words here, so he leaned over directly and carefully read the content written on it.

-

In fact, it is not complicated. Knight Lanisa considered that the supply transport that the three horses and carriages can carry has been greatly enhanced, so according to the new transport capacity, they asked to prepare some things that they could not bring when they set off before.

First is the food.

After they crossed the Umi River from Umi Lake Village, there was a supply point there. There they will carry less than ten days' rations into the vast mountain forest on the north side.

Although Knight Lanisa's horse is also a horse, it is a war horse with heavy armor. Secondly, the horse has an amazing appetite. The weight of the supplies it can carry is used to carry its own food.

The food for war horses can't just feed them hay, they must prepare some nutritious beans that are easy to carry. Rhizome foods are not bad, but in rhizome foods, water accounts for a huge weight. After removing the water, the dry matter is not as much as beans.

And 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 the extra three ordinary horses, they can carry more supplies from villages and towns at once. The supply point extends far into the edge of the forest.

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

Wolves are carnivorous, and humans can survive for a long time with the food they carry with them, but they are just ferocious animals, and they have no chance to hunt, and entanglement with hunters will only make them weak and tired.

Everyone discussed on the side of the map, and they all felt that with the carriage and sufficient horse capacity, they could not start directly from Wumi Lake Village.

the reason is simple.

There is no bridge over the Umi River.

Although horses can cross the river, it is impossible for the carriage and the materials transported on the carriage to cross the river on the shoulders of the horse. After all, the Wumi River is deep and rapid, and it is not easy to pass.

So after discussing with everyone, we decided to start from Hekou Town and go along the other side of the Wumi River, so as to avoid the trouble of crossing the river.

"But I still have to go to the village. It's impossible to keep my villagers from knowing what I'm doing. Otherwise, they will be terrified." Lanisa Knight said.

She is the leader, how does she decide that everyone agrees.

So it was decided that after everyone arrived at the first supply point before, they unloaded the supplies, and then returned to Hekou Town to transport the second supplies. And she crossed the river to the village for a walk, not only to appease the villagers, but also to call a few villagers to guard the supply point for them.

After all, what Knight Lanisa has to prepare this time is not only food supplies, but also other things. We have to prevent some daring guys from stealing the supplies they put in the supply point when they went into the forest to fight against the wolves.

Regarding this decision, it was only then that everyone realized that this must be done, because the second part written on the paper was other preparations for Knight Lanisa.

-

After the food, there are traps dedicated to fighting wolves.

The wolves that ravaged the Northland were huge, a circle larger than the wild wolves in other places. So Knight Lanisa asked Baron Kendall for a batch of iron, and specially asked craftsmen to rush to make a batch of hunting clips.

These things can be very effective at immobilizing less intelligent animals, especially if they are about to attack.

Every time the clip is closed fiercely, the animal's legs and feet can be pinched off, and the heavy metal clip 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 heavy.

Knight Lanisa has already seen a well-made iron clip. Each one is 25 centimeters high when closed, which is enough to catch the beast feet of the northern wolves who stepped inside. They cannot be easily shaken off. .

Each clip weighs seven kilograms, not an easy weight for a coyote that weighs about the weight of a grown woman. Not to mention the pain and the pinched legs and feet, even the weight of seven kilograms can make it difficult for a wild wolf to run fast.

At this point, Knight Lanisa smiled confidently: "I plan to bring fifty such iron clips, and then in the mountains and forests, I will specially prepare a trap to lure wild wolves to attack, which will definitely greatly damage the wolf king Those men. In addition to Kiel, a melee fighter, and they have the least number of adult wolves at this time."

"This year, I will go straight to the lair of wolves. Not only will I eliminate the huge number of wolves, but I will also look for opportunities to defeat that guy. Not only because it has been wreaking havoc in the north, but also because it has defeated me many times. Drive me away. It's because of it." Said here, Knight Lanisa clenched her fists fiercely, making a creaking sound of clenched fists.

The knight's steward bowed his head and said something in the knight's ear, which calmed down Knight Ranisa.

"It's okay, UU reading www.uukanshu.com don't even look at me. Let's concentrate on discussing these iron clips." Knight Lanisa changed the topic awkwardly.

Keir believed that everyone could see that the knight himself had a deep hatred for the wolf king, but since the other party didn't want to explain, everyone had to change the subject.

However, everyone has vaguely heard the rumors of Knight Lanisa. Her father, Knight Birkenstock Lanisa, was rumored to have disappeared in the northern forest.

In this society, when someone disappears in the mountains, people basically assume that the person concerned is dead. Especially after so many years of disappearance, it is basically impossible for a middle-aged knight who is skilled and in the prime of life to survive.

A few years ago, Knight Jenny Lanisa, who was still studying abroad, had to attend a funeral without bones, and then tried her best to take over the burden of the family, became a 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, even though she went out to study for many years without training, the young Jenny became a newly promoted knight, kept the family territory, and had the opportunity to find her father. possibility of disappearance.

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

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

It wasn't that everyone couldn't come up with some new ideas before, but it was limited by the long distance to travel and the weight of materials that could be carried on the body. Now that there are horses and carriages, not only the transportation capacity has been greatly enhanced, but if the first trip to the supply point is not considered, the carriage will only need to carry all the accompanying personnel on the vehicle, and the journey time from Hekou Town to the supply point will be longer. , will also be greatly strengthened with the speed of travel.