Green Monster Epic

Chapter 669: Journey (Filler, optional to read!!)

The sky was filled with snowflakes, carried by the wind and frost, like sharp knives, devouring the energy stored within the adventurers and merchants struggling to travel through the wilderness.

Allen tightened the hood of his cloak. As a native of the wilderness, he rarely experienced such cold weather. Moreover, due to the presence of temporary companions who were concealing their identities, he couldn't use his rage to resist the omnipresent cold.

"…If only I could have a romantic encounter and meet a snow woman, that would be great!!"

Among male creatures, the topic that best bridges relationships is naturally females. Even though Allen's team consisted of members from various races, they all became interested when females were mentioned.

The middle-aged human fatty who spoke was named Carl. Despite his bulky figure and ordinary appearance, he was a Sword Dancer who relied on speed and agility in combat. At this moment, he was peering at the distant white mountains with a lecherous expression.

"Tch!!"

Lucine, a female orc in the middle of the group, carrying a long cylindrical gun bag filled with a dozen short javelins and a row of small throwing axes on her waist, glanced contemptuously at Carl's lower body and sneered, "With that puny body of yours, you'd probably turn into an ice sculpture with just a light kiss from a snow woman. You want a romantic encounter? Heh heh!!"

"Oh~~~~"

The other three teammates in the group let out a long sigh in unison, their eyes strangely scanning back and forth between the two companions of different races.

Even the merchants who hired them behind them cast curious glances, trying to understand why the escorting adventurers at the front were suddenly causing a commotion.

Although Allen wasn't particularly interested in matters of love, he was now disguised as a high-level berserker adventurer and didn't want to be too out of place, so he also put on a teasing expression.

After all, Allen's trip was only for a legendary crystal specialization, and to learn about the management methods of the human ruling class, etc. Now that he was on their territory, Allen couldn't be too assertive or threatening, so he decided to disguise himself as an ordinary adventurer first to inquire about the whereabouts of the Dual Focus specialization crystal.

"I say, aren't you all being too careless? You've accepted their money, so you should at least protect the safety of this merchant caravan."

Suddenly, a figure appeared before everyone, complaining discontentedly.

"What's wrong? Is there any danger ahead?"

Carl put on his helmet, restrained the expression on his face, and asked seriously.

"If we go forward another dozen miles, we'll reach the edge of the Taiga primeval coniferous forest. Do you think there's any danger?"

The dwarven rogue, Kelcie, patted the accumulated snow and ice off his body while pointing at the distant mountains behind him, covered in white snow, where faint gray tree trunks could be seen.

"If we really encounter ice elemental creatures like snow women, I'd like to see how you deal with them then!! You even have the nerve to talk about romantic encounters!!"

Allen had also seen spellcasters summon elemental creatures from various elemental planes, but he had never seen truly native elemental creatures in the wilderness. Now that he had arrived in this place, which was almost entirely covered in snow, he had seen all sorts of strange ice elemental creatures.

These natural spirits, born from the abundant natural water element, possessed the ability to cast spells from birth. They were given different names based on the type and number of spells they cast, as well as the forms they transformed into.

For example, the snow woman they were joking about was one of the ice elemental creatures that most resembled human-shaped creatures. Because of her beautiful and graceful appearance, she always aroused all sorts of fantasies in reckless adventurers.

Of course, commensurate with their appearance was the snow women's powerful spellcasting ability. A snow woman with almost the equivalent of a high-level spellcaster would likely make it very difficult for the temporary adventure team Allen had joined to cope, unless Allen intervened.

There was no way around it. Most of the adventurers who could take on tasks like escorting merchant caravans were relatively weak in strength. The seven-member team Allen was in had only two mid-level combatants, and the remaining four were still low-level warriors who hadn't awakened the energy within their bodies.

If the team members were stronger, it would be more promising and profitable for everyone to team up and go to the primeval coniferous forest and snowy mountains to hunt ice elemental creatures and ice magic beasts than to escort people.

Allen had inquired and learned about the scale and influence of the major spellcaster organizations in the Ice and Snow Kingdom, as well as the location of their respective headquarters. In the end, he chose Crystal Frost City, the capital of the Ice and Snow Kingdom, as his preferred destination, and specifically chose an adventurer's task with Crystal Frost City as its destination.

"Alright, everyone, perk up and prepare for battle!!"

After listening to Kelcie's guidance, Carl drew two single-handed swords from his waist, slightly wider than ordinary thin swords, and held them in his hands.

As the only two mid-level combatants in the team, Carl became the team's temporary captain by virtue of his strength. The other advanced Storm Ranger was Lucine, the female orc who had just been teased by everyone.

"Understood!!"

Allen echoed the voices of his other companions, pretending to take a two-handed battle-axe from his back, carrying it on his shoulder, and walking at the front of the team.

Although he was already on a different level from the adventurers in front of him, it was still fun to occasionally conceal his identity and act with them, at least it kept Allen from being so bored.

Moreover, traveling in the lower levels of the human world as an ordinary adventurer had also brought Allen considerable gains. For example, in the human kingdom, every town had a complete ruling institution. Even if the kingdom was thousands of miles away, the local ruling class in this small town could still manage the entire town properly and even achieve good development.

These management experiences were what Allen had never paid attention to before. As the territory of the Greenwood Tribe expanded and the natural environment improved, there would definitely be more satellite strongholds like Rapidwater Bay, Ouro Town, and Mustang Slope. This could both absorb the bloated population structure of Green Lake and Namur Fortress and steadily increase the tribe's overall population.

Furthermore, there were many convenient tools that had appeared in the human world, such as windmills that could automatically rotate and grind wheat by relying on wind power, and the iron rails built with two parallel iron bars and countless wooden planks in the mining area. A packhorse carrying a specially made carriage on it could transport far more ore than ordinary methods…

Allen was somewhat amazed that these novel things were not uncommon in the human world, but Allen had never seen them in the wilderness, and the other tribes in the wilderness seemed to never pay attention to such things. If Allen hadn't personally taken this trip to the Ice and Snow Kingdom, he probably wouldn't have learned about these more convenient and efficient novel things.

After entering the Taiga primeval forest, Allen and the others encountered animals more and more frequently. Several ghostly figures would occasionally trail the caravan from a distance, regarding this caravan of twenty-odd carriages as a herd of prey.

A bald-headed eagle swooped down from the sky, preparing to attack a human helper who had slightly strayed from the caravan, when a short javelin came whistling through the air, intersecting perfectly with the eagle's dive.

Clang!

The eagle swept its sharp claws, sending the javelin thrown by the orc Lucy flying away, but the eagle's pouncing motion was also stalled by Lucy's javelin. At the same time, hearing the noise, the human helper, who had been hiding in the snow to relieve himself, didn't care about anything else and scrambled back into the caravan.

Whoosh!

Before the deflected short javelin could land, Lucy retracted her hand, and the javelin on the ground flew back towards her. Allen, with his sharp eyes, noticed a thin, transparent thread tied to the tail of the javelin, connecting Lucy's hand to the javelin.

At the same time, the corpulent Karl displayed remarkable speed, seizing the moment before the eagle could launch a second attack, leaping forward and slashing his twin swords directly at the eagle's powerful wings.

Clang clang!

Whoosh!

Although the eagle was not a magical beast, creatures that could survive in this treacherous environment were not to be trifled with. With just a pair of feather-covered wings, it actually managed to block the two slashes from Karl, a mid-level swordsman.

Although Allen had suppressed ninety-nine percent of his strength, revealing only the peak strength of an 8th-level warrior when he accepted the employment, he was still stronger than most of his teammates. With his keen eyes, he had already used the charging technique, aiming for the route where Karl's strike forced the eagle to tilt towards the snow on the left. The ordinary battle axe he had purchased from a nameless human town emitted a sharp whistling sound as it slashed across the eagle's abdomen.

Whirr!

"Aww!!!"

The eagle let out a miserable cry, flapping its wings frantically, stirring up countless snowflakes and ice crystals. The internal organs from its abdominal cavity flowed out of the wound with steaming heat, along with a stream of bloody, sweet liquid that gradually stained the surrounding snow red.

"Yo, not bad, Allen!!"

Karl was only a step behind Allen. Having been knocked back during his slash, he quickly regrouped and returned to the fray, just in time to witness Allen's brilliant slash. He couldn't help but look at this seemingly quiet hobgoblin with new respect.

Lucy, Kelsie, and the other teammates arrived belatedly. Apart from Lucy, who was a ranged attacker, the other teammates were of little use against flying creatures, so they had simply maintained their positions to protect the caravan and had not participated in the eagle's demise.

"It was alright."

Allen, mimicking the honest demeanor of Stone from his memory, scratched his sparse hair on his head and replied shyly.

"You're probably not far from advancing!!"

"I don't know!"

"Awesome!!"

The surrounding companions looked at Allen with envy and admiration.

Next was the matter of cleaning up and distributing the spoils. Just as everyone was enthusiastically sorting out their unexpected gains, a series of low rumbles suddenly came from the primeval coniferous forest, and the snow on the pine trees also rustled down to the ground, causing Allen and his companions, along with the fellow travelers in the caravan, to feel nervous. They quickly formed the caravan carriages into a circle, and the group hid within the walls formed by the carriage frames and goods.

Karl, Allen, and the other guards, along with the dozen or so helpers from the caravan itself, watched the road deep in the forest with solemn expressions.

Thud! Thud! Thud!!

When the source of the unknown sound finally revealed its true form, the pale faces of Karl and the others finally regained a trace of color. It turned out that a cavalry team of dozens of people had burst out of the forest.

Allen had actually sensed this group of knights, the source of the sound, through his mental threads long ago, but when he actually saw this group of knights arrive, he couldn't help but compare them to his tribe's goblin cavalry, because the mounts ridden by this cavalry team were of the same origin as the dire wolves ridden by the Green Field Tribe's hobgoblins, a group of more robust, shaggy snow wolves.

"What are you doing?"

"Greetings, sirs. We are a team from the Snow Pine Needle Merchant Guild, preparing to travel to Frost Crystal City to trade. This is our guild's documentation."

After the snow wolf cavalry team arrived in front of the caravan, a human guard captain wearing a bulky animal skin coat and a full set of fine iron armor underneath walked over with a dignified expression and began to interrogate them.

"Have you seen anything unusual along the way, or any human figures flying in the sky??"

The young human guard captain continued to ask.

"We have not seen anything unusual."

Duncan, the manager of the human caravan, a handsome middle-aged man, replied cautiously.

"Well, good. Be careful on the road. The royal city has been conducting strict investigations recently. If you find anything unusual, remember to report it to the guards along the way, understand?"

The guard captain's gaze swept over Karl, Allen, and the other adventurers, as if searching for something, but after seeing the bloodstains on Allen and the others and the remains of the eagle that had not yet been cleaned up beside the road, he retracted his gaze with relief.

"Understood! Understood!!"

The human manager, Duncan, nodded repeatedly.

Soon, this cavalry team left as suddenly as it had arrived, leaving behind only a mess of footprints. Because of this unexpected event, the caravan thought it best not to continue onward, and simply set up camp on the spot, using the carriages as a perimeter.

Allen and the others were naturally happy to do so, taking the opportunity to roast the eagle they had unexpectedly obtained today, to reward everyone for their wind-swept and dew-soaked diet and life on the road.

"Why don't I do it!!"

Watching his companions' crude handling of the eagle, Allen frowned slightly and couldn't help but walk over to the half-orc Grinton, who was cleaning the feathers off the eagle's body with dissatisfaction, and volunteered to take over the job of cleaning up the eagle's carcass.

These temporary companions were fair, and when distributing the spoils of the eagle's carcass, they counted Allen's contribution as the greatest, and a pair of the most valuable eagle claws fell into his hands.

With this boost of goodwill, coupled with the fact that Allen's hands were indeed itching to cook, it allowed this group of temporary companions to have a taste of the delicacies cooked by the 'God of Cookery'.

"Great!! Then I'll leave it to you!!"

Grinton couldn't help but rejoice, quickly stood up to make way, and slipped away.