Mercenaries and Adventurers

In the blurred light from the opposite campfire, Zhao Ji saw a dark object descending slowly from above the campfire. It was one meter thick and looked like a cylinder.

The six-legged deer kept struggling on the spot, but it was too small, and it was difficult for its six legs to break free from the rope around its neck and the wooden nails that nailed the rope to the ground.

"Mou! Mou! Mou Mou!" The fawn shouted nervously as it swung its head, but it didn't work at all. The thick black shadow above its head was still slowly approaching it from the top of its head.

Zhao Ji's eyes were wide open, and he looked at everything not far away without moving.

After the thick black shadow above the deer's head approached the top of the deer's head soundlessly, it opened its mouth at least over 120 degrees from the lower end, or something.

This thing silently bit the howling fawn into its mouth, finally bit off the rope that had been tied around the fawn's neck, and began to rise slowly.

The deer's constant howling disappeared after the giant black mouth closed.

Zhao Ji hesitated whether to launch a sneak attack from the hidden pit dug out at this time.

But when Zhao Ji was hesitant to think about it, the strange thing that swallowed the six-legged deer no longer slowly retracted into the misty air, but swiped it up quickly, and then disappeared in the air. In the strange white mist that is not illuminated by the campfire.

Seeing that the thing disappeared, Zhao Ji also let go of the hand holding the sword hilt.

No wonder the previous people mysteriously disappeared directly. It turned out that they were swallowed whole by the monster in this way. As far as I saw just now, the deer didn't make a sound after being swallowed. No matter what kind of monster this thing is, it at least has a very strong stealthy attack ability.

If the traveling business travelers are careless, they will indeed make the guards and sentries disappear silently for no reason.

After all, if Zhao Ji hadn't been hiding here by himself, if he had stayed outside like that little deer just now, it would have been difficult for him to notice what happened next to him, especially the thick white mist around him.

Even though it was already below the freezing point, these things that blocked the line of sight still appeared. It was very strange. No matter how you looked at it, it didn't look like something that appeared naturally.

After waiting for a while, Zhao Ji continued to move, but the surrounding white mist that had obscured his vision gradually dissipated, just like when these white mist came, they were all mysterious and unpredictable.

--

After the white mist dissipated, Zhao Ji could finally see everything around him clearly again. The campfire was still burning vigorously, illuminating a range of more than 20 meters around.

But Zhao Ji didn't dare to go out. He decided to wait until daytime, and then go out from here to check if there were any traces left around when the monster appeared just now.

Judging from the monster's huge mouth, which was more than one meter thick, the monster must be quite big. It can swallow animals and humans in one bite, and its natural size must be at least bigger than the elephants he saw in his previous life.

But the monster wouldn't be too big. After all, no matter how big it was, with the weight of the monster, it would be impossible for it to approach without making a strong tremor on the ground.

As for Zhao Ji, who had been hiding in the dug pit, his body clinging to the pit wall did not feel the slightest vibration.

In this way, Zhao Ji carefully opened the buckle of the armor on his neck, leaving his helmet in place, while he retreated into the dark pit to rest.

I don't know if the monster found him, but Zhao Ji couldn't help but rest. He hid himself by the wheel of the cart, lying sideways at the bottom of the cold hole he had just dug.

He fumbled for the wolf-fur cloak, wrapped it in the wolf-fur cloak, held the half-drawn long sword from his waist with his hand, and fell asleep in a daze.

----

The next morning, just after dawn, Zhao Ji woke up.

He wet his hands with not-so-cold water from the water bag, and then rubbed his cheeks vigorously to wake himself up.

First, he carefully put his head back into the armor helmet that was still stuck on the edge of the hole, and carefully looked around the situation. He also focused on whether there was any monster's big mouth on the top of his head.

After everything around was safe, Zhao Ji carefully climbed out of the pothole with a lot of camouflage.

The dry weeds on the ground are covered with a thin layer of ice crystal crumbs, appearing withered yellow with a layer of silvery white.

He moved his body a little, and came to the open space where the campfire was lit last night.

The rope binding the fawn was broken in place, Zhao Ji walked over to pick it up and inspect it carefully. It was found that the rope was cut by a very sharp thing. According to his observation last night, the edge of the monster's giant mouth should have sharp teeth, which can easily cut the strong rope. The three hunters who died.

Now he can confirm that the three hunters are indeed dead. Such a mysterious predator swallows its prey, not for anything else, but for predation.

The campfire that had added a lot of firewood last night had already been extinguished, because the fuel was not added a little bit, so the campfire probably should have been extinguished early last night.

I fiddled with the ashes of the campfire a few times with a dead branch, and there was still a residual fire in it, and as he fiddled with it, it started to burn again.

He didn't find bloodstains where the deer stayed last night, and it didn't look like every time the monster hunted, it would leave some final traces on the prey.

The question now is, what kind of monster was that thing he saw last night?

Zhao Ji didn't know much about the monsters in this different world, but from what he saw, they were basically inseparable from the existing creatures. So what animals hunt like that.

Creates a white mist, and sneaks up on the prey at night, swallowing it in one gulp.

Everything was silent.

Unable to figure it out, Zhao Ji grilled a piece of frozen meat with toast and ate it, then began to explore the surroundings.

In any case, the monster had sneaked in from above the head of its prey, and unless the thing could fly, it must have left some marks on the surrounding ground.

It has been a while since the monster devoured the three hunters before, and it is basically impossible to search for traces that I don't know how to find after many days.

But when the monster devoured the deer last night, it was not more than half a day ago. There is no wind from other places around. If there are traces, they should still be there.

Taking the ax behind him and holding it in his hand, Zhao Ji began to search around the edge of the campfire clearing. He searched in circles and gradually expanded the scope of the search.

He doesn't care about the usual broken branches. After all, there are still roads for business travel here, although some people here are afraid to take this road because of the recent mysterious disappearance. But after all, the timid and the bold are starved to death. Some daring merchants still take risks in order to increase the profit of the price of goods because there are fewer other merchants. Set off, and then run directly to the gloomy forest village in the west to sell goods.

The villagers who couldn't live without the various commodities of Kendall City had no choice but to resist the price increase of the merchants and spend more agricultural products in exchange for the various commodities brought by the merchants from Kendall City.

The circle Zhao Ji circled was getting bigger and bigger, and he himself couldn't believe it more and more. If he still hasn't found any traces of last night, then it is true that the monster was flying in the air to prey from the air, or It was the body part that the monster used to hunt and devour its prey, and it was very long.

Very, very long!

But in that case, how heavy the monster would be. After all, the longer the giant mouth stretched out to prey, the heavier its body would have to be in order to maintain its balance.

Zhao Ji thought, maybe that monster is a very long giant snake? Such a conjecture can explain how the monster hunted in that way.

However, if it was really a very huge giant snake, how could he fight it. At that time, he had to go back to Kendall City to send reinforcements.

I don't know if that's the case, can Knight Crowe defeat such a monster.

When Zhao Ji searched in circles and was at least fifty meters away from the campfire, he gave up the method of continuing to search for traces left by the monster.

After all, he was already 50 meters away from the campfire. It was impossible for such a big monster to haunt the surroundings without leaving any traces.

Besides, if the monster is really this big, it will definitely not be enough to fill its stomach with only one small deer last night. Just that small deer, three or five strong men can eat all the meat in one meal Now, it is impossible to satisfy a monster of a huge size.

If the other party wants to fill their stomachs, they have to attack the village and eat the domesticated livestock and humans in the village.

But the village asked Zhao Ji when he set off, and no one disappeared, and no inexplicable livestock was lost. It seems that either the monster spends most of its time in the forest, and the pedestrian business travel on this road is just its occasional food. Either that monster is like Goblin, at least has basic intelligence, knowing that few people who attack the wild will attack it, but if it attacks the village, then it is not far from the end.

Zhao Ji held the ax and hesitated whether to search for it in the forest on both sides of the road.

Looking at the gloomy forest that was still eerie in the morning, Zhao Ji twitched his lips, and after thinking about it for a while, he walked slowly to the nearest forest on the north side of the camp.

The most powerful weapon in his hand is this axe, the 'Overwater Head', even the Goblin stone statue, which looked evil and had amazing destructive power a few days ago, was defeated by this axe.

So at least when holding this ax in his hand, he felt at ease. If there were any particularly powerful monsters entrenched in the forest, he would definitely give that monster a taste of his ax before retreating. taste.

Due to the cold temperature, the ground was not too difficult to walk on. It should have been a soft ground that could sink into his boots quite a bit deep, but now when he stepped on it, it made a crackling sound, which was quite interesting.

It feels like stepping on the ground paved with slices of potato chips.

Fallen leaves in autumn are originally rich in water, coupled with the continuous rainfall in autumn, the ground should be soft and slippery. But fortunately, it was already winter, and the water-rich soil was frozen hard, and all the water in the fallen leaves was frozen.

Zhao Ji's walking in the forest was no slower than walking on the road. It's not hard to walk.

This made Zhao Ji feel relieved, at least if something unexpected happens in the future, he can run quickly and stay away from everything that can't catch up with him.

He carefully searched the forest and trees closest to the campfire. He knew that the monster should be nocturnal. It was daytime now, so as long as it didn't go deep into the forest, there should be no problem.

Putting the ax on the ground, Zhao Ji squatted on the ground, checking a trace that he thought was a little strange.

This is a ball of dead leaves standing on the ground, a bit like the leaf ball he used to wrap the slime monster's body. But Zhao Ji knew that it was already winter, and it was hard to find slime monsters in the swamp in late autumn, not to mention that now that the air is so low, there is no need for slime monsters to form balls, and they have not crawled out yet. When hiding in the ground, it is estimated that it has been frozen below the ground. It is even more impossible to climb out of the ground and stick a circle of dead leaves on the surface of the forest.

Looking at the surrounding situation, Zhao Ji felt that it was a little unsafe to open the dead leaf ball here. The surrounding environment became darker and darker as he went deeper into the forest, making him feel unsafe all the time, with a faint sense of danger from the bottom of his heart.

It was as if he was being stared at from a distance by something.

Is it the little yellow light thing I met in the elf ruins before?

That thing was always secretly staring at him near the elf ruins, and would play some pranks on him.

But at that time, he didn't have the sense of danger that he has now. Although the little thing was annoying, it was quite interesting.

Zhao Ji stood up and used an ax to beat the dead leaf ball all the way away from the forest area. He didn't feel safe until the sun shone.

Only then did Zhao Ji start to see what was hidden inside the dead leaf ball.

For safety's sake, he didn't touch it with his armored gloved hands. Instead, he pulled out a steel dagger, and used the dagger to cut open the dead leaves on the outer layer of the ball. The dead leaves on the outer layer are easy to deal with, but after that, he can't cut them in.

Inside was a hard mass of translucent congealed stuff. Looking through the translucent solidified substance, you can still see many dead leaves wrapped inside. Hit it a few times with the dagger, and there was only a bang bang sound, which showed that this thing seemed to be the product of something solidified, but it had at least the hardness of steel.

Seeing that this thing was so difficult to deal with, Zhao Ji withdrew his dagger, stood up straight, raised his ax high, and struck down with one axe.

There was a muffled bang.

Zhao Ji felt that his hands were numb from the vibration from the handle of the axe. Looking down, he found that the place hit by the axe was only slightly shattered with a crack as big as the edge of the axe.

The other parts are intact, not even the dead leaves wrapped inside have been shattered. At the same time, the solidified thing at the core was also deeply sunken into the frozen soil on the ground.

"What is this thing? It's so hard?" Zhao Ji saw that the things on the ground were not damaged, and immediately looked at the damage of his ax with care.

Fortunately, although I don't know what magical things are added to this ax, its weight and hardness are amazing. The strange thing on the ground was hard enough, and his ax seemed to be a little bit harder, and the blade was not damaged.

Now that he had discovered this strange contraption, although he himself did not know what it was, it looked as if it had appeared only recently, maybe even last night.

Zhao Ji lifted the thing up and examined it carefully, thinking that it might be left by a monster.

Probably.

After all, this area is just an ordinary road and forest, and the most likely connection with this thing is the monster he encountered last night.

Although it could be seen that it was something left by a monster, Zhao Ji couldn't tell what it was, so he had to go back to the camp, find a piece of sackcloth from his trolley, hug it up and tie it up.

If this thing is something like a monster's egg, then he will wrap it up so that there will be no accidents.

Returning to the place where the thing was found before, Zhao Ji found that there was a very thick tree next to the thing. Compared with other big trees nearby, this tree was more than twice as thick, and it looked very strong.

After walking around the big tree, Zhao Ji squinted his eyes and looked at the upper part of the big tree. He felt that there should be some clues on it. His intuition is like this~www.readwn.com~ Putting the ax behind his back, Zhao Ji pulled out the dagger, and used the dagger to dig out a half of the sole of his foot on the bark of this big tree. Or a small hole in half the palm of your hand.

He seemed to be digging very deep, but Zhao Ji knew by feeling that he just dug a small hole in the dry bark of this big tree that would fall off in the next year. Judging from the thick trunk of this big tree, he didn't even dig into the bark of the big tree.

Digging holes up little by little, Zhao Ji followed these small holes and crawled all the way up.

When he finally reached the lowest branch, Zhao Ji took out the rope and tied it to the branch, making a way for him to get down quickly.

One length of rope was not enough, so he descended down the rope, returned to the cart, and brought out another large bundle of rope.

Going up the dug hole, Zhao Ji continued to climb up. By noon, he had already climbed half of the big tree. If it weren't for the armor he was wearing that got in the way, he would have climbed to the top of the tree.

However, he did not dare to take off his armor and act in this dangerous and difficult place.

After he stood at a height of at least thirty meters above the ground, he finally found the trace of the monster he needed.

Looking up, avoiding the sunlight, he saw that at the top of a big tree more than ten meters higher than him, there was a large group of translucent substances clinging to the trunk.

If he hadn't climbed up the tree and only looked up from the ground, it would be impossible to see those translucent substances that were attached to the trunk at a height of about 50 meters from the ground.

Looking at those translucent things, Zhao Ji knew that they were the same unknown thing as the lump of hard matter he found on the ground.

So, should you continue to climb up and take a closer look?

Zhao Ji thought about it.