Mercenaries and Adventurers

There were roughly a hundred militiamen staying here overnight. When they saw Baron Kendall and Knight Crowe coming to patrol, they immediately lowered their voices.

It is estimated that Knight Crowe trained well along the way. Although it was the first time to spend the night in this kind of underground building at this time, the militiamen still gathered together according to their respective teams, and the simple bedding laid on the ground was next to each other. But separated from other teams.

"Where should soldiers defecate at night?"

The baron looked at it, then asked a local villager who was adding fuel to the fire in the middle.

Asked by a nobleman leading the army, even the young villagers who are in charge of the caravan, are a little nervous at this moment, unable to speak, so they can only raise their arms stiffly and point to the side of the circular room a small door.

Keel guessed that it was a place for the people living here to defecate. After all, there were monsters in the sky outside, and it was impossible for people to just go to a place where there was no one outside the building to defecate at will. Hygiene is a trivial matter, but being spotted and captured by monsters flying in the sky at night is the trouble.

At that time, someone will disappear overnight without any reason. Although everyone who comes and goes and lives here knows what happened, the resulting disputes and the possibility of killing someone with a borrowed knife will actually be a source of trouble.

So it's better to put all the things that can go out at night in the building.

The baron was quite satisfied with this, and he led people around the entire circular room, and found that in addition to the entrance of the passage and stairs when they came, there was also an underground passage leading to other places, a simple toilet, a Water storage room with sink.

These four places are respectively in the four directions of this interior space.

When I came here, there was still a lower level of stairs. I asked the local villagers, but they hesitated for a long time before they dared to speak, explaining that the next level is the place to store supplies.

In terms of space, it is a circle smaller than here.

Then he asked why he didn't go to other buildings through the surface. The villager pointed to the small door when he pushed the car, and said that he could go to other buildings through the aisle underneath.

The baron took Kiel and the others here with great interest, and found that compared to other narrow spaces and passages, this passage connecting the underground buildings of various villages is more spacious.

"This is because the channel has been reinforced and there are no other heavy buildings pressing it down. If you just dig a channel in the ground, the reinforced channel will not easily collapse."

The baron explained to the people around him, while walking, he tapped the wall of the passage twice with the short gemstone staff in his hand. These walls are all reinforced with earth bricks. Even so, between the bricks above the head, there will still be some long and deep grass roots squeezed out from the gaps in the earth bricks.

It should be mentioned here that there is no lighting arranged by the locals in the passage at this time, and the surrounding light is all from the white light from the gemstone at the top of the gemstone scepter in the baron's hand.

The baron took a closer look at the sparse grass roots on the top of the passage, and asked Knight Crowe to jump up to help him pick a handful off.

Take a look, sniff it, and then use your fingertips to crush a little bit of discrimination. After finishing, the baron shook his head disdainfully, and said to his own people around him, "That's all."

He went on to explain, regardless of the fact that Crow Knight was not interested in this: "The locals just laid a whole circle of simple fired earth bricks in the excavated soil channel. There was no further processing, so the above Grassroots will extend into here."

Kiel said, "My lord, if you say that, it's obviously not a good thing, right?"

The baron nodded: "Of course it's not a good thing, this kind of place." He pointed to the surrounding passages: "If no one lives and maintains it, five years!"

He stretched out one hand and opened it: "In five years, the earth bricks on the top will collapse. Although the entire passage will not collapse at the same time, it will not take long."

"And if someone maintains it, it will last twice as long at most. Although the locals put in a lot of effort to do this, it's still too simple. If it were me, hmph."

The baron snorted proudly: "With the same materials and manpower, it is guaranteed that it can be done without maintenance for fifty years."

Kiel didn't believe this, but the surrounding Knights of Crowe and the Baron's personal guards thought it should be so.

-

Everyone walked forward along the passage, and not far away, there was a small door on the side of the passage, and the small door was not closed. The baron shone the light in his hand, revealing the messy stacks of fuel hay stalks and hay leaves that livestock ate.

It is probably the place where the villager brought things just now.

This place is not interesting, and the group continues on.

After turning a small corner, he followed the passage and entered another circular room. The baron's soldiers were also sitting here. Seeing the baron and Knight Crowe entering through the small aisle door, the militiamen all stood up and saluted.

Some people were eating dinner, and they put the wooden bowls on the ground without thinking too much at this time, and smashed their left chests with their right fists.

The baron looked at it, but just waved his hands and didn't speak, while Knight Crowe asked them to rest directly after eating, and they might have to fight tomorrow.

The structure here is basically exactly the same as the previous underground building. After a brief look, the baron found a passage leading to another place.

Obviously, unlike the underground building they had entered before, there were only four spaces for soldiers to live there, but here, because it was connected to other places, there were walkways at both ends.

Walk along the new aisle, this time, there are more things in the aisle.

Unlike the aisle just now where there is only one place to store supplies, there are small doors on both sides of the aisle here, but they are all locked from the outside, and there is obviously no one inside, and I don’t know what is behind these doors. of.

About this, Kiel soon knew.

A group of people walked through five buildings including the first underground building, each of which lived in about a hundred militiamen, and the sixth building lived in support staff, including the baron and two Some of the knight's bodyguards, clerks, church priests and conscripted town guards and militia.

The Rumi knight is also here at this time, ensuring the safety of these non-soldiers very well.

It doesn't really matter, after all, the combat power of the baron's personal guards is higher than that of ordinary town guards, and town guards are much higher than ordinary soldiers. In a real fight, these dozens of people could easily defeat a hundred militiamen.

After walking through several underground buildings that looked exactly the same, Kiel and the others didn't know where everyone was in the village at this time, but seeing the doubts on Kiel's face, Knight Crowe smiled.

"Kiel, why can't you understand such an easy thing. Why don't you go out and have a look." The knight reminded, and Kiel immediately climbed up the stairs that every underground building has, and then followed the **** where livestock can walk Dao continued to go up half a floor.

When he came out, he realized that the building he was in was not far from the first underground building he entered.

It can even be said that the straight-line distance between the two buildings is very close.

Keir couldn't understand and scratched his head, looking at the darkening sky outside, and the militiamen and guards wrapped in heavy clothes standing guard under the logistics carriage not far away.

The wind blowing around became stronger again, and the dark sky was only dotted with stars and strange celestial bodies of gods.

At this time, the moon has not risen.

Kilmer counted the days and found that today was the last quarter moon, and he would have to wait until midnight when the three moons rose and leaked their crescents.

The first half of the night will be much darker than the second half.

Thinking of this, Keir slapped his head and figured out what happened just now.

It turns out that the passages connecting the various underground buildings in the local area are not connected to each other, but start from the outermost building in the village, circle around the outer circle, and then continue to circle inward.

Just like the shells of animals such as snails and conchs.

Basically a clockwise spiral channel. This channel connects the underground buildings one by one, and the closer to the middle, the denser it should be.

At the same time, the villagers should all live in an underground building in the center of the village.

Kiel judged the direction and remembered to walk along the passage. The next place should be the place where the military caravans and local caravans lived overnight.

When Keir went down again and told Knight Crowe his guess, he immediately got confirmation from the knight.

"Yes, just as you said."

Although he didn't go out to see it, Knight Crowe subconsciously discovered the architectural laws through his walking steps and the intuition of going around.

The Baron himself recognized it immediately as he walked through the first passage.

Perhaps he had already guessed what was going on when he was outside the building and watched his soldiers and merchants enter the different underground buildings.

After speaking of this interesting information, Knight Crowe took Kiel to the place where he was arranged to live.

"You and your personal guards will rest here tonight."

Seeing that Knight Crowe didn't intend to rest, Kiel asked aloud, "My lord, what are you doing?"

The knight patted his magic gem long sword: "I discussed it with Rumi before, we two staggered to rest, and someone must watch the carriage outside, so I don't worry about those people standing guard under the carriage."

After speaking, he walked away to tell the baron, and walked out of the passage by himself.

That's right, during the day, the army spread out, I don't know if it scares off the monsters flying in the sky. But no matter what, they humans are considered to be capable of fighting during the day, but at night it does not affect the flying and 'hunting' of monsters, but they humans are not.

Not only is most of the militiamen lacking night vision because they can't afford meat, even though the baron is not stingy about logistical food these days.

The biggest source of combat power for the militiamen—the crossbow, it is difficult for this thing to function at night without lighting.

After all, if you can't see it, you must be inaccurate.

And at night, except for the combat power of the knight rank, other ordinary people are a bit reluctant.

Just in case, Knight Crowe went out to watch the night.

-

Kiel's dog-skin sleeping bag had already been brought down by a personal guard. After a simple meal, he sat on his sleeping bag to rest.

Compared to the outside, the interior of this underground building is very warm, and it's not stuffy. Obviously, it was considered when the vent was built. Kiel sat there for a while, and then saw a few guards crossing their shoulders and entering the passage leading to another underground building by the light here.

"What are they going to do?"

Hearing Kiel's question, the knight's guard who slept beside him explained: "They are visiting the merchants. Just now our merchants came to remind them that the local villagers will provide additional services to passing merchants."

"Extras? Could it be that?"

Kiel chuckled, and the knight guards shrugged: "Probably not. After all, it's only a small village. How can there be any women who are willing to do this job? But there must be a lot of food and drink. People who walk in this ghost place for a day, probably Do you want to eat something good?"

It’s okay if I didn’t hear it, but as soon as he heard the drink, Keir became greedy. His stomach seemed to be tied with a rope, and the other end of the rope was where he could drink.

"Where are you going, Kiel? Don't you sleep?" the knight guard watched as Kiel got up and walked away, so he asked.

"I'll be back in a while. I have to drink something anyway, so I can't miss it." Keir waved his hand and kept walking.

"Bring some for both of us!"

"good."

As soon as the words fell, Kiel followed the direction of the town guards just now and entered the passage connecting another underground building.

There is no lighting here, and the guards came in with an oil lamp for lighting. Kiel didn't have to bother to ask the logistics clerk to borrow a lamp, he just pulled out a little of the long sword from his waist.

Following his will, the end of the long sword emits a white light sufficient for illumination.

Recently, Kiel has become more and more proficient in using the blessing ability of hunting the Church of the Sun God. Now he can only control part of the sword body to emit white light. Use much less accumulated divine power than before to achieve the same effect as releasing divine power with all your strength before.

In terms of lighting, the consumption is much less than before.

Advancing along the slightly turning passage, he soon heard the voices of people much louder than Kendall's army.

After walking a few more steps, I saw the place where the merchants spent the night through the light shining on them.

Messy and noisy.

This is Kiel's first impression, obviously different from an organized army, caravans from various places managed by different chambers of commerce can't control anyone else.

So it was fine before, when the army could be seen with the naked eye, the merchants were safe and sound, but tonight everyone lived in such a semi-enclosed independent space, and the influence of the Kendall army disappeared.

At least it disappeared on the surface.

Kiel saw that the manpower of each caravan, except for a few unlucky ones who were arranged to guard the goods under the caravan outside, everyone else gathered here.

The place is as big as other underground buildings, but there are at least two hundred people crammed into the circular space.

Each caravan occupies a small area, and there is no need for each person to have a bedding or sleeping bag to sleep, just lay a blanket on the ground, and the young caravan guys and guards just lie on it and eat dinner indiscriminately.

The steward of the caravan could be better. There was a small blanket alone, and there was a barbecue and flagon that he got from somewhere on it, and he was talking, eating and drinking happily.

The firepit in the center is even more impressive. The firepit is covered with a kind of charcoal burned with thick grass stalks, and there are roasted sheep on it. The local villagers keep turning the grill to let the roasted sheep The fat evenly flows over the whole body of the roast lamb during the flip.

Surrounded by the truly powerful stewards of various caravans, they hold daggers and use them whenever they want. They directly use the daggers to cut off the roasted lamb, and then dip it with the fine salt and dipping sauce on the plate in front of them. eaten.

Next to it was a village girl holding a pottery jug protected by a straw rope. The jug was filled with fine wine. As long as the caravan stewards picked up the metal wine cup at hand, a girl would come forward to fill it up immediately.

It seemed that eating and drinking was good there, but Kiel did not see the previous guards.

So Kiel casually asked a caravan buddy, but the other party pointed to the passage from this underground space to another underground building: "The villagers have opened some temporary shops in the passage for our convenience, your people may be over there .”

The caravan guy regarded Kiel as a manager in the army, and he thought that Kiel came to call people back.

Bypassing the firepit that attracted him quite a bit in the middle, Keel came to the entrance of the passage.

Sure enough, the scene in the passage here is quite different.

Not only is the passageway clearly illuminated by oil lamps, but in the relatively spacious passageway, there are also many street stalls set up by local villagers against the wall. There are all kinds of things on the stalls, from sheepskin boots to wild animal skin cloaks, from small to precious local wooden dishes and bowls, to various straw utensils, from all kinds of daggers for self-defense, to small axes, short swords and long knives. .

He even saw that the locked rooms on both sides of this passage were opened, and there were frequent voices from inside.

He turned here curiously, and found that some town guards from his side also came to hang out, but the villagers of Thor Village saw the Baron Kendall family mark on the town guards, and although they would not refuse to speak, their faces But he didn't have a good expression.

No way, as a way to show their strength and forcibly enter the village for the night, the two knights tore down the walls and gates of the village~www.readwn.com~ and beat some people.

The villagers did not dare to refuse or curse them, but the good looks were gone.

However, the guards didn't care, and were even a little proud of it. Obviously, the actions and results of the two knights made the guards very happy.

They have encountered such villages along the way, and they do not know how many, anyway, they only walked back and forth twice when going to the southern province and returning home. The people who met once had any relationship anymore.

Kiel greeted the few guards who saw him, and then turned around in the aisle full of trading commodities.

There are quite a few people visiting here, and many caravan buddies who had eaten couldn't stay idle. After taking a break at this time, they followed the bustle and came over. Not only the caravan people from the underground building that Kiel just passed by came to this passage, but the other half of the caravan people who lived at the other end of the passage also came to hang out.

Most of the things displayed on the stalls are cheap and cheap local products. The materials used are basically made by the villagers in the village in their spare time, and they are traded here to exchange money for the caravans.

Kiel asked about the price. A set of leather pants can be bought for only a dozen copper coins, which is much cheaper than in towns.

Although it didn't look good, Keir still paid for the two pairs of thin sheepskin boots he needed. These thin sheepskin boots look more like socks, and they can be worn on the feet for walking.

Of course, for life on the prairie, since the ground is soft and there are few stones, wearing such thin sheepskin boots is enough.

But Keir is different. He bought these boots to wear them inside the armor-plated boots that match the armor and put them on his feet, so as to prevent his feet from being worn out and injured by the armor-plated boots.