Time passed quickly, and after nearly two weeks of traveling on the difficult mountain road, it was almost mid-October, and Henry and his group of more than 20 people finally arrived at Lake Lorena...lā
The terrain here is relatively gentle. The terrain along the creeks and rivers is a typical valley landform. It is carved by the natural power of the water flow formed by the confluence of rainwater counted in units of millions of years. The cognition of human beings and any other civilized race has been chipped away into its current shape bit by bit. Crossing the ridge and walking toward the east along the sloping river slope, we arrived near Lake Lorena. Here, the breeze was blowing, and the endless green vegetation formed a sharp contrast with the light blue lake water. There were many large herbivores. The animals were drinking water in the distance, and a few small crocodiles were floating lazily in the middle of the lake.
No trace of the Aya Snake Dragon has been found yet, but Lake Lorena is a very large lake, and what everyone is visiting at the moment is just its lakeside near the west. The other side, which is blocked by layers of trees, has a wider area and higher depth. The main water source connecting the lake with the outside world, the Shire River, a major tributary of the Black Iron River, the largest river in the south, is also located in that direction.
The habits of Ayasiosaurus are very similar to those of hippos among mammals. Although they also have the ability to land on land, they still prefer to move along rivers and soak in water for most of the day to keep their skin moist and moist. Comfort - and the main reason why the group did not go east to the Shire River but stayed here was that they did not want to provoke these creatures.
Many large omnivores have a strong sense of territory. Even though several of the people present were experienced mercenaries at the Orange level, they would really get mad at an underage individual weighing less than three tons. If you rush forward and trample everywhere, the results will be disastrous.
A large group of Aya snake dragons are advancing in groups. Even crocodiles and wolf lizards two to three meters long will know how to stay away. No predator under seven meters long will have the guts to approach them. ——Although they are still not the largest among the hybrid dragons, they are the most familiar to humans.
It was morning when the group of people arrived at the West Lake. They had no intention of continuing towards the east, but started making preparations here.
From this detail, we can also see the fact that these hunting mercenaries are experienced. It is true that the lake to the east is larger and has more targets to choose from, but considering the fact that the competition there is bound to be more intense, the success rate of hunting is not necessarily proportional. As a creature with a strong sense of territory, the Aya Snake Dragon will not be in peace when choosing a place to lay its eggs during the breeding season. The longer and wider beach wall on the east side is naturally owned by the prime female individual. Only inexperienced hunting mercenaries choose to provoke these guys.
The west side, which is calmer and smaller, is chosen as the ambush site. This is obviously a place where weaker female snake dragons who have failed in the competition will come, and most of them will go there alone. Considering various factors, it is obviously the place where the ambush site is. A choice that is more in line with actual interests.
The gap between the skins peeled off from a skinny snake dragon and a huge and strong snake dragon is not particularly big, but the hunting difficulty is vastly different. Young, inexperienced mercenaries will simply want as much as possible, while more experienced mercenaries will know how to give up some of their benefits to gain a higher chance of success - thereby actually increasing the final benefit. .
Lack of preparation and hot-headed gambling like the former are not worth advocating even if they succeed. Anything that has the possibility of sustainable development must be planned calmly and carefully, because the factors for successful gambling are not within your own control, so you cannot replicate it a second time.
Time passed quietly, morning and afternoon transitioned peacefully, and these novice mercenaries knew how to do basic things around them without anyone's guidance. There are always many beaver-like animals along the lakes and rivers in the south. They look quite different from their relatives in cold temperate zones in the tropics. They have less body hair and are smaller in size. However, their habits of moving wood, chewing trees and building nests are exactly the same. ——This is why when the mercenaries come here to camp here every year, they always need to cut wood again to make surrounding fences.
It is a very foolish behavior to camp and rest by the lake without setting up a perimeter cordon. Although the crocodiles here are not particularly big, they are not something that can be ignored. A simple low wooden fence is added with torches and night watchmen. This can effectively prevent this from happening. The flat carriages were placed on the other side as a defense facing the forest. The tents were set up directly in front of them. The mules and horses were surrounded and allowed to graze freely. The busy preparations were finally completed until the evening. , when more than twenty people were resting in twos and threes, Juan, an old hunting expert with a white beard and narrow eyes, found Henry.
In order to avoid others becoming suspicious, the two could not leave the camp very far, and the time they could be in contact was not long. Fortunately, everyone was resting tiredly at the moment, and the light was relatively dim, so not many people paid attention to them. Partly because of taking care of Mira as the only female member of the team, the tents of the Luoan girl and the sage were relatively close to each other. At this time, Old Juan came to talk to Henry and was able to avoid the danger. The sight of most people.
"You're right." Old Juan said straight to the point, while Mira looked at them quietly. Henry stared at the old mercenary for a while. Although it was relatively hidden, there was no one walking around. The sage decisively waved to Mira and took out a few pages of paper, a quill pen and a small bag from the package in the tent. Ink from a clay bottle, and then began to write simple words on it.
'He is really secretly contacting outsiders? '
Old Juan watched him write such words, and then narrowed his eyes that were not open enough to stare at Henry - we have already mentioned before that there are people in the world in Rigal who can speak multiple languages. There are many, but literate people are very rare. Even in commercial countries such as the relatively developed and wealthy Southern City-State Alliance, most businessmen only know simple numbers for accounting - so under this premise, the sage He chose to write directly without asking any questions in advance, and the information revealed to the other party was naturally not very simple.
"Alas -" Old Juan sighed. This man could notice the strange details of the squad leader. From the look in his eyes when he looked at the title of the book the girl was holding while reading, he knew that it was natural that he could understand the text. This With such a level of observation and judgment, even though they were on the same camp now, he still felt a chill running down his spine.
But no matter what, there are more important things to do at the moment - Old Juan also took over the pen and started writing. Mira, who was smart, walked outside in time and started packing her bags to cover up the writing with this small noise. sound. It was strange for two people to just sit quietly and say nothing, so Henry and Old Juan were chatting about unrelated topics while writing down really important information with pen and paper.
'Most of the bandits he colluded with were the Badi Business Group. This group is said to have connections with many overseas black businessmen. Although it is under the banner of a business group, it is a gangster organization that does all kinds of evil. ’ Old Juan went on to write, while talking to Henry about food in words: ‘Someone in the group had seen Geronimo getting too close to them earlier, and he was often punished for this problem. Warned. '
He wrote - Jeronimo is the name of the squad leader.
Old Juan sighed: "Actually, it's not difficult for me to understand his mentality. There are nine brigades in our regiment, and each brigade has two squads. His rank as a squad leader is neither high nor low. After a hunt, You can only get a small share of the proceeds from the sale, and you have to hand over half to your boss, the captain, who has no mission at all. '
'Although the equipment and manpower for the mission trip are provided by the group, such an allocation is a matter of course, but when I am responsible for leading the team trip, I feel that I have to work hard and do the hard work myself, but I still get very little reward. It's normal to have a psychological imbalance if you don't get promoted. 'As if he hadn't written so many words for a long time, Juan rubbed his wrist and rested for a while, then verbally discussed the potato stew with Henry, and continued writing on his hand.
'Coupled with the fact that he was warned for getting too close to the Badi business group, Geronimo probably felt that he had no chance of promotion in this life, so he decided to cooperate with them after breaking the rules. ’ He dipped the ink in the small earthen bottle, and then wrote: ‘If you bring it back to the group to complete the task, you can only get less than a few percent of the reward. In comparison, even if you sell it yourself, you still need a share. You can make a lot of money. '
'He did this...' Old Juan hesitated for a while, and then decided to finish writing: 'I'm not surprised. '
"..." The two of them fell into silence. Mira sorted out the contents of the package and then walked in. She pulled out her long sword and checked whether it needed maintenance, and then walked in from another position. Glancing at what was written on the paper, the two of them communicated in Lamani, and many of them used abbreviations for convenience. It was a little difficult for Mira to read, but with her own speculation, she was still pretty good. Understood some situations.
'What are you going to do? ' Juan dipped his hand in ink again and wrote this. After all, he is the oldest and most experienced person in the mercenary group. He had some guesses as to why Henry came to him. The old mercenary was once again thinking about this man. The mercenary group was impressed by the understanding and also understood that this person would probably have some ideas about how to save his life, so he asked, and Henry did not disappoint him and started writing.
"..." The rustling sound continued. The sage wrote Lamani very smoothly and smoothly. There was a lot of difference between the font he used and Old Juan's, and it looked more standardized and beautiful. Mira on the side was fascinated.
"That's it." After spending two or three minutes writing, Old Juan read it carefully and then nodded.
Henry does have a good understanding of the general composition of the more advanced hunting mercenary groups. As the saying goes, there is no rule. The Mercenary Guild and ABC-DEF, a total of six levels of mercenary groups, have existed for hundreds of years. Many West Coast countries are part of organizations with a long history, and naturally have their own mature and efficient management and distribution system of classes and internal personnel.
For example, the rules of the mercenary group to which Lao Juan belongs are copied from many other mature mercenary groups. The middle-aged and more experienced team leader is responsible for taking care of things and commanding his subordinates, and as an assistant and the second person in the team The hunting experts are the most experienced senior members. The status of the hunting expert is actually higher than that of the squad leader, because the squad leader is a fixed position, while the hunting expert only cooperates with the squad when hunting.
Their experienced opinions are often taken seriously, so overall issues in the team such as the direction of travel, the location of the camp, and the distribution of traps are often issued by hunting experts - and this is more important. Coupled with environmental factors and various conditions, Henry came up with a plan that could directly avoid the battle.
——It needs to be mentioned that the continent of Rigal is very large.
We may not be able to perceive all this purely from words, but even if it is just the area of the southern forest near Lake Lorena where Henry and the others are currently located, the terrain is vast and complex, and the unexplored area is so large that it has actually reached To a quite terrifying extent. Although we have mentioned several times how out of place the traces left by humans entering the wilderness are, that is obviously limited to uninterrupted tracking and is located closer to the main road.
When you go deep into the real uninhabited wilderness, the vast terrain itself is enough to block all tracking. A person may be able to run at a speed of 20 to 30 kilometers per hour on flat ground, but he must not be able to truly maintain this speed for an hour. If obstacles are added, the speed will inevitably decrease - —And this is just a straight-line speed. If you take into account the wide area on the left and right, running into the virgin forest with a unit of "hundred square kilometers" to find someone is simply a fantasy.
Experienced hunters will not go too far into the forest. Supply of materials is one aspect. If they go to a place they are not familiar with, even they may get lost. Taking the above conditions as a premise, and in order to prevent the group of people from discovering, if the team leader Jeronimo and the bandits of the Batty business group want to cooperate in the robbery, the only way to cooperate is to plan the road and then Ambush on the road in advance.
This ambush point should not be too close to the town. Although the general robbers do this, the ambush near the main road will have a higher chance of success. But in that case, the only survivor, Geronimo, will be suspected by the people above. He is having an affair with a robber - and in contrast, if he is in the vast forest, it can be explained that he is unlucky and encounters a wandering robber. The team members have no evidence of death and there is no one to witness them in such a deserted place. The possibility is naturally that the squad leader has the final say.
As long as he works hard to get some wounds or something, he can write the whole story perfectly - and why he had a clear nervousness because of falling behind schedule before, now that he thinks about it carefully, it is obviously because of fear. Two or three days have already been lost while on the road. If the hunting does not go smoothly, we will miss the ambushed robbers, causing everything to be in vain.
Henry's solution that does not require fighting is based on this inference. As we said before, Old Juan has the decision-making power to lead the entire team forward, so he only needs to make a slight detour. Anyway, if you don't follow the ideas of the team leader Jeronimo, you will definitely be able to avoid those bandits.
Of course, even this problem is not completely solved. Geronimo cannot achieve all this alone. There are about twenty people in the entire team. In order to avoid exposing their traces, the ambush force of the Badi Chamber of Commerce should not have too many people. It is too much, and in this case, if someone escapes when the battle starts, they will definitely not be able to wipe out them all. If someone survives, and the testimony is inconsistent with that of Geronimo, the superiors will naturally become suspicious, so he must kill them. Anyone else who doesn't have a relationship.
In order to ensure this, there will definitely be many people in the team who are on his side. When the time comes, they will cooperate with the Bati Chamber of Commerce's attack and rebel, and quickly surround and kill the others.
However, the number of people will not be too many, because the more people share the cake, the less you will get. In short, it is the best choice to solve the problem without triggering a fight - Henry and Juan focused on it. Nodding, the old mercenary got up and walked out.
The sage turned his head and glanced at Mira. The Luoan girl obviously understood something about the situation. He quickly destroyed the communication paper. Although no one else in the team should be literate, he drove carefully for thousands of years. Boat.
It was still bustling outside, and people started to prepare for dinner. Juan walked over and Geronimo came over with a smile on his face and asked what he and Henry had talked about. The old mercenary also answered him with a smile on his face and said, "You know people on the West Coast like it very much." People who eat potatoes started talking about food.
