More than two days had passed since they left the small town of Scotty. Henry and Mira carried enough warm equipment and supplies all the way north, and walked back along the road that fortunately had not been completely flooded by the heavy snow, looking for Constantine and his party. .
The low temperature in the south and the weird heavy snow are still continuing. Although it is fortunate that the temperature has not dropped further and has begun to rise, the climate changes in the past few days have completely covered up any traces that may have been left, making them want to find someone. More difficult than ever.
Searching for traces in the vast white world is almost impossible even for a sage.
The ideal search and rescue situation should be to start when the missing person is just known, so that it is possible to find the various traces before they are completely destroyed by natural weather, wild animals or even other people, and follow these clues to successfully rescue.
But even under such ideal conditions, the search and rescue success rate on record is still not very high.
Not to mention there are only two of them.
When the threat is urgent, Scotti can't spare any manpower, and even if they are a group of 5 people named Little Explorers by Margaret, the remaining 3 people are best left there to direct the material arrangements. Personnel defense.
In the end, only Henry and Mira were able to travel. The supplies that two people and two horses could carry were meager, so they carefully considered and brought the most expensive candied meat and bacon jerky, nuts and dried fruits, which were small in size but could provide a lot of energy. food.
Everything has two sides, even this unexpected severe winter. High-calorie and highly nutritious food would easily go bad in the usual hot and humid climate, not to mention attracting all kinds of rats and insects. However, in today's cold weather, Henry and the others can safely pack up and hit the road.
They are all full of high-calorie dry goods, and the prices are naturally not low. If the two bags of food carried by the two horses were replaced with bread, they could feed two to three hundred civilians for three weeks, but the purchased food could barely feed more than 30 people for a week.
And even these cannot be used easily. In order to save good rations for Constantine and his party, Henry and Mira tried their best to hunt the already very rare beasts and collect the few remaining fruits. With wild vegetables.
After recuperating in Scotti and putting on warm clothes, they now have enough energy to withstand the exhaustion caused by hunting, but Constantine and his party are not optimistic about the results even if they estimate the best situation.
Henry and Mira also brought several of the warm cloaks prepared for them. In the past few years since meeting the sage, this was the first time for Mira to go out without bringing her books. In order to be able to carry more supplies, they gave up all their belongings except weapons and armor. They did not even carry replacement clothes but put several warm blankets and cloaks.
But even so, it only barely meets the standard. After actually finding Constantine and his group, they must use their brains and think carefully to ensure that everyone is rescued.
Speed must be ensured and every second passes. The chance of successful rescue will decrease with every passing minute. But at the same time, they also had to ensure that they did not consume too many supplies and leave them to Constantine and his party.
If this was already considered difficult, then there was also the fact that the horse Mira was riding was a bad horse that was not very disciplined.
After arriving at Sikaoti, not only the people but also the horses were very tired. Near the ancient city of Kadigali, she lost her war horse due to an encounter with the earth dragon Mira, so she had to share a horse with the sage. The weight of the two people plus some supplies caused a heavy burden, and the remaining Margaret The carriage he was driving was carrying three more people, a cart of supplies, and Mira's books, which were overwhelmed.
Not to mention that the two knight horses of Filippo and Ferruccio had long been scarred. After running all the way to Scotti, one fell dead on the spot, and when the temperature dropped by more than ten degrees, the other one died on the spot. The dying war horse eventually died in the stable.
Therefore, during this trip, Henry and Mira rode inferior horses temporarily purchased in the small town of Scotty.
The physique and speed cannot be compared with the previous good horses, and even the brain is very stupid, often running around without obeying the command. But this is also the best means of transportation that can be purchased in this small town of only a thousand people.
Without them, the remaining options are dumber mules.
Everything is unsatisfactory, but even so they can't give up on their companions.
While ensuring that you and your car don't use up too much energy, you basically spend your waking hours on the road. The icy and snowy weather has had a considerable impact, but the strange thing is that even our Luoan girl is extremely resistant to this, regardless of the sage who is originally from the north.
Perhaps the academic circles' speculation that the Luoan people were originally a minority in an iceberg somewhere is not unreasonable. All in all, thanks to their ability to withstand the cold, the two of them do not need to wrap themselves up tightly like other southerners and are still shivering. trembling. You only need to wear cotton-padded clothes with a certain thermal insulation effect, and put on a cape outside the breastplate, and you can move freely.
After two and a half days of driving back quickly and with concentration, they arrived at the clearing in the forest where they had changed a lot, but could still be seen to be the same forest clearing where they parted ways.
The reason why it can be recognized has something to do with the fact that there are only a few open spaces for more than thirty people to camp along the road in Bao Forest. On the other hand, it is also because there is a very conspicuous place on the roadside. Distinctive logo.
A broad-bladed sword several meters long cut deeply into the trunk of a century-old tree.
The snow on the blade, the bare hilt, and a few dark footprints on the tree trunk proved that someone had tried to pull out the sword. This should have been the action of a passing villager or hunter. After all, a knife like this Weapons of this size are of considerable value even if they are remelted into steel.
But because the sword was deeply embedded in the tree trunk and the cold weather caused the gap to shrink, it was as tightly integrated with the tree as if it were one body. Therefore, even though several of these people kicked the tree with their feet, they still could not loosen it. Half a point.
"Apparently, we were attacked shortly after we parted." Mira turned around and looked around. Our Luoan girl, who was familiar with the sage, is now also an excellent trace-finding expert. Although there are many traces on the ground, Covered with ankle-deep snow, the broken branches of various surrounding trees and the traces of fallen bark that were obviously caused by impacts and slashes were frozen by the sudden cold winter and preserved.
The two of them turned over and dismounted, took the reins and walked a few steps forward before tying the reins to the tree trunk to prevent the car from escaping.
If they didn't have to do this at all in the past, smart horses would naturally follow their owners unless they were too frightened.
"Ka--" The snow accumulated on the emerald green leaves shook off, and mixed with it were many branches that had been frozen to death and turned black. Henry avoided them with small movements, while Mira watched as the sage easily picked up the broad-bladed sword with one hand, as if picking up a stick, which several people could not pull out even with all their strength.
"Take——!" It was pulled out from the trunk with a sound.
He held the sword with one hand and looked at it as if it had no weight at all.
Mira rolled her eyes and walked to the other side to investigate the other traces.
"The opponent is a human being."
After a while, Henry gave his judgment. The broad-bladed sword left by Constantine was full of gaps. As a knight commander's sword, it was obviously forged by a top blacksmith. If you use all your strength to chop down a tree trunk, a target that is firmly rooted in the soil, the whole sword will start to tremble after hitting it. With Constantine's physique and strength, if the quality of the weapon in his hand is not strong enough, this shock will be The force will be transmitted to the weak points on the sword.
For example, if there are excessive impurities in the raw ore or unevenly heated parts during the heat treatment process, in this case, it will become an outlet for the force, and from here the entire sword will collapse and break into two parts.
It has not become like this. It can withstand the rough use of such a strong person proves its quality, and the dense gaps on it also mean that the weapon of the person fighting him is not too bad.
As we've said before, when blacksmiths make swords of this size, they usually don't make them too hard, because you can twist a sword that's been bent back, and a sword that's "rather" The overly rigid sword of "Jade Broken", once damaged, will cause the user to have no weapon to continue fighting.
A great sword that combines the two opposite properties of hardness that cannot be cut by any weapon and toughness that cannot be broken. Throughout the continent of Rigar, there is only one such sword that Henry Meyer carries on his back. .
But even so, the sword used by Constantine is made of high-quality steel. It can be used head-on with it and cut gaps. The opponent's weapon must also be the result of a superior craftsman.
And it also needs to be of a certain size.
Long and strong, if there is no matching size, Constantine will only be pressed and beaten unilaterally - it seems that things are not that simple. The sage touched the sword face with his fingers and felt something. He frowned and turned the sword over. When I came over, I saw that not only the blade but also the surface of the sword was full of scratches.
This is the mark of blocking.
From these details, Henry was able to deduce and restore the scene of the original battle.
He was suppressed.
Obviously, the long period of running around had a great impact on Constantine's physical fitness. This may be the biggest reason why he chopped the sword into a big tree with the last blow but did not have the strength to pull it out.
But he still won.
There are some brown hairs among the many gaps on the sword, and there are dark red freeze-dried blood stains in the jagged gaps that are twenty to thirty centimeters long.
Plus the location on the tree where it was cut.
After the bloody battle, Constantine killed this brave man who was probably the leader of the enemy with one sword, causing great chaos. But they were still outnumbered, so they had to drop their swords and retreat to the other side. Afterwards, the remaining enemies cleaned up the battlefield, obtained the items they left behind, and then left, perhaps chasing them, or perhaps heading in another direction.
Now that winter has suddenly arrived and supplies are scarce, even merchants' carriages will be broken up and used as firewood to be burned. And the dead horses will not be spared. The beasts and farmers and hunters are all opportunists. Once they pass by, they will definitely take something away with the idea of not picking up nothing.
Except for Constantine's big sword, which they couldn't pull out, everything else had basically been wiped out.
No one cared about the relics of the dead or the like. They were just passing by, so they took what they needed.
He said, "There's no use for dead people anyway, right?" I convinced myself, but I never thought about what it would be like if one day I died and my things were picked up by passers-by.
Human indifference is clearly revealed in these details.
This kind of opportunism is very similar to the rat that everyone shouts to beat, so if you think about it carefully, many people's hatred of rats is probably "like repels each other."
"" Henry looked around, while Mira wrinkled her pretty little eyebrows.
The trail was completely destroyed and they had no way to start.
The best way to wait for rescue after a disaster is to stay where you are as much as possible, which can both reduce consumption and make it easier for rescuers to find you. It would have been a good thing for them to have this uninterrupted passage in the Bao Forest, but after confirming that Constantine and his party were indeed attacked as expected and stayed away from the avenue, the problem became It got big.
This forest is big, very, very big.
The ancient road that winds and twists through it is only one-eighth of the outskirts of the Bao Forest, and the direction in which Constantine and the others fled is obviously the vast forest deeper into the forest.
The forest covers an extremely wide area and is full of white snow. Once ordinary people stray from the main road and enter it, they are likely to be confused by the same scenery and unable to distinguish the direction.
And even if it can be distinguished clearly.
Just the two of them would be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.
"Let's go, continue on the road." Mira's investigation there did not find anything meaningful. Apart from confirming that they had indeed fought with some humans, because many people came to fish in troubled waters later, even if the snow was removed, Yes, the footprints below were all overlapping in a mess, and it was impossible to tell which direction they were heading in.
But even so, they still have to get on the road.
Because for Constantine and his party, these two are the only hope.
"Boom -" The warm riding shoes wrapped in fur stepped deeply into the snow. After stuffing Constantine's sword into the side of the saddle and binding it, the two staggered away from the avenue and headed towards the vast east. The forest went deep into.
