People love stories.
Whether a child or an adult, an uneducated lower-class peasant or an aristocrat with free access to knowledge.
The form may be poetry, it may be text, or it may be accompanied by pictures. But their essence is the same - to convey certain values and popularize certain knowledge through telling stories.
In the stories handed down in Rigal and Crescent Continent over thousands of years of history, the topic of human beings fighting against some dangerous behemoths has always been an enduring topic.
The upper class of the Padrosi Empire liked this kind of story, and liked the story of the brave and fearless knight fighting the dragon; and the farmers of Crescent Continent also liked this kind of story, and liked the story of the clever hunter fighting the evil man-eating tiger.
The two seem to be homogeneous, but their core ideas are very different. In the stories loved by the imperial nobles, knights are often brave and fearless and defeat evil dragons with their passion and courage. In such stories, humble commoners or money-grubbing mercenary adventurers often appear. In contrast, the knight's role is always upright and noble.
In comparison, the peasants of the Moon Country enjoy stories similar to those of the lower classes in Rigar. It is often the people who use some cleverness and cleverness to defeat this evil man-eating beast.
People love stories, and stories must be written for people who love them. Therefore, the imperial knights are brave and fearless and can defeat their opponents with sheer enthusiasm, which meets the needs of the upper class people who think that they are the chosen ones and are naturally much nobler than the miserable untouchables; and the peasants like to be clever. , and satisfies the psychology that everyone has in their hearts that they are not willing to be ordinary and consider themselves unique.
But stories are just stories after all.
Those who fight monsters will not be knights or hunters, and those who defeat them will not rely on passion and noble character or cleverness to make quick wits.
It’s about rich experience, solid plans, and ample preparation.
——In other words.
You need an expert.
"Trope." Henry held out his hand, and Galeva handed him a large bundle of rope collected from the village. The sky has gradually begun to darken, but under the orderly command, almost half of the preparation work has been completed.
"It can't be like this. You have to tie a fisherman's knot, otherwise it will fall apart." The Luoan girl was also directing Ling to work: "Like this, I will teach you." In line with the principle of strength in numbers, no one has Idle. Although the missionary, especially Aggie, was a little disgusted by this and wanted to escape immediately rather than stay and fight, the sage asked coldly, "Can you outrun that thing?" He shut his mouth knowingly.
With the materials collected in the village and the suitable terrain, with the professional guidance of the sage and the assistance of the Luoan girl and Lulu, they planned an entire area in the mountains and forests and made preparations non-stop.
The ready-made materials accumulated by the villagers saved a lot of time. Although it seemed like a waste of resources to let the noble unicorn pull the goods on the sled, fortunately, the little guy who was humane did not have any airs. "No, more." Henry shook his head, and the panting Galeva glanced to the side, dragging his exhausted body and leaned over again. Several huge logs that were supposed to be stored as pillars for the beams were transported here after several carts. What the sage was commanding the coolie Galeva to make was the most classic and simple trap—— Falling wood.
"The basic principle of a weight-type trap is that it must be three times as heavy as the target creature." Henry shrugged as he said it: "But since there is nothing heavy enough here and there are no trees that can withstand this weight, just I can do my best and win with quantity.”
The wood, which is quite heavy for humans, was fixed with a tight knot. Then the other end of the long rope was tied with a heavy object, and then it was held in the hand and rotated to accelerate. Finally, Henry grasped an opportunity and accurately released it. The hand threw it over the branch of the high target.
Several other people followed suit, but including the Luoan girl, because the thick rope was quite heavy, they only succeeded after several attempts.
A total of 3 fallen log traps were prepared, all of which were fixed above the thickest old trees. After working together to pull them up, the sage must do the most important trigger setting step himself.
Because others have only average experience with this, even Lulu, who was born as a hunter, actually doesn't have much experience in dealing with extremely large creatures.
Hunters hunt for their own survival, and when encountering overly large creatures that threaten them, they often choose to retreat. Furthermore, there are no very big creatures in Crescent Continent itself. Not only common large mammals such as elephants, but even dragon-like creatures are almost extinct here. Perhaps due to the barrier between the vast Ligaro Sea and the Dadonghai, the biological forms here are very different from those in Ligar.
All the key triggering links are done by the sage himself. Taking into account the height and size of the huge creature, the thick hemp rope triggering structure was set up between two big trees, and was about one and a half meters tall, which was almost equivalent to the collarbones of some male members of the team.
The taller people had to bend down when they ran over, but because the sage accurately controlled the force required for release, even if they accidentally bumped into it, the trap would not be released, and the trap would not be released before actually dealing with the monster. Cause friendly casualties.
The saying "slow makes steady, steady makes fast" makes sense. Even though it was going to be dark soon, he still carefully took the time to take this insurance measure.
The giant giant salamander formed by the fusion of dozens of villagers is more than ten meters long from head to tail, and because of its wide body, its overall size is almost comparable to that of an earth dragon. But to deal with it, it may be more troublesome than the earth dragon.
Wurms are creatures with considerable intelligence, similar to humans. They can think and evaluate the threats in front of them. Fighting off a dragon is similar to facing a knight who is fully armed and confident. You only need to know the weak points of the armor and have good skills and suitable weapons, and constantly pose threats to weak points such as his joint gaps and observation holes - for dragons, it is the armpits and belly. , let the opponent realize that this is not delicious fat but a tooth-breaking steel plate, and it will leave in search of an easier target.
Fighting back and killing are two different concepts. For dragons with tenacious vitality, injuries are actually commonplace. The reason for leaving is often because they think it's not worth continuing to fight, rather than because you really have crushing combat power.
This is one of the reasons why the sage was able to win when encountering them in the past. If this intelligent creature realizes that it is a target that is difficult to attack due to its sting and poison, it will give up and choose other options.
And if an earth dragon wants to kill you wholeheartedly, as long as it doesn't lose its mind due to some situation, you will face endless nightmares.
It will pretend to be dead, hide the movement of its huge body in a way that makes you feel incredible, and approach you when you lose your vigilance. It will cause you to have trouble sleeping and show poor judgment by harassing and yelling. Dragons are long-lived creatures, so they are very patient and will tease you like a cunning human. The moment you relax and feel like you have won a bloody battle is often the moment you die.
This is quite similar to the struggle between humans.
The strongest and fastest person does not necessarily win in a battle. The one who wins is often the most persistent and smartest person.
So this time to deal with this monster, Henry did not rush forward heroically like he did when he encountered the earth dragon before. Instead, he chose to spend time to maximize the team's strength and prepare.
Large monsters also have a similar weight, so the trap can be enlarged to ensure that it cannot be easily triggered by human strength. This can prevent those who are not adventurers in the team from panicking and triggering traps in extremely chaotic situations, causing casualties to friendly forces.
In addition to fallen trees, they also prepared many pit traps, but with so many things to do in a tight time frame, it was naturally impossible to dig a hole big enough. Therefore, these traps serve more of a hindrance, preventing the person who led the creature into the trap from being overtaken due to lack of foot strength.
Although the division of labor has been clearly defined and work has been accelerated, nine times out of ten, when all this is completed, the short sunshine period in winter still comes to an end.
The last part of the preparation was to lay out the killer trap and then fix the torches everywhere in the forest.
The importance of lighting is extremely high. Although our Mr. Sage himself has night vision thanks to the druid runes tattooed under his skin with mithril ink, others, including the Luoan girl, will be affected by the dark night. of. No matter how powerful Henry was, he never had a full circle of eyes around his head, and one pair of eyes couldn't observe as much as eight pairs of eyes. Arrange personnel to hide in various directions, and pay attention to movements in all aspects at all times. Only in this way can the target be discovered in time.
The blowing snow didn't stop until night. Candles were definitely useless in this kind of weather. Only torches soaked in enough oil and huge in size could avoid being blown out in the biting cold wind.
Despite this, the swaying firelight flickering in the wind carrying snowflakes, combined with the silent forest and cold air at night, still caused the heartbeats of many people to speed up unconsciously.
They stared with dry eyes, feeling their lips that were chapped by the wind, and tried their best to cover their bodies with cloaks or robes as tightly as possible, but they still felt that the ends of their limbs began to feel cold.
And the slightest movement, perhaps caused by their companions or the wind, will make these people look back with a nervous "whoosh".
A highly excited mental state is not a good thing, because such a situation cannot last long. After the excitement is over, endless fatigue will hit.
For dinner, they only had the dry food they brought with them. The attack by the samurai and the appearance of the monster were a bit sudden, so food with richer tastes was left behind in the mountain hut. They cooked the tasteless cereal paste over the campfire, but except for Henry, Mira, Galeva and Lulu, the other four people didn't have much appetite.
The trio of missionaries who were clerks and the doctor lady obviously haven't recovered yet. They have experienced too much in this short period of time. The mental pressure made the four clerks somewhat stunned. When I was helping with work before, I would often stop and be in a daze, like a puppet on strings. Henry or Mira would shout before moving.
This situation is common for people who have not been through many big situations. They feel confused about how to respond to the situation at hand, and thus become more dependent on those who are assertive and calm. Sometimes it even develops into a situation where you are in a daze and don't know what to do without orders from others.
Aya is considered a relatively good one, because she at least knows how to use the big bow of the Moon Country, and her tactics for fighting monsters are also based on the ecological cycle idea she proposed. But theory was theory, and as it was really close to actual combat, she felt the invisible pressure, and she couldn't help but become nervous.
Henry fiddled with the carbon blocks in the campfire, and then checked the small crossbow and the bows and arrows carried by Lulu and Ling.
"Ka-" He suddenly remembered something, so he picked up a bow and arrow, then took out the knife on his waist, and scratched the tip of the knife with the light of the fire. A scratch appeared immediately, and the tip of the knife was not even a hair. no damage.
"Forgot about this." The sage frowned: "This arrow is not strong enough."
"It should be made of steel, but I don't know what the carbon content is."
"Teacher, are you worried that you may not be able to shoot through?" The girl from Luo'an was keenly aware of what the sage was worried about, and he nodded: "The pulling force is not enough, so the hardness is needed. Both of them are just hunting bows, not war bows. The skin is quite thick, and without a good arrow it probably won’t even make it hurt.”
"Bring water, let's improvise." The sage said, pulling out the arrowhead with his hand and throwing it into the charcoal pile of the campfire, and then used a wooden stick to fiddle with the charcoal to cover the arrowhead.
"There might be some scrapping if you do this." Mira was a little worried, but Galeva obediently ran to the side and picked up the wooden bucket filled with water.
"One that can penetrate is better than ten that will bounce away when shot." Henry quickly threw most of the arrows in, and then picked up two small branches nearby and clamped them up. The night became a good helper in judging the degree of fire. After seeing that the arrow was burned brightly enough, he decisively picked it up with a branch and threw it into the barrel.
The sound of "Ziziz——" sounded, and after repeating this process several times, Henry waited until the water in the barrel cooled down and fished out the arrowhead with his hands.
"Clang - Cang - Clang -" A knife was used as a hardness test and the friction made different sounds, proving that the steel used for these arrowheads had pretty good performance. However, due to temporary batch quenching, only about 40% of the hardness is increased to a sufficient level.
"It's better than nothing. Mark the armor-piercing arrows with high hardness." Henry turned around and said this.
Time passed slowly, and after all preparations were made, they waited for a long time.
"How are you sure it will come?" Perhaps because she couldn't hold back, or perhaps because of uneasiness, Miss Doctor asked this question to the sage.
"Besides us, is there anything else we can eat here?" The sage shrugged, and as soon as he finished speaking, the group heard a huge roar not far away.
"Kalaiva." The sage stood up.
"Light the bonfire in front and lure this guy over." He shouted loudly.
The wind has been blowing for a long time.
Stopped.
