The Lord of the Cave—the name the group acquiesced to after being spoken by Narumi—seemed to have lost his available soldiers as Henry speculated. Although there were still a few remaining bats, they still did not appear after a few minutes of everyone moving forward.
As the pounding heart during the fierce battle gradually calmed down, the sequelae of continuous high-intensity battles also began to be revealed one by one. Although most people's injuries were only minor scratches that were not too deep and had been treated, the continuous swinging of the sword also made the arm muscles sore.
The fingers that clenched the weapon with excessive force became stiff and turned into claws, making it very difficult for me to loosen my grip. The muscles in his forearm twitched uncontrollably. Due to excessive exertion, they even cramped up in pain when sheathing the knife. He froze in place and stood holding his breath for a long time.
Not only the Luoan girl, but also Yajiro and even Lao Qiao next to her. Lao Qiao originally wanted to make a joke and say that he was getting old, but when he saw that others were doing the same thing, he had to scratch his cheek and gave up.
The muscles and skeletons were screaming. Although the large number of people shared the pressure and the total time was actually less than an hour, the creatures they killed continuously during this period were probably the vast majority of Kazuto warriors in their entire life. beyond reach.
Constantly moving back and forth, constantly slashing, stabbing, striking, kicking or pushing away opponents. Although the time is short, the intensity of the exercise is not low. The tension in the battle before and the beating heart covered up all this, but now as it slowly subsides, the unstoppable fatigue makes the eyelids become heavier and heavier, and the limbs seem to be tied with heavy lead balls. Every move requires a lifetime of effort.
The most serious one was the young master, because he cut the palm of his right hand trying to push away the undead warrior. Although the wound is not deep, it is very long and narrow. As an important weapon-wielding hand, such an injury is enough to reduce the combat effectiveness even if it does not damage the tendon.
The human hand is a very fragile but important part. It cannot bear too much damage, but it cannot be avoided due to combat needs. The Rigars, who valued hand defense, invented many types of sturdy gauntlets, but the cost of using them was the sacrifice of flexibility and increased weight-bearing. Most of the gauntlets that mercenaries can afford are simple in structure, with two or three iron plates put together to form a simple protective style. However, this kind of gauntlet often affects the flexibility of the wrist and the tiger's mouth, which will cause certain obstacles to the use of the sword. .
If someone who is not skilled in skills wears them, it may hinder their movements - for example, the sword gets stuck in the glove and cannot complete the block - and thus lose their life. For this reason, coupled with many other reasons such as weight, price, maintenance, and carrying, the vast majority of Rigar adventurers prefer to use the guard on their sword to block rather than rely on hand armor.
The levied militia on the west coast and the imperial regular army infantry on the east coast generally use simple hand armor, because as line infantry, their main weapons are long pole weapons instead of the swords commonly used by mercenaries who mainly focus on small-scale street fighting. In large-scale infantry battles, weapons such as spears are often cut off by the opponent's large ax or halberd-type heavy chopping weapons along the pole, so the protection of hand armor is even more important.
Because the warriors of the Crescent Continent need to take care of both riding, shooting and shooting, the hand armor is lightweight like other parts of human armor. The price is that the gauntlets they use can only protect the back of the hand and half of the thumb, and are very fragile and easily injured when attacking at close range.
Although Yajiro actually injured his palm, a part that is difficult to protect with armor, in general, the fact that they will have more wounded this time is still related to the lack of armor protection.
Not to mention the huge hybrid beast, in terms of the attack power of the skeleton soldiers, if the original heavy armor had not been replaced, and the armor was complete and thick enough, they could actually be completely harmless. But there are no ifs in this world. They had made the decision to switch to light equipment, and now they are in this situation again. Rather than spending energy on "assuming a better situation", it is better to try to achieve as good a result as possible with the existing combat power.
Henry naturally noticed the fatigue of the others. As they continued to move forward, the mineral veins seemed to be more concentrated here, and the roads began to merge. They turned to follow the cave wall and dug a deep valley on the side. Only having to defend against possible incoming enemies on one side and everyone being a little exhausted, the sage changed the team's formation.
He and Joshua, who have relatively well-preserved physical fitness and are considered to be at the peak of the team's combat effectiveness, are slightly separated from each other in the front, while Galeva, the empty-headed young man, cooperates with the experienced Narumi to defend the flanks and Tail attack. The remaining relatively tired people were leaning against the wall in the middle, not on the front line of the battle, conserving their physical strength.
In addition, the entire team also slowed down. Although Torataro showed great dissatisfaction with this, after the sage said, "You can run and see for yourself first," he had no choice but to lower his head angrily. More words.
No matter how dandy and self-centered he is, he is still aware of his own powerlessness. It is said that people who come from a samurai family will have some changes in their hearts after experiencing battles. However, compared to the Qingtian family samurai who came from the more chaotic feudal territory, perhaps the martial arts disciples in the major states under the command of Xingjing have more abandoned things than imagined. More.
This country has been without war for too long. The overly large samurai population consumes a lot of resources. Xinjing seems to support a huge samurai group, but in fact, based on what we have seen along the way south, the combat effectiveness it can exert is erratic.
The Chinese in power pay more attention to political struggles and factional alliances, and they inevitably move towards civil service. Although the nobles theoretically need to hone their skills day and night, in the absence of visible threats, most of the upper-class nobles just let them drift with the tide.
Just like territorial management, the military power belongs to Xinjing after all. What you train hard is your own strength, but the army you train is not yours in name.
Therefore, not many state pastors or county magistrates would be willing to spend such a big effort - there may be examples like Ryunosuke, but his existence is actually very embarrassing.
If Xinjing does not issue an order and there is no imminent threat nearby, and the local Chinese spend manpower and material resources to strictly train the army - in this case, Xinjing will not be grateful, but may suspect you of rebellion.
Because the sky is high and the emperor is far away, even if it belongs to Xinjing in name, it is the local leaders who pay and communicate daily. Many warriors were nominally loyal to the emperor but were actually extremely loyal to the local Chinese. This led to a question - if the Chinese had the intention to rebel, would these people be loyal to Xinjing or choose to follow them? Ethnic Chinese?
After Ryunosuke left office, he took away a large number of people. These people would rather become ostracized ronin than follow the original county magistrate. In fact, this can be regarded as a suspicion of rebellion. However, they called themselves ronin and excused themselves as "they have not been able to find loyal Chinese for the time being." They did not openly rebel and had a certain fighting capacity, so the local Chinese The clan just turned a blind eye and allowed them to stay in this gray area.
Combining this series of factors, people like Torataro, who are descendants of the samurai family but whose actual combat effectiveness is worrying, were also born in this environment.
People are afraid of being famous and pigs are afraid of being strong. Not only are the useless wastes happy and free, but they can also live a long time.
So when they arrived in Zhangzhou, the heavily armed Qingtian family warriors were ridiculed that they had watched too much "The Legend of Warriors" and thought they were heroes from hundreds of years ago.
The only combat power that could be counted on was the Aotea family samurai who had accompanied them all the way from the domain. Torataro might be considered braver than his companions who stayed behind, but at least he still had the courage to come in.
But this is already the result of his best efforts. What Yajiro and his fellow Aota family samurai from the domain lacked was experience. They had undergone rich and rigorous training and had a good physical foundation. And the appearance of Torataro's thin skin and tender flesh makes people wonder if he might have sprained himself due to lack of strength when wielding the sword.
To a certain extent, the doctor who is a head shorter than Torataro may be someone he can rely on if he is really forced to do so.
Although she has no strength or training, she possesses great mobility and determination.
——The words return to their original place.
After walking forward for a while, the group gradually realized that this was a winding road carved against the mountain wall. Judging from the fact that there are no other branches in the part that can be illuminated by the surrounding fire, this is probably the bottom of the mine.
It should be that mithril or gold mines have formed vertical and branched veins here, which is why such an excavation method was adopted. The ground here is very vast, but just when a group of people were about to move forward, Joshua in front stood up. fist.
"Something's not right." He couldn't tell the reason, but his keen senses still detected something.
The tired people in this camp kept smearing mint ointment on them to try to cheer up, maybe because the strong smell covered up the surrounding smell - but Henry was not affected.
"..." The sage frowned. The rancid smell at the bottom of the cave seemed to be real. He lowered the torch and approached it. Suddenly, with a "chi!", a small ball of flame was lit, but very quickly. The ground burned up, and there was no blazing flames like when Narumi's torch fell.
"This--" The moment the big ball of flames was ignited, the mist-like stench surrounding it was also illuminated. The end of the corridor was submerged by the drifting mist, and at first glance, they were very thick and about one meter high. .
"Huh-huh-" The sage tried to wave the torch again, but the air flow only caused the mist to float back and forth without being ignited.
"It seems that you have to get very close to light it." He said this, and Miss Doctor got out of the protective circle. She stretched out her hand to grab it, and then rubbed it with her fingertips to feel the moisture.
"It should be some kind of flammable substance, but because it is very humid here at the bottom of the cave, the heat has caused the formation of fog. The combustibles and water are mixed together, and the moisture in it is very high, making it relatively difficult to ignite." Ling Ru said. Analyzing: "It's better to hold the torch higher just in case."
She said this, while the Luoan girl looked at the sage and hesitated to speak.
"I was wondering if magic could work." Mira obviously thought that if the torch would be risky, she would try to use the lighting magic again, but the sage shrugged: "Then you should let it go."
"Damn it, sir." Magic power is closely related to energy. Henry, who clearly knew that she was too tired and couldn't use it at the moment, still said such words made Mira roll her eyes, but the Luoan girl continued: "I was thinking, that Black."
She didn't finish her sentence because she knew her teacher would understand.
"No, not yet." He shook his head: "Not everyone can take advantage of it."
Mira was silent. Her knowledge of magic and magic was still relatively limited, but looking at the exhausted companions around her, she might have the slightest desire to prove her own ideas, and she still wondered if she could do more.
"Keep walking." But there wasn't much time to think about it right now. After handing the torch to the taller members of the team and holding it high in a tiring posture to avoid igniting the mist and causing fire, the group walked down the road.
And they had just stepped onto the huge flat surface at the bottom of the mist-filled mine, when several tentacles wandering around began to approach the group of people under the cover of the thick fog.
"Be prepared to fight." The thick tentacles could not be silent. The group of people who immediately noticed the movement pulled out their weapons again with great energy.
The muscles in their forearms were sore and their fingers were stiff. They tried hard to relax, but they couldn't change the fact that they couldn't exert their full strength like before.
