Henry and his party fell into a very real dilemma.
Ever since they received the support of the Qingtian family and traveled together, they have rarely had the same experience as when they were mercenaries in Rigar - thanks to the Qingtian family's wealth, they basically had to buy whatever supplies they were short of along the way. What. Although living standards are still declining due to a series of reasons, generally speaking, there is no problem in maintaining food and clothing.
But now, due to changes in the situation, this relatively stable supply condition has been easily cut off.
The Qingtian family and his entourage were from the vassal region. Even if the Qingtian family head was inclined towards Xinjing and therefore they received a more standard education and had a lighter accent than most of the vassal warriors, they would still be exposed as soon as they opened their mouths in the Wanzhou area.
And because the witches and ghost warriors are too eye-catching, it would be better for them to show up less often. Rigar and his party agree with the barbarian girls.
The only ones left who can show up are Kenye, Sakura and Aya, but the latter two are quite eye-catching because they have noble blood. Mr. Jian's status as a medicine man may be low-key, but for such a low-status person to purchase about a month's worth of food for dozens of people at once, he will attract a lot of attention because of his unreasonableness.
The problem becomes difficult to solve.
They had never worried about such a problem from the beginning of the journey, but now they had to face it.
Thanks to the unified territory and corresponding systems, the Moon Country's overall supervision of various materials is better than many countries in Rigar.
Although the management of daily necessities is not as sophisticated as every household, the trade in bulk commodities cannot escape the eyes of relevant people.
Prior to this, the Qingtian family and their entourage only had to pretend to be traveling nobles and explain that they were buying food and grass for their family and followers, and they could easily obtain supplies in towns and other areas. Sometimes you can even get bulk supplies at very favorable prices from government-run grain stores.
But now the world has changed. If they come from a feudal lord and reveal their identities at will, it is very likely that the whole team will be arrested and tortured. Even appearing in big cities is risky, so they can only disperse to less noticeable rural areas and meet their needs through small and multiple purchases of materials.
However, the speed of solving problems still cannot keep up with the emergence of new problems.
The awakening of the ghost warriors provided the group with valuable combat power, but the rations required by these huge warriors were more than five times that of the samurai. Although they managed to obtain some prey in the wild after autumn, hunting to fill their stomachs takes time and the supply is relatively unstable.
The rations were consumed rapidly, and at this juncture something happened in Wanzhou. The conflict between the local warriors and farmers completely led to a large amount of farmland being abandoned. Food was scarce and more expensive. The lack of supply directly caused the price of food to increase more than ten times for a time.
And what's even more fatal for them is that because of the war and lack of contact means, they don't even know who has food in hand to sell.
Now that Wanzhou is under martial law and farmers are rioting and there are conflicts between warriors, the risk of going to various provinces in the territory to test in order to buy grain and grass is quite high.
In fact, even when they came to this village today, they were ready for an adventure. This was a village with no name on the map but a decent size, derived from the secret map memories of the witches. After careful screening, they believed that this was the smallest village that could possibly provide the supplies needed by a group of people. If it were larger, it might be patrolled by nobles, and if it was smaller, it might not produce enough food.
But the bet was lost.
Although the deaths of farmers are worthy of regret, they do not have the luxury or obligation to bury these dead one by one.
Unable to protect oneself, a dilemma. Choosing to turn from the mountain road to this village consumed two days of rations, and the remaining supplies could only last less than a week even if they were frugal. Even if there is no martial law and no detours, the journey to the next state would still take two and a half weeks. In this situation, the journey will only be longer.
Supplies are completely insufficient, and going to a larger city to test your luck is also a gamble - in theory, this team with witches, ghosts and doctors can prove its innocence from the composition, but the previous encounter with the Wanzhou warriors Proved that this is only 'theory'.
This is an extremely ironic scene.
Even the samurai themselves - no, perhaps it is precisely because they, as samurai, are well aware of many problems in this country that they have a clear understanding of the performance of their peers in the current situation.
——The execution power of the samurai is too great.
The only requirement Xinyuezhou has for its warriors is to be loyal to the Chinese people they serve and the Xinjing royal family. As long as they do not violate these two points, most of the time they will be ignored by anything they do. As long as you are loyal, even if you have a conflict with another samurai, it's not a big deal.
As long as he is brave and loyal to his superiors, he is a qualified warrior. Such a culture led to their convictions being often based on their own opinions. The practice of "rude petition" against civilians was only justified by the law. In fact, bullying and discrimination among samurai were also quite common.
The samurai of the prefecture looked down upon the samurai of the feudal lord; the sergeants looked down on the country men; the country men looked down on the ashigaru. If there are three people in the contempt chain, and with the privileges and no bullying and discrimination, then one or two of these people are probably pure enough to be directly enshrined as saints of the white church.
But they are all human, and human beings make mistakes.
Mistakes will be made over and over again.
They can't expect that the Wanzhou warriors they encounter when going to a big city will be different from the ones they encountered before, just like you can't expect a person who has always bullied the market to suddenly become honest and honest. Someone who can speak ill of another good friend in front of you will also speak ill of you in front of another good friend. People are always the same on the outside only in their bad aspects.
——In short, even if senior Chinese people such as Zhou Mu will act according to the situation to protect their career, there is a great possibility that these grassroots executors will make unfair decisions based only on prejudice and other personal emotions. decision.
So going to a larger town to try to get supplies means risking all the lives of the group on the nobles they may encounter whom they have never met.
"For the first time in my life, I have such empathy for what civilians are thinking." Narumi said with a sigh, even if Henry could understand the situation without analyzing it in detail.
Without the support of food and grass from all over the Crescent Continent, it was already so difficult for them to just meet the conditions for moving forward.
There was still a week of food rations left, and it was another two days' journey back to the mountain road.
But this is the only way they can go.
The originally comfortable life is now more difficult than the mercenaries in Rigal - this is what our Luoan girl thinks.
Rigal, where the adventurer culture is extremely prosperous, is full of supply merchants and hotels. Since travelers are common, people who want to make money from them will naturally appear. Food, potions, repair tools; weapon maintenance, armor maintenance. Adventurers need many things, and as long as there's demand, there's business.
But there are no adventurers in New Moon Continent.
There are no mercenaries, and there are even very few travelers.
This country, which is mainly agricultural, is extremely sensitive to the flow of population, because it is directly related to the demand for labor and food. Most of the farmers were restricted to their own land and could only live in a city.
The only people who can really be said to be traveling are traveling nobles, but nobles usually move between big cities when supplies are sufficient, and supplies are carried out directly in government-run or large stores.
There is almost no room for small traders.
Most of the traveling merchants in Xinyue Continent sell ointments and handmade products. Although there are food stalls, they usually only appear during festivals and festivals.
Support merchants like Rigar, who were born specifically to purchase supplies in bulk for mercenary groups and the like, have never been born in this country due to the lack of basic support.
People always wait until they lose before they realize that some things are not taken for granted. The Luoan girl, who had never worried about supply issues, suddenly realized at this moment: Rigar, who can find relevant stores everywhere, is very useful to travelers and adventurers. Words are so precious.
You can't buy anything by holding on to money, but you can buy it if you have to, but it may cost your life.
Should I take a gamble and go to a big town and risk being arrested to continue trying to buy supplies? Or should I go deep into the mountains and forests with insufficient supplies and try to get extra supplies from them according to the circumstances?
They ultimately chose the latter.
After all, there are qualified hunters in the team, plus ghosts who lack hunting experience but are strong. They had already had successful hunts before. Without knowing how the Wanzhou Chinese would treat his group, the young master who gradually came to power finally decided to trust his partners.
And this time they made the right bet.
On the way back empty-handed from the burned village of Wanzhou, they encountered the same kind of creature in the mountains and forests - the tenacious wild boar that is also widespread in Rigar.
These omnivores, which can easily weigh hundreds of kilograms, seem to have the same destination as theirs - most likely they want to go down the mountain to harm the farmland. When they run in groups, when they see a group of people, they probably Thinking of the weak farmers who used to defend their farmland, they shouted and charged without hesitation.
But in the past, the opponent would just scream and run away, but this time he did not shy away.
The muscular wild boar charged, and the idle hunters could only avoid it in a hurry, but among their team there were ghosts who could use brute force to stop the wild bull, which was bigger than the wild boar.
"It's meat!" Zhaoyue, with gleaming eyes, gave the order, and the ghosts raised their big sticks and rushed forward.
The thick skulls that the wild boars were proud of were smashed like fragile egg shells, and their supposed shocking charge was stopped directly by the more powerful brute force. The pigs that suffered a precise and powerful attack stopped in an instant. Henry and Lulu stepped forward to do a brief inspection and looked at the surrounding environment. They asked the ghost clan and the group to lift them up first and move them to a more private place. .
The next processing scene made the samurai and shrine maidens who rarely saw such scenes quickly turn pale. Even the ghosts were actually not used to such a scene - all the prey they had hunted before was gone. It was Rigar and his party who dealt with it with the barbarian girl.
The industry of slaughtering livestock is classified as a lowly profession in many "civilized" countries, especially the act of contact with the internal organs of living creatures is considered extremely dirty.
But right now, no one who claims to be noble dares to stand up and point fingers.
Because everyone understands that this is precious food.
The group of 3 big and 5 small wild boars were killed by the ghost tribe with a precise blow, and after being moved to the forest glade, Henry used Claymore to chop down a few small trees at will, and then transformed them into human-like shapes. The slightly higher T-shaped binding was fixed, and then the vertical end was inserted into the ground, and the horizontal end was used to hang the wild boar's hind legs upside down to lift it up.
"Bring the wooden basin." The sage turned around and said, and the ashigaru who had done it several times quickly took out the blood-stained wooden basin and placed it under the wild boar, and then stood aside to watch and wait for instructions. .
Kramer, who had also served as a logging ax, now became a kitchen knife. The long and slender sword is as effective in killing enemies as cutting open a pig's neck to bleed. The blood flows gurglingly to the wooden basin below. When seeing this scene from a distance, many of the witches' faces became even paler, but I finally endured it.
Having experienced hundreds of battles, they should be accustomed to bloody scenes, but slaughtering livestock is different from killing enemies - especially since the sage's method is fast and precise.
He switched to a small knife and stabbed it into the end of the wild boar's lower abdomen. After slashing the knife directly toward the chest, the neatly steaming internal organs slipped out. Because the internal organs were not damaged, there was no obvious smell, only the rich smell of blood like rust.
The ashigaru who were on standby lit a fire under Lulu's command and prepared to dispose of the pig's head and perishable internal organs. Now that the rations were extremely scarce, they had to work hard to swallow even the internal organs.
After it was full, the wooden basin was changed to another one, but the blood was still flowing, and Henry did not skip the remaining parts after cleaning the internal organs. Under his command, Mira followed and used a knife to make a circle around the pig's hooves. Then he made a continuous vertical cut from the incision toward the abdomen.
After using a knife to slightly cut some fat from the opening, they peeled off the entire skin of these wild boars just like slowly peeling off the old window paper on the Japanese paper windows.
Wild boar skin is an important commodity in both Rigar and Crescent Continent. The hairy wild boar skin can be used as a scabbard coat or a leather bag cover to effectively waterproof. The warriors of the Qingtian family also know this material, but they Never seen how it was obtained before.
The removed skin was still soft and hung on the frame for stretching. The stupid green Kaleva, who did not know how to do delicate operations, was assigned a rather dirty but suitable job - to remove the wild boar skin that was still attached to the inside. Carefully scrape off fat.
These things cannot be discarded. Although they are relatively dirty and inedible due to the processing process, they can also be used to cook grease or lighting fixtures for equipment maintenance. Even Jianye's side asked to reserve some. As the weather gets colder, they need to prepare for winter, and lard is a pretty good medicine for treating cracked skin.
Skillful techniques and members who knew what they were doing made all this time-consuming. The sleeping wild boar gradually lost its animal shape, and the faces of Kazuto's upper-class members were no longer so livid, and they got closer. , attention is increasingly attracted by the sage's flying swords and skillful techniques.
The removed internal organs were cleaned and cooked with strong seasonings. Although all this made the ashigaru people who were accustomed to eating bland food frown, the missionaries in Rigar and his team showed great interest after a long time. Appearance - The same is true for the ghost tribe. Although they belong to the Crescent Continent race, the ghost tribe's diet naturally leans more towards meat due to their huge body size.
The sage with his sleeves rolled up put his hand into the chest cavity of the wild boar and used a knife to cut off a whole piece of white fat. This is the fat next to the internal organs of large animals. It is called suet by the Rigar people. This is a fine cooking oil, fragrant to those who can get used to the smell of animal fats.
Lulu was full of joy and almost ran and jumped to take the suet and go to the pot to cut it, and urged the Ashigaru to get a few more clay pots to put the lard paste out.
After dealing with all this, the blood was finally drained away so that the wild boar meat no longer had the strong smell of blood. Henry separated a few pig legs, and then broke the ribs into several small pieces.
They built a temporary smoking rack with natural materials and moved some kindling to the fire to light it. The divided meat is then mounted on it.
We have been deep into the mountains and forests for more than a day, and the rising smoke is relatively safe. In addition, it was almost night after all this was dealt with. Although there was still a risk, it was necessary in order to make the precious prey more durable.
Smoked and dried wild boar meat can be stored for a longer period of time. It only requires the attention of the night watchman to keep the fire going, and one night of basic smoking is enough.
The pig head and internal organs, which are not easy to preserve, constitute a meat feast that is relatively rich, but makes everyone frown.
Some families were happy and some were sad. While Rigal and his entourage were enjoying their meal, they and the others hesitated to take their chopsticks.
Although they are an isolated island sandwiched between Xinjing and the feudal territory.
After all, the internal personnel composition is still complicated.
