The sunshine in autumn and winter is always less intense than in spring and summer, especially in the south of Crescent Continent, which is wider and more mountainous.
The cold air coming from the east wind on the sea surface is always blocked by the mountains and turns into heavy downpours. Once winter comes, storms, heavy rains, and associated flash floods and river flooding become a common sight here.
And even on a rare day like today without rain or strong wind, the sun is as secretive as a bride getting married in a sedan chair, unwilling to reveal her true face.
——This is not just discomfort in temperature and vision for the group.
The type that Henry calls the original ghoul, which is highly adapted to the outside environment, is actually not suitable for operating in strong sunlight.
Their pale skin like moles is actually evidence of this - just like terrestrial animals will drown in water, the sun, a powerful environmental factor that does not exist in the world they live in, is the driving force behind their actions. The biggest obstacle.
But there is a limit to everything. Under the bright sunshine on a sunny day in midsummer, this kind of ghoul will weaken and die in a very short period of time, but the weak sunlight in winter is like shallow water. Taller land animals can directly wade through it, and even short ones can hold their breath temporarily. Swimming.
The people of shadow and night are not good at moving in the sun, but not every corner of the world is sunny. Even if most of the leaves have fallen, the southern woods that still provide enough shade are an excellent place for them to hide. If they don't leave quickly, the two fleeing ghouls will definitely try to attack again after nightfall.
The shock-absorbing carriage enhanced by Rigal craftsmanship still maintained a good balance while walking on the uneven dirt road. The body of the young missionary covered with linen was placed on the floor of the carriage. The old missionary guarded him and said something. Not sent.
Burying them on the spot will become food for ghouls. No one wants their companions who are supposed to be sleeping to be dug up and eaten into pieces. This is definitely not a burial.
Daylight has never been more precious, and where the golden sun sets has never felt so luxurious.
The team continued on in quiet silence.
There was no chirping of insects, no chirping of birds, no sound of any animals passing or moving or calling out to their companions.
"The First Minister of the Ming Dynasty"
The surrounding woods fell into a dead silence over a large area, and apart from the sound of their carriages in action and the occasional snort of the horses, there was no life left.
The lonely wind blowing through the forest with bare branches made a sound like the wail of a wraith.
"This place will become a restricted area in the future." Henry suddenly said this, and several people at the front of the team from Kazuto looked at him.
They hesitated to speak.
They have no way of controlling how long the cracks opened by the people of Plaxia who destroyed the shrine will last. These ghouls have extraordinary endurance despite their extremely high mobility, so where do they come from and where do they spread to? , and there is no way to control it.
It has been confirmed that they have taken root in this mountain forest, but how many are there specifically? No one could be sure that what they encountered was all they encountered, and these things were so fast and their combat effectiveness was so amazing that even idle samurai would be afraid that trying to conquer them would cost them their lives.
You may not be able to defeat them, and if they try to escape, you won't be able to catch them at all. Moreover, they will reproduce, and their fecundity may even be quite astonishing.
Even a team like theirs, which was almost entirely elite, was unable to stop the ghouls from attacking non-combatants.
If there were a hundred Henrys, maybe they could wipe out all these things.
"Ah." Because he was not following the secret network of the witches, the young master took out the map he carried with him to check the direction. He found that some places on the map that had not been opened for a long time in the humid weather had appeared. Insect-eaten.
The girl from Luo'an who was traveling with her was watching from the side. At this moment, the sky began to show its beauty, the clouds dispersed and the sunshine gradually became stronger. Under sufficient light, she could clearly see the details of the map - whether it was a coincidence or providence, the moth-eaten areas on this map were mainly in the north, with many other locations scattered here and there.
The huge Crescent Continent, a long and narrow land plate is nominally "the king's land in the world", but in fact it is full of loopholes and insect infestations.
The several major states occupied by the vassal army may have been able to overcome the civil war among the Crescent Continent royal family within the jurisdiction of humans, but what they relied on to open a forbidden door was the power of the Placia Order.
At the moment, just a crack in the door is opened, and the cold breath of death flowing out from it is enough to turn a large area into a restricted area for life.
But the sad part may be that they are the only ones in the entire Moon Kingdom who are aware of these problems.
When long-lived species such as the elves look down upon humans from a bird's eye view, words like "short-sighted" and "aggressive" are always included in their words. And any resistance, sarcasm, anger and hostility that humans show towards this only further proves the truth of this statement.
and people.
After all, he still looks too much like the Rigal people.
This big country that claims to have a 4,000-year-old civilization and has always been a unified dynasty, a country that looks down upon the world like no other, could once be driven by a unified will and work together to build something as spectacular as the national highway system that amazed outsiders. But now it is like this An unbearable sight.
Human beings have the same weaknesses, but they differ from different cultures and manifest themselves in different ways.
Kazuto is always reserved.
He was so reserved that he probably wouldn't even dare to make a cowardly sound when he died. This intuitive difference can be very deceiving, especially to outsiders who have just arrived. They will feel that they are simply a completely different race, as if they are some kind of "advanced human beings" independent of the five major races.
And Kazuto is often so self-reliant.
Even the visitors from the powerful Padrosi Empire and Otolo Empire were just two relatively developed branches among the "Southern Barbarians" in Kazuto's eyes.
But death is death.
The kings and nobles on the west coast of Rigal fought among themselves by directly sending troops to attack, while the Chinese in Xinjing fought among themselves by forcing the other side to send troops as cannon fodder to reduce their strength.
The former are barbaric, inelegant, and rude in their eyes. But isn’t the more subtle and subtle internal fighting dirty? It’s not internal fighting.
Mira felt like the country was like a big ship.
A sinking ship.
The swordsmen of Placia are saboteurs who sneak aboard the ship, trying to cut through the bottom of the ship so that everyone can sink to death because they think this is a blessing, a gift, and an atonement. .
Everyone else on the ship, who was supposed to be acting as a community against these people, was arguing and fighting about other things.
The Shinkyo side may have known nothing about this and did not react at all, but the domain side, which knew what the people in Placia were doing, reacted because of reasons such as "If the ship sinks, Shinkyo will die first." She chose to cooperate with them - maybe, after all, she had never been in contact with the senior officials of the domain, and she was just thinking wildly.
But when death is imminent, the first thought is to let the old enemy die first. I am afraid this is a concept that many people will agree with.
She gradually realized how powerless her teacher was.
He was still very strong, so strong that she couldn't imagine him losing to anyone.
But at the same time he was so powerless.
Because he is just a person.
A sage is supposed to be a wise man who knows a lot and is a guide. But he has already seen the truth and crisis. Only one person and one sword or a small team like now can't turn the tide. And even if he ran to Central Street and shouted loudly, most passers-by would just laugh at him for being crazy and continue to do whatever he was supposed to do.
Sometimes silence is not to hide something private, but even if you speak it out, it will not help the current situation.
Not everyone has an almost unshakable heart like him. Some truths are enough to make people collapse, so not mentioning them until necessary has become his policy.
Several hours of walking and silence gave the white-haired girl a long time to think.
Until Henry in front raised his hand again and clenched it into a fist.
The scent floating in the cold winter air was noticed by everyone.
"It smells like burning wood." Even Narumi, a senior samurai, knew what this smell was like.
"Where is the windward point?" Old Qiao on the side asked loudly, and the Yiren girl sitting on the top of the carriage turned over and grabbed the ground at the corner, picked up a handful of dead leaves on the ground, crushed them up, and then lifted them up and scattered them.
The cold wind brought them to the foot of the mountain behind and to the right.
"Northwest wind." She directly reported the absolute direction. As Yi people who have lived in the wilderness for a long time, they actually rarely use relative directions like "left" and "right". The directions of east, west, north and south are not used by lone hunters. Lost's best friend.
But the warriors couldn't understand, and Old Qiao who asked the question fell into an awkward silence. Lulu also noticed this, and pointed to a place with relatively sparse trees on the left front of the slope.
After a few hours of walking, under the protection of the clear sun, they should have passed through an area with more intense ghoul activity.
But this is still not an inhabited place.
The smell of firewood can carry for several kilometers along the wind, so people who have wilderness experience and want to hide their traces will mostly pay attention to the location of their campsite. Although the wind direction is very changeable in this season, this may not be perfect.
Wildfires should not happen for the time being. Although there are many dead leaves on the ground, the humidity in the central part of the country is very high in winter, so only the top layer is dry. The bottom layer is soaked with water, making it difficult to burn.
So it's man-made.
And there is a high probability that the humans you encounter at this time and place are enemies rather than friends.
"Follow me, the scout troops, and move forward on foot." Henry said as he tightened his belt to reduce the clanking sound of his plate armor, while the Luoan girl, the scouts Da Shen and Lao Qiao followed with bows. Lulu, as another person with strong investigative capabilities, stayed in the formation as a guide.
They walked quietly, avoiding small branches and slowly approaching upwind. However, the smell of firewood gradually faded before they got halfway.
"Low down." Henry gave this instruction.
The land of Crescent Continent is generally rugged, especially the mountainous areas. Building a hut on a gentle hillside like Rigar's method would be difficult to do without a lot of manpower to level the land, but this complex terrain will be very useful for reconnaissance.
The smell of firewood had dissipated, but they could already faintly hear voices. The terrain ahead is somewhat like an inverted horseshoe - the open part faces to the right, and the arc part bulges upward to form a cliff with a height of less than 10 meters. Below the cliff is a relatively flat mountainous area, and this is where the smell of firewood comes from.
"Go this way." The sage guided the three of them toward the high ground on the side of the cliff. Occupying the high ground would give them a better view, and they would be less likely to be noticed by the other party when they lowered their bodies.
The crowd was buzzing, and this was a sizable team.
They lay down on the edge of the high ground and moved all reflective items aside to check carefully.
Nearly a hundred horses and warriors, more than three hundred ashigaru, one hundred of which are bow ashigaru. Their armor was bright, and their equipment and supplies were sufficient. They had obviously washed and eaten after a night, and were packing up their tents to get back on the road.
"He has blue armor and his accent is that of a southern samurai." Being both Kazuto, the great god immediately noticed the difference. Kazuto's language uses short syllables to spell words and then form sentences. Although the syllables are the same, the accents in the northern domain and nearby areas are often different in intonation from those in the central and southern areas.
For example, the syllable of their vocabulary to express the meaning of "eat" is "tabelu", but the intonation of the domain is "tabei↑lu↓" which first suppresses, then rises and then suppresses, while the samurai in the directly-governed prefectures often use The tone of "Ta → Double → Lu ↑" - that is, the first two sounds are in flat tone, and the last tone is in an upward tone.
These small details and tonal habits cause the two of them to sound completely different even if they speak the same sentence. In addition, Kazuto's language has so many superimposed syllables that it is often easy to reveal the truth even if you imitate deliberately.
"It's in cooperation with the feudal lord." The sage concluded directly.
It cannot be a coincidence that a team of this size entered the mountain at this time. In addition, Xinjing and the feudal territory are still theoretically in the period of peace talks. If we simply rule it out, it is very likely that they are coming towards them.
"Go back and report, we have to take a detour." Old Qiao said, but Henry held him down: "Wait a minute."
"Commander." He watched as the warrior with the most gorgeous armor below seemed to give some instructions to his men, and then three people got on their horses and ran out in different directions.
"More than one unit may be attacked from a flank." Henry narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at the direction in which the messenger ran out.
"We have to catch him alive."
