The plantation is located on the shores of Lake Braun, not far from the base town. They are connected by a winding forest path. Wisps of mist drifted from the forest on both sides of the road, and unknown birds shrieked at the pedestrians on the shadowy treetops.
Everything around him felt very fresh and vaguely familiar to Vertok. It seemed that he had walked long distances in the endless forest and instinctively knew that the dense forest always contained various dangers, and the forest always contained various dangers. The birds inside are sounding alarms, and their calls may attract unknown enemies.
So, Vertok walked obediently in the middle of the team, his hand wrapped in the cloak gently resting on the hilt of the sword, so that he could pull it out at any time.
John, who had been following Wiltok, noticed Wiltok's unusual state. He laughed softly: "Vil, actually you don't need to be nervous. There are not many ferocious beasts and monsters in the forest near Braun Town. Within a radius of 100 Our territory is within a kilometer, and the female warriors of the Hemer tribe especially like to hunt the beasts and monsters that intrude into the territory.”
Wiltok looked away from a big tree with weird branches, turned around and asked, "Ah? Why do you say I don't need to be nervous? I'm not nervous."
John was silent for a while and said in a lower voice: "Vell, you may not remember what happened before, but I guess you are a well-trained forest adventurer. Look at them..."
Wiltok followed John's line of sight and found that four young professionals from Qin and the Whistle Adventure Group had left the road and were walking in the outer forest. For a while, they looked up at the tree crown and commented on the birds above; for a while, they squatted down, happily pulled out a herb and stuffed it into their own bags.
"Even if there is no danger around, adventurers must always be vigilant in unfamiliar environments... They are confident, but at first glance, you can tell that they are not adventurers. I thought you would be like them, but I found that you have A habit shared by many forest adventurers."
Wiltok nodded and said: "You put it this way, I also think that I used to be a member of the 'White Horn' adventure group... When my illness gets better, I want to go find them."
John's heart suddenly became heavy. Boss Bottom has revealed the idea of recruiting Wiltok, and even wants to include him in the core layer of the Adventurer's House. John was a little unhappy at first, but the more he came into contact with Wiltok, he found it difficult to dislike this simple-minded, handsome half-elf boy, and he was even more amazed by his outstanding talent. If Vertok really wanted to return to the White Horn Adventure Group, he would feel very sorry.
"This winter, your sister Lina may come to Braun Town to pick you up." John paused and then changed his words: "However, if the adventure group has been away from the stronghold for a long time, anything can happen... Moreover, if the adventure group gives up Injured companions are also common, and Braun Town has many disabled residents who were also former adventurers."
"If, I mean if, the White Horn Adventure Group collapses and no one comes to Braun Town to pick you up, what are your plans?" John tried to ask.
Wiltok thought for a while, shook his head and said: "I have no plans. Anyway, if they don't come to pick me up, I will go find them."
"Yeah." John cleared his throat and said, "I didn't make it clear just now. What I meant is that if the White Horn Adventure Group encounters a strong enemy and is wiped out by the enemy, they can't come to you, and you can't find them... …What should you do?”
Wiltok looked at John with a strange look and asked: "The White Horn Adventure Group was wiped out by a powerful enemy. What does it have to do with me going to find them?"
He had no impression of Bai Xiaohorn or his sister Lina, and naturally he had no emotional ties to them. Wiltok took it for granted that Bai Horn and Lina were a clue to retrieve his memory. If he had the ability, he should not give up this clue.
John found himself speechless. He couldn't help but think of Dr. Cole's comment about Wiltok: This guy looks stupid, but he actually has a lot of ideas.
"Uh...we will help you find the 'White Horn' adventure group in the future."
"I know that you are all good people, but good people are good people. I still have to prepare a sum of money to launch an intelligence collection mission at the Adventurer's House." Wiltok said in the style of a hotel owner.
John didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Boss Bottom always calculated everyone's accounts very clearly. John couldn't understand it when he was first taken in by the Adventurer's House. He wanted to eat an extra leg of lamb and had to be accounted for by his boss? However, everyone in the Adventurer's House has accumulated a personal fortune of varying degrees.
There is nothing more reassuring than that fact.
Everyone was walking and chatting, the sky light peeked through the clouds, the moist cold fog gradually dispersed, and the forests on both sides of the road changed. All kinds of wild trees disappeared, replaced by neatly arranged dwarf trees, which were obviously artificially cultivated crops.
Karl, Annie and others seemed to have little interest in these dwarf crops, so they returned to the middle of the team from the forest on the periphery of the road. Wiltok ran out. Since the surrounding trees were artificially planted crops, there would be no danger nearby. He could just explore these dwarf crops and satisfy his long-suppressed curiosity.
"This is the cotton fruit tree."
Katie carried her little leather whip and walked over with Anne, who was carrying a bow and shield, and said to Wiltok with a smile: "I guess you have seen them. They are very common, but you have forgotten."
Wiltok stroked the smooth, barkless trunk with his hands and shook his head, indicating that he had no impression of this kind of tree.
Annie pursed her lips and smiled and said: "The fruits of the cotton fruit tree are not edible. After they mature, the dry peels are filled with gray wadding, which can be used to weave cotton. The cotton clothes you are wearing are made of cotton fruits. Five trees The cotton fruit trees produce every year can probably spin a set of cotton clothes."
"The dry bark of the cotton fruit tree can be used for writing with a little processing and cutting, but it can only be kept for two years at most. The highlanders do not use cotton paper, they use higher-grade animal skin paper to record writing. The dry bark of the cotton fruit tree is the same as the fruit. It is flammable. Every autumn, when the barbarian slaves pick cotton fruits, they must remove the old bark together, so the trunks of the fruit trees here are all bare."
"Almost every plantation in the alliance will plant cotton fruit trees. The presence of cotton fruit trees here means that we are already in the plantation."
Of course, the plantation will not only grow cotton fruit trees. Behind this fruit forest is a large area of flat farmland. The crops and vegetables in the fields have been harvested. A group of strong barbarian female slaves wearing leather collars around their necks were busy plowing the land. There are many of them, but they appear sparsely spread out over the wide fields. They were not surprised by the arrival of the half-elf adventurers, and no one stopped what they were doing.
Captain Charlie stared at it, frowned and said, "It's strange that the barbarian slaves here are unguarded. Aren't you afraid of them escaping?"
Captain Huck chuckled and said: "The plantation is their home, why do they want to run away and where are they going? As for the guards, aren't they just the guards?"
In each field, there are about 5 or 6 barbarian female slaves digging the soil with hoes. Among them, there are some who are skilled in movements, and there are two or three who are clumsy. When they try to be lazy or work inefficiently, those who can skillfully dig the soil The barbaric female slaves in the area would yell at them and even beat them.
The beaten barbarian female slaves were generally younger and thinner. They did not dare to resist those fellow slaves who taught them a lesson, so they held their heads and cried, looking very pitiful. The older barbarian female slaves could not bear to continue to punish them, so they could only do most of the field work.
This is called guarding, but it is more like a parent teaching a child who is unwilling to work and is deliberately lazy.
Huck shook his head and said: "There are not that many people guarding the slaves in the border plantation. They come out to work by themselves and go back to the plantation to rest. Almost no one escapes. On the contrary, we feel that there are too many slaves in the Braun Plantation. It’s a bit too much to bear... Come on, I’ll take you to the plantation village and you’ll understand what’s going on.”
At the end of the road, a plantation village appeared in Wiltok's sight. It is surrounded by a huge fence, which is almost the same size as the clay stone wall of Braun Town, which means that the size of this village is no less than that of an adventurer stronghold.
The fence is built of double-layered logs, about 20 meters high. The diameter of each log is thicker than a half-elf's thigh. It is deeply rooted into the ground and looks very solid. The double fence may have been filled with rammed earth and wide enough for half-elf archers to patrol it. There is an arrow tower every 80 meters on the fence, and a crossbow is set up inside. The gleaming crossbow bolt is aimed at the entrance of the village.
At the fence gate, a group of barbarians were having a fierce argument with a group of half-elves.
There are a lot of adult males among these barbarians. They have thick skeletons and gnarled muscles. Compared with them, the fully armed half-elf warriors appear slender. However, the barbarians are all half-clothed and have sunken cheeks. The weapons they are equipped with It was also very simple, with only polished stone axes, stone spears and a wooden shield. In front of the half-elf warriors, they looked like a group of beggars who had been hungry for many days.
A tall barbarian man with a rough face dragged a very thin little barbarian girl and shouted: "Look clearly, she is the ugliest barbarian girl in our tribe. You can't find an uglier barbarian girl than her. I know that the uglier the barbarian girl is, the more valuable she is. She can be exchanged for a cart of grain and a cart of cotton. You just need to give me half a cart of grain and half a cart of cotton, and she will be yours!"
The half-elf who negotiated with the barbarian men was Rhodes from the Iron Cross Adventure Group, but the person who responded was a plump and beautiful barbarian woman next to him. She also wears a collar around her neck that symbolizes her status as a slave, but the collar is made of red copper, like a piece of jewelry, which shows the difference between her and ordinary barbarian female slaves.
"No! The food and cotton reserves in the plantation are only enough for us to survive this winter. We can no longer accept more female slaves. You all go back and don't waste your time here!" This unique barbarian female slave has a very serious attitude. He was tough and refused the other party's request for a trade, without even caring about Captain Rhodes next to him.
The barbarian male suddenly became furious, stared at her fiercely, and shouted: "Bah, you ugly and vicious woman, the sky fire will kill you, the beetles will eat your eyes, and the snake-tailed vultures will eat your bones. What do you mean, you despicable female slave?" What qualifications do you have to talk to the warriors of the Taka tribe?"
The barbarian slave girl had an indifferent face and was unmoved by the insults of the Kata warriors. Instead, Captain Rhodes pulled her aside and talked quietly.
Captain Hack, who was watching the excitement outside, explained to everyone: "The Kata tribe is a nearby barbarian tribe, which is very small. There are many small barbarian tribes like this in the Braun Lake basin. They usually rely on farming and hunting to make a living. They also raised some short-horned antelopes, so they would not be unable to survive. But every autumn, the orcs from the Blackstone tribe would come over and forcibly confiscate the food supplies of the small barbarian tribes, leaving no one for them. A mud melon and a piece of animal meat.”
"Small barbarian tribes would hide some of their food in advance, but it would not be enough for all the tribesmen to survive the winter. Therefore, they could only bring the thinnest and ugliest girls and boys in the tribe to the alliance's border plantations and sell them to slave traders. Exchange some food supplies for the winter. This is how the half-orcs of the Blackstone Tribe limit the population of the barbarians and prevent them from growing stronger."
Carl of Qin and the Whistle Adventure Group immediately understood that the Kata tribe brought these children here to find a way out for them. If Captain Rhodes refused this slave trade, they would definitely not survive this winter.
He couldn't help but ask: "Who is that barbarian slave girl wearing a copper collar? How does she have the power to stop the slave trade?"
"Oh, you mean Ingrid." Captain Hack scratched his head and said: "She is the leader of the slaves in the plantation. She has more than 400 slaves in the plantation. She has no power to stop Rhodes and The Kata tribe trades slaves, but she can let the little barbarian slaves bought by Rhodes starve to death, while Rhodes can only get a dozen worthless corpses."
"I have said before that Braun Plantation is the home of these barbarian slaves. Ingrid must first ensure the food supply in Braun Town and leave enough food for the plantation slaves to survive the winter. The excess food supplies can be sold to Rod, let him use it to buy young slaves and temporarily place them on the plantation."
"This year, the food harvest in the plantation is not very good, and there must be something wrong with the food hidden by the Kata tribe. It will be too late for them to come over and make a deal at this time." Captain Hack shook his head and said, "Mayan Mayor himself If you don't come forward and let Ingrid make the decision, if she doesn't nod, these little barbarian slaves brought by the Kata tribe will have no choice but to be left in the wild and fend for themselves. They won't survive this winter."
Over there, the negotiation between Rhodes and Ingrid came to fruition. I don’t know what conditions he offered. The female slave leader reluctantly agreed to keep more than ten barbarian girls brought by the Kata tribe, and the remaining barbarian boys All were turned away.
Although the barbarian warriors of the Kata tribe were unwilling to give in, under the threat of the arrow tower ballistae, they could only accept the reality and moved all the food and materials they exchanged to the carts pulled by the oryx, preparing to leave the plantation.
Rhodes successfully made the deal and seemed to be in a good mood. He walked over with a smile on his face, first nodded to Wiltok, and then took the initiative to say hello to Charlie and Huck.
When Anne saw the ignorant little barbarian boys, who seemed completely unaware of what she was about to face, she asked Rhodes, "Why don't you buy them too?"
Rhodes glanced at Wiltok and saw that he did not express any sympathy for the barbarian boy, so he smiled and said: "It is very tragic... The Blackstone Orcs caused all this. The barbarians live like this under their rule. You always You can’t expect me to solve the Blackstone tribe’s internal problems.”
"If the barbarians were to rule the orcs, they would be as miserable as the orcs." Captain Charlie, who was born in the legion, said in a cold tone: "I hope that the barbarians in Blackstone will always be ruled by the orcs."
"I want to go over and have a look." Wiltok said suddenly. Those adult barbarian males seemed to have touched part of his memory, and he couldn't help but want to get closer and observe them.
Rhodes hesitated for a moment, nodded and said, "Okay, I'll take you there."
"Don't touch them. These barbarian warriors are very strong. If there are fighters among them, it will be very dangerous." John reminded Wiltok from the side and gestured for his companions to follow.
As soon as Vertok moved, the half-elves from the Jean and Whistle Adventure Group and the Iron Cross Adventure Group naturally moved closer to him. The Kata barbarians also noticed the movement here. They may know that the "uglier" half-elves have a higher status. When they saw Wiltok, who was surrounded by a group of half-elves, approaching, instead of being alert, they automatically dispersed and took those half-elves away. The little barbarian boy showed it to him.
However, Wiltok didn't care about the expectations of the Kata barbarians at all. He had already determined that he was in a daze just now because he was sensitive to the barbarians' language. The adult barbarians stopped talking, and his attention fell on the barbarian boys.
These little guys were very thin and tortured by hunger. They didn't even have the strength to cry. Their voices were not only weak but also unclear. When they saw a large group of fully armed half-elves approaching, they were suddenly too frightened to speak out. Voice.
Victor walked around in a circle and was very disappointed, but an adult barbarian woman lying on the ground and a half-grown barbarian boy caught his attention.
The barbarian woman is no longer young, and her face looks very haggard, but her beautiful appearance cannot be concealed. It can be said that she is the most beautiful barbarian woman that Vertok has ever seen. However, her breath was weak, and there was only a slit for her eyes. She lay on the ground unable to move, with her head held in the arms of the barbarian boy.
The barbarian boy is about fourteen or fifteen years old, and his facial features are similar to those of the barbarian girl. He is also handsome, but there is a radioactive scar on his left cheek, which has a faint blue luster and is very eye-catching.
"She is Xinna, the daughter of the heavenly spirit of our Kata tribe. Some time ago, Xinna was injured by the orcs of the Blackstone tribe. If you can save her, she can be sold for a lot of money." The barbarian leader spoke fluently introduced to Vertok in half-elf language.
Captain Rhodes said: "Yes, she is very valuable. Unfortunately, she was injured too badly and was about to die. Moreover, even a barbarian female shaman could not heal her injuries. There was only one possibility, she She was cursed by a female half-orc shaman. There is nothing we can do to cure her."
Vertok cast his gaze on the barbarian boy's face and asked, "What's wrong with his face?"
The barbarian leader was silent for a moment and whispered: "His name is Yog, he is Xinna's son. When he was very young, he was hit by sky fire, but he did not die. There were blue scars on his face. If you like Yog, just keep him, there is no need to exchange food..."
Rhode laughed and shook his head contemptuously and said: "What's the use of a male barbarian slave being good-looking? Besides, he still has scars on his face... The most critical problem is that he is too old and no half-elf will accept him. "
Wiltok gradually lost interest in these barbarians and turned to leave. At this time, Xinna, who had been in a semi-conscious state, suddenly opened her eyes and spit out a set of weird syllables.
Wiltok suddenly stopped, turned around, hesitantly knelt down, and held Xinna's hand in front of everyone's surprised eyes.
The barbarian woman's haggard face showed a soft smile, and she said to Wiltok in half-elf language: "Please keep my Yog, this is your destined encounter."
Wiltok looked at Xinna deeply, stood up slowly, took out the fine long sword presented by Captain Harker from his cloak, and handed it to the barbarian leader, "I want both of them, I will exchange this sword for you, May I."
In the end, the Kata barbarians did not accept Vertok's long sword. They left Xinna and her son where they were, drove the antelope cart away from the plantation, and said their final farewell to the tribe's female shaman with a desolate song.
Captain Rhodes of the Iron Cross lowered his head and tried his best to hide the horror in his heart. He could understand what the barbarian female shaman said to Wiltok before. It was a remote half-orc dialect. Translated into half-elf language, it was:
There is a God living inside of you!
