Mercenaries and Adventurers

At this time, on a carriage in the team, a few fluffy heads popped out of a few empty boxes with their mouths open, but they were fluffy heads who had slept on the swaying carriage for the whole day.

When it was getting dark, they actually became more energetic.

One by one, they raised their ears and poked their heads out of the empty boxes on the top floor of the carriage.

The surrounding environment is different from the daytime. Although leaving the human gathering place makes the Mao Mao feel that they are farther away from human metal, but fortunately, there are still many metal tools in this human team.

Their big eyes moved along with the armed squad patrolling around the campsite, staring not at the humans who looked similar to them, but at the metal weapons on the waists and hands of those humans.

"Snoring."

The Mao Maos are very envious. It would be great if their tribe had so many metal weapons.

Some monsters that invade the tribe will be defeated by them. The dried heads and processed fur are hung on the top of the tribe, which can show honor and deter other monsters and beasts.

In the deep mountain forest, there are a lot of stone flakes, stones and various kinds of wood, but these things do not have much effect on the monsters with thick fur and scales. Still have to rely on hard and sharp metal weapons to beat those monsters.

After bouncing around in the carriage all day, some Mao Mao jumped out of the box and felt a little weak in footsteps, so Courage Mao Mao asked everyone to walk around in the human team, looking for some insects and fresh flowers in the grass, and eating some food.

And it wants to find the leader of this human team, that strong human, to see if there are any new tasks that can be entrusted to them.

With tasks, there are metal rewards.

Every time you accumulate more metal, you can return to the tribe earlier.

It has been a long time since they came out of the tribe. They worked with other cunning humans before, and they were delayed for a long time because of being deceived. It was not a very smooth start.

After explaining to his subordinates, Courageous Mao Mao first climbed to the top of the carriage, took advantage of the afterglow that was about to fall from the sky in the evening, looked around and found a strong human being carrying a blue axe.

So it pounded its short legs, pushed away the wild flowers and weeds along the way, and chased after it.

All kinds of small insects in the weeds were frightened and flew up at any time. Bravely walked nimbly while flicking their long tails, knocking down one after another, and then jumped up slightly to catch them with their hands.

Check before eating. Don’t eat beetles with hard shells. This kind of thing has a hard shell, which is easy to hurt the sharp and sharp teeth; Everyone knows that they cannot be eaten, but they can be collected to make rotten eggs, which can drive away some powerful monsters with a keen sense of smell but they are invincible; insects with too bright colors cannot be eaten, most of them are poisonous, including but not limited to poisonous scales Powder, poisonous glands, stinging burrs, fangs, etc. Of course, some insects are not poisonous, but they also have patterns and body colors that imitate poisonous insects. To be safe, the furs never eat them.

Most of the insects with green, khaki, and rock gray colors are edible.

Courageous Maomao caught as he walked, and after a while, his mouth was full of insect juice.

It itself likes to eat green insects full of plant juices, which are cool and sweet, and they will crunch when eaten.

And the furs who stayed in the temporary overnight camp could not walk and look for insects in the grass and bushes like their leader, and they didn't dare to go far, just looking for all edible things near the empty boxes and carriages where they lived thing.

Human food is not inedible, but they are not used to it at all. How can there be crispy juicy insects in dry and hard wheat cakes and boiling soup?

These Mao Mao first checked all the grass and shrubs near the carriage, and each Mao Mao found a few edible insects. They don't eat by themselves, but gather together and feed these things to a furry, so that the furry is full and strong.

Afterwards, crunching and chewing the melee hair full of insects in satisfaction, unloading what it regarded as a long sword from its waist was actually a human iron dagger, using this thing as a shovel, and started to shovel on the surrounding land Go all out.

The other Mao Mao pointed and yelled to let Mao Mao, who was full and working first, dig the ground according to the good place he chose. There must be fat and big meat worms eating inside, but Mao Mao who did it had his own opinion. With sharp eyes, it found a hole in the ground of a big ant, and then, according to the direction of the hole, it vigorously used an iron dagger to dig out the soft soil on the ground.

Soon, feeling the shock and fright, the ant colony that felt attacked sent out a large group of dark soldier ants the size of human toes to fight back against the 'enemy'.

This happened to fall into Mao Mao's calculations.

It stopped digging the soil, excitedly threw away the iron dagger, grabbed two **** ants one in each hand, and jumped out of the dug hole as if showing off.

"Meow meow! Lulu lulu da da!"

Its fluffy fingers avoid the powerful jaws that are opening and closing the front of the soldier ant with all its strength, and it bites one mouth at a time as if showing off, and eats the fat tail of the soldier ant into its mouth. The creamy feeling brought by the nutrients makes this plush very satisfied.

Seeing this guy showing off like this, the other Maomao couldn't hold back any longer, they rushed forward one after another, squeezing the dug-up dirt pit until it couldn't get through. Those **** ants who were frightened and counterattacked were also stupidly unaware that they had encountered a natural enemy whose intelligence and mobility crushed them.

But it was useless, as soon as they climbed out of the ant nest, before they could swing their tentacles to find the enemies that invaded their homes, they were caught by the furs, crunched, and lost their fat abdomen.

The playful maomao didn't eat the hard head and chest of the ant with a small amount of acid, but pulled out the sensory tentacles of the **** ant, and let the ant, which only knew how to bite hard, eat the **** ant. The jaws of the ant are attached to the chest of the previous ant, so that the **** ants that quickly lost their abdomens hang in a long string.

The Mao Maos excitedly made a long string of ants into a circle, and hung them outside the empty box of the carriage as a different kind of trophy.

From a distance, the ant circle looks like a black rope as thick as a finger, but when you look closer, you realize that this 'black rope' is still moving, and it is full of **** ants swinging their legs and feet from side to side. Every **** ant is stubbornly unwilling to let go of its big teeth, even if they know that they are biting other soldier ants at this time, it's the same.

The big ones were soon full from eating the bellies of the ants.

But I don't know how many of these **** ants are underground, and the soldier ants keep coming out of this ant nest. But this is not a problem for the maomao, they pushed back the soft soil they had dug out before, and then meowed and called a young human boy who was curious to explore them, and asked the human to follow their movements and keep going. Jumping on the soft soil above the entrance of the ant nest, it was firmly blocked here.

It will take a while for the ants to come out again, and by then everyone will have left this place long ago, leaving only a group of angry soldier ants who can't find the invading enemy.

Of course, the ant nest has more than one opening, but the nest of this kind of **** ant is very large, and the site is also very large, which is not obvious from the outside. It's all the territory of this ant nest.

The distinction and value that ants place on territory is far more important than the kingdom territory of human society.

Under the soil unknown to everyone, tens of thousands of soldier ants patrol the underground ant kingdom every day, looking for and attacking reckless worker ants in other ant nests, and re-opening the border crossings dug by other ant nest worker ants. Plug it up.

Sometimes the soldier ants in the two nests have accumulated enough enmity, and they will report to the queen. After obtaining the queen's permission, it will be a border war of a "huge" ant kingdom.

They compete for the solid space that has been excavated underground, the water intake room to absorb the root juice of water-loving plants, the 'sweet pasture' where the aphids are stored for honey, and the large 'luminous fungus farm' that has been reclaimed. Ventilation 'patios' to the ground, important larval nests, and even deep holes for excreting and dumping waste.

Some powerful soldier ants will also creatively absorb the flammable and corrupt gas in the deep cave, and use it as their secret weapon. They will breathe out fierce flames that can burn the entire passage on the front line of the battle, thus changing the situation of the battle and becoming elite soldier ants.

And all of these are mostly unknown, because they all happened in the lightless shallow soil below the ground, and they have been happening since millions of years ago, until today, and in the farther future.

-

the other side.

"The tree is falling! Watch out—"

Keir yelled loudly, reminding the surrounding loggers not to be accidentally hit by the big tree he felled.

The people who are close have already left here, and a small number of people are cutting wood with Keir. You don’t need to cut down many trees, just enough firewood for tonight and tomorrow morning. And more people, holding a one-handed hatchet, busily removed the excess branches of the felled tree, and then tied it with ropes, and dragged the tree to the temporary overnight camp with all their strength.

If the tree is too big and too heavy for everyone to pull, then you can cut the trunk of the fallen tree into two pieces from the middle, so that the weight is halved and everyone can move it.

Of course, with the help of Kiel's knights, the logging guys didn't have to work so hard. After all, about half of the trunk of the big tree, Kiel could drag the trunk back to the camp by himself.

But today Keir seems to be out of shape. After he felled a big tree, he did not continue to work. Instead, he split the ax on the trunk of the big tree and fixed it. He lazily leaned on the trunk and yawned, occasionally He also took out a small piece of hard and dark jerky from the small leather pouch on his waist, and chewed it fiercely in his mouth.

On the tree in the distance, Courage Mao Mao jumped from one big tree to another big tree branch, and it was completing the new task assigned to it according to the requirements of the powerful human being.

The powerful humans saw signs of other humans in the woods in this direction, so they came here and sent it to investigate.

Courage Mao Mao's tail is more flexible than a monkey's. The tip of the tail is curled on the branch, and the whole body is dangling in mid-air. And Mao Mao swung his head left and right, looking for all the unusual traces on the forest floor.

Soon it found out, after a few vertical leaps, Maomao fell down along the trunk of the old mottled tree.

It first sniffed the ground and smelled the smell of human feet, then looked around, and found a small piece of scattered grass on a low plant with barbs where the human had sat before. Shredded pieces of sackcloth cloth.

Sniffing it, Courage Mao Mao felt that it was the smell of that human with smelly feet.

Put this thing away, and then it looked for the place where this person was resting. Sure enough, on the side of the place where this person had been, on the trunk of a prominent tree, the height of more than one meter was normal. At the height of the eyes of human beings, there are several simple patterns carved on the trunks of the big trees here.

Courageous Maomao carefully wrote down its shape, and then it consciously completed the task, then left here, and went back to ask for credit and reward.

-

Kiel waited for Mao Mao, who was sent out to investigate, and was holding a small piece of linen in his hand, rubbing it with his fingertips.

This thing is too fragile, he rubbed his rough fingers twice, and it fell apart, turned into linen fibers and scattered, which made Courage Maomao shout: "Things, delivery, powerful, human beings. Damaged, no, Maomao ,relation!"

Keir was speechless: "Yes, yes, I broke it, and it has nothing to do with Mao Mao who completed the task."

After finishing speaking, Kiel took out a copper coin from his pocket and threw it to the other party: "Next, this is the task reward. Then draw the pattern you found?"

Catching the copper coin deftly with its tail, it bravely put the human coin away carefully—tucked it under the armpit of its left arm. Then it picked up a branch on the ground and found a slightly open place. Difficult to use the branches to draw the pattern it found on the ground.

If it wants to make a pattern for tall humans to watch, it naturally has to be made larger.

Keir squatted down and looked at this thing curiously: "Well, a sinuous line with a slash at the bottom. A triangle with four slashes at the bottom. A long rectangle with a slash at the bottom. A simple skeleton with three slashes Bars. Well, the positions between them are also in different directions."

Staring at these patterns, Keir quickly guessed that the slashes under the patterns represented the meaning of distance, but he had to guess again what the patterns above represented.

Since the bottom is the distance, then counting from the place where the pattern is found, what is there in the place with a slash around it?

trade route? Yes, trade routes!

Also, Keel pondered, leaning against the fallen tree trunk.

At this time, the ears that have become more sensitive in recent days noticed the faint sound of water on the opposite side of this small forest. The sound was faint, but Keel picked it up.

There are commercial roads and water sources nearby, that is, water intake points, which correspond to the two patterns of a slash in the pattern, but the meandering lines can represent both commercial roads and water sources, and how do long rectangles represent What about trade routes and water sources?

Kiel couldn't understand the minds of those bandits. Perhaps the vast majority of bandits were uneducated, so their thoughts were usually easy to guess, but sometimes it was very difficult to understand.

Who knows, family members.

And what does the triangle pattern with the farthest distance and the skull pattern with a certain distance represent?

Speaking of skulls, Keir naturally thought of those poor people who were killed by bandits and then thrown somewhere, turning into living corpses. At this time, does the skull pattern represent this meaning?

Perhaps somewhere a little distance from here, there happened to be a corpse pit where the bandits disposed of the corpses?

Maybe.

As for the triangle, Keel thinks it looks like an ordinary triangular simple tent, maybe it is the meaning of the bandits representing the stronghold or lair?

Thinking of this, Keir thought about whether to attack those bandits?

But the time delay is another problem, and it is not good to always delay all the way. Especially in the past two days, since Priest Batar learned about the incident in the Saturnalia Church in Belizefa City, his brows were tightly furrowed.

Keir didn't know what the mental state of priest Batar was after the accident in Changmai Village, but at least he felt that the priest's mental state was not very good after he knew about the incident in Belizefa City.

The whole person became more and more silent.

It looks like something is going to happen one day.

"Forget it, regardless of those **** bandits, I still have a lot of trouble here. Don't mess with me, and I won't mess with them either."

Kiel shook his head and waved to Courage Momo, signaling it to go back to camp. On the other hand, he pulled Yueshui's head from the fallen tree trunk that had dried up and hung it on his waist.

Then Kiel grabbed the top of the big tree, grasped it tightly with both hands, and embedded it tightly, and then repeatedly squatted and dragged the heavy trunk of the big tree.

As the tree trunk slid on the ground among the trees, Keel lowered his force, turned around and dragged the big tree towards the camp.

The people logging nearby cheered when they saw this scene.

That night, everyone spent the night here temporarily.

It has to be said that, unlike the previous night camping in the wild, Keel and his team have taken on a completely new look after some material purchases in Dorne Town. Then there are things to do.

They are all people from peasant households, so they know a lot of folk life skills.

A tall and strong plant stalk was uprooted, and then the excess branches were removed, leaving only the stalk body. After drying the water on the plant, this thing was rubbed repeatedly, and it could be used directly as a rope.

If it is rough, this thing can also be used as temporary wiring to repair clothes.

There are also people who know how to burn charcoal, use the wood that has been cut down by the loggers to smolder underground, and can barely get some charcoal the next morning. UU reading www.uukanshu.com

These charcoals are not used for burning, but for purifying water. So this effect can be much greater.

The next morning, Keir led a group of people, carrying buckets and charcoal, followed the humid air and the faint sound of water, and found a sheltered pond behind the woods.

The water source of the pond actually leaked from a large rock protruding from the ground, and a shallow pond was formed around this abrupt rock.

But the disadvantage for the team is that this water source is obviously a place where a large area of ​​wild animals get water, so there are animal footprints everywhere. Although there is no animal feces, the water at the edge of the pond is quite muddy.

Only near the center of the pond is the water clear.

If it was before, Keel might have asked everyone to dig a deep pit by the side of the pond to filter the unclean water through the infiltration of the soil.

But this time they have freshly baked loose charcoal, so it doesn't have to be so troublesome to filter clean water.

The bucket was filled directly on the edge of the pond, and Keel then filled an old small ale cask with loose charcoal, and used a large wooden spoon to scoop the muddy pond water from the larger cask into the small one.

The small open-bottomed wine barrel soon poured out clear water that smelled of charcoal.

Although there is a taste, there is no problem drinking it.

In this way, on the carriage where the bucket was placed, Keel arranged two more people, one person specially scooped the water from the natural pond into the filter bucket with a wooden spoon, and the other used a wooden cup to catch the clear water flowing out of the filter bucket, and then Fill it up and pour it into a bucket filled with clean water.

The filtration work is placed on the carriage, and everyone provides clean water to everyone while walking.

No delays at all!