Shadow Covenant

Chapter 150 "Green Brook Town"

really.

Woody's guess was correct, and it didn't take long for the guards to bring back the news that the dire wolves had been driven away, and the convoy started moving again.

However, he still heard someone in the front car complaining about why they stopped because they were afraid of a pack of wolves. Could it be that they dared to attack the convoy?

"At that time, Master and I had only five or six people in the team, but there were seven or eight dogs in the group, but they still watched Master and I leave the valley helplessly, and none of them dared to move."

Immediately afterwards, he boasted about his brave performance when he met the winter wolves in the Northland, and described the so-called Northland killers, the group of creatures who were cowardly and did not dare to do anything.

After all, the scale of the Angry Winter Merchant Group was divided. In addition to more than 30 guards, there were also [-] merchants, as well as no less than half a hundred servants and coachmen, totaling more than a hundred people.

Generally speaking, for the creatures and monsters that are common in normal forests, the number of attackers must be more than five to ten times that of the attacked. It's an apt description of them.

But Dire Wolf was not among them, Woody knew.

But he was not interested in being a popular science teacher. However, as the sound of kicking hooves stopped, a guard who had just passed by pulled the reins, forcing the maroon traveling horse to stop.

Apparently, the guards who passed by also heard the complaints from the businessmen in the carriage, but she was not like Woody, who was a bit "good at being a teacher." Or she didn't like these boastful businessmen who showed off their self-righteous cleverness.

Therefore, only a cold voice came out of her mouth.

"Gwell, those little tricks of yours may be able to deceive the winter wolf once, but you won't be so lucky next time!"

The person who spoke was a human female guard in her twenties. She looked a bit heroic. Although her skin was not as smooth and fair as a nobleman's due to years and adventures, her weather-beaten cheeks also gave off a kind of aura. Calm and powerful, the short chestnut hair looks more neat, but the lake blue eyes are full of anger at the moment, and it seems that they don't like hearing other people's judgments on the guard's decision-making.

Without waiting for the businessman from Gewell in the carriage to speak back, the female guard on the maroon horse continued.

"Also, the dire wolves are not those clever winter wolves. They will go crazy when they see too many people! Put away your little wit."

"Jonah, I think it's you who will go crazy? Isn't the dire wolf a wolf? Creatures don't know how to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, so how did it survive until now!"

And in the carriage, there was also a round head protruding from its head, and the two mustaches were shaking because of the collision of lips up and down, and the squinted eyes were also very wide at the moment, looking at the direction of the female guard rather resentfully .

"You said it's okay to rush over, but will you be responsible for the loss of the caravan?"

Jonah's cold voice became more intense.

Obviously, this was not the first time the two had quarreled, and the old grudges belonged to it.

Woody watched the bickering between the two parties with great interest. After all, this was a rare and interesting thing to pass the time in the business trip, and the voices of the two also attracted many people to watch.

However, because of the many eyes, the parties seemed a little unwilling to quarrel.

One person left the scene after leaving the scene with a harsh word, and retracted his head from the car window, leaving behind a group of people who were quite regretful and slammed their mouths.

"Boss, is the dire wolf really that powerful? I've been out for so many days, and I haven't seen it yet."

Inom was asked by a young coachman in his carriage. Obviously, he also heard the argument between the two just now, and he didn't quite understand why the dire wolf would not face a large number of enemies like the winter wolf in the north. Choose a truce.

"This one……"

Inom is a bit at a loss for words, because although he has traveled all over the world for so long, creatures like dire wolves are only limited to being very troublesome, and they cannot be easily provoked. They are usually too late to hide, so how can they learn more about them.

But at this time, a voice came, which immediately relieved his surroundings.

"Because they are different in nature, dire wolves are a kind of primitive wolf. It is said that they are the ancestors of all wolves. They are companions and watchdogs specially created by the god of giants for giants. Although with the decline of the age of giants, wolves They are also scattered, but it is not the same as the winter wolf that has evolved wisdom."

"Size, quantity, the bigger the more, the more excited they are, what the female guard said just now is not wrong."

Although this male voice was only limited to a few meters away, it still made everyone who heard it look sideways.

After all, ordinary apprentices and businessmen who have not gone to school can't explain this detailed argument, and they also analyze the root cause, and use one word to describe it, that is, simple and easy to understand, and let them understand why at once. Dire wolves cannot be provoked, but need a small force to expel them.

"Not bad, Woody Boy."

Inom, who obviously knew how to beat a snake, said immediately.

"That's right, that's it! Do you understand, Kazir?"

Kaqier was the young coachman who asked him just now, but he obviously did not stop because of the satisfaction of the question, but continued to ask, but this time his adoring and longing eyes turned to follow the carriage, and he kept looking A dark-haired young man who is quite difficult to get along with.

"Then have you ever seen a dire wolf? What does it look like?"

"Well, it's a little bigger and longer than this one, the hair is a little lighter than this one, the black is mixed with brown, the chin is a little silver, the other is the same, but the body is a little bigger, it is said that there are bigger ones, but I didn't See you."

Woody pointed to the grape he was sitting on indifferently, using it as a comparison to describe the size of the dire wolf.

However, his indifference caused everyone to exclaim.

"So big?"

"Wait, Woody Boy, are you telling the truth? Is the Dire Wolf really that big?"

Although the guards have seen it before, most of the people in the caravan come into contact with the business group managers, and the relationship with the group of guards whose eyes are higher than their noses is average. It is essentially an employment relationship, so what they say Ferocity, at most, would be considered bragging, or used as a foil to describe how powerful he is.

But Woody's words immediately became credible with the previous evidence.

After all, they have seen giants occasionally when they climbed the mountain, and their huge size is intimidating. Moreover, there are two half-giant guards in the Wrathful Winter Merchant Group. They are different from riding horses. They are all walking forward. The three-meter-high carriage only reached its neck, and ordinary horses couldn't bear their weight at all.

And their guard dogs, it seems, really shouldn't be the same size as humans.

In this era without the Internet, unlike players who can restart after death, most of the aboriginal people who witnessed it are unpredictable, and the appearance of most monsters is only limited to oral narratives.

Compared with goblins and kobolds, this kind of authenticity is more confusing, exaggerated, and rhetorical techniques emerge in endlessly everywhere. The size of a dragon can even be exaggerated to hundreds of meters, or even a thousand meters, but in fact the size of an adult dragon The largest red dragon is only 27 meters from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail. The old dragon in the southern mountain range is only 69 meters according to the naked eye observation ranking of the good people on the forum.

The [-] meters is too exaggerated, but it is also excusable to some extent.

After all, just looking at this length may not have much deterrent effect, but you have to know that the wingspan of most dragons is the same as that of birds, which exceeds their own body length, and the wingspan of an adult dragon of more than 20 meters is definitely more than If it is 30 meters, it can even reach 40 meters. In this way, when it lands, the shadow area it occupies is more than 600 square meters, and some variant dragons of the same age level can even reach thousands. About 20 people can stand on a square meter. At that time, human beings looked at the gods like ants, and exaggeration is not incomprehensible.

But in essence, the biggest source of fear is actually from the unknown, and once you know it, you won't be so afraid.

This is also the reason why the caster is extremely indifferent when facing any situation.

Woody glanced at the luxury carriage at the center of the caravan calmly. From the time it stopped just now, it gradually restored order and set off again. The carriage remained the same without any sound or movement, giving people a sense of detachment. Feel.

The young coachman Kaqier wanted to continue to explore, but was immediately stopped by the carriage merchant Inom.

"Okay, let's go, Kaqier, don't ask any more questions, and we have to rush to the nearest town to spend the night later."

As he said that, Inom showed a manly smile that everyone around him knew.

The sound of horseshoes and the turning of the axle resounded in the woods again. It has been eight hours since we left Palermo, and it has been two hours since we entered the Forest of Whispers. It is definitely impossible to cross the past.

Most caravans spend the night in the wilderness, and they will ask the guards to find a good camping place in advance for camping in the wild, but this time the town in the Whispering Forest allows them to solve their worries.

"Green Brook Town, I remember there, the fruit wine and roasted rabbit meat are very delicious."

Kaqier obviously had a particularly deep memory of the town when he came here, but his words aroused everyone's laughter.

"Little Kaqier, do you want me to take you to other pubs today?"

A big barbarian sitting on top of the cargo and escorting the cargo laughed loudly.

"Kun, don't spoil him, there is a beautiful girl waiting for him in the Northland."

"What's the use of your little money, the money earned in a few towns overnight will be gone."

Inom casually reprimanded a booing carriage helper, and teased, of course, before Kazir showed gratitude, his customer showed the same smile.

"Be patient, wait until Rosent, the people there are cheap, and it won't be a problem to have two."

"Hahaha~"

Laughter resounded in the forest, and Woody stared ahead, listening to their jokes and the embarrassing things they revealed to each other, the original melancholy of parting also diluted a lot.

very nice.

When the sun slanted to the west and the orange afterglow coated the leaves of the cypress trees with a layer of light, someone in the motorcade exclaimed.

"We're almost at Green Creek Town!"

Inom also poked his head out from the resting compartment, looked around casually, and nodded with a smile on his face.

"It's almost there, there's still a mile left, little Kaqier, I'll take you to eat something delicious later."

Woody also glanced casually, and found that although the surrounding forest was not different from the previous dense forest, the color and outline of the leaves of these trees were obviously different from others. The trunks were thick and the leaves were like crescent moons. Dee recognized it.

——"Blood Queen Tree"

This is a "vampire tree" that can suck human blood in southern folklore, but in the eyes of spellcasters or adventurers who often travel north and south, it is actually just a normal natural phenomenon, like flytraps, they like to use The scent emitted by the body to attract nesting, resting, and foraging birds is actually not very harmful to humans.

However, the roots of some trees are different from other green lichens and mosses, replaced by colorful flowers.

Moreover, the alternation of old and new bark on these tree trunks formed a line of distinct brand marks, but due to the distance, he couldn't see clearly whether the brand marks were intended to depict characters or emblems.

"This is...the tombstone."

As he got closer, when he saw that the imprint on the tree trunk was an obvious magnified character, which combined was "Mary", Woody immediately recalled that this was a typical tree tomb.

In Asenland, unlike humans in the hilly areas, residents who have lived in the forest for a long time will not choose to bury the body in the ground after someone dies. They think that this will be disturbed by wild creatures and will not be peaceful. Therefore, they like to place the corpse in the cavity of the vampire tree, let the tree absorb it, and grow together with the tree. In their view, this is a manifestation of tranquility.

But in this way, some outsiders who don't know why saw the undigested skeleton and thought it was a monster that hunted and eaten people.

And this kind of tree species, generally only in places close to small towns, there will be such a group of specially transplanted trees.

It's almost here indeed.

Woody didn't know much about Green Brook Town, he knew there was such a place, but at that time, he didn't know if it was caused by Palermo, this area, or relied on Palermo for transit. Most of the towns on the commercial roads were abandoned.

When he passed the Forest of Whispers, all he saw were moss-covered and dilapidated walls, and dilapidated houses that had long been unrepaired. Violent destruction was everywhere, and scattered trees were still hanging on the treetops. The furnishings are as if a giant beast is raging.If it wasn't for the Green Brook town engraved on the stone, maybe they wouldn't even know that he had been here.

Soon, the convoy turned upwards to a mountain road at a fork in the forest, and the outline of a small town gradually emerged from the depths of the dense forest.

Gradually seeing the wall, everyone prepared to go in and rest.

However, when Woody entered the town wall double-reinforced with logs, he found something different. The bonfire in the brazier was already burning before it went down the mountain, and the number of militiamen was higher than that of any town he had seen before. , There are many more, there are two or thirty people on one wall, counting those who rest during the day, almost three or four hundred troops have been invested.

Inside the town, unlike the brightly lit taverns in the past, ready to welcome caravans, and the residents, today's Green Creek Town looks more empty and quiet. Almost every household has their doors and windows closed. hostel.

It was as if there was an invisible fog hovering over the entire Green Creek Town, looking desolate and dead.

Unlike other people's incomprehension and confusion, Woody frowned.

Could it be that Green Brook Town ended not because of the destruction of Palermo, but because of other reasons?

He began to think frantically about various events in Palermo. Although he couldn't know the tasks in each town, if it could affect a town, or even be the main factor for its ruin, then expand to the surrounding areas is an inevitable event.

Soon, the Angry Winter Merchant Group checked into a hotel in the center of the town. Many people flocked to the tavern, and Woody also followed in order to understand the situation. It is not his nature to sit and wait for death. The best place to collect information is tavern.

But before he could ask a question, the big man in the caravan who arrived first started shouting.

"Why isn't there rum in the tavern?"

"What kind of tavern do you open without rum!"

"I still had it when I came last time? What's going on?"

The helpless voice of the tavern owner came quickly.

"No way, the man-eating ape tribe has cut off another business route into the Whispering Forest. Now the town is not safe, let alone the delivery of supplies, and there is no rum in other houses. If you want to drink, only black beer is left. .”

Woody frowned slightly when he heard the word "man-eating ape".

It seems...a little impression.

(End of this chapter)