Catherine felt like she had a long dream. At the beginning of the dream, she fell into eternal darkness, and after waiting for an unknown amount of time, she was finally free. However, what followed was endless hesitation, her hesitation, fear, and search for light in the darkness.

She saw another self, she entered a strange battlefield, she became the master of the world, she encountered an incomprehensible enemy, she fell in battle.

"Maybe I once died, and now I'm resurrected. The female mage shuddered at the thought of this.

"I've always lived a good life, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming. Catherine comforted herself, then shook her head vigorously, as if that was the only way to expel the vague and strange dreams from her mind.

But she immediately noticed a strange sensation coming from her left hand. The female mage spread out her palm, and there was a round eye embedded in the center. Her eyes glared at Catherine, blinking every few seconds.

Catherine opened her mouth slightly, gasping for air. She stretched out her right hand, tentatively approaching the eyeball. The female mage was sure that the eyeball did not react in any special way, so she carefully and gently touched the surface of the eyeball. The sphere feels slightly hard, like a thick callus growing out of the palm of your hand.

Most of the eyeball was completely buried in the palm of the hand, and there was no incongruity at the edge of the orb and the palm, as if it had grown on Catherine's palm by nature.

Catherine tried to clench her fist, stretched her palm and flicked her fingers, but fortunately there was nothing wrong with it. Although she doesn't have any impression of the strange eyeball in her memory, it seems that it doesn't affect the basic function of her left hand at least for now.

The female mage's heart relaxed. "A peculiar parasite. The mage made a simple judgment.

An adventurer will encounter all sorts of unexpected situations during his journey, and being attacked by some kind of parasitic creature certainly falls into this category, although it is not common. At least in the few years of adventure of the Kuhl Mercenary Regiment, none of the members of the team have had such an experience.

Generally speaking, common parasitic creatures do not pose much of a threat in the eyes of experienced adventurers. The variety of ways to deal with parasites has long ceased to be the exclusive know-how of early explorers or special professions. This is thanks to the flourishing of mercenary groups, a group of people engaged in all kinds of special work with a certain degree of danger.

Since the Age of the Ten Kings, frequent inter-kingdom wars have led to the gradual rise of the mercenary profession that makes a living from fighting, and gradually gave birth to small paramilitary organizations similar to the current mercenary groups.

The earliest mercenary regiment should probably be called a combat squad. They are just mercenaries who have been improvised together to accomplish certain military missions in the war*. In the process of practice, some mercenaries have formed a tacit understanding with each other, and can play the effect of "one plus one" greater than "two" through cooperation, so they form a fixed cooperation team.

The mercenary groups that survived after the Ten Kings Era were basically small teams with combat functions as the main focus. At that time, their work had the characteristics of a war-torn period. For example, participating in small-scale private "wars" in the aristocratic domain, a large part of these so-called private wars are to suppress popular rebellions or encircle and suppress bandit gangs;

With the mainland entering a period of peace, the original war characteristics of the mercenary group are no longer useful. Some mercenary groups had to be disbanded, while others began to look for other jobs and try to continue to use their combat expertise. For example, he served as a strong escort for nobles and wealthy merchants, or participated in the destruction of monsters and beasts that threatened the human settlement, or even joined in the dangerous work of capturing foreign slaves. But until that period, the main team members of the mercenary group were still composed of fighters who were mainly close combat.

The further expansion of the scope of the mercenary group's functions occurred when mages began to join this complex industry. There is a theory that the reason why the mages joined the mercenary group of military nature is based on their vast knowledge. Although the rapid rise of human beings in the Eastern Continent in the past 3,000 years is directly related to the discovery of magic, for a long time, magicians have not appeared in front of people as combatants.

There is no shortage of great magicians in history who are said to have destroyed cities with a single move. Especially in the first millennium of mankind, in the war with the dragon, several human powerhouses emerged who could compete with the dragon. Among them, the number of mages accounted for nearly one-third, and among them, there was a super human powerhouse with the title of "Dragon Taboo", the Great Mage of Tabu, who once calmly retreated after seriously injuring two dragons in the case of one enemy and three enemies.

Interestingly, though, it is said that the Grand Wizard of Tarbu never actually killed a single dragon in his life. The dragons that fought against him, but there is no misfortune left in what is written. So Tarbu Neng later became an important representative in the negotiations with the dragon, and accepted the invitation to go to the dragon city, and returned safely. This is not only because of his super strength, but also because he has no mortal enmity with the dragons.

Regardless of whether the mages have strong combat power or not, in fact, their first identity is usually a scholar. For example, the Grand Magician of Tarbes is a linguist who standardizes the written basis of the current lingua franca of the mainland, and the ancient elven linguist Maast, who is himself an unconventional magician, and his student Drach, who became the master of history of the Dragon Exam School, is a magical apprentice from the Academy of the Northern Secca Union.

Of course, each mage has a different field of study, and some of them specialize in magic and magic theory, such as the famous "Three Masters of the Elements" Some of them, such as Tarbu and now the head of the Royal Academy, Quisling, can be called scholarly mages if they have attained a high level of attainment in the field of magic, and at the same time have attained high attainments in some other academic field, and the rest of them, such as Master and Drach, whose academic achievements are much higher than their magical attainments, may be called weak mage.

The function of the mercenary group has changed again, and it is due to the active promotion of weak law scholars. Emperor Favotte, who ended the Ten Kings, reused the famous weak scholar Ek Ponds as prime minister in his later years.

Because the kingdom has been recuperating for a long time, its power has reached the peak of the reign of Emperor Favotte. As a naturalist, Chancellor Ekponz proposed an interesting "principle of expansion in no man's land" against the backdrop of the great warriors of Emperor Favot and the great power of the kingdom.

The principle of uninhabited land expansion simply means that humans (the inhabitants of the kingdom) are encouraged to go to the uninhabited areas of some continents for development and settlement. Once the development and settlement of no man's land is recognized by the kingdom, the development area becomes the developer's private domain. When the conditions are ripe, the developer has the possibility of becoming a nobleman of the kingdom. The boundaries of the kingdom will also be redefined based on the territory of the new nobles.

In fact, the principle of no-man's land expansion is just a scholar's whim. It encouraged the people to spontaneously expand the kingdom to the outside world, without giving any substantial help at the national level, and only promising a false title of nobility.

When this principle was introduced, the first to benefit were the hunters in the forests, the herders in the grasslands, and the fishermen on the islands. At that time, a large number of nobles with strange titles such as "Black Forest", "Dirt Mountain", "Gunma", "Ten Thousand Cows", "Dew Rock Island", and "Whale Rock" arose, which were born according to this principle.

But in fact, the hunters are still hunting, the herdsmen are still herding sheep, and the fishermen are still catching fish. The paupers with the title of nobility did not know that they had become nobles in the archives of the royal city. The Wangcheng Protocol Department even took advantage of the birthday of Emperor Favot to send invitations to the countries of the mainland. In the invitation, unconventionally attached was a list of all the guests of the kingdom nobles who attended the Emperor's birthday dinner, including the newly promoted no-man's land nobles.

When the heads of state realized that the kingdom had suddenly added dozens of strange new nobles, and these new nobles were all on the periphery of their own countries. Not only did the kingdom swell overnight, but it also annexed and dismembered some of the neutral buffer zones that had been established after the Ten Kings. This immediately sparked a panic in preparation for war, is "Darth's sword" going to drink blood again?

The strongest reaction was the United Duchy of Westside in the western part of the continent at that time. This country, which was formed by the merger of the three western countries in the past, was the second largest country in the Eastern Continent at that time after the kingdom of Daxt.

Archduke Westside immediately sent a letter to Dust demanding an explanation from the kingdom for these inexplicable new nobles. At the same time, he sent his own troops to the border to investigate the two newly born "mountain nobles" there.

The result of the investigation was that the so-called nobles in the two deep mountains and old forests between the Duchy of Wisdom and the Kingdom were all mountain people from Wisdom. More than 10 years ago, these two families moved into the mountains to become hunters, and their families totaled less than 10 people. And he had no idea that he had become a nobleman and was a guest at the birthday dinner of Emperor Favotte.

Upon learning of the results of the investigation, the Grand Duke of Westside was furious and felt like he had been fooled. Not only did he announce the results of his investigation to the kingdoms of the continent, but he also used the strongest diplomatic rhetoric and made a gesture of not giving up, asking Dast what qualifications he had to divide the subjects of their principality.

The rest of the continent, led by the Archduke of Westside, raised their voices one after another, and demanded an explanation from Dust for the origin of the no-man's land nobles, either hard or soft.

Prime Minister Ekponds belatedly proposed his "principle of no-man's land expansion" to all the kingdoms of the Eastern Continent, and claimed that this should be a basic principle that should be applied to all kingdoms on the continent in the future when expanding abroad.

Three years later, the Daxter Convention, signed by the five major powers of the Eastern Continent, affirmed the "principle of no-man's land expansion" as a basic criterion for settling border disputes between countries. Subsequently, more and more human kingdoms have recognized the "Daxter" Convention and signed the "Daxter Annex".

Today, the specific description of the principle of no-man's land expansion varies from country to country, but it has indeed become a common principle among continental countries. The "First No Man's Land Expansion" led by Ekponz ultimately retained only six nobles and their fiefdoms, and was recognized by the countries of the continent. This includes the famous Barr family today, and the central area of the Grand Duchy of Barr in the province of West Vanasia is a small hill that has been preserved at that time.

"Before and After the War" made an objective assessment of the mainland's diplomatic situation during this period. The book reads: The diplomatic strategy of the Grand Duke of Westside marked the official entry of the entire Eastern Continent from military diplomacy in war to national strength diplomacy in a period of relative peace. The diplomatic technique of the prime minister of the kingdom, Ek Ponds, is to interpret the basic principle of "national strength determines results" in national strength diplomacy.

However, in a book published in the Western Continent called "The Turbulent Eastern Continent", there is a different evaluation of the "principle of no-man's land expansion":

The adoption of this principle marked the beginning of the oppressive aggression of mankind against the other races of the Eastern Continent. ”

Regardless of how the people of the Western Continent understood the principle of the Eastern Continent's state to the outside world, under the impetus of the Ecpond no man's land policy at that time, the academic community set off a wave of exploration and archaeology based on this.

Among the weak law scholars, some scholars who are engaged in the study of wild biology and archaeology have hired some mercenary groups as employers, and personally led the mercenary groups to go to the deep mountains and old forests or inaccessible places to carry out exploration and archaeological activities.

These explorers and archaeologists not only have the ability to survive in the wild, but also are familiar with the geography, customs, and dialects of the continent. And as magicians, they rely on their minds in battle, and they can often make some small magic play an unexpected role. So after this craze, some smart mercenary groups began to take the initiative to recruit some magicians into the team, in order to add new work potential to the mercenary group.

As a result, new tasks such as escorting valuables or important letters from afar, searching for lost treasures, exploring little-known areas, and so on appeared in the selection range of the mercenary group, and the business radius of the mercenary group has greatly increased since then.

However, because of the mages who are willing to join the mercenary group to eat, they are usually not very good in terms of "law" or "learning", and they cannot be compared with those scholar mages or even weak law scholars. Therefore, the benefits to the mercenary group are actually limited.

But they have at least injected new blood into the mercenary group, and no matter how weak the magicians, including magic apprentices, are always better educated than ordinary warriors, know more knowledge, and have very strong learning and summarizing skills. For example, one of them, an unnamed apprentice magician, wrote a booklet on "Treatment of Common Parasites", and another nameless old magician wrote "Five Methods for Identifying Drinking Water". These common-sense pamphlets were later compiled into a book, and today's "Mercenary Group Common Sense Handbook" is formed.

And until now, every magician who joins a mercenary group will abide by a conventional rule, and is obliged to add at least a basic common sense to the "Mercenary Group Common Sense Manual".

So Catherine looked at the bull's-eyed demon in her hand and had already thought of a way to deal with it.