The space at the bottom of the well is a little cramped with new members, and food may be scarce again, but it's not a big problem for now.

There wasn't much to do in winter, and Thor was still fishing, reading, occasionally sparring with Shogues, or going out to search together, which was boring and repetitive.

The sisters washed everything they could wash, and then gathered some of the cloth they could use and sewed it into a whole sheet, so that Shogues wouldn't be clamoring for a duel all day long because Thor was tearing his quilt in the middle of the night.

When everyone had free time, Thor would teach the Erin sisters how to read, and whenever that happened, Shogues would cheekily come up and tease his half-baked literacy basics.

The literacy rate of the orphans seems to be a little higher than that of the children in the town, after all, they live in the monastery all day, and if they have the heart, they always find an opportunity to overhear a few words and slowly accumulate them.

On the coldest days, Thor had to burn the stump at the bottom of the well, sacrifice his only table, and run out with Shogues to steal back the door of a house.

In their spare time, the three of them like to sit quietly around the fire and listen to Thor's stories.

Most of the stories Saul tells come from the various books he has read, some distant and ancient, and some seem to have happened around him.

Among Thor's many tellings, one story was impressive.

That story isn't complicated.

A group of adventurers form a team to conquer a host in a swamp.

By mistakenly underestimating the strength of the enemy, the adventurers eventually fled. The female mage in the team was seriously injured and fell behind during the flight, passing out in the woods.

A ghoul finds her and drags her to a cave.

Soon the mage woke up, but she was in a bad condition and could only stay in the cave for the time being to recuperate.

The female mage accidentally spotted a ghoul hiding in the grass in the distance, peeking sneakily into the cave, her eyes revealing a cold killing intent.

The next day, the ghoul quietly left some clear water and the carcasses of several small animals at the cave door.

The next day, he found that the water was gone, but the bodies were still there.

On the third day, the ghoul still left the water behind and replaced the carrion with some non-poisonous berries.

Then he was pleasantly surprised to find that the water and berries were gone.

Many days later, the female mage was gone.

By the time the female mage reappeared in the swamp, she had joined a much stronger team of adventurers, who had effortlessly succeeded in taking out the host.

Just as the team was about to leave, the leader of the swordsmen noticed a ghoul hiding in the grass in the distance, and he immediately raised his hand and reached for the long sword at his waist.

At this moment, the female mage in the team stepped forward and gently pressed his arm.

"We have already won, so why smear your sword with an inferior creature. ”

As she left, the mage walked at the end of the line, and she silently turned her head and lingered on the grass for a moment.

After the group left, the ghouls looked long in the direction the team had left, then returned to the swamp and ate the host's powerful corpse, becoming the new master of the swamp.

And so the story ends.

The sisters stubbornly believe that this is a cross-racial story of love, filled with some kind of unspeakable sadness.

Shogues, on the other hand, firmly believes that the ghoul has only made a successful investment, and that he is the biggest beneficiary of the whole story.

The two sides were at odds, and the three of them looked at Thor together.

The truth of the story aside, when Saul first read this short story, he had all sorts of conjectures. However, after reading from different directions, Saul finally retained his own judgment.

He believes that what you choose to believe, what is the truth.

Facing the inquiring gazes of the three in front of him, Thor shrugged his shoulders.

"If you ask me for my opinion, I will definitely support the two sisters. ”

"Why?" said Shogues, unconvinced.

"It's very simple, I support them, it's three votes to you, we win. And if I support you, the best outcome is just a draw with them. So, I can only apologize. ”

After listening to Saul's words, Hugues shouted that Saul was a traitor with a sad look of being abandoned, and the sisters thought that Saul's reasons for supporting him were not sincere enough, and the four of them laughed at the bottom of the well.

In the end, the three of them unanimously decided that Thor must show his cooking skills in order to calm the resentment in the hearts of the three.

The so-called cooking was a joke, of course, nothing more than a little salt in the fresh fish soup and the occasional few wild vegetables that Thor found in the cemetery, but everyone still had a good time.

In addition to handing over a fixed amount of fish to Shogues to deal with the thieves' guild every day, Thor buried the occasional extra fish in the snow and ice, so that he could drink fresh fish soup from time to time to change the taste, which was also a small way back.

It was no secret to the other three, so how to trick Thor's stock into eating it became their greatest pleasure this winter.

Maybe it's because there are more people, and the winter doesn't seem to be so cold.

At the end of winter, it seems that someone in the monastery was stealing firewood, and they demolished the gate of the monastery, leaving some traces and movements of the search.

During this time, the Covill sisters also asked curiously about the skeletons roaming in the cemetery, and they had heard a little about the strange beings that died and never sleeped, but they were still a little surprised to see them with their own eyes.

Shogues was about to remove them, but Thor told him not to bother the skeletons.

Because there is no point in completely eliminating them, they will still crawl out at dawn, as long as they are controlled to a certain number, and they can be used as a certain camouflage if they are left at the door.

In the days leading to the harvest, the sisters planted a scarecrow for the small field at the bottom of the well.

No one objected to this, although everyone knew that it was useless, and that no crow or any strange bird would fly to the bottom of the well to spoil the crops.

In the last days of winter, Shogues brought new news.

The town of Grey Curtain is now at its most dangerous, and it is said that there are still many crazy hungry people roaming stubbornly, but almost all of the people still alive have gathered in the North End.

There is little food left in the hands of the various forces, and the relationship between them has become tense, and the delicate balance is shaky.

"I heard that the lord's army will send relief supplies in early spring, but I don't know if the news is reliable. Hughes exhaled hot air and spoke of the only item in the news that had anything to do with everyone.

The glow of the fire reflected the faces of the four people, and the people at the fire did not feel relieved by the news.

The veracity of the news is uncertain, and even if it is, it is questionable whether the once frustrated lord's army will be willing to risk the risk of crossing the wilderness again.

Even if they dare to take risks, it is questionable when the rescue will reach Graycurtain and whether they will be able to survive until that day.

The four of them knew very well in their hearts that if Lord Savion didn't do anything more, the death of Grey Curtain would end up either being cannibalistic or everyone would be driven into the Dark Wilderness.

"The message should be reliable. Thor broke the silence.

The three of them turned their heads to look at him with expressions of how do you know.

Turning his palms over the fire, Thor calmly spoke of his opinion.

"Despite its remoteness and wilderness, Lord Savion's governance of Grey Curtain has been relatively lax. ”

"But with the only monastery in the entire realm, the Yar Mine to the west of the town is also the backbone of the entire realm, and the population that survived the disaster, there is no reason why the lord should not give up Grey Veil. ”

Although I don't know if Thor's analysis is correct, the three invisible centers by the fire are all relieved.

"Are our parents ...... Will you come back with the team?" the sisters asked subconsciously.

"Yes, just wait. ”

It was an unanswerable question, but Thor responded to the sisters' expectations with a brief reassurance, but he was not optimistic.

The hastily assembled teams of adventurers at the beginning of the disaster plunged into the dark wilderness without experience.

Their direction was undoubtedly towards the nearest town to the north, Logs, which was the closest human gathering place to Grey Veil.

The four-day journey is not long or short, and if you dare to speed up the journey, two or three days may be enough. But it was not wise to rush in the dark, so they had to move slowly and slowly to ensure safety.

Luck is a big factor, some people survive even a few weeks in the wilderness, others lose their lives just by wandering a little closer to town, and this happens all the time.

It is said that the most dangerous thing in the dark wilderness is actually to spend the night.

Aside from caravan guards who are accustomed to trade routes and a few skilled mercenaries or hunters, there are not many people who are truly experienced, and even these seasoned fellows can bury their bones in a certain journey at any time.

In the event of a sudden danger on the way, those teams are likely to get lost by running blindly in the dark, or split by disagreements between the team members.

Coupled with the shortage of food, the threat of various monsters in the wilderness, and the ulterior motives of their companions, even if a few teams can survive to the end, it is estimated that it is only a chilling probability.

And even if they survived, no matter how close they approached any town on the other side of the territory, the lord would not let them run around in the territory until they were sure that there were no infected people with the plague among them.

It's more likely that those teams will only be granted permission to set up temporary camps on the outskirts of town for the time being.

Without access to the town, they will not be able to effectively protect the town's armed forces, so they will still face the test of winter and the threat of the dark wilderness.

It's not hard to imagine that if their luck doesn't continue, it could well be the last winter of their lives.