When we arrived in the small town of Maas, everything here was completely covered under the thick snow, the hazy sky was like white paint on a gray canvas, and a few black crows flew through the air, as if looking for food. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Collapsed walls, abandoned houses, The corpses of the townspeople, the charred rows of stables crumbling in the wind and snow, all the windows of the inn in the center of the town were smashed, and the bodies of some of the townspeople were hanging on the glassless windows, they still held their spears tightly in their hands, they were also fighting before they died, the people of this town were fierce, and they had a guard that belonged to the town, and most of the members of the guard were soldiers who had retired from the North Wind Legion, and there were also some local hunters, who used to be brave and good at fighting, and could often scare those stupid barbarians back, but this year was different, they failed to stop the barbarian attack, and the whole town fell。

The price was always so heavy, the inhabitants may not have realized the cruelty of the barbarians, and the large amount of supplies they still carried when they fled, but unfortunately those people could not take those things with them after all, they may have fled to the city of El alone, or they may have been captured by the barbarians, and the supplies were piled up on the main streets of the town, and the carriages parked on the side of the road were still there, but there was no sign of the horses.

Walking north along the long street, the tattered gate of Zimmermann's estate, the most famous in the town, was already in view, and the two large iron doors in the manor wall were twisted and hung on the door frame, and in the middle appeared an incomparably large hole, large enough for a barbarian to enter the manor.

The castle in the manor seemed to have been burned by a fire, except for the whole stone building, which stood black in the wind and snow, everything else that could be burned was destroyed, the sculptures on the large fountain in the manor castle square were messily poured to the side, the granite of the white flowers was stained with blood, and the wind blew the broken wooden door of the kitchen 'creak' non-stop.

Quiet, that kind of terrifying quiet. The dead silence, like a spider's web, stuck to all of us in our Eleventh Squad.

Basille stood on the top of the cornices of the manor's bell tower, squinting into the distance, looking for signs of the barbarians, the harrier eagle he had domesticated had long since burst into the sky and disappeared.

Captain Cynthia walked in front with a straight face, carrying a huge two-handed sword, and Wayne followed closely behind her with an alloy bow in his hand, the two of them cooperated tacitly, and every movement was so coordinated.

Xiu walked silently behind the two of them, wearing a silver-white cloak like a monk, silent along the way.

Worried that I would accidentally step on the corpse under the snow while walking, I simply sat on Ruka's shoulder and followed behind everyone.

This trip to the town is not a pleasant trip, Maas is one of the few satellite towns around the city of Eyre with an independent guard, the golden cider made here is exclusively for the royal family of the Grimm Empire, the largest land in Maas town is the fief of Count Zimmermann, he owns a gorgeous estate and a large apple orchard including 21 hills, this aristocratic family famous for making fine wine, did not expect to usher in the catastrophe of this winter.

The entire town of Maas and Zimmerman Manor will disappear from the map of El City, before Captain Cynthia was on the way here, he was still describing to us how hospitable the current head of the Zimmerman family is, I can hear that Cynthia has a deep friendship with this noble count, now seeing the town of Maas turned into a ruin, Zimmerman Manor has become dead silent, Captain Cynthia's face has become ugly, she tried her best to adjust the rhythm of her breathing, but there is still an urge to go crazy.

I sighed secretly, I had heard Cindy say that the situation in Mas Town this year was not optimistic, there were several barbarian slave hunters outside the town, many residents were panicked, and many people chose to flee here and rush to El City for refuge.

I didn't expect to be guessed by Cindy, Maas Town was not spared in the end, those barbarians who came to the Storm Bear Tribe forcibly occupied this place, they took all the men in the town, and there are signs of slaughtering women, they destroyed Mas Town, destroyed the homes that the residents of Mas Town rely on to survive, I don't know if this place will be rebuilt in the future, but the Barbarians of the Storm Bear Tribe have engraved hatred on their faces from this moment.

......

Originally, the northern border of El City was the barbarian Celtic tribe, this old tribe in the south of the ice tundra has always been known for its slave hunting, although they have to capture a large number of Terran men every year** But the Celtic tribes never hurt Terran women, they are more like a group of shepherds, they think that Sloit Province is a huge pasture, and they just haunt the city of El within a radius of five hundred miles, where a large number of slaves are raised, if it continues for generations, they need Terran women to breed more slaves, they rarely destroy the town, so that a large number of people will be lost.

It's a pity that the leaders of the young Zhuang faction of the Celts made a very bold decision this spring, they colluded with the nobles of Sloit City, and wanted to swallow the guards of Sloitt City in one bite, but unfortunately the final plan did not succeed, and the entire Celtic tribe of 8,000 young barbarian warriors died by the Galloping Horse River in the spring of this year, which was a fatal blow to the Celtic tribe.

The entire tribe was divided among the remaining powerful barbarian tribes around it this summer.

And the vast majority of the territory belonging to the Celtic tribes was swallowed by the Storm Bear Tribe, a powerful tribe from the northernmost part of the ice tundra.

Along the way from Mount Antia to the small town of Maas, our team has hunted dozens of Barbarian warriors from the Storm Bear Tribe, who, according to Cynthia, prefer bloodthirsty slaughter and are even more insane.

After the battle of the mountain pass in western Antia, several of our teams were still repairing near the pass and did not leave in a hurry.

These barbarian warriors with giant bears painted on their chests came so suddenly, I don't know where these barbarian warriors came from.

Seven falcon squads hunted more than 300 barbarian warriors with 'magic traps' in the western mountain passes of Antia, and almost at noon the next day, more than 2,000 well-trained barbarian warriors, led by several barbarian warriors, quickly entered the mountains of Antia, wanting to encircle and suppress our dozens of falcons.

That night, Cynthia and the other six falcon captains consulted, and the seven teams split into seven ways and fled.

Compared with other falcon squads, our eleventh squad, which has skis, occupies an absolute speed advantage in the golden apple groves of hilly terrain, and the barbarians who run day and night are not faster than skis after all, and our team attracts more than 500 barbarians to walk freely through the snow.

Even in such a situation, it is still possible to hunt down those lonely barbarians with ease. Finally let the team members see my marksmanship, the lead bullet with the flame burning effect made those barbarians suffer a lot, and my ability to survive in the wild is even stronger than the other members of the team, in fact, we are leading a team of more than 500 barbarians, going around the territory on the outskirts of El City, until those barbarians finally understand that they can't catch up with us no matter what, they decisively give up the pursuit of us.

On the way to the town of Maas, we saw several noble fiefdoms and large manors destroyed, but we did not expect that the town of Maas could not escape the clutches of the barbarians.

......

The elaborate statues of the characters next to the huge pool and the ornate square with its crystal street lamps cast in bronze reflect the luxury of the former Zimmerman estate, and the stone steps that line the main road have been hidden by the marble floors of the thick snow, and the magnificent building comparable to the Council Hall of the City of El is now only a burnt stone wall, and the rubble of the roof falls from the broken ruins from time to time.

Captain Cynthia took the lead into the ruins of the castle with a blue face, Vayne followed in without thinking, Xiu's figure disappeared directly from my sight, and I jumped off Ruca's shoulder, patted Ruka's arm, and told him to wait outside, maybe there could be some other new clues in the courtyard, and I followed Captain Cynthia into the ruins of the castle.

The castle smelled of burning, and the stone walls on both sides of the corridor were still framed by the burning, and charred corpses could be seen everywhere, mostly women and children, with no visible wounds, presumably killed in the fire. Maybe it's because of the winter, there is no smell of rot here.

"Damn brutes!" Wayne threw a punch knocking down the armored statue that stood on one side of the circular arch, and the statue landed on the ground filled with black ash, sending dust flying.

Coming out of a bedroom with a wrought iron bed, in which was a charred woman with a three- or four-year-old child in her arms, she held the child tightly in her arms, the child curled up in her arms as if she was pregnant, she tried to block the heat of the flames with her body, but unfortunately death would not stop reaping life because of love.

I covered my mouth and nose with a handkerchief, looked at Cynthia and said, "Captain, there is no one alive." ”

Cynthia frowned and sighed, but her mouth kept saying: "It's impossible for these people, unless they succeed in breaking out, those men shouldn't leave with their families, such a big manor!

"Will they be captured by the barbarians?" Vayne kicked open a burnt metal-framed wooden door, leaving the charred room with nothing but the furniture reduced to ashes.

Cynthia glared at Wayne, her eyes were scolding, her mood was very bad, and her tone became very harsh: "When have you heard that barbarians have captured women? They eat human women when they are hungry, but in the manor, we can't find those bones......"

"Is there a basement or a water dungeon here?" I suddenly thought of a refuge, if at the beginning of the fire, the outside of the manor was full of savages, and the people in the castle could not rush out, and even if they did, they would face death, then where would the women in the castle flee? I think the farthest place from the fire should be the water dungeon in the castle.

When I said this, Cynthia also came to her senses, and then frowned and said: "In the manor castle here, there is no water prison at all, and there is a basement, but there is ...... there. I got it!"

"I see," I exclaimed, my voice overlapping with Cynthia's, echoing through the empty ruins of the castle.

Cynthia and I looked at each other, with a glimmer of hope in our eyes, and said, "Cellar!"

That's right, Zimmerman Manor is best known for the most delicious golden cider it makes, and even supplies the royalty of the Grimm Empire, and the manor is full of twenty-one mountains with apple trees alone, and they are sure to make a lot of golden cider every year. How could such a large winery not have a wine cellar?

Not only that, but it's huge. The freshly brewed golden cider has a very astringent taste, and it needs to be stored in oak barrels and stored in a constant temperature cellar for more than three years, and the longer it is stored, the more mellow and mellow the taste, so there is a huge cellar here in the castle.

We ran quickly down the stone steps to the first floor, and under Cynthia's leadership, we found a stone staircase that extended down behind the secret door in the kitchen on the first floor of the castle, which was the only entrance to the wine cellar.

In order to prevent thieves from stealing the golden cider, Count Zimmermann sealed all the other exits of the cellar with stone slurry, leaving only one outlet behind a secret door in the back kitchen.

After we pushed open the tin secret door, we were completely dumbfounded, the passage here had collapsed, and several huge stone bars were lying across the passage.

Cynthia walked up and tried to remove the hundred-pound stone blocked in the passage, she just moved the stone outward a little, and a large amount of sand and gravel poured out of the crack in the stone, instantly submerging her legs, so frightened that Wayne behind her hugged her from behind, and refused to let her move the stone in the passage again. It looks like the entire passage has completely collapsed.

I stepped forward and said to Cynthia, "It's too dangerous here, and it will take a few days for a few of us to dig this passage, so let's make sure there are no survivors in the cellar first!

"But if we don't dig it up, we don't know if there's anyone alive in it!" Cynthia said distressedly.

I said to her, "Go outside the estate and look for vents, there must be a lot of vents in a wine cellar of this size, I am so small that I should be able to get into it easily......"