It was already halfway through the afternoon, and the sun shone on the smooth ice surface of the roofs and roadsides, refracting circles of colorful light, a beautiful color similar to a rainbow, and under the eaves of the rows of houses, you could still see inverted cones, jagged crystal ice edges—

The dwarf Tob and his fellow mercenary Joko walked into the "Wolf and Whistle" tavern, Joko stretched out his arm and pulled up the thick cotton curtain, and Tob walked straight to the tavern counter with quick and powerful steps.

He was still muttering, or rather complaining.

The mercenary Choko told him that there was a good deal here, so they came from far away Anjou—

It may not be a long journey for a merchant who is accustomed to traveling far away, but for Tobu, a dwarf with short arms and legs, the constant and repeated bumps along the way on horseback, which is more than a meter high, almost kills him, until this time, his resentment finally finds a suitable outlet and spits it out.

His voice was so loud that it caught the attention of everyone in the tavern hall.

"The Wolf and the Whistle", the largest tavern in the town of Lorenz, is a stone and wood building, like most houses in the Northland, it has a pointed sloping roof, and small round windows leaning against the walls for ventilation, and the window frames are the kind of cross lattices that can be seen everywhere, and in this cold weather, it closes tightly—

Oil lamps burned in the hall of the tavern, and the firewood in the fireplace burned red.

Soon, many pairs of eyes looked at Tob, and the loud-voiced Mr. Dwarf couldn't help but stop chattering, and he looked up—

The waiter at the counter, a middle-aged woman from a civilian background, has an ordinary appearance, but her figure is a little plump, which is very in line with the taste of dwarves;

At the long table closest to them, there were only two guests, Isaac Jeffrey, the sheriff of the small town of Lorenz, and a man dressed as a guard;

Looking inside, inside the tavern, there was a large group of mercenaries sitting motionless on their chairs—

They have a variety of different costumes, but that kind of temperament can't be hidden in any way, and the experienced dwarven mercenary Tobu just glanced at them crookedly, and guessed their identities.

The quest for the town of Lorenz.

The mercenaries were silent one by one, not as noisy as before, and Sheriff Isaac just sat at the clean long table and did not get up, he did not speak, leaned forward slightly, and found that it was a dwarf who was rarely seen in ordinary times, and he suddenly became a little interested-

He noticed the axe behind Tobu—

The axe had a stubby wooden handle, and at one end of the wooden handle, the steel blade on the top was still impregnated with a dark red mark. After squinting slightly, he finally noticed that the dwarf seemed to be a little different, and finally a smile appeared on his face.

Half a month ago, his cousin, Randall Jeffrey, led people to the Ampton mines in the Nogo Mountains to expel the bandits, which should have been a trivial matter, but he never expected that this young knight with high-level strength and outstanding martial arts would actually lose his life at the hands of those bandits-

Not only him, but also the Red Feather Mercenaries stationed in the town, who had gone with him to the Ampton mines that day, and never seen any of them come back since—

Luckily, the guide of that operation, his cousin Randall's bodyguard, Aiden, jumped down the hill and stumbled back to the town of Lorenz along a little-known path.

A gang of vicious, lawless bandits has appeared in the Ampton mines!

They also killed a nobleman!

The news first spread within the Jeffrey family, and then, probably less than three days later, spread throughout the town of Lorenz.

The townspeople, merchants, and mercenaries were all in different moods about it, and the Jeffrey family became quite lively because of this incident.

Some people are sad, and some people gloat -

Saddened by Randall's mother, a noble lady who still has charm.

When she heard the news, she was discussing the dress and dress of Her Royal Highness Princess Samantha with several close friends of the same age, and whether to invite a skilled senior tailor to imitate a few sets, when the personal servant hurriedly ran to her ear and spoke in a heavy tone, she trembled violently, and fainted instantly—

And those who don't show their faces on the surface, but are secretly happy in their hearts, are some other power contenders in this family, from the older generation to the younger generation, more than one person has already secretly clenched his fists in his room and cheered in a low voice-

Randall is dead, and they have a chance.

Only Randall's mother wept and described as haggard and withered all day long, and the so-called aristocratic family warmth, in most cases, was probably like this.

The knights of the Jeffrey family, including the head of the Jeffrey family, Randall's father, Viscount Cumberrun Jeffrey, had been away with Count Wolf during this time, and had not yet received this sad news.

And there is no regular knight in the current town of Lorenz -

Each powerful nobleman has different strength requirements for the conferral of knight titles under his command, and in the Talon region, where the people are fierce and martial arts are admired, a regular knight means the lowest peak of power.

The Jeffrey family has two knights who have awakened to the first order, and three knights who are at the peak of their careers.

But now in the face of the bandits in the Lampton mines, they can't use the power of these powerful knights.

Therefore, the wealthy Jeffrey family issued this expedition, and Randall's mother, the Viscount's wife, also specially added a large amount of her own private money.

Offer a reward of 10,000 reels to buy all the heads of the damned bandits.

When the mercenaries heard the news, they swarmed like flies smelling blood, and they didn't care about the long distance or the cold weather, and the whole ten thousand silver rays made a raging fire rise in their chests, and hot blood flowed all over their bodies.

Isaac coughed slightly, as the publisher of the mission, and also the sheriff of Lorenz Town, in the face of this group of mercenaries, he did not have the slightest arrogant and commanding aristocratic official posture, he roughly announced this mission to this group of mercenaries.

But he didn't say anything more about the deeper inside story.

Half a month has passed since the bad news came to this day. In fact, this is the fourth group of mercenaries who have gathered in "Wolves and Whistles".

The first three dials have lost the message.

……

The recent bandit leader, Gross, feels like he's playing an ancient mod game called "Guarding Athena". From that day on, wave after wave of enemies came under his nose.