Chapter 64: The Harvest and the Journey Home (Part II)
I forgot to upload it! oo――
Asking for Votes -
Although Camelas City is only a little more than a hundred kilometers away from the Red Stone Fortress, in fact, in Chen Kai's opinion, the two cities are two worlds. The Redstone Fortress is a war-ridden area, while Camelas City is a quiet and thriving western commercial city, as if it were Andorson before the undead attacked. Of course, Camelas is definitely more prosperous than Andorson, after all, it existed hundreds of years before Andorson.
The city of Camelas existed before the Redstone Fortress was built, when it was the most marginal city on the western frontier of the Rohan Empire, and the closest city to the Misty Forest at the time. It's just that as the trees of the Misty Forest continue to be cut down, the forest has slowly retreated past the Redstone Mountains, the mountain range where the Redstone Fortress is located, and now it has retreated to a place fifty kilometers west of Andorsen.
Of course, stepping back is only the fog in the Misty Forest, not exactly the forest. At least there is still a large forest around the city of Camelas. There are also many low-level demonic beasts in these forests, and there are even demonic beasts with a level higher than the eighth order. It's just that the number of high-level demonic beasts is not very large, and the number is more than the huge grassland rogue bucktooth rabbit population that lives in the wild, as well as the Moquigoblin community. These two colonies are the most troublesome species between Redstone Fortress and Camelas, the steppe hooligan bucktooth rabbit is better, at most it is food for the women to rob, but the Moquegoblin is different, they eat almost everything from ordinary grain to human flesh, as long as they can be stuffed into their mouths.
At the same time, the number of Moquegoblins is also the largest and largest, and there are at least 100,000 Moquegoblins living in the jungle south of Kameras City, forming a tribal army that attacks the inhabitants of Kamelas and the Redstone Fortress. There was even a time when tens of thousands of large tribes attacked the troops transporting supplies in the Red Stone Fortress, and the escort of the 3,000 cavalry was stunned by them, and two-thirds of them were wiped out, not only were the supplies robbed, but even the face of the Red Stone Fortress army was also lost.
Therefore, when Chen Kai and Xu Fei walked into the Mercenary Guild in Kameras, the first thing they saw was the task hanging on the Mercenary Guild, which was considered to be impossible to complete at this stage. "Wipe out the Moquegoblin around Kameras!" As long as the player is sober-minded, they will not do this task, because they know that even if you destroy all the Moqu Goblins of Carmelas at once under the control of the system aunt, there will be new goblin groups migrating over and reproducing after a while, and even more numerous than in the past. Worst of all, you may not be able to successfully destroy all the Moquegoblins unless a single fire burns all the forests around Cameras, but if you do, you may be killed by the tens of thousands of forest-dependent residents of Camelas before you can receive your reward.
"Only a brain-dead person would want to complete this brain-dead task!" This is the definition of this quest for all of the players of Cameras, and in fact many more players would rather run and rob the Prairie Rogue Bunnies than deal with the Moquegoblins because they are disgusting and devastating.
"Goblins are definitely the most disgusting and devastating species in the game? What you don't know what a goblin is! It's the swamp monsters that are more disgusting than the amoeba protozoa and the Tumenba ooze monsters, of course, in Carmelas, they are jungle monsters, but just as disgusting! This sentence is the voice of many Cameras players, and the last half of the sentence is basically the voice of many players in the game.
Because of this, many players who take on tasks in the Mercenary Guild are simply unwilling to accept the daily task of clearing the goblins, and in the end, most of the Mercenary Guilds have no choice but to use this task as a cycle routine that the mercenary group must complete. You have to run to kill a certain number of monsters during the week, or you will lose mercenary points. Of course, for mercenary points, it is very important for players who are only determined to mix in the mercenary guild, but for Chen Kai, mixing mercenaries is definitely not their goal, they just want to gain the task experience of the mercenary account. Of course, this time Chen Kai didn't come to accept the mercenary mission, in fact, he came to release the mission, but when he just stepped into the door of the mercenary guild, he heard a familiar voice. …,
"Ahma! Isn't this Lord Birkner, the 'Flame Two-Headed Lion'? Didn't you stay in a redstone fortress? I heard that you and Zaf's fat man teamed up to give Miranda a gang of second-class aristocrats! "It was none other than Hammertower, a very self-acquainted old mercenary.
"Hey! Uncle Hammertha, though we know each other well, I will sue you for slander if you say this! What do you mean that I joined forces with that fat man of Zaf, I was cheated by that bastard, okay! I took a golden key as a gift, and as a result, I was poisoned and killed by Miranda's idiot, and I almost didn't die in the redstone fortress! After Chen Kai saw Hammer Tower, he knew that he didn't need to go to others, especially when he shouted in such a loud voice, the mercenaries who originally surrounded him were reduced by half in an instant. Although it is not news that Miranda and Count Zaf are competing with each other for the commander of the Redstone Fortress, as the intermediary figure in this incident, it is the one who lured Viscount Miranda out of the guarded lair, and is teleporting a giant who is more than three meters tall. According to some gossip news, Viscount Miranda admired Chen Kai's muscles and wanted to catch him as a male favorite, but he had a bad relationship with Baron Zaf, who also admired Chen Kai's muscles, and was finally killed by Baron Zaf.
Of course, anyone with a clear mind will know that this is not true, but many aboriginal poor people like to listen to some aristocratic lace news. It's just that as the protagonist of the lace news, Chen Kai's face was not good-looking after hearing these lace news mixed with his news from Hammer Tower, and Xu Fei, who was sitting next to him, couldn't help but smile and kept twitching.
"Laugh when you want! There's no need to endure so hard! Although Chen Kai's mouth was very relaxed, Xu Fei knew that he was definitely angry in his heart, even if Chen Kai's heart became the protagonist of lace news in his big belly, he was definitely very angry.
"That's it! Lord Burkner's homework, we're done, now let's get down to business! This is the reward that the Earl wants me to give you, and he knows that you are not short of money and will not give you a bonus, but I think you will like it! Hammertower slowly took out a letter with a golden seal from his pocket and handed it to Chen Kai, but when Chen Kai wanted to open the letter, he stopped the other party.
"That's right! This letter is not for you to read, it is for the border between the Rohan Empire and the Hansting Empire, that is, the Count of Amfros in Kazmodo, the border fortress of your Hansting Empire! Seeing that Chen Kai wanted to open the letter to see the contents, Hammertower immediately stopped the other party, and it would be useless to destroy the seal letter. Chen Kai looked at Hammer Tower with a suspicious gaze, he didn't understand what the other party meant.
"Trust me! Just give the letter to the Count Amfros and you'll get what you want! "Hammertower didn't look like a rough man at all, but like a smiling old fox.
"Let's talk about business after we get down to business! Lord Berkner, it's not good for you to do this, didn't we say yes? If you want to find a mercenary group, you must find my mercenary group, how can you not keep your word? Isn't my mercenary group strong enough? You must know that there are six eighth-order knights under my command, more than thirty seventh-order swordsmen, and five professional scouts and jungle archers, and their strength is even first-class in Carmelas's mercenary group! At the last moment, Chen Kai still felt that the other party was like an old fox, but at this time, Chen Kai was definitely Hammer Tower, so mergy, so greedy for money.
Even if it is a one-to-two, in terms of discussing the cost of mercenaries, the old mercenary Hammer Tower will not give an inch, according to his words, Chen Kai and they can get a lot of good things in Andosen. These things were sold at Hansting, even if it was only half the price, it was enough for Chen Kai and them to become rich people worth tens of millions of gold coins. Why should such a rich person embarrass his old friend for such a small amount of mercenary fees, but Chen Kai and the others don't agree, because in their opinion, the protection fee of 200,000 gold coins is not a little mercenary fee, which can hire a 200-person B-class mercenary group to go back and forth to the border fortress of Kamelas and Hansting Kazmodo twice. …,
However, in the end, Hammertower's words made Chen Kai and them finally agree to the other party's request, "You must know that you have offended the noble senate forces of the Rohan Empire now!" I don't think there are a few people in the whole of Camelas who are willing to take your business! ”
"! This is absolute blackmail! **Naked blackmail! Although he had the mercenary agreement he had just signed in his hand, Xu Fei was still very annoyed because he didn't take advantage of the negotiation with Hummerta. Not to mention lowering the employment price, he didn't even talk about a single gold coin.
"That's it! Xiaofei, don't worry about this, we've made enough money anyway! I think this should be the system restricting us from getting more gold coins, after all, it is impossible for a player to earn millions of gold coins lightly, there is a reward for paying! And Hammertower is right, he is the only one in Cameras who will accept our mission! Chen Kai's eyes glanced towards the mercenary guild, and he found that several mercenaries were looking at him with greedy eyes, but the moment they came into contact with Chen Kai's gaze, they immediately turned their heads and pretended that nothing had happened.
"By the way, did you say where we should meet?" Xu Fei looked at the Hammer Tower, who was walking away with their magic crystal coins, and suddenly remembered one thing, that is, they had not yet agreed to meet each other. At that moment, Xu Fei and Chen Kai looked at each other for a moment, and then quickly rushed towards Hammer Tower.
After Chen Kai and the others left the Mercenary Association, several mercenaries got up from their sitting positions and left the Mercenary Association almost at the same time, and the old man of the Mercenary Association who recorded the task looked at the mercenaries who walked out of the Mercenary Association and muttered in a very low voice: "A bunch of idiots who are in a hurry to find death!" ”
When Chen Kai and the others planned to leave Camelas, it was already seven days after they arrived in Camelas, that is, four days after they signed an agreement with Hammertower. Because during this time, the group was in contact with the goods, and in Xu Fei's words, he wanted to earn back the employment fee of Hammer Tower. As a result, when Hammertower and the mercenary group arrived at the road leading to the heart of the Rohan Empire in Kamelas, they found that what had been expected to be a carriage of six or seven people had turned into six or seven carriages, which were piled with fine cashmere cloth wrapped in tarpaulin and various spices and spell materials from the Lost Forest. All the items were worth at least more than three million gold coins, and this did not include the space in Chen Kai's backpack and the space ring in his hand, as well as the contents of the space package he carried with him.
"Lord Berkner! This time I really understand why Count Zaf is saying that you are not short of money at all!! I ask for an increase in the mercenary fee, this time the value of the goods exposed alone is no longer 200,000 mercenary money can deal with, and I have to find someone, otherwise I will feel that this trip will not only lose money, but also lose my life! Hummerta's face was melancholy, to be honest, he originally thought that he should be enough with fifty people, but when he finished counting the value of Chen Kai's goods, he found that he was simply not enough. Don't look at the fifty people in the mercenary guild is already the pinnacle of a small mercenary group, and their strength is also very strong, but three million goods will not attract a small thief group, if it is really robbed, it will be at least a large bandit group of hundreds of people. As a result, in the end, Chen Kai and the others had to pay 200,000 gold coins again, and Hammer Tower quickly recruited more than 50 trustworthy players in the mercenary association. Although these guys look crooked, as if they are crooked melons and cracked dates, Hammertower knows the character of these guys from the records of the Mercenary Association, even if some of them are much worse than Chen Kai and them, but at least there is no record of committing adultery or robbing the employer's property. …,
Although most mercenaries generally do not do anything to rob their employer's finances if they want to do it for a long time, it does not mean that these mercenaries do not sneak away some small items of their employers. Most of the time, employers don't care about these small losses, but for Hammer Tower, such a person is definitely not something to be trusted. Although for most mercenaries, this is just an ordinary mission, but Hammerta, who knows the situation, knows that he must not have any stains on this mission, and it doesn't matter if the price is a little higher, because it is a normal profit, but if there is a phenomenon of self-theft during the mission, maybe when the mission is over, it will be time for him to lose his good impression with Count Zaf. A person who can't even control his own subordinates absolutely, will not be trusted by an earl, and in the eyes of Hammertha, the Earl of Zaf is no longer just an earl, if nothing else, the chubby former baron is already qualified to compete for the supreme throne of the Rohan Empire.
Even if the relationship between Chen Kai and Baron Zaf was not as close as he believed, this time it was Baron Zaf who asked him to protect each other, so he would not allow the mission to fail no matter what. Of course, it is also necessary to earn some mercenary fees for himself by the way, after all, those mercenaries who follow him rely on money to eat.
By the time everything was ready to hit the road, it was already close to ten o'clock in the morning, and at the same time, Chen Kai had to hire two more four-wheeled carriages to haul the mercenaries' supplies and various sundries. However, there are one or two carriages in the whole team that are super large, which are the six-** carriages that Chen Kai specially found for himself, this kind of carriage is larger than the four-**shed carriage, because Chen Kai's huge size can only ride in this kind of carriage. The most important thing is that the carriage is very strong, its axles are made of all-metal, and the wheels also have metal spokes, which can carry more than a ton of cargo on one side. Generally speaking, this kind of carriage is a special carriage in the army that specializes in transporting heavy armor, but the owner of the carriage shop used some means to buy an abandoned carriage of the army, and after renovation, it became a new carriage in the carriage shop, which was rented by Chen Kai.
However, Chen Kai's weight and the goods on the carriage still made the carriage creak, if it weren't for the owner of the carriage shop cursing and swearing to ensure that the carriage would be absolutely fine, even if it was twice as much as the weight could be safely driven, Chen Kai would have asked the other party to change to a new carriage. As the wheels of the carriage slowly started, Chen Kai and the others began a long journey from Kamelas to Kazmodo, and according to the speed of the carriage, it would probably be a month later by the time Chen Kai and them arrived in Kazmodo. This is not to say that there are no faster ways to move, in fact, if there are not so many goods, Chen Kai and they can use the teleportation array to quickly teleport, but if they carry a large amount of goods, the teleportation cost will be very high. According to the sum of the items in Chen Kai's current backpack and space ring, the transmission fee alone will be millions, not including all miscellaneous expenses.
Don't look at the cost of the player to buy the teleportation scroll is only 100 gold coins, but it is a teleportation within a fixed range, if you want to teleport from Kameras to Kazmodo on the road at least a thousand kilometers, the distance will be doubled for every 100 kilometers of additional distance, and the more goods, the higher the price, and finally Chen Kai converted and found that the gold coins to be teleported to Kazmodo's pocket are not enough at all. I had to choose this way that doesn't seem very convenient, but it's definitely economical and practical. It's just that although the carriage transports goods cheaply, the speed is not fast enough, and it is only suitable for large-scale freight, if it is only a small batch of high-value goods, the practical teleportation array is undoubtedly much faster.
All the horses drawn by the carriage were horses, but they were the best stamina horses in the entire Carmelas carriage line, and could run for at least three or four hours without getting tired. During this time, Chen Kai and his team could travel a distance of dozens of kilometers, because they left Carmelas late, so the lunch of the group was settled in the carriage or on the horse, and they did not dismount to rest or continue to hurry, until the sky began to slowly darken before they arrived at the first supply point of the trip, the small town of Cadogreira on the eastern border of Carmelas. …,
In Cadogrela, Chen Kai and the others met a lot of players, of course, more of them were indigenous adventurers and merchants. After all, the players in the western part of the Rohan Empire are now concentrated around the Redstone Fortress, and more of them are moving towards Andorsen with the idea of picking up bargains, but Chen Kai knows that most of the players who went to Andorsen have gone or died. Although there is no news to prove Amma? Ragas, a member of the Dark Council, is alive, but there is no evidence that the other party is dead. If Chen Kai was allowed to choose, he would rather believe that the other party was alive and hid in Andosen safely, so in Chen Kai's eyes, running to Andosen to pick up cheap was definitely looking for death.
However, there are not many players in the game who run to find death in order to make money, after all, in the eyes of players, even if they drop the level, it is just something that can be practiced back immediately, and now players above the fifth level will only empty the current accumulated experience even if they die. As long as you don't just level up before you die, and the experience accumulation of the experience gauge does not fall below one percent, the level will not be reduced, so many players will be happy to exchange the small amount of accumulated experience for some money to spend.
Cadogerrera is an important gateway to the central Rohan Empire for the entire Carmeras Territory, where you can choose to head north to Cardosmo, east to Carmedos, or south to Dominidok. Either way, there is a third-level main city in the village, which is considered an important stop on the golden trade route belonging to the Rohan Empire. However, because of this, the bandits around Cardogrela are also the most numerous in the entire Rohan Empire, and there are at least seventy or eighty bandit groups and hundreds of bandit groups active on the road to other cities in the east of the town. And that's not counting the rogue bucktooth rabbits and moquegoblins who act as bandits at zero hour, and of course, the Cadogrela boar herd, which occasionally rushes out to plague the surrounding farmland, and the huge army of nearly a thousand wild boars is the most unique picture of the entire Carmelas Territory. Fortunately, they generally only plague farmland, and basically only look for corn fields, not human trouble. The situation has improved slightly after the mayor of Cardogrera organized a field of corn to be planted at the edge of the forest every year.
As for why they planted a field of corn and let those wild boars plague instead of sending people to destroy them, the reason was simple, and no mercenary group was willing to confront three Purgatory Boars with a level above the ninth order and eighteen Abyss Demon Pigs with a level above the eighth order. Although neither of these species is a demon species with pure blood, and because of this, they will not attract the encirclement of the temple, but such a monster is powerful enough for ordinary mercenaries. Because the cost of exterminating that herd of wild boars is too great, even if some crops are destroyed every year, the mayor of Cadogreira still has no brains to send people to find the trouble of those wild boars, and even one day on a whim he simply planted more corn and then organized people to watch those wild boars scourge the cornfield, but he didn't expect this whim to become the Cadoreras festival - Wild Boar Festival.
Chen Kai: When they arrived in Cadogera, it happened to be the annual Wild Boar Festival, and in the past, you could see a lot of children on the streets of Cadogorela, wearing hats decorated with wild boars, begging for corn from house to house. When they have collected all the corn, they send it to the large kitchen in the center of the town to cook it and distribute it to each family in the hope that the wild boars will not come to their fields to feed in the coming year. Of course, the remaining corn will be gathered and placed in the field outside the town for the wild boars to eat by themselves, and this is also the first part of the wild boar festival, many young people in order to show their boldness will deliberately lie in ambush around the corn tray and wait for the wild boars to arrive and then rush up to catch their hair. As a result, over the decades, the wild boars around Cadogrela became less fearful, and there were even cases where the wild boars did not hide at all when the boys rushed towards them, allowing the boys to pluck their feathers and eat the corn themselves. …,
After that time, the program of the Boar Festival changed again, and on this day of the year, the residents of Cadogerrera would call out to a wild boar in the wild to bring each other into the town, and the wild boar could freely eat corn in the town until it could no longer eat. Although this will cause a certain amount of food to be swallowed by wild boars, at least there has been no time for wild boars to hurt people in the past ten years, and there are no wild beasts coming out of the forest to attack villages and towns. Hunters once saw the leader of the wild boar herd, the largest of the three purgatory boars, fighting with a flaming tiger trying to break out of the forest and attack the village, so the inhabitants of Cadogerrera are now very fond of wild boars, because they are definitely the ones who protect them.
Now, for Chen Kai and his family, after entering the town, they saw the wild boars dangling on the streets of the town, and he even saw a few children riding on a huge wild boar and running along the street.
"Let's go! Don't look at it, you have a chance to see Cadogreira's Boar Festival at night, it is said that this year the Purgatory Boar evolved into the Golden Purgatory Boar, and it is estimated that it can be seen today! That guy can fight against the Cunzài of the Titled Sword Saint, but he has a good temper, and I even plucked its mane when I was young! Hammertower sat beside Chen Kai, and as soon as he stretched out his hand, he hooked two huge ripe corn from the arms of the child next to him, threw a silver coin to the other party, and stuffed the hot corn in his hand into Chen Kai's hand.
"Eat! Cadogrela's corn is the best food in the western part of the empire, absolutely fragrant and glutinous! Look, that guy is what I call the Golden Purgatory Boar, and everyone here calls it Momoto! At its side are Ziana and Emara, both its wives!" As soon as Hammertower stuffed the corn into Chen Kai's arms, he saw a golden wild boar with a body length of more than five meters appear in the field of vision, and the appearance of such a huge demonic beast in other places would definitely scare away a large group of people, but in Cardo Greira, the people here have regarded wild boars as their family and friends, and even some wild boars simply live in residents' homes, they love to be clean, and they have to run to Cadogrera's creek to bathe every day.
When Chen Kai and the others walked into the town, they saw a lot of wild boars rolling in the river, and there were children playing with them, the scene was very weird but definitely not scary. In fact, Chen Kai found that the wild boars wandering in this town were definitely not hideous, but very cute, especially a few little pigs looked very silly, and they were very interesting when calling.
Of course, for Chen Kai, his purpose is not to watch the scenery of Cardogreira, but to take a good rest and prepare what he needs to set off tomorrow after paying for the cost of taking care of the pony. Although most of the things are in charge of the mercenary leader of Hammertower, Chen Kai still has to be responsible for paying.