The fragrance that is so far away, the wonderful touch, what else......

Griffith lifted the quilt and looked up at the sky. The morning light has pierced through the gentle mist of the seashore. He rubbed his face, as if there was still an evocative feeling in his heart.

I seem to have missed something last night......

Anyway, I'm going to ask Kroger for Potions class materials today.

During his lunch break, Griffith knocked on the wooden door of the cabin.

"Look, who's coming! Come in, my little friend. Kroger, who was as tall as a giant, immediately invited him into the house.

"Mr. Kroger, come and try these wines!" Griffith said as he presented the greeting gift, "Associate Professor Veronus has made a list of the Potions course that requires me to gather these auxiliary materials for a week. ”

"Oh, you're looking for these things? You can find some at the edge of the Whispering Forest, but it's against the school rules for you to go there. ”

If there is a professor or you to lead the way, it must not be a violation of the school rules, right?, Griffith muttered to himself, waiting for the ranger to finish speaking.

Kroger took a long sip of wine and continued, "Don't worry about the children, I'll go collect the materials, these amazing plants are hungry for the afterglow of the setting sun, and they are best found at dusk." Can you, if you will, supervise these hired men while I'm away? I'm a couple of new lads who will get into a fight if you don't pay attention. The work is left to the hired hands, and our job is to supervise their work and protect them.

"The man at the head of this group of lads is called Root, and he is a clever fellow. For their safety, the school allows them to carry some weapons, so we can't let them hurt each other, let alone let them into the campus. ”

Griffith naturally understood this. Holmonwards' heavy workload was very labor-intensive, and professors and officials had their own budgets and personnel powers to hire the outside workers they looked at.

Naturally, these outsiders must be strictly supervised, and they must not be allowed to offend the distinguished students. On the other hand, some of the jobs are dangerous, and it is not uncommon to be attacked by out-of-control magical equipment, demons, and even mutated creatures in the forest.

Griffith stepped out of the hut and went to a nearby farm to watch the hired hands at work from afar. Although Kroger was not treated well by noble mages, he still had a lot of authority within his scope of work, and the people he invited seemed to be nimble and strong.

They tended pumpkin patches, pested trees or built lawns. When they saw Griffith and the flashing Homon Watts crest on his coat, most of the eyes looked away and went about their work. But there were a few people who secretly looked up at him from time to time.

......

For the next week, Griffith began to go to Kroger's cottage on time every day before dinner. Mr. Tall Ranger carefully searched for a lot of herbs and materials, which could not only meet the needs of the course, but also allow Griffith to drift some.

When there are no tasks, Griffith can review the day's lessons on his own, and it is quite easy.

At dusk on the fourth day, Kroger, who had just eaten dinner, hurriedly put on his package, picked up his heavy crossbow, pushed the door and walked out. As soon as he reached the door, he remembered something, turned to the midshipman, and said, "Well, my friend, I have to go out tonight on some errands, personal business, can you help me guard the hut? I will be back before eight o'clock." ”

Griffith immediately stood up, "Is there anything to keep an eye on?"

The ranger scratched his head and looked at the hut where the hired workers lived outside: "It's nothing, just don't let those ordinary people enter the Whispering Forest, they are very naughty." However, it shouldn't be difficult to subdue them with your strength!"

After saying this, Kroger seemed to let go of his thoughts, and nodded and left without waiting for Griffith's reply.

All right...... It's only been a few hours, and it should be fine.

Over the past few days, in order to help the rangers at the edge of the Whispering Forest, Griffith has applied to the school for small shields, swords, tomahawks, and heavy throwing guns to fight large creatures. He looked at the neatly made bed and the throwing guns stacked in the corner, nodded in satisfaction, and rested his legs on the wooden table to continue reading his book.

The sun was setting in late autumn, and it didn't take long for the sky to darken. Griffith leisurely flipped through the books, and after a moment of thirst, he jumped out of his chair and scooped a spoonful of water from the tank.

Through the narrow windows of the cottage, Griffith could see the well-groomed pumpkin patch and the longhouse where the hired workers lived, quiet and harmonious, like a picture scroll of idyllic scenery.

“......”

Not right!

At this moment, Griffith suddenly noticed something unusual, he quickly put on his armor, grabbed the sword and spear beside him, and rushed out.

Kroger's nine adult male hired workers live in a longhouse not far away. Griffith saw them on several occasions picking turnips, potatoes, and pumpkins from the field for dinner, and when they were full, they would play cards on the farm in twos and threes.

But tonight it was unusually quiet, and the hired men seemed to have disappeared with the rangers.

Griffith quickly checked the road to the Holmon Watts campus. The magic barriers and alarm circles set up to deter the hired men were intact, impassable without the coat of arms of the Academy, and showed no signs of being triggered. He hurriedly turned and ran towards the fence at the edge of the Whispering Forest.

In the clearing at the edge of the forest, the rangers had already erected a sturdy low wall one man high. Along the inside of the low wall, there is a specially cleared path, and even the weeds have been pulled out of the soft dirt, and if anything crosses it, it will inevitably leave footprints on the dirt.

Sure enough, there was still a series of messy footsteps on the dirt on the inside of the low wall. Judging by the footprints and the wet mud on the low wall, the hire-entry into the forest was short-lived.

Griffith's first instinct was to immediately return to the school to report. But the thoughts that followed stopped him again.

In the huts of the hired men, he had seen them carrying weapons such as two-handed swords, crossbows, and axes, and were not ordinary good citizens. Maybe they came to apply for a job just waiting for such an opportunity to enter the forest.

What did they want to do?, Griffith sorted out his weapons and leaped over the low wall.

......

The footprints of the employees are clear. They had no plans to hide their whereabouts, and hurried towards a certain goal. Griffith didn't go far after the trail when he spotted suspicious signs near a damp depression.

Although it was the edge of the Whispering Forest, the sun was about to set at this time, and the tall and dense dark black canopy obscured the light overhead, and I could barely see the surrounding scene.

A thick, fallen tree trunk suddenly appeared on the path. Near the rough woods, a strange kind of tall thorn grows here in an orderly manner, stretching from the path of the hired men to the woods on either side. Griffith examined along the thorns and found that the plants had been intentionally planted in a three-meter-thick ring that surrounded the depression ahead.

Could it be that Kroger planted it? Griffith cut the thorn in front of him with a dagger, and was surprised to find that the plant was very tough and difficult to cut off. The thorns on the thorns are as hard and long as iron cones, and if you try to climb over them without the help of tools, you may lose your life.

It's a cage.

Like the fence of a sheepfold on a farm, this thorn is used to imprison a certain creature. The only entrance and exit is the giant tree on the path where the hired workers left their footprints.

Griffith examined the fallen trees again, and found fresh marks from the axe chopping, and no signs of wilting on the trunks, which appeared to have been cut down by the hired men for use as bridges.

As for the inside of the Thorn Cage, there must be some hidden creature, and the hired men may have come to steal it.

Interesting. Griffith stepped onto the giant tree, darting over the thorns and toward the woodland inside.

I didn't go far before a large pond appeared in my field of vision. There was a faint black monster fish in the water, showing Griffith's pale teeth at the shore.

Serrated scale fish. Griffith immediately recognized the fish in the pool and shivered involuntarily.

This strange fish lives in the swamps of the East and feeds on all living creatures. They reproduce very quickly, and when they forage for food, they attack in hundreds. There was once a soldier in the Eastern Legion who was wearing heavy armor and accidentally fell into the swamp where they lived, and when he was rescued, it was already a pile of skeletons hanging with scrap copper and rotten iron, less than half a minute before and after.

Griffith took two steps back and examined the water around the pond, which was no more than a hundred meters in diameter and was a closed puddle in the forest.

Greedy and brutal, with fat but smelly flesh, the sawtooth scaly fish is a staple food for some of the more ferocious monsters of the swamp. With their food and reproduction rate, it is impossible for them to survive in such a small space for a long time, and someone must have kept them here. As for the purpose of raising these ferocious fish, it must be to use them to feed some more ferocious creatures.

Could it be......

Griffith could probably guess what kind of monster the owner would be.

At this moment, an earth-shattering roar came from the forest. The roar was hideous and angry, filled with the ancient and terrifying aura of desolation, and even the strange fish in the pond in front of them were frightened to boil.

Griffith's heart jumped, and he was so frightened by the roar that he fell into a brief confusion. But fortunately, there was no direct threat around him, and he regained his composure within a moment, and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

It's the roar of a mountain monster.

This unusually strong and ferocious large, monster lives in the mountains southeast of the Tranquil Sea, and is said to be a hybrid descendant of the Beamon Behemoth, a member of the world's most powerful creatures. Standing tall at over four meters, they possess steel-hard skin and terrifying strength, and can pull out the trunks of hundred-year-old trees in the forest as weapons, making them virtually immune to blunt weapons, with only ballistas and heavy throwing guns effectively wounding their bodies.

The mountain monster has low intelligence and looks like a walking mountain of meat. However, if it is taken lightly, it will pay a heavy price. They possess agility and explosiveness that are disproportionate to their size, and are able to quickly grab attacking enemies and tear them to shreds. Compared to the mountain monsters, the goblin trolls are just an inferior subspecies, and the weak ones are not worth mentioning.

When he guessed that there was a monster hidden in this thorn cage, Griffith had already predicted what would appear, but he didn't expect it to be a terrifying beast like the mountain monster. He quickly recalled the monster's abilities and realized that even the most ordinary mountain monster possessed more than three extraordinary characteristics, including but not limited to:

Piercing. The roar of the mountain monster while hunting causes small creatures to instinctively fear, causing a brief stun and a chance to flee due to fear, followed by a slowdown of movement for no less than ten seconds. This monster is able to prey on dangerous sawtooth fish.

Terrifying power. The Troll can shatter hard rock or pull out trees with large roots to throw or swing as weapons, and its attacks have a concussive effect that makes human armor unable to defend against them, and can cause internal organs to break and bleed when hit.

Burst shots. Although the Trough is not a creature that is good at ranged attacks, it can accurately and continuously throw rocks and trees for a short period of time, with great accuracy and a large area of splash damage.

Some mountain monsters are trained to have other kinds of abilities, which is beyond Griffith's knowledge. Just the strong body and the above three abilities have already made the mountain monster above most monsters and beasts, becoming another kind of existence-

"Legendary creatures!"

In the case of close and one-on-one, even the world's famous knights and mages have to weigh whether they can survive from the hands of the mountain monster.

The roar had just stopped, followed by human screams and even an earthquake that shook the ground.

It's the hired people.

Griffith was a little puzzled, the environment here was obviously specially designed by a strong man who could play with the mountain monster in the palm of his hand, and it was specially built to raise the mountain monster for a short time, so how did these foreign hired people know the secret of the mountain monster, and why did they dare to challenge this beast.

The screams in the forest began to grow more terrifying. Griffith hurriedly rubbed the wet mud from the pond on his body, removed the throwing gun from his back, and groped his way to where the sound came from.

Under a large tree not far from the pond, Griffith first spotted a hired handman. The man's body was stuck with broken pieces of wood and metal, vaguely recognizable as parts of a heavy crossbow, and the left half of his body was like a peach that had been stepped on, and the flesh was crumbled together.

The Heavy Crossbow can deal damage to the Orry's eyes and some weak spots at the right angle and distance. The hires apparently arranged an ambush with heavy crossbowmen for this purpose, and most of them succeeded. But the shooter did not escape the revenge of the mountain monster. Griffith looked around and found a boulder not far away, with traces of flesh stuck to it, which should have been used by the mountain monster to attack the archer.

It's getting late. The moonlight casts on the clearing at the edge of the Whispering Forest, as if admiring the tragedy in the forest.