Chapter 210: Encounter (End)
The cavalry of the brigade came to Hu Bin's vicinity in a blink of an eye, and Nicole's call made Hu Bin let down his guard and began to carefully look at the team of knights.
The first is undoubtedly the current patriarch of the Hines family, Delaney. Count Hines, in the prime of his life, is at the peak of his life, the gorgeous armor wrapped in the powerful body, at a glance will make people have an indescribable sense of oppression, in Hu Bin's opinion, the strength of this Count Hines may still be above himself.
Count Hines, who had rushed to him first, pulled the reins of his horse, and then, with a little eagerness, jumped off his horse, picked up Nicole who was rushing towards him, and spun around in the air. The knights behind them also arrived at this time, and with a neat movement stopped their horses not far away, showing their well-trained.
"Father......" Nicole was about to open her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Count Hines.
"That vicious woman has been executed by me, and the Riffel family's hand is stretched too long, so I have to chop it off." The Earl had a murderous look on his face when he said these words, although the strength of the Riffel family is not as strong as the Heines family, but it is not much worse, the two families have cooperated in all aspects because of the marriage, and usually make some small moves in other aspects, Count Hines can turn a blind eye, but this time they stretched out their hands to Nicole, which Count Hines could not tolerate.
"Yes!" Nicole answered obediently, and then buried her face in her father's arms and sobbed, causing a helpless smile on Count Hines's face.
"Alright, Nicole, it's alright, it's alright! Why don't you introduce me to this one? Although this sentence was asked to Nicole, who was still crying in her arms, her slightly curious eyes fell on Hu Bin.
"Reed. Salrant, Greetings to you, Count Hines. Only then did Hu Bin see the face of this earl, probably because the lifespan in the Warcraft world would be proportional to the strength. The powerful Earl of Hines still looks like he was young, and when he stands with his daughter Nicole, he is more like a brother and sister than a father and daughter, but the majesty and maturity of being an earl have been deeply left on his face by the years.
"Thank you for saving my daughter, you have won the friendship of the Hines family, young man!" The earl saw that Hu Bin was not performing orthodox aristocratic etiquette, and it was not easy to determine his identity for a while. At this time, Nicole finally put away her tears, reintroduced Hu Bin to her father, and recounted the experience during this period of time, of course, some of the fragments were deleted by Nicole.
"I didn't expect to meet a member of the Solant family here, Nicole, she was really lucky. Reed, what's next? Through Nicole's introduction, Hines of course heard what his daughter meant, and the young man in front of him was not small, so he could try to win him over.
"I was just sent out by my family to go through the training, and I didn't have any special clear plans." Of course, Hu Bin heard the intention of Count Hines's solicitation, and just replied back according to the other party's meaning.
"If you don't mind, can you come with me and sit in the territory?" Count Hines really took the opportunity to make such an invitation, and Hu Bin did not deliberately refuse. I agreed directly.
The brigade brought by the Count was on the road again, and the carriage that Nicole had been riding in was not destroyed, but was repaired by several knights' attendants and then restored to use, while a knight was driving the carriage with Nicole slowly. And Hu Bin stepped on an empty war horse. Walk slowly by Count Hines's side.
Protected by a large group of cavalry, there were no accidents along the way, and the various bulls, ghosts, snakes, and gods in the neutral land avoided this team early, which made Hu Bin a lot less fun.
It only took two days for Hu Bin, who had horses to travel, to come within the control of the human camp. It took another afternoon to reach the destination of this trip, Dandy, the capital city of the northwestern province of the human kingdom.
The city of Dandy is a very important harbor city in the human camp, and it is rich in products, especially seafood. It is also very convenient for transportation, not only as a trade route hub connecting the human camp and neutral places, but also as an important treaty port on the north-south route. In addition to his commercial importance, Dandy is also responsible for guarding against the various forces of the orc camp and the neutral lands in the northern part of the kingdom, and the military value of Dandy's guarding the northwest throat is unquestionable.
The Hines family, who can control such an important city with full control, is undoubtedly a powerful family, Hines, who was rooted here a hundred years ago, has grown into the emperor of the soil here at this time, and even used the influence of Dandy City to radiate the family power to the entire northwest province, and even the king will not despise this deep-rooted old family.
The scale of Dandy City gives Hu Bin a pretty good feeling, but for Hu Bin, who has seen Baicheng, it is difficult for him to be surprised by other cities, of course, as a large port city, Dandy's port still makes Hu Bin's eyes shine. In order to defend against the orc fleets that roam here from time to time, humans have also stationed a large fleet here, and the sea outside the harbor is full of large and small warships.
"Welcome to Dandy City, Reed, how about it, it's a spectacular scene!" Looking at the pomp and circumstance on the other side of the port, Count Hines said proudly, "You have come at the right time, the kingdom has made up its mind to fight for the God-given land, and is working hard to draw warships to form an expeditionary fleet. ”
Expanding territory has always been a very sensitive topic, and for the four major racial camps, it is a means to survive and grow, even at the cost of the lives of thousands of soldiers.
After the group entered the inner city, Hu Bin was shocked to find that there were many ruins in the inner city, which were actually caused not long ago from the traces, and it seems that the process of the Hines family's expulsion of the Riffel family was not smooth sailing.
"I'm sorry Reed, I can't receive you in the City Lord's Mansion, I may be busy in the near future, you can follow Nicole to walk around the city now." After Count Hines entered the inner city, he politely said goodbye to Hu Bin, and seeing the big black hole in the gate of the city lord's mansion, Hu Bin also quite understood the earl's difficulties.
Although I didn't see the city lord's mansion in Dandy City, the Hines family had a lot of manors outside the city, but when Nicole suggested that Hu Bin go to the manor with her, he refused on the grounds of experience, and just found a more high-end hotel in the city to live in. After promising Nicole to visit the city with her the next day to see her off, Hu Bin could finally put everything down and have a good rest.
The moment he followed Count Hines's team into Dandy City, the spatial prompt had already sounded. But Hu Bin was talking to the earl at that time, and it was not suitable to open it immediately, and he did not have time to take a closer look until this time.
The act of successfully saving and escorting Nicole earned Hu Bin 100 points of reputation in the human camp, and the current relationship with the human camp can be upgraded to friendly, but it still does not reach the bottom line of joining the human camp, but the relationship with the Hines family has directly reached friendship, and the reputation of Dandy City has also increased a lot.
Hu Bin's own charisma attribute is not outstanding, but he can't help the bonus of a bunch of rare equipment, and he has never bothered about earning prestige, but he was stuck once because of the prestige problem in the first link of the guided side quest. Spaces don't publish tasks that can't be completed. What's more, it's just a side quest of a guiding nature, so Hu Bin concluded that there will be a lot of small quests in Dandy City that can gain prestige, which is one of the reasons why he agreed to visit here with Nicole tomorrow.
For Hu Bin, who was neutral from the beginning, although the neutral status allowed him to choose his own faction, it was not entirely a good thing, compared to the good and chaotic camp Chosen People who are currently in a competitive relationship, Hu Bin, who needs to get out of the neutral place, will definitely have less time to accumulate the prestige of the camp than them, but fortunately, Hu Bin has obtained a lot of prestige with one mission. Left all the Chosen ones struggling with the prestige of the camp far behind.
This result can also be regarded as Hu Bin's luck, after all, if you want to rescue Nicole, you have to face a mercenary group with more than 30 mercenaries alone, if it weren't for Hu Bin's methods being too tricky, he took the lead in killing the mercenary leader. Even if he had the strength to defeat those mercenaries, it could lead to a lack of care in the melee, allowing Nicole to be attacked and killed, who needed protection. The normal flow of the quest should be to guard the carriage until the Count arrives with cavalry, and finally gain a little favor from the Count and a small amount of Faction Reputation. The reward will not be as exaggerated as Hu Bin is now.
But by mistake, Hu Bin actually escaped from the mercenaries with Nicole, and the earl did not save his daughter in the first place. Later, he had the intention of soliciting Hu Bin, and finally accumulated a considerable amount of favorability. Perhaps the space also thinks that it is quite a face-saving thing to gain the favor of a real power earl, and simply raises the prestige of the camp that Hu Bin should obtain by a few notches.
After a night's rest, Hu Bin woke up feeling refreshed, and even if he was well prepared when he was in the wild, he was not as comfortable as staying in the city. Because he had an appointment with Miss Nicole, Hu Bin deliberately got up early, and sure enough, when he was halfway through breakfast, Nicole came to the door in a hurry.
Nicole seems to have completely stepped out of the previous shadow and returned to the familiar eldest lady before, but when facing Hu Bin, it was difficult for Nicole to maintain the appearance of that good girl, so she simply showed her true face. Nicole, who let go, sometimes felt that if it weren't for Hu Bin leaving too many bad impressions on her, their relationship could even go further.
"Where do you want to go?" In the face of this guy, Nicole is not polite at all, as the host, she wants to have a good time today purely under the guise of being a tour guide for Hu Bin, but she clearly knows that Hu Bin is carrying a 200 gold coin thank you gift from her father in her pocket.
"If possible, I'd like to go to the barracks here, and if not, the Mercenary Guild and Chamber of Commerce can too."
After listening to Hu Bin's words, Nicole seemed to foreshadow that she might really be a tour guide all day today, and a series of things such as snacks, clothes, jewelry, and magic gadgets were saying goodbye to her.
Of course, it is impossible for such a military place as the barracks to be open to Hu Bin, even if it is the daughter of the city lord who comes with him, but Hu Bin has long expected such a result, and immediately followed the reluctant Nicole to the mercenary guild.
Because of its proximity to a neutral place, the mercenary guild in Dandy City is very large, and countless mercenaries who rely on the trade route to eat are willing to come here to receive the commission, at this time it is the time for the release of the new task list, and the entire guild hall seems to be a little chaotic, Hu Bin heard the noise inside outside the gate, and glanced at Nicole, who was a little resistant here, and finally decided to go inside alone.
The chaos in the hall was still beyond Hu Bin's expectations, and mercenaries from all walks of life usually used violence to solve disputes due to tasks or other aspects, and the clerks in the guild seemed to be accustomed to such scenes, and they didn't care about handling mercenary business for the victors with blue noses and swollen faces.
Hu Bin's entry attracted the attention of many people, and although he covered his face with a hood alone, the good-looking armor was still quite conspicuous. Most of the mercenaries still chose to ignore Hu Bin, and the only people who could dress like this were knights except for nobles, and neither of the two could be bullied by them.
Hu Bin came to the task list in a mess, not knowing that his appearance had saved him a lot of trouble.
Sure enough, the task posted on the task list of the Mercenary Guild is what Hu Bin is looking for, and the reward for the task is not only the property marked above, but also the faction prestige reward is also given in the space prompt.
Hu Bin didn't care about the reward of money, his task was to accumulate as many of his faction tasks as possible so as to open the next link of the guide task. There is very little Faction Fame that can be obtained in a single Mercenary mission, and the simplest tasks such as Helper and Messenger will at most get a small amount of reward, and will not reward additional Faction Fame at all. Finding, collecting, or hunting a specific target will yield about 5~10 Faction Fame each. For more difficult missions such as escorts, which have a longer mission period, the corresponding faction reputation bounty will be increased to an average of around 30 points. There are also specific quests and difficult quests that appear at the top of the quest list from time to time, but they require a certain level of Faction Reputation to be accepted.
Hu Bin had saved a lot of odd and bits along the way in the neutral place, and now he finally knew what these things were for, he carefully compared the items in his hand with the needs on the task list, and finally found that he could complete a lot of tasks, which made Hu Bin's camp prestige rise again.
Hu Bin prefers a task, which is a task issued by the city lord Count Hines himself, using the bandit's left ear in exchange for a reward, both in terms of money and prestige, but unfortunately Hu Bin's camp reputation is not enough to meet the requirements for receiving this task. But Hu Bin did not give up on this task, because he could directly participate in this task through his relationship with Count Hines.
Hu Bin, who had made up his mind, didn't want to stay here any longer, but before leaving, he remembered an important thing, the Chosen One, as a contender, would not have thought of digging prestige from here, but at this time, he didn't see any of them. Hu Bin doesn't think it's because the Chosen One's camouflage skills have completely deceived him, and it seems that he must have missed some important event, resulting in a disconnect with the Chosen One in the human camp. The lack of intelligence gave Hu Bin a headache, so he simply stopped thinking about this problem and concentrated on running his camp's prestige improvement plan.
What Hu Bin didn't expect was that the incident that made all the Chosen ones in the human camp disappear had something to do with him. When Hu Bin was still wandering in a neutral place, Count Hines killed his new wife for his daughter, which directly led to the rupture between the Hines family and the Riffel family, and a battle broke out in Dandy City, of course, the final result was a complete victory for the Hines family.
The follow-up to this incident was that Count Hines issued a mission to hunt down the remnants of the Riffel family, and the generous rewards and faction experience rewards made the Chosen ones in Dandy City empty, and all of them participated in the hunt. (To be continued......)