Leon and Bakham rode horses bought from the villagers towards the north. Naturally, there were no good horses in the small village near the forest, so the chief knight bought them from the villagers with all his possessions, and it was just a bantam horse for camels, which was inferior to Leon's mount in terms of speed and reflexes, except for its remarkable load capacity.

To the Blood Lion's surprise, even though it was his first time with horses, his servants seemed to have mastered the essentials of riding. In other words, the horse on which the elf sat actively cooperated with Bakham's movements. And it is not difficult to see from the gentle movements of the elf that he does not stroke the neck of the mount, that he treats animals more kindly than humans.

Leon wanted to joke with his servant on this point, but before he could finish his words, the traces on the side of the path attracted the attention of the knight chief.

"Stop. As he spoke, the Blood Lion grabbed the reins of his mount, rolled off his horse, and walked to a nearby haystack.

"What's wrong?" Bakham followed his current mentor to the side of the road out of curiosity, dismounting without forgetting to quiet his two buddies he had just met. The horses were a little confused by the rider's orders.

Leon didn't answer the elf's question in words, and the knight frowned and rummaged through some messy marks in the haystack, and soon, a stalk of grass that was not quite normal color appeared in his hand. Leon put the grass under his nose and sniffed it, the wrinkles on his brow becoming more and more obvious.

Bakham watched the movements of the blood lion, and followed Leon's example and continued to search for the traces that the knight chief had rummaged through, and more strangely colored grass stems appeared on the grass pile with the elves' movements. Removing one of them, Bakham took a closer look at what made the grass look so different from its counterparts. He soon discovers that the cause of the strange color is some liquid that has accidentally dripped onto the grass.

"Blood, nezumi blood. The elf's tone became serious, and the memory of the battle with the rat-shaped monsters made his right eye ach.

"About a day or so, can't say for sure how many. Leon made his guess by the smell and coagulation of the blood, and his eyes were filled with unease as he looked at the stalks of grass stained with nezumi blood in his hands. The chief knight turned his head to look at the road, where the small village that contained them was less than half a day's journey. Such a village would never be able to resist the attack of the nezumen.

"Maybe it was left behind by the guys who chased you before. The elf shrugged his shoulders and said, this is not unreasonable, the place where Leon entered the forest is not far from here, and it is not impossible for the nezumi to take a long detour while chasing him.

But the chief knight shook his head, and he threw back the stalk of grass in his hand, and said.

"We can't take that risk. Can you follow the trail of blood?"

The blood-stained grass was hidden underneath the haystack, and it was apparently that the bleeding nezumi had noticed that it would reveal their whereabouts. In such a situation, it is difficult for the Blood Lion to continue to track the enemy, which is not what he is good at. However, his obedience is different, this elf who grew up in the forest is extremely sensitive to all kinds of clues that will be overlooked by ordinary people, which the chief knight noticed on the way out of the forest with Leon.

Leon guessed right, Bakham does have this ability. While most elves have a hard time understanding unfamiliar plants and lands once they have left a familiar forest, Bakham is not one of them. Because he was never accepted by the forest from the beginning. While his people had a simple induction hunt, the young elves had to force themselves to find clues in the various tracks left by the animals, and this long training had made him a stalker who was stronger than many elves who were older than him.

"Are you sure?" the elf asked, not believing that Leon's decision was the right one. Even if there were rat people roaming around the area, Bakham felt that there was no need for the two of them to risk chasing the rats, and that they would only need to go back and warn the villagers at most. What's more, the Knight Captain has been emphasizing the urgency of time, and in such a situation, he has to waste time here so that the elves don't know if it's worth it.

"We have an obligation to protect them. The Blood Lion said silently. He turned and took his weapon from his horse, a hunting knife, the knight's saber that had been unusable in the previous battle against the nezumi, which he had purchased from the villagers along with the horses.

"It's their responsibility to protect them. The knight's words made Bakham frown, in the world of elves, one's own safety should be responsible for oneself and not others, and it is very irresponsible to simply rely on others for protection. However, despite his whispering complaints, he did not disobey the orders of the knight he served, and the elf lowered himself and began to scrutinize the grass.

Leon tilted his head, he heard Bakham's complaints. He was a little annoyed by how to interpret the contents of the Knight's Creed like this elf. You know, most of the elves are extremely individualistic, there are no laws in the elven tribe, and all the norms are ruled by tradition and elders. And unless they are to protect children or the elderly, elves rarely draw their swords to help those who are capable of self-defense. Indifference is the impression that many humans have of elves.

"Found it. The Blood Lion didn't bother for long, and Bakham quickly found more traces of the nezumi as he raised his hand to signal the knight to follow, and stepped into the deeper grass beside the road. The chief knight took his hunting knife upside down, tied his horses to the trees by the roadside, and let them eat the weeds by the roadside, and then followed the elves.

Bakham was fast, and the waist-high weeds didn't affect the elves' movements in the slightest. He led Leon over a jutting rock to a depression about three kilometers from the village with his back to the forest, which was a natural haven / The surrounding slopes raised above the ground effectively sheltered from the cold of the night and the view of the creatures on the slopes.

The chief knight and the elf lay downwind next to the pit, and they exchanged glances as they watched the beasts in the pit. Six nezumi, not bad nezumi, but strange creatures transformed from humans are hiding inside to avoid the glare of the sun. While the sun doesn't really hurt nezumi, it does undoubtedly dull them, and generally speaking, small-scale nezumi don't like to wander around during the day.

Leon poked out half of his head and carefully examined the nezumi, two of whom were injured. The injuries were not serious, one had a broken leg, and the other had a broken tail. The Blood Lion guessed that these guys must have chased the defeated Kingdom soldiers to this vicinity, and he only hoped that the soldiers who were being chased by the six monsters would be as lucky as he was.