Climbing the walls of Vale City is not impossible. Of course, the premise is that the walls of Valley City are unmanned. Although the Hammer Knights did not carry props to climb the castle walls, it was not difficult to make a few hooks and hooks for climbing the castle with enough time. It's just that the knights of the hammer can't pass through the city walls, and the result of Heather's discussion with Cheese is to let the seriously wounded and some knights with damaged combat ability return to the south first, and arrive at the town of Turbidity where the Kingdom Knights are stationed, so that the information that has been obtained can be sent to the outside world, and the morale of the army can also be stabilized.

So ten wounded men left Vale with five horses and headed south, and Heather sent carrier pigeons to Turdrum Town to inform them of this, and the wounded would be connected to the troops who met them halfway. As for the other horses, Cheese had a bit of a headache, after all, if you need to leave the county quickly, these horses are indispensable, but when you enter Vale City, the safety of these horses outside the city is not guaranteed. However, Heather said that there was no need to worry about the horses, and the female knight chief claimed that the trained horses could be self-sufficient in the vicinity, and that the speed of the nezumi alone could not harm the horses. Although he was still a little uneasy, since the owner of the war horse had said so, the mage accepted the plan.

Thus, by the time the group crossed the moat of Vale City and climbed the walls of the city with a plank-made pontoon, the squad had been reduced to twenty men, consisting of Cheese, Elsa and two Frost Guards, and Heather and fifteen Hammer Knights. Climbing the city wall cautiously, the mage was still a little concerned about the results of the previous divination. Although the question of the whereabouts of the Kingdom Knights in that divination did point to Valley City, the result also predicted that Valley City was very dangerous at this time. Cheese looked at the two mutant ratmen tied into rice dumplings at his feet, and the immediate priority was to find a safe base and quickly open the portal to the Gray Tower to return the two important living specimens.

This is also the reason why Cheese strongly recommends entering Valley City as soon as possible, as the Ash Tower, as a giant mage facility established by Cheese Sensei, cannot be a target for teleportation in itself, in order to prevent a sudden attack by hostile spellcasters. As a member of the Grey Tower, Cheese has his own way of connecting to a special room in the Grey Tower, but the requirements for connection are very demanding, and the most important one is that the portal itself must be spread out in a building similar to the size of the special room, obviously the conditions when camping in the wild are not enough to meet the spell casting conditions. However, most of the buildings in the nearby settlements are made of wood, which is contrary to the special rocks that make up the gray towers, so they do not meet the conditions. Looking at the entire county of Salon, only Vale is the place where mages are most sure to open the portal. But none of the cheeses had yet to tell anyone else, the mage had only promised that he would dispose of the two mutants once he had established a foothold in Vale, and with his promise, Heather agreed to take the two burdens into the city.

The evening sun shone on the walls of Valley City. The days have been particularly short these days, and the nights have been too long. It's long and suffocating. Shaking his head to shake the thought out of his head for a moment, Heather began to plan today's exploration, the city walls were obviously not a good place for the team to stay, the terrain and conspicuous position were too narrow and the team was likely to be attacked by the enemy. Therefore, the female knight chief decided to find a building close to the city wall as a resting place tonight, and then search the environment in the valley city on a large scale tomorrow to find a suitable place to establish a stronghold.

Generally speaking, the walls of this kind of fortress city are forbidden for civilians to step into, so the road leading to the city wall is often equipped with a gate, which can effectively prevent spies or spies from taking advantage of the garrison to climb the city wall. Of course, everyone in the group knew this, in fact, Heather and other Hammer Knights had already been to Vale City, so the Knight Captain was actually ready to use the hook to go down to Canyon City. However, the knight who went to explore the path brought back the information that the gate was not closed, which could not help but be a little unexpected.

"It's an anomaly, even if something happens to Vale, these gates should be closed. After confirming that the winch near the gate was still functioning, Heather said with a frown.

"Maybe there was an emergency in the city that required the guards on duty on the city walls, so the gates were not closed. Mona guessed.

"There are two hundred guards in Canyon City, and Count Salon's military camp is stationed in the city, so how urgent must it be that even the soldiers on duty on the city wall should be withdrawn, and there is no time to close the entrance and exit of the city wall?" asked the chief knight rhetorically. However, although she was talking about the question, Heather herself knew that the answer to this matter would probably have to be found by the soldiers of Vale.

"Anyway, it's imperative that we find a place to spend tonight. Cheese said that he didn't think there should be too much time to be lost on these small details, and although the opening of the floodgates was unusual, it didn't mean anything. To understand the current situation of Valley City, it is natural to enter the inner city first.

The others listened to the mage's words and nodded their heads in agreement. Through the narrow corridor of troop transports, they finally entered Vale. It's just that the valley city in front of me doesn't feel like the first city in the north at all. The empty streets, the street lamps without lamp oil, all remind the group that this place is not functioning properly.

"Louie, take a few people to check out the surrounding houses and see where the best place to spend the night is. He instructed his lieutenants to look for buildings to spend the night, while Heather, Cheese and the others walked through the dirty streets trying to find something.

"I'm afraid these streets haven't been cleaned for a while. The mage said as he felt the sticky touch of the soles of his shoes. Although Cheese had not been involved in human society before, he had been to some cities during some special activities or missions, and compared to the streets that were cleaned, it was hard to believe that it was a fortress city with a population of about 5,000 people.

Heather didn't have any opinion on this, after all, the spread of the plague would definitely cause panic in the city, and according to common sense, not to mention that no one cleaned the streets, or the whole city stopped production, and there was nothing unusual about closing the door, compared to these, she hoped to determine the location of her group at this time.

"We entered from the northern wall, and if I remember correctly, this is supposed to be the junction of the military zone and the ghetto. After seeing some iconic buildings, Heather came to this conclusion.

"Why the ghetto?" asked Elsa suddenly.

"What?" the chief knight didn't quite understand the boss's question.

"I mean, this is the northern part of the city, and I can understand that the military zone is here, after all, the city was built to defend the north. But why put the ghetto in the north, although I have not been to the city much, but I also know that the ghetto is the most chaotic place in every city, why put such an element of instability here?

Although the metaphor is a little strange, both Cheese and Heather understand what the proprietress is trying to say. It was difficult for Cheese as a mage to answer this question, and even though he was very knowledgeable, he was not very clear about urban planning. In contrast, Heather, as the Knight Captain of the Duchy Knights, is relatively familiar with this issue.

"It is precisely because the slum is difficult to manage that it is placed next to the military zone so that possible hidden dangers can be extinguished in the fastest possible time. And ......" The female knight paused, seemingly a little resistant to the next topic.

"And the army is almost all men, and there are often a lot of women in the slums of a city who do the leather business. Blindly suppressing the demand for soldiers will only rebound, so simply put the slum next to the military area, so that it is also convenient to manage the soldiers who go out. This is a very common tactic, otherwise you would think that the brothels in the town are all patronized. Mona went on to say that although she was also a woman, Mona, who was accustomed to the way the Northlanders spoke, did not have so many concerns. The male soldiers present were embarrassed and didn't know how to face it for a while, and the "monkey" simply looked up at the sky, as if observing the sky in the valley. Although Elsa is the proprietress of the tavern, due to family reasons, the top of the dragon's back is the only tavern in Yamashita Town, which is in good order, so she was not very clear about these embarrassing things before.

Just when the scene was very stiff, the knight who had been sent out to search happened to return to report the information.

"Your Excellency, we searched the houses in the neighborhood and found something not quite right. ”

"Something isn't right, what's it?" Heather asked.

"It's a hole, your lord, and many of the buildings here have holes found on the first floor or in the basement that lead to unknown areas. The knight replied.