A thick carpet shields the heat rising from the ground, and an overhead awning effectively shields the eternal blazing sun that hangs overhead. With his back to the rock, Epicurus was also a little tired after a night of hurrying, but he could not rest immediately.

"What an irritating stupid monster," the slave trader cursed as he heard the sound of striking iron coming from inside the slave camp in the distance. You don't have to guess to know that it's the tallest ogre fiddling with his weaponry. "But it's a frighteningly energetic bunch. ”

On the one hand, he was tired of the annoying noise, and on the other hand, he was a little envious of the exuberant energy of this race, which was unattainable for humans. Epicurus came back to his senses and focused his gaze on the leather map in his hand.

As a successful caravan merchant and looking forward to more successful merchant leaders in the future, Epicurus learned an early skill - the gathering and analysis of information.

Although this trade route has been going on for more than 15 years, the situation in the desert is like an unpredictable sandstorm, and it can suddenly appear around you at any moment.

"The two desert nomadic elven tribes of Sasha and Salem actually broke out in the vicinity of the dragon's lair territory, presumably for that stupid Khan title," Epicurus twisted his well-tended goat-shaped mustache, a habit he used to ponder deeply: "Although the 'small fights' between the two tribes did not enter the eyes of the big men, they did affect the surrounding trade routes. Now this is the edge of the dragon's nest territory, and there is still half a month to go, and this time it is estimated that I will not be able to go to Nome to buy spices, and I have to avoid it carefully, and go to a farther city......"

"Oh, shit. The sentry that lurked at the top of the dunes sounded a warning horn, startling the thinking merchant and accidentally pulling out a few of his beards.

The samurai in the rest area who were on guard duty in shifts broke into Epicurus' tent, a caravan escort rather than a hired samurai, belonging to Epicurus' cronies, and only they were qualified to break into the merchants' tents.

"Lord Epicurus, there has been an unknown number of nomadic horsemen outside the two Palesans, and they are traveling in the direction of the caravan's camp. The caravan's samurai succinctly explained what had been discovered.

"Quick, gather the caravan warriors and hired samurai, and tell them that the time may come to use their swords! And give the slaves some food and prepared weapons, and tell them that if they don't want to die for a while, they will fight for their lives! Finally, keep food and water at the back of the camp, and bury some and hide them. Epicurus uttered a long list of words as fast as he could.

He didn't notice that the sound of striking iron that had just annoyed him had stopped for a moment.

Long before a quarter of an hourglass, the ogres spotted the situation before the guard post.

The witch doctor Palu, who was squinting and resting with his eyes under the "energy ointment", suddenly opened his eyes, stood up straight and stared into the distance with his dark pupils, and his nose covered with a scar moved slightly. Thanks to the knowledge of voodoo, his sense of smell is the sharpest of the three brothers.

"Don't make a noise, Blue, put away your food box," the ogre witch doctor stopped two brothers who were striking hard and eating insects dug up from the roots of cacti with cactus thorns.

He quickly lay on the ground, his huge pinna pressed against the sand, carefully discerning. The other two brothers who received his message also wrinkled their noses at this time, although their sense of smell was not as strong as Paru's, but the instinct of the race still made them discover something as well.

"It seems that there are a lot of little men and the kind of camel beasts they ride and call horses rushing here," said the clever and always thoughtful Blue, "there may be a war, this is not a gladiatorial arena, and we have to do the same way we used to do in the wasteland." ”

While quickly tidying up his gourmet box, he stuffed the chopped cactus stems and the fat and delicious insects he found into the empty compartments in the box, and finally carefully closed the lid, and said to Naru seriously: "Remember to save half of your strength, don't throw away the healing potion that Palu gave you, and run together if you can't beat it." Well, take one or two little people with you as a reserve when you run. ”

Naru nodded, indicating that he understood.

The three ogre brothers, Blue always has an idea, Palu always has a potion, Naru, you just need to always have strength.

"The taste of the little people is not that of human children, but of the kind of tall elven little people, estimated to be about a hundred, and slightly more camel beasts, and the voice of the earth tells us that they have no heavy armor and should be able to deal with them. Palu, who was lying on the ground, stood up and took out three water bladders from the belt behind him: "This is the latest healing potion that has been made, you can drink it to replenish your strength, or you can sprinkle it directly on the wound." "The Colosseum has given him more experimental tools and supplies than the old trolls who taught him the witch doctor.

Taking the healing potion that Palu had distributed, Nalu thought for a while, and untied the two hardwood tower shields tied to his arms, and the tower shields that only human heavy warriors had the strength to use could only be used as his own gauntlets: "The slag after the molten iron is cooled protects Nalu, and the shield will be used for you first, and the elf villain can shoot arrows, and it hurts a little to pierce his body." ”

It wasn't until the three ogre brothers had completed their preparations for the battle that the guard post issued an early warning of an enemy attack.

The caravan was quickly deployed, with the hired warriors mounted on desert horses and lined up in reserve formations for the charge, while the caravan guards urged the caravan riders to drive the camels to the rear of the battle array, and drove the "goods" that had been transported—the group of slaves to the front of the battle camp and stuffed each with a rudimentary weapon and some food.

"My God, the stinginess of the leader is really beyond my imagination, and when the war is fought, he only gives some sharpened wooden sticks and some wooden shields that children need to fight and play. Fortunately, Blue was clever enough to go to the Colosseum to make money, so we were prepared......" Catching a glimpse of the weapons and equipment issued by the caravan guards to the slaves, the big man Naru was extremely disdainful of Epicurus.

In fact, there were still some fighter slaves who were assigned weapons made of metal, simple armor sewn from nitrated leather, and even the three ogre brothers were given an air-dried camel beast jerky, but this was only the treatment of a very small number of combat-ready slaves.

Although the preparation for battle was not unreasonable, the horses that came from a distance were more rapid.

A caravan of horses galloping from two or three Palesans stood a few hundred paces away from the slave battle formation. This was not to show battle etiquette in front of the two armies, but to cultivate horsepower and accumulate strength for charging into battle.

Epicurus and his cronies stood on the dunes behind the caravan and watched the attacking enemy. He took the monocular handed over by his cronie and looked closely. This was a high-grade item that he had bought from those alchemists, and it was easy to observe the situation outside of the five palesans.