Along the way, Russell and the others stopped and stopped, and gradually began to walk deeper into the continent, and Carter saw that Cuckoo was always mysterious, so he often went to chat with her.

However, the cuckoo did not eat Carter's set, and every day during the day he traveled alone, and he ate alone, and in the evening, he ran to the tent to rest.

Carter had no choice but to show Russell that he was helpless, and Russell said to him: "Then let her go, and we will just drop her off at her destination." ”

When he first set out, it was a pleasant trip for Russell, and Russell sighed at the vibrancy of the villages along the road, the majestic mountains in the distance, the wetlands covered with water and grass, and the wild sheep running in the forests and fields.

But after a week's journey, no matter how good the scenery is, you will get tired of seeing it, and the journey is still boring. And the further the team went inside, the more dilapidated the village became.

Unlike the towns and villages in the western part of the empire, the villages here have more or less traces of destruction, and the villagers are all looking hungry and standing on the side of the road watching the marching Russell's procession, with both fear and indifference in their eyes.

Russell had wanted to find a village to rest and settle the tired soldiers. As a result, every village looked like they were outside the door, and Bauer went to ask if he could enter the village, but the village chief refused.

Seeing the rejection of Russell in the village was a little anxious. The cuckoo rode over slowly and said to Russell: "The villagers on the border of the empire can barely survive because of the assistance of military rations, but over the years, the empire has collected more and more harsh taxes in order to fight, and regardless of those bandits, bandits, and villages are always being plundered, so don't blame them for becoming like this." ”

Russell was a little surprised and asked, "Don't the lords around here care?"

The cuckoo glanced at him and explained: "It is worthy of a young baron who is ignorant of the world, these nobles in the empire only know pleasure, greedy for life and fear death, and pay a little money to bandits to keep their castles from plundering, where will they care about the life and death of the peasants?"

The ridiculed Russell had no choice but to listen to Cuckoo's advice and understand why the villagers were so xenophobic, so he had to ask Catbauer to lead the team to find an open space where they could camp.

The area was densely forested, and it was not easy to find a campsite, and by the evening, the team had not found a suitable location.

When Russell was worried, a person with good eyesight in the team pointed in one direction, jumped up and said excitedly, "Look! There's a village ahead!" Russell was at the back of the team, he couldn't see the village clearly, but if he looked closely, he could also find the smoke from the cooking in the village.

Even if you have to give a lot of money, you have to live in it yourself. With this in mind, they ran to the village.

When the team arrived at the entrance of the village, it was surprising that there was no one guarding the entrance of the village, and there were even very few people on the road, and there was no sound of people talking and children fighting, which was really a strange village.

At this moment, the wooden door of the house closest to the entrance of the village was opened, and an old woman came out tremblingly, and she slowly raised her wrinkled face and looked at Russell and them.

After a while, Russell tried to say hello, but the old woman spoke first, "Are you looking for a place to rest, travelers?" and Russell nodded in agreement.

The old woman laughed, showed her few yellow teeth, and pointed to the largest house in the village with her cane: "Hehe, no guests have come to our village for a long time, we are very welcome, you go to the tavern in the village to stay, anyway, there is no one living there for a long time." ”

Russell was about to thank him, but found that the old woman had already turned away and walked towards the door.

Along the way, Carter felt someone watching, and he reminded, "It seems a little weird, but you should be careful." Russell nodded, "I found out too, but it's too dangerous to camp in the forest, let's leave after tonight!"

Russell led the team to the tavern, which looked shabby on the outside, they tied up their horses and walked in, only to find that it was clean inside, free of cobwebs and dust, and after cleaning up for a while, the tired Russell soon fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Russell vaguely heard someone sawing wood, and he muttered, "Sleep, don't be too noisy." Suddenly he realized that it was the middle of the night, and who would see wood?

Russell opened his eyes suddenly, and he was shocked to find that there were a pair of glowing eyes staring at them covetously by the tavern window!