If there are any words that mercenaries don't taboo about, or at least hope that they can stay away from their lives, then "nobles" and "merchants", and the terrifying combination of the two, noble merchants, must be at the top.

But the number one position is forever unshakable.

Any mercenary who has been mixed up for three or five years is very disgusted by this word, and if a fledgling rookie mentions it in the procession, it will often be exchanged for the angry eyes of his seniors. They are clearly taboo about it, it cannot be considered superstition, but is almost part of the mercenary culture.

Many people often think that mercenaries only recognize money and have no faith, but in fact, when you do this business for a long time, you will eventually find your own faith.

Experienced mercenaries must hold some form of prayer before they go on a long journey, and even the more devout ones often choose a time to worship during the journey.

That's it.

"Don't have any. ”

"Pleasant surprise. ”

This is the first place in the mercenary dictionary that the taboo word is thunderous.

Surprise.

It means not being controlled, it means being unexpected, it means.

Confusion, as well as human damage.

and even the annihilation.

......

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

The whole team is full of elite, and there are no leaks in all aspects, and everything seems to be in order.

So when did everything start to go wrong?

Further east, on the fifth day, vines and dead trees, combined with uncultivated terrain, severely slowed their progress. Four hundred men and seven hundred horses were a large force, and in order to facilitate the advance they were divided into several parts, which were spread out to avoid the interference of the dense formations.

But in the evening of the same day, the news brought back by the lightly armed scouts in front of them made them have to adjust their plans again.

"There are traces of ghoul digging pits, and there are some black bodily fluids left on the dead trees. ”

- They caught up with the defeated undead troops, and the few remaining ghouls were not counted. But at least the part of the siege had been slain by the heavy hits, and perhaps some of the wounded remnants of the defeated army had retreated in the same direction as the witch.

There are not many of them, and the traces are relatively scarce, and if it weren't for the scout's sharp eyes and perennial walking in the wilderness, they wouldn't have noticed.

But even this was not to be taken lightly, so the fan-shaped team was reorganized, and the remaining 370 men were divided into three parts, the main formation and the left and right wings, led by Adolphus, Henry, and Stephen, respectively, except for thirty crossbowmen who were proficient in mounted archery (1) as scouts.

One hundred horsemen on the left and right flanks were all elite, and the line was elongated in an arc-shaped column, which was convenient for marching and increased the cover area on the sides. The pack horses carrying the baggage were placed in the main formation with the largest number of people, so that there was a reconnaissance in front of the formation with cover on the left and right, and it was like a textbook correct way to deal with ghouls who were agile and did not know where to appear.

Despite their different expertise, Captain Adolphus and Captain Stephen are both elite figures in their respective industries. Coupled with the presence of our Sage Mister, it stands to reason that this team should be extremely efficient with great leaders and good members, and it is.

Until the problem arose that even Henry was helpless.

I don't know who bought the map of the middle-aged merchant Mario from, and its level of detail is difficult to match even that drawn by many great nobles, but there are still boundaries after all.

Whoever the painter was, he had apparently never gone that far east. After all, the empire's main civilizations were all spread along the coastline to the west and the plains in the center, and to the east there was only the vast but uninhabited Palohia Plateau, and the vast forests at the foot of the mountains were densely packed with all kinds of dangers.

There are maps that have many reference values, and they have come to an end. Henry put it away the day before yesterday. The fact that they could no longer understand the general topography of the area based on the map meant that their reference for judging the direction was limited to the naked eye.

How much is the difference between the two?

After a cartographer with professional geographical knowledge measures a certain side of the land with his feet, he will draw a bird's-eye view of a certain part of the terrain based on the general terrain, and then even mark the height and other information.

This gives the viewer a global view, and you can see the terrain and obstacles within kilometers around you, so you can efficiently plan a route forward.

And if you can only rely on visual vision, the gap will be much wider.

The terrain is undulating in the uncultivated primeval forest, and even if you have eagle-like eyes, you can't see too far here. Our Sage Man is 1.95 meters tall and rides on a war horse with a height of 1.7 meters on the east coast, and he is tall and burly from a human perspective, but compared to this lush primeval forest, it is very small.

Forests, vegetation and trees obscuring the naked eye are one aspect, but the undulating terrain itself is a major obstacle.

"Be careful, go downhill ahead!" was the most shouted by the mercenaries in the past two days, and the terrain deep in the eastern part of the Bao Forest was almost a hill with no end in sight. With the weight and the old vines in the deep mountains on the ground, if you don't control the horse carefully when going downhill, you are likely to stumble over your hooves and fall down with the horse. And when you come to the bottom of the valley in such a cold sweat, what awaits you is a steep and difficult uphill climb.

Physical and mental exertion is one thing, and the interference of the rolling hills on sight and morale is the most important thing.

No matter how good his eyesight was, Henry couldn't see through the soil and vegetation, and the only way to see the route ahead was to climb the hill.

Hill after hill, the repetitive terrain caused physical fatigue and severely depressed morale. Coupled with the destruction of the formation caused by the irregularity of the terrain, those who walk fast and those who walk slowly naturally separate, and some people even begin to fall behind.

By the time this difficult section of hilly terrain had finally been overcome, the whole team had slackened. The forward part caught up with the scouts, who were also fatigued by the terrain, and the rear pulled out a long, sparse line, and the left and right flanks were mixed with the main formation, and there was no neat appearance.

And in this situation, they ushered in their first surprise.

Essentially, it should be something they are happy to see, and it should be expected.

The defeated undead retreated with the witch, and although Henry and the others regrouped and postponed their departure for a day, and the undead did not have to rest day and night, they were slow walking corpses after all. Therefore, it was not an accident that they were caught up by the people on the fine horses, and they had actually found traces of the undead and ghouls a few days ago, and they had deliberately begun to chase them in the direction where they were.

The encounter with them was expected, but the timing of the encounter was extremely poor.

The physical exertion caused by the complex terrain, coupled with the chaotic formation, they should have regrouped here, and even the sages were thinking about camping here early today to rest and recuperate. But when the loose human army climbed up from the last hill and finally saw the flat land they had dreamed of, they found it densely packed with undead who were slowly moving towards the east.

When the living who exuded heat entered the hollow field of vision of these dead bodies, the instinctive disgust and hatred of life caused several of them to instantly turn their heads and begin to roar hoarsely.

And this alarmed every cold walking corpse in this remnant army.

"Engage the enemy in front, prepare for battle!" several of the vanguard had to shout this sentence to remind those behind, and immediately raised their spears or drew their swords.

The first casualty appeared when they cut down the first wave of undead. The tired horses that had just climbed the successive hills, combined with the loose columns, prevented them from taking advantage of the strongest impact of the cavalry.

Although these forward mercenaries are elite fighters, they can easily split the vital skulls of the undead with their weapons on horseback. However, these fast runners tend to be ranged shooters with lighter armor, and ranged weapons have little effect on undead spirits who have no weaknesses other than their heads.

If you can open the distance and aim well, it's just a bad start.

Swift and improvised, they abandoned their ranged weapons or smashed the wooden crossbow holders of their heavy crossbow machines as blunt weapons, successfully eliminating the first scattered undead. But when the ranks were denser and more numerous, the undead, who were only lightly armoured, were finally killed and wounded by the rusty, tattered weapons.

If it weren't for Adolphus, who was also in the vanguard, he led the paladins on the left flank to cut in from the north and disperse the undead, fearing that the scout force would have been lost.

And when Henry and Stephen in the rear reacted, they contracted their formations and accelerated their speed to rush up this last slope, and these undead who were not far behind them in number ushered in their own end.

The sound of shouts of killing, the hollow roar of the undead, the sound of brittle bones breaking, the neighing of war horses, the clashing of swords.

The noise continued for more than an hour before they finally dealt with the unexpectedly dead remnants.

Seven men and two horses were killed and 19 were slightly wounded, but fortunately, the magicians who accompanied the army were able to dispel the witch's magic in time to prevent the living from being directly transformed into even more terrifying ghouls, but even so, Mira and Horno noticed that Henry's brow was furrowed.

"It's not a good thing to make such a big disturbance in such a place deep behind enemy lines, there is no time to clean up the battlefield, leave as soon as possible. The sage said, and the elf nodded, glancing at the unicorn beside Mira, and the young lady of Loan also looked at the young white pony - it looked more restless, but it was a little different from when she first entered the forest.

"There's no time!" Hearing their exchange, Stephen also realized something, and shouted to the mercenary who was about to dismount and help the body of his dead comrade, "Collect the body and bury it until the return journey." ”

"If we can get back—" the head of the regiment added quietly, and then Horno frowned.

"Something's approaching—"

"Witch!" Adolphus clenched his spear as Mira began to approach the group, everyone becoming nervous.

"Take it. Filippo took a good crossbow and handed it to the Loan Maiden, and the two of them retreated to the opposite end of the line.

"No, it's not a witch, it's not a dead one, it's—" Orno turned his head in panic, blonde hair flying in all directions.

Henry raised his greatsword, and as if to respond to his actions, an earth-shattering dragon roar rang out in the forest to the south with the sound of heavy footsteps.

"Whoa—" The herd of horses stirred for a moment, and several pack horses turned and tried to flee towards the forest to the west.

"Dragon!" one of the mercenaries shouted heartbreakingly—but it wasn't over, his shout was quickly drowned out by another roar, only this time not from the south, but from the east.

"Roar—" Immediately ahead rang out the loudest roar to date.

"Three-headed ......"

"Judging from this volume, it is also an eight-ton earth dragon at least. Captain Stephen's tone was still calm, but the rough and strong man's lips were colorless.

"So—" Henry let out a long sigh.

"I hate surprises. ”

"Everyone!"

"Spread out!!"

The sage lifted Kramer aloft and pulled the reins, and the horse neighed highly.

——

Notes: (1) Safari: The division of labor positions in the advanced hunting mercenary profession is mostly good at using long-range light cavalry. In large hunts, it is responsible for disrupting prey and distracting its attention to reduce the pressure on the main personnel responsible for setting traps and the backbone personnel responsible for controlling the situation with heavy weapons.