Going up from Cuihu Town, you'll have to cross the natural line of defense known as Talva-Suta before you can officially approach Heinzvorm, the theocratic and human rights center of the Suomir kingdom.

It is the northernmost point of the famous Palohia Plateau on the east coast, and its geography has given it a unique position, and it has also been the site of many wars of the Suomir Kingdom in history.

Not only the Lamanite Empire, but also the ethnic minorities of the Palohia Highlands had many conflicts with Suomir. Because of the connection between Talva-Suta and the Palohia Plateau, not only the Patrosi people in the south, but also the highlanders in the east have always been a hidden danger to the kingdom.

In the years between war and peace, the Suomirs also had many cultural exchanges and integrations with the highlanders. In recent history, there have also been years of fighting side by side against the Padrossi, and with the geographical location of the Talva-Suta Line, some of the new generation of Lamanites who do not know much about history have also begun to extend the "highlanders", which originally referred to the eastern minority "highlanders", to the Suomirs.

The term "highlanders" in the modern imperial Lamanite language can in some cases refer to the Suomirs.

From Raman to Padrosi, the tragic history of the Empire falling in front of Tarva-Sutar is not unusual. However, this line of defense was far from impregnable, and although it was indeed very well defended, the Empire was capable of breaching the fortress that this small nation was proud of, provided that they sacrificed enough.

After years of war, the fortress on the Talva-Sutar defense line matured between the spear and shield game. The Suomirs were proud of this, but this naturally difficult terrain could be a hindrance not only to attackers in wartime, but also to travelers in peacetime.

Even if the highway is not forbidden in peacetime, it will still take a long time to pass through the winding Talwa-Suta area. And there are military forts along the way, and in order to prevent too many spies from being mixed, there is little market to form a scale other than the tightly controlled itinerant small traders.

In other words, for the travelers, Mt. Green Lake is the last supply station before heading north.

Unless you want to spend a lot of money on military supplies that have been secretly leaked out on the black market in Talva-Suta, it's best to scrape together enough supplies in Cuihu Town to support more than half a month's journey before hitting the road.

Despite the abundance of wild creatures and especially all kinds of aquatic products in summer and autumn in this land of a thousand lakes, it is not difficult to catch some fish in the water and grill them if you put some effort into it. But as the old saying goes, "the seam of the brigade is a hole in the brigade", but anyone with a little experience and assets still does not pin all their hopes on collecting in the wild.

The ascetic monk who carried only a minimum amount of supplies or even no supplies at all on the road, and lived by begging and collecting field materials along the way, it would take quite some time for Mira to get used to it.

The so-called thrift into luxury is easy to go from luxury to thrift, and it is probably more than this. At the beginning, when he first entered the mercenary industry with Henry, it was inevitable that he would have no money. And now that you are accustomed to the life of bringing enough equipment and materials to go on the road, and then deliberately do not bring complete equipment and want to rely on the field to collect and self-sufficiency, then it is purely a problem with your brain.

The travel supplies for the three of them for half a month were not difficult to solve, and they could be equipped the next day when they went to the town to rest, but this time they needed to wait for a while. If you want to dig deeper, the reason is naturally inseparable from the mighty caravan.

After all, the town of Green Lake is just a small town, and it is difficult to compare its scale with one of the few large cities on the East Coast such as Parnira, and the supplies it can supply for a period of time are limited. Therefore, when the three of them found an older and more affordable hotel and stayed there, and then went to a local grocer to buy supplies, they unsurprisingly got a negative answer.

It was also an option to go straight to the road, but since there was no overly urgent purpose, the trio, mainly Henry and Mira, decided to stay for the time being, waiting for the owner of the merchant house to bring in new supplies, while enjoying the local customs of Cuihu Town.

This put a lot of pressure on Kalewa, a straightforward young man with a well-developed limb and a simple mind, and of course he was also quite a person who took it seriously.

Mira was joking when he said he was eating rice, but the eldest son of the young innkeeper seemed quite serious. He thought about it everywhere and wanted to make some effort, but it was not entirely for the sake of face, but because of the simplicity of the Suomirs themselves.

Despite being born in Porusaro, his upbringing and upbringing was more traditional Suomir. In the bitter cold of the northland, there has never been an abundance of supplies, so cherishing and gratitude have also become a part of the Suomir culture. The more well-stocked southern Lamanites were able to overeat and even extravagantly waste, and the Parnilah, which never sleeps, had wine and food that were poured out every day. The people there are accustomed to this, but in Suomir this behavior is spurned by others.

This is also reflected in the less orthodox Suomir of Kalewa, who really can't do such a thing as eating white rice with peace of mind. Although it was true that he was shy in his pocket, and if it weren't for Henry and Mira's company, he would probably have to live the ascetic life of traveling and begging, but it would obviously be too embarrassing for this brainless young man to have the cheekiness to pretend that this was a matter of course.

Galeva traveled with only a minimal amount of equipment, a cloth bag with a change of clothes, a small amount of money, two days' worth of dry food, and a dagger and some tools of life around her waist.

He didn't even wear a cloak, and he acted like a complete novice in every way.

In addition to the lack of travel experience, this aspect is also somewhat related to family background. Although the family has a two-story hotel with a stable covering a large area, it seems that the family is well-off, in fact, it can be seen from the fact that the inn was only the proprietress and the second son of Yilmari to help take care of it, and the operation is not excellent.

After all, there are several hotels in Porusaro, and when business is not particularly prosperous, the maintenance of the entire inn and so on require considerable expenses. It's extremely hard for the proprietress to barely support herself, so although it seems that the family has a big business, the assets that can really be used are not many.

Most of the wages earned by the young people themselves as porters go to their mothers to help support the family. The end result was that his ill-conceived trip was really unprepared, and if it weren't for the sage and the girl Luo'an agreeing to go with him, he was afraid that he wouldn't have been able to go far by relying on Kaleva to live a life of eating and sleeping in the open.

As sluggish as he is, he has more or less noticed his own shortcomings. But it was precisely because of his family's circumstances that he was even more unable to accept Henry and Mira's help with peace of mind, and he was full of ideas to find something useful in the group of three who were traveling together.

But he lacked travel experience and was brainless, he racked his brains and couldn't sleep all night, and finally pulled down his face and asked the two of them on the second day after arriving in Cuihu Town, which made the sage and the Luoan girl cry and laugh a little.

"Let's go get a change of gear first. The sage said this, and the trio, who had left their belongings in the inn, went to the grocer they had visited the previous day.

It should be mentioned that owning a mobility car can already be regarded as a good mixed traveler, and the vast majority of businessmen and travelers actually walk the world on their own feet. And to travel through the long Talva-Suta region, it is clear that the fact that Kaleva is carrying only a small cloth bag will not work.

So the first thing they bought at the grocery store was a large rattan basket, which was a common item for foot traders, and a large basket with a diameter of about half a meter and a height of more than 1.3 meters could hold a lot of things. In this way, Caleva can also use the stamina of his porter to carry a considerable part of the supplies and tent equipment that he will buy later.

The price of the rattan basket is almost negligible, but when he got it, Kaleva was as happy as a child. In addition to this accessory, they also bought a wool cloak and cloth for flooring. Although it is still summer, the temperature has dropped somewhat at night, and this will be exacerbated as we move into the Talva-Suta area. Campfires can provide warmth, but the cold air on the ground still needs to be contained, otherwise people will only get sleepier and sleepier.

After buying the survival supplies he had brought with him, Henry discussed with Mira for a while, and bought a one-handed knife pronounced "Walilien" for about 10 silver coins and gave it to him.

This was obviously a bit unbearable for Kaleva, and although the price was modest compared to an elegant longsword, 10 silver coins was a lot of money.

The Wallilian sword is similar in appearance to the one-handed sword popular on the West Coast, and the production process is much less demanding than the fancy gauntlets popular among the Padrossi, so it is also more common and cheaper. A simple slotted gauntlet with a round-handled counterweight ball is almost a one-handed sword except that it is wide and single-edged rather than double-edged. It appears in similar forms throughout the East and West Coasts, and is also used by knights and mercenaries, but more often as a weapon used by civilians.

The sword was especially popular among the people of Suomir, and it was also affected by the central and northern parts of the Padrosi Empire. In the past, the law stipulated that the double-edged sword was a "weapon" and could only be worn by the privileged classes such as nobles, soldiers, and mercenaries, so in order to defend themselves, the commoners took advantage of the law and made the knives defined as "daily tools" longer and larger, creating this nominally legal weapon.

Walilien means "tool knife" in Suomir, and there is also the "Aesop-Walilian" – the "large tool knife" – a two-handed version of the elongated one, which is almost indistinguishable from the one-and-a-half/longsword that is quite popular on the east and west coasts except for the blade, and even some people influenced by the Patrosi culture would add fancy gauntlets to it.

Of course, today's weapons control laws are limited by length and weight, and large sidearms over 40 centimeters long are not allowed to be carried casually in towns and cities, but all in all, as a cheap and reliable sidearm that can occasionally be used as a tool, the 80-centimeter Wallilian knife is a more economical option for civilian use than a double-edged sword.

The sackcloth-wrapped sword with a sheath was much more effective as a weapon of self-defense than the rudimentary dagger that Galeva himself carried. The young man looked at it and the new gear with a complicated face, then at Henry and Mira, but just as he had been gathering his words for a long time to say something, there was a crackling sound from the left side of the grocer's door, the northern exit of the town.

The noise was heard outside, but the noise of people could not hide the familiar sound of horses galloping. The owner of the grocery store and his buddies and a group of three people all looked out curiously, as did the other people on both sides of the street, and the people poked their heads out to look at the visitor who made a loud noise, and then the moment they saw it, many people immediately began to discuss.

"Knock knock—" The cavalry troops, both men and horses, were similar at first glance to the regular cavalry of the Paderossi Empire, but in the bright sunlight you could see the obvious difference behind them.

Instead of cloaks, the shiny armor-clad cavalry was replaced by a frame made of wood, with huge feathers glued to it that swayed in the wind as they galloped, literally bearing wings on their backs, not like human cavalry, but like angels descending from heaven.

— and that's why they're able to run wild in the town of Everylake, where weapons are banned.

Such a high-profile and gorgeous army has a prominent status and privilege.

"Dragonwing Knight. The owner of the grocer's house pronounced their names, in Lamani, apparently explaining to the trio.

"The Royal Order, founded decades ago, is top-notch in training and equipment, and only obeys the orders of the Church and the Queen. They have replaced the Great Swordsmen and are now Suomir's top fighting power. ”

"What is the purpose of these guys leaving Tarva-Suta and coming to Cuihu......" the boss muttered, showing his concern, but then said to Henry in a flattering manner, "You guys don't have any trouble with them, it's better not to have any contact with them." As you can see, they are a privileged class, and it is permissible to cut them down if there is a situation. ”

The boss said, "I don't want to lose a good customer like you. ”

"Don't worry, mercenaries know how to behave with their tails between their legs. Henry replied with a smile in Lamani, while Mira and Caleva next to him looked at each other, but they were silent.

The sound of horses galloping faded at the end of the southern passageway, and the menacing Dragonwing Knight disappeared on the other side of the road along with the impressive white wings behind him.

The sage's eyes were half-squinted, and the image of the huge white feathers lingered in his mind.

Large feathers up to half a meter long are not often found in the world, and although many large birds such as ostriches and even some miscellaneous dragons can be obtained, the feathers that sparkle in the sunlight on the wooden shelves behind them are clearly not from such inferior beings.

If you reconnect with their names, the answer becomes clear.

"You guys to the end. Hyung said in a tone that only he could hear.

"What did you do. ”

His gray-blue eyes reflected the glow of the sun outside, but his tone was a little chilling.