Corikonrad - No, the whole of the Soradin Heights, as in the rest of the West Coast, the so-called "civilized" areas occupied by humans and established city-states and villages actually occupy only a tiny fraction of their existence.

Whether it is legend or reality, in the vast unexplored wilderness that occupies a larger area, there are many magnificent and strange creatures. The vast majority of them are ordinary beasts, a small number are demonic beasts, and the rarity is comparable to that of demonic beasts, and there are some subhuman races (1).

Due to the strength of humans, these subhuman races generally live deep in the mountains and forests to avoid the city-states where there are large human presences. It is said that during the expansion period of the Raman Empire, the empire's legions had no less dealings with these natives, and after the two sides did not leave a good impression on each other, the unpopular subhumans chose to stay away from humans, and gradually faded out of the field of vision of modern people as history progressed.

Writings, books, and other specialized knowledge were in the possession of nobles, scholars, and wizards, and ordinary people who did not know subhumans often had strange judgments or superstitions.

-- Henry, and the four of them walked to the middle of the road at the end of June and near July, and encountered such a scene when they came to a supply depot.

There is no shortage of hunters in the Corriconrad area, although the vast majority of people from local backgrounds will choose to become mercenaries, but the mercenaries here are still inclined to war after all, so there are some people who don't like to fight with their own kind will run to hunt wild beasts and the like, and get fur and flesh in exchange for money.

Roadside supply depots are places that people use to trade the items they get. In your spare time, it doesn't look much different from a hotel, except that it usually has only one floor. From the exterior to the architectural style, even the bar counter and the like are exactly the same.

But during busy times, such as the current typhoon, when many supplies are needed, the depot can be transformed. The use of linen cloth and wooden poles spreads out a wider area, providing space for people to trade and exchange items with each other.

Items sold to adventurers, mercenaries, and passing traders need someone to make them, and the supply station itself has only a few people who can't achieve the goal, so naturally, it provides a relay station, or marketplace or something. People can store their belongings here and wait for a share of the sale, or they can come here and sell them themselves, as long as you run and pay the rent of ten iron coins, you can get a comfortable spot under the shady linen.

"Hahahaha. Don't laugh to death!" The West Coast lingua franca with a strong Soradin High accent came out with a mockery, and a middle-aged man in a short-sleeved leather jacket with an arrow bag around his waist who looked like a hunter shook his head helplessly at the group of people, and the people standing in front of him were dressed in different costumes, many of them were also green-card mercenaries, without exception, these people all had a playful look on their faces.

"What's going on?" "It's human nature to be curious, and a philosopher in the days of the Lamanite Empire did an interesting test: let a group of people stand in an empty place and point at the sky, so that more and more people ran to them and began to try to see what was in the sky - human beings, as social animals, it is natural to be curious about what a large group of people are doing, and our white-haired Luoan girl is naturally not exempt from vulgarity. She stepped forward, then asked.

"Oh, the little girl is from Luoan?" The distinctive white-haired recognition rate is quite high even on this side, and the hunter sighs with a tsk as the appearance of the girl who is a rare character. Then he sighed again and looked at the backs of the mercenaries who were still smiling as they walked away.

"Well, none of these guys take my findings seriously. He slapped his thigh in annoyance, and the three of them, Henry, who was next to him, also led their horses and walked slowly.

"Discovery?" the girl asked curiously. Amonica next to her also stepped forward to her side, and the blonde girl also looked curious. This made the hunter immediately interested in speaking.

"Goblins!" he slapped his thigh hard and then said gleefully.

"Gob's what?" the unheard noun made Mira furrow her small slender eyebrows, the strangely pronounced word was the native dialect of Soladin?, the girl thought. The hunter was stunned for a moment, but before he could speak, Amonica next to him explained to Mira: "It's a kind of elf, according to the legend of Soladin, they are very short, their skin is gray-green, even adults are only the size of human children, and they will hunt with wooden and stone clubs, bows and arrows, and darts. ”

Amonica said this, and Mira's eyes widened in realization, "Ah! It's a dwarf." She used the word for the Loan, and it was clear that the creature had been sighted all over the continent of Rigal.

"Well, yes, yes, it's such a subhuman, I met them this morning while chasing a stag, a dozen of them, and they were so murderous with weapons that I turned around and ran. The hunter didn't seem to feel any shame about his escape, and his reaction seemed appropriate to Mira.

In the lore of the kingdom of Loan, goblins - or dwarfs - are not as good as the dwarves whose names sound related, and there are many stories of them disguising themselves as human children to blend into their families, and then bite open their heads with their fangs in the middle of the night when people are asleep and suck people's brains.

Because the goblins have gray-green skin, they will kill the owner's children first and then skin them and drape them over themselves when they pretend to be children, which has left a deep shadow on Mira's heart, but now that she has grown up, she can probably understand that this is actually the story of adults to scare disobedient children - but no matter what. The probability that the existence of such a subhuman creature is true is quite high.

"These terrible things are terrible, and you still don't-" "Come on, Damian. Don't brag about what you've seen anymore—" The hunter had not finished his sentence when he was interrupted by another man beside him. Everyone turned their heads to see that the man's outfit looked like his peers, but the clothes were more elaborate, and he had an official mercenary badge around his waist - he was a hunting mercenary, and he could be seen as a high-level organized hunter.

"Don't believe him, this guy has been here for three days and said what he saw, the only god is on him, he even said last time that he saw a dragon hundreds of meters long flying through the sky, I just wonder why such a big dragon flew from the sky, and the whole Corey Conrad was also seen by him Damien. The hunting mercenary shook his head, sighed, and walked in the other direction with a few rabbits strung with twine, as if to join his own group.

"This damn fellow......"

"Total, in short. I met those guys near Lake Leeka in front of me, and the easiest place to rehydrate this part of the way to the harbor is there, because usually human activities are not too dangerous most of the time, but this time you should be careful. Damian said with a very serious expression, "Those goblins are said to take human females captive as breeding tools, like you, little girls—"

After talking without paying close attention, Damian glanced at it and realized that Mira was wearing an expensive plate armor suit and a blue mercenary badge on her belt.

"Uh-huh—" He looked up at the others, the tall sage with black hair and a great sword that looked violent. Joshua, who was leading another horse next to him, was not as equipped as the two of them, but he wore an orange mercenary badge. In addition, there are two war horses that are taller and more majestic than the horses on this side, and their skin is full of oil and water.

"Total, Total, please be careful, and then say goodbye!" Damian, who suddenly stammered and began to use honorifics, gathered his things, turned around and ran somewhere else. The white-haired Luoan girl stood stunned. Then he turned to look at Amonica to the side.

"Poof-" "Poofhahahahahaha The blonde girl smiled with her usual cheerful smile, and although she couldn't see it behind her, she guessed a rough idea with her keen hearing, and the curvature of the corners of her mouth couldn't be dispersed, and only the black-haired sage was looking at the back of the hunter who ran away in a hurry. He sighed slightly.

......

The food and other supplies like ropes that had been consumed along the way had been replenished here, and it had been days since the storm raged. However, the traces are still there.

There are no hotels on this section of the road after the middle section. According to the staff here at the supply station. It is said that there was one before, but because the middle section of the road has several paths that connect to the chaotic south, and there are often steppe robbers from here, the cost of hiring guards is too high, and because the dangerous merchants and travelers do not want to stay, they cannot make ends meet, and then they are abandoned.

Most travelers who take this route these days choose to set out in the early hours of the morning and then travel through the night through this dangerous area, and after crossing it, they go to the shores of Lake Leeka, mentioned by the hunter Damien, and choose to camp on the leeward slope, usually without anyone or anything coming to disturb your peace.

The lake in the middle of the forest is always inaccessible, and merchants who are in a hurry usually do not choose to stay, especially when such a storm has just passed, and those who have not yet made it to the last time to go to sea are worried that the next storm will come if it drags on like this. Therefore, the only people who will go to camp over there are Henry, who is not so impatient, and a group of four.

The presence of the goblins mentioned by Darmien the Hunter made them more or less alarmed, but when you think about the composition of this team, Mira thinks she really has nothing to worry about.

With Henry and Joshua, two guys with ungodly fighting skills, even the terrifying dwarfs in the legend must be wiped out if they can't even be relied on. Although they are said to be able to disguise themselves as human children, Mira is skeptical that such a trick will be useful in front of Henry, who has the name of a sage.

In any case, with a slight vigilance, the group continued to move towards the east.

The toppled trees and the stones and branches and leaves that fell on the ground pointed the way to the storm, but more than all this, it was the broken wagon that Mira was glad that her group had stayed in the shelter properly, perhaps even the broken wagon she had seen halfway through.

Although it is a common form, girls have some impressions of it. For it was covered with a waterproof linen cloth, and it was unique in that it was half black and half white—the carriage covered with the same tarpaulin had seen the door of the inn rushing past a few days before, and it was thought that the merchant had tried to get to the harbor before the storm came, but had been killed.

The carriage was crushed by a large tree, it was already in pieces, and the wooden boxes that had been opened on it were empty, presumably the people who passed by after the disaster took the goods and coins from them, Mira frowned, and Amonica next to her made a gesture of prayer.

The bodies of horses and men were not found, just as the bodies of thieves who had been dumped outside the hotel. In the face of the power of a storm that can be uprooted and thrown away by heavy bamboo fences and large trees, how can a mere human being, or the body of a horse, be able to resist.

After the storm, the sky was clear, and the sun had scorched for several days that had made the whole road dry and hard, and the horses had kicked up a lot of dust by their trampling. The group paused for a short time, picked up some sun-dried wood on the side of the road and put it on horseback, and as it was getting late, they passed by the abandoned inn in the mouth of the staff of the supply station, the open door and the winding vines and moss made it look numb, green was the color of life, but for some reason it was terrifying.

The next stop at the inn would have to be a couple of hours until almost the early hours of the morning, and the group of four was not in a hurry, but got back on their horses and walked leisurely forward for another time, when they came across a secluded path leading to the shores of Lake Leeka.

Taking advantage of the fact that it was not completely dark, Heng made a few torches with the tools he carried with him and the firewood he had just picked up, and then the group chose a half-slope and began to set up camp.

As soon as the storm was over, the weather returned to its unbearable heat, and Mira sweated profusely and lit a campfire, and took off both the plate and cotton armor because of the sweltering heat, but after thinking about what she had heard before, she put it back on again with the heat.

Amonica next to her seemed a little absent-minded, and Miss Luoan called her several times but there was no response.

"Ah, sorry, sorry, I'm gone. The campfire burned, tents were set up to heat the food, the last rays of light disappeared into the distance, and the orange in the sky was gradually replaced by dazzling stars.

Night has fallen. (To be continued.) )

PS: Tomorrow will stop for a day