"The lumberyard is almost here, and you can ride horses on the way here." The old butler rode a manor horse in front of him, looking back from time to time to look at the procession.

The result of dual-mindedness is to be whipped on the forehead by a low birch branch. His face was covered with an ownerless spider web with dew, and two withered curly leaves.

"Hey!" He lowered his head, shook off the water droplets that hadn't had time to seep into his clothes, and brushed away the spider silk, "Usually people don't come on horseback, so no one cleans these things." Attention to the back of the head-banging! ”

"Pong!"

As soon as the words fell, there was a hum of striking the metal shell in the procession, followed by the sound of branches and leaves falling, which was soon trampled by the horse's hooves. I don't know whose helmet directly broke the crossbar branch.

As soon as Martin wanted to say something to remind, a handful of leaves slapped on his helmet and threw him in the face.

It's not a good idea to go on horseback for the sake of speed, as the trail is probably a trail that lumberjacks walk on all year round, and the part above the heads of adults is still wild.

Compared to the more "clean" forests of the north, the forests of Westminster exhibit the same elaborate style as the local aristocracy and architecture, filling the tree-to-tree space with a large number of shrubs, tall grasses, and horizontal branches and their draped rattan curtains, this clear path is more like a slender undersea tunnel through a sea of leaves.

Theoretically, they should have walked along the river, but only occasionally they could see shady waters in the shadows of the trees in sparse places, slowly drifting with fallen leaves and driftwood with their branches removed.

At this density of vegetation, further down into the wooded area where there are no paths at all, it is a pipe dream to ride a horse deeper, and there is no place for people to show their riding skills. At most, bring a few horses with heavy loads, and carry heavy objects such as equipment and tents.

After a journey where they had to bow their heads, they came to a clearing cut out of the riverbank. A few wooden houses and a simple fence are all the facilities of this woodyard.

In the hedge were freshly cut and basically finished tree trunks, the branches folded and piled up in stacks, which were placed next to the house.

Hearing the sound of horses' hooves, several people who were trimming and peeling the trunks of the trees and preparing to go into the water looked up and were stunned to see a large group of riders rushing out of the forest, and the small field was crowded with people and horses.

One of them, who looked older, greeted the butler, looked at the exaggerated formation, and after thinking about it, he realized that he should not be carrying an axe in his hand, and hurriedly put it down, and at the same time held down the young lumberjack who was looking curiously.

"Sean, these are...... A knight from the city. The butler dismounted and climbed over the fence and called out the other party's name familiarly, "Don't be nervous, I'm not here to find you, just ask you what to answer truthfully." ”

Kraft tethered his horses and followed the lumberyard, and when he heard this conversation, he always felt that some subtle sense of déjà vu was emerging, as if he had seen it in some literary work.

"Have you seen any stranger activity in the woods?" Martin's dress today doesn't show the attitude of "don't be nervous" and "ask casually" at all, and the armor on his body brings a great sense of oppression, more like he came to find someone to do it.

In fact, there was a lot of thinking about it, and in the worst case they thought about being attacked just after entering the forest like Diego, just to teach these heretics what it means to be professional.

He had even guessed that there were infidel outposts in the lumberyard to see if he could get one or two.

For now, though, it's business as usual in the forest along the way. Martin swept past a few people who were at a loss for what to do with their tools, but found no one to make any unusual moves, and it looked like just a group of ordinary lumberjacks.

"No, people from the town rarely come here, only we will go inside." Sean only thought about it for a moment before giving a negative answer, "What's more, it's so big in the forest, it's not easy for someone to meet." ”

"What about the man's tracks? Overwhelmed grass, shrubs, remnants of camping. His eyes went back and forth over several people, and Martin was expecting someone to give him a clue, or a clue in his own right.

This is not the grove outside the city where Diego died, but the real forest sea, and the pagans may not need to hide in it. If there is no direction and aimlessly searching, let alone more than 30 people, 300 people will not be of any use.

But the lumberjacks had nothing but blankness on their faces and fear of the violent function, and no one could answer his question. In the end, it was the older Sean who stood up and tentatively explained: "We are group tree cutters, not hunters, so we don't understand these things......

"What about the other things that are not normal? For example, mushrooms that grow particularly vigorously and the like. ”

They probably hadn't seen it, they just kept shaking their heads, passively coping with one question after another they didn't understand.

Kraft listened to a few rounds of unnutritious conversation, walked away with little interest, and took Koop around the yard-sized lumberyard.

The conditions here are really rudimentary, and they didn't dig up the stumps on the ground when they cleared the ground, leaving them in place as part of a natural bench or fence, and the trees themselves may have become part of the wooden house.

Except for a small field where the dried fruit is dried, the rest of the place is mostly full of timber to be treated.

The birch and pine trees that Kraft knew and called were mostly calf-thick, with a layer of green bark, moss growing in the damp environment under the tree, and small branches that had not been completely trimmed.

Looking at the process, it should be that the stump branches will be cut off by a small axe, put into a more regular pile next to it, and then peeled and trimmed, and pushed into the river to drift.

"The quality of the wood is pretty good." Kraft patted the burred wood through his glove, with such abundant resources, the construction project here must be much easier, "But these are all small trees here, right?" ”

"All the forests in the realm and all the animals and products in the forests belong to the duke." The steward of the manor also came to the side of the lumber pile, and selected the ones needed to make a mark, "But the Duke is very generous, and allows the use of trees no more than a palm's width, and thicker ones are still important possessions of Westminburg. ”

"Okay." Kraft understood, it turned out that this was not the Duke's property, so from the current point of view, it was indeed called a relief, after all, many Norse Kingdom versions of Grande even went into the forest to collect firewood and asked to pay taxes.

He walked towards the river and kicked a cylindrical thing at his feet. The thing rolled out a few steps and got stuck on the stones on the river beach, and it turned out to be a small piece of cut jujube wood, which looked good on the side, and was a material that could be used to make a wooden structure for a crossbow machine, but it was somehow discarded on the ground.

There are still many such discarded pieces of wood on the ground, which are discarded here and there.

"Huh?" Out of curiosity—and more out of boredom—Kraft kicked the pieces into the air and flipped them to the ground, discovering why they weren't being used.

A light brown spot spreads from the center of the tree, breaking off the layers of growth rings, occupying almost a quarter of the cross-section.

The wood in the patch is distinctly different from the rest of the body, and is softer and less able to withstand force, as if some kind of disease has spread from the heart of the tree and eaten away at the inside. Perhaps the loggers thought it was just a small piece of the problem at first, but when they cut off section after section, they found that not a single piece of wood had survived.

Kraft crouched down to take a closer look, and realized that the light brown color came from a mixture of white and the texture of the wood fibers itself.

There are also several pieces of wood from different trees scattered on the ground, all of which are unusable due to such defects and have been cut into pieces and discarded.

"Where did all this wood come from?"

"Huh? These are useless waste wood, don't look at their special color, in fact, they are very loose, and they can't be used at all......" Sean, who was dealing with Martin's various questions, finally had something to know.

"No, I ask where it came from!"

Startled by the sudden increase in his voice, Sean short-circuited for a few seconds and replied in a low voice, "Cut in the woods."

Seeing that Kraft's face was gradually becoming unkind, he hurriedly tried to recall, "It's the better wood on the manor, let's go a little deeper to find it, not privately." ”

"Take us there."

"But it's still quite far, so I can only walk there."

"Then get ready to go." Kraft took an axe and slammed it down at the erected piece of wood, a continuous ribbon of color-changing ribbons running through the section and fine wire mesh interspersed with it, "I promise you, the reward will be great. ”