The next day, after returning to the manor to make some preparations, the team decided to head into the woods under the leadership of Shaun, a lumberjack, to see where they had found the rotten jujube tree in the center.

Most of the people neither understood nor cared about the reason for this order, and showed a rather rare obedience and discipline, even if the commander Martin was only a knight. In some ways, this may be more rare than mere personal force.

It was true that the horses were not suitable for entering the forest without roads, and had little practical value, except for a few pack horses that were brought in with the team to carry the weight of a few pairs of armor and camping equipment. and the kerosene that Kraft had asked to bring, and the small canisters were packed in mesh bags, with some straw cushioned between them, and hung on the side of the saddle.

For the sake of weight, the amount he carried was not destined to satisfy Kraft, but the objective conditions did not allow him to bring more.

Martin didn't see the need to add more. This is the oil used to burn the fortress gate during the storm, and the effect is so good that it makes people hairy, and it is very insecure to keep it around. However, he was still willing to follow the advice of the professionals and bring some with him, in case it was necessary to arrange a cremation for the pagans of Long Mushroom.

Then again, do medical school professors really use fire oil in their professional work?

With this little doubt in mind, Martin took a break at the lumberyard and followed the guide with only a simple luggage into the woods.

According to Sean, the "farthest distance" he refers to is about two or three days of walking in the forest, and it is not convenient to bring the timber back to the logging site. The river is not deep enough upstream of the forest, and there are many rocky shoals, or branches of trees hanging down in the water, so it is impossible to drift down the river like a lumberyard, and can only be brought back by manpower.

When they are lucky, they will also bring back some of the forest's specialties, such as small animals, berries, wild vegetables, etc., which are hidden in the long green curtain, which is much richer than the often disturbed outer forests. It's just that the last few times it seems to have been bad luck, and the harvest is not as good as in previous years.

It is not easy to move forward in this environment, and it is often necessary to use a hand axe to open up a path, cut and divide all kinds of plants that you know and don't know, and squeeze out a small amount of space to walk through.

Insect and ant infestation, as well as leaves that always carry moisture, make the moist and slightly itchy feeling on the body never stop. Since the route follows roughly along the river, no one knows what it will look like under the seemingly normal layer of fallen leaves, whether it is a flat ground or a quagmire that will sink the whole leg.

It's not easy to find a large enough open space to camp at night, and it takes a lot of time and energy to clean up, and irritability is constantly brewing. At this time, the oil they were carrying helped to ignite the fire in the dampness.

These troubles reassure those who know the target, on the other hand. No matter what they were tracking, it was impossible to move in such a forest without leaving a trace, and even a ghost would have to leave two footprints.

After more than two days of tossing, Sean finally relied on a crackling lightning strike wood with a special image as a signpost to find the range of the last time he came to cut wood.

Indeed, it's just a rough range, and it's really impossible to find the stump left last time from memory.

Luckily, the space is a bit more open, and you don't have to bother cleaning to have a glade to camp.

"I remember as if there was a proverb: Look for a particular tree in the woods." Martin looked around the sparsely populated forest and felt as if the sun was falling overhead, and it was no longer cut off by the canopy, "It means impossible." ”

The thing they've seen the most these days is probably the tree, and in the face of this kind of problem, Kraft also feels tricky, "I shouldn't expect that Sean to find the exact location." ”

Of course, it's not his fault, and it's not going to be easy to change anyone. We can look around in the next few weeks, at least the vegetation here is not too dense. ”

"I don't know when I'm going to find it." Martin shook his head and walked away, checking on the progress of the servants and urging them not to heat up and eat any game they had picked up.

Along the way, they encountered some harvests of berries and wild vegetables, as well as mushrooms, but they were scattered and never saw the obvious abnormal vigorous growth.

And here, at the base of the tree at your feet, there is a finger-sized solitary bush with a brown umbrella and a white handle. The color doesn't look like the kind that can put people down, and it's closer to the traditional image of edible mushrooms.

Because of this, Martin had to keep an eye on the group of guys in charge of the campfire, and not have another accident where someone shared a skewer of roasted white belly slices without seeing him for a while. Whether it's for the sake of safety or psychological rejection, he doesn't want to associate mushrooms with food anymore.

"I'll walk around, it won't be too far." Kraft walked to the less crowded part of the camp, he always felt that he was not in a very good state today, standing in a crowded place and not breathing well, and he felt like he was in a long line.

Empiricist, staying away from the crowd should improve the situation at this point, so he refused Coop's company and leaned alone under a tree outside the camp that could be seen, waving that he was here and there was nothing to worry about.

He pressed the back of his head to the trunk of the tree for a while, but the fresh air of nature did not make him better, but the left arm he had just waved was like a strain with too much amplitude, and the soreness radiated around the hard object, swimming between the muscles.

When the uneven alternation of hot and cold also flooded out of the bone marrow, Kraft realized that it was not as simple as being in a wrong state.

The sensation didn't change much, like the warmth of the sun's rock slabs and the cool metal before dawn, or the numbness and pins and needles of the fine flickering of the snowflake screens of an old television, which used this as a port to input a signal to him.

And the slightly dull mind is like soaking in a very light, gossip-brewed liquid, and its existence can only be realized when you feel it carefully.

Kraft stepped away from the trunk and took a few steps back towards the tree, the anomalous sensation lessening the hallucination.

Continuing to pull away, the sensation did not subside, it returned to its original level, as if it was just a small fluctuation in inaccurate perception.

He simply walked around the camp, and the damp and sticky feeling was undulating, like ripples on the pool, and he was always fluttering in the pool that he couldn't touch.

"Koop, come here." Kraft beckoned to the idle servant, "Are you feeling unwell?" Dizziness, drowsiness, etc. ”

"Uh...... I think it might be a little bit, like the ears getting into the water, but it's not in the way at all, do you have any instructions? Hu Cong shook his head, trying to shake out the little bit of water that didn't exist.

"Help me borrow an axe."

"Wait a minute." Coop ran back to camp and quickly borrowed an axe from Sean and handed it to Kraft.

The latter raised his arm and slammed down on the nearest trunk, the two axe marks sinking into the trunk and converging at the center of the tree, cutting off a wedge-shaped piece of wood.

Kraft had no intention of cutting down the tree, and after priing out the wood chips, he immediately switched to another one, repeated it more than ten times, went around the camp, and returned to the center of the camp with a large handful of waste wood chips.

"We don't have to go through the trouble of finding the tree we cut last time."

"You mean ......?" Picking up a piece, Martin saw the light-colored patches that had loosened the wood and erased the growth rings.

"It's all over here."