The whistling wind passed through my ears, and the mouth and nose of the warm scarf on my face were covered with a faint layer of hoarfrost from the moisture I breathed.

The wool cloak was wrapped as tightly as it could, but despite this, the wind crept in through the cracks.

The snow fell on the top and shoulders of the heavy wool cape, and because there were no suitable snowshoes, the foot stepped on it and fell deep into the snow, and soon the inside of the boots began to be eroded by moisture and oozing sweat, making the wool socks wet and cold very uncomfortable.

"It's almost there!" I don't know whose voice sounded in front of me, and although I tried to shout, I was still indistinct from the wind, and I could only make out the fact that it was speaking Lamani.

"It's almost there!"

One by one, they carried the news to the rear of the long line in order to allow the others to regroup their morale and avoid being defeated by fatigue.

It was dark, and although the moonlight and daylight were now a little more intense as the sun moved south, it was natural that visibility would be reduced tonight when the wind and snow were blowing.

The torch in his hand was blown by the strong wind. It may seem like a lantern with a glass cover would be a better option at this point, but in fact, even the lantern will be blown out by the howling wind. In addition, the snowflakes that drift in may be melted and frozen on the surface of the burning lantern, and in this case, a large torch wrapped in a thick wood and soaked in whale oil is more reliable.

Although it burns much shorter than a candle, burning out in about thirty minutes, the raging fire, which even the wind can't extinguish, is an accurate guide in poor visibility weather.

One out of every three people carries torches, while others carry spare torches on their bodies. In addition to their heavy woollen cloaks, they carried rucksacks made of canvas and rattan frames, filled with all kinds of equipment, and some of them carried extra items in canvas bags on their shoulders.

A queue of more than a dozen people stretched out a long queue, and in order to prevent anyone from falling behind in the wind and snow, they wrapped thick hemp rope around their waists to connect everyone.

The man at the front of the line carried a long strip of sackcloth wrapped in sackcloth on his back, and a large torch in his hand, and was quite tall, and it was obvious that it was our Sage Sage.

In this kind of terrain that requires a difficult trek, the leader in front must be physically strong and experienced.

Not only is he carrying the same or even more equipment with him, but he is also tasked with spotting danger in time to ensure that he is on the right track. In this kind of weather environment, just walking forward is exhausting in itself, and you need to keep your eyes and ears on the way, and always pay attention to the people behind you. You can't go too fast alone, you have to make sure the safety of the whole team.

Such a heavy responsibility should only be undertaken by our sage gentleman.

But it was not Mira and Kaleva who were walking behind him at the moment, but members of the scholarly community. The young lady and the young porter, two men with better strength and experience, were placed in the middle and rear of the procession, deliberately to prevent the scholars and missionaries, who were relatively inexperienced and untrained, from getting tired and falling behind on the way.

Placing experienced players in the middle and end of the line will protect the newbies before and after, and when they start to show signs of fatigue or something unexpected due to the weather, the veterans will notice and report back in time.

In contrast, if you directly gather all the veterans in one place, if there are newcomers in the queue who drop the chain or run into trouble, you may miss the opportunity to deal with it, and the situation will deteriorate rapidly.

The operation was very difficult and difficult, because the only one in the group who had the best carrying ability was the white horse that accompanied the Luo'an girl, and the weight of most people in the winter equipment was not easy.

This little guy who has grown up a lot after more than half a year, and his shoulder height is nearly 1.4 meters, but he is still young, and he is naturally our little unicorn. Now at about 350 kilograms, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is the heaviest member of the entire team, and when the little guy was pulled out of the cabin, almost the entire crew of the ship, who had never descended to the lower cabin before, froze.

As the years passed, the little unicorn, which had become more and more graceful, could no longer be disguised as a donkey or pack horse by means of makeup, and Captain Francisco was reluctant to take it with him, and the voyage was difficult even for human passengers, and they really could not afford to take care of a horse anymore.

There was a joke among the sailors that a whimsical merchant captain thought that if he could transport live animals, he would be more competitive than the others, so he brought twenty cows in his cabin.

As a result, during the voyage, these poor cows, like humans, could not stand the seasickness and vomited a boat, and the sailors on the whole ship could not clean it up at all, and finally they had to choose to ask for help from the passing ships. The sour ship ended up shoeing enough to make ends meet, and eventually the captain went bankrupt and went on to work in other industries.

This incident has given posterity a warning that since then, if the transport of livestock in the Moby Gas Inland Sea is to carry livestock, it will inevitably be mixed with sedative ingredients in the feed, so that they will not be prone to seasickness. But the Oriental Moon is an ocean-going sailing ship, and the navigation conditions in the North Rigal Sea are much harsher than in the Inland Sea, and the human passengers may not be able to hold it, and they have no energy to take care of their livestock.

It was only when Captain Francisco actually saw the little unicorn and realized its amazing intelligence that he decided to make an exception.

This made the little unicorn the first non-human creature native to the world of Rigal, in addition to rats and cockroaches that accompanied the smuggling of sailboats, and fleas on people.

And the willingness of this clever little fellow who shares the heart of our Luoan Maiden to put aside his pride and deign to come as a pack horse to carry supplies as a legendary sacred beast also boosted the morale of the entire human team, including missionaries and scholars.

"The legendary unicorns have all seen them, and they help us carry things, so what else do we have to complain about. ”

The human heart is so ingenious, but the inner strength of the competitive spirit and the self-esteem of being a human cannot change the fact that there is a lack of physical exercise, and many of them are physically and mentally exhausted after walking for many hours since they landed, and they just want to find a place to rest as soon as possible.

Silence is a bad sign, and our Sage has clearly noticed it. This was unavoidable, as the wind and snow at night made it very difficult for sound to be transmitted, and secondly, the weight of the journey, the difficult terrain and the cold made the team members do their best just to get on the road.

They need to rest. If this arduous trek continues, the exhausted people will begin to become dissatisfied, accuse each other and lose their temper, and conflicts will unfold and the team will fall apart.

Fortunately, under the guidance of excellent guides and reliable team leaders, they finally arrived at their destination before 8 o'clock in the evening.

"......." stopped and untied the rope around their waists, a dozen people stood on the hillside and looked down, there were many houses in the lower plains, but there were no lights in them, cold and lonely in the cold wind.

"All the people fled, because of the hunt with men. Lulu said this in the language of the Moon Country, and the scholars on the team translated it. It was not only the first mate on the Oriental Moon who could speak this language, but in fact most of the sailors on the ship could understand it and could speak some simple sentences. After all, their transoceanic voyage has been going on for more than ten years, and since these scholars on board have come here to conduct academic research, they must also master the language.

In addition, it is not surprising that the people who can speak this language are our sage sage, but many of the words he has mastered are actually no longer used today, so there are people who are more proficient, and Henry has chosen to lead the team with peace of mind.

The dominant language of the Land of the Moon is actually very similar to Lamanite, and the two languages are more demanding to learn than the "young" "common languages" of the West Coast Lingua franca and Avenella, which have many lexical variants and are slower and more precise.

One of their words will have more syllables than West Coast , so when speaking to a proficient speaker of Lamanite or the Chinese language of the Moon, West Coast people will often feel overwhelmed by their excessive speaking speed.

In fact, even now, when our Loan maiden speaks Lamanite, the East Coasters—even without looking at the white hair—can still discern the fact that she is from a foreign country. Because she was used to the speed of Avenella, she couldn't speak like a native speaker.

Because of this similarity, Lamanite speakers can learn the language of the Land of the Moon with half the effort. As a dramatic result, the only two of the dozen or so members of the team at the moment were Mira and Galeva who could not speak the local language.

The experience was no surprise to the dazed porter, but as the fastest learner of her usual travel companions, Mira was tempted to admit defeat.

She had quickly mastered some useful vocabulary in her week of sailing, and at the moment, basic greetings and the like of everyday conversation were already achievable—but let's get back to the point, and after the team descended the gentle ramp, several people with torches leaned forward to the light, and Lulu easily found the wooden door of the largest room.

"Cassit (lend me down). She turned around and said this, Henry nodded, and Mila behind her, understanding her intentions from her teacher's movements, took a snow shovel from the little unicorn.

"Rustle—" The long house blocked a lot of wind and snow, the low eaves were level with the eyes of the sages and Caleva, and the heat emitted from the blazing torch in Henry's hand made the snow dozens of centimeters thick on the roof begin to melt and a gap appeared, and the dripping water droplets fell on the snow on the ground, smashing a series of holes.

"Rustle—" Lulu quickly cleared the snow from the bottom edge of the doorway, and jumped into the small pit that had been cleared.

"Whew—" The sage and a few other men with torches approached to provide light, and the small aboriginal girl found a square plank in the snow pit that had been cleared, but she pulled it several times but didn't, so she turned back to Mi and stretched out her hand.

"Hmm. Miss Loan willingly handed the torch to Lulu, and when she took it, she leaned the torch against the lower edge of the wooden door and roasted it back and forth at a distance, causing the ice between the cracks of the frozen wooden mechanism to melt.

"Whew. Lulu then threw the torch back to Mira, then grabbed it with both hands and pressed her foot against the bottom edge of the door, pulling the plank with all her might—"Pop——!" this time she managed to pull it out, and then she spun it twice and then lifted it up again—"Click-" "Rustle-" The frozen door opened a crack, and the snow on the roof slipped down a bit, and Lisa and Galeva, who were standing too close, were drenched, and Mira rolled her eyes at them.

The sound of "squeak-" was quickly drowned out by the cold wind of "squeak--", and the group that quickly entered the longhouse immediately felt much more comfortable after getting rid of the howling cold wind, but the room was dark, and only the light from the torches in everyone's hands was the only source of light.

The deserted house looks like it hasn't been inhabited for a long time, and the Luoan girl, who was curious about Lulu's operation before, took a photo of the torch in her hand and understood what kind of structure the wooden door of the longhouse was.

The inside of the longhouse is made of dirt floor, and some distance later there is a warm insulation layer made of logs as a base and supported by wooden planks. But a long granite threshold was buried in the door frame, and three square slots were carved out of it, which corresponded to the tenon on the wooden door.

The tenons are operated through a series of movable plates to snap into the slots and lock the door, which is equivalent to turning the entire door into a lock, which is obviously stronger than just one lock.

In this land, pronounced "Emisi", which is written as "Yidi" in the mainstream language of the local society, the sturdy brown bear is the most common beast of prey. The thin wooden door with a lock may be suitable in a town, but in a village it is only a strong brown bear that breaks into the door.

"Fortunately, there is still firewood, I guess it was too heavy for them to move away!" The scholars and missionaries sat down on the cold floor and began to rest, while Mira, Caleva, Henry, and Lulu and other more experienced people began to check the supplies that still existed in the longhouse.

The young porter unloads his backpack when he sees where the firewood is, while the Loan girl begins to unload the little unicorn and talk to it.

Our Sage glanced around the house by torch lighting, and the whole room was clean except for the large iron pot hanging in the center and some wood that had not yet been split. The boxy longhouse has no cubicles or anything like that, and it looks like it used to have been used as some kind of conference room or cafeteria.

"All ready, get the fire up first. He examined the windows made of thick planks and spoke.

The exhausted crowd responded weakly.

Either way, it was their first night in the Land of the Moon.