"Wilbur, hey, Wilbur, wait a minute, I say!"

The early spring afternoon sun lengthened his shadow, and the young man who was panting and pulling the wooden cart shouted loudly to his friend in front of him.

This is the southern part of the humid west coast of Mobigas, just a few kilometers from Avenella, and the border and population are only slightly better than those of the kingdom of Grant.

Marking the end of the southern protrusion of the Tambur Mountains, the south of the west coast of Moby is as vast as the Prospel Plain to the north, with only two differences: first, it is much more chaotic than Sivalier, with a large number of kingdoms and kingdoms, and second, it is mostly a wetland because of the flooding of rainfall and the turning of the Garril River into the ground.

In early spring, the steam from the nearby swampy wetlands often gives the locals an unbearable sour smell of laundry when they are drying out – but then again, even without the dampness of bathing once every ten days and half a month, their bodies are often stinky.

So the people are actually used to all this, maybe the princes and nobles who live in the palace of Archibald will frown their **** full brows because of the humidity that does not dissipate all day, or maybe not, who knows.

In short, under the bright sun of about thirteen o'clock, which had elongated the shadow, the blonde young man from the nameless village of the Kingdom of Krant shouted weakly at his fellow with the same color, and then finally stopped because of fatigue, and gasped for breath with his hands on his knees.

"So you're not going to help me. Sweat soaked his clothes and dirty hair, dripping from his forehead to the tip of his nose and then to the ground. He spoke to his friend grumblingly, and Wilbur in front of him finally turned around.

"You are to blame for this, Baker. Wilbur, who was supposed to be on the other side of the blame, had even more resentment on his face for some reason, and he strode over, then pointed to the wet items on the wooden flatbed cart where Becca was holding, and said, "I'm not here for this!"

"Not for this damn lump of dirt!" Wilbur roared loudly, pacing back and forth and rubbing his hair restlessly.

"Dude...... These are fine clays, you don't know, and you don't even need clinker to make pottery out of them, and they shape them—"

"Give!I!!!shut up!" Wilbur raised his voice to drown out Baker's words, kicking the flatbed with his foot as he spoke, Baker was so frightened that he shrank aside, but he didn't dare say anything.

"I don't care what you're up to, Mason, but I'm not here for this damn thing!" he shouted as he pointed to Baker's nose, and the breeze swayed gently through the tall reeds around him, and the smell peculiar to the swamp area reached their nostrils, and if they weren't used to it, they would feel quite uncomfortable.

"I'm only here with you because you said you found gold there, remember, gold. Wilbur threw up his hands hysterically and shouted, "Gold!" instead of the mud, but we've been looking all morning to see what I've found!

"Oh my God, I'm going to be killed if I go back like this!!" he grabbed his tea-blonde hair tightly and stomped his foot vigorously, while Baker, who was submissive, said cautiously, "Maybe you can go and have a good talk with Yeager and he can relax a little longer-" "Shut up!

Wilbur jumped to his feet like a powder keg on fire: "It's today, my naïve friend, it's today! He's not going to do anything more relaxed, and if I can't pay back those twenty silver coins, he'll kill me!"

"So you shouldn't gamble in the first place—"

"Oh my God, let me breathe, are you still going to preach, we must find that damn gold, if you, my dear friend. Wilbur put his hands on Baker's shoulders, "If you don't want to see my pretty head fall to the ground, help me find the gold quickly." ”

"It's not just me, my friend, that you can have a bigger furnace, a better flatbed, or even a horse-drawn carriage when you get them. ”

"Then you will know to the whole of Crane, the great mason Baker Lightford, all of them will be vying to buy the crockpots you have fired, my friend. Wilbur said with a smile, and Baker imagined what he was describing and nodded with excitement on his face.

"So?" Wilbur pointed to the cart laden with red clay behind him, and Baker hesitated for a moment, pulled it aside, and then dumped all the clay on it.

"This is my friend, let's go, we have a pile of gold waiting for us. Wilbur urged repeatedly, and Baker, who still had a hint of reluctance on his face, sighed, then turned around and pulled the much lighter flatbed truck and walked forward.

The reeds swayed, and a few small egrets with long pointed beaks were disturbed by their actions and flew up from one side with a snap, and the reeds that were one person tall swayed, and once again entered the reeds from what was still a "road", and the two of them's already tattered leather boots were wrapped in a wet mud again.

The soft dirt made the flatbed more difficult to move, and with the weakness of his feet, Baker gritted his teeth and pulled desperately, while Wilbur in front of him didn't even mean to help, just looked around left and right, hoping that the black puddle that Baker said would soon appear in front of him.

In the bright sunshine, two mud-stained young men struggled to push away the thick reeds and walked forward, and small creatures such as crabs and frogs scattered on the swamp floor, burrowing under rocks and branches.

"Whew...... ...... "The smell of hot and humid water mixed with the smell of sweat and mud invaded the nasal passages, the mud-stained linen that clinged to his body because of sweat and body temperature made people feel sticky and hot, but the soles of leather boots that were simply sewn together with twine had begun to crack because of long walking, and the fatigue of the day, Baker gritted his teeth and tried hard to pull the wooden cart, but he also felt that he was about to fall.

"Man, hurry up. Wilbur, who was much more relaxed than he was in front of him, took out of his sackcloth clothes with his right hand, which was still clean, the dry food that had been crushed and boiled, and wrapped together, and took a large bite, and as he chewed, he used the dry branch he held in his left hand to pluck away the reeds.

"Whew......," Beck, thirsty and tired, let out another long exhale, and then as he inhaled air again, the young man notices something different.

'Sniff. He paused, twitching the tip of his mud-stained nose, then frowning at the somewhat familiar smell, which gradually eased as the memory came back, and finally expanded to a smile of excitement on his entire face.

"Hey, Wilbur!" Baker's fatigue swept away, and he jumped straight to his feet and waved his entire right hand at his friend in a big way.

"What's wrong man. The young man in front of him turned his head, and he cried out loudly, "This way! I smell that black puddle, man!"

Baker shouted, and in the afternoon sun he had keenly caught the peculiar smell that had drawn him there the last time he had searched for clay, and it was in the middle of that small puddle that something was shining golden.

"This way! this way!" Baker followed the strange smell and ran to the left, and behind him, because of the lure of gold, Wilbur threw away the grain and ran desperately towards it with a branch.

The two young men brutally pushed aside the reeds and drove past the flatbed cart with a flat wooden cart, the wheels bending the reeds and leaving deep marks on the wet earth, with a jumble of footprints of different shades all the way to the end of the reeds.

"Smack-" The last of the reeds were scattered by the dry branches that were thrown down, and Wilbur, who finally came out, saw the black puddle of water that Baker had spoken of at first glance.

"Awesome my buddy! it's true, hahaha!" was as big as a pond, and in the center of the puddle, as he said it was, some kind of metal was glistening, and Wilbur shouted with joy and was about to run towards it, but Baker, who was desperately following behind him, stopped him loudly and eagerly.

"Stop, Wilbur, stop!" the young man's words stopped his friend from wading into the water, Wilbur turned his head to look at him with a puzzled expression, while Baker pointed to a nearby spot and shouted loudly, "Look there!"

He said, and Wilbur turned his head again, only to notice the remains of a buffalo on the edge of the black puddle.

"This thing eats people!" Baker breathed a sigh of relief, and Wilbur was startled when he noticed that his foot was stuck when he stepped on it, and then took a few steps back before stopping.

"I think the old man in the village is referring to the cannibalistic pond. Baker put the flatbed truck next to him, and Wilbur was anxious again: "What are we going to do, we can't get to it!"

He said that only a corner of the pond was almost certainly gold, but it was several meters away from them, and they could not wade through the water, so they could only stare at it dryly.

"It's okay, I'm ready, man. Baker smiled, then picked up a bundle of hemp rope from the side of the flatbed.

"Well done!" Apparently this time he had come prepared, and the two of them removed the twine, then tied a knot with their hands and feet, and began to aim and flung up.

The thick hemp rope was thrown as it spun to the extreme, and Baker deliberately made the noose so large that it covered a considerable area, and easily framed the target when it fell.

"Great!" Wilbur raised his fist energetically, and then pulled the hemp rope back hard with Baker.

The tar-like substance in the sticky black puddle caused their movement to be quite laborious, but fortunately the gold surfaced above the water for some unknown reason, and the two managed to reach it with a slight drag.

"It's--heavy-" The strong resistance made both of them blush, and they stomped on the ground and pulled desperately, the gold reflecting the sunlight slowly approaching them, and the enchanting brilliance made them grow out of thin air.

Little by little, little by little, the black puddles swayed, the gold drew closer and closer, and the strength they exerted grew stronger.

"Success—it's done—" When they finally got to the end of the puddle, Wilbur pulled it up with more strength than he shouted, and it was at this point that the two of them finally understood why they had worked so hard.

"Oh my God!" Baker let go of the rope and sat down on the ground, screaming loudly, as the nugget was pulled up was a black, withered corpse, rusty ring armor and helmet still on top that looked like Raman, the corpse opened its mouth wide and showed a look of great pain, and even as he tried to lift the piece of gold out of the water.

"Hey, what are you afraid of man, it's just a dead man. Wilbur excitedly broke open his dry palm and removed the piece of gold covered in black tar, and only then did they see that it was an elaborately carved badge.

"Oh, this thing is worth at least thirty or forty thousand denores!" Wilbur couldn't stop smiling back and forth as he shook it back and forth, then turned his gaze back to the dead corpse and found several pouches in the belt of things.

"It's—" He crouched down and ripped it off, then opened the sticky tar and found a large pile of golden coins inside.

"Oh my God!" as if someone had cast a fixed spell, the smile on Wilbur's face could not be restrained no matter what, and the suspicious Baker on the side was a little frightened, but at his urging, he also ran over to help take off the money bag from the corpse and put it on the flatbed.

"Find some dirt and cover it. Wilbur said this, and Baker knew that he was trying to hide himself and hurriedly went into action, but the moment he bent down, something in the reeds made eye contact with him.

"Oh my God!" Baker sat down on the ground again, and Wilbur, who was beside him, sighed and looked up helplessly, thinking he was making too much fuss, when a behemoth, which had been lurking for a while following their movements, poked out of the reeds with its dark cyan scales.

"Fear ...... Crocodile ......" Wilbur swallowed his saliva, the head alone was the size of a person, and the fishy breath on the crocodile invaded the bodies of the two, Baker's feet were directly weak, and he couldn't get up, and Wilbur on the side couldn't move.

The dinosaur in the southern wetlands is one of the most famous carnivores on the west coast of Mobigas, measuring over 10 metres in length and staggering size, and even includes the equally ferocious dragon lizard on their menu. Even heavily armed heavy knights would have a hard time killing a dinosaur crocodile, let alone two ordinary civilians who had nothing.

Most of the time it was alarmed when it broke into the reeds before, and it followed it all the way, Wilbur thought to himself, the dinosaur is a lurking and ambush type of predator, as long as you pay attention to avoid their territory, daily life will not be too much of a problem, but now is obviously not the time to think about this, this huge crocodile just appeared on the carriage full of gold coins, in front of it is Baker, who is limp on the ground and trembling in horror, Wilbur will definitely be a target if he wants to go up and pull the cart-

Baker looked at him, his eyes full of tears and trembling all over—

Wilbur looked away—

Then he turned around, took a step, and began to run away.

"No—" Baker's screaming came to an abrupt end, but a small human was not enough to fill the belly of the dinosaur crocodile, Wilbur gritted his teeth and ran desperately, he could feel the crocodile behind him, so he could only run for his life, and it was at this moment that he ran out along the path and saw two people, one large and one small, riding horses, just in front of him.

'I'm sorry—' Wilbur's hesitation was overwhelmed by a strong sense of survival half a second after he appeared, and he ran straight towards the two men, trying to use them as food for crocodiles to buy himself some time.

The two horses began to get restless, and even the youngest of the two, a young girl with white hair, turned to look at the other side.

Wilbur lowered his head and didn't dare to look directly into the girl's pure eyes, but in the next second, a voice overshadowed the sound of the wind whistling in his ears and the heavy muffled sound of the crocodile writhing forward behind him.

It was a lingua franca spoken by a calm baritone, with an indistinguishable accent and a simple two words.

"Get down. ”

"Ahh With a thunderous momentum, it slammed towards the rear.

But that's not lightning.

It was the blade of a dazzling greatsword, and it was a powerful sword that was wielded by the powerful power of the tall swordsman, who was probably from the north, and caught the moment when he fell.

The trajectory of the swing is simple and mundane, and any lightly trained swordsman can unleash such an attack with fluidity.

It was so simple that Wilbur felt like he could do it easily.

But.

Unstoppable.

The air shattered as if announcing that anything that stood in the sword's path would be torn to shreds.

Standing tall on the ground, the tall swordsman intercepted in front of the giant crocodile, which weighed several tons, looked extremely small, but incredibly.

It gives an unshakable impression.

"Huh-" The sound of the greatsword breaking through the air reached the extreme, and the tip of the sword, which was able to completely transmit the force of the object, accurately touched the crocodile's scale armor in the back one-third position.

What happened after that can only be described as Mars hitting the Earth.

"Bang-boom-bang-"

"Click-"

"Boom!!"

Henry twisted his wrist at the last minute, and his blow was quite a failure in terms of conventional swordsmanship, because his blade was crooked, and he slammed it completely on the top with the spine of his sword.

But this is what he did on purpose.

Of course, a sage can do it with an ordinary swing of a smooth sword, but the multi-ton dinosaur crocodile rushed towards this side, even if he split the other party's mouth, the strong inertia could kill the three people and the two horses, so he aimed at the tip of the crocodile's nose from the beginning, and then twisted his wrist with the momentum, knocking its entire center of gravity crooked, causing the dinosaur to fall to the ground hard.

"Bang!"

The huge, bulky crocodile, which scooped up a lot of dirt, fell within easy reach of its food. Henry raised his broadsword, stabilized his center of gravity in the typical 'bull style' of swordsmanship, took a deep breath, and stabbed the crocodile into the neck with precision, and then tore its soft side with a brutal upward blow.

Blood spurted wildly, and the dinosaur crocodile, whose thick carotid artery had been severed, writhed and lost its life in a few moments.

"Phew—" Mira on horseback breathed a sigh of relief, and both looked at the frightened dirty young man on the ground, but said nothing. The sage rolled over and mounted his horse, and the two of them hurried towards their destination again.

Wilbur, who had been out of breath, stood up again, stood still for a long time, looked at his friend who was only half of his body next to the black puddle from afar, and sighed.

"What the hell did you do...... I. ”

The dull sound of horses' hooves faded away, and he sighed quietly as he looked at the bright afternoon sun.