The demand for leather has been enormous in all eras.

It is true that the most lucrative artisan in the world in Rigal, as we have often mentioned earlier, is the blacksmith, but if it is the most in-demand and popular, it is the tanner.

It is true that metal products also play an important role in people's lives. However, an iron knife for cutting vegetables can be used for a long time without replacement as long as it is carefully maintained, and other iron kitchen utensils and the like can be replaced by clay pottery - in contrast, the scope and direction of demand for leather goods are unique, at least in this era, and there is no way to replace them.

Low-grade swords and all axes and spears require non-slip treatment where they need to be treated with pigskin or boar skin, while high-quality swords and knives and armed belts are made of stronger cowhide. Although iron spurs were popular among the wealthy knights and nobles of Avenella and Sivalier, in fact the cheaper leather whips were preferred in the south and many other places.

Saddles need leather, bridles need leather, adventurers' boots need leather, commoners need leather, hats need leather, jackets and trousers need leather, gloves need leather, even the cushion shields of chairs need skin, and the kind of warm fur that warriors and nobles in the north like to wear is also a cobbler's handiwork with hair.

Because of the low price, many mercenaries choose things like wrist and leg guards made of leather, as well as chest and back armor, and armor made of cowhide is thick enough to block the blades of a one-handed sword or a half-handed sword - although if you wear it alone, you will still be beaten to a broken bone.

Returning to the original place, cattle and buffalo and other livestock are raised everywhere on the continent, so cowhide is naturally the most common leather, but among the many creatures that exist in the wild, some of the leather on the body is tougher than cowhide, so as the leading commercial area on the continent, the leathermen of the Southern City-State Alliance naturally have a demand for the leather on these creatures, and the demand is naturally commissioned.

Mira was not familiar with the common language of communication here, and it was not in Henry's plan to come to the south so soon, so they could only use part of the money they had previously sold a few books to buy a copy of the Lamanite language for Mira. Although the vast majority of people here could only speak or write, as long as Mila slowly got used to speaking the language as they did, it was clear that Henry didn't want her to follow this slow and inefficient way.

Savings and wealth are not saved, work hard to earn more, and when you earn more money than you spend, there will naturally be a surplus. Therefore, the sage never hesitates to spend money that can be used to improve his literacy and earn more money.

Now Mira has been able to understand this, the power of habit is indeed quite terrifying, when used to a luxurious life to return to the previous simplicity is very difficult, for her today's life is indeed not what she could imagine before, so it is obviously not a suitable choice to have the same ideas and attitude to life as before.

The change of thinking can never be separated from the experience in reality and the era and environment of life, and without these words, any seemingly profound rhetoric is just moaning without illness. As the old saying goes, reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles is basically like this, if you can't have the real ability to grasp the real life, then any dream is just a grass without roots, and in contrast, when the ability reaches a certain level, with the change of life, the idea will naturally be very different.

Insects and birds chirping, even though it was already the beginning of October, the land around the Southern Frontier Alliance was still a bright scene in the middle of summer.

The horses' hooves trampled on the grassy ground of no kind, and the composition of the vast team that Henry and Mira followed was quite complicated, in addition to the six or seven of them, who were obviously individual mercenaries, there were also twelve hunting mercenaries with heavy weapons, six or seven novice mercenaries who drove mules and carried supplies, and three flatbed carriages with huge frames that were also driven by these novice mercenaries.

It was a long-term mission, similar to the team they had originally joined in the Chambers of Commerce Coalition escort in Avenella, but smaller and more elite. Unlike at the beginning, as long as you prove your strength on Ashinir's side, even if you don't have a mercenary card, there is no problem, but here is a death limit at the beginning, as long as the mercenary card is above the blue card, so the daily reward is naturally much higher in comparison.

For a long time, we have been talking about the gap between the people who are dedicated to hunting and the people who are dedicated to warfare, but we have never really talked about it in detail, and now Henry and they have finally come together with an E mercenary group because of the mission, and we can give some general introduction.

First of all, contrary to the one-sided views of most civilians who don't know all this, these hunting mercenaries, who usually carry huge iron swords and hammers, seem to be more powerful than the vast majority of mercenaries who tend to fight against people, and in fact they should be considered brains and strategists.

Anyone with a little common sense will guess this: the running speed of humans who run on two feet is a relatively slow type of life in nature, although there are some gifted humans who can run at high speeds, but the vast majority of people will be easily caught up by wild beasts when they are carrying a certain amount of supplies.

An ordinary grizzly bear can run about twice as fast as a human, and humans with melee weapons are always in an embarrassing situation of "chasing and chasing, escaping and escaping" when facing them, so after a long period of evolution, the hunting mercenary group has become a kind of organization with special cooperation for such situations.

Professional hunting mercenaries only act as mercenary groups: veterans who are familiar with ecology judge the direction of their prey, trap experts set up ballistas, interception nets and crypt traps, and those warriors who carry greatswords and hammers or axes as the image of hunting mercenaries are usually present as rear presses - after all, plans cannot keep up with changes, and accidents often occur when hunting dangerous large creatures, so they are needed as insurance measures at critical moments.

All the large weapons of hunting mercenaries are extreme tools that abandon the sharpness, balance, toughness, and weight of human weapons, and blindly pursue only powerful instantaneous stopping ability.

This is also one of the reasons why most mercenaries who are good at fighting between humans or other humanoid races disdain their weapons, after all, heavy weapons do have more powerful lethality, but you also have to be able to hit it first, too heavy weapons require too much physical strength and become unsustainable and uncontrollable after being swung out, so despite its terrifying appearance, its ability to cut and kill people is actually not as good as a one-handed long knife that weighs only one-twentieth of its weight.

A long knife may be useful when killing human-sized creatures, but when a bison rhinoceros or a large dragon sprints towards you, even if it can cut through the blood vessels and bleed to death, the inertia of the powerful dashing ability is enough to inflict serious injuries on the mercenary.

The division of labor within the hunting mercenary group is more or less like this, the warriors who are responsible for controlling the field to prevent the prey from rushing towards themselves and causing casualties, the experienced hunters and trap experts set up formations according to the actions of the prey, and the junior mercenaries who have newly joined the mercenary group are stunned to help carry a large number of supplies and tools, as well as pull the carriage used to load the prey.

These people are experts in hunting large creatures, and each departure of a group operation consumes a lot of manpower and material resources, so for the sake of cost, they naturally change their plan into a periodic long-term mission operation, and after determining the information, they will go out to hunt enough prey and then return. And transporting such valuable prey, the possibility of being targeted by thieves and the like is naturally greatly improved, although the hunting mercenaries also have a certain combat ability, and then bring some more weapons for people to use themselves, after the hunt or when they are exhausted during the hunt, they will obviously not be able to play.

So all in all, they naturally took safety considerations and chose to hire their fellow mercenaries as escorts along the way.

Henry and Mira had no armor and were just wearing simple clothes, and when they first came to sign up, they didn't want them to join, but when they explained that they were building new armor and they also had the high-blooded Avenella War Horse as a means of transportation, the two of them were barely qualified to become the guards along the way, along with several others.

The first obstacle on the way forward is naturally the road, and although the Southern Union is prosperous, there is as much land as other places where it has not been explored, and although it does not have the grandeur of the Tambur Mountains on the west coast, the rugged hills are often visible.

The storm in July not only affected the Soradin Heights, but also the flowers and trees in the south were dumped in the ensuing rainstorms, and the rapid regrowth of species spread everywhere, forcing even seasoned local mercenaries to explore slowly.

The place they wanted to visit was a lake called Lorena, which was located in the north of the largest river in the South, the Black Iron River, which meandered from the Dwarven Mountains and finally merged into the Mobigas Inland Sea in the southern part of the Alliance, and the fresh water it brought naturally nurtured life on both sides of the river and formed many tributaries and ponds and lakes.

One of the most famous creatures in the south, the Aya snake that feeds on aquatic weeds and freshwater fish and some small mammals, lives here, this amphibious with smooth skin and a gentle body similar to that of an elephant will come to the lake around October to mate and lay eggs, so they are named the unique call of "Aya, Aya" is the best way to identify, and when the female snake dragon is weak after giving birth, it is also a great opportunity for mercenaries to hunt.

The skin of the Aya snake dragon is smooth and comfortable to the touch, and it is no problem to make underwear for close wear, but in contrast, it has extremely strong toughness, and the bow and crossbow with insufficient pull force cannot even shoot through its surface, and the weight of the Aya snake dragon skin is more light and soft than cowhide, and it only needs half the thickness of cowhide to achieve the same defensive ability.

All of this makes it a favorite piece of personal armor for the high-ranking officials and nobles of the Southern City-State Alliance and the major empires, after all, a leather armor carefully crafted by a cobbler looks delicate and luxurious, and it still has the ability to defend, in addition to protecting lives, it also satisfies the needs of face, so it is obviously reasonable that the supply exceeds the demand.

Despite this, despite being a mild-mannered hybrid dragon, the Aya Basiosaurus also possessed the same size as the giant dragon-like creature.

Weighing up to six or seven tons, it is not afraid of even large crocodiles and dragon lizards, and there are not many creatures that can hunt Aya snake dragons on their own, except for dinosaurs and carnivorous large hybrids and wurms. Its resilient skin and social nature prevent most dangers, and although its slender neck and wolf-sized snout make it less terrifying to bite than other creatures, its sharp teeth and large, heavy body are enough to intimidate most inexperienced hunters and mercenaries.

It is a fantasy to obtain completely undamaged Aya snake skin, and only large ballistas have the ability to penetrate that extremely resilient skin, but even well-prepared and experienced hunting mercenaries need to wait for the female dragon to give birth and be unable to resist to ensure a high chance of success, but fortunately, the sheer size of these creatures makes them still more expensive than gold even if they have a few holes in their skin, and experienced hunters usually choose younger, sicker, smaller females to attack.

All in all, the most important purpose of the group at this time was to get to the lake first, but because of the certain changes in the mountain road, the flatbed carriage used to carry it was slowed down a lot, so that they had already set off for two days, but still did not go too far.

The sky was clear and clear, with a few white clouds drifting lazily on the blue background, and the season of rain and storms was coming to an end, and now the sky was dominated by peace and quiet.

One of the great advantages of following the hunting mercenaries is that they can always taste fresh meat, and the tracking skills of hunting large creatures are the same as those of small creatures, they are observing the surrounding environment, and they are closer to nature than the war mercenaries, and they are not inferior to professional hunters when hunting, coupled with several seasoning spices grown in the wild of the Southern Alliance, the inconspicuous small wild vegetables on the roadside are chopped and cooked together, and the delicious and filling food makes people always look forward to the time to eat.

There's no need to be too vigilant until you actually get your prey, and no one is going to rob a fleet of empty cars. Therefore, Mira seized the time of each day to repeat the process of studying, resting, occasionally practicing swordsmanship, and advancing. The group slowly approached the destination, and each day was fulfilling. (To be continued.) )