From the beginning of our story to the present, the countries we have reached have been mentioned in the West Coast of Mobigas for most of the time, but there has never been a general description of the entire continent.

Part of the reason for this has a lot to do with the fact that the humans of the world of Rigal have not yet explored all the lands, but more importantly, it is for the sake of space, and I don't want to introduce elements that are not related to the two protagonists' travels too early. And now that they've gone completely beyond the confines of the West Coast, we can finally go a step further and give some general overview of the world at the beginning of this chapter.

The first thing to mention is that the West Coast has the smallest available land area on three sides of the Rigal continent, which borders the huge Mobigas Inland Sea.

Because of the presence of the Tambur Mountains and the Ansicipe Strait, the northern part of the west coast is barren cliffs and straits that are beaten by large waves all year round, and because of the many reefs and man-eating water dragons that can reach a maximum size of more than 30 meters, even merchant ships and warships refuse to approach, let alone any inhabitants.

In contrast, the East Coast at the other end of the horizon has a much more expansive land, and where the northern part of the West Coast has been submerged in the sea, the vast land on the East Coast is still extending upward, until the Far North is frozen in ice and snow all year round, and there is still no lack of traces of civilization.

The East Coast has much more usable land than the West Coast because of the absence of mountains, and although the coastline is more irregular than on this side, with lakes and seawater wetlands and even a very large inland sea, it is easier for civilization to germinate.

In addition to these two coastlines, which we have been talking about before, the area where the Möbigas Inland Sea connects to the interior of the south is actually no less than these two places, and the people living here are similar in appearance to the Soladins on the west coast, and although they are located in the tropics, they are not as barren as the desert regions further south.

The southern city-states had no kings, but were nobles at the highest level, and their caravans of camels and horses, as well as merchant ships on the sea and in the canals, were known on a world scale. If the Patrosi Empire inherited the engineering greatness of the Laman Empire and had the most elite warship force in the world, and the Ottolo Empire, which had the largest number of rich and populous empires in the world, then the southern city-state alliance had the best and largest number of ports in the entire Rigal area, as well as the world's largest number of merchant ships.

They sell everything, but it's not a shopping paradise.

The most rebellious thing about the Southern Alliance, which is often despised by the citizens of the empires who profess to be civilized, is that these merchants tore apart all appearances and showed their true nature of pursuing profit.

In a southern city-state, you will find them very welcoming when you first arrive here, and you will be surrounded by soft-spoken beautiful women - but only if you have enough money, and many people, including citizens and nobles of the great empires, cannot stand the temptations and empty their wallets and go into debt, and what happens is that they are handcuffed and enslaved for life before they can react.

A sweet trap, a paradise of entertainment, once you fall into it, you can't escape.

Until all value is squeezed out, or dies - or both - no one escapes the clutches of the merchants of the South.

This is far more brutal than anywhere else, and even in many countries on the West Coast, there are still options where slaves can be regained their freedom, and in these city-states in the south, if you accidentally incur a debt and can't pay it off, you will be a slave for the rest of your life.

The Southern Union was dominated by commerce, and on the West Coast and in many other places, where most of the livelihoods depended on agriculture and fishing and animal husbandry, and even if a few countries exported wars, all of these civilizations were still within the category of the more modest "sedentary peoples" of the tradition.

Just as there are differences in the way of subsistence of the two forms of hunters and farmers in human society, from ancient times to the present, the nomadic people who do not like to settle down and farm and raise their own animals but travel around under the stars under the cover of the sky and live by grazing, hunting and plundering have never been absent in human history.

The vast grasslands of the southern interior of Rigal stretch from the southern Tambul Mountains of Ottolo down the Orc Forest to the Dwarven Mountains to the east, bordering the desert and lacking the fertile soil on which tall trees and shrubs can grow, and even the only shrubs and grasses that can grow here are often lost to the hot climate and desert erosion.

Therefore, in order to survive, the people here have evolved a different way of life.

The proverb "life is in motion" is believed to have been invented by the nomads of the steppe. The territory they occupied was very large, but the territory was barren and unified, and was infested with all sorts of powerful beasts that even the steppe people feared - but even so, these nomads were still formidable enemies for the city-states of the south and for the southern regions of the Soradin Highlands on the west coast.

This is especially true for the Southern Alliance, where in fact, almost all of the mercenaries who go out to fight in the Corikonrad region of the Soradin Heights come here to fight the steppes. The West Coast was too barren for the steppe people to plunder, and the alliance of southern city-states, which was full of slaves, food, and various assets, naturally became the target of every time they were short of money to spend.

The Southerners were wealthy, but they weren't good at warfare, so they naturally did what they did best. The mercenaries here are the easiest to find work, but they are also more dangerous, because the steppe people don't know how to back down, so if you encounter them, you'd better be prepared to fight to the death.

There's no such thing as autumn and winter in the tropics.

When Henry and Mira arrived in the south, it was the end of September, and they had not travelled by boat, and although it took more time to walk overland and there were possible encounters with robbers along the way, they were relatively better able to grasp their whereabouts.

At this time, the people on Avenella's side had begun to change into long-sleeved clothes, and the cold wind was blowing again on the Plains of Acasta.

It's been more than half a year since I left there, and Mira's complexion has darkened a lot in the tropical sun for months, and her gray hair is even more striking in comparison, and the two have spent a lot of money on food and lodging to maintain her needs during the growth period, and when it comes to the season that should be counted as early autumn, the original petite white-haired Lori posture can no longer be seen from her body at all.

Mira, who is already in her early sevens, has grown not only in height in the past half a year, but also in her fortunity, willing or unwilling, after experiencing two disasters in succession, her heart has also changed a lot.

The concept of death has always been familiar to girls. When she met Henry, who had previously lived at the bottom of society, she herself could follow the possibility of her parents' death anytime and anywhere. Like the event when their lives intersected, love is a luxury for her and a poor West Coast girl like her, and being beautiful usually means misfortune.

She could die anytime and anywhere, so she wasn't as resistant to death as others who had a better life and hadn't seen it all — but that didn't mean Mira could accept it easily.

The change in her mood is not unrelated to the change of her own ability and experience, if in the past, the petite and powerless Lori who only had a very stubborn temperament thought that death was a sad but helpless emergency that could only be used to, then now she, now this young mercenary lady who has made great progress in both knowledge and ability, in her opinion, everything has a cause and effect.

Human malice, all kinds of complicated situations, make people powerless.

It is not enough to be strong in a single aspect. Even Joshua, a sage who seemed to her to be omnipotent, and Joshua, a powerful swordsman who was deeply in love with Amonica, had no choice but to leave when it all happened, realizing that the mastermind behind it had far more resources than they could handle.

She cried.

Crying terribly.

But he didn't pester Henry like a cowardly and coquettish little girl to ask him to take revenge. Although it is impossible to change the fact that the sadness has happened that makes people feel powerless, the girl has more choices about how to deal with it.

She didn't know where she learned about the idea that knowledge can change fate for a long time, but it wasn't until now that Mira understood the true meaning of the phrase - it wasn't that you could change everything if you learned something, it was just that more knowledge could give you more choices. People who only know how to fight alone may rush to fight each other when they choose revenge, while those who are more stoic and calm will try to attract some helpers through wealth or influence, and people who are proficient in the art of scheming can play with the destruction of the other party's family more painfully than killing them directly - even if you don't mention these things like revenge, having a wider range of knowledge can also make you have a wider range of choices in the way you live.

She still has a lot to learn.

After all this, Mira became more and more determined to believe and follow Henry's existence. The sage took her there, and she didn't ask why, for all of Henry's actions had his own meaning, and even if he didn't explain it to her, it was only because Mira didn't understand it at this point.

All she has to do now is move forward without distractions.

......

The population of the southern city-states is very diverse, and it is not uncommon for the same tall Otolos and northerners to trade with the four northern islands as far away, and the tall mercenaries with weapons hanging up and walking around the streets are the liveliest street scene - not just the war mercenaries, because the various exotic beasts in the south and near the grasslands are very suitable for sale as goods, and there are also many hunting mercenaries here.

You can always easily tell the difference between hunting mercenaries and ordinary mercenaries, even if they don't carry their trademark large weapons or heavy tools such as ballistas, the thick but not very agile armor that is clearly made to resist the collision, and the height of the general height of more than 1.8 meters is also unique - Henry and Mira have just arrived, and the sage, who is also tall and carries a large sword, is immediately accosted by several people.

Of course, these people were politely rejected by him, in addition to the fact that they felt that Mira was not qualified to participate in the hunt of large creatures, and another important reason was that they had another thing to do at the moment.

The long journey had consumed a lot of money for food and lodging, and the savings of the two were close to being repaid by this time, and in order to lighten the load, Mira had already read a few books as a high-value commodity, and Henry planned to find a store to sell them all.

Mercenaries wearing all kinds of armor shuttled through this border town, the southern city-state alliance has no villages here, and all the inhabited places are bustling towns turned into trading posts, and all kinds of people ride horses or walk here, and among these people, Henry and Mira are no longer as conspicuous as they were when they were in the Soradin region.

There is a lot of difference between the type of houses here and those on Soradin's side, perhaps because the easternmost part of the Southern Alliance is very closely connected with the Dwarven Mountains, although the houses here are all limestone constructions like the west coast, and the design and layout of the walls and various houses are unattainable by humans.

The Vawasika Fortress of Avenella is recorded in the annals of history as the Castle of the Holy White by the craftsmen of West Valière because of its polished and reflective walls, but the facades of any town in the south are made of astonishingly fine stones, and the dwarves' innate innate spirit in tools and craftsmanship is as famous as their stubborn temper, and perhaps it is because of this temper that they are able to produce masterpieces that so many human craftsmen marvel at。

The work is always inseparable from the character, and a person who is unable to settle down and stubbornly delve into something, and who is more enthusiastic about various expressions and conversations, often does not have real talent and learning - and on the contrary, when you meet a craftsman who has achieved a relatively high level of achievement in a certain aspect, it is usually impossible for you to calmly explain a certain problem to him.

- Henry and Mira had just followed the wrought-iron signs, which were also clearly the work of dwarven craftsmen, to find the entrance to what was considered to be a high-end shopping street, when they saw two rare characters standing in the middle of a crowd of human onlookers, arguing in a language that no one else understood.

Standing on the left was a young elven woman with blond hair and pointed ears wearing a white dress with a decorative sword hanging from her waist, while on the right was a dwarven male with tea-blonde hair and a mustache - why use one because it was a mess - who could also not tell the age.

Their quarrel attracted the surprise of a large number of tourists and mercenaries, after all, dwarves and elves are relatively rare races, so such a large group of people stood in the way of Henry and Mira, and the crowd of onlookers was still increasing.

"It's a real headache. ”

The sage shook his head, then turned over and dismounted. (To be continued.) )