Tails sat on the edge of the bar, looking at the old beer in his hand, depressed for a while.

During this time, Fastrope sweated profusely in and out of the tavern, rummaging through the ledgers, checking the numbers, and busily working on the property left behind by Kanzer, while Louisa, Dean, McGee, and Dante's greatsword also came to the tavern one by one, and went up to the second floor to meet with Seaman and Old Hammer.

"Wya, are you sure you're sitting here?"

Dean squeezed into the noisy tavern and looked suspiciously at Tails, who was sitting puffed upstairs.

"Sure," Tails burped, pulling his face out of his glass, staring at Tampa on the other side of the bar with an unkind expression, gritting his teeth, "I'm familiar with the tavernkeeper." ”

"That's good," Dean glanced at Tampa suspiciously, "Tampa is a more reliable mercenary agent, he knows a lot of contacts, if you want to find your way home, maybe ......"

Tails nodded stiffly.

Dean shrugged his shoulders and walked upstairs to attend a meeting inside the mercenaries.

Time passed, and soon, Camp Bladefang ushered in the night after sunset.

The tavern was full of people and people.

Quite a few people noticed Tails sitting in the corner, but most of them were forced back by Tampa's eyes.

The bards smiling and singing for business were wary of peer competition, scantily clad girls swaying between the tables and occasionally attracting money with the furrows on their chests, and men with their faces hidden or acting mysteriously huddled behind the tables, dancing and arguing in whispers under the countertops, doing dirty deals that Tails probably didn't want to know and didn't dare to know.

Tails had seen the Sunset Bar in the underground street, which was often noisy with people coming and going, but everyone knew that it was the territory of the Brotherhood, and no matter how chaotic the scene was, not many people dared to make trouble in it.

That's not the case at all in my bar.

When Tails saw the third table of guests fighting around an unevenly distributed business, he finally couldn't help but say to the boss: "You're just watching?"

"Or else?"

Tampa behind the bar waved lazily, motioning for a guy to deal with the mess and settle the bill.

"This is Camp Bladefang, full of interests, calculations, opportunities, dangers, and law and morality only appear occasionally, and it's strange that people don't fight," Tampa flipped through his ledger and quickly recorded something: "Don't worry, the people of Camp Bladetooth are simple - don't you see that they all obediently lose money after breaking tables and chairs?"

The folk customs are simple......

Tails twitched his cheek.

"What if they don't lose money?"

Tampa looked up, the scar on his neck twitching.

"As you know, I know a lot of mercenaries and adventurers in the camp, and I often introduce them to business," the tavern keeper smiled politely, "and there are quite a few professional debt collectors among them, and for my sake, they only take a penny of profit - and they also cover the aftermath of the corpse." ”

Tails nodded slightly, with a clear expression: "I see, you are really talented here." ”

Fuck the folk customs are simple.

Thinking about his next move, Tails absentmindedly asked the tavernkeeper, "So, Cohen deposited money with you, why?"

"It used to be customary, at the end of the Scarlet Year, that the soldier who went out would deposit the bounty in the rear and come back to take it again - if he would come back alive. ”

Tampa sat behind the bar with a comfortable face, watching the guys busy and looking like they didn't care about themselves: "Later, in order to motivate the soldiers, Baron Williams promised the victims that they would get several times the deposit...... After the purge campaign, I also retired, so I took over this habit and hoped to make it a business. ”

"But for now......" Tampa sighed helplessly, looking at the fast rope sitting in front of a businessman in the distance trying to count the money.

"Purge...... Battles?" Tails asked, "Is it part of the Desert War?"

Tampa snorted.

"I guess you haven't seen the desert wars of ten years ago?"

Tails shrugged: "Obviously. ”

Tampa nodded, putting on a "I know" look: "Then of course you haven't seen the purge battles that lasted for years after that, large and small. ”

"How?"

Tampa narrowed his eyes and looked nonchalantly at a pair of drinking guests in the distance, as they went from hooking shoulders and being like brothers to talking to each other, fists and kicks, as if they were used to it.

"The great victory of the desert war is always boasted about: the ruined Star Kingdom rose up to mourn and remnant bravery, and heroically marched into the desert to face the Bone Bone and Orc tribes who took advantage of the bloody year to move eastward......"

He snorted coldly:

"But you know, the hardest thing for us isn't how to defeat mongrels and wild seeds - if you can fight them off once, you can fight them off countless times- It's about how to protect your gains after repelling them, how to carry the military flags and cowhides they left behind after the glorious victorious main army returns to their hometown to hug the baby, how to sweep away the enemies hidden behind the dunes and caves bit by bit, how to stay behind the remnants of the soldiers, how to hold the road with scarce troops, and grit their teeth in the comeback of the mongrels again and again, Strike at the head and get the desert races, especially the stubborn orcs, accustomed to your presence and reverence for your power, like a rogue hyena accustomed to the lion king's new territory. ”

"It takes a process," Tampa's eyes drifted away, "In this process, there are no battles that will go down in history, no decisive battles that look at death as home, and no earth-shattering bloody battles...... But its tragedy and sacrifice were not inferior. ”

"Victory is forged with blood," he said lightly, "and in order to consolidate the victory, you have to pay more blood." ”

"This is the Purge Campaign. ”

Tampa pointed to the wall behind the bar: an old but still sharp axe hung there.

"Are you among them?" asked the prince solemnly, "whether it is a desert war or a purging campaign?"

Tampa nodded.

"At that time, the Blade Tooth camp was not like what you see now: the wounds of the bloody year had not healed, the main forces of the desert war had been withdrawn, we had no conscripts who came from all over the country as if we didn't need money, there were no swaggering aristocratic private soldiers, there were no logistical food and grass supported by the merchants and the royal family, there were no cavalry clusters of earth-shattering scale, and we did not have the confidence and courage to break through the desert with a single order. ”

"We only have ourselves, the stars of the Western Wilderness: legions made up of farmers, commandos made up of mercenaries, and death squads made of scum...... Even the main force of the Duke of the Western Wilderness, the Skull Guards from the Wasteland, are so poor that there are more saddles in our Raven Guards than there are people who can ride horses, only the first platoon in the Black Lion Infantry Brigade is fully trained battlefield veterans, and the Baron's Stardust Guards even have to replenish their manpower from the criminals in the Prison of Bones - there are many nobles who have been exiled for their sins after the Scarlet Years, and a considerable number of them are well-trained people with considerable family backgrounds. ”

"But we can only grit our teeth, and with scarce medicine and a small amount of supplies, we can go deep into the barren and exhaust the sand dunes, search every corner from the camp of the blade teeth to the depths of the desert, and fight to the death with the mongrels and desolate seeds who have infiltrated in groups of threes and twos at any cost, until they feel the pain, realize the cost of returning to their homeland, admit the fact of defeat, and dare not send people to die again. ”

Tails stared at the axe on the wall in a daze.

It's hard to imagine that along the way, the wind-swept wasteland was once the most tragic battlefield.

"Among them, the stupid big Cohen is an outlier," Tampa laughed, "a stupid aristocrat who can't be handled." ”

"Cohen?" Tails was slightly startled, "He fought in the desert?"

"Fought?"

Tampa snorted through his nose, seemingly amused.

"He's a fighter with iron. ”

Tampa's eyes welled up with nostalgia.

"A tough guy who was born for the battlefield, and for three years, he piles of orcs to the ground, dead and alive. ”

"Why?" Tails asked in surprise.

"Cohen's identity...... He's the heir to the noble Kalabyan family, and there's a whole Vola Collar waiting to be inherited, isn't he?"

"How do I know, aristocrats who come and go," Tampa laughed, "how do I know what kind of wind he smoked to let go of his good life but come to suffer." ”

Tails thought of the big silly man in his mind, and fell into deep thought.

"You know, one time, we had an ambush. ”

Tampa seemed to be quite emotional: "The gray bastard of the Dead Iron tribe wielded the hammer like a storm, leaving only stumps and flesh in its wake, when it swooped down with the mongrels all over the mountains......"

Tails thought of the orc Kandal, remembered the almost irresistible night raid, and suddenly felt a palpitation.

"We were scattered, lost contact with the light horsemen, panicked, and fled for our lives," Tampa sighed, "and the stupid big guy and the others were forced into the desert by them, and nothing was heard from for half a month." ”

"We all thought they wouldn't come back. ”

The team even collected their relics, and according to Frank, the Baron even had a headache about how to write an obituary for Cohen's aristocratic father. ”

The noise in the tavern was still there, but Tails just listened intently to Tampa's story.

I saw the boss breathe a sigh of relief.

"And then one day...... A dozing sentry outside the camp suddenly found himself in the distance, on the horizon between the setting sun and the desert......"

A figure appeared. ”

Tails' eyes froze.

"Alone, alone, crumbling, bruised all over his body. ”

Tails inhaled slightly, "Cohen?"

Tampa nodded slowly.

"The whole Bladefang camp, all of us, including Baron Williams' guards, stood there in a daze, watching the noble young master limp all the way in a trance, clutching the ugly head of that damn grey bastard, the notorious killer 'Meat Grinder' Dead Iron. ”

And he walked into the camp like that, unconscious and trembling, and he could not even recognize the prettiest beauty Felicia standing in front of him. ”

He just kept going, his feet kept going, his expression confused, and he muttered to himself until he collapsed. ”

The Baron took the ugly head of Siza Dead Iron from Cohen's hand and tied it to the flagpole. ”

Time seemed to stop at this moment, and both Tails and Tampa fell silent.

Until the boss grabbed a bottle of wine and took a big sip.

"From that day on, no one in the camp called him 'Little Master' anymore, and no one secretly spat into his kettle," Tampa put down his bottle, took a deep breath, and sighed, "From that day on, he became a 'big stupid man.'" ”

"Good warrior at Camp Bladefang, real man, 'stupid big' Cohen. ”

Tails was silent for a long time.

Unexpectedly, the big man who smiled heartlessly and seemed to lack brains had such a thrilling and passionate past.

"It's a good story," the prince nodded, "and it's worth singing to the bards." ”

Tampa snorted lightly, not knowing if he was in a good mood or a bad brain, he actually took the initiative to serve a plate of food, put it between himself and Tails, and began to eat: "How is he now?"

Right now?

Tails' impression floated out of Cohen, who had sworn to support him in the Temple of the Bright Moon six years ago to return to Valhalla.

"As far as I know, he didn't go home and was still working as a guard in the royal capital, but I haven't seen him for a long time. ”

"O king......" Tampa muttered.

"I know he's a nobleman, and the nobles are complicated and have a lot of. ”

He shook his head.

"I guess, that stupid big guy also has his own responsibilities and troubles. ”

Tails didn't speak.

The boss finally sighed slightly: "I hope he is still the real man, stupid as always." ”

Tails nodded, and finished the beer with a faint bitter taste in his glass.

"He will be," the prince smiled mightily:

"And it's going to be stupid for the rest of your life. ”

Tampa stared at him for a long time, and finally laughed out loud.

"yes, I hope so. ”

"So," Tails coughed, "after the war, Cohen went to the royal capital, and you came to open this tavern?"

"No, I'm just taking over...... See the sign at the door?' 'My house' has been open for two or three hundred years," Tampa waved his hand:

"When you're tired of swords...... You know, it's still the ordinary little days that are more attractive. ”

Tails snorted sarcastically.

"Ordinary little days?"

"Believe me, from my experience, and from the people I know," said the prince angrily, "that a man who can be a tavern keeper in such a place is not living an ordinary little life." ”

"Come on, didn't I just give you the 'first lesson,' don't dwell on it," Tampa glanced at him disdainfully, "Like a - are you sure you're not Fastrope's girlfriend?"

"I just don't like it when people calculate my ......"

"Ha, just look at your face and know that you must have been cheated a lot since you were a child. ”

Tails gave him a polite and hypocritical smile and looked down at his food.

"By the way, are you going to stay here and not leave?"

Tampa frowned, "You know you have to pay for all this food, right?"

"I'm waiting for Dean...... Wait, pay?" Tails choked, "But you brought it!"

"That's why I asked you to give me money - if you brought it yourself, what else would I charge?"

Tails looked at the boss dumbfounded.

"A silver Mindis coin, thank you for your patronage. Tampa smiled and said, "For the sake of the stupid big man's face, he gave a preferential price." ”

After reluctantly handing over a few Solon silver coins, Tails took a bite of the food fiercely in the mood of not eating for nothing, looked at the tavern that was slowly quieting down, frowned and asked, "Is it my delusion, or is there really fewer and fewer guests?"

"In normal times, the later the hour, the more people there are in the tavern. ”

"But lately it's different, Camp Bladetooth is complicated, and there is a curfew every night," Tampa yawned, "If you wander the streets during curfew hours and get caught by those patrolling GIs...... You know, a lot of the temporary conscripts are coming to Camp Bladetooth for the first time, taking care of the defense while the royal standing army is away, and they don't know what it means to 'turn a blind eye' – either they go bankrupt or they go to jail. ”

"Just last month," Tampa shook his head, "the famous 100-man mercenary, 'Horn of Blood,' was captured and quite a few people went in - it was useless for me to talk to them, and the new soldiers didn't talk about it at all." ”

Tails frowned: "So you still have a lot of face, can you say things for the people in prison?"

"For many years, 'my family' has been providing supplies for the Prison of Bones, and of course it has its own way," Tampa snorted from above, "Who do you think fished out that mouth-wowed fast rope from the prison?"

"And then you introduced the fast rope to Dean and entered the 'Dante's Greatsword'?"

"You know, they weren't going to take that boy with a Comas accent," the tavernkeeper smiled, "but Quickrope seems to have a friend who knows the old Dantes......"

"So, whether it's Fastrope or Kanzer......" Tails asked, consciously or unconsciously, "Dean was introduced by you as well?"

Tampa shook his head.

"Dean was rescued by old Dent in the desert - this is how many people in their team came, and it is because of this that Dante's great sword has been able to survive for so many years, even if old Dent is dead. ”

Tails was thoughtful.

"He seems to be smart, I mean Dean. ”

Tampa thinks so.

"Truth be told, it was a condescension for someone like him to be a mercenary, and with his talent and insight, in the army, he was in no way inferior to those pot-bellied aristocratic commanders—in just a few years, Dante's greatsword earned a good reputation. ”

Tails' heart moved.

"You seem to know these mercenaries well?"

"After all, this is 'my house,'" Tampa said complacently, "mercenaries come here for business, or business comes here for mercenaries." ”

Tails looked around, looking at the fierce guests, wondering what was going on.

At this moment, several armored figures walked into the noisy tavern.

Tampa's eyebrows furrowed.

"Dear Ricky!"

The boss happily stretched out his hand to the oncoming guest: "How long has it been since you came?"

"It's only been a few months. The mercenary named Ricky said lightly, reaching out and shaking Tampa's hand.

Tampa looked at Ricky with a smile, then at a middle-aged man with a sword next to him: "New face?"

"This is Clay, from the North, a good sword wielder—not ordinary," Ricky gestured casually, and the middle-aged man nodded slightly to Tampa in a friendly manner, "Don't worry about it, he's already our man, and he doesn't take personal work." ”

"It's a pity," Tampa shrugged regretfully, "you know, there are a few businesses that are short of swordsmen." ”

Tails withdrew his gaze from the middle-aged man's body, and the heightened senses of hell from the Great War in the Wastelands fed back to him a rare message: the middle-aged man's body swelled with strange and restless power.

Looking at these new mercenaries, Tails suddenly frowned.

A man on Ricky's left with a masked face was looking coldly at the prince, his brows wrinkled deeply, and he looked a little old.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he swept over the crossbow of time beside Tails.

Tails was shocked.

"As for this one, you still don't know, he just came to the camp, but he has a criminal record and is not clean," Ricky sighed and shook his shoulder to the masked man on the left, "It's inconvenient to show his face." ”

Eventually, the masked man slowly withdrew his gaze, and Tails felt an unforgettable chill from him.

These people ......

It's dangerous.

Tails pressed the uneasiness in his heart.

"Of course, I only care about my business," Tampa raised an eyebrow nonchalantly, "How many tables?"

Ricky shook his head.

"Actually, a few tables aren't enough," Ricky pulled a money bag from his belt and instructed the others to occupy the tables, leaving only the middle-aged man and the masked man behind him, "We're going to charter the venue tonight, Tampa, give you two hours, empty this place - including your guys, and leave nothing but wine and food." ”

Tampa's brow furrowed.

"But there are still three hours to go before the curfew. ”

Ricky smiled slightly: "Then we will drink until dawn, don't go out, and wait for the ban to be lifted the next day." ”

Tampa squinted at him.

"Impossible," the boss shook his head decisively, "You know, I still have to do business, and I have to send supplies to the White Bone ...... the next morning"

Ricky placed the money bag on the bar, smiling the same.

"Twenty gold coins, one night, you know, there are dozens of us. ”

Tampa froze.

"This is 'my house,'" he said, looking up solemnly, "We have principles......"

"So we gave you two hours," Ricky said well, but he didn't back down:

"Thirty gold coins - where we need you to talk about something. ”

Tampa glanced at the money bag and shrugged, "We're going to close the door and rest too, it's impossible to drive so late for you......"

The middle-aged man behind Ricky smiled.

"But your sign says 'Never close'. ”

Tampa looked at him.

"You know, throughout the ages, if the words written on the slogan are true......"

The tavernkeeper held up his finger: "Then it won't be written with a slogan." ”

The middle-aged man raised his eyebrows: "Makes sense." ”

As if he couldn't stand their grinding, the man with his face covered stepped forward cleanly, took out a money bag again, and smashed it on the bar.

"Fifty gold coins, no more. ”

Syllable!

Tampa snapped his fingers.

"Deal!" he said, sliding away and putting away his money bag.

Tails sighed and rolled his eyes.

I knew it.

Ricky shook his head, and reluctantly led his companion towards one of the wooden tables.

"What, what kind of big business did you take?"

Tampa, who had just negotiated a good price for the charter, looked at Ricky's back with a smile: "Want to party all night?"

"On the contrary," Ricky didn't reply, "after tonight, we'll leave Camp Bladefang—as you can see, the Stellar army is sent out into the desert like they don't need money, and there's no business to be done here." ”

Tampa retracted back from the bar and shook his head regretfully, "yes, that's bad news, both for you and for me." ”

Tails looked at their backs and asked suspiciously, "...... are they?"

"It's the 'blood whistle,'" Tampa said leisurely before he could finish asking:

"Like Dante's greatsword, they're mercenaries, but you'd better not provoke them - it's a hundred-man regiment, two or three hundred from top to bottom, and there are hundreds of warriors who can go into battle in full gear alone, they are not peasant soldiers, each of them is a professional killer like Dante's greatsword. ”

"They only take on the work of war or the charter business of the royal merchants, and even the barons look up to them. ”

"Whistle of blood, hundreds?"

Tails was startled, looking at the people who were honking the horn of blood, and somewhat understood where that amazing sense of murder and threat came from.

"From Dante's great sword to the whistle of blood, the reason why they all gather here......" Tails thought thoughtfully, "So, around the desert, this place is indeed a mercenary paradise?"

"Heaven?"

Tampa paused slightly.

"It used to be. ”

"Twenty or thirty years ago, when I was a young fool and I didn't get an arrow in the knee," sighed the boss, "that was the golden age of mercenaries—the armies of the stars, the desert tribes with their own principles, the endless stream of merchants, the adventurers in search of treasure, the shrewd bounty hunters, the arduous missionary sacrifices, all looking for opportunities here." ”

"And now?"

Tampa shook his head: "The sword as shrewd as Dante has also suffered heavy losses, and the whistle as strong as blood has also found another way out." ”

"Times are changing," Tails said silently, "and so is the world." ”

"Yes, twenty or thirty years ago, the army of the stars could not have gone far into the depths of the desert," Tampa's eyes showed yearning and nostalgia, "It was the prerogative of adventurers and mercenaries who set out impassionedly to come back alive to tell legends, or wait for the bards to compose poems and sing them." ”

"I still remember that at that time, there used to be a very powerful mercenary team around the desert, from the Blade Tooth Camp to the Three Kingdoms of the Lost Sea, from Lyvorbang to the City of Steel, from the Dragon's Kiss Land to the Thorn Land, whether it was a desert or a forest, an inner lake or a great river, their footprints were all over these mercenary paradises, and I also wanted to join them. ”

"Yes. ”

Tails was absent-minded: he saw Dante's greatswords coming down from the stairs.

"The mercenary...... What's your name?"

Tampa was immersed in his own world and sighed: "Speaking of names, hey, there were only nine of them at the beginning, so they gave the team a silly and stupid name......"

"It's called the 'Big Nine.' ”

(End of chapter)