After receiving the identification statement from Knight Lanisa, Keir and Fick lived contentedly.
The next day, the hunters put all the tools and materials they needed into the carriage, and the villagers also helped to carry the things. After tidying up, Knight Lanisa led everyone to set off together.
The villagers will stay in a safe guard tower for the next time, and they need tools to simply process the wood that was brought back from the place where the tree was cut yesterday early in the morning.
Kiel and the others will find a dangerous place in the northern forest and build a crusade stronghold for female knights and hunters to have a safe resting place in the vast forest. Otherwise, it will be difficult to clear the land for a long time. Northern land wolf.
After setting off, they quickly crossed the ancient river channel full of gravel and entered the vast snow-covered forest.
Although the forest here is not as open as the forest in the south, at least the terrain does not have obvious ups and downs, and basically the terrain gradually rises one by one.
If it wasn't for Lanisa Knight's words, Kiel wouldn't even feel that they were going to a higher place when they went north.
After two days of walking in the snow-covered forest, they encountered many animals that came out to look for food in winter, but the hunters did not take action, and Knight Lanisa just rode their horses to drive them away and left them alone.
The bows and arrows of the hunters are difficult to replenish here, so it is better not to use them as much as possible, and the female knight does not want to hunt more prey, so she does not try to stimulate the northern wolves as much as possible before the sentry tower is established.
At least the wolf king of the wolves must not know that they are coming.
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Knight Lanisa has already found a place to establish a stronghold in the forest. She has entered the forest many times in the past few years, and has also discovered many places with special terrain in the forest.
The location they are going to now is one.
It was a rocky hill rising abruptly from a gentle forest. The terrain up and down is very rugged, with steep cliffs on three sides, large and small rocky slopes on one side, and a small platform on the top, which can just be used for them to build a stronghold.
At noon, they were in the forest, and they could see the rocky mountains ahead through the trees.
Knight Lanisa said that the rocky mountain was not high, but Keel and the others could see it from such a distance. It seems that the height of the rocky mountain is not low.
After approaching, as soon as you get out of the forest, you can see tall rocky mountains towering in front of you. Keel estimates that this thing is at least a hundred meters high, and it should be caused by a whole piece of rock lifted from the formation.
Their location happened to be on the side of the cliff of the rocky mountain, so if they wanted to go up, they had to make a detour to the front.
The sloping **** of the upper and lower rocky mountains is located on the north side, which is the side facing away from the sun, so the snow here has not melted at all, and the whole is covered in the shadow of the rocky mountain top.
The sloping rocky ramps looked impossible to climb, let alone carriages and horses.
Regarding this problem, Knight Lanisa smiled, and led everyone to dismount and lead the horses, bypassing rocks that were as big as houses, and found a smooth upward **** behind the rocks.
"Don't look at me, I just discovered this place by accident. Who knew that this thing was built by those 'people'. After all, a hundred years ago, this place was not the land owned by us humans." She said this, because I really can't stand everyone looking at her in surprise.
Keel secretly guessed that this must be something specially built by intelligent creatures in the forest, but it must have been abandoned.
When walking up, Keel paid attention to the surrounding rocks to see if he could find some traces left by the original owner here.
But he was disappointed. Along the way, he only found many traces left by weapons on the rocks, and there were no other traces of life at all.
If it hadn't been for a tragic battle that had taken place here, all the original traces would have been destroyed. Or it was just a surveillance outpost, just like what Kiel and the others are doing now.
After all, this vast forest must be guarded no matter what, right?
After all, they are all intelligent creatures. Human beings are infested by monsters and beasts from the natural deep mountains and forests. Presumably other races living here are also infested by this.
If those people don't want to be harassed by things from the forest, they will definitely set up outposts in the forest to monitor their surroundings.
Thinking of this, Keir felt that he should have guessed well.
And it shouldn't be the ancient elf ruins here, after all, there are always huge towering plants in the places where elves live. There are rocks everywhere here, and it doesn't look like the remains left by the elves.
Keel led the horse near a rock on the side of a slope. He stroked the rock face with his thickly gloved hand, his fingers carefully tracing the marks left by the sword's cut here and there.
A simple inspection surprised him. These chopping marks could not have been left a long time ago, because some rocks were still very sharp where they were cut.
He told the knight and other hunters about his discovery, and everyone stopped to check the surrounding traces.
"Sure enough, this cut is very neat, and it looks like it was cut by a very powerful weapon." An old hunter pointed to the mark made by a knife next to him.
Knight Lanisa also checked a few traces.
She was silent for a while, then pulled out the armor-piercing rapier she often used from her waist. Swinging the rapier instantly, the tip of the rapier slashed across the hard rock surface. Accompanied by a sharp cutting sound, the armor-piercing rapier left a two-centimeter scratch on the rock surface.
Everyone leaned over to check, and found that the new traces left by Knight Lanisa were different from the previous weapon traces, although the weapons were made differently and the traces left were different, but they all had the same damage results.
Clang, she sheathed the rapier and said, "Indeed, the traces left in the passage from the entrance to the top of the rock must have been left by some human knights. Look at the attack height of these weapons, it must be It is left by humans or humanoid creatures fighting. Judging from the results of different environmental erosion between the two, it is about a hundred years to a few decades."
She went on to say: "It is definitely not the traces of recent years. There are no relevant records in Kendall City. There are so many traces, which shows that an extremely fierce battle broke out here."
Kiel interjected: "And both sides are strong knights! Otherwise, they wouldn't have fought all the way from the bottom of the passage to the top of the mountain."
"Keir is right, and it's my fault that I didn't pay attention before. After I found this place, I simply checked to see if there were any northern wolfs hiding, and then left in a hurry. It seems that there was an outbreak here before the Baron Kendall family came. Fighting. Heh, so many knight-rank fighters can be mobilized. Needless to say, the battle must have been initiated by the knights guarding the border."
After a moment of silence, she continued, "I just don't know who the opponent is? Why is there a fight with the Knights here?"
Everyone put away their curiosity. After all, the battle that happened decades ago has nothing to do with them now. They just borrowed the terrain here to build a safe stronghold.
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Walking along the not-so-steep **** to the top of the rocky hill, they finally came to the top of the hill.
But they retreated from the top of the hill where there was a clearing. It's not because of anything else, it's simply because it's too windy up there. It didn't feel like walking on the passage with rocks on both sides, but once they reached the top of the mountain, they found that the cold wind above was too strong.
Kendall County in winter is already below the freezing point, and where there is a cold wind blowing above, the temperature is much lower. The clothes on everyone's bodies couldn't resist the cold wind that continuously took away the heat from their bodies, and even the tents they put up were always blown down by the wind.
As a last resort, everyone had no choice but to build a safe stronghold in the sloping channel with rocks of all sizes on both sides.
At least here, due to the occlusion of the left and right sides, there is no wind blowing. Even since the sloping passage is not a straight line, the wind from the bottom of the mountain cannot blow straight up along the passage.
That is, the ground is sloped, which makes it difficult to build a living platform.
Therefore, the first step in the construction of the stronghold is to pick up large and small rocks from the passage, and build small platforms in the inclined passage for them to put down their tents.
The carriage is only used to stop horizontally at the entrance of the passage at the foot of the mountain. Firstly, it can be used as a gate, and secondly, the carriage itself can be used as an obstacle blocking the road.
Half of the people followed the knight to pick up rocks and build a stronghold in the middle of the passage. Half of the people took out a box of metal clips from the carriage. Everyone carefully opened the sharp teeth of the metal clips, and waited until the metal sheet at the bottom was bent and caught by the mechanism, making a light click.
Then you have to gently place the metal clip in the rock passage.
Everyone's clips are placed conspicuously and irregularly, just to guard against wolves.
Afterwards, the people who had placed the clips loaded the supplies on the carriages onto the horses, and carefully led the horses to the middle of the passage, the stronghold under construction.
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On the stronghold side, the construction of a platform that allows people to stand on their feet is mainly made of rocks, ice and snow.
Because the ground is uneven, there is no need to deal with the ground of the channel. It is only necessary to sweep away the ice and snow on the ground first, and then place rocks of different sizes along the **** in sequence.
Small rocks at first, and then the bigger the slope, the bigger the rocks.
But it is impossible to use too large a stone, after all, even Knight Lanisa cannot carry tons of rocks in the inclined passage.
The old hunters built a fire with the wood they brought, and then used the small iron pot they carried to put the ice and snow they found into it and burn it. No need to boil it, just melt it into water.
Then pour the freshly melted cool water onto the rock platform.
The icy water slides down the cold rocks, and when it just flows down, it has been frozen into ice again by the air temperature and the cold rocks.
Everyone stuffed some small stones into the cracks of the rocks, and then shoveled off the frozen ice that flowed out, reheated and melted, and then watered.
In this way, the stones were repeatedly placed, poured with ice water and frozen into hard ice.
Everyone was busy, after a long time after dark, finally built four fairly stable platforms.
So, the four horses were driven to a platform and squeezed, and then they were wrapped in a cold-proof tarpaulin. After feeding, although the horses were squeezed together, they were all obediently clung to each other, standing still.
As for the remaining three platforms, everyone set up tents to live in.
Knight Lanisa has a small tent, and at the same time, many metal clips that have not been used up in the box are also placed around her tent, which can not only keep out the wind and keep warm, but also create an independent space for the female knight.
For others, smaller tents are joined together to create two larger tents on two separate platforms. All the hunters were crowded inside, although it was a bit crowded, but at least it was sheltered from the wind and rain, and it was still warm.
The cooking place was a depression cut directly by Knight Lanisa with her metal gun. In this way, a small iron pot is placed on the top, and a small fire can be raised below to heat it.
-
On the second day, everyone was divided into two teams again. One team continued to build a stable platform in the middle of the rocky passage, while the other group, led by Knight Lanisa, went to cut trees in the forest at the bottom of the mountain.
After cutting down two big trees, Knight Lanisa dragged a tree up by herself, and the others dragged a smaller tree up together. Naturally, the metal clips at the bottom of the passage were carefully moved to the corners on both sides of the passage, so as not to rub against the big tree.
The larger ones were chopped into blocks and used for heating.
The small ones are wrapped with ropes to make a simple wall of branches to keep out the wind.
There are no tools here, and things like planks have to be produced by the villagers at the previous supply point camp.
After the construction of the stronghold was almost completed today, Knight Lanisa returned to the supply point camp with a small number of people, and delivered more supplies there.
In this way, as long as there is not enough supplies at the advance base, you can go back and forth between the two bases within four or five days to replenish supplies.
The villagers only need to process the big trees felled by the knights into the materials needed by the hunters in the safe sentry tower camp.
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Ten days later.
After going back and forth three times, transporting a large amount of various materials, mainly processed wood, Kiel and the others have successfully established a safe stronghold in the rocky mountain stronghold.
The gate of the stronghold was specially built in the middle of the passage, next to the stronghold, and was not placed at the entrance of the passage down the mountain.
At the entrance, hunters placed most of the metal clips, and carefully placed the eaten meat food residues in the middle of the clips, luring all kinds of hungry animals to venture past.
The many dangerous metal clips placed here are for the northern land wolves to rush. The passage is narrow, and the wolves running on all fours will definitely try to come up along the passage in the subsequent battle. What does a trap tool look like.
Now that the advance rock mountain stronghold has been built, everyone can start the crusade against the northern wolves.
Since this stronghold was deep into the forest, Knight Lanisa led the hunters to start scouting around the rocky mountain stronghold.
Kiel was naturally in the team, and among the hunters, an old hunter who was recently unwell was left in the rocky mountain stronghold to look after Kiel's three horses and maintain the operation of the entire stronghold.
At least every day, check the entrance to the passage to see if any new animals have fallen under the metal clips.
At the same time, he can also make the construction of each platform more stable, so that everyone who comes back can sleep more comfortably.
-
Led by Knight Lanisa on horseback, followed by hunters (including Kiel), the difference between everyone coming out this time is that everyone is carrying a metal clip on their backs.
Although this thing is heavy, as long as you find the traces of the wolves, you can arrange it in front of you in advance, and shrink behind the clip to attack.
This may or may not be useful, but at least compared to what it was like before, it's an extra method, isn't it?
Kiel didn't bring a long sword to hunt this time, he left the long sword on the top of the rocky mountain, knocked a hole on the top platform, put the long sword hilt into the hole, and then used ice and snow to seal the long sword Frozen and fixed, the blade is straight to the sky.
He specially made the side with the church hymns face south, so that the sun can shine every day on the top of the mountain, if there is sun.
After walking in circles in the forest for a long time, they found some traces in the snow, but none of them belonged to wolves. Some of the trails are very weird, and Knight Lanisa told everyone not to follow the weird footprints to find trouble.
Even if it is her, you have to stay in awe in the forest, because you don't know what has been bred in these forests from ancient times to the present.
"Master Knight, you have to come over and take a look at the footprints here. It seems that something is wrong." While resting, a young hunter checked the footprints they had checked before.
"What's the problem, haven't you seen this~www.mtlnovel.com~the traces of a herd of wild boars." The knight went over, and everyone followed suit.
This is a large number of traces left by a family of wild boars after lying down in the snow in the forest. It is not just footprints. In order to find food under the snow, the wild boars turned over the snow and mud near the roots of the trees one by one. It must be a mess.
Although everyone has already discovered the existence of this wild boar when we went to the small circle before, but since these wild boars are still there, it means that there are no traces of wolves near this wild boar.
Because the northern land wolf, which is a circle larger than the wild wolves in other places, can hunt dangerous wild boars in the forest.
To other animals, the wild boar, no matter what kind, is a dangerous, violent and ferocious animal. But for the huge northern wolves that hunt in groups, ordinary wild boars are nothing more than delicious food that they can take down.
Everyone leaned over to watch, and the young hunter pointed around the roots of the tree that had been turned upside down by the boar.
"Look, everyone, I found that among the traces left by wild boars, there are also some wolf footprints mixed in. But there are not many of them." He said this, and then pointed at a spot with his bowed body, and he couldn't see it at all. Out came the traces of the footprints of wolves.
These traces are all hidden in the traces left by wild boars, and if you don't look carefully, you can't find them at all.
"Yes, the size of this footprint is indeed the footprint of a northern land wolf. After everyone spotted it, they all looked around to make sure how many northern land wolves were following the wild boars."
"yes."
Therefore, everyone centered on this trace and began to explore along the footprints, and found more footprints hidden in the traces of wild boars looking for food one after another.
"What a cunning animal." Keel said to himself.