Woody's guess was correct. Not long after, the escort brought back the news that the dire wolf had been driven away, and the convoy started moving again.
However, he still heard someone in the car in front complaining about why he stopped because he was afraid of a pack of wolves. Could it be that they dared to attack the convoy? How could the northerners be afraid of a pack of wolves, let alone wolves from the south.
"At that time, there were only five or six people in my convoy, but there were seven or eight of those dogs. But they still looked at me and left the valley helplessly, not even one of them daring to move."
Then he brags about his bravery when he encountered winter wolves in the North, and describes the so-called Northland killers, a group of creatures that are too cowardly to take action.
After all, the size of the Nudong Merchant Group is divided into: in addition to more than 30 guards, there are also 20 merchants, and no less than half a hundred servants, large and small, and coachmen, adding up to a hundred people.
Generally speaking, for common creatures and monsters in normal forests, the number of attackers must be five to ten times more than the number of attackers. Only then will the cowardly people muster up the courage, instead of being frightened into fleeing and attacking with a mob.
It's very appropriate to describe them.
But dire wolves are not included in this category, and Woody knows it.
But he had no interest in being a popular science teacher. However, as the sound of horse hooves stopped, a guard who had just passed by pulled the reins, forcing the maroon traveling horse to stop.
Obviously, the passing guard also heard the complaints from the businessmen in the carriage, but she was not like Woody, who was a bit "teachable." Or she looked down on these boastful businessmen who thought they were smart.
Therefore, a cold voice was heard coming from her mouth.
"Gwell, your little tricks may fool the winter wolf once, but you won't be so lucky next time!"
The speaker is a human female guard in her twenties, with a somewhat heroic appearance. Although her skin is not as smooth and fair as that of a noble due to years and adventures, her weather-beaten cheeks also give people a sense of dignity.
He has a calm and powerful sense of solidity, and his short chestnut hair looks neater, while his pair of lake-blue eyes are filled with anger at the moment, as if he doesn't like to hear other people commenting on the guard's decision-making.
Without waiting for the Gwell businessman in the carriage to reply, the female guard on the maroon horse continued.
"Also, dire wolves are not those smart winter wolves. They will go crazy if they see too many people! Put away your little little wisdom."
"Jona, I think you're the one who's going crazy, right? Isn't the dire wolf a wolf? Creatures don't know how to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, so how can they survive until now!"
In the carriage, a round head was also sticking out. The two mustaches were trembling due to the up and down collision of the lips. The squinted eyes were also very wide at this moment, looking in the direction of the female guard quite unhappily.
.
"You said it's okay to rush over, but will you be responsible for the loss of the caravan?"
Qiao Na's cold voice became even louder.
Obviously this was not the first time the two had quarreled, it was a case of old grudges.
Woody watched the bickering between the two parties with great interest. After all, this was a rare and interesting thing to pass the time during the business trip, and their voices also attracted many people to watch.
However, the person involved seemed to not want to argue because of the many eyes.
One person left the scene with a harsh word, and withdrew his head from the car window, leaving behind a group of people who were quite regretful and had their mouths smashed.
"Boss, are dire wolves really that powerful? I've been out for so many days and I haven't seen one yet."
Enom was asked by a young driver on his carriage. Apparently he had also heard the argument between the two of them just now. He didn't quite understand why dire wolves would not face large numbers of enemies like the winter wolves in the North.
Choose a truce.
"this……"
Enom was a bit at a loss for words, because even though he had traveled around for so long, creatures like dire wolves were only limited to being very troublesome and could not be easily provoked. They usually had no time to hide, so how could they understand them in depth.
But at this moment, a voice came, which immediately relieved him.
"Because they are different in nature, the dire wolf is a primitive wolf. It is said to be the ancestor of all wolves. It is a companion and guard dog specially created by the God of Giants for giants. Although with the decline of the age of giants, the number of wolves
It also dispersed, but its essence is different from the winter wolf that has evolved wisdom."
"The bigger and more they are in terms of size and number, the more excited they are. What the female guard just said is not wrong."
Although this male voice was only limited to a few meters of space, it still made everyone who heard it look askance.
After all, this kind of detailed argument cannot be explained by ordinary apprentices and businessmen who have never gone to school. Moreover, they also analyze the root cause and use one word to describe it, that is, it is simple and easy to understand, and they can understand why in one fell swoop.
Dire wolves cannot be provoked, but require a small force to drive them away.
"Not bad, Boy Woody."
Enom obviously knows how to hit a snake with a stick and said immediately.
"Yes, that's it! Do you understand, Kaqir?"
Kaqir was the young coachman who asked him just now, but he obviously did not stop because he was satisfied with the question, but continued to ask, but this time he worshiped and cast his longing eyes on the man who was following the carriage.
A dark-haired young man who is quite difficult to get along with.
"Then have you seen what a dire wolf looks like? What does it look like?"
"Well, it's a little bigger than this, a little longer, and the hair is lighter than this, black with brown, and a little silver on the chin. There is no other difference, except that the body is a little bigger. It is said that there are bigger ones, but I don't
See you."
Woody nonchalantly pointed to the grape he was sitting on and used it as a comparison to describe the size of the dire wolf.
However, his lack of concern aroused everyone's surprise.
"So big?"
"Wait a minute, Woody boy, are you telling the truth? Are dire wolves really that big?"
Although the guards have been seen before, most of the people in the caravan came into contact with business group managers, and they had a normal relationship with the guards whose eyes were higher than their noses. It was essentially an employment relationship, so what they heard from their mouths
Being fierce will at most be regarded as bragging, or used as a foil to describe how powerful you are.
But Woody's words suddenly became credible with the previous evidence.
After all, they had seen giants occasionally when climbing over the mountain. Their huge size was intimidating. Moreover, there were two half-giant guards in the Nudong Merchant Group. Unlike riding horses, they were walking all the way.
The three-meter-high carriage only reaches its neck, and ordinary horses cannot bear their weight.
And it seems that their guard dogs should not be the same size as humans.
In this era without the Internet, unlike players who can come back after death, most of the aboriginal people who have witnessed it live or die are uncertain, and the appearance of most monsters is only limited to oral accounts.
Compared with goblins and kobolds, this kind of authenticity is all kinds of confusing. Exaggeration and rhetorical techniques are endless in various places. The size of a dragon can even be exaggerated to hundreds of meters or even a thousand meters, but in fact, the size of an adult dragon
The largest red dragon is only 278 meters from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail. The old dragon in the southern mountains is only 69 meters according to the naked eye observation ranking by the good people on the forum.
One hundred meters is an exaggeration, but it is excusable to a certain extent.
After all, just looking at this length may not be much of a deterrent, but you have to know that, like birds, the wingspan of most giant dragons exceeds their own body length, and the wingspan of an adult dragon of more than 20 meters is
It is definitely more than thirty meters, and can even reach forty meters. In this way, when it lands, the shadow area it occupies is more than 600 square meters. Some alien dragons of the same age can even reach thousands.
You know, about 20 people can stand in one square meter. At that time, human beings were like ants looking at gods. It is not incomprehensible to exaggerate.
But in essence, the biggest source of fear actually comes from the unknown. Once you know it, you are actually not so afraid.
This is also the reason why spell casters appear extremely calm when faced with any situation.
Woody calmly glanced at the luxury carriage in the center of the caravan. From the moment it stopped to now, it gradually restored order and set off again. The carriage remained the same, without any sound or movement, giving people a sense of otherworldliness.
Feel.
The young coachman Kaqir wanted to continue exploring, but was immediately stopped by the carriage merchant Enom.
"Okay, let's set off, Kaqir, don't ask any more questions, we have to rush to the nearest town to spend the night later."
As he spoke, Enom showed a manly smile that everyone around him could understand.
The sound of horse hooves and the turning of axles sounded in the forest again. It had been eight hours since leaving Palermo and two hours since entering the Whispering Forest. It was definitely impossible to cross it.
Most caravans spend the night in the wilderness and will ask their guards to identify a good camping spot in advance for camping in the wild, but this time the towns in the Whispering Forest allow them to solve their worries.
"Green Creek, I remember the fruit wine and roast rabbit were particularly delicious there."
Kaqir obviously had a particularly deep memory of the town when he came, but his words made everyone laugh.
"Little Kaqir, do you want me to take you to other pubs today?"
A big barbarian man sitting on top of the cargo and escorting the cargo laughed loudly.
"Kun, don't lead him astray, there is a beautiful girl waiting for him in the North."
"What's the use of your little money? The money you earned from going to several towns in one night is gone."
Enom casually scolded a booing carriage helper and teased him. Of course, before Kaqir showed his gratitude, his patron showed the same smile.
"Be patient and wait until Losente. The lovely girls there are cheap. By then it won't be a problem to have two."
"Hahaha~"
Laughter rang out in the forest, and Woody stared forward. Listening to their banter and embarrassing stories revealed to each other, the original melancholy of parting was diluted a lot.
very nice.
Until the sun set in the west, and when the orange light of the setting sun coated the leaves of the cypress trees with a layer of light, someone in the motorcade exclaimed.
"Almost to Green Creek Town!"
Enom also poked his head out of the resting car, looked around casually, and nodded with a smile.
"We are indeed almost there, there is still a mile to go, little Kaqir, I will take you to eat something delicious later."
Woody also took a casual look and found that although the forest was no different from the previous dense forest, the colors and outlines of the leaves of these trees were obviously more different from the others. The trunks were thick and the leaves were like crescent moons.
Dee recognized it.
——"Blood Kui Tree"
This is a "vampire tree" in southern folklore that can suck human blood. However, in the mouths of spellcasters or in the eyes of adventurers who often travel north and south, this is actually just a normal natural phenomenon. Like Venus flytraps, they like to take advantage of it.
The fragrance emitted by the body attracts birds that are nesting, resting, or looking for food. It is not actually harmful to humans.
However, the roots of some trees are not covered with green lichen and moss, but are replaced by colorful flowers.
Moreover, the alternation of old and new bark on these tree trunks formed a distinct line of imprints. However, due to the distance, he could not see clearly whether the imprints were depicting words or emblems.
"This is... a tombstone."
As he got closer, when he saw that the mark on the tree trunk was an obvious enlarged byte, which combined was "Maria", Woody suddenly recalled in his mind that this was a typical tree tomb.
In Asenland, unlike humans in hilly areas, the residents who have lived in the forest for a long time will not choose to bury the body in the earth after someone dies. They think that this will be disturbed by wild creatures and will not lead to peace.
Therefore, they like to place the corpse in the cavity of the vampire tree, allowing the tree to absorb it and grow with the tree. In their opinion, this is a manifestation of tranquility.
But this also caused some unfamiliar strangers to see the undigested bones and think of them as a kind of monster that caught people and ate them.
As for this kind of tree species, generally only in places close to small towns can there be such a group of specially transplanted trees.
It's indeed coming soon.
Woody didn't know much about Green Creek Town. He knew there was such a place, but at that time, he didn't know if it was the influence of Palermo. This area, or that it relied on Palermo's transit
Most of the towns along the trade routes were abandoned.
When he passed through the Whispering Forest, all he saw at that time were moss-covered and tattered walls and dilapidated houses that had long been repaired by no one. If it weren't for the town of Green Creek carved in stone, he might not have even known he had been there.
Pass here.
Soon, the convoy turned up a mountain road at a fork in the forest, and the outline of a small town gradually emerged from the depths of the dense forest.
Gradually they saw the wall, and everyone was ready to go in and rest.
But when Woody entered the town wall that was double reinforced with logs, he found something different. The bonfire in the brazier was already burning before it went down the mountain, and the number of militiamen was larger than any other town he had seen before.
, there are much more, there are twenty or thirty people on one wall, and including those who rest during the day, almost three to four hundred troops are invested.
Inside the town, unlike the brightly lit taverns and residents in the past, which were ready to welcome caravans, today's Green Creek Town appears to be more open and quiet. Almost every household has closed its doors and windows, and the only ones that are lit are a few taverns and
hostel.
It was as if there was an invisible mist lingering over the entire Green Creek town, looking desolate and dead.
Unlike others who were puzzled and confused, Woody's brows furrowed.
Could it be that the town of Green Creek ended not because of the destruction of Palermo, but because of other reasons?
In his mind, he began to think crazily about the various events that occurred in Palermo. Although he could not know the tasks for each town, if it could affect a town or even be the main factor in its ruin, then expand to the surrounding areas.
It is an inevitable event.
Soon, the Nudong Business Group checked into a hotel in the center of the town. Many people flocked to the tavern, and Woody followed him in order to understand the situation. It was not his nature to sit back and wait for death. The best place to collect information was
Tavern.
But before he could ask any questions, the big man from the caravan who arrived earlier started shouting.
"Why is there no rum in the pub?"
"What kind of tavern would you open without rum?"
"It was still there when I came last time? What happened?"
The helpless voice of the tavern owner soon came.
"There is no other way. The Anthropod tribe has cut off the other trade route into the Whispering Forest. Now the town is not safe, let alone the transportation of supplies. The other families don't have rum. The only thing left to drink is dark beer.
."
Woody frowned slightly when he heard the words "man-eating ape".
