The Karl Continent is extremely hot in summer. Even in this place in the far north of the continent, the average temperature exceeds 30 degrees.
Due to the continuous baking of the sun, the ground on the road was covered with dust, and a strong wind blew through and stirred up sand all over the sky.
When the wind and sand dispersed, a figure gradually emerged from the wind and sand. This person was wearing a hermit robe, and his face was completely hidden under the shadow of the big cloak of the hermit robe.
See an outline.
On this scorching day, this man's alternative attire was particularly eye-catching, but he seemed to be unable to feel the eyes of passers-by and kept walking on his own. Yes, this man was Paul.
It has been a month since Paul left Manchester City. During this period, Paul has completed nine letter delivery tasks. If he completes the letter delivery task at hand, he can
Successfully became an E-class mercenary.
At first, Paul was full of doubts about this kind of task of delivering letters. He wondered why there was no special national communication station to send letters, but they had to be delivered by issuing tasks.
It wasn't until later that he couldn't help his curiosity and entered a national post station, only to find out that although the national message post station could send messages very quickly, it was surprisingly expensive.
A letter delivery task in the mercenary guild only costs twenty copper coins, but if the letter is delivered through the national communication station, then each letter will have to pay at least ten silver coins in transportation fees. I wonder who the ordinary people can use it.
of.
Moreover, letters sent by the state must be opened and checked. After all, in this war-torn continent, the monarch of any country will pay special attention to the movements of the people around him, and communication control has naturally become a common thing.
But with the emergence of communication control, some problems have emerged. After all, not all people can tolerate their personal letters being read at will by others, such as some communications between lovers and greetings between relatives.
, who would want others to read these letters as if they were stories.
Therefore, the task of delivering letters was born. Although there is no guarantee when the letter entrusting the task will arrive, at least there is no need to worry about the content inside being read by outsiders.
The mercenary guild is also happy with its success, because there are not many mercenary tasks suitable for entry-level mercenaries. With these message delivery tasks, it will increase its business volume.
Nowadays, many high-level mercenaries or mercenary groups will take on some letter delivery tasks while taking on other tasks. After all, no matter how small a mosquito is, it is nothing but meat.
In order to avoid some unnecessary troubles, Paul gradually left the main road and took a remote side road.
Thinking of those little troubles, Paul couldn't help but shake his head secretly. Karl Continent is indeed a continent that is still in a period of war. Paul has only been walking on the continent for a month, and he has encountered dozens of incidents, large and small.
The incident of robbery on the road occurred in a barren and remote place like the Principality of Nice.
These thieves were not the thieves that Paul had met before. The thieves that Paul had met before were all professionals with professional levels. They made a living by accepting tasks issued by the Thieves Guild and joining mercenary groups as scouts.
The thieves mentioned here are all kinds of people. Some are farmers who were bullied by local lords and really can't survive. Some are deserters who surrendered during wars in other countries. In short, they are
There are all kinds of people.
When ordinary business groups and travelers encounter the first type of thieves, it's easy to say that as long as they don't resist with force, these thieves will not kill people and just leave after taking the money.
But if you encounter the second type, it will be annoying. Not only do they want money, but they also kill people, set fires, kidnap women, and so on. Of course, Paul is not afraid of these thieves, but they are not troublesome anyway. As for the second type, it is better to say, just kill them
That’s it, but what about the first type of peasant thieves?
Giving money is definitely not possible. Paul didn't bring much money when he came out this time. The main expenses along the way were the twenty copper coins each time he received from the letter delivery mission. Although these rewards are not much, for someone like Paul,
It is enough for cultivators with low consumption.
As for beating? Sorry, Paul really can't do that. After all, these thieves were once poor people who were forced to die out of desperation. After all, who would be willing to do such a scolding job if they could still survive!
Although the governments of various countries have tried their best to deal with the existence of these bandit groups and sent a large number of troops to encircle and suppress them every year, as long as there is war on the mainland, these thieves' banditry will never be completely eradicated.
.
But can there be no war on the continent? Paul quickly came to the conclusion: No chance! On such a large continent, which is larger than the total area of the earth, there are countless countries, large and small, and ten of them will fight with other countries.
Countries have certain disputes, and most of them are feuding countries.
Even in the so-called peace period in the past few years, conflicts between countries will occasionally occur, but the impact of the conflict has not yet reached the level when the five empires went to war.
Do you expect peace on such a continent? Paul sometimes doubted whether he would live to see that day.
Therefore, in the end, all countries gave up on encircling and suppressing the thieves. At most, when the thieves made too much trouble, they sent some soldiers to show off and then left it alone.
And the thieves gradually became smarter. As soon as the national army came out, they would immediately hide and wait until the national army withdrew before returning.
In this way, the game of cat and mouse has been going on for who knows how many years, but it is precisely because of the popularity of thieves that the mercenary industry has emerged.
However, Paul does not have the leisure to care about these messy things now, and he does not have any great ideals to unify the continent. Although it is said that people in the world care about the affairs of the world, Paul is not a person in the world. He is a cultivator and a figure outside the country.
Things like fighting for world supremacy have nothing to do with him.
Paul just wants to help the people around him within his ability. Besides, no matter which world, the history of human evolution is a history of war, and Paul does not want to hinder the pace of human evolution.
With these messy thoughts spinning in his mind, Paul strolled onto a forest path. The reason why he chose this path was because although this path required a lot of detours, it was better than
It's remote enough.
During this period of letter delivery mission, Paul has figured out the patterns of some thieves' groups. Large-scale thieves' groups usually rob on the main roads, while small and medium-sized thieves' groups usually rob on some side roads. As for Paul's current situation,
On this narrow path, no thieves would have any idea.
After all, even riding a horse on such a narrow path is strenuous, let alone taking a caravan carriage. The people who take these small paths are generally just ordinary travelers or bards, and most of these people are also
They are all poor and scumbag owners, and thieves naturally look down on this kind of prey, so this kind of path has become the safest way, but of course it is not absolute. Just like what Paul encountered now.
The so-called blessing is not a curse, but a curse cannot be avoided. Paul once again deeply understood the correctness of the wise sayings of the ancients. It is true that when trouble comes, there is no way to avoid it.
Not long after Paul walked onto the forest trail, he heard faint shouts of killing coming from in front of him. This caught Paul's attention. You should know that on this type of forest trail, don't usually say...
It's a thief. Even ordinary passers-by may not encounter one in most of the day. But now judging from the bursts of shouts of death coming from the front, there are definitely a lot of people over there, at least thousands.
People are fighting.
It's not Paul's style to run away when trouble comes. Although Paul also hates trouble, he will feel uneasy if he doesn't look at it if he encounters it.
So Paul unfolded his body and quickly moved towards the place where the shouts of death came from. As the shouts of kill gradually became clearer, the scene of the battlefield gradually unfolded in front of Paul's eyes.
I saw a protective circle composed of more than a hundred people in the battlefield, protecting a young girl in the middle, resisting the opponent's waves of attacks.
What attacked this protective circle was a gang of nearly 800 thieves. Judging from the corpses scattered on the ground, the original number of people in this gang of thieves who attacked should be around 1,500. This is already a quite large group.
A gang of thieves.
You must know that every thieves group that reaches a certain scale will occupy some quite large traffic arteries and will not easily leave their sphere of influence.
How could such a large gang of thieves abandon their original sphere of influence and come to such a deserted place to carry out robberies? Paul was puzzled.
After Paul carefully studied the fighting situation between the two sides for a while, he was even more shocked. This thieves group obviously advanced and retreated in a controlled manner, which was not comparable to ordinary thieves groups. Even ordinary thieves groups composed of stragglers were inferior to them.
Far less than that, obviously due to long-term formal training. Rather than saying that these people are a band of thieves, it is more appropriate to say that they are like regular troops.
The strength shown by the guards who guarded the little girl shocked Paul even more. All of them, about a hundred people, were composed of professionals of level six or above, and two of them had at least reached the level of magic.
A wizard-level magician.
If the band of thieves is like a regular army, then these people are the elite of the elite. From Paul's point of view, if it were not to protect the girl who was protected in the middle from harm, I am afraid that what these people showed would be
The fighting power has long since broken through.
Paul was not stupid. He immediately saw that this was a premeditated strangulation. One side could mobilize troops, and the other side could send hundreds of professionals of level six or above. It seems that both sides have strong backends!
At this moment, Paul hesitated, whether to care or not. Paul didn't want to get involved in some inexplicable events.