Black Shield City, the territory of Guy, one of the three lords in the east of the Kingdom of Yas.
If Lu Yu had not come in person, it would be difficult for Lu Yu to believe that this Black Shield City was not a simple military castle, but a large city-state no less big than the King of Yas.
The kingdom's supplies are continuously imported into Black Shield City from the rear, and then transferred to the other two cities through Black Shield City.
Running such a huge city, which is also an important border area and a material transfer center, Duke Guy is definitely a die-hard loyalist of Yas III.
It took five days for the nobles who participated in the competition to arrive at Black Shield City. Guy did not even come forward to meet anyone, but casually sent his men to give them accommodation.
The only person who was interviewed by Guy was Lu Yu.
A group of cavalry escorted Lu Yu and Lulutis to a tower on the outer city wall.
In the tower, a burly man in black armor saw Lu Yu arriving, waved his hand, and dismissed the people around him, leaving only a few close friends.
The left side of Guy's face had a large horrific scar burned by the flames, making every expression on Guy's face full of ferocity.
Guy spent more than a minute looking at Lu Yu and Sigrid while looking at the letter in his hand.
Lu Yu said nothing, looking at him calmly, and even looked at the scars on his face with interest.
"Are you interested in my scars?" Guy put down the letter in his hand and raised his head.
"I once heard that Duke Guy's scar was caused by a Goblin Archmage. Just before departure, His Majesty told me that there was also a Goblin Archmage near the area where the noble competition was held."
Guy waved his hand, dismissed the remaining guards, and closed the tower door.
Sigrid became alert and slowly retreated to a position against the wall.
"Marquis of Seris, if you don't mind, I will call you by your first name."
"please."
Guy sat down, touched the scar on his face lightly, and said: "His Majesty stated bluntly in the letter that if you are willing to find the Goblin Archmage, let the Black Shield Knights cooperate with your actions."
"If you don't want to do anything, I have sent people to prepare a safe place in Black Shield City. What happened the night before departure will definitely not happen again."
Lu Yu smiled and said: "It seems that the news spreads very quickly. Is there a storm in the city of King Yasi now?"
"No, His Majesty has no intention of pursuing it, and asked me to apologize to you in the letter."
"It doesn't matter, I also know the final result will be this."
On the night before setting off to the east, Lu Yu was attacked.
Late at night, four assassins sneaked into Lu Yu's mansion.
Holding compasses that can scan out magic traps, they dispelled several magic circles arranged by Lulutis along the way, and climbed into the house through the backyard window.
With the help of the compass, everything went smoothly. As long as they reached the bedroom on the second floor, they could kill Lu Yu and Sigrid in their sleep.
If they didn't step on the bear trap used to hunt giant bears.
After the assassins learned that the target of the assassination was a magician, they focused all their attention on various small magic traps.
The traps set by Lulutis are on both sides of the wall, basically at the eye level of normal adults, and are very easy to detect.
The assassins who were focused on these traps would not have thought that lying on the dark ground was a bear trap that was set to be triggered only when the magic trap disappeared.
The bear trap that Sigrid brought back was specially made by the Adventurer's Guild for hunting large monsters and beasts. The lethality caused by the trigger is enough to crush hard boulders.
No matter how dedicated an assassin is, he will scream when his legs are cut off by a trap.
Lulutis woke up and held the magic core in her hand, opening all the traps on the second floor.
The assassin rushed to the second floor and planned to kill Lu Yu, but what he faced was a flow of magical light that was like light pollution.
The unlucky guy whose legs were broken was the only survivor and was taken away by Duke Buckman who arrived after dawn.
The attack made Yas III furious, and he even went into the dungeon himself to interrogate the assassin.
However, the only unlucky guy who survived just got paid to do things through an intermediary and had no idea who the employer was.
So, when Lu Yu left the royal city, he witnessed a burning ceremony, which was the wrath of Yas III.
"No, I plan to give it a try. I'm very interested in the corrosive fluid of the Salamander."
Seeing that Lu Yu was resolute, Guy told Lu Yu some information about the goblin underground palace outside Black Shield City and Luotan Plain in advance, and gave Lu Yu a map with the goblin active areas.
Before leaving, Guy reminded: "Although I heard that you have traveled a lot and are rich in experience, I still want to warn you... With your current injured body, you cannot deal with the Goblin Archmage. It is very strong."
Lu Yu naturally knew that he didn't want to fight a monster that might already be at the gold level. In order to prevent him from accidentally bumping into the opponent, Lu Yu also asked Lulutis to prepare a speed-enhancing potion to run first-rate.
Back at his residence, Lu Yu moved a cart full of medicines into the house and stayed behind closed doors.
Two days later, the goblin hunting competition officially began, and the noble children led their teams out of the city one after another.
Before leaving the city, they searched the crowd for a long time, but could not find any trace of Lu Yu.
Maroni gritted his teeth in hatred.
Lu Yu was so excited that they had to come to the Eastern Frontier, but this guy shrank during this competition?
What a complete villain!
But Lu Yu could shrink, but they couldn't.
The adventurers and knights of Black Shield City are watching their every move. If you just sit back and wait for the people below to harvest people's heads and enjoy the benefits yourself, you will still be looked down upon when it comes to the royal city.
What's more, when things have reached this stage, they are no longer competing with Lu Yu.
With so many families forced to participate, killing goblins has become a competition for family heritage.
No one wants to lose, everyone wants to be first.
Rewards are secondary, the face of the nobles is the most important.
One day later, the nobles who had set out returned covered in blood, with several goblin heads hanging on their horses.
Although the guards who accompanied him were not injured, several of them were seriously injured and fell off their horses as soon as they arrived in the city.
Several of them had arrow wounds on their backs, and some even had their armor shattered by magic, leaving them bloody and bloody.
The team of more than 20 people captured only 17 goblins in total.
Several groups of nobles returned one after another, and the most brought back twenty-nine goblin heads, while the few brought back only three.
The important thing is that the nobles who returned later, including Maroni, who had captured more heads, have begun to reduce their numbers in the team.
No family is ill-prepared. Each of these nobles started with four or five cars of props.
People like Lu Yu who only transport one cart of medicine are an outlier.
Sigrid, who was doing the final shopping before departure, told Lu Yu the news. Lu Yu just thought about it carefully and then showed a look of understanding.
"It turns out that the biggest trap in the competition rules formulated by Yas III is buried here."
"Trap?" Sigrid asked curiously, "Master refers to the head of the goblin?"
"Yes, to prove that you have indeed hunted goblins, you must submit a corresponding number of goblin heads. So the question is, how do you obtain this head?"
Sigrid didn't understand Lu Yu's question and replied stupidly: "Isn't it obtained by killing goblins?"
"I mean, how should they behead people?" Lu Yu continued to explain, "According to the information Duke Guy gave us, although most of the underground palaces have spacious entrances, the passages will become narrow as the space continues to go deeper.
This limits the choice of weapons and forces the entire formation to be broken up into small teams."
"This also leads to the fact that in a narrow area, the only people who actually come into contact with the enemy are the warriors standing at the front. How much damage he can cause to the goblins means how much he can gain."
Sigrid carefully recalled that among the noble team that had just returned, the most seriously injured were indeed the shield guards and warriors carrying shields.
"In a narrow space, if you want to help the warrior at the front to catch up and cover his advance, the long-range output from the rear must maintain high accuracy. Both archers and mages need to consider the issue of accidental injuries when attacking."
"You just saw many soldiers with injuries behind them. They are most likely teammates..."
Lu Yu glanced at the medicinal powder under the medicine pestle. It was not fine enough and needed to be pounded further.
"Let's continue to think about the scene just now. We experienced a fierce battle in the underground palace where the light was not enough, and barely managed to defeat the goblin. Now it's time to behead the goblin."
"The Goblins are very familiar with the underground palace they built. If you temporarily repel the opponent, the opponent will quickly gather reinforcements and return. And you, when cleaning the battlefield, beheaded a large number of Goblins. One or two of these heads are nothing, but more than one in number
It becomes quite heavy, and if you take into account the armor that everyone must wear for safety, everyone is equivalent to running with a heavy load in the enemy's hometown."
"And don't forget, Black Shield City is far away from the goblin underground palace. If the goblins counterattack, the cavalry outside Black Shield City will not be able to rescue them immediately."
Passing the pounded medicinal ingredients to Lulutis, Lu Yu took a sip of water and sat aside, admiring the multi-threaded operation of Lulutis' tentacles.
Lulutis couldn't help but want to joke: "According to what you said, there are only three of us. Aren't we looking for death by going to the underground palace?"
"Who said that? I think our configuration is quite reasonable. Sigrid kills in the front row, and I put a magic shield on her in the back to compensate for the fatal damage, and you can wrap your tentacles around the two of us and control us at any time.
With our position, the extra tentacles can take the opportunity to poison us."
There are warriors who are also tanks, there are mages who are part-time summoners, and there are auxiliaries who are part-time poisoners. This lineup is sufficient no matter how you look at it.
"Okay, but those nobles who hate you for setting up traps and harming others may not want to do something to you. We have to deal with goblins and nobles. We are in big trouble."
"Also, we can't carry away a large number of goblin heads. How do you plan to solve this problem?"
Lu Yu said calmly: "I have already thought of a way to do this, just wait and see."