Blood tax

Chapter 42
The lingering fragrance, the wonderful touch, and something else...

Griffith lifted the quilt and looked up at the sky.The morning light had broken through the soft mist by the sea.He rubbed his face, and there seemed to be an aftertaste feeling in his heart.

I seem to have missed something last night...

what's going on?Forget it, I'm going to ask Kroger for potions class materials today.

During the lunch break, Griffith knocked on the wooden door of the hut.

"Look, who's coming! Come in, my little friend." Kroger, who was as tall as a giant, immediately invited him into the room.

"Mr. Kroger, come and taste these wines!" Griffith said while presenting a welcome gift, "Associate Professor Velonos made a list, and the Potions course requires me to collect these supplementary materials within a week."

"Oh, are you looking for these things? You can find some on the edge of the Whispering Forest, but it's against the school rules for you to go there."

If there is a professor or your leader, then it must not violate the school rules, right?Griffith murmured to himself, waiting silently for the ranger to finish.

Kroger took a sip of wine and then said: "Don't worry little kid, I'll go collect materials, these magical plants crave the afterglow of the sunset, and are best to look for at dusk. If you want, can you do it when I leave? Time to supervise these hired hands? I have a few new lads who will fight and cause trouble if we are not careful. Leave the work to the hired hands, our job is to supervise their work and protect them.

"The one headed by this group of lads is named Root. He is a smart guy. For their safety, the school allows them to carry some weapons, so we can't let them hurt each other, let alone let them enter the campus."

Griffith naturally understood this.The heavy school work at Homonwarts is very labor-intensive, and professors and officials have their own budgets and personnel rights, which are specially used to hire foreign workers they fancy to serve them.

These outsiders are naturally under strict supervision, and they must not be allowed to offend the distinguished students.On the other hand, some jobs are still dangerous, and attacks by out-of-control magical devices, familiars, and even mutant creatures in the forest are also common.

Griffith walked out of the hut and went to a nearby farm to watch the hired workers from a distance.Although Kroger is not welcomed by noble mages, he still has a lot of authority within his scope of work, and all the people he invites are agile and strong.

They tended pumpkin patches, dewormed trees or built lawns.When they saw Griffith and the Homonwarts school badge flashing on his coat, most people looked away and continued to do their own work.However, there are also a few people who secretly look up at him from time to time.

……

For the next week, Griffith started going to Kroger's cabin on time every night before dinner.The tall forest ranger carefully found a lot of herbs and materials, not only to meet the needs of the course, but also to make Griffith drift away.

When there is no task, Griffith can review the lessons of the day by himself and live quite easily.

On the evening of the fourth day, Kroger, who had just eaten dinner, hurriedly put on his package, picked up his heavy crossbow, pushed open the door and walked out.He just remembered something when he walked to the door, turned his head to the apprentice knight and said: "Well, my friend, I have to go out tonight to do some business, private business, can you help me guard the hut? Before eight o'clock I'll be back."

Griffith stood up immediately, "Is there anything I need to pay attention to?"

The ranger scratched his head and looked at the hut where the employees lived outside the house: "It's nothing, just don't let those ordinary people enter the Whispering Forest, they are all naughty. However, it shouldn't be difficult to subdue them with your strength!"

After saying this, Kroger seemed to put his mind down, nodded and left without waiting for Griffith's reply.

Well...just a few hours, it should be fine.

In the past few days, in order to help the rangers at the edge of the Whispering Forest, Griffith has applied to the school for small shields, sabers, battle axes and heavy spears to fight against large creatures.He glanced at the neatly tidied bed and the javelin piled in the corner, nodded with satisfaction, raised his legs on the wooden table and continued to read his book.

The late autumn sunset gradually slanted westward, and it didn't take long for the sky to dim.Griffith flipped through the book leisurely, and after a while, feeling thirsty, he jumped out of his chair and scooped a spoonful of water into the water tank.

Through the small window of the hut, Griffith could see the well-kept pumpkin patch and the longhouse where the hired workers lived. It was quiet and harmonious, like a picture scroll of idyllic scenery.

"..."

The situation is not right!

At this moment, Griffith suddenly noticed something strange, he put on his armor quickly, grabbed the saber and spear beside him and rushed out.

Kroger's nine adult male employees live in a longhouse not far away.Griffith saw them pick radishes, potatoes and pumpkins from the fields for dinner several times, and they would play cards and rest at the farm in twos and threes after they were full.

But tonight it was unusually quiet, and the hired hands seemed to disappear with the rangers.

Griffith quickly checked the road to the Homonwarts campus.The magic barrier and the alarm circle set up there to stop the hired workers were intact, and there was no sign of the academy's coat of arms to pass through, and there was no sign of being triggered.He hurriedly turned and ran towards the fence at the edge of the Whispering Forest.

In the clearing at the edge of the forest, the forest ranger had long erected a sturdy low wall that was one person high.Along the inner side of the low wall, there is a specially cleared path. Even the weeds have been pulled out from the soft mud. If anything crosses here, it will inevitably leave footprints on the soil.

Sure enough, a series of messy footsteps remained on the soil inside the low wall.Judging from the footprints and the wet mud on the low wall, it didn't take long for the hired workers to climb over the low wall and enter the forest.

Griffith's first reaction was to immediately return to the school to report.But the thought that followed stopped him.

In the huts of the hired workers, he had seen them carrying weapons such as two-handed swords, crossbows, and giant axes. They were not ordinary good citizens.Maybe they came here waiting for such an opportunity to enter the forest.

What do they want to do?Griffith sorted out his weapons and jumped over the low wall.

……

The footsteps of the employees are clear and unambiguous.They have no plans to hide their whereabouts, rushing towards a certain goal.Griffith did not follow the trail very far when he found suspicious signs near a damp depression.

Although this is the edge of the raving forest, the sun is about to set at this time, and the tall and dense dark black tree canopy blocks the light overhead, and can only barely see the surrounding scene.

Suddenly a large fallen tree trunk appeared on the path.Near the rough wood, a strange tall thorn grows here in an orderly manner, extending from the path the hired workers pass through to the woods on both sides.Griffith checked along the thorns and found that these plants were intentionally planted into a ring up to three meters thick, surrounding the depression in front.

Is this Kroger's?Griffith cut the thorns in front of him with a dagger, and was surprised to find that the plant was very tough and difficult to cut off.The thorns on the thorns are as hard and long as iron cones. If you try to climb over them without tools, you may lose your life.

This is a cage.

Like the fence of a sheep pen on a farm, this thorn is used to imprison certain creatures.The only way out was the giant tree on the path where the hired workers left their footprints.

Griffith checked the fallen tree again and found fresh marks left by the axe, and the branches and leaves on the trunk showed no signs of withering. It seemed that the hired workers had just cut it down to use as a bridge.

As for the inside of the thorn cage, there must be some hidden creatures raised, and the hired workers may want to steal it.

interesting.Griffith stepped on the giant tree, hurried over the thorns, and walked towards the inner woodland.

Before walking far, a pond with a large area appeared in the field of vision.There were faint black fishes in the pool, showing their pale and sharp teeth towards Griffith on the shore.

Sawfish.Griffith immediately recognized the fish in the pool and shivered involuntarily.

This strange fish lives in the swamps of the East and feeds on all living things.Their reproduction rate is extremely fast, and hundreds of thousands attack together when they are looking for food.In the Eastern Legion, soldiers in heavy armor accidentally fell into the swamp where they lived. When they were rescued, they were already a pile of skeletons hung with scrap copper and iron, and it took less than half a minute.

Griffith took two steps back, looked at the situation of the pond water, and found that the pond was only about [-] meters in diameter, and it was a closed puddle in the forest.

Ravenous and ferocious, the jagged but stinky flesh is a staple of some of the more ferocious monsters of the swamp.It is impossible for them to survive in such a small space for a long time with their food intake and reproduction speed, and someone must keep them here.As for the purpose of raising these ferocious fish, it must be feeding some more ferocious creatures with them.

Is it...

Griffith can probably guess what kind of monster the master here will be.

At this moment, there was an earth-shattering roar from the forest.The roar was ferocious and angry, filled with the ancient and terrifying aura of the Great Desolation, and even the strange fish in the pool in front of him was frightened to the point of boiling.

Griffith's heart skipped a beat, and he was shocked by the roar and fell into a short-term confusion.Fortunately, there was no direct threat beside him, and he regained his composure within a moment, and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

This is the roar of the mountain monster.

This unusually strong and ferocious large monster lives in the high mountains and mountains in the southeast of the Tranquility Sea.They are more than four meters high, have hard skin like steel and terrifying strength, can pull out the trunks of century-old giant trees in the forest as weapons, and are almost immune to blunt weapon damage. Only ballistas and heavy spears can effectively injure them. Body.

The mountain monster's intelligence is relatively low, and it looks like a walking meat mountain.But if you ignore it, you will pay a heavy price.They have agility and explosiveness that is disproportionate to their size, and can quickly grab and tear their attacking enemies to shreds.Compared with mountain monsters, goblin trolls are just an inferior subspecies, and the weak ones are not worth mentioning.

When he guessed that there were monsters hidden in this thorn cage, Griffith had already predicted what would appear, but he did not expect it to be such a terrifying beast as a mountain monster.He quickly recalled the abilities of this monster and realized that even the most common mountain monsters possess three or more Beyonder characteristics, including but not limited to:

Heartbreaking.The roar of the mountain monster hunting can make small creatures instinctively fear, cause short-term dizziness, and have a certain chance to run away due to fear, followed by no less than ten seconds of slow movement.It is through this ability that the monster is able to prey on the dangerous sawfish.

Terrifying power.The mountain monster can smash hard rocks or pull out trees with huge roots, and throw or swing it as a weapon; its attack has a concussion effect, and human armor cannot defend against its attack at all. Internal bleeding.

Burst shot.Although mountain monsters are not good at long-range attacks, they can accurately and continuously throw stones and trees to attack in a very short period of time, with high accuracy and large-scale splash damage.

Certain mountain monsters have been trained to have other kinds of powers that are beyond Griffith's knowledge.Just a strong body and the above three abilities have already made the mountain monster stand above most monsters and beasts and become another kind of existence——

"Legendary creature!"

In a close one-on-one situation, even the world-famous knights and mages have to consider whether they can survive from the hands of the mountain monsters.

The roar had just stopped, followed by the screams of human beings, and even the earthquake that shook the ground and the mountains.

It's the employees.

Griffith is a little puzzled. The environment here is obviously specially designed by a strong man who can play with mountain monsters. It is specially built to raise mountain monsters for a short period of time. Then these foreign hired workers are How to know the secret of the mountain monster, and why dare to challenge this fierce beast.

The screams in the forest began to become more and more frightening.Griffith hurriedly wiped himself with the wet mud from the pond, took off the spear on his back, and groped for the place where the sound came from.

Under a big tree not far from the pond, Griffith first spotted a hired hand.Broken pieces of wood and metal were stuck on this man's body, and he could vaguely tell that it was a heavy crossbow.

Heavy crossbows can deal damage to the troll's eyes and some weak spots at the right angle and distance.The hirelings had obviously arranged for the heavy crossbowmen to ambush for this purpose, and most of them succeeded.But the shooter did not escape the revenge of the mountain monster.Griffith searched around, and found that there was still a boulder not far away, with traces of flesh and blood on it, which should have been used by the mountain monster to attack the shooter.

It's getting late.The moonlight casts on the clearing at the edge of the Whispering Forest, as if enjoying the tragedy in the forest.

(End of this chapter)