Kingdom’s Bloodline

view all

Recently ReadCategoriesFantasyFantasyMartial ArtsXianxiaScience FictionSpiritualHistoryMilitaryUrban RomanceModern RomanceCampus RomanceAncient RomanceGirls ChannelClassic American LiteratureTraveling Time and SpaceOnline GamesCompetitive FictionFellow UncategorizedQuick NavigationHomepage

\u003eFantasy Fantasy

\u003eKingdom Blood

\u003eChapter 111 The Age of the Mercenary Contents Bookmark Comments on Chapter 111 The Age of the Mercenary

Novel: Bloodline of the Kingdom Author: Sword of Masterless Words: 8726

Thales sat on the edge of the bar, looking at the Westland Old Beer in his hand, feeling depressed for a while. 35xs

During this period, Kuaisheng sweated profusely in and out of the tavern, rummaged through the ledgers, checked the figures, and was busy with the property left by Kanze during his lifetime, while Luisa, Dean, McGee, and Dante's great swordsmen were also one by one. Come to the tavern, go up to the second floor to have a meeting with Seaman and Old Hammer.

"Wyah, are you sure it's okay for you to sit here?"

Dean squeezed into the noisy tavern, and looked suspiciously at Thales, who was sitting beside him puffed up, before going upstairs.

"Sure," Thales, who pulled his face out of the cup, burped, stared at Tampa on the other side of the bar with a bad expression, and gritted his teeth: "I know the tavern owner very well."

"That's good." Dean looked at Tampa suspiciously: "Tampa is a relatively reliable mercenary agent. He has a lot of contacts. If you want to find your way home, maybe..."

Thales nodded stiffly.

Dean shrugged and went upstairs to attend the mercenary's internal meeting.

Time passed, and soon, the Saber Camp ushered in the night after sunset.

People were coming and going in the tavern, drinking and drinking.

Many people noticed Thales sitting in the corner, but most of them were forced back by Tampa with their eyes.

The minstrels smiled and sang to solicit business, while being vigilant against the competition from their peers. The scantily clad girls swayed among the wine tables, and from time to time they used the dimples on their chests to attract money. The people shrank behind the table, dancing and arguing in low voices under the table, doing dirty deals that Thales probably didn't want to know and didn't dare to know.

Thales had seen the Sunset Bar in the underground street before, and it was often noisy with people coming and going, but everyone knew that it was the territory of the Brotherhood, and no matter how chaotic the scene was, not many people dared to make trouble inside.

That's not the case at all in my bar.

When Thales saw the guests at the third table fighting over an unevenly distributed business, he finally couldn't help but ask the boss: "Is that how you look at it?"

"if not?"

Tampa waved lazily from behind the bar, beckoning to one of the guys to take care of the mess and check out.

"This is the Saber camp, full of benefits, calculations, opportunities, and dangers, and laws and morals only appear occasionally. It is strange that people don't fight," Tampa flipped through his account book and quickly recorded something: "Don't worry , The people in the Blade Yat camp are simple and honest, didn’t you see that they obediently lost money after smashing the tables and chairs?”

Simple folk……

Thales twitched his cheeks.

"What if they don't lose money?"

Tampa raised his head, the scar on his neck trembled.

"Everyone knows that I know many mercenaries and adventurers in the camp, and I often introduce business to them," the tavern owner smiled politely: "And there are many professional debt collectors among them, for my sake, They only took one cent of the interest and covered the aftermath and collected the corpse."

Thales nodded slightly, with a clear face: "I see, you really have a lot of talents here."

Fuck the simplicity of the people.

Thinking about the next action, Thales asked the tavern owner absently: "So, Cohen saved money with you? Why?"

"This used to be a custom. At the end of the Bloody Year, the soldiers who went out kept the reward money in the rear, and then took it back if he could come back alive."

Tampa sat comfortably behind the bar, watching the guys busy around, as if they had nothing to do with themselves and said: "Later,

In order to motivate the soldiers, Baron Williams promised that the victims would receive multiples of their deposits... After the campaign of purges was over, I also retired, so I took over this habit, hoping to turn it into a business. "

"But it seems..." Looking at the fast rope sitting in front of a businessman trying to count the money in the distance, Tampa sighed helplessly.

"Purge... campaign?" Thales asked, "Is it part of the desert war?"

Tampa snorted.

"I guess you haven't seen the desert war from ten years ago?"

Thales shrugged: "Obviously."

Tampa nodded and put on a look of "I knew it": "Then of course you haven't seen the large and small purge campaigns that lasted for several years after that."

"How to say?"

Tampa squinted his eyes and looked at a pair of drinking guests in the distance indifferently. It seemed that he was used to seeing them develop from shoulder to shoulder and brotherly brotherhood to verbal abuse and fist fighting.

"The great victory in the desert war is always exaggerated: the dilapidated Kingdom of the Stars raised up the mourning soldiers and the remaining bravery, boldly marched into the desert, and faced the desolate bone tribe and the orc tribe who moved eastward in the bloody year... "

He snorted coldly:

"But you know, for us, the most difficult thing is not how to defeat the bastards and barrens. You can defeat them once, and you can defeat them countless times, but how to protect your achievements after defeating them, how to fight in the glory After the victorious main force returned home to hold their babies, how did they carry the military flags and blown cowhide they left behind, and how to clean up bit by bit the enemies hidden behind the sand dunes and caves, and the remnants of soldiers who were left waiting for opportunities? How to stick to the passage with scarce troops, grit your teeth and fight back when the bastards come back again and again, let the desert races, especially those stubborn orcs, get used to your existence and fear your power, just like the rogue hyenas The new territory of the Lion King."

"It takes a process." Tampa's eyes drifted away slowly: "During this process, there were no battles recorded in the annals of history, no decisive battles where death was regarded as home, and no earth-shattering bloody battles...but its tragedy and sacrifice were not inferior. "

"Victory is forged with blood," he said lightly, "In order to consolidate victory, you have to pay more blood."

"This is the purge campaign."

Tampa pointed to the wall hanging behind the bar: there hung an old but still sharp old axe.

"Are you also in it?" The prince asked dignifiedly, "Whether it's the desert war or the campaign to clear it?"

Tampa nodded.

"At that time, the Saber Camp was not like what you see now: the wounds of the Bloody Year have not healed, and the main force of the desert war has also withdrawn. We have no conscripts who come from all over the place without money, and there is no gold and silver Splendid private soldiers of the aristocrats, without the support of military merchants and royal families, without the support of logistics and food, without the scale of the cavalry group, without the confidence and courage to order the whole army to rush into the desert."

"We only have ourselves, the star people of Xihuang: legions made up by farmers, commandos gathered by mercenaries, and death squads made up of scum... Even the main force of the Duke of Xihuang, the skull guards from the ruins, are poor Jingle, there are more saddles in our Raven Guard than there are riders, only the first row of the Black Lion infantry brigade is full of fully trained battlefield veterans, and the Baron's Stardust Guard even had to be replenished from the prisoners of the Bone Prison Many nobles were exiled for their crimes after the Bloody Year, and quite a few of them are well-trained and well-trained people."

"But we can only grit our teeth and stick to it. With scarce medicine and a small amount of supplies, we will go deep into the barren land, exhaust the sand dunes, search every corner from the blade camp to the depths of the desert, and follow those small groups of people regardless of sacrifice. , test the infiltrated bastards and barrens to fight to the death until they feel the pain, realize the price of returning to their old place, admit the fact of failure, and never dare to send people to die."

Thales stared blankly at the ax on the wall.

It's hard to imagine, all the way he walked, the wilderness ravaged by wind and sand was once the most tragic battlefield.

"Among them, the big stupid Cohen is an outlier," Tampa laughed. "A nobleman who is too stupid to let people go."

"Korn?" Thales was slightly startled: "He fought in the desert? Clearing the campaign?"

"Ever fought?"

Tampa snorted, seemingly amused.

"He's a tough fighter."

Nostalgia welled up in Tampa's eyes.

"A tough guy who was born for the battlefield. For three years, he fucked a bunch of orcs to death."

"Why?" Thales asked in surprise:

"Korn's identity...he is the heir of the noble Karabyan family, and there is a whole Vola collar waiting to inherit, isn't it?"

"How do I know, those nobles who come and go," Tampa said with a laugh: "How do I know what kind of convulsions he has, so that he put away his good life and came here to suffer."

The image of that stupid big man emerged in Thales' mind, and he fell into deep thought.

"You know, one time, we were ambushed."

Tampa seemed quite emotional: "That gray bastard from the Iron Death Tribe swung the chain hammer like a storm, leaving only stumps and pieces of meat where it passed. When it brought the bastards all over the mountains and plains... "

Thales thought of the orc Kandar, and the almost irresistible night raid, and suddenly felt a palpitation.

"We were killed and scattered, lost contact with Qingqi, panicked, and fled with our lives," Tampa sighed: "The stupid big guy and others were forced into the inner desert by them, and there was no news for half a month .”

"We all thought they were never coming back."

"The team even collected their relics. According to Frank, the baron even had a headache how to write an obituary for Cohen's noble father."

The noise in the tavern was still there, but Thales just listened attentively to Tampa's narration.

I saw the boss let out a long breath.

"Then one day... a dozing sentry outside the camp suddenly noticed, in the distance, on the horizon between the setting sun and the desert..."

"A figure appeared. 35xs"

Thales stared.

"Come alone, walk alone, crumbling, bruised and bruised."

Thales inhaled slightly: "Cohen?"

Tampa nodded slowly.

"The entire Saber camp, all of us, including the guards of Baron Williams, stood there blankly, watching the noble young master walking all the way in a trance, limping, clutching the **** Gray Bastard, the ugly head of notorious killer 'Meat Grinder' Siza Dead Iron."

"Just like that, he walked into the camp, confused and trembling, and couldn't even recognize Felicia, the most beautiful beauty standing in front of him."

"He just kept going, walking, looking confused, muttering to himself, until he collapsed."

"The baron took the ugly head of Sisar Iron from Korn's hand and tied it to the flagpole."

Time seemed to stop at this moment, Thales and Tampa fell silent.

Until the boss grabbed a bottle of wine and took a sip.

"From that day on, no one in the camp called him 'Little Master' anymore, and no one spit into his water bottle secretly," Tampa put down the bottle, took a deep breath, and sighed, "From that day , he became a 'silly big guy'."

"A good soldier in Camp Saber, a real man, 'Big Stupid' Cohen."

Thales remained silent for a long time.

Unexpectedly, that big man who smiled heartlessly and seemed to have no brains had such a thrilling and passionate past.

"It's a good story," the prince nodded. "It's worthy of being sung by bards."

Tampa snorted softly. He didn't know whether he was in a good mood or out of his mind. He actually took the initiative to bring a plate of food, put it between himself and Thales, and began to eat: "How is he now?"

Now?

Thales recalled that Cohen who had vowed to support him in the Haoyue Temple six years ago to return to the Palace of Heroes.

"As far as I know, he didn't go home and is still working as a police officer in the capital, but I haven't seen him for a long time."

"The royal capital..." Tampa pondered.

"I know he's an aristocrat, and aristocrats are complicated, full of shit."

He shook his head.

"I guess that big stupid guy also has his own responsibilities and troubles."

Thales didn't speak.

The boss finally sighed slightly: "I hope he is still the real guy, as stupid as ever."

Thales nodded, and finished the slightly bitter beer in the glass.

"He will be," said the prince with a powerful smile:

"And you'll be a fool for the rest of your life."

Tampa stared at him for a long time, and finally laughed too.

"Yes, I hope."

"So," Thales coughed, "After the war, Cohen went to the capital, and you came to open this tavern?"

"No, I just took over... Did you see the slogan on the sign at the door? 'My House' has been open for two or three hundred years," Tampa waved his hand:

"When you're tired of swords and swords...you know, the ordinary little days are more attractive."

Thales snorted sarcastically.

"An ordinary day?"

"Believe me, based on my experience and the people I know," the prince said angrily, "The guy who can be a tavern owner in this kind of place doesn't live an 'ordinary life'."

"Come on, didn't I just give you the'first lesson', don't worry about it," Tampa glanced at him disdainfully: "Are you sure like a woman that you are not the girlfriend of Quick Rope?"

"I just don't like when someone plots against me..."

"Ha, just looking at your face, you can tell that you must have been cheated a lot since you were young."

Thales gave him a polite and hypocritical smile, and looked down at his food.

"By the way, are you going to stay here and not leave?"

Tampa frowned: "You know that you have to pay for these foods, right?"

"I'm waiting for Dean and the others... Wait, pay?" Thales choked, "But you brought it up!"

"That's why I ask you to pay me. If you brought it yourself, what money should I charge?"

Thales stared at the boss dumbfounded.

"A Mindis silver coin, thank you for your patronage." Tampa said with a smile: "For the face of the stupid big man, the price is a discount."

After reluctantly handing over a few Solon silver coins, Thales took a hard bite of the food, looking at the slowly quiet tavern, and asked with a frown: "It's me Illusion, or are there really fewer and fewer customers?"

"In normal times, the later the time, the more people there will be in the tavern."

"But it's different recently. Camp Saber's composition is complicated, and there is a curfew every night," Tampa yawned: "If you wandered the streets during the curfew time, and you were caught by those patrolling soldiers...you know, Many of the temporary conscripts came to the Saber Camp for the first time, and took charge of the defense when the royal family’s standing army was away, they didn’t know what it meant to 'open their eyes and close their eyes', and they would either spend their money to eliminate disasters, or go to jail obediently."

"Just last month," Tampa shook his head, "that famous Centurion mercenary, 'Blood Whistle', was arrested and a lot of people went in. It's useless to say anything to them. Those newcomers The army doesn’t show any affection at all.”

Thales frowned: "So you have a lot of face, can you speak for someone in prison?"

"For many years, 'my family' has been providing supplies for the prison of bones, and of course there are some connections of its own," Tampa snorted aloofly: "do you think, who fished out the quick rope that owed it from the prison of?"

"Then you introduced the fast rope to Dean, into 'Dante's Great Sword'?"

"You know, they didn't intend to accept that kid with a Commus accent," the tavern owner chuckled, "but it seems that Kuaisheng has a friend who knows the old Dante family..."

"So, whether it's Quick Rope or Kanze..." Thales asked intentionally or unintentionally: "You also introduced Dean?"

Tampa shook his head.

"Dean was rescued by old Dante in the desert. Many people in their team came like this. Because of this, Dante's great sword can not be scattered for so many years, even if old Dante passed away."

Thales thought about it.

"He seems very smart, I mean Dean."

Tampa thinks so.

"To be honest, it's a shame for someone like him to be a mercenary. With his talent and insight, he is no less inferior to those fat-bellied noble commanders in the army. In just a few years, Dante's great sword earned a good name."

Thales' heart skipped a beat.

"You seem to know these mercenaries well?"

"After all, this is 'my home'." Tampa was quite proud: "Mercenaries will come here to find business, or, businesses will come here to find mercenaries."

Thales looked around, looking at the fierce guests, thinking about something.

At this moment, several armored figures walked into the noisy tavern.

Tampa's eyebrows shot up.

"Dear Ricky!"

The boss happily extended his hand to the oncoming guests: "How long has it been since you came?"

"It's only been a few months." The mercenary named Ricky said lightly, reaching out to shake Tampa.

Tampa looked at Ricky with a smile, and then at a middle-aged man with a sword beside him: "A new face?"

"This is Clay, from the north, a good swordsman is not ordinary," Ricky pointed, and the middle-aged man nodded slightly to Tampa friendly: "Don't worry, he is already one of us, No personal work."

"It's a pity," Tampa shrugged regretfully, "You know, there are several businesses that lack good swordsmen."

Thales withdrew his gaze from the middle-aged man, and the heightened hell senses since the First World War in the Wasteland gave him rare information: the middle-aged man was filled with strange and restless power.

Looking at these new mercenaries, Thales suddenly frowned.

A masked man on Ricky's left was looking at the prince coldly, his brows were deeply wrinkled, and he looked older.

His eyes glanced at the Crossbow of Time beside Thales, and he narrowed his eyes slightly.

Thales was taken aback.

"As for this one, you better not know, he just came to the camp, but he has a criminal record and is not clean," Ricky sighed, shaking his shoulders to the masked man on the left: "It's not convenient to show your face .”

In the end, the masked man slowly looked away, and Thales felt an unforgettable chill from his body.

these people……

very dangerous.

Thales suppressed the uneasiness in his heart.

"Of course, I only care about my business," Tampa raised his eyebrows indifferently: "How many tables do you want? Do you want to talk about business or find a chick?"

Ricky shook his head.

"Actually, a few tables are not enough," Ricky took out a money bag from his belt, and first instructed other people to occupy the tables, leaving only the middle-aged man and the masked man behind him: "We will reserve the venue tonight." , Tampa, give you two hours, empty this place including your guys, leave nothing but booze and food."

Tampa frowned.

"But the curfew is three hours away."

Ricky smiled slightly: "Then we'll drink until dawn, don't go out, and wait until the ban is lifted the next day."

Tampa squinted at him.

"Impossible," the boss shook his head decisively: "You know, I still have to do business, and I have to send supplies to the bones the next morning..."

Ricky put the purse on the bar, still smiling.

"Twenty gold coins, one night, you know, we have dozens of people."

Tampa paused.

"This is 'my home'," he raised his head and became serious: "We have principles..."

"So we gave you a grace period of two hours," Ricky said as usual, but he did not back down:

"Thirty gold coins we need your place to talk about something."

Tampa glanced at the money bag and shrugged: "We are going to close the door for rest too, it is impossible to open so late for you..."

The middle-aged man behind Ricky smiled.

"But the sign on your sign says 'Never Close the Door.'"

Tampa looked at him.

"You know, throughout the ages, if the words written on the slogans are true..."

The tavern owner raised his finger: "Then it won't have a slogan written on it."

The middle-aged man raised his eyebrows: "It makes sense."

As if he couldn't stand their moaning, the masked man took a clean step forward, took out a money bag again, and smashed it on the bar.

"Fifty gold coins, no more."

Snapped!

Tampa snapped his fingers hard.

"Deal!" He lifted his hand and put away the purse.

Thales on the side sighed and rolled his eyes.

I knew it.

Ricky shook his head, and walked toward one of the wooden tables with his companion helplessly.

"Why, what kind of big business did you take?"

Tampa, who just negotiated a good package price, looked at Ricky's back with a smile on his face: "Want to have a carnival night?"

"On the contrary," Ricky said without turning his head, "after tonight, we will leave the Saber Camp, as you can see, the Starmen's army is sent to the desert like they don't want money, so there is no business here. "

Tampa retreated behind the bar and shook his head regretfully: "Yes, it's really bad news, whether it's for you or me."

Thales looked at their backs and asked suspiciously: "Are they..."

"It's 'Blood Whistle'," before he could finish asking, Tampa said leisurely:

"Like Dante's great sword, they are also mercenaries, but you'd better not provoke them. It's a group of hundreds of people. There are two or three hundred people from top to bottom. There are hundreds of soldiers who can go to the battlefield with full armor. , They are not peasant soldiers, each of them is a professional killer just like Dante's big sword."

"They only take war jobs or charter business from royal merchants, and even barons look up to them."

"Blood whistle, Hundreds?"

Thales was taken aback. Looking at the people who were blowing their horns with blood, he somewhat understood where the astonishing murderous aura and sense of threat came from.

"From Dante's great sword to the whistle of blood, the reason why they all gather here..." Thales mused, "So, around the desert, this place is indeed a paradise for mercenaries?"

"Heaven?"

Tampa paused slightly.

"It used to be."

"About 20 or 30 years ago, when I was a young idiot with no arrows in my knee," the boss sighed, "That was the golden age of mercenaries. Principles, endless stream of merchants, adventurers looking for treasures, shrewd bounty hunters, priests who work hard to preach, everyone is looking for opportunities here."

"And now?"

Tampa shook his head: "The big sword as smart as Dante also suffered heavy losses, and the whistle as strong as blood also found another way out."

"Times are changing," Thales said silently, "and so is the world."

"Yes, twenty or thirty years ago, the army of the stars could not go to the depths of the desert." Tampa's eyes showed yearning and nostalgia: "This is the privilege of adventurers and mercenaries. They set out impassionedly, alive Come back and tell legends, or wait for the bards to compose poems and sing them."

"I still remember that at that time, there used to be a very powerful mercenary team around the desert, from the Saber Camp to the Three Kingdoms of the Lost Sea, from Levorbang to the City of Steel, from Dragon's Kiss to Thorn, no matter what Whether it's a desert or a forest, an inner lake or a big river, their footprints are all over these mercenary paradises, and I once wanted to join them."

"Is it."

Thales was absent-minded: he saw Dante's great swords coming down from upstairs.

"That mercenary...what's his name?"

Tampa was immersed in his own world, sighing: "Speaking of names, hey, they only had nine people at first, so they gave the team a stupid and stupid name..."

"It's called the 'Big Nine'."

Novel recommendation: Gourmet Adventure The president is the overlord of Lengwen [Quick time travel] The emperor's rescue plan strategy master's manual [Sword 3] Desperate star Gu dog planing Jianghu training Qi Xian Zun Jintang Spring slow heaven knows Nine directions legend EXO wounded city military marriage Sultry: The major general’s beautiful wife is too hot Hello, Mr. Mo was reborn in the 1970s. A young military wife who was a medical doctor. Trial marriage for 100 days: Young master Ye, addicted to pampering. , please keep a low profile on the little farm widow: Bringing buns to farm and cheating on marriage CEO: Doting on the little wife alone

There is no next chapter in the previous chapter

Kingdom Blood - Chapter 111: The Age of Mercenaries online free - Novel Full

Thales sat on the edge of the bar, looking at the Westland Old Beer in his hand, feeling depressed for a while. 35xs

During this period, Kuaisheng sweated profusely in and out of the tavern, rummaged through the ledgers, checked the figures, and was busy with the property left by Kanze during his lifetime, while Luisa, Dean, McGee, and Dante's great swordsmen were also one by one. Come to the tavern, go up to the second floor to have a meeting with Seaman and Old Hammer.

"Wyah, are you sure it's okay for you to sit here?"

Dean squeezed into the noisy tavern, and looked suspiciously at Thales, who was sitting beside him puffed up, before going upstairs.

"Sure," Thales, who pulled his face out of the cup, burped, stared at Tampa on the other side of the bar with a bad expression, and gritted his teeth: "I know the tavern owner very well."

"That's good." Dean looked at Tampa suspiciously: "Tampa is a relatively reliable mercenary agent. He has a lot of contacts. If you want to find your way home, maybe..."

Thales nodded stiffly.

Dean shrugged and went upstairs to attend the mercenary's internal meeting.

Time passed, and soon, the Saber Camp ushered in the night after sunset.

People were coming and going in the tavern, drinking and drinking.

Many people noticed Thales sitting in the corner, but most of them were forced back by Tampa with their eyes.

The minstrels smiled and sang to solicit business, while being vigilant against the competition from their peers. The scantily clad girls swayed among the wine tables, and from time to time they used the dimples on their chests to attract money. The people shrank behind the table, dancing and arguing in low voices under the table, doing dirty deals that Thales probably didn't want to know and didn't dare to know.

Thales had seen the Sunset Bar in the underground street before, and it was often noisy with people coming and going, but everyone knew that it was the territory of the Brotherhood, and no matter how chaotic the scene was, not many people dared to make trouble inside.

That's not the case at all in my bar.

When Thales saw the guests at the third table fighting over an unevenly distributed business, he finally couldn't help but ask the boss: "Is that how you look at it?"

"if not?"

Tampa waved lazily from behind the bar, beckoning to one of the guys to take care of the mess and check out.

"This is the Saber camp, full of benefits, calculations, opportunities, and dangers, and laws and morals only appear occasionally. It is strange that people don't fight," Tampa flipped through his account book and quickly recorded something: "Don't worry , The people in the Blade Yat camp are simple and honest, didn’t you see that they obediently lost money after smashing the tables and chairs?”

Simple folk……

Thales twitched his cheeks.

"What if they don't lose money?"

Tampa raised his head, the scar on his neck trembled.

"Everyone knows that I know many mercenaries and adventurers in the camp, and I often introduce business to them," the tavern owner smiled politely: "And there are many professional debt collectors among them, for my sake, They only took one cent of the interest and covered the aftermath and collected the corpse."

Thales nodded slightly, with a clear face: "I see, you really have a lot of talents here."

Fuck the simplicity of the people.

Thinking about the next action, Thales asked the tavern owner absently: "So, Cohen saved money with you? Why?"

"This used to be a custom. At the end of the Bloody Year, the soldiers who went out kept the reward money in the rear, and then took it back if he could come back alive."

Tampa sat comfortably behind the bar, watching the guys busy around, as if he had nothing to do with himself and was superior: "Later, in order to motivate the soldiers, Baron Williams promised that the victims would get several times more money. After the end of the campaign, I also retired, so I took over this habit, hoping to turn it into a business."

"But it seems..." Looking at the fast rope sitting in front of a businessman trying to count the money in the distance, Tampa sighed helplessly.

"Purge... campaign?" Thales asked, "Is it part of the desert war?"

Tampa snorted.

"I guess you haven't seen the desert war from ten years ago?"

Thales shrugged: "Obviously."

Tampa nodded and put on a look of "I knew it": "Then of course you haven't seen the large and small purge campaigns that lasted for several years after that."

"How to say?"

Tampa squinted his eyes and looked at a pair of drinking guests in the distance indifferently. It seemed that he was used to seeing them develop from shoulder to shoulder and brotherly brotherhood to verbal abuse and fist fighting.

"The great victory in the desert war is always exaggerated: the dilapidated Kingdom of the Stars raised up the mourning soldiers and the remaining bravery, boldly marched into the desert, and faced the desolate bone tribe and the orc tribe who moved eastward in the bloody year... "

He snorted coldly:

"But you know, for us, the most difficult thing is not how to defeat the bastards and barrens. You can defeat them once, and you can defeat them countless times, but how to protect your achievements after defeating them, how to fight in the glory After the victorious main force returned home to hold their babies, how did they carry the military flags and blown cowhide they left behind, and how to clean up bit by bit the enemies hidden behind the sand dunes and caves, and the remnants of soldiers who were left waiting for opportunities? How to stick to the passage with scarce troops, grit your teeth and fight back when the bastards come back again and again, let the desert races, especially those stubborn orcs, get used to your existence and fear your power, just like the rogue hyenas The new territory of the Lion King."

"It takes a process." Tampa's eyes drifted away slowly: "During this process, there were no battles recorded in the annals of history, no decisive battles where death was regarded as home, and no earth-shattering bloody battles...but its tragedy and sacrifice were not inferior. "

"Victory is forged with blood," he said lightly, "In order to consolidate victory, you have to pay more blood."

"This is the purge campaign."

Tampa pointed to the wall hanging behind the bar: there hung an old but still sharp old axe.

"Are you also in it?" The prince asked dignifiedly, "Whether it's the desert war or the campaign to clear it?"

Tampa nodded.

"At that time, the Saber Camp was not like what you see now: the wounds of the Bloody Year have not healed, and the main force of the desert war has also withdrawn. We have no conscripts who come from all over the place without money, and there is no gold and silver Splendid private soldiers of the aristocrats, without the support of military merchants and royal families, without the support of logistics and food, without the scale of the cavalry group, without the confidence and courage to order the whole army to rush into the desert."

"We only have ourselves, the star people of Xihuang: legions made up by farmers, commandos gathered by mercenaries, and death squads made up of scum... Even the main force of the Duke of Xihuang, the skull guards from the ruins, are poor Jingle, there are more saddles in our Raven Guard than there are riders, only the first row of the Black Lion infantry brigade is full of fully trained battlefield veterans, and the Baron's Stardust Guard even had to be replenished from the prisoners of the Bone Prison Many nobles were exiled for their crimes after the Bloody Year, and quite a few of them are well-trained and well-trained people."

"But we can only grit our teeth and stick to it. With scarce medicine and a small amount of supplies, we will go deep into the barren land, exhaust the sand dunes, search every corner from the blade camp to the depths of the desert, and follow those small groups of people regardless of sacrifice. , test the infiltrated bastards and barrens to fight to the death until they feel the pain, realize the price of returning to their old place, admit the fact of failure, and never dare to send people to die."

Thales stared blankly at the ax on the wall.

It's hard to imagine, all the way he walked, the wilderness ravaged by wind and sand was once the most tragic battlefield.

"Among them, the big stupid Cohen is an outlier," Tampa laughed. "A nobleman who is too stupid to let people go."

"Korn?" Thales was slightly startled: "He fought in the desert? Clearing the campaign?"

"Ever fought?"

Tampa snorted, seemingly amused.

"He's a tough fighter."

Nostalgia welled up in Tampa's eyes.

"A tough guy who was born for the battlefield. For three years, he fucked a bunch of orcs to death."

"Why?" Thales asked in surprise:

"Korn's identity...he is the heir of the noble Karabyan family, and there is a whole Vola collar waiting to inherit, isn't it?"

"How do I know, those nobles who come and go," Tampa said with a laugh: "How do I know what kind of convulsions he has, so that he put away his good life and came here to suffer."

The image of that stupid big man emerged in Thales' mind, and he fell into deep thought.

"You know, one time, we were ambushed."

Tampa seemed quite emotional: "That gray bastard from the Iron Death Tribe swung the chain hammer like a storm, leaving only stumps and pieces of meat where it passed. When it brought the bastards all over the mountains and plains... "

Thales thought of the orc Kandar, and the almost irresistible night raid, and suddenly felt a palpitation.

"We were killed and scattered, lost contact with Qingqi, panicked, and fled with our lives," Tampa sighed: "The stupid big guy and others were forced into the inner desert by them, and there was no news for half a month .”

"We all thought they were never coming back."

"The team even collected their relics. According to Frank, the baron even had a headache how to write an obituary for Cohen's noble father."

The noise in the tavern was still there, but Thales just listened attentively to Tampa's narration.

I saw the boss let out a long breath.

"Then one day... a dozing sentry outside the camp suddenly noticed, in the distance, on the horizon between the setting sun and the desert..."

"A figure appeared. 35xs"

Thales stared.

"Come alone, walk alone, crumbling, bruised and bruised."

Thales inhaled slightly: "Cohen?"

Tampa nodded slowly.

"The entire Saber camp, all of us, including the guards of Baron Williams, stood there blankly, watching the noble young master walking all the way in a trance, limping, clutching the **** Gray Bastard, the ugly head of notorious killer 'Meat Grinder' Siza Dead Iron."

"Just like that, he walked into the camp, confused and trembling, and couldn't even recognize Felicia, the most beautiful beauty standing in front of him."

"He just kept going, walking, looking confused, muttering to himself, until he collapsed."

"The baron took the ugly head of Sisar Iron from Korn's hand and tied it to the flagpole."

Time seemed to stop at this moment, Thales and Tampa fell silent.

Until the boss grabbed a bottle of wine and took a sip.

"From that day on, no one in the camp called him 'Little Master' anymore, and no one spit into his water bottle secretly," Tampa put down the bottle, took a deep breath, and sighed, "From that day , he became a 'silly big guy'."

"A good soldier in Camp Saber, a real man, 'Big Stupid' Cohen."

Thales remained silent for a long time.

Unexpectedly, that big man who smiled heartlessly and seemed to have no brains had such a thrilling and passionate past.

"It's a good story," the prince nodded. "It's worthy of being sung by bards."

Tampa snorted softly. He didn't know whether he was in a good mood or out of his mind. He actually took the initiative to bring a plate of food, put it between himself and Thales, and began to eat: "How is he now?"

Now?

Thales recalled that Cohen who had vowed to support him in the Haoyue Temple six years ago to return to the Palace of Heroes.

"As far as I know, he didn't go home and is still working as a police officer in the capital, but I haven't seen him for a long time."

"The royal capital..." Tampa pondered.

"I know he's an aristocrat, and aristocrats are complicated, full of shit."

He shook his head.

"I guess that big stupid guy also has his own responsibilities and troubles."

Thales didn't speak.

The boss finally sighed slightly: "I hope he is still the real guy, as stupid as ever."

Thales nodded, and finished the slightly bitter beer in the glass.

"He will be," said the prince with a powerful smile:

"And you'll be a fool for the rest of your life."

Tampa stared at him for a long time, and finally laughed too.

"Yes, I hope."

"So," Thales coughed, "After the war, Cohen went to the capital, and you came to open this tavern?"

"No, I just took over... Did you see the slogan on the sign at the door? 'My House' has been open for two or three hundred years," Tampa waved his hand:

"When you're tired of swords and swords...you know, the ordinary little days are more attractive."

Thales snorted sarcastically.

"An ordinary day?"

"Believe me, based on my experience and the people I know," the prince said angrily, "The guy who can be a tavern owner in this kind of place doesn't live an 'ordinary life'."

"Come on, didn't I just give you the'first lesson', don't worry about it," Tampa glanced at him disdainfully: "Are you sure like a woman that you are not the girlfriend of Quick Rope?"

"I just don't like when someone plots against me..."

"Ha, just looking at your face, you can tell that you must have been cheated a lot since you were young."

Thales gave him a polite and hypocritical smile, and looked down at his food.

"By the way, are you going to stay here and not leave?"

Tampa frowned: "You know that you have to pay for these foods, right?"

"I'm waiting for Dean and the others... Wait, pay?" Thales choked, "But you brought it up!"

"That's why I ask you to pay me. If you brought it yourself, what money should I charge?"

Thales stared at the boss dumbfounded.

"A Mindis silver coin, thank you for your patronage." Tampa said with a smile: "For the face of the stupid big man, the price is a discount."

After reluctantly handing over a few Solon silver coins, Thales took a hard bite of the food, looking at the slowly quiet tavern, and asked with a frown: "It's me Illusion, or are there really fewer and fewer customers?"

"In normal times, the later the time, the more people there will be in the tavern."

"But it's different recently. Camp Saber's composition is complicated, and there is a curfew every night," Tampa yawned: "If you wandered the streets during the curfew time, and you were caught by those patrolling soldiers...you know, Many of the temporary conscripts came to the Saber Camp for the first time, and took charge of the defense when the royal family’s standing army was away, they didn’t know what it meant to 'open their eyes and close their eyes', and they would either spend their money to eliminate disasters, or go to jail obediently."

"Just last month," Tampa shook his head, "that famous Centurion mercenary, 'Blood Whistle', was arrested and a lot of people went in. It's useless to say anything to them. Those newcomers The army doesn’t show any affection at all.”

Thales frowned: "So you have a lot of face, can you speak for someone in prison?"

"For many years, 'my family' has been providing supplies for the prison of bones, and of course there are some connections of its own," Tampa snorted aloofly: "do you think, who fished out the quick rope that owed it from the prison of?"

"Then you introduced the fast rope to Dean, into 'Dante's Great Sword'?"

"You know, they didn't intend to accept that kid with a Commus accent," the tavern owner chuckled, "but it seems that Kuaisheng has a friend who knows the old Dante family..."

"So, whether it's Quick Rope or Kanze..." Thales asked intentionally or unintentionally: "You also introduced Dean?"

Tampa shook her head.

"Dean was rescued by old Dante in the desert. Many people in their team came like this. Because of this, Dante's great sword can not be scattered for so many years, even if old Dante passed away."

Thales thought about it.

"He seems very smart, I mean Dean."

Tampa thinks so.

"To be honest, it's a shame for someone like him to be a mercenary. With his talent and insight, he is no less inferior to those fat-bellied noble commanders in the army. In just a few years, Dante's great sword earned a good name."

Thales' heart skipped a beat.

"You seem to know these mercenaries well?"

"After all, this is 'my home'." Tampa was quite proud: "Mercenaries will come here to find business, or, businesses will come here to find mercenaries."

Thales looked around, looking at the fierce guests, thinking about something.

At this moment, several armored figures walked into the noisy tavern.

Tampa's eyebrows shot up.

"Dear Ricky!"

The boss happily extended his hand to the oncoming guests: "How long has it been since you came?"

"It's only been a few months." The mercenary named Ricky said lightly, reaching out to shake Tampa.

Tampa looked at Ricky with a smile, and then at a middle-aged man with a sword beside him: "A new face?"

"This is Clay, from the north, a good swordsman is not ordinary," Ricky pointed, and the middle-aged man nodded slightly to Tampa friendly: "Don't worry, he is already one of us, No personal work."

"It's a pity," Tampa shrugged regretfully, "You know, there are several businesses that lack good swordsmen."

Thales withdrew his gaze from the middle-aged man, and the heightened hell senses since the First World War in the Wasteland gave him rare information: the middle-aged man was filled with strange and restless power.

Looking at these new mercenaries, Thales suddenly frowned.

A masked man on Ricky's left was looking at the prince coldly, his brows were deeply wrinkled, and he looked older.

His eyes glanced at the Crossbow of Time beside Thales, and he narrowed his eyes slightly.

Thales was taken aback.

"As for this one, you better not know, he just came to the camp, but he has a criminal record and is not clean," Ricky sighed, shaking his shoulders to the masked man on the left: "It's not convenient to show your face .”

In the end, the masked man slowly looked away, and Thales felt an unforgettable chill from his body.

these people……

very dangerous.

Thales suppressed the uneasiness in his heart.

"Of course, I only care about my business," Tampa raised his eyebrows indifferently: "How many tables do you want? Do you want to talk about business or find a chick?"

Ricky shook his head.

"Actually, a few tables are not enough," Ricky took out a money bag from his belt, and first instructed other people to occupy the tables, leaving only the middle-aged man and the masked man behind him: "We will reserve the venue tonight." , Tampa, give you two hours, empty this place including your guys, leave nothing but booze and food."

Tampa frowned.

"But the curfew is three hours away."

Ricky smiled slightly: "Then we'll drink until dawn, don't go out, and wait until the ban is lifted the next day."

Tampa squinted at him.

"Impossible," the boss shook his head decisively: "You know, I still have to do business, and I have to send supplies to the bones the next morning..."

Ricky put the purse on the bar, still smiling.

"Twenty gold coins, one night, you know, we have dozens of people."

Tampa paused.

"This is 'my home'," he raised his head and became serious: "We have principles..."

"So we gave you a grace period of two hours," Ricky said as usual, but he did not back down:

"Thirty gold coins we need your place to talk about something."

Tampa glanced at the money bag and shrugged: "We are going to close the door for rest too, it is impossible to open so late for you..."

The middle-aged man behind Ricky smiled.

"But the sign on your sign says 'Never Close the Door.'"

Tampa looked at him.

"You know, throughout the ages, if the words written on the slogans are true..."

The tavern owner raised his finger: "Then it won't have a slogan written on it."

The middle-aged man raised his eyebrows: "It makes sense."

As if he couldn't stand their moaning, the masked man took a clean step forward, took out a money bag again, and smashed it on the bar.

"Fifty gold coins, no more."

Snapped!

Tampa snapped his fingers hard.

"Deal!" He lifted his hand and put away the purse.

Thales on the side sighed and rolled his eyes.

I knew it.

Ricky shook his head, and walked toward one of the wooden tables with his companion helplessly.

"Why, what kind of big business did you take?"

Tampa, who just negotiated a good package price, looked at Ricky's back with a smile on his face: "Want to have a carnival night?"

"On the contrary," Ricky said without turning his head, "after tonight, we will leave the Saber Camp, as you can see, the Starmen's army is sent to the desert like they don't want money, so there is no business here. "

Tampa retreated behind the bar and shook his head regretfully: "Yes, it's really bad news, whether it's for you or me."

Thales looked at their backs and asked suspiciously: "Are they..."

"It's 'Blood Whistle'," before he could finish asking, Tampa said leisurely:

"Like Dante's great sword, they are also mercenaries, but you'd better not provoke them. It's a group of hundreds of people. There are two or three hundred people from top to bottom. There are hundreds of soldiers who can go to the battlefield with full armor. , They are not peasant soldiers, each of them is a professional killer just like Dante's big sword."

"They only take war jobs or charter business from royal merchants, and even barons look up to them."

"Blood whistle, Hundreds?"

Thales was taken aback. Looking at the people who were blowing their horns with blood, he somewhat understood where the astonishing murderous aura and sense of threat came from.

"From Dante's great sword to the whistle of blood, the reason why they all gather here..." Thales mused, "So, around the desert, this place is indeed a paradise for mercenaries?"

"Heaven?"

Tampa paused slightly.

"It used to be."

"About 20 or 30 years ago, when I was a young idiot with no arrows in my knee," the boss sighed, "That was the golden age of mercenaries. Principles, endless stream of merchants, adventurers looking for treasures, shrewd bounty hunters, priests who work hard to preach, everyone is looking for opportunities here."

"And now?"

Tampa shook his head: "The big sword as smart as Dante also suffered heavy losses, and the whistle as strong as blood also found another way out."

"Times are changing," Thales said silently, "and so is the world."

"Yes, twenty or thirty years ago, the army of the stars could not go to the depths of the desert." Tampa's eyes showed yearning and nostalgia: "This is the privilege of adventurers and mercenaries. They set out impassionedly, alive Come back and tell legends, or wait for the bards to compose poems and sing them."

"I still remember that at that time, there used to be a very powerful mercenary team around the desert, from the Saber Camp to the Three Kingdoms of the Lost Sea, from Levorbang to the City of Steel, from Dragon's Kiss to Thorn, no matter what Whether it's a desert or a forest, an inner lake or a big river, their footprints are all over these mercenary paradises, and I once wanted to join them."

"Is it."

Thales was absent-minded: he saw Dante's great swords coming down from upstairs.

"That mercenary...what's his name?"

Tampa was immersed in his own world, sighing: "Speaking of names, hey, they only had nine people at first, so they gave the team a stupid and stupid name..."

"It's called the 'Big Nine'."