Leaving the river - bend peninsula, the group of three (?) hiked upstream along the riverbank.
Yesterday, Freya, who had spent all day digging the canal and commandeering a hundred able - bodied laborers, showed no sign of fatigue.
One moment, she would leap into the air and plunge into the icy water pool, sending the small fish lurking in the pool flying onto the shore. Then she would gobble them up one after another as snacks.
The next moment, she would hug a big tree and shake it violently, trying to see if any squirrels or foxes would fall from it.
Seeing Leo walking at the front, carrying a wooden box, she suddenly felt jealous of the box and deliberately threw herself to the ground.
"Ouch, I fell!" Then she raised her short and thick front paws towards Leo with great effort. "It hurts! I want a hug!"
Seeing that Leo didn't even turn his head, she reluctantly got up and continued to follow.
Fisa watched Freya, who was scurrying around, moving from left to right, and looked at her huge size. She was extremely jealous.
With such a size, such strength, and such thick fur, even if one lived alone in the wilderness, one could be fearless, right?
Why is it that among Huskies, the heavens only favor her?
All the way to the huge rock where they had previously encountered the Wild Folk Hunters, Leo put down the wooden box and stopped.
"Why don't we go on?"
"We'll just wait right here." Leo sat down and sized up the surrounding forest, trying to find traces of the Wild Folk.
After a while, the three of them heard a sharp whistle in the distance.
And several whistles also sounded around the riverbank where Leo was, echoing each other from afar.
Leo could tell that this was the Wild Folk sending messages. They were probably checking if there were any 'bandit - suppressing' troops trailing behind him.
According to the laws and notions of the empire, the status of the Wild Folk was no different from that of foreign races. They were even lower in status than slaves and had no human rights.
Killing a Wild Folk or a foreign race was no different from killing a wild beast and did not violate the empire's laws.
In the empire, slave - catching teams that captured the Wild Folk and foreign races and sold them as slaves were a legal profession!
In fact, one of the most opportunistic ways for colonization knights backed by family forces to expand their territories was to clear out and expel the Wild Folk, occupy their villages and farmlands, capture the people, and directly skip the initial stage of colonization.
In such a situation, the exposure of a Wild Folk village was a great risk, and it was inevitable for the Wild Folk to be xenophobic and conservative.
The next moment, a Wild Folk Hunter with cold, wolf - like eyes appeared and looked down at the three people on the riverbank below.
Leo recognized that this was not the Wild Folk Hunter he had contacted last time, but he was equally full of wildness and overflowing with murderous intent, which made Leo quickly put away his flippant attitude.
Surrender first!
Looking at Leo with his hands raised high, the Wild Folk Hunter lowered the longbow in his hand and asked coldly, "Are you alone?"
His Imperial language was a bit halting, but at least it was better than that of the kobolds. Leo could basically understand him.
Leo looked at the kobold and the marmot beside him, who were imitating him and raising their hands high, then nodded and said, "I'm alone!"
The Wild Folk Hunter jumped off the huge rock and walked up to Leo. He stared at Leo face - to - face for a full ten seconds, and then bowed to Freya beside him and respectfully said, "Master!"
"Master?" Leo stared at Freya, looking confused.
Freya slapped her chest noisily and explained with pride, "Druid Master! That's me!"
Unexpectedly, the Wild Folk Hunter didn't ask Leo about his purpose at all. Instead, he simply waved his hand and led them upstream along the river channel.
Throughout the journey, the Wild Folk Hunter remained silent. Only during a short break halfway did he say to Freya, "The people in the village miss you very much."
"I miss them too," Freya replied coyly.
The mountain in sight makes the horse run to death, and the mountain path is endless and tiresome (Note: This is an idiomatic expression meaning the journey seems much longer when you can see the destination). The steep river channel ahead seemed endless. The group jumped across deep ravines, climbed over mountains, and passed through valleys. They walked at least ten kilometers on the mountain path.
No, there wasn't even a proper mountain path. It was just that led by the Wild Folk Hunter familiar with the terrain, they walked on relatively passable forest paths.
If there were no Wild Folk to lead the way, outsiders would probably be blocked by steep cliffs or deep ravines in a flash, or might even get stuck in a dead-end valley and not be able to get out.
In the last valley, Leo saw that holes were chiseled out on the rock face across the stream. Inside the holes were various skulls of wild beasts and other races.
The holes on the entire rock face were dense like a beehive. It felt like they had stepped into the set of a horror flick or a sacred site of some religion.
Leo took a careful look. Among them, the skulls of Wild Boar Men accounted for half. Judging from the size of the skulls and the huge tusks, they were probably all Wild Boar Man warriors.
Based on the weathering degree of some Wild Boar Man skulls, Leo could tell that the struggle between the Wild Folk and the Wild Boar Men had been going on for a very long time.
After passing through this valley, there was finally a path that showed signs of human repair. Following the mountain path, they climbed up a low peak, and suddenly, the view opened up before them.
Standing on the low peak, in front of them was a huge lake. At the end of the lake was the big waterfall that cascaded down from a cliff towering thousands of feet.
The source of the Anzerno River, the big waterfall that usually hung in the sky in the distance, appeared in front of Leo after they had trekked for ten to fifteen kilometers.
At Leo's feet and on both sides, four low peaks surrounded the big waterfall like a crown, forming a basin. The rushing river water was intercepted, accumulating into a huge lake between the four low peaks and the Grand Barrier.
The water level of the huge lake was at least one thousand meters higher than the river - bend peninsula and the Wolf-Driving Plain, like a bright pearl hanging high in the sky.
The overflowing lake water flowed out from the valleys between the low peaks, forming multiple waterfalls and continuing to fall downward. Some of the water flowed into the Anzerno River, while some flowed in other directions.
Looking back from the low peak, one could easily see the full view of the river - bend peninsula. Looking as far as the eye can see, one could even see the villagers in the settlement camp moving like ants.
Leo was secretly shocked. Although he had mentally prepared himself, it was still beyond his expectation that the entire River Bend Settlement Camp was completely exposed to the sight of the Wild Folk like this.
Leo even felt that he was like a fish in the Small Fish Pond. He thought he was nice and hidden in there, but actually, the people on the shore could see everything plain as day.
Looking at it this way, Fisa's assessment of this Wild Folk tribe hit the mark. This was a kind tribe.
At least they didn't launch a surprise attack to rob their food and people before the River Bend Settlement Camp hadn't yet firmly established itself.
Many pioneer territories couldn't become self-sufficient even after five or ten years and were eventually abandoned. The biggest reason was that there were too many bandits around!
In the basin formed between the four low peaks and the imposing barrier, besides the huge lake, there is also a small village nestled against the mountains and by the water.
There are large stretches of willow trees planted along the lake shore, and some narrow strips of farmland have been reclaimed. For some of the wooden houses near the lake, the corridors and piers at the entrances extend into the lake, and small fishing boats are moored under the bridges.
All in all, this is a wild folk tribe with a small amount of farmland, mainly relying on fishing and hunting for a living.
This is simply a paradise that exists only in Leo's imagination.
Leo looked at the small village by the lake below the mountain and listened to the distant rumbling sound of the waterfall, filled with envy.
People living here must be prone to rheumatism, don't you think?