11. A night in the wilderness camp (above)

By the time the last of the magic antelope arrived on this side of the grassy slope, it was nighttime and the sky was full of stars. I used to look up at the stars, looking for the galaxy in my mind's eye, perhaps somewhere under the stars there was a little star called the Sun, which might say to my children in the future: "Look, that's where Daddy is from. But as far as I can see, I can't find any déjà vu.

Everyone was tired, dragging their weary bodies to distribute each antelope. The two adventuring groups were still distributing the spoils in an orderly fashion, a system done in silence, and I could see the joy on the faces of the young group members as I clutched the parchment scroll and once again shook my aching arms, the magic knife pen looking heavier and heavier the more I came. I knew it was I who was tired, I was too tired to hold that pen anymore.

I could see from a distance Kuzzy and Uncle Ann driving the oxcart back with the water, for the umpteenth time this afternoon, and I gave Kuzzy a gesture of encouragement and a wave of my fist as he showed his snow-white teeth, his two canines shining in the night, and I thought that even if I used black toothpaste I wouldn't be able to brush my teeth so brightly, I hadn't brushed them in this life and I hadn't seen any broken teeth. It seems that staying away from sweets is far more important than protecting your teeth.

A piece of tough parchment was pulled off and a star was simply drawn on it and attached directly to the head of the magic antelope with the spiral horns, signifying that the sheep belonged to the Prosperity Mercenaries, and that the skin of the magic antelope that had been boiled into the pot was similarly marked with a slight mark. Uncle Fred, who was hanging the blood and suet from the skin with his board knife, looked up at the sky and wiped his face with his oily sleeve, the skin had been scraped clean and was the 37th antelope skin, except that there were still mountains of antelope waiting to be skinned in the meadow.

I don't know who shouted, "The Lord Chief has returned!"

"Ah, the chief is back, it looks like this is the last of the magic antelope to be brought back, what a good harvest today." The warriors of the adventuring group who had returned from escorting the magic antelope first were crouching to the side watching the skinners skillfully skinning them, when they saw the return of the adventuring group, they also stood up and greeted them.

"It's too late, why haven't you arranged for a fire to be cooked? Let the tanners in the caravan take a rest first, these magic antelopes still need to be skinned overnight, we can't afford to lose some magic power if we are a second late! If we keep working like this, we'll all be exhausted before we finish skinning them. The strong, powerful body was covered in a layer of dark iron armour, and the sharp scraping sound between the armour made your teeth tingle as you walked, tossing his head and talking to the strong, explosive woman behind him.

The other was an extraordinarily fit woman with a spear on her back, her face always painted with oil paint, her original features unreadable, except for her surprisingly large eyes that glowed with wildness, her long, thin ponytail that hung down to her buttocks, and her tight leather clothes that gave her overly shapely body a devilish appeal. The skin-tight leather suit gave the overly shapely body a devilish appeal. Kurtz told me he sensed that the woman was even more dangerous.

With the appearance of the leader of the Prosperity Adventurers, the warriors returning from the hunt ahead began to appear in front of me one by one. Tia, carrying his bow and arrows and carrying his leather armour and longsword in his bare hands, was so tired that he flopped down like a dead dog directly onto the cattle cart at my feet, looking at me pitifully like a poor puppy and said, "Can I have a piece of life-saving malt candy, Sir Jia? "

The rascal would always rub my oat milk candy as much as he could at the right time and for the right reason. Tia would always call the candy by the wrong name, and I didn't make many of these out, for the reason that Kurtz didn't like them at all. Kurtz had no interest in anything sweet, and even if he had gotten me honey it was only because old Kulu said it was a great tonic and would help me heal as quickly as possible. I made up the name of the oat milk candy, I just used fried crispy oatmeal wrapped in honey and cream, rolled into a rice ball and wrapped in a herb leaf, which is a great calorie source and a great energy booster. I was bored out of my mind a while back and occupied the old kuru's clay oven, boiling myself up all sorts of things like I remembered from the past, trying to find a presence, and it was like I was going crazy, thinking up all sorts of things that I could possibly make and experimenting with them, oat milk candy being the product of that time.

I rolled my eyes and gave a soft grunt through my nose, I couldn't be nice to this rogue dog, he was a rogue snake that went along for the ride. Kurtz also unloaded the water wagon at this point and turned his head to look over at me and said, "Giga, don't give him any sugar!"

There aren't many things that can nag Kurtz, and Tia happened to run one that was stupid and boring. The boy took Kuz one day over to the dance group's camp and peeked at the women bathing, which was nothing, the sad part was that Kuz couldn't understand what was so attractive about the naked human girl and then asked Tia about it outside the bathroom, which was simply enclosed in cowhide, and before the words were out of his mouth Tia was gone and then Kuz was completely miserable. I had to stay in bed for half a month when the fire poison came on, and the frying of my flesh almost drove me mad, but Kuz was even madder than me.

Kurtz was exhausted by this time, his leather jacket wrapped around the waist of his trousers, and the werewolf orcs had the upper body of an American bodybuilder, with longer arms that made them look beautiful. Sweat mixed with blood from the animal skins made the thick chest hair stick together, and Kurtz walked over to me to find a clear space and did thirteen basic stretching movements before saying to me, "My master said that the best time to build up the Force is after you've exhausted your strength. "

I knew this one, Kurtz was saying it to Tia, I didn't think Kurtz's heart was still actually this delicate.

I kicked Tia straight in the face with my little foot, fished a piece of oat milk candy out of my pocket and dropped it on Tia, then said, "Brother Tia, take Kuz to the little lake and wash up, you and he are so dirty. We're going to have dinner soon, how can you eat with that look on your face?"

"Why can't you eat, all the men out there hunting are like this, you're the cleanest ...."

I quickly picked up the oatmeal milk candy that had been dropped on him and scampered away to continue asking, "Do you eat, do you eat?"

Tia has a special preference for sugar and simply cannot resist the temptation of oat milk candy, of course if he would use force he could easily snatch it out of my hand with just one reach, after all I am just over 5 years old and over 10 years apart from him. He could even rent me forward with just one finger on my forehead. Or grab the collar of my leather jacket and he would lift me up with ease. But more than that, he was a well-educated knight who had his creed, and he never bullied the weak, and could even treat us as equals. Tia never had any compassion for us, but he treated people with honesty. I was young but far more mature mentally than the average person, and although I didn't dare to show it, I usually showed and did things in a way that suggested that I wanted to be treated as an equal. That's why Tia is the best suited to my temperament, and we joke about it more freely.

Tia got up from the carriage with a slight ***, wrapped her arms around Kurtz's shoulders and sucked in a cold "hiss" as she flung her sore arms at me, "Eat eat eat, you'll have to save that for me, I'm going to have a bath with Master Z."

A cold shower at this time of year would also promote blood flow throughout the body, which would be good for them all. The Orcs' view of strength is simple: the source of power only grows after the limits of movement.

Although I was chatting, I kept my pen in my hand, still recording the spoils in two parts, and when I saw the overall tally, I realised that although there were almost three times as many of them as the Wind Chasers, the spoils were never 20% more than the Wind Chasers. This resulted in a very visible, thin sword wound on the soft chest between the two front legs, which went deep into the heart veins. There are also demonic antelopes whose whole body looks like it has been frozen, this child's flesh and blood are in a frozen state, and even on the way back, in turn, there are signs of melting, but the internal cavity of the demonic antelope is full of ice slag, obviously received a very powerful cold ice magic damage, there are still mysterious magicians in the prosperous star adventure group?

"You write beautifully, but it looks strange, and there's nothing wrong with each stroke, so why does each character always feel square? Oh, look, this stroke should be a bit more rounded, just circle it like this, don't take any hard corners, eh, this is not bad ..." the young female magician who was in charge of watching over our logistics team during the day stood beside me at some point and suddenly said something that almost scared me off the cattle car. I nearly fell off the bullock cart. She casually pulled me to my feet and crouched right beside me, pointing to the words I had carved into the parchment with a knife and pen and telling me about the shortcomings.

I finally knew why Master Payles had always looked at my writing strangely when he taught me the imperial script before, but he had never said there was anything wrong with my writing; as long as it was correct, he would never care if it was not twisted. I gave her a thankful smile and she patted my little face affectionately and tipped her forehead to mine saying, "Who actually gave up such a well-behaved little cutie like you, sis thinks you're great!"

This was the first time I had ever been spoken to so intimately by a woman in this world. I had thought the witch was an iceberg beauty, and although she didn't quite fit my definition of beauty, I couldn't deny her beauty. During the day, she had given me a handful of beans and later let me drink a little water, and I felt her friendliness towards me. All I could do was play the little goody-goody: "Thank you, sister."

"Thank me for what?" Thank you in Imperial language is meant to have a clear reference, and her compliments and kindness normally do not require my thanks, except that I brought my old memories back into this world and opened my mouth to say it subconsciously. The female magician asked me in disbelief.

All I could do was bite my upper lip with my lower teeth, roll my eyes and look at her with wide, slightly innocent eyes and say to her, "Thank you for complimenting me, sister!"

"Scary! You have a funny way of talking, but I don't think that's how the Dwarves talk either, where are you from?" The young witch smiled and squatted beside me, her eyes like curved moon buds.

I could only say seriously, "I don't know."

After a while, when I had almost finished recording the sheep, she said to me seriously, "You have a very steady hand with the pen, I can see that you are very tired, you can hardly hold the pen, but you have very strong restraint. Ah, I'm surprised you stuck it out."

"I wanted to work well for a bit more white bread." I said honestly, and this was what Uncle Fred had told me, that the group of men who joined the hunting group would not only be paid around three silver coins, but would also get to eat sweet white bread. I was not to be paid three silver coins, I thought it would be nice to be given a silver coin, so white bread was what I wanted most, it was unbearable to keep eating black flour cakes so rough that they could almost scratch my intestines these days.

"Oh, what a low request. Oh yes, my name is Gogo, you can call me Sister Gogo. If you want white bread you can always call me, I think I have a jar of Eltown's special golden apple sauce here, it tastes pretty good!" The magician said easily.

Gogo? A water wizard from the Windchaser Adventurers? My goodness!

Tia had told me many times about their adventuring group, and I knew that they had a magician in their group who specialised in water healing and support magic, but this was the woman who looked so young! Of course I didn't mince words and called out, "Sister Gogo!"

The night was like thick ink dyed into clear water, seeping darkness in. The stars became unbearably bright and the cool breeze abated considerably, but it was still a little chilly on this night, this early spring. On the other side of the hill stood rows of wooden frames of taut skins, each two against the other, waiting for the skins to dry and then coated with manzanita, in neat rows like the tents of a military camp. Three campfires were lit on the south slope, and even in such a simple camp, each small group still did as they saw fit, dividing into three fires even though there wasn't much fuel. I guess the two adventuring groups are not so close as to eat and live together, and it is still time to tally up the day's spoils over dinner, so it's embarrassing to get together and talk!

The empire has a very complicated system of secondary ranks, the highest being His Majesty the Emperor - Prince - Duke - Earl - Marquis - Viscount -The lowest status was that of the slaves, who had no power, and the vagabonds were a group of people with no status, no property, no skills. The lowest status is that of the slave, without all power, and the vagabond is a group of people with no status, no possessions, no skills, who could more appropriately be described as beggars. The tanners were at best commoners, and if they were put together with the knightly adventurers, they would inevitably have a lower status, but in fact they were not so different, and the down and out knights were far less well off than the commoners.

So three fires were built and each group prepared their own dinner. The skinned antelope could not be taken away, but at most some of the cured legs, and most of the meat and bones would be abandoned on the southern slopes of the grassland, waiting to be eaten up by beasts like the steppe wolves.

The night was bleak and the evening breeze blew.

------------