Samurai, they stood in a circle and seemed to be looking at something.
"Morning, Grievous!" the warriors greeted him. "Winter has come so early this year, and the green mice are coming out quickly. The ones that weren't there the day before yesterday caught three of them in one night's work!"
The green rat is a monster. They have a little bit of earth and wind power, which can help them dig holes quickly, and they can breathe wind blades. This green rat is usually the size of two large squirrels, with a long tail with small blue scales, grass-colored bristles, and a pair of black eyes. Their teeth are so powerful that a bite can leave tooth marks on the bone. There can always be a few mutants in a group of green mice, and they can keep growing until food doesn't suffice for their size. When the green mice gather in groups under the leadership of such mutants, their wind blades can be superimposed on each other, and the small magic that is not a threat will become quite terrifying after the superposition.
They breed in large numbers during spring and summer, hoarding food in autumn, leaving part in their old nests in winter, and the other part gathering in rat swarms, rushing towards places where humans live—where there are humans, there is food.
"I'm afraid this year's rat tide will be difficult." Enya said worriedly. She didn't kill the three green mice, but hung them outside the kitchen and let them make a scream of "squeak-squeak-". This sound can warn other green mice to keep away.
"Yeah, gotta work."
The warriors took up shovels, axes, and put on their coats. Slyer sat on the side and finished his breakfast in silence—still nasty, but more or less used to it. He quietly saved a small piece of cake to feed the squirrels later, but Grievous threw him a coat, grabbed his hand, and took it out.
"What are you doing?" he asked suspiciously. "I don't know how to hunt."
"No hunting today," said Grieve. "Winter is here, and we have to be ready. You're a man no matter how thin you are, and a man has to work."
There is a stone wall built by ancestors on the outermost side of Wall, which is used to resist the impact of monsters, especially in winter. However, this wall is damaged many times every year. When the rat tide comes, it can play little role - the green rats will climb up one by one, or make holes in the ground, no matter how good the wall is. Can't stand the mice too much.
The warriors divided into two groups, all the way to chop wood and all the way to the wall. They used snow to block the gaps in the stone walls, set up big buckets, put the snow in them and burned them, and poured the snow water down from the top of the stone walls. Slyer couldn't cut down trees, so he was assigned the job of shoveling snow. He did it slowly, far less neatly than the warriors.
He hadn't eaten much these days, and he had just gotten sick, and soon he was cold and tired, and even with gloves on, he felt like his hands were freezing. The team in front moved along the ice wall, throwing him a distance away, Slyer glanced at him, and seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he turned his back to the samurai group, panting with a shovel.
"Squeak!"
There was a small squawk, with a little softness. Slyer looked around and saw nothing in cyan.
"Squeak! Squeak!"
The snow in front of him suddenly bulged, and then a cyan head emerged from it. The green rat looked at Slyer for a while, then turned and ran, but stopped again when no one was chasing it after a while. The green rat tilted his head to look at Slyer, and Slyer also stared blankly at it.
An ordinary green rat. It stood upright, about above Slyer's knees, and the fluffy fur made it look bigger than it really was, a little scary.
"Squeak." Slyer whispered.
"Squeak!" The green mouse responded with a loud cry. It moved a little closer to Slyer.
Slyer reached out to touch the cake hidden in his arms, but the thick gloves hindered the touch. He simply took off one of the gloves and finally touched the piece that was originally prepared for the squirrels.
The rat got closer again. Its tail swayed at a regular rate.
"Squeak!" It suddenly opened its mouth. Three more green rats jumped out of the snow, and they all spit out wind blades at Slyer. Slyer clenched the shovel and ducked to the side, but the wind blade still rubbed his hand, leaving a small hole.
Taking advantage of his lack of stability, the green mice rushed towards him together. Slyer raised his shovel and smashed the head of the green rat in the front. The green rat was smashed into the snow by him. Because of Slyer's slow movement, it hit the green rat's fragile neck, but he hit it crookedly and killed it. However, the other three green mice were not moved by the accident of their companions. They showed their sharp teeth, and they were about to bite Slyer.
"Whoosh-"
There was only one sound, but three arrows were fired. They flew down Slyer's neck, waist and armpits, pierced the mice's stomachs, and pinned them to the snow.
"Are you all right?" Griffor ran over with the bow on his back to check on his condition. Slyer gasped for breath, staring at the dead green rat. His right hand, not yet gloved, was red with cold.
"Don't be too far away from everyone. The beasts don't dare to come over when they see many people, but if they are alone, they dare to eat people." Griev took off the glove on his left hand, held Slyer's right hand, and took him with him. walking back. His hands were steaming with plenty of labor, as warm as the summer sun.
[13]
The snow is getting thicker. After strengthening the stone walls, the warriors began to make ice bricks from snow, which they then stacked on top of the stone walls.
Wall is actually a large area. Because winter came too early, some warriors who should have spent the winter in other strongholds came to defect due to lack of food and firewood. The ice wall got higher and higher, but so did the green mice.
"What's the use of building a wall that high if the rat can burrow through it?" Slyer asked.
"There are other beasts, and there are also walls underground, but the underground walls are not easy to maintain, and there will always be a few holes." Grieve said, "From the ground, the green mice can't come in a large number at once, the giant The green mice can't climb up either. During the rat tide, most of the green mice still have to climb the wall. When the green mice gather here, they will leave a lot of corpses. Other hungry monsters can eat the green mice, so they won't think about it. people."
Slyer's magic power has been restored these days. His strength is still pathetic, but he has the magic of the wind. With the help of the wind, he can easily lift things that could not be lifted. With the proficiency of the magic, he can gradually keep up with everyone's progress.
He quietly gathered information and drew a simple map. When the ice wall was built, all the men had to go out. There was only Enya in the hotel who was busy for the winter. If he pretended to be sick and stayed at the hotel, escaped during the day, and rushed to the nearest village as soon as possible, it would be almost impossible to be found. . A silver coin was a lot here, and Slyer's clothes woven with gold threads and embellished with jewels were enough for him to live in luxury for the rest of his life.
Of course he didn't intend to live among wild humans. If you go to the most prosperous place, you may find a dragon film crew that shoots humans. As long as you find the dragon, you can ask them to take you back.
The only problem is convincing the chocolate. Even with the blessing of the wind element, it is terrible to walk on your own feet in a snowy day. In this regard, Lincong is quite stubborn.
That evening the samurai sat together for dinner as usual. Slyer sat silently next to Grievous, thinking about how to speak to Chocolate today. Anyway, now he is nominally Grievous's property, servant, and captive. He is not a serious warrior. Not many people will talk to him, and it doesn't matter how distracted he is.
Oh, and there's the last piece of bison in the pot, so good, it's a rare treat.
Slyer forked the meat away, and the fork of the samurai sitting across from Grievous, a little further from the basin, stopped awkwardly in mid-air.
Slyer didn't know that person, he should be the new samurai who joined these days. With a necklace of wolf teeth hanging around his neck, he seems to be a powerful character. Slyer nodded at him perfunctorily, then quickly shoved the meat into his mouth.
The guy with the wolf teeth was instantly angry. He slapped the table, pointed at Slyer's nose and scolded: "You are a prisoner, a coward, a man without arms, why are you sitting here, eating with brave warriors?"
Slyer looked at him blankly: "Who are you?"
"I'm Gordon, who has hunted seventeen wolves! Griff's captive, you're just an object, a thing, you shouldn't eat at the same table with us, just as a wife can't eat before her husband, and a son can't Walk in front of your father!"
"He labored with us," Grieve said. "He had his share of the icicles on the ice wall, and I don't think he couldn't sit with us."
"If you admit that he's our equal, then I'm going to challenge him," Gordon said. "If he doesn't, he has to get off this table."
Grief frowned, he was about to say something, but Slyer clapped his hands and stood up.
"Okay," he said, "but let me decide what to compare, samurai. As you know, I'm a man without arms, and if you compare bows and swords with me, you'll be bullying me too much. But if we were all fighting with a shovel, it would be too ugly. Otherwise, let's just wrestle our arms, which is faster and less dangerous."
Gordon laughed: "You are smart, and you know that you will be hurt more than others. Well, since your wrists are so thin, I will let you use two hands."
The warriors immediately began to boo. They felt that even so, Gordon was still bullying Slyer, but there was no fun in the big winter.