Chapter 141: Above the Forest

Southsea Town was much colder than Stormwind, and Jace was a little skeptical that a half-month’s travel could cross enough latitudes to make the temperature difference so pronounced, perhaps because it was almost December.

Still, it’s pale green here, and Alvin is already a yellow leaf.

Of course, unlike the large deciduous broadleaf forests of Irving Woods, the Hillsblade Hills are home to large swaths of pines and cypresses, and even though the needles of the pines and cypresses wither and shed a bit in the winter, it only makes the forests a bit grayer, rather than falling into the fall stereotype altogether.

Before the sun rose the next day, the two left the town of Southsea and made their way north along the coast, the cold coast making it necessary to wrap the cloak tightly around one’s body even if one wore a mage’s short coat underneath.

But Grid was quite excited, perhaps it had been a long time since he had been out practicing, and he was rather looking forward to meeting his next fight.

Jace kept thinking of the words Fabron had cautioned himself about, that a fishman seeing himself in broad daylight would come running wildly over to eyeball you for dear life from a long way off.

He thought about how he definitely wouldn’t be skimping on any Shadow magic this time if he did get into a crisis, especially now that Grider didn’t seem so averse to it either.

Most importantly, he didn’t want to somehow get a few holes in his waist from a fishman’s pitchfork.

“Hurry up and keep up, Jace.” Grid shouted ahead, carrying his lumbering axe, and though his voice was particularly high-pitched, it became rather pale and monotonous as it swung across the desolate mudflats.

“It’s too cold here in the morning, too, Grid.”

“You told me you were afraid of the cold, I brought your wolfskin coat, but unfortunately it was in the inn.”

“I’m surprised you remembered to bring it.”

That wolf skin coat just didn’t look like something you’d wear in the fall, like something you’d wear in the winter when you’re slogging through a blizzard, so Jace hadn’t thought to take it away right away when he’d taken a look at it earlier.

After all, he couldn’t fit such a big piece in his little shitty room anymore, which meant that Grid’s giant big knitting bag could make room for this sweater jacket.

With that in mind, I might as well give this jacket to my father.

Before leaving the King’s City, his father hadn’t stood outside much because of his age.

But he still liked to walk the walls when he had nothing else to do, and if he had a thick coat to wear in the winter, he should be a lot more comfortable. Especially if he could say that it was a wolf that his own son had killed in the Stormwind Kingdom, it would be a great way to pull it off.

Jace couldn’t help but grin at the thought, and seeing that Grid had already run out a long way, he hurried to speed up his pace again to catch up.

Rounding a short cliff full of roots, Jace saw Grid standing on a large rock in front of him, squinting at the coast not far away. He came under the rock, tilted his head and asked, “What’s going on?”

Grider raised his arm and pointed at the tide, “Look over there, see anything?”

“Something ……”

Jace glanced over and saw nothing, so he followed suit, climbed up the rock, crossed his toes and looked over carefully, and found some little shanties of the yellowish latter brown over there, built of wood and seaweed.

It was a village of fishmen, Jace knew.

Both in the game and in this world, fishmen like to live in small huts like this, but it’s not quite a village, at best it’s a small settlement of fishmen over here, with maybe only a dozen or two groups of a dozen or two small clans of fishmen living.

After all, it wasn’t far from Nanhai Town, only a few miles away, and from here you could even see the smoke from the cooking fires rising from the city of Nanhai Town to the east, where human soldiers could patrol at any time.

This would be the newest settlement to develop over here after the humans couldn’t care less about the fishmen ravaging the area during the war.

Yet there wasn’t a single fisherman in this small village, as if someone had just finished painting the place not too long ago.

Of course, the monsters here don’t refresh in the void, gone is gone, either they’re all hiding, or they fled a long time ago for some unknown reason.

Jace guessed that it might be that the town of Southsea was back to the busyness it had been before the war, and there were quite a few soldiers, or groups of mercenaries hanging around, like travelers or adventurers or something like Jace and Grid, and the fish people didn’t want to touch them, so they just had to move back again.

“So, where’s my money?” Grid scratched his neck and asked, “Where did all my silver coins go?”

“Of course a silver dollar with long legs would run.” Jess said helplessly, “It’s not like you can make people wait around for you to come over and cut off their heads.”

Grid said, “Such a small piece of house, just say you don’t want it? It’s not easy for those little fishmen to build such houses with their thin arms and legs.”

With that he jumped off the rock in a single bound and ran with his axe raised step by step over the sandy beach towards the neighborhood of the settlement, and Jace shouted with some concern, “You watch out for an ambush!”

“That’s better!” Greed said with a sideways glance as he ran, “I’m looking forward to the silver coins ambushing me!”

Jace followed suit and slid down the rock, taking his staff off his back in readiness.

He thought that if a school of fishmen appeared, he would immediately unleash a fear spell enhanced by the staff to scare them all away, and then take Grid with him to wait for an opportunity to escape.

With that in mind, he pulled another mana potion from his warlock’s bag and slipped it into the straps at the chest of his vestments.

However before the warlock bag could be tied up again, the brat suddenly emerged from it and said, “Master …… I sense it, bad vibes.”

“You …… go back!” Jace was in a cold sweat of fear. He looked at Grid, who was running wildly into the distance; he’d already run past the high up sandy slope and couldn’t see this side clearly, which was why the brat had the nerve to show himself.

“What breath?”

The little ghost glared and said, “A shadowy creature is approaching, master, and with great hostility! I can feel …… him hovering a long way away now, but …… he is not hiding his Shadow aura, shall we say, he is deliberately releasing his Shadow power, perhaps he is casting a spell, or perhaps he is just purposely trying to be visible to the others! “

“Shadow creatures, what shadow creatures, are they orc warlocks or something, are you sure?” Jace asked.

“OK! But what kind of creature …… I …… I can’t say.” The Kid grabbed the buttons of Jace’s shirt and shook them, “Master, he may not be targeting you, but be careful anyway!”

“I know, just get in there.” Jace rubbed the Kid’s head and tucked him back into his bag, his hot hand still stinging a little, the Kid’s head was undoubtedly the place where the evil heat was the heaviest, not so much that it burned like a real flame, but it was extremely uncomfortable to touch.

After tying the bag tightly, he looked toward the far shore, and then at the pine forest on the bank, and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Is that Ogrim Doom? Ogrim has come to Hillsbrad?

If that’s true, that four-day blockade is that much more convincing.

Or is it Naga? Is there a Naga around here?

He looked out to sea again, the sea of Lordaeron was green and black, much deeper than the bluish waters of Stormwind City, and felt more depressed and bleak even after looking at it for a long time.

But even then, there was no sign of any naga, and Jace’s eyes followed the shoreline in both directions, seeing nothing else in human form.

Is there an ambush in the sea?

He touched the pearl chain chained to his wrist to see if the naga’s ornament would have any magical effect on the naga’s proximity or anything like that, but the pearl, too, was as dull as ever and didn’t respond in the slightest.

In any case, given the more troubling dangers, it’s not really appropriate to continue a mission that pays 2 silver coins.

“Grady!”

Jace rubbed his still slightly itchy hand as he walked towards Grid, having rushed to the small village of fishmen.

Those small houses are short as hell, not even higher than Griddle, even if the fish people live in it must be narrow and crowded, at most a role in the rain, I do not know what these fish people count on these houses.

“Grid! Be careful, I don’t think something’s right here!”

“It does seem wrong.”

Grid said, swinging the lumbering axe in his hand and chopping it so hard on one of the huts that the house, which was already made of wood, collapsed with a sudden tilt.

Jace stepped to the side to make sure there weren’t any fishers around to be seen before asking, “What are you doing ……”

“Of course it’s to attract the fishmen.” Grid said as he hacked away, “It’s just not right, they can’t even be oblivious to the fact that their homes are being torn down, can they? Whether the damned little things are hiding in the water, or in a hole on the shore, they should …… uh!”

Another axe, and a hut was completely chopped down, sparse shells and dead fish falling all over the place, fragmented by the tide, giving off a disgusting fishy odor.

Jace took a step back with his nose up, looked around again, and glanced out to sea to make sure it was empty.

“Let’s just go find the wine crates, and go back a little further towards Southsea Town, and look carefully, maybe there really aren’t any more fishers here, and the owner of the house might be right.”

Still spitting in defiance, Gridd knocked his axe into the sand and looked out to sea, clutching the handle.

“It was a good idea to make more money, but it turned out that there were really no more fishers, and those doing business really refused to give more blood at all.”

At that moment, Jace’s afterglow caught a glimpse of a shadow sweeping across the sky, and he looked up that way to see what looked like a bird flying over the top of the pine forest in the direction of the town of Southsea.

After looking at it like that for a while, though, he realized that it wasn’t supposed to be a bird, but something rather large, only the illusion of a very small target was created by the fact that it was flying so high and there was no point of reference around it.

The thing flew farther and farther away, turning slightly, and Jace noticed a long tail trailing behind the shadow.

Is it another griffin that mages ride?

“Hey Grid, is that a griffin?” Jace shook Grid’s shoulder and pointed at the shadow and asked, “It appears to be a black one, is it of the Sintran variety?”

“Stains? There are still griffins from Cintron here? I don’t believe it. ……”

Grid cocked his head to look at it, his expression suddenly changing from disdain to frozen, then quickly transforming into shock.

“That …… that ……”

“What?!”

“The dragon! That’s a dragon!”