Chapter 142 Ceylon 3rd Line of Defense
The conditions of hotels on the border are naturally not as good as those in the towns of the kingdom.
The listless shopkeeper learned that Peter and the others planned to spend the night. He stood up slowly, lit an oil lamp, and led them to the door of the room.
"Two beds are provided in one room. Haha. If you want hot water, you can bring your own container. There is an insulated water tank in the backyard. It is heated every morning and evening. If you come late, there is nothing you can do if it gets cold."
"Brown bread and pickles are provided in the morning. They cannot be taken away. Like hot water, the supply is limited."
The room is about 10 square meters in size. There are two wooden single beds that look pretty good, covered with relatively clean thin blankets and sheets, and bedding is also provided.
The disadvantage is that the sound insulation effect is somewhat poor.
Peter could clearly hear the movement coming from the next room. There was a regular muffled sound of something hitting, accompanied by the sound of a man breathing heavily and a female voice calling out high-pitchedly from time to time.
Peter hesitated.
"This situation...is a bit bad."
If it were to be in Ceylon City, the room price of 4 silver coins would be at least a spacious room with exquisite interior decoration and complete accessories. Maybe even the bed would be a soft and comfortable water bed, and the floor would be covered with velvet. The kind of blanket.
You dare to charge 4 silver coins for such a room. What is the difference between this and robbing money?
The average income of most farmers in Ceylon over the course of a year is only about 4 to 5 silver coins per month.
The shop owner said with a matter-of-fact expression: "Guys, this is the real border of the kingdom!"
"What kind of room do you expect to have? Do we need to arrange some dark elf technicians to take care of you?"
Peter was speechless.
What the shopkeeper said was not wrong.
Although the Royal Army and the Crusaders were stationed near the defense line, it was still relatively safe when the monster red tide did not break out.
However, during the red tide of monsters, it is completely unpredictable how strong the different monsters that flock to different defense lines will be. Every year, there are unlucky defense lines where the city walls are broken down and the defenders are breached.
Vendors and the like behind the defense line can still pack up their things in advance, carry buckets and run away;
For those who run hotels like this, even if people can escape in advance, the hotel will definitely be completely destroyed.
The higher the cost of construction and renovation, the greater the loss at that time.
What's more, most of the adventurers and mercenaries who come to such a place don't care about the rest conditions. Anyway, they are just a temporary stopover. After all, can the conditions be worse than spending the night in the wilderness?
Pate sighed helplessly.
"Okay, pay the money and get two rooms!"
He was already prepared to endure hardships on this trip.
It’s not that easy to be an adventurer who hunts monsters.
This is not a question of whether one is a professional or not.
No matter how powerful a professional is, he still needs to eat and sleep.
In the wilderness outside the border, the most troublesome thing since the arrival of the evil god is that most areas are no longer suitable for mortals to survive.
Not just the threat of monster attacks.
Many animals and plants that could have been used as food sources have become inedible after being deformed by pollution.
When venturing into the wilderness, you can only rely on the dry food you bring to fill your stomach.
When Peter and the others were in Greenport, their staple food was basically soft and sweet white bread.
But if you want to go to the wilderness, white bread’s tendency to spoil easily becomes its biggest drawback.
In a place like this, the only thing available is brown bread, which is easy to store. By the same token, living conditions in other aspects are also kept simple.
After all, something is better than nothing.
…
After the room was opened, everyone decided to go to the small market not far outside the hotel.
Rather than calling it a market, it is better to call it a place of acquisition and trading formed by a tacit understanding between adventurers, mercenaries, and traders.
It was evening at this moment, and some adventurers who only wandered around the area near Ceylon's No. 3 Defense Line rushed back to the kingdom before dark and were bargaining with the vendors who came to purchase monster materials.
Among the group of people, Brandon was the most interested in this scene.
He knew a lot about the materials found on monsters. Looking at the purchase signs set up by the vendors, he picked up all the treasures at his fingertips and kept talking:
"Benignly deformed monster skeleton! Grind it into bone powder and sprinkle it on the ground. It has the effect of accelerating plant growth. I remember that the coconut farmers in Greenport would buy this thing. The price was almost 1 silver coin per pound. It’s so much, I didn’t expect that the vendors here only buy it for 50 coppers per pound!”
"If it's shipped to Greenport, the price can more than double. It's really profitable!"
"And that one, look!" Brandon excitedly pointed to the purchase card on a vendor stall next to him: "The scales or carapace of monsters that can be purified. I know about this. You can add it when making armor equipment. I heard that it will be used." It has a strange effect!”
"The fibers that may be present in contaminated plants are said to be very tough after purification and have many uses!"
"Monster meat! You can't eat it directly! But after extracting a small amount of pure alienated meat, it can be mixed into feed and fed to livestock, making them grow bigger and produce more meat and milk! It's so cheap, here Are you only given 40 copper coins for purchasing 1 catty?”
Brandon watched as he walked. Most of this knowledge was told by the bragging mercenaries in the tavern in Greenport.
Adventurers and mercenaries with evil spirits and disgraced faces came here dragging their trophies and sold them to the merchants who bought them.
The most common things among them are the skin, bones, flesh, roots, stems, leaves and fruits found from monster corpses.
As for those relatively rare and exotic materials, although there are vendors in this small trading market with "high price acquisition" signs, almost no one is willing to sell them here.
If you spend a little time and sell it in Ceylon city, the price might be dozens of silver coins or more.
The main transactions here are those common and large-volume materials. After the vendors purchase enough quantities, they will be transported to the appropriate place. The monks of the Glow God Religion are regularly invited to cast magical spells to complete the purification and extract useful materials from them. Then sell it to other customers in need.
After walking around the market, Brandon was a little confused because he found a place that was different from what he "expected".
"Huh? It's strange, why didn't I see what the bards were talking about, the mercenaries waiting to be hired or the adventurers waiting to form a team?"
Since arriving at the border, the other people Brandon has seen are just like him, with their own teams or organizations, and the number of loners is very small.
"Nonsense, even if there are people like that, they must be looking for teams in towns like Ceylon City. How could they all arrive at the border and form a temporary team?"
Gale reminded Brandon silently: "We formed a temporary team and didn't know each other's roots."
"What if after entering the wilderness, your temporary teammate sees that the situation is not good, stabs you decisively, abandons you and runs away?"
After Gale finished speaking, a high-pitched voice suddenly sounded not far away:
"Sir! Sir! Sir over there!"
"Are you still worried that the teammates you found temporarily can't be trusted?"
"Do you want to know more about the stand-in business?"
…
(End of chapter)