A quarter of an hour later, the twelve-man force was assembled.

In addition to these soldiers, there was a young man in his twenties standing by, who seemed to be a hired townsman. Lan En looked at him carefully and found that he looked 60% like the mayor.

Lann turned to look at the mayor with a questioning look, and the mayor explained: "This is my grandson, Levin."

Lan En frowned. He hated people who played tricks regardless of the situation, especially in times of crisis like this. "I want someone with experience."

"Levin has hunted near the forest, chopped wood with the villagers, and patrolled with the guards. He knows the forest best among the young people. Even if we count the elderly who have lived here for decades, Levin's knowledge of the forest ranks second."

"Who's number one?"

"I."

The old mayor spoke in a calm tone but with confident content.

Lan thought for a moment and asked again, "Where is his father?"

"I was killed by that monster while on patrol with the soldiers a few days ago."

Lan looked at the young man in the queue. He stood upright and firmly.

Lann was silent for a moment. "You know I'm not just wandering around the forest. I'm leading a team into the forest. I might even clash with people from other countries. I might lose my life."

The old mayor nodded. "I know. That's why I asked Levin to go with you. It's his duty, and he volunteered. We Brochilon people may be different from the people you know from other places. The old man can't ride a horse because of his inconvenient legs. If I were 20 years younger, I would hand over the mayor's position to someone else and become the one who follows you."

Lann turned around and asked solemnly, "I haven't asked for your name yet?"

The old mayor bowed and saluted: "You are my lord, please don't address me as a honorific. I am Luca Brot."

"I remember your name, Luca Blot." Lann turned and shouted to the team, "Let's go!"

…

Brokilon, the vegetation here is wild and luxuriant, and every ray of sunlight that filters through the branches of the tall trees is immediately absorbed by the young birch, alder, hornbeam, raspberry, juniper and fern, and beneath their branches are dead branches and rotting trunks, as well as the dying remains of the most ancient trees.

Under the remains of trees, one can often see bloody skeletons crawling with carnivorous ants.

"My Lord Earl, a body was found ahead." A scout rode up to report.

Lan went forward to take a look. It was a young man who looked no more than fifteen years old.

He had the appearance of a normal 15-year-old boy, not Lann's strange physique that had been enhanced by the system. This boy looked at least a head shorter than Lann, and had a thin body.

He was lying on his back, his legs spread wide apart, his face frozen in a look of terror. An arrow had pierced his eye, passed through the eye socket, and penetrated deep into his skull. The arrow feathers were made of pheasant feathers, painted bright yellow, and were particularly eye-catching in the grass.

"My Lord Earl." Ace led the scouts and easily found another identical arrow nearby, stuck in a pine tree six steps behind the corpse.

"Levin," Lann turned around and called out, "Observe the scene and tell us who the enemy is. Your grandfather said that you know the forest best in this town. Let me see what you are capable of."

Levin observed the scene for a while and reported decisively: "It's a tree spirit."

"The boy strayed into the forest, and the dryad shot the first arrow at him as a warning, trying to drive him out of the forest."

He pointed to the arrow on the ground, then to the arrow in the corpse's eye socket.

"'Get out of Brokilon,' the dryad would usually shout. But the boy was apparently frightened and ran deeper into the forest instead of choosing a way out, and that's when the second arrow was found."

Sword came up to look at him, frowned and said, "But it's just a child."

As soon as he finished speaking, he was punched by Ace. The Arrow Servant secretly glanced in the direction of Lann, who was a completely different fifteen years old.

Levin squatted down to pull out the arrows from the corpse and closed his eyes: "This is the tree spirit, even if you are just fifteen years old, driven by fear, panic, and ran into the forest; even if you are seventy years old, old and weak, driven out of the house and taken away from the food, you have to come out to collect firewood; even if you are only six years old, attracted by the flowers blooming in the glade.

You'll hear 'Get out of Blochlon' pretty soon, and then 'Whoosh!' and 'Bang!'

The mayor's grandson, who volunteered, showed an amazing knowledge of the forest and tree spirits.

Ace was very interested in the tree spirit's arrow. He looked at the pheasant feather arrow that was shot as a warning and asked, "I heard that the tree spirits and the people of Brokilon are sworn enemies. I didn't expect them to issue a warning before killing someone."

Levin shook his head. "Tree spirits are not crazy. Or rather, they are crazy people who can communicate. As long as we don't enter their bottom line and act restrainedly near the forest, we can live in peace."

"Let's not go into the forest yet." Lann thought for a while and decided, "We can't search aimlessly, otherwise it will easily lead to an irreconcilable conflict with the tree spirits.

Search the area first to see if there are any traces of the convoy and find out which direction the princess entered the forest from."

"yes!"

The team of twelve people cannot spread out too far, but fortunately the area that needs to be searched is not too large. Cintra itself has provided the route for this action, so they just need to search along the route.

But what Lann didn't expect was that instead of finding the clue to the princess, something else appeared first.

Soldiers of Verdon.

A scout rode back on horseback to report their unexpected discovery to Lann, and when Lann followed them, he saw the soldiers of both sides confronting each other.

They were elite soldiers, wearing conical helmets, mail armor and dark grey tunics, and they kept a distance from Lann's soldiers, neither side had drawn their weapons.

Compared to the other side, the equipment of these small town guards in Lann looked much more shabby. Although they maintained the uniformity of the standard, they were only wrapped in leather armor. But these were also rare elite soldiers among the small town soldiers.

Often, the combat effectiveness of a unit can be seen from its equipment. A unit with good equipment has stronger combat effectiveness, and a unit with poor combat effectiveness is not qualified to be equipped with good equipment. This is a simple truth.

Lann looked closely and saw that the mail armor of the soldiers opposite him was embroidered with the black and gold checkered emblem representing the Royal Family of Weiden. These were the Royal Guards, appearing in this frontier area. Perhaps because they had been here for a while, their armor had been worn to varying degrees.

Looking around, the other side was also a standard team of twelve people. In addition to the twelve scouts, Lann also had Lann himself, three servants, and Levin.