Swords, magic, and martial arts

"Rhodes, it's time to get up!" Baron pounded on Rhodes' door.

Rhodes lay in bed rubbing his eyes, which were still half-closed from just waking up. He had stayed up late studying the necromancer's diary yesterday. The rambling and nonsensical words in the diary gave him a headache, but thinking that there might be some magic or something he could learn from it, he patiently continued reading.

He got up and opened the door, and saw Baron standing there fully armed, with a steel axe with a chipped hole on his back, wearing a patched brown bear fur armor, a steel bull horn helmet on his head, and a dark gold throwing axe at his waist. With his burly figure, he looked quite intimidating standing at the door.

"What time is it?" Rod walked to the bedside, sat down, and asked while rubbing his eyes.

"It's still morning, so hurry up and get ready. We're leaving right away," Baron said as he walked in and sat on the bed.

"What's going on? Weren't you supposed to sell those spoils this morning?" Rod asked again, standing up and putting on his thick animal skin coat.

"Do you remember that bearded man named Daniel who led us back to the city last time? Their caravan is leaving the city soon and heading in the same direction as us. The price has been agreed upon, and they can set off in an hour. Go and get ready." Baron finished speaking and walked out.

……

After washing up, Rhodes put the things he needed to take into his spatial ring, which was much more convenient than before. In the past, he had to put his personal belongings into a backpack that would hinder his movement. But what if someone wanted to kill him and steal his treasure because of that legend?

With the spatial ring, even petty theft seems to become quite easy.

No, no, how could I have such thoughts? If others find out, they'll look down on me.

Rhodes saw the "Catastrophe of the Wise" on the table and wondered which unlucky souls had fallen victim to its effects in the past few days.

He hung the sword at his waist, and then Rhodes went downstairs.

Before he even reached the first floor, he heard Baron haggling with the tavern owner over the money they had spent at the tavern over the past few days.

"Since it's eleven gold coins, ninety silver coins, and thirteen copper coins, can't you make it cheaper? Can't you just remove the extra gold coin? That way, I'll give you ten gold coins, and it'll be easier for you to count them," Baron said loudly.

"I can take your thirteen copper coins, but don't even think about anything more," the tavern owner waved his hand.

"We're old friends, why be so petty?" Baron said.

"Who said we're old friends? We've only known each other for a few years. You're trying to take advantage of me like this?" the tavern owner said impatiently.

Baron looked around, wondering how he could persuade the tavern owner. He turned and saw Rod coming down the stairs, beckoning him over.

Rod walked over, looking at Baron with a puzzled expression. He didn't think he could convince the tavern owner.

Baron leaned in and whispered in Rhodes' ear, "Use the magic effect of your sword on him."

"That's not a good idea, to do something like this just to save a little money," Rod said.

Baron reached out and grabbed Rod's shoulder, saying, "This little bit of money? Don't you know how much danger we have to take to earn a single gold coin? Normally, hiring us as servants only costs a dozen or so silver coins a day. This is almost two gold coins."

Seeing that Baron's eyes were red, Rod could only helplessly agree, "Okay."

He reached for the longsword hanging from his belt, and a flash of blue light appeared on the hilt before disappearing into the tavern owner's body.

"Then I'll pay you eleven gold coins. Ninety silver coins are too hard to count. A successful tavern owner like you can earn that back just by counting money. Besides, you'll still make a lot with eleven gold coins, don't you think?" Baron said, turning to the tavern owner.

The tavern owner thought for a moment, nodded, and said, "Indeed, I've made a lot of money even if you give me eleven gold coins, so just pay me that much."

Upon hearing this, Baron smiled and took out eleven gold coins from his wallet, handing them to the tavern owner before leading Rod toward the tavern door.

"Wait!" the tavern owner suddenly shouted.

"Is there anything else?" Baron asked somewhat nervously.

"I counted, and you gave me an extra gold coin. As a reputable businessman, I won't take advantage of you for just one gold coin." The tavern owner raised his head with some pride and tossed a gold coin to Baron.

Baron reached out and caught the gold coin that flew towards him, saying, "Thank you, you're such a kind person."

Rod looked at the money Baron counted and didn't give him a single extra gold coin.

I don't know if the "Catastrophe of the Wise" was too effective, or if the tavern owner simply couldn't count.

……

Baron led Rod to the vicinity of the city gate, where the caravan was almost ready.

The caravan consisted of about thirty people and more than a dozen wagons loaded with goods. The wagons varied in size, some pulled by horses and others by oxen.

The tops of each vehicle were covered with cloth, whether for better preservation or to prevent people from knowing what was being transported was unclear.

"What are they transporting?" Rod asked Baron, who was counting money in his wallet.

Baron looked up and whispered to Rod, "You don't need to worry about any of this. What you're transporting is none of our business. Just pay us."

Rod randomly picked a car with an empty seat and got in. He started checking his spatial ring, which was almost full of things. Besides food, water, and flint, there was also the wine that Baron had given him yesterday. More than half of the three cubic meters of space was filled with wine.

Most of the wine was intended for drinking on the road. In addition, Baron specially bought some small iron pots with exquisite patterns, filled them with wine as a collection, and planned to collect a small pot of the specialty wine of each city.

Rod thought Baron's idea was a bit silly; if you're going to collect things, why not collect gold, jewelry, or antiques? A city has many taverns, and the tavern they were staying at might not even have the best drinks in the city.

The wine in this world isn't very good. It's just been simply filtered, and the residue might not even be completely filtered out, let alone distilled. Therefore, the alcohol content isn't very high, and it doesn't taste nearly as good as the wine in the previous world.

But Baron said that although the owner of that tavern was stingy, the drinks were very good and had a unique flavor.

Rod had also drunk the wine from that tavern. He thought it had a peculiar burning sensation, and that it must have been mixed with some kind of chili-like plant.

If you buy cheap liquor, distill it, and then sell it at a high price, could you make a fortune?

However, it's probably a long time before I have plenty of free time again.

Rhodes sat on the edge of the car, getting a little bored while waiting to leave. He had spent the whole night reading the necromancer's diary, and now he really had no interest in studying it anymore.

He took out the small iron pot containing wine from his spatial ring and engraved "Ice Stone City" on it with a dagger.

"That's good. I hadn't thought of that before. If we collect too much wine, we won't be able to tell which bottle is from which city," Baron said, standing to the side after counting the money and seeing this scene.

"Is everything ready?" Daniel, with his long beard, asked as he walked up to Baron, with Hammer and Weber following behind him.

"We can leave anytime," Baron replied.

"There aren't many spare seats in the caravan, so you might have to take turns sitting and resting. Once we pass Ice River City and sell some of our goods, things will be fine," Daniel said.

Ice River City is the closest city to Icestone City to the south. Following the main road in Nord will definitely lead you to another closest city.

"It's alright." Baron smiled.

"Then I'll head out now. I need to check on the others. I want to leave as soon as possible," Daniel said, before walking toward the front of the convoy.

Weber walked up to Rhodes and tossed him a package. "Put this in your ring. It contains the things that weren't sold last time," Weber said.

Rhodes nodded and put the package inside.

After waiting in the car for a while, everyone saw Daniel climb onto the roof of a vehicle and shout, "Let's go! Let's try to get to the next city before tonight!"

The caravan began moving towards the city gate, and Rhodes and the others followed. Because Hammer's injuries hadn't fully healed, he remained seated in the carriage. There was enough room for another person, so Baron and Weber gave up their seats for Rhodes.

"Why aren't we at the front of the caravan? Instead, we're sitting at the very back. Shouldn't we be the first to encounter danger if we run into trouble?" Rhodes asked Hammer, who was resting with his eyes closed.

"Baron and the others should go to the front, so you and I just need to protect the back," Hammer said, opening his eyes. "Of course, if we encounter any danger, you'd better run far away. If there's nothing wrong, try to talk less. The road is dangerous, so we should conserve our energy," he added.

Rhodes was a little annoyed by his attitude, but there was nothing he could do about it.

It's so boring to travel such a long way without anyone talking to you. It's one thing to not have any girls to chat with, but even this burly man doesn't seem to want to talk to me.

So Rhodes took out the necromancer's diary from his spatial ring and continued studying it, hoping to learn some magic from it.

Besides the necromancer's crazy and audacious ideas, the diary also contained records of some experiments.

Unexpectedly, this necromancer had some "scientific" spirit and knew how to conduct controlled experiments. It even mentioned that one day, in order to test the effect of a toxin on animals, he caught three male and three female rabbits of similar size, injected them with the toxin, and observed the effects.

Except for one female rabbit that went mad, all the other rabbits died.

If he had only caught the mother rabbit, he might have thought that the poison could only drive animals mad.

Did the necromancer Otto trick us into going there to use Baron and Hammer, who are of similar size, and me, Sam, and Webber, who are smaller, as control subjects?

This thought suddenly popped into Rod's mind.

The caravan moved slowly along the snow-covered road. Although many caravans still traveled this road in winter, the snow had not melted due to the cold weather, so the caravans moved at a slow pace.

Life is really tough for ordinary people in this world. Despite the harsh environment and weather, the caravan members didn't find a city to rest, but instead chose to continue working in the cold winter.

Before he knew it, Rhode had finished reading the necromancer's entire diary. On the penultimate page, Rhode discovered that the necromancer had recorded one of his self-created spells...