Chapter 36

After Jiaxiya left, Mali reorganized the trunk again and took stock of the supplies inside.

Among them, various tools and spare parts were basically all there.

He had performed a thorough maintenance on the G300p before setting off, and plus he had driven relatively carefully along the way, so the car had traveled nearly three hundred kilometers without any issues.

The several barrels of diesel carried were the most important resources, and he hadn't moved them down either. Excluding the consumption on the road, there were still more than four hundred liters left, which meant that almost all the things he lost this time were food and water.

Among them, 75L of purified water was left with only 12L in the car, missing nearly 50L, two boxes of canned fruit were missing, and a large bag of compressed biscuits was also missing.

Stealing food could be understood, but moving away even purified water, and a full 100 jin of purified water at that, was a bit too abnormal.

Therefore, Mali hadn't considered the villagers from the beginning. Plus, after asking Jiaxiya and others and finding that their chocolate had also disappeared, he had some conjectures in his heart.

Could it be that things inside the Red Mist cannot exist for a long time outside the Red Mist?

But if that were the case, it couldn't explain why the G300p and the supplies on it didn't disappear along with it.

And the mountaineering backpack he carried in the city, the assault jacket he wore, and the mountaineering boots he stepped on were all perfectly fine.

Although the possibility of 【things inside the Red Mist disappearing randomly outside the Red Mist】 couldn't be ruled out, Mali still tended to believe that if the disappearance phenomenon did exist, there should be rules to follow.

Then what was the difference between the off-road vehicle and the things on his body and this batch of supplies temporarily stored in Baimu Cun?

Was it time?

No, these things were all brought out of the Red Mist by him together, and there was no difference in time.

Then it was the location?

Indeed, in terms of distance, this batch of supplies in Baimu Cun was closest to the Red Mist, while he drove the G300p and went to Yingzui City halfway.

But this conclusion was actually a bit counterintuitive: things closest to the Red Mist would disappear, while those far away could be preserved.

Mali felt that he might have missed something, but he couldn't think of it for a while.

The adventurer siblings and the kobold were already making a fire to cook, and Leini also came to help after resting for a while and recovering her spirit.

As for Xia'er, she led Suoluo to see the captain of the militia, Laibutousi. The monster hunter planned to assemble manpower to enter the forest after dinner.

Because the individual combat power of the goblin race is relatively weak, compared to frontal combat, they prefer to sneak attack in groups, using numerical superiority to pile the prey to death, so they are more inclined to act at night. In case they can't win, they can also scatter and flee with the help of the dark environment.

Suoluo naturally didn't plan to fight them at night. In fact, considering the time on the road, if they set off after dinner, they could reach the lair of the Wolf Tooth Tribe at dawn.

It would be just right to launch an attack while those goblins were resting.

Suoluo didn't expect to wipe out all the goblins in the lair in one battle. These green-skinned little dwarves were all fence-sitters. Once they found that the enemy was too powerful and their side was no match, they would scatter and flee.

So the goal of this round of surprise attack was to eliminate the young and strong goblins in the tribe as much as possible.

If everything went well, the next step would be a chase battle, and then Huodun's sensitive nose would come in handy.

Suoluo initially estimated that as long as more than thirty goblins were killed, this tribe would collapse, because even if the remaining goblins gathered together again, their strength would not be enough to survive in the forest.

They would likely be eaten by other beasts, and if they were lucky, they might return to the depths of the forest to defect to other goblin tribes.

But that was none of Suoluo's business. He had already completed the mission, and Baimu Cun would at least be able to survive this winter safely.

And before everyone set off, Mali found Xia'er again and gave her all the remaining canned food and compressed biscuits, leaving only a three-day portion for one person.

There would be plenty of these things after he returned to Luoyang, and Mali didn't intend to drag them around.

This made the half-elf girl, who was a canned food head, very happy. And Mali's request was also very simple: as long as she finished eating the canned food every time, she should find a place to throw away the empty bottles and iron boxes in time and make a mark.

And then go to those marked points to see if they were still there when they returned.

Besides that, Mali also handed the bear spray to her and informed the team members about the giant bear seen in the forest before.

However, even the knowledgeable Suoluo didn't know what that actually was. In his memory, the only bear monster larger than a bear was the Northland Storm Bear, but it was obviously impossible for it to appear in the Endless Forest, so Xia'er and the others could only increase their vigilance.

After they left, Mali also drove the car to throw some small trash around Baimu Cun and recorded the distance and time in his notebook, then returned to the village to continue academic exchanges about alchemy with Lievre.

For the next three days, he repeated this life of going for a drive and chatting.

The two didn't just talk about alchemy, but also included the customs, politics, and economy of the Jiadelan Gongguo, and even the entire Leiwateleisi Continent.

Although Mali had also chatted about these things with Xia'er, the half-elf girl was, after all, just a small hunter from a remote rural area, and she certainly couldn't compare with the vice-dean of the Alchemy Branch of the mainland's No. 1 Magic Academy in terms of vision, knowledge, and knowledge reserve.

Even if Lievre himself had no interest in politics and commerce and had been obsessed with the research of ancient alchemy for these years, being in the upper circles of the Wangdu, he was much stronger than most people under the influence of his environment.

In his youth, he even had contact with mysterious visitors from the distant West Continent.

That was a group of Western merchants dressed in silk, riding huge wooden ships that had never been seen before.

Unlike the three-oared ships and single-masted sailboats that could only sail in the near sea of the Leiwateleisi Continent, their ships were much larger, the hull was more sturdy, and the head and tail were raised high, like a crescent moon.

It was said that such a design could better resist wind and waves, and they even built several exquisitely shaped small buildings on the deck.

The guards of the caravan were a group of bald monks who didn't know magic, but would practice something called 【Qi】.

The leader was a majestic kobold. He had a huge arched head, covered with black hair, only the two small parts above the eyes and the chin were yellowish-brown. He spoke very loudly, his voice was like a bell, and he could use turtle shells for divination to locate the direction for the ships in the sea.

They stayed in Shen Shui Gang for about half a month, causing quite a sensation, and were even summoned and feasted by the King.

However, they seemed to have other things to be busy with. They exchanged the silk on the ship for some gold, replenished the fleet, and then left in a hurry.

The old alchemist said that those guys from the West Continent were always so mysterious. Their first visit to the Leiwateleisi Continent was 160 years ago. Due to the language barrier, it almost triggered a small war.

But fortunately, the misunderstanding was cleared up later. Afterward, they would come once every twenty or thirty years to do some trade or something. Some people even took their ships to the West Continent, lived there for decades, and wrote "Travels to the Golden Country" and "Nine Swords of the Qi Sect."

The former was considered a travelogue and had certain research value, while the latter was purely street literature like a knight novel, full of all kinds of whimsical fantasies of the author.

In addition, with the establishment of the shipping route, some people from the West Continent also came here to live, but in general, people on the Leiwateleisi Continent were still in a state of half-understanding about the other continent, and would occasionally make some diplomatic jokes.