Chapter 83

Four days later, under the urging of Borch and Geralt, Wayne and his party only brought a small amount of supplies, traveled day and night, quickly set off from Temeria, crossed the Kingdom of Redania, and arrived at the Bra River near the city of Hooborg.

However, when their party wanted to go to the city of Hooborg from the only ferry bridge on the Bra River, they were blocked by a team of soldiers.

These soldiers wore buttoned leather jackets and chainmail, held metal halberds in their hands, guarded both ends of the river crossing, and also built a wooden toll booth at the bridgehead.

Looking from a distance, a crimson triangular flag with a silver griffin pattern was inserted on the cabin, fluttering in the wind, and several fully armed soldiers stood in a row, which looked quite imposing.

When Wayne and others approached on horseback, they discovered that it was not just their party that was blocked outside the ferry bridge.

Besides a few villagers and travelers who wanted to go to the city of Hooborg to handle business, there were also some people dressed like mercenaries who looked very difficult to mess with, also surrounding the ferry toll entrance, watching people's arguments.

"Why won't you let us pass? This is a free city-state, it doesn't belong to the Duchy of Kaedwen at all, and you have no right to block us here."

The leader of the argument was a middle-aged man dressed in exquisite clothing, who should be a merchant with quite a family background. Behind him were not only a few young clerks, a few carriages, but even a few fully armed mercenary guards.

However, the soldiers responsible for guarding the ferry bridge were obviously the kind of rigid fools. No matter what the merchant said, he only replied with one sentence.

"I don't understand those things you said. I am just following the king's order to set up a checkpoint here."

"Anyway, without a pass, no one can pass through this ferry bridge. This is the order from the lord of Kaedwen, King Niedamir."

Facing such brutal obstruction, the middle-aged merchant was obviously very angry. He shouted loudly: "This is the tribute and fruit sent to the Cliff Temple in the city. I have been blocked here by you for a day. If I wait any longer, these fruits will rot."

Unfortunately, the soldier didn't even look at him, holding the halberd in his hand, and repeated: "I am only responsible for checking the pass. If you have any questions, go talk to the commander yourself."

And standing on the other side, the tallest of the three mercenaries suddenly said loudly: "Hmph! The reason King Niedamir blocked this place is to deal with that injured dragon. That dragon is poisoned and dying."

"They must be afraid that the treasure in the dragon's nest will be taken by others, so they deliberately blocked this passage and didn't let capable people pass."

The soldier who shouted heard this, looked at the mercenary, and didn't refute, just repeated: "I am only responsible for checking the pass, and I don't care about anything else."

Seeing this, Borch looked at Wayne and Geralt. Before the three set off, they had already agreed that in this matter, he would listen to the command of the two witchers.

However, Geralt was obviously a bit absent-minded. After rushing for four days and finally arriving here, his mind was all on Yennefer, who had not yet appeared.

Seeing this, Wayne reached out and signaled Borch not to worry, and whispered: "We just arrived here and don't know the situation, so we shouldn't act rashly."

"Let me go and ask for information first."

After speaking, he dismounted, walked into the middle of the crowd, scanned around, and finally placed his gaze on a younger soldier at the edge of the guards.

He approached the soldier, and under the soldier's vigilant gaze, reached out and took out a gold coin to hand over, then whispered: "Mr. Soldier, can I ask you a few questions?"

Seeing this, the young soldier quickly scanned his companions who were still arguing with the pedestrians, quickly put the gold coin into his pocket with quick eyes and hands, then coughed lightly and whispered:

"Ask, but I won't tell you about confidential matters."

Wayne smiled and asked softly: "Sir, about the pass you mentioned, can you tell me how many people have passed through the ferry bridge so far, and when did they leave?"

Seeing that the questions Wayne asked were quite ordinary and not confidential, even many people in the city saw it.

The young soldier quietly breathed a sigh of relief and replied: "This is not a secret. Three days ago, King Niedamir, in order to kill that dragon, issued passes to everyone in the vicinity who had the ability to hunt dragons, hiring them to hunt this dragon."

"Eck of Denesle is the most famous one. He is a knight and passed through this bridge the day before yesterday. After that, there were six dwarves. I don't know them, but I heard my companion say that the leader is called Yarpen Zigrin. They once killed the dragon of Quartz Mountain, Ocvist, and are a group of dwarves with strong combat effectiveness."

"This morning, there were also three hunters who looked very fierce and covered in tattoos who passed through the bridge. Their fame is also very great, and they seem to be called the Crinfrid Reavers by others."

"Currently, except for the king's army, only these three batches of people have passed through here."

After obtaining the desired information, Wayne returned to Geralt and Borch and told them what he had asked.

Among these three groups of people, he only had some impression of Eck and Yarpen Zigrin, but he was not very clear either. He only knew that Eck seemed to be some kind of monster killer, a knight, quite powerful, while Yarpen would be an officer in the dwarf army in the future.

As for those so-called Crinfrid Reavers, he had never even heard of them.

However, unlike the novice Wayne, Geralt had been mixing in the North for so many years and had some understanding of these well-known figures, so he explained:

"Eck of Denesle, this guy is a son-of-a-bitch knight. Of course, many people call him Eck the Pious and Honest, a brave and fearless knight."

"This guy is very strong and very good at dealing with monsters. I heard that he once defeated several dragons and also killed manticores and griffins. As for monsters like drowners, this guy doesn't know how many he has killed."

Borch was very surprised upon hearing this and asked: "In that case, isn't this Knight Eck a dragon-slaying expert? An ordinary knight, is he that powerful?"

Geralt seemed to have a big opinion of Eck. Hearing Borch's praise, he snorted disdainfully and said: "It's all rumors, no one knows if it's true. However, since there are so many rumors, he must not be a lucky person; he should be someone with real skills."

"But this guy is a bastard. Every time he kills a monster, he doesn't take money, not a penny, which simply breaks the rules of the industry."

"Several times, those unruly people used this as an excuse to ask me to kill monsters for them for free."

"Some despicable idiots only agreed to pay me half the reward in the end."

Hearing Geralt say this, Wayne thought of other things.

This Knight Eck is indeed the kind of good person in the eyes of outsiders, often helping villagers deal with monsters that harm one side for free, seems to have a special hatred for monsters, and does not charge any reward.

But precisely because of this, Knight Eck does not stay at home all year round. In order to repair weapons and armor and travel around, he squandered the family's property, leaving only his wife and children to live a poor life.

In the end, even his wife was seriously ill and had no money for treatment. His son asked him to earn money to save his mother, and this guy directly severed his relationship with his son. He is simply a weirdo.

By the time of the game, his son Siegfried also grew into an honest knight and even became the leader of the Order of the Flaming Rose, but he still had many complaints about this father and refused to forgive him.

After explaining Eck, Geralt took out the wine flask from his waist bag, took a sip of beer, and said: "Crinfrid Reavers."

"These three people are also very famous hunters. They hunted all the dragon lizards and giant centipedes in the entire Kingdom of Redania, and I even heard that they killed three red dragons and one black dragon."

"They are a group of hunters who will do anything to achieve their goals and are very good at using traps and poisons."

"As for Yarpen Zigrin and his bearded dwarf subordinates."

"I only heard that they once killed a very famous evil dragon in the Mahakam Mountains, named the dragon of Quartz Mountain, Ocvist."

"In the end, they obtained the evil dragon's treasure, a large batch of gems."

While the party was chatting about information, Wayne suddenly noticed that on the road behind them, a woman with excellent temperament and a very beautiful appearance was riding a tall and handsome black horse, walking over from a distance.

(End of chapter)