Wine was a good thing. It was of great help in improving relationships and calming the atmosphere.
The prerequisite was that one did not drink too much.
The elder dwarf had a very convenient magical tool. It was a wine flask. This wine flask was made of silver, and it looked exceptionally exquisite and gorgeous. There were detailed lines on it that were the complete opposite of the dwarves' sense of beauty. If one were to study it carefully, they would discover that it was not painted with paint, but was inlaid with countless tiny gems. Anyone with the slightest bit of insight could tell that it was an exquisite piece of art. Those who were more knowledgeable about art could also tell that it had a distinct elven style. As for those experts who studied elven culture, after careful study, they could tell that it was not the style of the modern elves, but the style of the ancient elven kingdom.
In fact, it was not an ordinary wine flask, but an extraordinary treasure.
Its name was the "Endless Wine Flask".
The name itself was enough to explain the problem. It could produce some wine for every consumption of magic power equivalent to the casting of a low-level spell. If it was fine wine, it could produce about one catty. If it was ordinary sweet wine or strong wine, it could produce about three catties. If it was malt wine with bubbles or ordinary inferior wine, it could produce up to five catties.
Mages who were familiar with enchantment spells and the creation of magical tools might know of a magical tool called the "Endless Wine Flask". This Endless Wine Flask was something similar to it, but the efficiency of producing wine was much slower than producing water. After all, the level of detail between the two items could not be compared at all.
The elder dwarf was not a very powerful spellcaster, but with his magic power, it was enough to make this wine flask pour out enough strong wine. At least … it was enough for the entire exploration team to drink.
In fact, it was more than enough.
If it wasn't for Hoppes and a few others who were either naturally teetotal or smart enough to pretend to be drunk after drinking the first cup, perhaps on the first night of the joint exploration team's arrival at the campsite, more than half of them would have frozen to death because all of them were drunk and sleeping outdoors.
Luckily, there were still a few sober people.
Hoppes, whose face was slightly red from drinking a little wine, led a few people who didn't drink and dragged those drunk fellows into the tent. They threw them onto the beds that were padded with a thick layer of hay, and then covered them with blankets. Although the words of each person were not heavy, there were hundreds of people in the joint exploration team, and now they were all drunk.
Therefore, when the last drunk cat was dragged into the tent and covered with a blanket, everyone except Hoppes was exhausted.
"Rest, rest! Everyone needs a good rest! " Hoppes waved his hand and got everyone to rest. He then walked to the side of the huge bonfire in the middle of the campsite. He looked at the flames that were burning with magic power, feeling the warmth coming from it, and let out a soft sigh.
"It's the first day and it's already so noisy. I wonder what will happen in the future?"
On this cold winter night, he was not the only one who felt this way.
About two thousand miles to the south, on the "border" where the forces of the merchant party and the aristocratic party intersected, there were also people sighing in a similar manner.
"It's only the first day, and it's already so troublesome. What will happen in the future?"
The one who released this sigh was a middle-aged man whose hair was half white. He wore light leather armor that was convenient for movement, carrying a similarly convenient curved blade. Both the leather armor and the curved blade were pitch-black. In this dark, cloudy night, it was almost impossible to distinguish them. The only thing that could be vaguely seen was the white hair on his head.
Near him, there were many people who also wore black leather armor and held various weapons that had been painted black. They even covered their heads with black hoods, making them look like shadows that could move freely.
Eerie, terrifying, and filled with the aura of death.
In fact, what they were doing was indeed something that brought about death.
Beneath their feet, a patrol team from the aristocratic party was lying on the ground. Each of them had more than one wound on their bodies, and even the smallest and shallowest wound was fatal.
Without a doubt, this group of patrolling soldiers were all dead. Many of them still had expressions of shock and astonishment on their faces. It was obvious that they had been ambushed, and had lost their lives before they could even react.
"Check again," the middle-aged man sighed and said in an emotionless tone, "Make sure that there are no survivors."
So, the men in black who seemed to be hiding in the shadows waved their weapons again, adding at least two wounds on each of the corpses of the patrolling soldiers that were enough to turn a living person into a dead person.
The middle-aged man looked at all this with satisfaction, then waved his hand and led the group into the night, quickly disappearing without a trace.
The next morning, the aristocratic party officer who found that the patrolling soldiers had not returned led some cavalry along the patrol route to search. Soon, they found the corpses that had been frozen stiff, and even the blood had congealed.
He frowned and his face was gloomy. He carefully looked at the corpses and then ordered them to be transported back.
He was a knight from a baron's family. These were the soldiers he had brought from his territory. They were his family's private soldiers. Many of them had even grown up with him, and could be considered as his hardcore team. He had brought these people here to make a name for himself, or to make a profit. But he had not expected that before he could get any benefits, so many of them would die first.
At noon that day, after he had made some arrangements, he galloped with a few bodyguards towards the camp of his superior.
When the sky was getting dark, they arrived at a small town. It was the camp of a viscount. This viscount, like the young knight, had brought his own private soldiers all the way to the border to see if they could get any benefits. Because they had the same idea, they had a good relationship.
The knight told the viscount about the attack on his patrol. The viscount was very surprised and then began to worry. If the enemy was able to kill six experienced patrol soldiers at once, the defense force here might not be enough if they came to attack him.
So he became nervous and used magic tools to contact his superior, the count who controlled this territory.
The count did not make a fuss about the death of a few patrolling soldiers. In his opinion, the dead were really insignificant. He would just treat it as a monster attack.
Well, a monster attack, this was a good explanation.
Although the knight had repeatedly stressed that the wounds on the patrolling soldiers were definitely caused by weapons and not the claws of monsters, the count had already made a conclusion.
No matter how the patrolling soldiers died, if he said they were attacked by monsters, then they were attacked by monsters.
The indignant knight, helpless, drank a great deal of wine with the equally helpless and fearful viscount, and got very drunk.
They were drunk until the afternoon of the next day.
When the joint exploration team of the merchant party and the Republic of Northwest finally woke up from their hangover and began to work, the knight and the viscount who were awakened from their drunken stupor received a shocking news.
The count was attacked and injured. One of his knights lost his life, and more than 20 soldiers were killed or injured.
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