Unknown Knight

Aix and his group stayed in the hotel. Due to the fatigue from the journey in recent days, everyone had no other thoughts after eating and washing up, and went to bed early.

The next day, after regaining their energy and having breakfast, Aix and his companions split into two groups. One group, led by Aix, went to buy camels, and the other group, led by Niza, went to purchase supplies and drinking water.

As soon as the market opened, Aix and his party came to the cattle market, thinking that they would spend one day buying all the camels and horses they needed. However, the people here once again failed to meet his expectations.

As soon as they arrived at the cattle market, they found that there were more people here today than yesterday. In addition to the Bedouins who came in groups of three or four with their cattle to sell, there were also a group of about twenty or thirty young and strong men carrying weapons.

They claimed to be the brokers in this business, but to Aix they looked like a bunch of hooligans.

The leader was naturally the tribe leader named Farhad. He heard yesterday that a group of rich people had come to the city, and these people came to the city mainly to purchase camels. With such a big business, he naturally had to come and inquire about it in person.

Having been in the underworld for so many years, Farhad naturally saw at a glance that Aix and his party were extraordinary. If he didn't bite them hard when such rich and noble people came to his territory, he would not be Farhad.

Under his prior instructions, the dealers in the livestock business agreed on a price. They estimated the price of a camel to be more than fifteen gold coins, and that of a horse to be more than ten gold coins. Even a donkey, which normally could not be sold at a high price, was estimated at seven gold coins.

This price was higher than that of the best breeding camel. It was simply out of the realm of possibility. Aix was furious and wanted to smash the man's head with a hammer. However, as the leader, he had to consider the overall situation and no longer had the temperament to act recklessly. Seeing that things had come to this point, he did not bother to argue any further and angrily took everyone back to the inn.

After returning to the inn, Niza, who had been waiting in the inn for a long time, was drinking in a sullen manner. Upon asking, it turned out that he was also targeted. When he went to buy food and grass, a bag of wheat was sold at a sky-high price of five silver coins, and other supplies were also extremely expensive. He knew that something was wrong, so he did not act rashly. He returned to the inn and waited for Aix to come back to discuss countermeasures.

But being in someone else's territory, a strong dragon cannot defeat a local snake. Although Aix and others are strong dragons, they are not willing to fight with a bunch of dirty and rotten people in such a remote place.

After everyone discussed it together, they decided to hold off and observe for a few days. Anyway, the hotel accommodation fee was still affordable, and since they were already here, there was no harm in staying a few more days.

At that moment, Aix asked Afanti, who could communicate with the locals in Sarande, to take Matilde and Ran Ying, and Niza to take Bestur and Zhenzhen, to go separately to gather information and see if there was any way to break the deadlock. He stayed in the hotel with the rest of the people to make the overall arrangements.

It was really inconvenient for him to show up in public. Although after this period of wandering, his weight had successfully dropped from more than 200 kilograms to more than 180 kilograms, he still looked like a walking RMB. Going out and wandering around would only arouse the idea of ​​locals taking advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune. It would be better for him to stay in the hotel and wait for news.

After half a day of investigation, although no breakthrough was found, some useful information was found out. To be precise, some useful information was obtained from one person.

It turned out that Afanti and Niza led separate teams to the city to gather information, but they were unfamiliar with the place and spent a long time without finding any useful information.

Especially from the locals, they seem to be very indifferent to outsiders, just like the way the local residents in northern Myanmar treat people who escaped from the cyber fraud park. No matter what you ask, they remain silent and are surprisingly united.

With nothing to show for it, they had no choice but to return to the inn dejectedly. However, when Niza and his two companions passed by a tavern, they encountered a farce: a ragged Kugit man was being beaten by several waiters in a tavern.

Bestur, who was also a Kugit, saw those waiters beating the Kugit man badly, so he stepped forward to dissuade them. After Niza asked, he found out that Bestur, his fellow villager, drank without paying and wanted to run away, but was caught by the tavern waiters and then beaten up. It was said that this was not the first time this guy had done this.

Bestur, who was in a dilemma, found out that the fellow villager only owed him 20 copper coins. Out of empathy, he helped him pay for the wine. As a result, the fellow villager was so "moved" that he prostrated himself and said he would follow Bestur to repay him no matter what. He even said he would work like a slave to repay him.

As a last resort, Bestur had to bring this fellow villager to Aix to see if the leader of the team could accept this fellow countryman who was in a foreign land.

Aix didn't care. It wasn't a big problem to have one more mouth to feed in the team. The main thing was to find out whether this person was reliable and what his background was. So he asked him about his personal situation and the reasons why he fell into this situation. As a result, he really gained a lot from asking.

It turned out that this Khergit man named Bolcha was really experienced. According to him, he was originally a horse dealer in the Khergit Khanate. He had to flee to the Sarand Emirate because he offended the powerful.

Later, with a dream of getting rich and not content with the status quo, he joined a caravan formed by a local noble family, ventured across the Death Desert, and came to Zion City to purchase the local specialty spices.

However, the Harisi family, which monopolized the spice production here, had long cooperated with the city of Barie. It was not enough to sell all the goods to them. They simply looked down on the small purchase volume of Bolcha's caravan and refused to trade with them.

Not only that, they received the same treatment as Aix and his companions, being ostracized and suppressed by the locals. In addition, they lacked experience and had to make inquiries from many sources in order to purchase spices, which delayed their time. They were trapped here by the unique climate "death season" and did not have time to return to Sarande.

The so-called "Death Season" starts from March and April every year and ends in September and October. During this half-year period, the Death Desert will enter an extremely hot period. If you enter the Death Desert during this period, even if you prepare enough water and supplies, you will be burned into jerky by the hot heat waves. There is no possibility of survival. This is how the name "Death Desert" came about.

After hearing this, Axel and the others were all surprised. Fortunately, they came here some time ago in late February, otherwise they would have to stay in the desert and become dried thousand-year-old rice dumplings. But now it is the beginning of March, so wouldn't they be trapped here?