Chapter 70: Leaving Gesun Kingdom
After leaving the Mercenary Union, Jian Chen walked towards the marketplace. With such a wide variety of goods being displayed, there was an equal variety of armed forces guarding it as people traded. With their presence, no one feared having their wares stolen.
But when Jian Chen arrived, there were already people busily trading while others were streaming in and out of the area. All sorts of magical beasts were being ridden by the guards, though some of them were just regular horses.
Horses were very common in the Tian Yuan continent, but while they were the most common type of transportation, they were also the most mundane.
At that moment, a peddler walked by Jian Chen’s side with an armload of goods. Holding out his hand, Jian Chen asked the peddler, “Fellow brother, might I ask if you know of any traders leaving the Gesun Kingdom?”
The trader looked at Jian Chen with suspicion before pointing towards a big caravan. “That caravan is preparing to leave the Gesun Kingdom.”
Jian Chen followed the youth’s finger with his eye and saw 10 caravans grouped together. Surrounding the caravans was a large group of mercenaries protecting the items, while a middle aged man wearing a luxurious looking robe was commanding the people to load up the items onto the caravan.
With only a single glance, Jian Chen knew that this middle aged man was the one responsible for the caravans. Immediately walking on over, he asked the man, “Uncle, might I ask if your caravans are leaving Gesun Kingdom?”
Hearing Jian Chen, the middle aged man turned around to take a look at him, “Why do you ask?”
Laughing, Jian Chen said, “Uncle, if your caravans are leaving Gesun Kingdom, might I join you? Although my strength is not all that strong, I am still a mercenary nonetheless. I don’t need a reward for this either, how about it?”
The middle aged man looked relieved at Jian Chen’s last sentence and said, “Fine. However you must stick close to us during the trip. Also, any roadside fares must be paid by you and won’t be compensated for by us. Lastly, if we are attacked, then you must help protect the group and fight together with us.”
On the Tian Yuan continent, most of the weaker mercenaries would usually either form their own large group, or join a caravan group in order to travel from kingdom to kingdom.
Since the roads connecting the kingdoms were long and dangerous, there was a very high chance of encountering highwaymen. Ambushes from magical beasts were also a common occurrence, and in some areas, those attacks happened frequently. Because of this, every caravan would welcome a mercenary’s presence with wide arms, and generally wouldn’t refuse anyone. After all, even one man could add to the overall strength, and could help protect someone’s life.
Jian Chen didn’t hesitate at all to agree to the man’s conditions.
“Our caravan will depart in an hour, so go make your preparations.” With that said, the man didn’t pay any more attention to Jian Chen and resumed commanding the transporters to work.
Afterwards, Jian Chen headed towards the White Cloud City stables and spent 50 Gold Coins to buy a single horse. Leading the horse back, he patiently waited for the caravan to depart.
An hour quickly passed as Jian Chen mounted his horse and followed the caravans from behind. The mercenaries that were originally hired to protect the caravan sent many inquisitive looks at him, but none bothered to talk to him. Since there were three caravan groups that combined into one, there were naturally three groups of mercenaries. Aside from those three groups, there were also many mercenaries going by themselves. It was because of the unknown dangers that the caravans had to group together both themselves and their mercenaries, resulting in a total of about 500 people. It was even normal for one to recognize a familiar face.
Soon they left the city gates. Although the caravan representative had a few bodyguards and mercenaries, he didn’t stay at the gates for long, and immediately ordered the caravans to move out once the negotiations were over.
“One moment.” At that moment before everyone could move, an armored man came down from the city towers with a scroll of paper.
The middle aged man crossed the city gates and handed the scroll to one of the bodyguards. “Take this portrait and stick it to the city gates. Then find the best portrait master and send him to me. I want him to duplicate this portrait and post it everywhere in the city. If anyone can find the person described on the portrait, capture him, and if there’s any resistance, kill him.”
“Yes, sir!” A soldier took the scroll and immediately tacked it to the city wall.
“The picture on the portrait is a wanted criminal in the Gesun Kingdom. Take a good look now; look for this person in every single city you stop at. By all means, you must not let the criminal get away. Do you understand?” The man repeated with a commanding tone that could be heard clearly even from far away.
As the bodyguard posted the portrait onto the city gates, everyone glanced at the figure on it. The person looked to be no younger than 16 years old, and no older than 20. Although the person looked very young, his looks were handsome and actually looked very lifelike despite it being a drawing. Whoever had drawn this portrait was a true master of art.
After posting the portrait, the man waved his arm at the caravan representative, “That’ll be all, you can leave now.”
With no further interruptions, the caravan began to move once more. However, the guards at the city gates had already went from ten in number to a hundred. Every single one of them would check each person as they entered or exited the gates, and then compared them to the person in the portrait.
When Jian Chen was about to exit the gates, he saw the portrait on the gates, and his eyes hardened. The person on the portrait was of his original appearance.
Seeing this, Jian Chen couldn’t help but feel some fear in his heart regarding the Hua Yun Sect. This city had been countless of miles aways from Lore City. He had only left Lore City yesterday and arrived at White Cloud City just last night. Yet not only did the Hua Yun Sect perfectly capture his appearance onto a portrait, but they had also been able to quickly send out the portraits to a city thousands of miles away. This type of efficiency make any person quake in fear, and Jian Chen doubted that the Hua Yun Sect had only sent out portraits to White Cloud City. Right now, he feared almost every single city within the Gesun Kingdom had warrants of his capture.
Jian Chen secretly rejoiced at his decision to change his appearance; otherwise, he would have been hard pressed to escape White Cloud City.
As Jian Chen rode his horse forward, the two soldiers at the gates scrutinized him with a heavy stare. However, Jian Chen had already changed his appearance; he was completely different from before. If people who had been familiar with him wouldn’t be able to recognize him, then how would some strangers be able to find out who he was?
With no more hindrances, Jian Chen mixed in with the other mercenaries and departed from White Cloud City in a long line.
The final destination for the three caravans was the neighboring country, Blue Wind Kingdom. But because the caravans had many precious goods in them, they were going at a slow pace. Although the border fort wasn’t too far away, it would take them two or three days of walking to reach the border, and crossing into the Blue Wind Kingdom would require another half month.
Jian Chen looked at the grand caravan; it wasn’t using regular horses to pull, but rather four Class 1 Magical Beasts specially bred for this purpose. Surrounding the magical beasts were a few mercenaries riding on top of their own magical beasts; none of them looked weak at all. The man Jian Chen had talked to earlier was there as well. It seemed that all of them were protecting the caravan as well.
Jian Chen had quietly figured out that within the middle caravan was the boss, if not an important person. This was because this was a luxurious caravan, and still had two other caravans by its side.
It took around four days for the group of caravans to reach the border fort, which was a long wall that spanned for countless of miles. It was 50 meters tall and 20 meters thick. From afar, this great wall looked like a long dragon that made people shake in awe.
Jian Chen looked at the wall in front of him as the shade covered him. Under the protection of the wall, the setting sun was completely blocked, and the the area in front of the wall was completely covered in darkness.. This sight was enough to make people who had never seen this sight before shake in awe, as they felt like the wall was some frightening and profound force.
This was the first time Jian Chen had ever seen the Gesun Kingdom’s wall. There was awe in Jian Chen’s mind as he looked. In his previous world, he had seen many walls, but none of them could compare to this. The biggest wall he had seen was 20 meters tall, but this wall in front of him was 50 meters tall; it was like comparing an adult to a child.
“What a great wall, I can’t even imagine how long it took for them to build a wall of this size.” Jian Chen sighed in admiration.
Hearing what he said, the mercenary riding right next to Jian Chen stifled his laughter, “A wall of this size is normal in the Tian Yuan continent. Practically every kingdom has a wall of this caliber.” The mercenary looked at Jian Chen and said, “If you haven’t been to any of the Three Great Empires, then let me tell you: Each one of the walls have a height of at least 100 meters and a thickness of 50 meters. These small city walls can’t even compare!”
Jian Chen turned around to look at the mercenary who spoke to him. He looked to be around 20 years old and had a suntanned face. With his coarse leather clothes, the man looked to be quite ordinary.
“When there’s a chance, I’ll definitely go check out the Three Great Empires.” Jian Chen laughed.
“The roads connecting the Three Great Empires are quite long and dangerous. At the same time, magical beasts run rampant there, so it’s not that easy to travel in between the empires.” The mercenary said.