I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 422 The Current Situation of Suvana

With a disgusting smacking sound, Barbarossa's boots sank deep into the sticky, humus-smelling mud. Each time they were pulled out, it took considerable effort, making the already clumsy boots even heavier.

After walking for a while, he came to a place with relatively less silt, probably the last remains of a dock warehouse.

He found a relatively high, collapsed low wall, climbed up, looked around, and surveyed the cold, desolate swampy land filled with the smell of rust and blood.

This place was once Suvano, a bustling port that the Kingdom of Minicia was proud of. Now, it is just a name swallowed by dark green markings on the map, a nightmare forgotten deep in the swamp.

As the most outstanding scout in the player community, Barbarossa's senses have been honed to the point of being like precision instruments by countless extreme environments.

At this moment, his senses were frantically alarming him, painting a picture far more chilling than any official report.

His gaze pierced through the thin fog, barely outlining the ruins of the city.

The once towering clock tower, like a bone gnawed by a giant beast, is now leaning precariously in the mud, with only the rusted bronze bell at its top visible.

The outlines of the brick buildings are blurred under the cover of dark green algae and slippery moss, and the windows are like empty eye sockets, gazing at this cursed body of water.

The water was not clear, but a murky dark green with an eerie sheen. Beneath it lay the remains of civilization: twisted carriage wheel hubs, broken pottery jars, and even half-submerged roof tiles.

There were no birds, only huge, unsettlingly colorful poisonous flies buzzing around, or fat leeches slowly crawling on the rotten wood.

In this swamp, the air is filled with a complex and nauseating odor.

The heavy, fishy smell was the main tone, mixed with the sweet, cloying stench of excessively rotting plants, and the swamp gas rising from the depths of the silt, carrying a faint sulfurous odor, which reminded Barbarossa of the devil.

But doesn't this thing like heat?

Will they appear here?

Barbarossa shrugged, putting his own thoughts aside, and continued gathering useful intelligence.

Besides the smell of sulfur, the most pungent odor here is an indescribable fishy smell, cold and slippery, with the unique scent of reptiles... It is the smell of the snake people, omnipresent, as if branding this swamp.

The swamp was quiet. Barbarossa lingered at the warehouse ruins for a while, but he heard no wind, no insects, and no flowing water.

The only sounds were his own heavy, suppressed breathing and the gurgling of his two companions' boots stirring up the mud as they walked around.

And from a great distance came an inhuman hissing sound, long and cold, like a giant snake rubbing its scales, or like some kind of eerie whistle, drifting in the thick fog and disappearing in an instant, making one wonder if it was an illusion.

"Barbarossa, did you bring any clothes?"

One of his companions shouted at him.

I'm a little cold.

Barbarossa didn't say anything; he just frantically gestured at the reckless, brainless idiot, telling him to shut up immediately.

Indeed, it was a bit cold here. Barbarossa could feel the water droplets condensing from the mist sliding down his leather armor and exposed skin, bringing a chill to his bones.

The bricks beneath his feet were incredibly slippery, as if covered by a slick biological membrane. The air under his nose was so thick it felt like he could grasp it, and each breath felt like inhaling cold gel.

Nevertheless, that's no reason for that guy to be shouting here.

"I'm so cold! Do you have any clothes? Could you give me something dry?"

Oh no, my aversion to stupidity is acting up... Barbarossa narrowed his eyes slightly to hide the eye roll he was making.

Barbarossa immediately jumped down from the low wall, using the abandoned building to block the idiot's view, and then quickly and nimbly left in another direction.

Before leaving, Barbarossa made sure to remove some of the more noticeable traces he had left behind to reduce the possibility of future troubles affecting him.

Damn it, I'm such an idiot. How could I agree to team up with other people?

After walking a long way, Barbarossa found an inconspicuous tree, quickly and lightly climbed up, and immediately took out some unknown powder from his backpack and sprinkled it on himself.

At the same time, he pulled the camouflage cloak from behind and wrapped it around himself, covering himself completely so that not an inch of his skin was exposed.

Almost as soon as Barbarossa finished his last move, the sounds of battle came from the direction he had come from.

First came the faint, crisp sound of swords clashing, followed by the roar of that idiot who had yelled "I'm cold!"

There was no fear in his voice, only a furious rage and an almost fanatical excitement. His voice was full of energy, with a metallic clang. Even from a distance, Barbarossa had the illusion that the mist on the treetops where he was standing was being shaken down.

Judging from his voice, this guy is a formidable fighter.

The thick fog churned violently, and figures could be vaguely seen moving around in the warehouse ruins. The sound of weapons whistling through the air was deafening, along with the dull thud of sharp weapons striking hard objects and a teeth-grinding hissing sound, as if tough leather was being forcibly cut open.

However, no matter how strong an individual soldier is in combat, if he cannot fight against a thousand troops, his combat strength is not the most crucial factor.

Sure enough, after Barbarossa listened for only three minutes, the distant roars abruptly stopped, and the sounds of clashing swords disappeared, clearly indicating that one side in the battle had been killed.

I really hope that idiot will learn his lesson if he comes back to life.

This is no longer a city, but a huge, dangerous den of cold-blooded predators.

Those hissing sounds were not hallucinations; they were the language of the snake people, signals used by them to patrol and communicate in this deadly water.

Every shadow, every ripple, could be a deadly trap.

Barbarossa climbed down the tree only after the noise subsided and half an hour had passed without any snake people coming this way.

When he returned to the warehouse ruins, sure enough, the guy who had been shouting had disappeared, leaving only traces of the battle.

After wandering around for a while, Barbarossa slowly took out a small, sealed glass bottle from the leather pouch at his waist, carefully removed the black scale stuck to the wall with tweezers, and put it into the bottle.

He quickly marked the information he had just gathered on the waterproof map he carried with a charcoal pencil... There is a high probability that there is a snake people's lair nearby.

For reconnaissance soldiers, information is life, and it's also key to mission rewards.

As a survival expert, Barbarossa knew all too well that in this swamp ruled by the Lamia serpent people, exposure meant death, and most likely a long death of being dragged into the depths of the cold mud and devoured while suffocating.

He glanced one last time at the deathly still and murderous dark green waters, then, as if his body had become part of the environment, he silently retreated along the relatively stable path of ruins he had come from.

The boots sank into the mud again, but the "plop" sound now sounded more like the greedy swallowing of this man-eating swamp.

The port of Suvana has long since sunk, and now it is occupied by a kingdom of scales, fangs, and icy stares.

Barbarossa's mission has only just begun.

(End of this chapter)