Ethan looked in all four directions and rubbed his chin.
'Good thing the position did not change today.'
'But, why is there no prompt showing the direction of the Traveler's Inn?'
Ethan took out the incomplete map. This morning, when he rode the bone horse back home, the Traveler's Inn had been in the northwest.
He wondered if he could go and freeload there one more time tonight? There was no shortage of good stuff there.
But the moment he opened the map, Ethan was dumbfounded.
"Why is the Traveler's Inn gone?"
Ethan did not quite believe it, so he flipped back and forth through the map several times.
But the place where the Traveler's Inn had been drawn before was now a patch of forest, and judging from how dense the trees were on the map, it did not look like there was any inn there at all.
'Looks like... This kind of chance to be a shady merchant is probably not going to happen a second time anytime soon.'
Ethan was not sure whether the inn itself could move, or if the system had directly blocked this game bug he was abusing.
But whatever, it did not matter. For now, he would just focus on production.
Get production going, get the territory rich.
If you want to get rich, first chop trees.
If you want to get strong, first toughen up a coward's guts.
"All right, Stone Six's group, set out toward the west first."
After Ethan confirmed the situation in all four directions, he immediately gave the order, "If you run into goblin attacks today, I will not help you. You will have to rely on yourselves for everything. Do you have confidence?"
"Yes!"
Stone Six clenched his fist and pounded his chest, "Lord, please rest assured. I will lead my team and mine properly! If goblins come, I will make those green hat freaks lose their heads!"
"Mm, good morale."
Ethan nodded in satisfaction, "All right, remember to collect more mud and stone today. Do not worry about the rest for now. Go on, you can set off."
"Yes, Lord."
Stone Six and the others were about to lead their team out, but when Ethan saw Stone Six's red dragon armor, he suddenly thought of those powerful red hat goblins again.
So he quickly called Stone Six back and took out a compressor packed with one hundred portions of black powder from his backpack, "Wait. Take this with you."
"Lord, what is this?"
"This is a grenade," Ethan explained briefly, "When the time comes, just light the fuse on top and throw it at anything you cannot beat. It is very powerful, so remember to stand farther away."
The fuse was something Ethan had come up with on the way back to the villa.
Ever since he used compressed black powder to kill a magma octopus, he had been thinking about how to turn this compressor into a final trump card.
Later he thought of firecrackers and double kickers.
Those things were nothing more than a fuse plus some black powder, but both their power and their effect were top notch.
So Ethan tied a hemp string onto the compressor, then soaked it in some water ghost grease to make sure it was easy to light and hard to put out.
Then when Stone Six ran into something he could not beat, he could just light the fuse. And throw it at the monster.
BOOM!
One hundred portions of black powder exploding at the same time. That was no weaker than a real grenade.
"Thank you, Lord!"
Stone Six knelt on one knee and respectfully took the black powder compressor from Ethan, then nodded and led his team away.
After arranging Stone Six, Ethan took out another black powder compressor and gave it to Hunter Five, telling him to lead a team to the ice plains to kill snow monsters and build courage.
Of course, at the same time, they also had the task of exploring the map.
Right now, the exploration of the whole regional map had already reached 5 percent. Aside from the contributions of Herb Three and the others, there was also Ethan getting lost last night.
The paths the lamp spider led him through, and his trip to the Traveler's Inn, as well as the way back, all of it counted as part of his explored area.
Now he only needed another 5 percent, and he would unlock the no fog effect within a fifty meter radius around the villa.
To make it easier for everyone to mine and look for nearby resources during the day, and also to save kerosene for lamps and other reasons, Ethan had to hurry up and raise the regional exploration to 10 percent.
"Yes, Lord!"
Hunter Five accepted the order and then led Ivanov and the others away.
As for Herb Three's group and Wood Eight's group, Ethan did not let them set out alone, because in the primeval forest to the south, there was a three legged Heaven Devouring Beast.
Ethan had to lead them to take care of that monster first before they could safely chop wood and look for medicinal herbs.
Otherwise, with so few people, they would probably just be delivering food to the Heaven Devouring Beast.
Ethan could even imagine the scene.
Wood Eight would charge in first with a sliding tackle, thinking he could rely on his invincible skill to take down a monster like the three legged Heaven Devouring Beast, but in the end, with one sliding tackle, he would send himself straight into the beast's mouth.
That would not be delivering food, that would be feeding it by hand.
"Let's go, full army set out!"
Ethan raised the big health stick in his hand, "Everyone go together to the ruins in the east, pick up treasure chests, then go kill the three legged Heaven Devouring Beast!"
"Yes, long live the Lord!"
Everyone raised their weapons, their morale soaring.
The reason Ethan chose to go east first to deal with the many eyed monster instead of going straight for the three legged Heaven Devouring Beast was because of two reasons.
First, the eastern ruins were closer to Ethan's villa. Second, Daji's petrification skill just happened to counter that many eyed monster, so naturally Ethan would deal with the easy one first, then go handle the harder one.
———
[Ruins]
This place was actually the oasis Ethan had burned before. Now the oasis had turned into a gray land, and the system renamed it Ruins.
But it was actually quite fitting. It meant there was nothing there in the first place.
When they reached the edge of the ruins, Ethan saw that even the fog ahead was gray.
And ash kept drifting down from the sky from time to time, falling in flakes like paper ash. If you pinched some in your hand and rubbed it, it would coat your hand in gray dust. The feeling was exactly like Silent Hill.
"When I came before, it was not this scary," Ethan frowned, "Now it is just burned a bit, why does it feel even more terrifying?"
"Lord, how about I go scout ahead first?", Wood Eight was the first to speak.
He had courage and brains.
He was indeed a good soldier, just that his combat power was a bit lacking.
Ethan did not want him to go die, so he shook his head, "Daji, can you help me go take a look and scout the situation ahead."
"Meow?", Daji, who had been licking her little paws, suddenly paused.
Then she lifted her head, looking proud, like she was saying she had no problem, and twisted her little butt as she walked into the ruins.
Even though Daji was acting as the vanguard, Ethan had always followed the principle of sneaking when possible instead of charging head on, so while Daji was gone, he rummaged through his backpack to see if there were any useful skills or items.
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