The knights’ auction also ended in victory after Old Village Chief squeezed the last copper coin out of them. Unknown put away the more than three hundred gold coins that Old Village Chief had gotten for him, walked up to Knight Gregory, put his legs together, raised his right hand to his temple, straightened his back, and with a crisp snap, gave a salute of some unknown kind, saying briskly, “Unknown is ready! We can set out!”

Knight Gregory, seeing Unknown’s strange gesture, suddenly had a thought rise in his heart: Soldier! The person before him was a born soldier.

“Then let’s set out immediately!” Knight Gregory pulled the reins of his warhorse and turned around. The other knights also led their horses toward the edge of the village, no one caring whether Unknown had a mount or whether he could keep up with the four legs of a warhorse on his own two feet.

Unknown didn’t mind at all. In this vast forest of the Greater Khingan Mountains, trees grew everywhere in a tangled mass, and ferocious beasts and birds of prey were countless. For a warhorse to gallop at full speed in such an environment was truly difficult.

By contrast, Unknown, who came from a hunter’s family and had two years of survival experience in the forest, found it much easier to travel here thanks to his extraordinary stamina and strength. This advantage was soon recognized by all the knights.

After two days of forced marching, the knights sadly discovered that, despite their years of training, not only were they not as strong as the freakish Unknown, but even in terms of endurance, they lagged far behind him.

Sitting on horseback, they all felt waves of exhaustion, while Unknown, walking on his own two legs, remained full of energy. Occasionally, he would pick up a stone and knock down a bird to roast for a meal, making the knights—who only dared eat dry rations for fear of poisoning—drool with envy.

“Captain… these marks we carved on the trees are just for direction… look…” The knight at the front was ostensibly reporting to Gregory, but secretly kept sneaking glances at Unknown.

On the two rows of trees ahead, half the marks pointed left, the other half right. This strange phenomenon had appeared a day earlier as well, when Unknown had pointed out that these trees were actually a kind of special spirit called withered tree sprites by the villagers. They could easily rearrange their bark to change the marks humans carved on them, tricking people into wandering into swamps or beast territories, and then absorb nutrients from the dead.

Seeing this strange scene again, Gregory felt a wave of helplessness. Just yesterday, because everyone wanted to outdo Unknown and deliberately went in the opposite direction from his guidance, they lost a companion’s life. Now, faced with the same situation, as a knight nobler than commoners, he simply couldn’t bring himself to bow his head and ask Unknown for directions.

The other knights also fell silent, their eyes occasionally flicking over to Unknown.

Standing at the back of the group, Unknown also found it rather amusing. He walked to the front, carefully examined the bark structure of the withered tree sprites, and muttered to himself as he headed to the right.

As he passed by Gregory, Gregory finally heard what Unknown was quietly saying.

“As a soldier, you must value the life of every comrade even more. On the battlefield, the next second, he might be the one who sacrifices himself to block a fatal blow for you. Even when walking the edge of life and death every day, a soldier is the last person who should disregard life!”

Hearing Unknown’s words, several knights shuddered slightly and silently glanced at their comrades beside them. At that moment, Gregory suddenly found that the back of Unknown, walking at the very front, looked just like that legendary enemy marshal he had seen in the Tang Empire more than a decade ago—a man who had risen from soldier to imperial marshal.

“What’s wrong with me? He’s just a newly recruited soldier.” Gregory patted his own head, urged his horse, and followed the group onward.

Unknown walked at the very front, his mind replaying the words he had just spoken.

(Did I really say that? I’m not a soldier, so why would I say something like that? And it even sounded quite reasonable. Could I have been a soldier in the past?)

At this thought, Unknown immediately dismissed the ridiculous idea. After all, who would put someone in an iron box filled with strange liquid, transport them deep into a forest, and then abandon them completely?

After this incident, Knight Gregory temporarily handed over many matters of the group to Unknown, the jungle expert. With Unknown’s familiarity with the forest, the group’s pace immediately quickened.

After more than ten days of travel, they finally reached a place where they could see the edge of the forest with their own eyes.

“At last…” Gregory let out a long breath, but before he could sigh, a chorus of shouts came from outside the forest, accompanied by the clashing of weapons.

Unknown immediately felt his blood boil, and looking at the dozen or so knights beside him, he saw their faces darken, brows tightly furrowed.