Chapter 404 Expedition To The Frozen Region: First Stop: Castle On The Snow
The relentless attacks of the monsters just continued from one different monster horde to another horde. There are times we have to go down the carriage and help mitigate the incoming horde or else the caravan would stay there for quite a long time. As much as the sniper and the other soldiers coming with us being so chill about this, this is above normal to me. I already have been on expeditions before and monster attacks are not as frequent as this expedition. It was like every second we have, a new monster attack will appear to attack us.
Due to the sheer amount of monsters attacking us, all of my companions who haven\'t even reached level 100 before have already reached the cap of Level 100 already. It\'s not that surprising though since we keep running to monsters that are very high level than us and killing them just nets a lot of experience to everyone. Even me who have an atrocious amount of exp intake just to level managed to get to level 109 and am almost ready to hit level 110 any moment now.
"You guys can relax now, we are almost to our first stop. If you have any need of restocking supplies, you can do it after we stop there."
"Alright, thanks for informing us," Father smiled at the sniper and everyone sighed in relief.
"Looks like the monster attacks will subside now and we can at least get to rest in the next stop in the meantime," Harmless Sparrow checked outside to see whether we can spot the next spot and as she moved the curtain, we can see the lone castle that stands in the middle of the freezing lands of the frozen region. I have seen it on the screen during the live stream of some players who explored this place before and I must say the actual castle looked like it was made from ice.
"Everyone who hit level 100 cap can go to the Headquarters in this castle. Every city and kingdom has them so I am also sure this one has one too. Take a visit to that place and perform an ascension rite to lift the cap of level 100. That way, we can take advantage of the high-leveled monsters and gain enough experience to level up a lot."
"Ah, thank goodness on that. I thought I will be wasting the precious experience points I am receiving after I hit the level cap and won\'t enjoy the experience I am earning as extra," Hagane sighed in relief.
"Don\'t be so worried, the experience you earned past level 100 will remain and will add up to your current experience bar once the cap is lifted so don\'t be a worrywart," Dolly pat Hagane\'s shoulder and nodded like she was always in the know.
"Dolly is right, but we needed all the extra strength we needed so lifting that cap will increase the attack force we have currently. That would improve more of our survival here on out."
There are two more attacks but it was minor and the soldiers were the ones who took care of them before we arrived at the first stop.
[You have discovered the Kingdom of Frosthaven: Castle on the Snow]
The cold air that is already seeping through my coat is no longer there and was replaced with heat. Not only that, I can see that all the NPCs here are busy and are all working hard. You can barely see any people hiding inside their homes being scared, if they are inside, they are doing some work that needed to be done inside a house or a building, otherwise, they are outside and being productive. Kids are shoveling the snow outside their homes, some adults are repairing their roofs and other parts of their houses while some are doing their usual business. You can say it was lively despite being located in a very dangerous place of Sandurk.
Everyone split ways to explore the place. We will return to the caravan after 12 hours for the sake of resupplying. With all the enemies that attack us on the way, resupplying is the best option to be done here. Since everyone decided to check out the whole place, I decided to visit the shops and check their items. With the new region means new items that I might be able to obtain.
As expected, ores of Silver are plenty in here while pure diamonds are also for sale and at a cheap price. According to the seller, due to the number of diamonds they can mine, they are overflowing with them. They wanted to have merchants to buy them but due to the amount of danger to travel here from another kingdom or city or wherever they are from, it was close to impossible to import them to other places and since it was common, the importance of diamond is not as valued back in other cities, allowing them to sell them for cheap just to get rid of the excess stock.
With the idea of making accessories, I decided to buy a bulk of them because, why not? With cheap prices, I can create good accessories then sell them in the Auction House. Speaking of the auction house, perhaps I should sell a few of my creations in there, relying on the money I got from the last auction I participated in will not bode well if I keep spending but not earning anything. Spending money is very easy but earning it requires tons of hardship and long-term saving.
Now that the diamonds and silver that I needed were purchased, I started to wander around the place and see if I have anything worth checking out. While walking around, I saw the soldiers on the walls are all so busy and no one are slacking. You can hear several loud booms coming from cannons from time to time and several shouting from soldiers to their other companions. It was too busy that it was like they are defending against a siege from a neighboring kingdom.
I walked around and saw Queen Tanya and Queen Tori standing while observing the performance of the soldiers on the walls. I approach them and they immediately saw me coming.
"So how is my kingdom? I know it\'s not as peaceful and cannot be compared to my sister\'s kingdom but it was my pride and joy for creating a place like this despite the atrocious environment we are in," Queen Tori then looked at the walls with the soldiers reloading the cannon as soon as possible.
"It\'s not bad. It might take a bit of time to get used to but it is definitely not bad."
"Right? It would be a good vacation spot from the hotness of the desert my kingdom has but minus the monster attacks, it would be a pretty good place to have a vacation into and watch the snowfall all year round," Queen Tanya nodded as she looked at the snow on the ground. She started to play on it using her shoes to mess with the snow on the ground.
"Trust me, sis, you will get annoyed with the snow the more you see and experience snow. It\'s not as wonderful as many people claim to be," Queen Tori immediately refuted Queen Tanya\'s view on the snow.
"Still it makes me amazed that you managed to protect this place from all the monsters coming here every day. Even the way here is very troublesome and full of monster attacks, just how did you even manage to keep this place intact?"
"I might not be as brilliant as my sister in the ruling but I can easily become a commander whenever I wanted to be and lead my men to victory against the enemies. Mere beasts are nothing for us, and that is what makes us strong enough to defend this place with our own strength. You can say this is a place where only the strong can live but it is also a place where the strong can protect the ones they love or those who are not strong enough and help them get strong. I make good use of all the talents my subjects have and as long as they can perform something, they can benefit our kingdom despite the monsters coming in. Not only that, but we feel much safer if we face monsters rather than humans."
That is true, humans are much more devastating compared to monsters and just having wars against a neighboring country or kingdom can lead to a very bad economy for both and if wars come in, it will depend on where the cunning of both parties can lead them.
"Anyways, you and your companions should take a good rest at the moment. Since we are resupplying it will take a bit of time. You should all take advantage of it since the next stop will be really harsher than earlier. We might not even get any breaks at all if that happened."
No wonder they call this the Freezing Hell, with the assault of countless monsters, it is only a matter of time before you can experience what true hell is.