The first snow finally fell in Donau.
The snow was like a shy bride, signaling the short onset and disappearance of her presence.
Everyone knew from this day forward, that the Donau Wasteland had officially entered its harshest winter.
The Donau Wasteland experiences five seasons in a year. Apart from spring, summer, autumn, and winter, there is a month-long rainy season that occurs at the cross between winter and spring. This is when the Sanggan River annually overflows, and the resultant flooding waters, like untamed wild horses, nourish the parched lands downstream. As the river level rises during the rainy season, transportation is temporarily halted between the north and south banks of the Sanggan River.
When the first snow fell, Vieri the Bear Knight arrived. As a current Holy Temple Knight, he sat proudly astride a giant tree marmot, clad in Misoni bronze armor, with his signature Wheel Axe slung over his back and a zither-shaped bronze shield in hand. Even his steed had chainmail on its head. With his black velvet plume, dyed with the blood of the Hell Black Dragon fluttering from his helmet, Vieri emanated an overwhelming air of awe.
The giant tree marmot, a kin of the cave bear, stood about four blades tall. Its front claws were about twelve inches long, immensely powerful and capable of standing and running. When it moved, it resembled a hysteric penguin.
As a Holy Temple Knight, who dedicated everything to the God of War, Vieri returned his entire vassal clan to the Northeast Province Nobility Court. In return, he received a valuable Misha mount.
The addition of Vieri, an experienced Bear Knight, greatly boosted the basic military construction, and it momentarily seemed as if Donau had gained two more bellies. Get full chapters from novel⟡fire.net
Cui Beixi gave her blessings to this warrior, who now became a new addition to her pupils’ followers.
Vieri’s enormous battle axe and his neatly-equipped Misoni armor led to widespread envy among the Donau militia within the barriers of a day.
Jokingly, General Pan said that the total amount of metal in Donau might not even equal the metal that adorned Vieri alone.
The cheerful Vieri quickly fit in with the militia, enjoying good meat and wine every day, and engaging in light-hearted banter with a group of like-minded friends. These days were filled with joy for him.
However, the severity of the situation was beyond the understanding of these simple-minded militia.
In order to cope with the arrival of winter, Helen temporarily halted her war song training to dive into the sea of data, organizing the financial reports and balancing the income and expenses for the next stage within the Donau territory.
Even the ambitious General Pan woke up from his dream of striking it rich in the barren Red Earth Highland after his planned robbery of the bandit’s homeland failed.
Winter and the rainy season combined would take up four months. During this time, it was impossible for Donau’s livestock to graadze outdoors, symbolizing there would be only expenditure without any income for four months.
General Pan’s thousand-leaf Nymphaea, which he relied on as a money tree for the "fruit that can absorb body odor", couldn’t withstand the cold weather and ultimately wilted less than a month after being planted.
Although these thousand-leaf Nymphaeas only bloomed for half a month, they brought a lot of laughter to Donau.
These thousand-leaf Nymphaeas were as big as sea bowls, with no two flowers on the same stem sharing the same color. When Lord Pan claimed that the flowers could be used to dye nails once they were crushed, all the females in Donau, even the young girls, dyed their nails in a variety of colors and paraded around, aglow with colors.
For fun, General Pan picked some yellow flowers and tried dyeing his hair. The result was a head full of flowing golden hair. In a moment of childish excitement, he highlighted a few strands of hair in the middle with the white juice of the flower. When Knight Gude saw this, he immediately picked up on the idea. He chose a pile of white thousand-leaf Nymphaea and dyed the black circles around his eyes and those of his brothers’ white.
Unlike Gude, Vieri the Bear Knight was rather envious of the pandas’ black circles around their eyes. After the pandas removed their glasses, Vieri, with his body of white fur, added two large black circles around his eyes.
I really want to hit you. Gude told Vieri.
Following the lord’s example, the people of Donau were swept up in a hair dyeing frenzy. Overnight, almost everyone transformed their hair. The Mammoth Strongmen dyed their beards brown, making them look like oversized Dwarf Soldiers. The Hippopotamus Poets, naturally inclined to romance, couldn’t resist revealing their faces. They dyed their hair black, which they claimed could express a sense of vicissitudes.
Unfortunately, their rather large bellies made them look a tad foolish.
Ning Yu, little fox, and the mermaids were initially a bit shy. They dressed up Guoguo and Katusha every day, eventually succumbing to their innate desire for beauty. They cajoled Cui Beixi, the sly snake priestess, who was already eager to join, into dyeing their hair a classy shade of green. They claimed that the color represented the most beautiful elven woman in the land and urged Gude to make a bamboo bow for them.
The four beautiful women, with their green hair, did resemble elves, except for the fact that their ears weren’t pointed.
They made General Pan feel a bit unsure.
He quietly called Vieri to the side, hammering him with questions. Upon learning that Vieri hadn’t blabbed about the dalliance with the Dark Elven Queen in Ink Crystal Valley, General Pan finally let out a sigh of relief.