By the Seven, what happened here?
However, no one around him answered his question; everyone looked around anxiously, afraid that the seemingly harmless branches would suddenly turn into deadly weapons.
"Go check it out," Roman Weber instructed a soldier.
The assigned soldier was extremely reluctant but still had to step out of the crowd, cautiously approaching the corpse. He quickly examined it and shouted back, "It's a trap, Lord, he must have been killed by some kind of trap."
"Some kind of trap?" Seeing no danger, Roman Weber led his men over, looked at the situation, and said with a puzzled expression, "What kind of trap has such power that it can pierce a person and hang them on a tree?"
This question left the surrounding soldiers speechless for a moment because the traps they had seen, like Roman Weber, were the kind used to hunt rabbits, and this was the first time they had seen a trap with such immense power.
Seeing that he couldn't get an answer, Roman Weber said nothing more. He could feel that these traps were likely set to deal with bandits, which meant that the person who set them was on his side. However, he still dared not let down his guard. His cautious nature led him to order, "Everyone, be careful and continue forward." After speaking, he turned to the soldiers of his own House beside him and said, "What are you standing around for? Get your shields out and block for me."
Hearing the command, the soldiers fumbled to get their shields out, held them to their chests, and surrounded Roman Weber, protecting him.
The other Cold Howl Keep soldiers who had been assigned could only guard the periphery and scout ahead.
As they delved deeper into the Red Lake Forest, they saw more and more corpses. Some, like the previous one, had died in traps, while many others had died from weapon attacks. The veterans in the team could tell that, without exception, all the bandits killed by weapon attacks had died instantly, never knowing where the attack came from until their last breath.
This immediately made everyone's mood tense. Everyone involuntarily imagined an unseen, intangible evil spirit, and they even heard the terrifying stories they had listened to as children echoing in their ears. Their hands, gripping their weapons, trembled slightly from nervousness.
In this terrifying atmosphere, everyone's pace quickened. The Red Lake Forest was not very large, and soon they reached its edge. Those at the very front could already see through the gaps in the trees to the relatively open flat ground outside.
However, just as the soldiers at the front wanted to speed up and leave this dangerous place, a short sword flew out from nowhere, passing directly in front of him and embedding itself in a nearby tree trunk.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!" The startled soldier immediately stopped, then shouted loudly while quickly retreating to the back of the formation, gripping his spear tightly and yelling, "Someone just attacked me! Someone just attacked me!"
"Shut up, I saw it!" Roman Weber, who was following behind, couldn't stand the soldier's shouting. At the same time, the soldier's panicked shouts caused a commotion in the ranks. He immediately yelled to stop the soldier from shouting further and ordered, "Be careful, be careful! Spears out, shields up! Don't panic, we have more men than them, and our weapons are better than theirs!"
While Roman Weber was shouting loudly, calming the team's emotions, he did not wait for an enemy attack. Instead, a warrior, wielding two swords and dressed in leather armor, emerged from the dense Red Lake Forest not far ahead. He unhurriedly walked to the short sword impaled in the tree, pulled it out, and slid it into the scabbard at his waist.
Then, the man turned and looked at the extremely tense hundred-man company before him, at the spider banner carried on the standard-bearer's shoulder, and addressed Roman Weber, who was dressed completely differently from those around him, saying, "Lord of House Webber, you are late. These men have already been eliminated by me, but I haven't had time to clean up their spoils. If you don't mind, could you help me clean up? After all, there are too many people, and I cannot do it alone. Of course, I won't ask you to help me for nothing; I can share half of the spoils with you."
At this moment, Roman Weber finally got a clear look at the warrior who was loudly asking for his assistance in cleaning up the spoils, and he quickly recognized who he was.
"Bear Hunter, you are Bear Hunter Lind of White Village!" Roman Weber couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, confirming with Linde.
Linde heard him, bowed slightly to Roman Weber, and said, "It is an honor that you have heard of me."
Upon receiving the response, Roman Weber recalled the intelligence he had gathered about Linde earlier. Joel Flower's private arrangements for Linde last night, and Linde's out-of-place appearance in the council hall, had also caught the attention of House Webber. So, after the meeting, they sent someone to inquire about Linde, and the person responsible for the inquiries happened to be Roman Weber.
It was then that they learned the commoner warrior with two swords in the council hall was actually the Bear Hunter mentioned by the tavern bards.
At the time, House Webber, upon learning Linde's identity, did not pay much attention to him. After all, in their eyes, Linde was just a fifteen-year-old child. They merely admired Linde's heroic feat of avenging his father and hunting a bear alone. As for the details of the bear hunt in the stories, they believed the bards had exaggerated for dramatic effect. In their view, Linde's eventual success in hunting the mountain bear was probably thanks to the hunters from White Village who supported him, and it was the hunters who rescued Linde from the mountain bear's attack.
Roman Weber held the same view because he was someone who had truly seen a mountain bear and had witnessed how a frenzied mountain bear could destroy a hunting party of a hundred men. Therefore, he was almost certain that Linde could not possibly hunt a mountain bear alone.
However, Roman Weber now somewhat believed the stories from the bards. Recalling the bandits who had died miserably in traps earlier, and then thinking of those who had died without knowing where the attack came from, all of this was done by Linde alone. A warrior of such strength hunting a mountain bear was not impossible.
At the same time, he also thought that Joel Flower had agreed to Linde's outrageous request, allowing him to guard this area alone, perhaps because he knew Linde had the ability to guard it by himself.
While confirming the identity of the person before him, Roman Weber motioned for his subordinates to sheath their weapons, then eagerly asked, "Before, two bandit leaders in plate armor led their subordinates to flee here. Where are they now...?"
"They have been taken by the Stranger," Linde replied calmly, sheathing his sword, and then turned to point outside the Red Lake Forest, saying, "Their bodies are outside; you will need to clean them up, Lord."
Although the corpses seen in this Red Lake Forest had already led Roman Weber to guess that the people who had fled here earlier had also been dealt with by Linde, receiving the desired answer directly from Linde truly put his mind at ease.
Subsequently, he ordered his subordinates to help Linde clean up the spoils and bodies. These would later be counted as military merits. If it were someone else, he might have coveted these merits, but this time he would not. This was not only because of the unknown relationship between Joel Flower and this Bear Hunter, but more so because of the shock and fear the corpses had instilled in him.
Although his numbers now held an absolute advantage, he had a feeling, for some reason, that if he were to fall out with the Bear Hunter, he would end up like the corpses he had seen earlier, forever remaining in this Red Lake Forest.
On the other side, Linde did not know Roman Weber's thoughts, but he had considered that Roman Weber might try to claim his military achievements. Old Man Bane had spoken of similar situations more than once.
If such a thing really happened, he would have no way to resolve it. Perhaps he could kill Roman Weber and use the terrain here to kill these House Webber soldiers, but doing so would make him unable to stay, let alone in The Reach, even in Westeros. He would ultimately have to flee to Essos, which was absolutely not what he wanted.
However, he quickly realized that even if Roman Weber truly forcibly claimed his military achievements, it didn't matter. He only needed Joel Flower to acknowledge his military achievements, because for him, military achievements were not the most important thing; Joel Flower's recommendation was the most important.
Even if his military achievements were stolen, as long as Joel Flower acknowledged that he had indeed killed so many bandits, his goal would have been achieved.