Near dusk, the clear sky suddenly changed, and within a few minutes, there was heavy rain.
Kallinger put on his hood, wrapped his tarpaulin tightly, and insisted on continuing to ride.
After night fell, the rain basically stopped, and he finally saw the wooden road sign at the entrance of Heishu Village. There are small houses lying on the rolling hills in the distance. Probably because it is late and the heavy rain has just passed, the village has neither cooking smoke nor lights, and it looks lifeless.
After approaching the village, Kalinger dismounted. The wooden windows of the rooms in the village were all closed, and when he passed by, some curious people would peep through the cracks in the windows.
A child opened the door directly, poked his head out, and stared at Kalinge curiously. Kalinge smiled and waved at him, but the child shy away shyly. Then, a woman stood at the crack of the door, presumably the child's mother.
The moment she saw Kalinge, she let out a soft "ah", probably because she was frightened by the weapon Kalinge was carrying. Kalinger put the wet cloak on his arm, revealing the dark leather armor under the cloak, the thin machete on the side of the waist, and the broad-edged sword slung across his back. In addition, there were several spare weapons hanging on the side of the tall horse he was carrying, most of which were hidden under the blanket, only an old battle ax with a long handle exposed.
"Madam, if you excuse me," Kalinger bowed lightly, "I'm looking for a tavern called 'Singing House'. I wonder if it would be convenient for you to show me the way?"
The woman pointed in the direction through the half-closed door: "It's over there, east of the intersection. But..."
"but?"
"But, are you looking for a tavern called 'Singing Shack'? Is that the name?"
"right."
"Well, but it's not a tavern. It's the right place, over there, but it's not a tavern. If you want to buy a drink, don't go."
Just as Kalinger was about to ask, "Then what is it?" suddenly, a flash of inspiration flashed in his mind, and he immediately understood what the woman meant. It's not a tavern, but it's called "Huange Hut", so it's probably a romantic place. Seeing that the woman didn't directly say what it is, that's probably it. The contact person only said to let him go to "Singing Hut", but did not tell him what type of business place it was.
So he didn't ask any more questions, thanked the woman, and led the horse to the crossroads.
The woman pointed in the right direction. "Huange Hut" is located at the northeast corner of the intersection. It is a small two-story building, a little bigger than a private house, and it also has a mini courtyard that can stand up to three people. The windows in the house are closed tightly, and a little light can be seen through the cracks in the wooden windows.
Whether it is a tavern or "that" place, the room is too quiet... It is completely different from Kalinger's imagination, and there is no "happy singing" in the room.
Kalinge approached with the horse, and the door opened directly. It is estimated that the people in the house heard the hooves of the horses.
It was a teenage boy who opened the door, looking silly. When Kalinge explained his intentions, the boy nodded and invited him in, and then went to help him tie the horse.
At first glance, the place looked more like a tavern. The counter is facing the gate, and next to it is the stairs leading to the second floor. There are arrays of long wooden tables and stools in the left-hand area of the lobby on the first floor... Unlike the tavern, in addition to the tables and chairs, the right-hand area is lined with rows of bookshelves.
It is indeed a bookshelf, not a wine cabinet. The lighting in the room was bright enough for Kalinger to see clearly, and there were books on the shelves.
Seeing Kalinger, a man and a woman stood up from the bench. The richly dressed young man bowed in fear, and the older woman bowed her head and curtseyed.
"Kalinger of Frostfield! Legendary demon hunter! Your presence makes this place full of glory!" The man's high-pitched voice startled Kalinger.
"What would you like to drink? Here is the menu. I recommend caramelized black tea with cheese cream." The lady handed over a cardboard.
Kalinge was silent for a moment, then took out a note from his pocket and handed it over: "I was recommended by the Bounty Hunters Guild, and they told me to contact the sheriff of Black Tree Village... Which of you two is the sheriff? "
"Neither of us," the man rubbed his hands, "the sheriff was injured, and he was seriously ill when he was weak, and now he can't receive people. I am the chief resident bard of Heishu Village, and I am the sheriff's nephew."
You are already "resident", what kind of "bard" poet... Kalinger looked at the lady again, and the lady raised her skirt: "I am his mother, and I am also the sister of the sheriff, and I am also the sister of this store." The owner of the shop. What would you like to drink? If you can’t decide, can we have a special drink in season?”
Kalinger couldn't help but suspect that he was in the wrong place. He came here after receiving a request for help. This case seemed mysterious, and the risk was assessed to be very high. No one in the Bounty Hunters Guild was willing to take it. He came all the way, through the storm, and saw the Small village... Even the weather is exaggerating the helplessness and misery of this village.
But now it seems... is there really a demon in this place? How can these people look a little nervous and scared
The resident poet invited Kallinger to take a seat, and respectfully helped him hang up his cloak. It was just a heavy-weave cloak that had been repeatedly mended and soaked in rain, with a piece of rotten oilcloth still hanging half-hung from the shoulders with buckles.
The female shopkeeper put away the menu and went to the back kitchen. Kalinger has never formally ordered food, and she doesn't know what she will bring out in the end.
"Let's get down to business," Kalinger folded his hands on the table, "tell me about your troubles."
The poet nodded: "Troubles encountered? There are quite a few. For example, our store has never sold alcoholic beverages, but my mother said that we should increase some low-alcohol mixed wines. Is it special... ”
"I'm asking you about the troubles in Heishu Village!"
"Ah! Yes, yes, yes..." The poet smiled mischievously, "Yes, we sent a letter of appeal to the lord, and the lord sent a guard, but it didn't work. Then he helped us distribute the request to the Hunter's Guild, no, here you are .Now I'll start you from the beginning..."
As he spoke, he took out a lute from under the table.
Stop... Kalinger screamed in his heart that something was wrong, and put his hand on his forehead.
Then the hostess came out, and she brought what looked like ale in a glass, and a small plate of toast and berries. Kalinger took a sip of the drink. It wasn't ale. The part that looked like the foam of the wine was actually a sweet and heavy milk product.
The poet plucked the strings: "It's not just about demons, it's about an elf mage..."
Heishu Village is built next to the mountain, and its name comes from the nearby forest. The village is adjacent to a high mountain. The leaves of the trees on the mountain are light in autumn and winter, and dark green in spring and summer. In addition, the trunk is very dark. The locals have always called it black tree.
The forests here are darker than ordinary forests, and even in the daytime you must carry a lamp to walk. Even the bravest hunters can only dare to go as far as halfway up the mountain, and if they go any further, it will no longer belong to human territory.
Deep in the forest lives a mage. It is said that mages usually live in high towers, but this mage's tower is vertically downward, the entrance is in a cave high on the mountain, and the tower is inverted and embedded in the entire mountain.
The entrance is the bottom of the tower, and the deepest part is the top of the tower. From "shallow" to "deep", it is like exploring from the world to hell.
Hearing this, Kalinger couldn't help interjecting: "Have you ever been to this place?"
The poet said, "No. But my uncle has been. The sheriff."
"He went into that tower?"
"No."
"What do you say… "
"He's been up the mountain, to a high place. Hey, don't worry, listen to me first..."
If someone leaves the village, walks into the forest, and travels to a place close to the mountainside, he will see a large number of warning signs.
There are wooden signs, stone tablets, and cloth wrapped around trees. Each warning object is new and old. Some are so old that you can’t tell the age, and some are left by your parents.
The warning signs all reminded the same thing: in the mage tower inside the mountain, there was a sleeping demon dormant.
Long, long ago, there was a great war in these hilly mountains. The Demon King and the Dragon King fought here for a full ten years. In the end, the Dragon King completely defeated the Demon King and swallowed him.
Although the Dragon King was victorious, the battle drained his strength and weakened him gradually. He lay down in place on the battlefield, unable to wake up, and gradually turned into a mountain range.
The demon is still in the dragon's belly. Although he exhausted his strength, he did not die completely. It is said that the trees on the mountains in this area are generally dark in color because the power of demons has been infecting the land.
He fell asleep, waiting, waiting for a day when his strength would recharge. One day, he will wake up from his deep sleep and conquer the world thousands of years later.
Before humans set foot here, elves first came to the mountains.
The elves are inherently mysterious, and the more mysterious ones are the elf mages. They built mage towers on the mountains to study dragons and demons.
The inverted mage tower on the top of the mountain was built on the head of the dragon. The tower structure follows the dragon's throat all the way down, and finally leads to the place where the demon sleeps.
Callinger interjected again: "Wait, did the dragon die standing upright with its head up?"
The poet said: "The dragon is so mysterious, I have never seen it before."
"Also, it doesn't make sense," Kalinger said. "The dragon killed the demon and ate it, and the dragon died and turned into a mountain... Why didn't the demon become a mine?"
The poet bowed his head and plucked the strings. Kalinger thought he might be organizing the language. In fact, his language organization just now was not particularly good. Basically, he plucked the strings and matched the vernacular, and there was no rhyme, but the intonation was more cadenced.
The poet raised his head and said: "The devil is an evil life from another world, I am afraid it cannot be understood by common sense."
"Okay," Kalinger shrugged, "so, is this demon awake?"
"I don't think it's there yet?"
"Then why are you looking for me?"
The poet plucked the strings: "If the demon king wakes up, the world will surely fall into catastrophe. How can Heishu Village live normally like it is now? Having said that, we have indeed received some threats from the mountains... don't Be impatient, don't be impatient. I'll make it clear in a moment."
A long time ago, mountains, dragons, demons, mages... they were all just horror stories of nothingness. Residents know this, but no one has actually seen it.
Starting a few years ago, things started to go wrong.
The first recorded encounter was this: a young hunter was hunting a badger, and the injured badger fled all the way, leading the hunter close to the cordon on the mountainside.
The badger had a rare and fine fur, and Orion really didn't want to give up. In addition, he was young and energetic, and didn't really believe in the old-fashioned taboos in the village, so he ignored the warning and continued to chase the prey along the mountain road.
After chasing for a while, Orion still lost the badger. When he was about to turn back, he heard a terrifying roar coming from the depths of the dense forest.
That definitely wasn't the sound of a badger, and it didn't sound like a wolf. There were no ligers or tigers in this area, and the most dangerous animal was the bear. Orion has seen bears and knows how to deal with them.
Orion was mentally prepared and walked down the mountain while maintaining his vigilance. Suddenly, the trees behind him rustled, he turned his head suddenly, and a shadow flashed in the forest...
"Is it a bear?" Kalinger couldn't help interjecting again, "Or a demon?"
"No, not at all," the poet seemed a little proud, probably because the audience couldn't guess the development of the story, "The Orion didn't see it clearly, he ran fast, rolled and climbed, and went down the mountain. Looking back, the thing Did not continue to chase down."
Kalinge touched his chin and thought about it. These villagers have never seen anything in the world, and what they see may not count.
The poet continued: "This is the first time a strange thing happened, and our village didn't pay much attention to it. Not long after this, some other things happened one after another..."
The parties involved in the second strange incident were a young couple. Their marriage was opposed by their parents, and the two decided to elope.
If they followed the road, they could reach the city, where the local lord's castle was. The girl's brother was working as a guard in the city, and the boy's mother was selling medicine in the city. The young couple was afraid that they would be found out if they took this road, so they decided to choose another direction and venture over the mountain.
The two stumbled, and they were about to reach the top of the mountain. The light was getting darker and darker, and it was so dark that you could barely see your fingers. The boy encouraged the girl not to be afraid, but before he finished speaking, the girl suddenly let out a scream. In the bushes a few steps away, a pair of red eyes were staring at them.
First a pair of eyes appeared, and then more eyes emerged from the dark corners. The boy bravely drew his sword and rushed forward, but was dragged into the bush by something in the darkness. The girl called out her lover's name, but was also tripped by a force, knocked her head on the tree root and passed out.
In the drowsiness, the girl woke up once. She first saw a pale and handsome face, and then stretched out her hands to cover her eyes, and she fell asleep again.
After fully waking up, both of them returned to the village. It was other young people in the village who risked their lives up the mountain to fetch them back.
Kalinger asked: "I have to confirm, is the 'pale and handsome face' your literary rhetoric, or is it described by the person involved?"
The poet said: "This is already an abbreviated version. The girl's description back then was even more gorgeous, and I didn't memorize it. We suspect that what she saw was a mage, the elf mage who has been living in the mountains."
"What about the couple now?" Kalinger asked.
The poet smiled gloatingly: "The two families no longer object to their marriage, but they broke up by themselves not long ago."
"I'm asking you how their injuries are and whether they are living normally."
"Oh, well, they weren't really hurt, just a little scrape."
The poet goes on to tell what happened next. In recent years, villagers have encountered danger one after another in the mountains and forests, and the frequency has become more and more frequent.
In the beginning, it was difficult for the hunters to hunt normally. Later, the timid animals suddenly began to attack humans. Later, the animals began to visit the village at night, and the poultry and livestock suffered repeatedly. The attacked poultry and livestock were not only preyed, but also Sometimes they will be bitten to death and torn apart for no reason.
Last spring, there was finally a case of villagers being attacked. A young man ran to the orchard late at night to dig and hide things, but was bitten by a small red-eyed beast that pounced on him in the dark.
The screams soon attracted other villagers. A total of more than ten boys and four girls came. These brave young people took hatchets, shovels, hoes and pans, and bravely fought two badgers, a fox, a bobcat and eight hares in the orchard .
More than half of the small animals died, and some escaped. The brave young people were all killed, and some were seriously injured, and even left limb injuries that would never be healed.
The village magistrate told the matter to the guards in the territory, but the guards didn't believe it at all. Rabbits attack humans with bobcats, foxes, and badgers? how can that be
Gradually, the abnormality intensified. There were several more attacks in the summer and autumn of last year. People saw not only animals with drastically changed personalities, but also some beasts hiding in the shadows and whose shapes could not be seen clearly.
The village first hired a few outside hunters. At this time, they were not bounty hunters, but ordinary professional hunters, that is, the kind that specialized in dealing with ferocious beasts. A total of eight of them went up the mountain, and four came back alive.
At this point, the matter finally attracted the attention of the territorial guards.
The guard sent two people to check the situation initially, but neither of them dared to go up the mountain. They gave more effective advice: villagers don't go up the mountain, and don't go out after sunset.
This method is also feasible. Works temporarily, but not in the long run. After all, hunters need to live, and they cannot give up hunting in this life.
What's more terrible... winter has passed from spring to spring, and this year, accidents began to happen in broad daylight.
Once or twice, people encountered ferocious animals running down the mountain. People have experience, and finally they did not cause major disasters. Some people saw creatures that they had never seen before wandering on the field ridges. Because of fear, the witnesses did not dare to approach .
So, the Territorial Guard finally took action. They sent a team of ten, together with the village sheriff and five village militiamen, sixteen people went up the mountain together.
This expedition was not to eliminate ferocious animals, but to find the cause of the abnormality, so they discussed in advance: If something happens, try to escape as much as possible, and save your life first.
Their trip was worthwhile, and they really encountered monsters. The most normal form of them all was a rabbit as big as a wolfhound, and the rest were so utterly monstrous that one couldn't even tell what it looked more like.
During this operation, the village sheriff was injured and is still lying at home. The wounded of the guard returned to the territory to report the situation, and the lord also felt that the situation was indeed not good, and worried that the horror would spread to the city.
So, the lord decided to recruit bounty hunters to take care of the matter.
"Bounty hunters" are different from hunters in the general sense. They don't take on the job of hunting bears and wolves. Their hunting targets are usually villains or monsters. It is said that an experienced bounty hunter can wipe out an entire orc camp alone, and some hunters have seen ghosts and demons with their own eyes.
The lord originally meant to spend some money to find a dozen or twenty hunters, and it would be best to recruit a few more mages. In fact, the safest way is to inform the Knights of the Temple, they are the most guaranteed combat force, but the lord feels that it is best not to spread this matter too far.
Therefore, in keeping with the principle of being as low-key as possible, they only recruited personnel privately through the Hunter and Adventurer Guild, without notifying other territories.
As a result, there was only one hunter willing to enlist, Kalinger.
In fact, there was a wandering warlock who was also willing to come. His suggestion to the lord was to simply set fire to the mountain, and the lord decided to send him back.
Why no one wants to come? In fact, Kalinger vaguely knew the reason. When he saw this recruitment in the Hunter's Guild, he felt that there must be few people willing to come.
The matter in Heishu Village is indeed serious. From the perspective of laymen, these cases are messy, with no details and no rules; but from the perspective of insiders, the more such cases, the greater the hidden danger behind them.
If there is a power of attorney that reads: "There is a goblin lair in the west of the city, which robs passers-by every day; there is an abandoned dragon lair on the snowy mountain, and a nest of frost giants live in it..." Then, such a commission is not difficult to solve, it is a clear and high-quality help.
A brood of frost giants is indeed dangerous, but as long as the hunter can know the type and whereabouts of the enemy, he can know the bottom line and plan the battle in advance.
In situations like Black Tree Village, most hunters don't care. Chaos in the details of the case often results in more harm than good. Either the risk is hidden, and the final loss is greater than the gain; or the risk is small, but it will involve a lot of troublesome human affairs.
Anyway, Kalinger came anyway.
After listening to the case, Kalinger asked, "How about the casualties during the last expedition?"
The poet said: "Their goal was to explore and escape, and they didn't want to go all out, but one soldier died."
It's good enough that only one person died. This sounded too cold, and Kalinger didn't really say it.
Kalinger said in a more tactful way: "It can be seen that with the addition of the city guard, the casualties are not too heavy."
The poet suddenly showed an expression of remembering something: "Ah! No, it's not because of the city guards! It's because the mage helped them!"
"Mage?"
"It's the mage I mentioned, the elf mage, the mage who hides in the mountains and lives in an upside-down tower. My uncle... the sheriff met him. The mage is not a monster, but a real elf, a living elf, Not a ghost."
"Tell me about the elf," Kalinger said.
The poet took out a folded piece of paper from his pocket, and slapped it on the table with a "slap", with a proud look on his face.
"See, it was written by the Elf himself, and he gave it to my uncle, and my uncle gave it to me."
The light yellow paper is quite thick, like a page torn from a notebook.
Kalinger opened the crease, and what came into view was the delicate font. The text is a common language, and the angle of inclination and the shape of the characters have obvious characteristics of Elvish language.
Judging from the shape of the characters, the letter writer did not use a common feather pen, but a sharp fine pen carved from crystal. This kind of pen is very common among elves, and it is currently difficult for humans to make it.
The writer's handwriting is beautiful, and the whole letter is neat and tidy, without a single typo.
Looking at such a letter, you can imagine what kind of demeanor the writer will have.
So Kalinger began to read the content carefully.
The letter reads:
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To you speaker or village chief or chief.
Tell y'all, don't f*ck it again!
Do you want to die? Didn't we say it's dangerous here? So many warning signs, so many! It's all in vain, right
Your eyes are only responsible for crying? Are you not responsible for reading the words? Are you blind? Are you illiterate? The whole village is illiterate? Your brains were dug out and thrown into the toilet as soon as you were born
Those warnings are all written in the common language! Many of them are left by the old people in your village, that is, your previous generation, and the previous generation!
Go back and ask your grandparents to see if they won't kill you idiots!
Last time, there was a mentally retarded man who said he wanted to kill the devil... I can go to your black boar! Stop messing with me with his wild mushrooms!
I will explain it to you calmly.
Among you, maybe some of your grandparents have actually been to the mountains, participated in some things, and left warnings... So, you think you can come and participate in these things like your ancestors
Save it! Don't look for death! Things are different now than before! More dangerous than ever!
I beg you, please stop messing around, the more you mess up, the faster you will die. If you really want to die, don't come to the mountains to send them off! Eating feces in your own home is enough to make you die!
Remember, remember everything, get the hell out of here! Don't go up the mountain!
Pissing me off will do you no good!
- hate you
inhabitants of the mountains
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The last stroke of the letter also ticked a font pattern.
"Is this written by an elf mage?" Kalinger was shocked after reading the full text.
TBC