"Captured by a monster?"
Rutina took the double-barreled shotgun at her feet, stood up and asked with a frown.
"What happened?"
"It's... it's the rat people! There are hordes of rats. Not only did they attack us, they also captured Gray!"
The boy Oslo covered the claw wounds on his chest and abdomen and said with a painful look on his face.
Blood was seen flowing from between his fingers, and it was obvious that the wound was quite deep.
Lutina turned around and took out alcohol bandages and other medical supplies from her backpack, handed them to the short-haired girl with glasses, Messia, and asked her to bandage the wounds of the other injured students.
Then, she asked several students about the appearance characteristics of the so-called rat people, and the students answered honestly.
"Rat people... You must have encountered Tamara rat people, but their gathering place should be in the deepest part of Coleridge Forest. How come they are here?"
She analyzed with a serious face, then looked up at several students.
"Are you hiding something?"
Oslo and the others looked at each other, and finally answered in a dry voice:
"We searched for the location marked on the treasure map and indeed found the 'Fountain of Youth'... But we didn't know that the fountain had been occupied by the rat people."
"We were just planning to secretly drink two bottles and leave, but we didn't expect to be discovered."
Stiller, the afro-haired boy, added.
"Greedy and ignorant..."
Rutina shook her head.
The four students' faces turned blue and red, and they were extremely embarrassed.
Chen Lun, who was standing by, raised his eyebrows when he heard their conversation.
"The Fountain of Youth?"
"Hmm... The treasure map says that the spring water has the power to make people immortal. Just take a sip and you will be able to stay young forever and live for several epochs."
The short boy, Arnel, glanced at Chen Lun, no longer concealed it, and explained softly.
"You believe this kind of nonsense."
Rutina sneered disdainfully, but she obviously had no intention of explaining. She just carried the double-barreled shotgun and said:
"After all, you paid the money, so I have to be responsible for your safety... Hurry up and pack up. If you are injured and can't move, just wait here. Send someone to take me to check it out."
"Let me take you there. I'm not hurt."
Messia, the girl with glasses, said.
Rutina nodded.
At this time, the couple also heard the noise and came over. They were surprised to see the group of students covered in blood.
"Oh my sun! What happened? Did you encounter a wild beast?!"
"It's a rat-man who is scarier than a wild beast!"
Oslo grimaced in pain and said as he sat on the wooden stake.
"What rat man?"
The couple was confused and uncertain.
Stiller, the boy with the afro, had no choice but to explain it to them again.
"How could there be such a species in this world? It's incredible!"
The husband of the couple looked surprised.
When his wife heard that a girl was kidnapped, she was very enthusiastic and wanted to help, but her husband grabbed her and whispered admonishment to her.
The two had a small conflict because of this. The wife seemed unwilling to see her husband's cowardice, while the husband was worried about his wife's safety... In the end, the husband chose to compromise and agreed to let his wife help find the female student.
"That's the brave man I know, Pat."
The wife kissed her husband's cheek and spoke softly.
Chen Lun became a little interested in the "Fountain of Youth" mentioned by his students. Just then, Antonio the cow returned from the woods and Noah put away his drawing board and walked over. He whispered the situation to both of them and planned to go and see it together.
Noah and Anton naturally would not refuse and said that they would follow the leader's actions.
So except for the three seriously injured students who stayed in the hunter's cabin to rest, Lutina, the couple, and Chen Lun and his group followed the girl with glasses, Messia, into the woods.
Messiah seems to have a calm personality, but she is still very young after all, and she had just experienced an attack by rat people, so she inevitably looked nervous.
"Ms. Lutina, do you have any other firearms with you? If you only have a double-barreled shotgun, I'm worried that I won't be able to defeat those ratmen... There are about thirty or forty of them!"
Messiah said as he walked.
Rutina curled her lips, took out the kukri from her backpack and handed it over.
"Here, only this one."
Messi took the knife with a little disappointment. She thought about it and handed the knife to Chen Lun again.
"Sir, I'll give you this. I'm not strong enough to use it."
Chen Lun smiled slightly but shook his head to refuse.
He raised his silver cane to indicate that it was not needed.
But in his heart he thought to himself, this girl is quite clever... On the surface, what she said does make sense, but in reality, whoever holds a weapon should be at the front.
Messi is indirectly protecting himself.
"A cane? Well... then you can use the knife."
She turned and handed the knife to the husband, who gladly accepted it.
With the knife in hand, he felt he could better protect his wife.
Soon, everyone passed through the dense woods and came to an open space.
Not far ahead, there is a spring with a diameter of four or five meters surrounded by three crooked trees. The water inside is extremely clear and seems to emit a strange fragrance.
And around the spring, there were dozens of rat people gathered.
They were hunched over, and looked only about 1.2 meters tall. They had no clothes on, but were covered with dirty short black-brown hair... But what was surprising was that some of them held weapons in their hands like humans.
Or homemade wooden spears, or forks and hatchets picked up from somewhere.
Squeak!
The rat people noticed the arrival of the group and immediately rushed over in a panic, making sharp noises, baring their teeth and claws, and waving their weapons.
"Don't be afraid! The Tamara ratmen have low intelligence and like to bully the weak with their numbers. In fact, they are extremely weak. Just kill a few of them and they will scatter!"
Lutina said coldly.
Her petite body stood in the front of the crowd, and she raised her gun and pulled the trigger.
Peng!
There was a flash of fire, and bullets splashed forward, directly exploding the head of a rat man.
The powerful impact of the double-barreled shotgun even blew the mouse's body several meters away.
Peng!!
Another gunshot was heard.
At such a close distance, it was difficult to miss the target. The other rat man's chest and abdomen exploded, and he flew backwards and died miserably.
Squeak!
The rat people screamed wildly and gathered around.
After Lutina fired two bullets, she had to open the gun and reload. Messiah, who was originally standing next to her, retreated behind everyone in fear, as if she was going to run away when she saw the situation was not good.
The palms of the husband holding the kukri were sweating. He saw his wife's expectant eyes out of the corner of his eye, so he took a step forward and swung the weapon at the rat man.
However, he had just killed one mouse when another one scratched his arm.
"ah!"
The man cried out in pain.
Two more mice threw him to the ground, opened their mouths wide and prepared to bite his scalp.
The man was so frightened that the knife in his hand fell to the ground.
His wife and schoolgirl Messia both screamed.
Chen Lun couldn't bear to watch it, he sighed secretly, walked over and swung his cane casually, and with two bangs he shot the two rat men lying on the man in the head and killed them.
Immediately, he winked at Noah.
The latter understood the meaning very tacitly, took out the drawing board, picked up the paintbrush and started painting.
He just raised his brush and flicked it lightly. Several rat people lost their breath while running and fell directly to the ground. There was no visible wound on their surface... In fact, their spirits had already been swallowed up by the gallery of bones.
thump!
Plop, plop!
One rat man after another died inexplicably, and everyone was stunned. Even the rat man’s companions discovered that something was wrong, and soon they turned around and ran away screaming.
"Chase! Only by following them can we find the kidnapped girl!"
Lutina loaded the bullets but did not shoot. Instead, she chased after him with her shotgun and spoke to everyone.
The man who fell to the ground was helped up by his wife, and he apologized guiltily and annoyedly.
Everyone followed Lutina and chased after the fleeing ratmen.
On the way, Lutina glanced at Noah with interest and praised him:
"Your painting is really good, can you show it to me later?"
Noah glanced at Chen Lun, and when he saw that he didn't say anything, he smiled and nodded.
"no problem."
Lutina stopped talking and ran forward with a gloomy face.
Soon, everyone chased the mouse to a hole in the ground, and vaguely heard a woman's cry for help coming from inside.
"Inside... Leave one person outside to guard, and let's go down."
Rutina turned around and said to everyone.
"Me! I'll stay!"
Messiah volunteered.
Rutina seemed to see her timidity, but did not refuse and nodded in agreement.
"In that case, you stay outside and guard. We will be back soon."
After she finished speaking, she walked down the cave first.
Chen Lun asked the cow Anton to stay on the surface as it was too big to go down.
The passage in the cave was very narrow and extremely dark. Rutina took out a kerosene lighter and illuminated the front, and everyone followed one after another.
Soon, the view became wider and we entered the heart of the cave.
The cave was damp and disgusting, filled with a sour smell. There was a thick layer of rotten matter on the ground, mixed with some dead branches and bone fragments, and it was unclear whether they belonged to humans or animals.
Squeak!
Some hairless mouse-men, still in their infancy, were lying on the ground, wriggling slightly. A girl, whose clothes were tattered and could barely cover her body, was thrown among the pile of little mice. She looked terrified and almost crazy.
“Help…Help me!”
The girl was the missing Gray, and she shouted in panic.
When they came forward and looked, they saw in the light of the fire that her hands and feet had been bitten off, and blood was all over the ground. A little mouse was lying on the ground sucking her blood.
"Those rats... they still want to... woooo!"
Grey broke down and cried, obviously unable to accept what she had experienced.
"Although I've never heard of Tamara rat people mating with humans to reproduce, but judging by their strong desire to reproduce, it's not like they won't do this... You're lucky we arrived in time."
Rutina shook her head and said to Gray.
She took the kukri from the man's hand and killed all the mice on the ground. Then she took off her coat and wrapped it around Gray.
"Can any of you gentlemen help me carry her out... She can't walk anymore."
Rutina turned around and asked.
"Let me do it."
The husband of the couple, following his wife's eye signal, stepped forward and carried Gray on his back.
Then everyone returned along the same route and arrived at the entrance of the cave.
Messiah was very happy to see his companions being rescued.
But when she saw the injuries on Gray's body, she couldn't help but clench her fists.
"Those damn rats are so disgusting!"
"How can there be such a monster in this world? Such a big rat can walk upright like a human..."
The man was puzzled.
But Rutina was not interested in answering this question. She just strode forward and said without looking back:
"This is the Coleridge Forest. Why do you think the Empire designated this place as a restricted area? Because there are countless terrifying things in it that ordinary people have never seen! The Tamara ratman is actually nothing. If you encounter other weird things, I hope you won't be scared to death..."
The couple looked at each other and saw panic on each other's faces.
"How about... we just turn back later. We don't want to go any deeper into this forest."
Rutina shook her head and pointed to the sky.
The sky had darkened by now and it looked like evening.
"It's getting dark. It's hard to travel at night and it's even more dangerous... And there are so many wounded now. We can't go back unless we leave them behind."
Rutina said.
When Messia and Gray on the man's back heard this, their faces changed slightly and they denied it out loud.
"no!"
"Please don't abandon me!"
Gray started crying.
Seeing this, the wife of the couple quickly said a few words to comfort her husband.
"Don't cry, we won't abandon you... Well, let's stay in the cabin for one night and return early tomorrow morning."
"Thank you... Thank you, kind lady."
Gray said weakly.
Chen Lun, along with Noah and Anton, did not speak from beginning to end.
He was actually quite unfamiliar with the Coleridge Forest, and had never been there in his previous life. Now it seemed that this forest did indeed hide many secrets...
"According to Lutina, there should be many extraordinary creatures like the Tamara Ratman... And what is the Fountain of Youth?"
Chen Lun was a little curious.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to return along the same route, they passed by the Fountain of Youth again. Chen Lun took out a water cup from the Blood Poetry Ring, walked to the spring, bent down and scooped a cup.
Extraordinary Item: Fountain of Youth
Item description: A spring of water that contains vitality. It has the effect of healing injuries and can slightly slow down the aging of appearance, increasing lifespan by three to five years.
'It seems to have some effect, but it is far from as exaggerated as described... No wonder Rutina showed disdain when she heard about the Fountain of Youth.'
Chen Lun was a little disappointed.
But even so, this spring water is still quite valuable.
So he took out several iron buckets, filled them with 800 liters of the Fountain of Youth, and then turned and left. Everyone looked at his actions and the sudden disappearance of the iron buckets, and they were all very surprised.
But Chen Lun obviously had no intention of explaining, so everyone had to bury their curiosity and shock in their hearts.
Among them, Messiah followed his example and ran to the spring to fill a bottle. Looking at her annoyed expression, it was not difficult to guess that she was dissatisfied with the small size of the container she carried.
"Let's go quickly. This spring won't run away. It won't be too late to come back and fill it later."
The husband of the couple advised.
However, Lutina smiled, she turned around and said slowly:
"You never know. Maybe it will run away soon... After all, all kinds of strange things happen in Coleridge Forest."
The man's eyes widened and he quickly winked at his wife. The latter hesitated for a moment before taking the small kettle she carried with her and filled it with the fountain water.
"You can give her some to drink. The spring water should be able to heal her injuries..."
Rutina said to Messiah.
The latter was slightly stunned, then hesitated for a few seconds, then opened the bottle and gave Gray two sips.
Sure enough, the girl's broken limbs healed slowly, the bleeding stopped, and she could even walk.
Seeing this, everyone was shocked at the effect of the spring water, and their eyes were filled with even greater desire.
Chen Lun watched all this coldly and shook his head secretly.