Half awake for two days, and on the third morning, Roy's fever subsided and he woke up. The old couple who took care of him couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. They had been so frightened these past few nights, especially when they saw the one-eyed Jack and the night watchman who were traveling with him were covered in blood and wounds, thinking that they would lose this child again.
Aunt Susie sat by the straw mat, holding his hand tightly, her slightly swollen face full of love,
"We've already heard from Thompson about the cemetery, and the Fletchers are destined to do so... I believe they will be reunited in Goddess Meritelli's realm... You've done your best, child, and stop thinking about it and trying to get close to that monster. Give me a rest in bed now. If you're gone, what will I do with Old Moore?!"
Roy looked at his parents' concerned eyes and old faces, and couldn't help feeling a little guilty.
He still remembered that when he was half unconscious and half awake, the old couple took turns to accompany him, feeding him boiled food from time to time.
But he couldn't do it... Before the Northern War came, a terrifying cemetery monster suddenly appeared, posing a deadly threat.
this bad world.
Natural and man-made disasters, unknown threats will not give him time to develop slowly, he must actively seek growth.
He never wanted to experience the deep feeling of powerlessness yesterday.
"Dad, how did the village decide?"
"The village chief went to the city the day before yesterday to ask for help from the lord..." Old Moore's tone was full of uncertainty, and the three present knew in their hearts that the lord of Lower Posada was not a good person, and such a small remote village would die. A few people are normal. The lord's soldiers are the most active only when they collect taxes, and they are sure to run faster than anyone else when dealing with monsters. In Kaye Village, at most someone will come and ask a few questions.
"The people who went with them put up a notice on the notice board in the city, waiting for the witcher to take the order. There will be news in a month or two... don't worry about it."
Roy sighed, still uneasy.
After lying on the bed for two days, his whole body was rusted. He wanted to go out for a walk and visit Old Jack at the pub. But at the strong request of the old couple, they were able to escape by lying down until noon.
There was a strange atmosphere in the village. A few people came and went in a hurry on the street, and their brows were full of worry and fear. In the past, the people who greeted each other on the side of the road were gone, and the farmland outside the village was no longer cultivated.
Most of the villagers hid in their homes and nervously looked at the situation outside through the windows. No one knew whether the monsters in the cemetery would come to the village to kidnap people, so they had to stop all daily activities.
Occasionally, there are the cries of children and the quarrels of men and women in the house, which adds to the ominous feeling.
The bulletin board in the center of the village, which was full of cobwebs and had been idle for a long time, was cleaned up, and a new commission was hung up. It's a pity that Roy can't recognize several common words.
When they got to the tavern, Jack was sitting alone in front of the wine cooler.
The wound on the old man's waist was replaced by a white bandage, his body smelled of strong herbs, his face was tired, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was in a bad state of mind. In one night, he lost his friend who had followed him for decades. He had aged a lot, his beard and hair were dyed dazzlingly white, and his one eye had lost its former splendor.
"You're here, child, are you feeling better?"
"Well, it's all good." Roy sat beside him and fell silent. He didn't know what to say. He was just a deserter that night.
"Have a drink with me," Old Jack's face flashed a trace of pain, and he poured two glasses of wine, not sweet and sour fruit wine, the alcohol taste is quite pungent, "The old man is gone, and there will be no one to accompany you in Kaye Village. I beat Quint with dwarven spirits..."
"Respect to Pusig!" Roy's heart trembled, he suddenly took the glass and took a sip. The strong and scorching spirit ignited a fire in his chest, making him make a decision.
"One more drink, to Fletcher..." Roy took a deep breath and paused, "and the little slug."
When he was flushed and flushed, Old Jack stopped him. We talked about the situation of the past few days.
The village sent people to the barracks in the lower Posada city to ask for help, but they were rejected without incident. Just as Roy thought before, if there was no large-scale monster chaos and bandit invasion, the army would not be dispatched at all.
There was one more thing that the old Moores didn't tell Roy, that Kaye had killed four people in total.
In addition to the butcher Fletcher and his son, and the blacksmith Pussy, another villager has gone missing in the past two days. Perhaps this Lengtouqing didn't want to live anymore. In the evening, he ran to the cemetery alone, but he never returned.
Ordinary people encounter that thing only to be tortured and killed.
Roy was hesitant to say anything after listening, but after seeing Old Jack's bad state, he swallowed the words and left the pub.
In fact, as a player who has been addicted to the game, he has already learned about the various monsters brought by the rendezvous of the celestial sphere. Looking back now, he was 90% sure that the monster in the cemetery was a bloodthirsty creature called the Tomb Witch. They like to use the long tongue like a hidden weapon to knock the bones and suck the marrow of the corpse. If the corpse is eaten up, some particularly vicious individuals will go to the human gathering place to hunt, and bury the captured living people in the ground to wait for decay before enjoying.
More importantly, he also knew the weakness of this thing.
Crypt witches usually make their homes close to the cemetery, like this one directly occupying the house of the tomb keeper Gongor. But they have a big weakness - they are afraid of sunlight, and their combat effectiveness will drop significantly during the day.
But even if he told the villagers, would anyone believe it? How can he explain the source of the news
If you can't get more than a dozen people together, even against the weakened version of the Tomb Witch, it still won't make a big difference.
…
The blacksmith and the butcher died, and there were no relatives who inherited the property in the village, and Susie's distant relatives beyond three generations were not counted.
The property they left behind is temporarily managed by the village chief. Once the death is confirmed, Roy believes that some of them will be greedy, some will be dedicated to the lord of Lower Posada by soldiers, and the last part will be left as a reward for hiring witchers , a hundred crowns
The money and valuables of the two families were taken away by the village chief for safekeeping, but there were other things in their house.
Roy sneaked into the blacksmith's house and carried out a big sweep. More than fifty crossbow arrows, a used steel sword, torches, grease, and a few strong hemp ropes were all hidden in the storage space.
In the butcher's house, dozens of pounds of raw meat were taken away. In the storage space, everything was in a static state, and food, raw meat and the like would never deteriorate.
He also found a fist-sized bag of yellow powder in the closet, the powder that Fletcher usually uses to anesthetize animals, and when fed with water in a fingernail-sized amount, a 200-pound animal can be rendered incapacitated in a few minutes.
This powder is also at the heart of his plan.
Storage space is stuffed to the brim.
In the end, Roy took the short knife that the butcher had used for more than ten years to kill countless animals.
The entire knife has a short forearm and is shaped like a boat. The blade is sharp and snow-white. The blade and the back of the knife are black and brown. It has been dyed like this by the blood of animals accumulated for many years. No matter how flushed, there is a lingering blood.
"Uncle Fletcher, little slug, uncle blacksmith, if there is a chance," Roy swore in his heart, "I will use this knife to avenge you and cut off that choppy head!"
The battle with the wolves and the tomb witch has changed his mind, and he is more deeply aware that the place he is in is no longer the peaceful world he used to be in. If he wants to obtain peace by hiding and escaping, he can only get the opposite result. .
Having lost the stable source of experience as the butcher's apprentice, Roy decided to switch to a faster way and take some risks.
…
The cemetery is located east of the village of Kaye, and the four dead villagers are enough to feed the tomb witch inside for a while, and it is unlikely to leave the cemetery to hunt during this time.
However, to be on the safe side, Roy set the next plan to the woods less than a mile to the west of Kaye Village, far from the cemetery.
During the day, he went to the woods to step on a good spot, inspected the environment, found a suitable big tree, and made sufficient preparations.
At night, while the old Moores were asleep, they tiptoed out the door, waiting for the patrolling night watchman to go around the other side of the village, then secretly left the village and went near the big tree that he inspected during the day.
Then he tied a few pieces of raw meat coated with anesthetic powder that he had prepared in advance under the tree. He deliberately made the meat dripping with blood and stench, in order to better attract the target.
After doing all this, Roy quickly climbed up the tree, lit the torch tied to the branch, took out Gabriel, loaded the arrow, closed his eyes for a nap, and waited quietly...
During the whole process, Roy kept taking deep breaths, not only afraid of something terrifying, but also worried that it would be a useless effort, and no beasts would take the bait.
But the bow did not turn back.
The bright moonlight penetrated the gaps in the forest, sketching mottled brilliance on a young and determined face.
Roy pursed his lips, slowed his breathing motionless, and waited anxiously for about an hour. When a dog barked in the distance, he knew he had succeeded.
Five or six wild dogs with red eyes from starvation emerged from the bushes, frantically snatching a few pieces of raw meat tied to the hemp rope, drooling, and the floor was covered in messy blood. There were even two wild dogs. They bite each other because of the food they snatch. When the meat was completely eaten, they barked their teeth full of minced meat and blood at the people on the tree in dissatisfaction.
Roy's eyelids jumped. He suspected that these gray-haired animals had rabies virus, but he was not afraid.
"Dog thing, come up and bite me if you have the ability!" He sat on the tree and shouted provocatively at the wild dog while pulling the trigger and shooting the target under the tree... He also smeared the potion on the crossbow arrow, trying to be safe. .
Such shooting conditions are not much different from the last four-person protection situation, and Roy has an absolute geographical advantage. After an actual battle, his mentality became more mature, his hand holding the crossbow was more stable, and his head was better. Three arrows sent away two arrogant wild dogs.
When the remaining wild dogs realized that something was wrong and wanted to run away, the anesthetic in their bodies began to work, and they fell limply to the ground within a few dozen minutes of running out.
Roy didn't go down to harvest rashly. He sat on the tree and slowly shot arrow after arrow until three tips for gaining experience appeared in the template, confirming that the fainted wild dogs were all shot to death.
Level 1 (123/500)
"A total of 50 experience points. Both the wild dog and the wolf have 10 experience points, which is much faster than being a butcher's apprentice. You can level up as long as you do this eight more times." Roy looked at the wild dog's corpse full of arrows. heavy.
Risks and benefits are proportional, and his dangerous actions are finally not in vain.
Continuing to rest on the tree for a while to confirm that there is no danger around, Roy went down to retrieve the arrows and tools, dragged the dead dog's body to the hard mud next to it, poured grease into a pile and set it on fire, and turned back to the village.
…
The action went very smoothly, and the whole process was a near miss. Roy still had time to wipe his body with cold water to wash off the faint smell of blood.
For the next period of time, he would go out hunting almost every night, and he could have a harvest at most every three nights at the beginning.
There were all kinds of animals that were hooked, including wild dogs, wolves, foxes, wild boars... There was even a grizzly bear that was huge, grabbed the meat on the hemp rope and rushed back into the woods, but Roy didn't dare to chase after him.
None of these animals have more than 10 experience points. When the raw meat in the space runs out, he cuts the meat from the prey. As a butcher apprentice, the operation is quite skilled.
But it is a pity, although he will change the place every time he sets the trap, and has even visited the woods in the north and south of the village, the frequency of prey baiting after half a month can not be restrained.
It takes five days to bump into it once, so it is clear that the animals in the woods have a sense of precaution.
The speed of gaining experience declined again, until one night a month later, when the last wild dog was shot to death, Roy finally gained enough experience.