With a light wind blowing, rape blossoms and corn tumbled in the golden fields, and not far behind, a small village stood.
Five or six peasants in straw hats were waving their hoes in the fields, the sun lit up a large healthy blush on their faces, and the bright sweat was dripping down the sides of their faces.
In the fence, a hundred and ten gray-black wooden and stone bungalows are arranged on both sides of the muddy streets, barns with hay roofs dot the edge of the village, and cooing chickens, croaking ducks, and barking dogs willfully play on the main road. .
A rural picture full of life is slowly opened.
The witchers stopped to observe for a while, and finally decided to let Roy and Aiden approach the village, and the rest of the guys stayed outside and waited for an opportunity. After all, five or six fully armed mutants pouring into the village at the same time will definitely cause unnecessary vigilance.
The two walked along the path in the middle of the gray stone wall. Soon, when they passed by the huge oak tree covered by the roadside, they inadvertently raised their heads, and their eyes suddenly froze.
Heck!
There was a ragged white skeleton hanging in the thick shade of the tree. A wooden sign was tied to his chest, and he wrote "the fate of collaborating with Nilfgaard" in northern common language.
As soon as the wind blew, the branches and leaves and bones swayed, and a slight oozing sound echoed in the hollow eyes, as if telling the pain and unwillingness before death.
Roy sighed inwardly at the confrontation between North and South, crossed a few piles of livestock manure that could be seen everywhere, and entered the entrance of the village.
The farmer in the field and the children leaning against the fence looked over. One of the young boys in red pants screamed and ran away. The white-haired elder, who was lying on a wicker chair in the yard, was basking in the sun when he heard the movement, and led ten people with a cane. Several village strongmen came around in a hurry.
"Who are you? Why did you come to Kent Village?" The village chief stared at the long swords behind the two witchers with turbid eyes, his brows furrowed in deep thought, and his dark and heavy eye bags protruded like frogs. But there was a hint of strange expectation on the wrinkled old face.
Roy showed the snake badge on his chest generously, "We are witchers. Your Excellency the village chief, everyone, don't be nervous, we neither sell goods, nor ask for free food and drink, and we will not give to Nepal. Fugard tipped off, we just want to-."
"Witcher?" The village chief interrupted Roy's words with a trembling chin and goatee. The wrinkles on the old face stretched like chrysanthemums, and he grabbed his hand excitedly, "killed the Vizima vampire bird and Norvig. Rui's squirrel party lunatic, a professional who destroys all kinds of pests and monsters all over the world?!"
"Mr. Village Chief, my family needs a demon hunter!" a thin man interjected, "There are flying dragon beasts who secretly drink the milk of my cow every night, sucking up the hides!"
More villagers screamed, and a fat woman put her hands on her hips and complained with a pair of bull-eyed eyes wide open.
"There's a silverback turtle in the Chotter River that keeps stealing my stuff while I'm doing laundry!"
"The miller in the east end of the village likes to mix acorn flour into the flour. Can the witcher teach that bad old man what integrity is?! I'll give you an oren!"
"Old hag Anan rides a broom through the sky every night, making me sleepless all night!"
"Cough cough... Quiet! Let me say first, over the grave mound grassland—"
The village chief waved his cane and shouted weakly, but he couldn't control the enthusiasm of the villagers at all, and his voice was suppressed instead.
"Everyone, listen to me!" Roy frowned. In the past, he was still interested in listening to this group of people talking nonsense about a bunch of monsters that didn't exist, but not today!
As soon as he thought about it, a thick blood light flashed around the slender and tall body under the gray cloak, and there were a few tentacles faintly swimming in the shadow under his feet.
The temperature dropped eerily.
A suffocating sense of oppression pervaded.
This group of noisy country villagers immediately shuddered and shut up like ducks strangled by their necks.
Aiden took the opportunity to stand on the wooden stake at the entrance of the village, and raised his voice solemnly, making sure that the whole village could hear the next words,
"I'm sorry, the witcher's business has been booming recently. We have already scheduled the work at hand until next month, and we really don't have the time to pick up more!"
"On the contrary, we have come here to give you a chance to make money - we are tracking a man who landed on the bank of the Choate River this morning, but disappeared for no reason at the exit of the birch forest. Who can provide clues to help us find him? The reward is here!"
Aiden took out a roll of paper from his arms, stretched it out on his chest, and turned it left and right to show it to everyone.
On the paper was drawn a man with a bald head, amber vertical pupils, a scar on the left side of his face, and a gloomy expression.
Magically depicted by a sorceress, lifelike, as if sneering at people.
The villagers looked at each other for a moment, looking at each other blankly, as if they had never seen this guy before.
"You mean, what's the reward?!"
A young man with a red neck shouted curiously.
"Two hundred oren!"
"Hey—I can't read, but I'm not a fool, don't try to lie to me! Isn't it twenty, fifty?"
"Two hundred! We swear to the gods that we will do what we say!"
The faces of the onlookers turned blood red, swallowing saliva, clenching their fists, panting with red eyes, they had never seen such a large sum of money in their lives!
The villagers who had been secretly observing in the house could no longer hold back their restlessness, and rushed to the street one after another, craned their necks to look at the portrait.
A woman ran too fast and hit the wooden fence, fell a dog and ate shit, nosebleeds, but just wiped the skirt with her skirt, she stared at the painting, as if she was staring at some peerless treasure, and scrambled to shout,
"Bring it here! I can't see clearly!"
This is the magic that money is hard to resist, and it can often achieve its goals in the most simple and rude way.
At the same time, Roy had a strange feeling in his heart. They always took orders from their employers, but now they have changed their positions. For the first time, the witcher issued orders to a group of ordinary people.
Well, help us find someone and give us money!
"I don't know this guy, I've never seen him before." The elder took the scroll and looked at it for a moment, then shook his head regretfully, "And no outsiders have entered the village in the past week, so I'm afraid the two of you have come to the wrong place."
"Don't be in a hurry to answer, everyone will take a closer look..." Roy raised his head, two ghostly figures were flying over the eaves and walls behind the crowd, moving as swiftly and concealed as civet cats, going from house to house through the window into the empty house.
It was Eskar and Cohen, who had been waiting for the opportunity, sneaking into the house in search of smells, magical fluctuations, and basements.
As long as there is any trace of Gaitan, they cannot escape their investigation.
As for Kayan, stay outside the village to prevent anyone in the know from slipping away.
Roy cleared his throat and started to buy time for his companions,
"This guy has two swords on his back, a cat's head badge around his neck, and is badly wounded that only a witcher's secret recipe can cure. He's a big problem for you, keep dragging on—you'd like the house to suddenly have more A corpse?"
"How did he get hurt?" asked a short man.
"Stabbed with swords by robbers and bandits."
"So he's a good guy? Why are you looking for him? Are you in the same league with him?" a little girl with braids asked innocently with her thumb up.
"He's very important to us." Roy said vaguely, pretending to reach into his arms and take out a bulging purse from the space.
clap la la-
The open mouth of the bag reveals a golden luster.
The villagers were dazzled by the shaking.
Roy even graciously took one out and gave it to the little girl, who bit it with her front teeth, and immediately turned her eyebrows and danced around in circles.
"Everyone has a look at this painting, and don't miss a single detail. Whoever can provide effective clues, take it away immediately!"
Roy looked around to see the frenzy on everyone's faces, his pupils shrunk into a slit in an instant, and he poured cold water on his face.
"But the ugly words are in front, who dares to make up and deceive - our swords are not vegetarians!"
The strong sense of oppression that was about to come out, coupled with the fierce reputation of the demon hunters in the past few years, instantly made a few villagers with their eyes turned away from the ghost.
Next, the portraits were slowly passed among the crowd, and Aiden, with his wicked eyes, swept across the faces, and whoever lied was sincere at a glance.
After a full hour.
After continuously rejecting the illusion of "I must have seen him somewhere" caused by several women's money poisoning, the two got an unexpected result.
"Trust me now?" The village chief and the villagers around him looked at the witcher, and even if they couldn't get the money, they would not leave. "That guy has never been to the village."
Roy looked up, and the two figures flying on the roof simply jumped into the cornfield neatly, apparently finding nothing.
"Are there any other settlements near Kent Village? Are there witch doctors and hunters living in the woods?" Aiden asked reluctantly.
"The nearest village in a radius of ten miles is on the other side of the Qiaote River." The village chief said while stroking his beard, "but there is a small wooden house in the huge grave mound grassland in the northeast. A barber lives in it... um... it is June. , he should be there!"
Barber
The two witchers couldn't help exchanging glances. If anyone is most likely to save Gaitan, it must be someone who is proficient in medical technology.
And the barber who also serves as a village doctor is undoubtedly a suspect, living near the mound and courageous enough.
"What does it mean to be there?" Aiden pressed.
"Mr. Gaudifoy is not a local. He only comes here every summer to pick herbs. In addition, he has been interrupted by this group of bastards before, and he didn't have time to say some words." The village chief suddenly turned pale. There are a few more gravediggers, and they will rush at anyone! Mr. Godifoy may have been scared away long ago."
Roy prayed that the clues would not be broken here again, and his attitude became patient.
"Tell me carefully what the monster looks like and where did it come from."
"I found those dirty heads first," said a gloomy big man walking out of the crowd with lingering fears, "like a leper whose skin has been stripped and suffered a fire, emitting a stench like carrion, long With pitch-black fangs and claws, it moved on all fours like a beast, and its cry was as harsh as a night owl. I met its pitch-black eyes from a distance of dozens of meters, and I had nightmares for a week."
"Fortunately, they didn't chase too far. They have been guarding the mound, tearing down tombstones, destroying coffins, and ruining our resting relatives!" The mistake of General Kidd's soldiers was not to hang the corpse of the Nilfgaardian spy outside the tomb to dry, saying that it was an example to follow, but the stench of the corpse led to the group of dirty things, but it harmed us!"
The villagers nodded in unison, the grief and fear on their faces overwhelmed the previous frenzy.
Roy nodded secretly.
The area around Kent Village is a territory belonging to Bruge, and King Wenslav fully supported Sintra's restoration, which naturally gave the green light to General Visekid's actions.
As for the tomb-digging hungry ghosts, ghouls are right, a trivial little trouble.
They made up their minds to find the barber.
"The two masters think that Monsieur Godifoy rescued the man in the painting?"
The village chief asked thoughtfully.
"Maybe?" Roy and Aiden bowed to the villagers who cooperated obediently, and then took out fifty oren and handed them to the village chief, asking him to distribute them among the people, "We are going to leave now, thank you folks The answer is, a mere gift is not a tribute."
"No, the old man doesn't want money, I will take you to the grave mound grassland, but the two of you have to get rid of those animals... Let me mourn my poor daughter in front of the tombstone..." The old man ignored a bunch of eye-catching villagers around him. , threw the purse directly to the witcher, and poked the ground with the tip of his cane, spitting out, "Trust me, the place is like a maze, it takes a lot of time to find the barber, and I Because of my daughter's illness, I visit him several times a year, and no one knows him better than me!"
Roy and Aiden looked at each other, and it was worth at least 200 for the usual commission to get rid of ghouls.
But witchers can be kind from time to time, and more importantly, they have to hurry up.
"Then what are you waiting for, lead the way!"
"Too slow! Throw away the crutches, I'll carry you!"