Perhaps in the field of magic, Pierre is just an ordinary human with a little knowledge of fur, and the weakest vampire would not take him seriously, but in terms of investigating intelligence and collecting historical secrets, Pierre can be called an absolute An expert, his ability in this area may not be worse than Nangong Sanba: human beings are a race full of curiosity, and their own weak strength will also urge the spirit detectives to pay more attention to intelligence collection. Pierre came to this The village had already investigated a lot of things before, and during the two months of being trapped, he was also constantly studying the broken ancient books he brought, during which time he investigated more things than Hao Ren imagined.
The noise in the village square is still going on. I don’t know when this long celebration will end, and those weird villagers don’t seem to be worried that someone will escape from this place, or that they have other methods Monitoring the border of the village, until now no one has come to the longhouse to check the situation. Hao Ren was a little surprised by this: "I thought they would be closely monitoring."
"Who is watching? You? Or me?" Pierre shook his head. "Their action patterns follow the rules. Although there are no loopholes to get out of trouble, they can find some gaps if they follow the rules. They will be very sensitive to newcomers to the village." Relatively loose, this is probably to prevent suspicion. After all, people who have just entered the village still have a considerable degree of self-will. If the villagers behave too abnormally, it will cause a series of problems. And as you stay in this village more As time goes on, you will subtly accept this place, identify with it, become reluctant to leave, and even forget where you are and where you came from. At that time, the villagers will use the rules of the village to restrain you, and you will be happy. Accept it. In the end, you become a total dead man, you think you belong here, you were even born here, you have a false memory that you were born and raised in this village, and you are destined to die A lifetime - when all traces of foreignness have corroded away from you, you'll wear their clothes, stand in their ranks, and yes, you'll be a 'village' too, as you see them in the daytime .”
Vivienne was surprised immediately: "You said those villagers were also changed by the people who were trapped here?!"
"If my investigation and guess are correct, that should be the case," Pierre nodded lightly, "When I first came here, I found traces of 'transformation' on several villagers, and they had cats on them. Wang's tattoos, but after a month, these marks completely disappeared, and they became complete 'villagers'. The village head Winston probably came from the same way."
Vivian touched her chin: "I remembered the allusion of being a tiger's minion."
"There is only a fence outside this village." Hao Ren looked up out of the window. Due to the angle, he could just see the border of the village from here, and the low, dilapidated fence was clearly visible here. Have you ever walked out? Theoretically, the villagers trapped here have no way to leave this land, and the chances of you forcing your way out should be pretty high."
Pierre knew that Hao Ren would mention this, so he shook his head with a wry smile: "Impossible, no one can cross that fence, the other side of the fence is still a village, I've tried it many times. There's magic here, of course, You might try it."
Hesperis frowned: "When I came here three hundred years ago, everything was normal. What happened here?"
Pierre immediately looked around cautiously, as if what he was going to say next would attract some kind of evil spirit in the dark night, he lowered his voice, and said in a mysterious tone: "According to my investigation, I am afraid it is related to an old related to the sinful witchcraft rites performed by the family."
"Family? Witchcraft ceremony?" Hesperis was stunned. No matter how she thought about it before, she thought that what happened here should be caused by Hercules and that ancient artifact, but she didn't expect that other aspects would be involved, " What did you find?"
"The earliest record is more than two hundred years ago," Pierre put down the window panel of the room, and lit another oil lamp in the house, as if to dispel the gloom around him. "At that time, the village was just This is a remote and poor ordinary village. Although it is hidden deep in the dense forest, there are no bad rumors, and the town outside the forest occasionally communicates with the village. Later, a down-and-out noble family moved here. Desperate exiles, after losing their power and status, only wealth is left. They settled in a small town outside the forest. However, the family was soon squeezed out and hostile by the town residents. Lives are threatened... ”
Vivian cut in: "Why?"
"Because of studying witchcraft, even people who returned from other places brought the family a bad reputation. At that time, there were not many such down-and-out nobles. Because of the violent social status and life precarity, they began to seek some not-so-righteous spirits. Sustenance and strength, I can’t find these records in the official history, but I found evidence from many secret documents. The down-and-out nobleman who migrated here is one who is quite obsessed with the study of witchcraft, and his family is more perverted than other families: they They have been fascinated by it for generations, and unlike those who can only shout around campfires with fake spellbooks, they have some real knowledge of magic.
"Because of this reason, this aristocratic family who had lost their power and status was rejected by the townspeople, and was even in danger of being sent to the guillotine, so they had to move out of the town, and later they lived in a place between the town and the small forest village. A house was built there."
"In the forest? It's so heart-warming..." Vivian raised her eyebrows, "And then?"
"There are multiple versions of what happened after that. Some say that the family summoned a demon from another world in their basement. The demon destroyed the town outside the forest and cursed the village in the forest. Others say they The patriarch of the family went crazy because of studying witchcraft, and he became a devil himself, but my investigation is more inclined to the third theory: there was a magic item with quite powerful power hidden in the small village in the forest, and the one that migrated here The nobleman himself came for the magic item, and he and his clan tricked a hermit in the village, stole the artifact from the hermit, and tried to gain the magic of the artifact. The hermit was alone after finding out he had been tricked He came to ask for an explanation, but the nobleman deceived him again, pretending to return the artifact, but poisoned the wine. In the end, the weak hermit and the nobleman fought a witch and demon war. The nobleman was defeated and lit a fire when he was dying. Burned down his house, burned all his family members to death and wanted to die with the hermit, but the hermit escaped with the power of the artifact... "
Pierre paused at this point, and the next thing is the key point: "The hermit who escaped from the fire returned to the small village with the artifact, but died of poison at the entrance of the village. His dying anger polluted the magic item. Immediately the magic power of the ancient times spread out and cursed the whole village. I guess the hermit's obsession was 'no one can take anything from this land', so this obsession was distorted by the curse and became No one can leave this land. The above is my investigation and guess."
After Pierre finished speaking, Hesperis folded his arms and nodded: "I'm afraid your guess is indeed the closest to the truth, but there is only one thing that is unlikely - that 'hermit' is not something that can be seen by ordinary humans. Got it guy."
When Pierre heard this, he suddenly realized that the people in front of him probably knew part of the truth, and he opened his eyes wide: "Do you know who the 'hermit' in the story is?"
"We came here to look for him," Hao Ren said, "His name was Hercules back then."
Pierre reacted for a few seconds, and finally there was a strange cry: "Ancient Greek mythology, that Hercules of the Twelve Trials?!"
Hesperis murmured beside him: "To be honest, I think that the twelve trials back then were quite dishonest. It was too much trouble. It's a pity that Hera was behind this matter. I asked Zeus reported the problem several times to no avail... "
Pierre had a strange look on his face, it seemed that this was the first time someone had heard this kind of ancient myth in the first person, and he was a little uncomfortable—although Hesperis did not blow it.
"But no matter what, Hercules' whereabouts are indeed unknown now," Vivienne touched her chin, "It seems that the crux of the problem is related to that family back then. They probably touched something they shouldn't touch to cause the artifact. The power is out of control. Pierre, do you know where the former residence of that family is?"
"Outside the village," Pierre pointed in a certain direction, "it's actually not far from here. The ruins of the ancient house have been swallowed up by the forest, but I guess the main body of the house should still be there. After all, it was a house built by nobles. According to the records, it was built with a lot of stone materials and ancient concrete. I know the key to lifting the curse should be there, but unfortunately I can’t get out.”
"Let's go there." Hao Ren stood up, "The space-time distortion here shouldn't be able to stop us."
"You'd better wait until dawn," Pierre said, "By then, there will be some changes in the village." (To be continued~^~)