Night has fallen.
In this era without electric lighting and lack of development in the wilderness, there is little light in the world after nightfall. The only bright lights are concentrated in the aristocratic area in the center of the city and near the church. Once you leave the city, the only one that can guide travelers There is moonlight and starlight, as it is now.
Hao Ren and Lili easily left the city after nightfall, and the ordinary soldiers patrolling were like decorations to them. After walking along the main road outside the city for a short distance, the two noticed an open space beside the road. A dead zelkova tree stood alone in the open space. The bright moonlight near the full moon shone on the dry branches of the zelkova tree. At the head, a crow was standing there, looking at the two people who were going out of the city in the dark with dark eyes.
Hao Ren and the crow looked at each other for a while, then said calmly, "Are you here to guide us?"
Frightened, the crow uttered hoarse and unpleasant calls, and flew from one branch to another branch farther away.
Lily scratched her hair: "I don't think it's the landlord..."
Hao Ren frowned: "That Mrs. Mary told us to follow the crow's guidance. She can't even lie about this. It's a bit bad. It's completely harmful to others..."
Before he finished speaking, he heard another sound of flapping wings behind him, followed by a hoarse voice that sounded like a crow: "Hi! Hi! Idiot! Idiot! Where are you looking at! The great Kodo-sama is in this place!"
Hao Ren turned his head and saw an ugly strange bird at least twice the size of an ordinary crow jumping around on a haystack not far away. There was a striking black feather standing on the head of the strange bird. While jumping around, he shouted in a high-spirited tone: "Hey! That nasty old woman, always let the great Kodo lead the way for you stupid fools who are not clear-headed, hi, hi!"
Hao Ren was a little dazed immediately: "So you are the crow leading us?"
"Of course it's me! Of course it's me! Have you ever seen a more beautiful crow than the great Kodo?" The huge crow yelled as it flapped its wings. It’s a joke when the tuberculosis speaks—ga! That old woman is also a joke! Knowing that there are crows everywhere in the wilderness, but insisting that Kodo is responsible for leading strangers!”
"Okay, okay, we know you are great," Hao Ren hurriedly shut up the chattering ugly bird, "Now take us to meet your master, it was agreed in advance."
"Kodo knows, Kodo knows, Kodo is smarter than most of you, so shut up, Kodo knows what to do—"
The big crow yelled loudly and babbled nonsense, but it finally obeyed the witch's order, so it flapped its wings and flew into the air, leading Hao Ren and Lily to run in the wilderness under the night.
This crow with an abnormal brain flew very fast at the beginning, and seemed to sincerely want to get rid of the two people behind him, completely disregarding the orders given by its master, but soon it found that its flying speed was too fast for those on the ground. It's not worth mentioning to the two of them, no matter how fast it flaps its wings, it can't escape the sight of the two of them. Lily even has the time to collect a lot of strange stones while running and use them from the field to collect them. Weaving a garland of flowers and plants--to be honest, the dog could even go hunting if he hadn't been busy...
The big crow finally gave up the idea of teasing these two people.
But its chatter never stopped for a moment. Maybe the witch fed it some other strange things when opening the bird's mind. The bird's mind was always in an uncontrolled state. While flying, it talked about the harvest of humans, the eccentricity of the lord, the scale of cities and villages, the weather, water and soil, and even the name of the second egg he laid last year. Hao Ren wanted to borrow a stone from Lili countless times. Slammed that goddamn bird down, but somehow restrained...
While Kedo was making noise all the way, Hao Ren noticed that the moonlight around him was gradually dimming.
They deviated from the road and ran on a wilderness. Fog began to form around them, and even the direction became erratic and difficult to distinguish in the mist. Slowly, even the crows in mid-air were covered by the fog. Only the constant nonsense sounded in the air, guiding the next direction.
A cemetery suddenly appeared in the thick fog.
A few sections of crooked iron railings block the front, and on the other side of the iron railings, you can see sparse tombstones and stone statues. on the tombstone.
The sound of the big crow flapping its wings sounded in the air, and Kodo fell from the thick fog. It stood on the iron railing and yelled in the direction of the cemetery. Immediately, countless hands and feet grew out, and they hurriedly ran to both sides while yelling.
Hao Ren and Lili raised their vigilance and followed the big crow into the cemetery.
A long table was set up in the open space in the middle of the cemetery. The long table was filled with all kinds of suspicious food. A thick white candle stood between the cups and plates. The pale flame at the top of the candle burned quietly as if it was still in the mist .
A few black high-backed chairs were scattered around the long table. Several women in black robes were standing up. They turned their heads and stared at Hao Ren and Lily with suspicious and vigilant eyes.
The fog in the cemetery gradually lightened, and Hao Ren could clearly see the appearance of everyone present. Some of the witches were coquettish and charming, some were youthful and beautiful, and some looked like ordinary peasant women. It's all meaningless—Hao Ren is very clear that the main duty of witches as servants of alien gods in the age of mythology is to serve their masters and please guests. Their most basic ability is to use magic to reshape their bodies. Every adult Witches have at least a dozen faces, and even they themselves don't know what they should look like, so it's useless to know a witch from its appearance.
But at least during this "visiting" process, these witches should not change their appearance.
So Hao Ren quickly recognized "Mrs. Mary" among the witches. She was standing in front of the armchair closest to the end of the long table, wearing a simple black robe, with a copper pendant hanging on her chest, and a big crow "Kodo" stood on her shoulder, tearing a piece of bloody raw meat with relish.
"Very well, you came as promised," Madam Mary raised her chin and said with a blank expression, "The mysterious wizard, and the mysterious werewolf lady—the current situation is difficult, I hope you don't mind this humble hotel .”
"You can call me Hao Ren." Hao Ren didn't give himself a Western name, but directly used the name that would be inexplicable to the locals. "This werewolf's name is Lily."
"Hao Ren... a strange syllable," Mrs. Mary repeated the word stiffly, and then she really took it as a pseudonym used when walking outside. Although a wizard is not as good at disguising as a witch, but the basic disguise and Fake names are still very common, "foreign wizards, I hope you can understand our caution in this situation, in this day and age, it is a huge risk to host a stranger - I hope you can first prove your wizard identity."
"It's understandable, people who trust others always die very quickly these days." Hao Ren smiled, and with a simple move, countless swords and strange weapons immediately emerged along with the ripples in the air, and the cold light of metal was in the air Consecutive pieces—of course he doesn’t know wizard tricks, but a dignified inspector has a lot of tricks, and it’s not difficult to pretend to be a wizard, not to mention that the wizard system on the earth is messy, and they are all kinds of alien gods back then It is even more difficult to distinguish the "magic apprentices" that are forcibly produced by methods similar to human experiments.
The witches didn't expect Hao Ren to prove his "wizard identity" in such a scene, and they were a little commotion. Madam Mary's face changed slightly, and then they thought that this kind of "weapon making" witchcraft should indeed be The means of wizards.
At least not the Witcher's.
Lily also stood up enthusiastically: "Hey, do I have to prove myself? Look at my ears, look at my teeth—these are all real!"
The few witches closest to her backed away subconsciously, and then a young woman bowed unnaturally in greeting: "There is no need to prove the identity of this werewolf lady, we can feel your powerful aura."
Lily suddenly became very happy.
Hao Ren's eyebrows twitched, realizing that although the age of mythology is over and human wizards have escaped slavery and become an independent group, aliens with orthodox bloodlines still have a certain deterrent force in front of them. Although Lily is not a real She is a werewolf, but she still has the coercion of a werewolf and an extremely similar aura-for a witch with only half of the inhuman characteristics, it is completely impossible to distinguish the nuances.
It seems that there are unexpected benefits to taking Lily with him.
"You have news from the witcher?"
After confirming her identity, Madam Mary asked directly.
Hao Ren didn't answer immediately, but randomly found an empty chair beside the long table and sat down. He saw a mysterious man in a black robe with his face hidden in the hood sitting on the other side of the table. Judging that it should be a man, it should be the wizard that Squirrel mentioned before.
The wizard with the hood gave Hao Ren a slight nod as a greeting, and Hao Ren also returned a salute before responding to Madam Mary's question: "First of all, I would like to know about the arrested witch."
Madam Mary's face darkened: "As I said, that's..."
"Is that a trick to fool people?" Hao Ren raised his eyelids and glanced at the witch, "Then you all worked hard for this trick - you even went to the execution ground in the city to carve a bunch of runes, right? "
The expression of the middle-aged witch finally became surprised: "You actually made a special trip to confirm those things?"
"If you don't even have this bit of prudence and care, how can you deal with you cunning guys?" Hao Ren spread his hands, "I think we should be more open and honest, demon hunters are wandering around, and the human church is also very powerful , in the name of magic, isn’t there enough enemies? I actually have to devote my energy to distinguishing your words.”
Madam Mary had a gloomy face and said nothing, a young witch behind her finally stood up: "You should understand our caution, wizard, because the person we are going to rescue is very important—she is a representative from a great power , we look forward to getting the protection of that force through her."
Hao Ren actually didn't care much about who the witches were trying to rescue. He wanted to find out if there were any ruined castles nearby, but in order to get closer to these witches, he still wanted to keep the topic going. , and even consider helping them save lives: "Oh? What kind of character is it?"
"Her name is Heather Anna, a powerful blood mage."
"puff-"