Hao Ren led a group of his friends out of Gerton's reception room. Two monks led them to the resting place, while the four with the beards stayed behind. The next thing to discuss should involve church secrets. After coming to the guest room where she was temporarily staying, Becky suddenly remembered something: "Hey! That's right! I haven't asked about the reward yet... By the way, they won't forget about it, right?"
Hao Ren squinted at Becky: "Can't you be a little bit better? How can such a big country swallow your little reward?"
Becky puffed her cheeks: "Isn't my time precious, I can stay for up to fifteen days, if someone comes to me later and tells me that I need to report to the capital at this time, and I will be approved and answered in a month, then I am not stupid? "
Hao Ren covered his face: "You are indeed a problem... But let's take it one step at a time. By the way, why do we always see Gordon and Ophra arguing every time we see them? Between the Kingdom Army and the Church Army Is there a contradiction?"
Becky waved her hands vigorously: "There is no contradiction, you are overthinking. Holletta has been complementing each other for so many years, and there has never been any confrontation. It's just that the two parties often have a slight friction because of their standards of conduct. It's true that the church generally It tends to be conservative, while the Royal Army is practical, and Lady Ophra has been in charge of the army for hundreds of years, so she may be a little more stubborn. But let’s not get involved in this kind of thing, it’s not good to get involved.”
Hao Ren snorted, of course he wasn't interested in getting involved in such troublesome things, all he cared about was the secrets hidden under this land. Lily, on the other hand, seemed excited: "Hey, what do you think they are going to do with those stone giants? That thing fell from the Dragon's Back Mountain Range, and the whole mountain range is so big that it can't be killed. Are they going to be deadlocked like this forever? Go down? The Holletta royal family didn't make a statement?"
"I noticed some notices on the road just now," Becky replied casually while arranging her equipment, "Two batches of troops have been mobilized from the capital to help, and the knights from the nearby diocese are also in a few days I arrived here a few days ago, and now the military strength of the Beinz Parish has increased by nearly three times compared to the last time we came. But you are right, even the royal family seems to have no good way: we can’t move the whole mountain range, right? ? As long as we can’t figure out how the stone giant came to be, we have to go on like this.” When Becky said this, she also showed a worried look on her face: “I hope the situation won’t get worse…”
After all, this is her hometown. Faced with the situation where such weird monsters kept popping up, Becky couldn't help but feel worried, but it was obviously not something that a small person like her could solve.
At the same time, in Gelton's reception room, the atmosphere was becoming more and more depressing.
"You said heretical sects appeared here?" The bearded man pressed his hands on Gordon's desk with a solemn expression, "What's the specific situation?"
"I don't know the ins and outs of this sect yet." Geldon waved his hand at the bearded man, telling him to calm down, "They didn't surface until half a month ago, and they haven't caught anyone yet. We just found Some traces of evil rituals. Some strange things have happened in this area recently, and they should also be related to this evil sect."
"Strange thing? What strange thing?" The bearded man frowned, which could make the unsmiling ascetic monk look nervous, and this was the only news related to heresy.
Ofra snorted, her voice was cold: "The bodies of many of our fallen soldiers are missing—according to reports from the front line. Those missing bodies were temporarily parked on the ground for some reason, and disappeared after the guards looked away for a while. , and has not appeared since then.”
"And it's not just soldiers who died in battle." Gelton said in a low voice, "including civilians too. As long as they died in the near future, the corpses may disappear mysteriously, leaving only a little blood on the scene, and sometimes there is no blood at all. Stay. The most typical recent example is an outpost on the edge of the holy lake. The outpost was attacked by stone giants and fell. The soldiers who escaped from the outpost led the reinforcements back to check the situation the next day. Only to find that the bodies of the dead who had been left on the battlefield the night before were gone."
The four bearded people immediately looked at each other, and they immediately thought of where the outpost mentioned by the other party was: they came from there, and they also found a mysterious tunnel under the outpost! It's just that nothing was found in that tunnel, which made Beard a little uncertain whether the tunnel was related to this matter. He decided to bring up the authentic situation later. Instead, another question was asked: "Do the missing bodies have anything in common?"
Ofra thought for a while: "Recently died, the place of disappearance is within the west side of the Dragon's Back Mountain Range - the dividing line is based on the central axis of the mountain range. The soldiers killed in action on the east side did not encounter such strange things. Another point is that there are no witnesses. , the body disappeared without supervision. I once sent someone to watch this matter, and there was nothing wrong with it for three days and three nights when someone was watching, but the body disappeared after a moment of distraction. And flew away."
Ofra couldn't help clenching her fists at the end. Obviously, she had confidently tried to find out the truth of the matter, but in the end she was almost mockingly failed, which annoyed this rare heroine.
The young monk among the ascetic monks remembered something after being silent for a while: "Have you checked the cemetery?"
Gordon nodded: "I thought about it too. It was after inspecting the cemetery that we confirmed that only the recently deceased would be missing. The old graves in the cemetery are all right, but the recently buried remains are also missing."
"Need a 'fresh' corpse?" The young nun among the ascetics spoke hoarsely, with some surprise in her voice, "Could it be a necromancer?"
"I don't think it's possible," Ofra crossed her arms, her voice seemed a little contemptuous, "Although necromancers are not welcome, they are still legal anyway, as long as you follow the normal procedures and comply with the regulations of the Mages Association , they can do the experiment they want to do - no matter how stupid a mage is, he would not risk his disgrace to come to the holy land to do this kind of thing. Moreover, the first corpse disappeared was about half a month ago, which is almost the same time as the stone giant's sudden multiplication. One by one, I would rather believe that this is a group of cultists pursuing ancient power. Don't let me catch them... "
"Actually, we may have some clues." The bearded man felt that it was time to mention the information he had, and he stood up. "We happened to pass the outpost you just mentioned when we came. I don't know if you have any clues." Checked the condition of the underground…”
Now the bearded man talked about the weird tunnel and the suspicious bloody smell in the tunnel, and Ovra and Gordon looked at each other after hearing that. Ofra looked at Gordon: "The church knights are in charge of that area, you Did you find anything underground?"
"There's really no inspection at the outpost," Gordon shook his head, "but you also know that there are no such tunnels in other places where corpses disappeared."
The bearded man was a little surprised: "Other places? That is to say, you have already checked the underground? No tunnels have been found in other places where the bodies disappeared?"
Ophra shook her head: "No. We worked hard to find the bodies after they disappeared, including the underground, but we never found any tunnels. Later, if the bodies disappeared again, we would not go back to them." I'm looking for clues underground. It seems that this issue must be revisited... Maybe there is really something underground. Your Excellency the Rector, what do you think - Your Excellency the Rector?"
Geldon seemed to have suddenly fallen into a certain problem and began to ponder. Ophra called him a few times before he responded: "Oh, of course, I will send someone to the outpost to check the facts. But I suddenly thought of another thing..."
"Another thing?" Ofra frowned.
Gordon spread his hands: "The energy of the cultists seems to be beyond imagination, and it is obviously related to the vision of the Dragon's Back Mountain Range. I even suspect that a group of evil descendants of the ancient magic empire have infiltrated this holy land. Let's put all our energy into it." Putting it on those stone monsters may be in the hands of those villains. Marshal, I can't leave the parish, so I hope you can go to the capital in person to report this matter to His Majesty the Pope and His Majesty the King. It's not just a regional crisis, we need support from the Holy See."
Ophra laughed when she heard this: "Hey, you finally have a sense of urgency." (To be continued~^~)