"The second clue is that the devil is related to the stone."
Hela Ossenfurt nodded, and after the maid left, she said softly:
"That amulet you have on your waist is very beautiful."
"Yeah?"
Shad took off the unicorn amulet and handed it to the other party, but he didn't expect Hela Oxenfurt to take it directly without showing any sign of being hurt.
"This was given to me by a beautiful female fortune teller when I was fortune-telling at the Prophet's Association a few days ago."
He gave the excuse he had already thought of:
"I wanted to have my love fortune told, but she said I would have bad luck recently, so she gave me the amulet she always carries with her and asked me to have dinner with her tomorrow."
Mrs. Oxenfurt looked at the handsome young man in front of her, nodded, returned the amulet, and then suggested:
"Mr. Watson, my husband won't be back for a while. Would you be interested in walking around the back garden with me?"
This was a rather strange suggestion. Shade had never heard of someone's wife accompanying the guest to stroll in the garden when visiting someone's home. But this sentence was definitely not an invitation with a romantic tone, because Hela Osenfurt's tone was still so indifferent.
Xia De guessed that she probably wanted to say something to him, but he didn't agree immediately:
“This seems a bit bad.”
The veiled woman shook her head slightly:
"I'll answer some of your questions."
She stood up directly, so Xia De also put down the unfinished teacup and stood up.
When I opened the door, the maid in the old-fashioned maid skirt was still standing outside. She asked softly:
"Ma'am, where would you like to go?"
"I would like to invite Mr. Watson to be my model for a portrait."
The lady said, and the maid nodded:
"Then I'll go get the painting supplies."
As she spoke, she walked to the other side of the corridor, and Hela Osenfurt led Shade to the first floor. She did not immediately lead Shade out of this gloomy mansion, but stopped at the entrance hall.
The so-called "foyer" of a manor house like this is quite large, with chairs and decorative armor placed against the walls for guests to sit while waiting, and antique carpets on the floor.
Hella Osenfurt turned to look at the giant portrait painting hanging on the wall opposite the door:
"Do you know who this is?"
The painting shows an old man with white hair, wearing an old-style Confederate Army uniform:
"Frey Oxenfurt?"
Xia De guessed that the "Carsenrick Third Class Combat Hero Medal" belonged to him. As for whether he blurted out this name, whether it would make the lady suspicious, Xia De wanted to do this.
"Yes."
The woman whispered:
"This is not the most famous ancestor of the Oxenfurt family, but it is the ancestor that my husband admires the most."
"Because he earned everything for himself by fighting on the battlefield and killing the enemies?"
Xia De asked, and the woman nodded slightly, taking Xia De to the yard.
It was snowing outside, but the snowflakes were not big and did not affect their trip. The old housekeeper also appeared when the two of them left the mansion, but after learning about the mistress's thoughts, he also left.
Following the path on the side of the manor courtyard, Hela Osenfurt led Shad around to the back of the building. This was also Shad's first time here.
Behind the manor courtyard, it was not much different from what he imagined. The seemingly abandoned garden had signs of being tidied, and the evergreen bushes were well-kept. The small pavilion was located in the middle of the trail. He even saw the tool room and stable in the corner of the courtyard, and the locked fence gate in the backyard. The fence gate in the backyard led to the woods deeper into the Randall River Valley Stream, where there was a path.
It was still winter, and although it was late winter, the garden was still covered in snow. There were no flowers to be seen, only evergreen bushes dotted in the silver-white. Everything was quiet, and the woman in a black dress walked quietly in the snowy environment, which had a kind of beauty with death.
Shad knew that his thoughts at this moment were very rude, but he looked at Hela Osenfurt at this moment as if he was looking at a noble lady attending her husband's funeral.
Just as he was thinking, the woman walking in front of him suddenly stopped. There was nothing special around him, only an empty doghouse under a big bare tree, a shovel stuck in the snow not far away, and a pavilion in the middle of the back garden. Xia De saw a few empty brown flower pots in the pavilion.
The woman turned around, and looked at him from behind her black veil. Her soft voice with a slight dialect was still as calm as ever:
"You're a ring wizard, right?"
This is actually an affirmative sentence, not a question.
Xia De shook his head slightly:
"Sorry, what?"
"No normal person can defeat him. Even for a ring sorcerer, only someone with a special destiny can defeat him."
The woman said, as if she didn't care about Shade's opinion at all:
"Don't collect those three items for him. The ring is in his hand, and I think you already have the medal."
Shade took a small step back. Standing in the snow did not make him feel any cold. The God of Winter blessed him:
"Ma'am, I need to remind you: I returned the ring to you, and it was you who made it return to Mr. Stone Oxenfurt."
There was a smile on his face, but there was no smile in his eyes:
"I actually hate people like Stone Oxenfurt, but he paid me well enough."
He held up a finger:
"Everyone has desires, and mine are especially great."
"Desire will lead people into the abyss."
"The world itself is an abyss."
Xia De stared at the other person, but he felt like he was staring at a walking corpse:
"I don't know what you and your husband are doing, but I know that your husband gave me enough compensation. If you want to persuade me to give up, you have to give me a corresponding reward. By the way, the reward he gave was the Founding Earth. I don't know if you know this, but this is the original Rhodes card. No one, yes, no one can refuse this."
The stranger is not a profit-seeking person, but he needs to establish his own character setting at this time:
"Or maybe you want to tell me what happened to Oxenfurt."
He never admitted his identity as a ringmage, and Hela Oxenfurt did not ask.
She stated her request:
"I want to entrust you to defeat him, defeat my husband, Stone Oxenfurt."
"I've beaten him three times."
"To truly defeat him, to make his career fail, to make his ambitions collapse, and finally, in this manor, to stab a sword into his chest. But you can't kill him, he can come back to life forever, so you have to beat him in the game he finally proposes."
"Resurrection from the dead? That's incredible."
Xia De curled his lips:
"Why should I agree to you?"
"Because you have the most noble soul."
This answer was indeed somewhat unexpected. Xia De looked at the woman inquiringly, but the latter did not explain:
"Please push aside the snow and take a look."
Xia De looked down and saw that the snow at his feet automatically moved aside, revealing the soil. However, after the soil was scraped away by the moving object, he saw the gravel in the soil:
"Anything of note?"
"My husband had many enemies. He would turn them into stone, bring them back here, and smash them with his hammer. As a result, their souls were forever imprisoned in this land."
This certainly sounds like Stone Oxenfurt:
"Do you think that after hearing this kind of story, I will righteously declare my desire to eradicate evil?"
The woman in the black veil shook her head, and Shade could see directly into her indifferent eyes:
"The fact that you know him means that he has taken a fancy to you. If you have noticed that something is wrong with him, then you should understand that you also need help. The evil spirit's eyes are also on you."
This is indeed the truth. According to the doctor, when Shad defeated Stone Oxenfurt for the first time on the Rhodes card, the devil behind it had already set his sights on him.
"I won't help you for nothing, what can you give me?"
Xia De actually doesn't care what the other party gives him. Even if the woman just takes out a random piece of jewelry from her body, he will agree.
But once again, Hela Osenfurt unexpectedly grabbed his right hand and pressed it to her own left chest.
The first thing that the astonished Shade felt was not the touch, but the warmth:
"The reward is my soul."
"I'm sorry, but what do I want with your soul?"
He asked back, breaking free from the other's hand, but did not dwell on the issue. His goal had been achieved:
"I agreed to take your commission, but not for any soul. I want to make sure that after I complete your husband's commission, I have the ability to get what I want. I need your help. Tell me, what should I do? Although I have some power, I can't deal with an unkillable monster."
"Her" laughter came to my ears. So far, almost all the powerful enemies defeated by Shade were labeled as "unkillable".
"Before I help you, please forgive me. I also need to confirm how much strength you have."
The veiled woman said calmly, and Shade tilted his head and looked at her:
"What?"
The snow under the shovel in the distance trembled, and then a rotten human hand crawled out from the ground.
"Please defeat him, the gardener who once served me loyally. He was killed and buried here because he saw my husband's secret."
She retreated to the doghouse under the tree, and the rotten human hand stretched out from the snow had already grabbed the shovel. Wearing a black hat and rotten blue overalls, the hunched body of a 2.5-meter-tall corpse crawled out of the snow and mud.