(Thanks to the low-key sacred cow for the monthly pass!)

- December 18, 5th Age 05 (4th Age 3472), Heavy rain

The world of Morian is truly incomprehensible. It's such an important day, but it's actually a storm, I wonder what the weather is like today in the world of Steeu?

I originally wanted to return to the world of Steeu today, but yesterday I learned about the city of Ivadeo from the head of the Morian Mystic Mage's Guild, and I had to continue to prepare for the next transmembrane trip in order to prevent Baldwin from hiding his tracks again.

It's a real dilemma. Obviously, I wouldn't have been entangled in this kind of thing before, but now I'm always thinking about my heart and having trouble at night. Would Charlotte be angry? You know, it's his twenty-fifth birthday. But I can't be by his side, in order to find out the secret of Baldwin and Zoe, in order to deal with the coming winter, Charlotte should forgive me, right?

Even instant messaging has become a luxury, and as the tracking deepens, I get closer and closer to the city of Rivadeo in the sky, and I am getting farther and farther away from the world of Steeu. Spanning countless worlds of membranes, distances and increasingly intense interference storms make communication more difficult.

Charlotte, is he back at Icewind Castle?

Finally, here is a happy twenty-fifth birthday to Charlotte. May the truth shine forever.

"Thank you, sister, for what you've done for me more than any birthday present. ”

Closing the journal, Charlotte smiled to herself.

Early in the morning, he accepted the congratulations of Vivien, Lolita, and Elle, and also saw Sylvia's wishes in the diary. He and his disciples had a hearty breakfast before continuing north. On the same day, I came to a village.

"War?ah, you're talking about the war a while ago. The old man took a sip of his tea and took a pleasant bite of the pancake Charlotte had given him, "That's not war at all, young man, it's a massacre." ”

All the way north, on this day, Charlotte and the others came to a village. The village is in ruins, full of the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled, living in fear. Charlotte distributed snacks purchased from the town ahead, and soon received praise from the villagers, who called him Lalna (a famous saint of the San Lorenzo Empire), and the children even volunteered to help him with his business.

Charlotte inquired about Elbert's whereabouts and finally learned that the final battlefield was not far away.

The old man had lost most of his teeth, and his mouth was shriveled and sunk into the gums, and he looked like he was about to die. He licks the pancake with his tongue as he eats it, slowly melting it, with a happy smile on his face despite the hard time eating.

"Really, can the old man tell me where the battlefield is?"

The old man looked worried, "Why are you asking there? It's not a good place, young man." Originally, the people in that place were very xenophobic, and after the massacre, I don't know if there were too many people dead or what, it was like being cursed in that place, not only did children go missing, but there were also rumors of ghouls eating people. ”

Before Charlotte could reply, the old man muttered to himself.

"It's still good when the old emperor was in power, although life was not easy at that time, but at least there was still popularity in the village. My son and grandson are not gone, it's really purgatory, no, even the legendary Abyss Purgatory is much better than that......"

He thought about it in pieces, and became old and tearful again.

Charlotte was speechless, looking around the mountain village, the house was in disrepair, the water canal outside the village was blocked, and the green and yellow were not connected, so it was a bleak situation. There are almost no young people in the village, and even if there are, they are missing arms and legs. When I asked, I learned that these were all injured on the battlefield and retreated, and the rest were either killed on the battlefield, or they were far away from home and never wanted to come back.

The only people who could be counted as laborers here were a few scrawny women, except for the half-grown children. The rest of the old, the young, the young, and the crippled, seeing that Vivian and Lolita had a bad conscience, offered to help the villagers repair it.

The group rested here for two days, during which they summoned elemental creatures to help repair the houses and comb the waterways, and finally withdrew from the village overnight amid the voices of the villagers who thanked them.

If you don't evacuate, you can't do it, the villagers are about to rely on a few people, and if you can't invite a few people to live permanently, then the family will move with you.

It wasn't until a few people set off on a starry night and came to the cursed land in the old man's mouth that they understood what it meant.

There are ghouls here, and the dead corpses on the battlefield seem to be affected by unknown forces and become flesh-hungry undead monsters. Several people walked along the road, encountering several waves of monsters in a row, although they were easy to solve, but after all, their hearts were heavy.

There is no one in the wilderness, and even if you pass two mountain villages on the way, it looks like it has been deserted. Some of the things inside have not had time to be moved, and it seems that they were evacuated in a hurry. The living creatures encountered in the village were all but rats and wild dogs, which looked like heartless monsters with green eyes and saliva in their mouths.

After continuing to walk north for more than ten miles, I finally saw people. The old man's words came true, and compared to the poverty, backwardness, and lack of vitality in the outlying mountain villages, there was a ghostly tense atmosphere here.

Probably because the mountain road is rough, there are a little more young and strong here, but it is just as lifeless, and the villagers seem to be reluctant to be outdoors unless necessary. When Charlotte's apprentices entered the village, they mostly hid in their houses, watching them with vigilance, indifference, and even hatred.

"Get out of here, stranger. When Charlotte finally caught a villager on the road and wanted to find out about Elbert, the villager said in a cold, even disgusting, tone, "You are not welcome here. ”

Charlotte wanted to explain that they had no ill intentions, but it didn't make sense for this hermetic group of mountain dwellers. As the old man said the day before, perhaps because they often live in isolation, the villagers here are extremely xenophobic, but other than that, they seem to be slightly richer than the villages on the outskirts.

asked a few more people in a row, and even the village chief showed extreme indifference to Charlotte and the others. Everyone told them to hurry up and get out of the village, as if they were some terrible beast.

Charlotte felt angry and pitiful, and planned to leave the village and continue north, searching for information about Gloria and Elbert along the way. However, when he turned a ditch with green algae, he saw a mournful old woman sitting in front of a dilapidated wooden house.

The woman looked to be in her seventies, and her face was wrinkled. She sat hunched on a small rickety bench, holding a doll sewn from coarse cloth in her hands.

The doll sewed its eyes, eyelashes, nose and mouth with thick thread, and although the sewing technique was not bad, there were some places where the thread was lacking, and it looked crooked, like a terrifying soul hiding in it, grinning and mocking the world.

The woman's eyes were probably not good, and almost only the whites of her eyes remained, cloudy and terrifying. Coupled with the fact that the village was located in the mountains, and it was late autumn, the sun was gradually sinking in the west, and she was mourning and crying under the miserable red sunset, shouting whose name from time to time added a little strange atmosphere.

It's not a pleasure to see.

Charlotte, who was also a mortal and did not have the noble sentiments of a saint, was about to take a detour, but was startled by the woman's sudden roar.

"Demon!" she cried out in a hoarse voice, for it was so hoarse that it sounded like a clucking hen.

"Demonic ...... How did you come back again. She murmured in a low voice, and listened intently, and when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching, she shrank back again.

The bench was squeaky and crooked, and this action made her fall squarely. I sat on the ground for a long time and couldn't get up, and I didn't know how to cry out in pain, but I just groped for the gray coarse cloth doll, holding it in my arms as if it were a treasure and shouting something.

This time Charlotte heard clearly, she was shouting 'Lena,' which sounded like a girl's name.

- I hope it's not the name of the doll.

Thinking like this, Charlotte couldn't bear to walk into the woman again, and Vivien and Lolita tried to help her up, but the old woman was so frightened that she burst into tears, and kept saying 'Devil, Devil'.

"I think she's crazy. Elle pouted, "When has she ever seen a demon as cute as mine?" ”

"If you only look inside, you're the worst demon. Charlotte spitted.

At this time, Vivien tentatively cast a spell to calm her emotions, an illusion spell that can calm the emotions of the receiver and make the receiver have a certain trust and affection for the caster.

The old woman finally calmed down, and Lolita was not idle, making a sturdy wooden chair with a change spell. It's not too dirty, and Vivian helped her to the wooden chair and sat down.

The old woman's horror faded away, and she began to say 'good boy, good boy' again. When Charlotte was about to ask, the woman looked panicked and frightened again, and began to babble nonsense like 'Devil, get out.'

Charlotte had to use a tranquilization spell, and when she had calmed down, she motioned for Vivien and Lolita to ask questions, while she listened.

Her proximity to girls was noticeably higher, and it seemed that the woman was terrified of adult men.

Then, in a flurry of inducing questions, Charlotte gradually pieced together a sad story from her toss-up answers.