() rustling rustling ...... An unsettling sound kept coming from all around

You come and drive the carriage, Cassius said to Frey

Frey nodded, picked up the little girl, and jumped into the carriage, while Cassius quickly came to the stream, silently chanting a spell in his mouth, and touching the water with his magic wand, only to see that the stream froze into a river of ice at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye

Is it sturdy, Frey drove the carriage to the side of the glacier, and when she saw that there were small fish swimming at the bottom of the ice, she asked a little worriedly

Without further ado, Cassius boarded the carriage at a speed not befitting his size, snatched the reins from the hesitant Frey, and urged the horses in charge of pulling the carriage across the glacier without causing any trauma to the ice

Just as they rushed up the glacier, a group of ghouls swarmed in, drowning the fire and fishbone hill they had just left, in the dark night, the ghouls all over the mountains were like huge black waves, as soon as the carriage reached the other side of the glacier, several ghouls had already come to the middle of the glacier, Cassius immediately jumped out of the car and touched the ice with his staff, only to see that the glacier had returned to the state of flowing water, and before he had time to jump on the opposite bank, a dozen ghouls fell into the water, and two of the fastest ghouls had already run to the shore, and they waved their claws at Cassius who was casting the spell

Be careful, Frey jumped out of the carriage, flashed the blades of her hands, and the two ghouls whose necks had been severed fell back into the water

Cassius chanted another incantation, the stream was hot, the water temperature rose rapidly, Cassius was good at water magic, but it didn't mean that he was not proficient in the other three major types of magic, he combined the energy system in the fire system and the water system in the water system to cast a composite magic, so that the stream boiled in just a few seconds, and the ghoul who fell into the water was scalded to the flesh

Hurry away, taking advantage of the boiling water river to temporarily block the army of ghouls, Cassius and Frey hurriedly jumped into the carriage, twitched the reins, and left, Cassius did not use the ice wall, but used the hot boiling water to block the ghouls, because the ice wall needs the mage to maintain the state of the magic, and boiling water does not

It turned out that the people who had hindered my Greston army of ghouls three times and twice were the two milky imps, and in the middle of the army of ghouls stood a black-robed man, he held a short staff in one hand and a leather whip in the other, and he looked in the direction in which the carriage had disappeared and said to himself

A few hours later, when it was almost dawn, the carriage had left the brook a long way, but the horses were already showing signs of fatigue, and the speed of the run was getting slower, and when they had entered a valley, they stopped the carriage on the side of the road

Hell, what are these disgusting guys, and twice a day they run into Frey, pouring bitter water

These creatures are called ghouls, a kind of semi-necromantic beasts that specialize in feeding on corpses, and they can eat corpses to quickly regenerate wounded parts of their bodies, Cassius briefly explains to Frey that although the monsters they encounter are ferocious by nature and will actively attack living creatures, they usually live alone, and now they are actually sent out in groups, and there must be a necromancer behind them

The necromancer was surprised to hear the fat man say such a horrible word

That's right, before I left the Snowy Federation, my teacher told me that there were recent attacks by necromancers all over the continent, what's wrong, you don't know that the people in the Thieves' Guild should be the most well-informed

Frey's face flushed with anger, and she stood up to retort, but a voice interfered with what she might be doing next

Uncle and sister, after hours of bumps, the little girl had already woken up

Uncle Cassius' turn this time was displeased

Little sister, you wake up, Frey hugged the little girl in her arms and asked gently

This is my way home, all the way to Anna's house, the little girl pointed to the front of the valley

Your name Anna is so nice, it turns out that Anna lives there, and now my sister is sending you home, okay, Frey asked kindly

Okay, Anna really wants to go home, Anna wants Mom and Dad, Sister Anna's Mom and Dad, what about them, call them out, okay, for a child of four or five years old, death is still a vague concept, this poor child doesn't know yet, her parents can't go back to her

Frey burst into tears, and she held Anna tighter in her arms, and Cassius fell silent beside her

After a short rest, following Anna's guidance, Frey and Cassius and their carriage crossed the crooked valley road, and then a flat field suddenly opened up, and a small village in the middle of the valley appeared in front of Frey and Cassius

Mom and Dad Anna returned, and the little girl shouted loudly to the village

As soon as they saw the carriage at the intersection of the valley and the two strangers in the carriage and Anna in the arms of the stranger, one of the villagers blew the whistle, and the dozen villagers rushed to the carriage with various farm tools in their hands, only to see that these villagers were staring angrily at Frey and Cassius

Come and collect taxes again, do you want to starve us to death seven or eight times a month?

The lords can't protect us, why should we take our taxes

Get out of the way to the tax officer

It's useless to let Anna go and take Anna hostage, we can't give anything

......

Amid the hostile yelling of a group of villagers, Frey and Cassius looked at each other, and although they knew it was a misunderstanding, it was probably quite difficult to explain

Dozens of people were carefully examining their surroundings by the creek where Frey and Cassius had stayed not long ago

A knight crouched down to examine the corpses of several ghouls, only to see that he was only in his early 20s, handsome and young, but he was wearing his knight's armor with a cross tattooed on it - a sign of a knight of the Church, a rarity among the Templars to become a knight at such a young age

Captain Rousseau: We all checked and didn't find any live ghouls, a soldier ran over and reported to the church knight

The knight stood up, clasped his hands to his chest thoughtfully

Thinking about what young man, a middle-aged priest came to the knight's side and asked, only to see that the priest was about 40 years old, and the monk's robe on his body symbolized the third rank among priests: archbishop

I have just examined the corpses of these dozens of ghouls, almost all of them were scalded to death by boiling water, and there is still residual heat in the water of this stream, indicating that someone has used elemental magic to heat the stream water, so there must be an elemental mage who fought these ghouls just now, and the knight pointed to the two ghoul corpses in the distance, and the knife wound caused by the sharp blade was clearly found on the two ghouls, and the wound seemed to be caused by a dagger, so it can be judged that there is at least one warrior who is good at melee combat, and there are obviously only two people who have fought with these ghouls, one is a male magician, and the other is a female agility warrior

How can you be so sure the pastor asked

Come and see, and say, the knight took the priest to the other side of the creek, and here there were two very fresh rut marks, this kind of carriage was relatively small, and it could only carry one or two adults at most, and two kinds of shoe prints were found around the carriage, one was relatively small, judging by the pattern of the soles, which was a kind of shoes that women in the north liked to wear, and the other was very large, and it could be seen that a man had found no other shoe prints at the scene, and these shoe prints disappeared around the rut marks of the carriage, and it was evident that the two men must have left in a hurry in a small carriage

It makes sense, the priest nodded, but how do you conclude that men are magicians, and women are warriors, not the other way around

The male footprints were neatly ordered, and he only had one movement to get out of the car and get on, and the rest of the time he kept his body in a relatively still state to cast magic, while the female footprints were too scattered, apparently a warrior using nimble footwork to engage in close combat with ghouls

The priest nodded in appreciation: "You have a good analysis, and if your father finds out, he will be very happy."

But who has the ability to resist the attacks of hundreds of ghouls with the strength of two of them, the knight began to muttered to himself, while his mind entered a state of contemplation

The adjutant knight called out a soldier order: follow the trails left by the carriage to find the two men who fought against the army of ghouls and set off in five minutes

Wait, that archbishop hurriedly stopped and withdrew your stupid order, and the target we are looking for is the necromancer who manipulated the ghouls, not the male mage and female warrior you said

If you are the necromancer, don't you want to find a way to take revenge after suffering a loss, I have a hunch that as long as you find those two people, you can find the necromancer knight to explain

No, that's just wishful thinking on your part, you're delaying the plane, even if I'm a good friend of your father, I can't let you continue to be wrong, the middle-aged priest was a little angry when he saw the knight so resolute

Uncle Myleck, I know that you are higher in the Templar Order than I am, but in this squad I am the Supreme Commander, and the Church Knights will do as they were originally ordered

I'm sorry, the two old men said to Frey and Cassius with tears in their eyes, "You bring my granddaughter Anna back safely, and my villagers will ......

The village chief, please don't say that, Cassius hurriedly comforted the old man

I'm sorry, I wanted to ask if the villagers did that just now because of some entanglement with the lord here, Frey asked

The village chief choked up a little at the mention of this, and he told the two guests the ins and outs of the matter......

This small village located in the valley is called Diwell Village, which means very deep at the bottom of the well, in the world more than 400 years ago, when there was no Fayale Empire, the ancestors of the villagers had been cultivated here, and more and more people lived there, so it formed such a scale, now the population of the whole village is more than 80, because it is under the valley, the sunshine is insufficient, so it is not suitable for the production of food, but because of the influence of the terrain, the moisture that gathers at the bottom of the valley provides an excellent living environment for the evergreen grass, the evergreen grass is an important raw material commonly used in alchemy, every year many businessmen come to the Diwei village to buy the evergreen grass, the people in the village also live here, although not too rich, but it can be regarded as a well-off life, responsible for governing thisEvery month, the lord of the village sent someone to collect 20% of the village's monthly income as a tax - this tax rate was also average in the society of the All-Holy Light Sect, and the villagers had not complained about it

But after the new emperor ascended the throne a few years ago, everything changed

In the early days of the war, Fayele once had the upper hand on the battlefield with its vast territory and huge manpower and material resources, but as time went by, the national strength of the empire was consumed at an extremely terrible speed, and the new emperor was so happy that he could not learn his father's statecraft, so that the country's production was wasted, and the people rioted, robbers, and robbers, and the trade routes were blocked, and in recent years, no merchants had come to Diwei Village to buy long-term grass, and the villagers had lost their long-term dependence on the financial source, in order to feed their stomachs, they planted on the original long-term grass field, which was not suitable for the valleyThe wheat harvest that grew at the end was pitiful, but to add insult to injury, Emperor Lockz I killed the family of the lord who was originally in charge of governing the village, and the new lord opened taxes and plundered the villagers at will, not only increased the tax rate from the original 20% to 60%, but also became more and more frequent, the original only once a month, and now it is now every week to send tax collectors to collect taxes, in the past few years, almost all the wealth of Dewell Village has been looted, and the villagers dare not speak out

A few days ago, the tax collector came to the village of Dewere, but the poor villagers really had nothing to hand over to the tax officer, so the tax collector conveyed the meaning of the lord, and if the village of Dewell could not pay the tax again when they came the next time, they had to mortgage the village chief's four-year-old granddaughter, Anna, no one could imagine what would happen to this little girl if she fell into the hands of the lord, although the people of the village had lost hope in life, but they did not want to see the young Anna suffer, so just yesterday the village chief arranged for Anna's parents to ride on the last horse in the village and send Anna to the field

Is such a lord still human, and he actually doesn't even let go of a four-year-old child, and after hearing this, Frey said very angrily

If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have asked Anna's parents to take her to another place to escape, and I didn't expect it to be ...... Speaking of his son and daughter-in-law, the village chief once again broke down and cried bitterly

Grandpa Anna shook the village chief and the old man in his arms

But why don't you get out of here, and now that ghouls are attacking this village, I'm afraid it's not safe, Cassius asked, why don't you start over somewhere else, as far as I know, there are many Fayaru who can't stand the tyranny and flee to the kingdom of Pole

Guest, you also see that the people in our village have been exploited to the point that there is nothing left, how can there be enough for us to move more than 80 people in our village to the Pole Kingdom, and we have many people who are unwilling to leave this Diwei village, where they have lived for generations, and the village chief said helplessly, In fact, dying at the hands of ghouls and being tortured to death by the lord is no different from us

From the village chief's eyes, Cassius saw the dead hearts of all the villagers in this village, and he took out a batch of treasures from his bag and handed them to the village chief

However, the village chief politely declined his gift of a huge sum of money: Thank you, stranger, you have done enough for us, even if more money is not enough to satisfy the lord's plunder of us, now I only want to ask the two of you for the help of the whole village, and I don't know if you will agree

Tell me, old man

The adults in our village have no hope that the two of them are good people, and they just want the two of them to take Anna away and not let her fall into the hands of the murderous lord

Rest assured, old man, we will do it, and before Cassius could speak, Frey agreed to the village chief's request

At this time, a villager hurriedly ran in

The village chief is not good...... Yes, there are monsters running into the village...... Kill people everywhere.