After saying goodbye to Elsa, it's been a day since the Raven left the town where they had settled. If it was in the usual Hammer Lord, this day would be enough time for the Spell Master to see the walls of the Hammer Lord's capital, the Molten Iron City. However, at this time, the situation of the Fierce Hammer Territory was different from what it used to be, and with the border with the Salon Territory, the Iron Castle and other important nodes were swept away by the plague one after another, and the security of the entire dukedom could be said to have deteriorated to an unprecedented extent.

The population of the Hammer Lords is far from being comparable to that of the Saron Lords. Despite its location on the edge of the grasslands, the dukedom, under the guardianship of the Hammer Grand Duke and several city lords he appointed, has always been the most prosperous region of the Greylion Kingdom outside of the direct territory of the royal family. This means that when panic comes, the chaos here is far from being comparable to that of the Salon Collar.

Another group of refugees, cursed crows on horseback, surveyed from under their hoods as they hurried past them. These people are not refugees in the conventional sense, their homeland is not actually threatened by the plague, and their gorgeous clothes and calm demeanor on their faces also tell the cursed crows that these people just don't want their property and interests to be harmed, so they leave behind the Hammer Lord's property and move with their families.

Ironically, these refugees were usually successful merchants or nobles from small families, and it was these people who were the key to the lives of most of the ordinary inhabitants of the entire territory. They managed the transportation and sale of daily necessities, and their departure caused the originally balanced market to collapse in an instant. These people withdrew from the Hammer Realm with a large amount of money and unsold goods, and their actions directly led to the loss of the environment in which ordinary people depended. And this, in fact, is the main reason for this chaos.

"Moths in the territory?" whispered to the crow as he watched the mighty procession of people move away. The title he had seen when he was reading a book in the library about governing the territory.

These big businessmen and small aristocrats are usually bloodsuckers attached to the people, and they wantonly earn staggering profits between the managers of the state and the people at the bottom. And as soon as the storm came, they were the first to flee into the distance with their bodies full of essence. Such a group can cause a lot of losses to the territory in the face of war and natural disasters. However, in this storm, these bloodsucking insects are also destined to not be able to escape in their entirety.

Shortly after the evacuees left, several men on horseback appeared in front of the Cursed Raven. They were dressed in rudimentary leather armor and wore crude weapons pinned to their waists. After noticing the crow, they instinctively placed their hands on the hilt. The horses appeared to surround the crows.

Although they had put on a vicious posture, the Spell Crow had not yet seen them with these few men, and the Spell Master looked at them silently on his horse indifferently, as if he was frightened.

The leader circled around the crow, and when he noticed that the gray-robed man seemed to have no baggage other than the horse he was riding, he lost interest in the sorcerer. He was still chasing bigger prey, and he didn't have time to waste on such a small target. With a shout, the people who had surrounded the crow roared away.

These people are robbers, or it is more appropriate to call them robbers. As more and more wealthy people left with wealth and food, the hyena-like wanderers appeared more frequently in the realm of Hammer. As for the army that usually encircles and suppresses these bandits, they don't have time to care about these guys now.

Most of the robbers were brave and ruthless, and wanted to make a fortune when the army had no time to manage, but there were also some people who were forced by life to fall into the grass. When you can't exchange money or goods for food in the market, picking up a sword and grabbing some food to satisfy your stomach becomes a no-brainer.

This is the current state of the Hammer Collar. During this day's journey, the crow had seen this scene no less than three times, and he had even witnessed the whole process of robbery by a group of robbers. Stimulated by money and **, the bandits, knowing that the lord's army had no way to provide support, killed all the fleeers. Blood attracts vultures, and sooner or later it attracts hungry nezumi. As a result, the spread of the plague accelerated, giving rise to more refugees and robbers.

What a sad cycle. Raven thought. But that wasn't his concern, and the sorcerer didn't care about the lives of the ordinary people in the Hammer Realm. Anyway, people will die, and instead of those inconsequential things, the cursed crow only wants to find out the man who spread this plague and make him pay for fooling himself.

As the horses continued toward the Molten Iron City, some cacophony of voices came from afar with the faint smell of blood. It seems that the robbers did it to those who came before them. If it was a cheese, he might still help those people because of an inexplicable sense of justice, but the cursed crow is not a cheese. The smell of blood only delights ravens who eat scavengers for a living. Even if those people want to blame, they can only blame themselves for being too stingy and not hiring a few mercenaries.

The sorcerer is now calculating whether he can gain the trust of the Grand Duke of the Hammer in the shortest possible time with the resources and chips in his hands, so as to obtain the content of the "Barrier" plan and the news of the Blue Lion Royal Family. Perhaps intuitively, the crow felt that the lion royal family's attitude towards the plague was too indulgent. Even at this time, the royal family did not come forward to give clear instructions, which is not the speed of reaction that a ruler should have. So the only explanation is that they must know something about the plague.

But just as the crow was calculating, the smell of blood and the sound of horses' hooves interrupted his thoughts. A girl in a torn coat rode a visibly frightened horse and rushed straight for the sorcerer's position. Behind her, several robbers with strange smiles on their faces also rode after her.

"Why can't you just let me think calmly for a while?" the crow rolled her eyes under her hood. As the horse was about to crash into him, Raven held out his left hand, palm against the horse's head, and the ring on his ring finger flashed with a green glow.

Strange to say, it takes a lot of effort on even a seasoned rider to silence a frightened horse. But the crow only raised his hand, and the horse fell silent, and the menacing onslaught was dissipated by the horse's own slowdown. The horse parked next to the crow seemed to have returned to normal, and showed an unusual closeness to the sorcerer, even grabbing its head against the crow's outstretched left hand.

After calming the frightened horse, the crow looked at the smiling robbers. The robbers hadn't seen how the sorcerer had stopped the horse, and even if they did, they would have thought it was a coincidence.

"I guess even if I give this girl to you, you're not going to let me go, are you?" said the Raven.