"Didn't I tell you not to let the campfire go out, and not to stay away from it?"

The guard was a little unconfident, and his voice was as low as a mosquito: "It's just—it's just a little farther away, and no one thought that something would really happen." ”

It's useless to talk about this now, people are always habitually holding on to the luck mentality, most of the time there will be no accidents, but when the accident really happens, it is too late to say anything.

"What happened?"

There was another sound of footsteps, and two guards escorted Fink and Carroll over.

Before the four of them could stand firm, Hodge asked the two guards, "What about the other person besides you, the one named Hayden, who didn't go back to the carriage?"

The two guards looked at each other, "Probably not—we didn't notice anything when we fell asleep." ”

"Hayden? Carol asked.

Hodge nodded: "He's missing." ”

"Missing? the hell—" Carol was talking, his eyes wandering casually, and suddenly he saw two male corpses under the tree that were tragically dead, his pupils constricted slightly, and his words paused for a moment: "What's going on?"

"High Shore, as well as Bonnard. Hodge glanced at him, "They were Hood's companions, Hood had come with them to hunt in the woods a few months ago, only Hood came back with serious injuries, and they were nowhere to be seen, so they should have encountered the monster at that time, only Hood escaped, and they both died instantly, and their bodies were buried here for months, until Hayden found them and screamed, and by the time we arrived, Hayden was already missing." ”

"The body was found, and Hayden was missing. Carol held his chin and thought quietly for a moment, then suddenly stiffened and his tone became heavy: "If these two things are connected, then- could it be that monster lurking in this place until Hayden stepped into his hunting range, and then ......"

Hodge nodded a little helplessly, apparently he had the situation in mind, and for now, such an assumption was quite likely.

"In short, don't get your hopes up if Hayden is still alive. ”

"And what do we do now?" Hughes interjected, "I can scatter the rest of the people and search the nearby snowy forest, and maybe find his whereabouts." ”

Hodge shook his head: "None of us are as good at tracking as the witchers, not to mention whether we can handle the search of the surrounding area with the only manpower, but it is not rational to scatter out to find it now, since we know that the monster is likely to be hiding in this area, we should huddle together and face the monster alone - I think the corpses of Takagishi and Bonnard are a good answer." ”

Hughes was puzzled: "Didn't you say that in the snow forest there is only danger at night?"

"That's talking about the beasts of the forest, at most they are fierce beasts with demonic tendencies, but these beasts are well documented, and I know their habits and weaknesses, so I can conclude that they do not appear easily during the day. Hodge looked at Hughes, "But this time the monster we are facing is unknown, we don't know what it is, we don't know its habits and attacks, we only know that it has a strong aggression and the ability to cause phantom pain, so we can only characterize it as something that may appear in front of us at any time, in the face of such a terrible monster, no amount of caution is enough." ”

"Okay, so what are we going to do now, just go back to the tent and roast some dried meat and sit down?"

"Of course not, in fact we have to look for Hayden, even if he has become a corpse, it will help us understand the monster better. But—"

Hodge looked at everyone: "I have to bring the medicine box first." ”

The task of returning to the camp to get the medicine box was finally assigned to Hughes, and as a well-trained knight, his physical strength and endurance far exceeded that of ordinary people, and such physical work was perfect for him.

However, how could the arrogant noble knight agree to do such a thing that should have been done by his entourage, he was going to refuse immediately, but in the face of Carol's sincere request and those sincere and beautiful eyes, the knight's heart immediately melted, and it seemed that love had sent him a lot of telegrams, and the time to go back and forth was extremely short, if it weren't for the medicine box in his hand, Hodge suspected that he had just gone for a walk.

Hodge opened the medicine box and rummaged through it, the glassware clanged slightly, and finally he took out an erection container containing a flowing and viscous golden liquid, but the gold was not pure, and seemed to be a bit brown.

"Huh?" Fink looked at the bottle of solvent in surprise, "This is the blood-burning reagent?"

The blood burning reagent is an extremely ancient formula, which is said to have been used by evil alchemists at the time to make explosives based on human blood, which is one of the forbidden formulas, but later with the development of alchemy, people have a deeper understanding of the forbidden formula, and it is found that this reagent can not only be used to make evil explosives, because it has the property of ignition when it meets snow, and can be used in homicides to trace traces of blood, so as to find the attacker.

Recipes are not inherently evil or good, and the results they can bring are good or bad depending on what they are used for.

Hodge nodded, and then immediately shook his head: "It's indeed a blood-burning reagent, but it's a weakened version, the original recipe requires too much herbology, and the chance of failure to concoct it at my current level is extremely high, so I changed a few of the main ingredients and the final mixing ratio to concoct this version, which reduces the difficulty of blending, but this blood-burning reagent can't make the blood burn, but in a different way - it can make the blood glow blue and faint." ”

"Incredible. Fink exclaimed, "Did you think of it yourself?"

Listening to Hodge's description, this weakened version of the Blood Burning Reagent is obviously more in line with its needs, reducing the difficulty of blending, retaining the function of tracking bloodstains, but at the same time no longer has the ability to burn dangerously.

No, this can't even be called a weakened version, it should be said that such a blood-burning reagent is what is most needed at the moment.

Once again, the herbalist of this snowy village surprises Fink.

"To be precise, it's calculated. ”

Hodge didn't go on, it was a long, long theory, and he had more important things to do now.

The blood-burning agent was dropped on the snow, and as soon as the viscous solution left the glass confernoscope flask, it came alive and scurried around the snow, searching for the nearest blood.

The blue glimmer lit up, quickly converging into a zigzag blue line on the snow, and finally this blue line converged on Bonnard's body under the big tree.

"Bad luck. ”

Hodge changed places and dripped the blood-burning solvent again.

The blue line twisted and twisted in the snow and finally jumped under the tree, and just as Hodge was about to sigh, the blue line nimbly turned a corner, not touching the corpses of Takayoshi and Bonnard, but running in a direction farther away.

"Huh?" Hodge's eyes lit up, beckoning to everyone, "keep up with the blue line." ”