Early in the morning, facing the bitter north wind, Surdak rode out of the city of Highlanza with Karl and his party.

Worried that he was not in the Knight Academy for a few days, Natasha Knight Academy would not be able to eat lunch and dinner, Surdak specially asked the two girls in the next bedroom last night to help him take care of Natasha more. The two girls, Lina and Nedra, readily agreed.

Fornak Manor is located in the southern suburbs of Highlandsa City, there are almost no mountains on the way from Highlandsa City to Fornak Manor, at most there is gentle woodland, along the way Surdak saw several lumberyards, the road is lined with some old golden oak trees, the road is not very easy to walk, everyone walks along a trace of footsteps on the road.

The snow on the road was not yet fully settled, and the boulevard was off the avenue and onto the boulevard to Fornak Manor, where there were only a few footprints left by hunters, and it seemed that few people were coming this way after the heavy snowfall, and from time to time pheasants flew out of the snow and plunged headlong into the snow pits of the woodland on the hillside.

This time, in addition to Surdak, Karl also transferred the first squad of the support squadron to accompany him, and a group of eight people left the city of Highlandsa in the morning, and it only took about half a day to arrive at Fornak Manor.

Surdak and Karl walked side by side on the road.

Last night, Carl asked Miluo, the leader of the first squad, to bring out the information about Viscount Fornak Jr. in the guard camp, and at this time, Miluo followed behind Carl and seriously told the information he found last night. The leader of the first squad was a close confidant of Carl, so he heard him say: "When many people in the city talk about the robbery of Fornak Manor, they all say that Viscount Fornak Jr. is a rare wreck, and because he is afraid of those bandits, he will abandon Fornak Manor and run back to the city of Highlandsa in disgrace. ”

Karl mounted on horseback, turned to Surdak and said, "I remember that there was a time when a band of robbers lived in Fornak Manor. ”

"yes!" Miluo, the leader of the first squad, also remembered it vividly, and said with emotion in his tone: "That happened last summer, a bandit group looted around the city of Hailanza, which made the nobles in the city of Hailanza panic, and the brigades on the side of the guard battalion sent their respective support squadrons out of the city to encircle and suppress the bandit group, only to find that this bandit group actually occupied Fornak Manor, and used it as a base to loot the surrounding villages and towns, and waited until the guard battalion eliminated the bandit group in one fell swoop, Fornak Manor was only then returned to the hands of Viscount Fornak the Younger. ”

"And after Viscount Fornak took over this manor, he only sent a night watchman to guard the gate to avoid the manor being completely abandoned, but I didn't expect the manor to have one accident after another in the following period." Miluo added.

"One after another?" Karl asked in surprise, this kind of thing is a security problem outside the city, but he doesn't know any news.

Miluo, the leader of the first squad, nodded, and said: "That's right, this dead night watchman is not the first victim in this manor, in fact, if you count this one, it should be the fifth, but the first four Viscounts Fornak have made some compensation to the families of the night watch, even if they die, no one will make a noise, and Viscount Fornak will go to the guard camp every time to record, but this night watchman is not that Viscount Fornak doesn't want to compensate, it's just that it has snowed heavily recently, and he was already a little late when he received the news, The night watchman's son reported the matter to the guard battalion seven days after his father's disappearance. ”

Karl pondered for a moment, and then asked, "It seems that there is really something wrong with this manor, have you asked the families of those night watchmen before, the cause of death of those night watchmen?" ”

Miluo said a little embarrassed: "The cause of death is only recorded in the file, because I only had to investigate this last night, and I didn't have time to visit the families of the night watchmen who were killed." ”

"That's great!" Karl said to Miluo.

When the group was about to arrive at Fornak Manor, they stood on the slope in the distance and saw that Fornak Manor was built on a small hill, this hill was only a few dozen meters high, the south side was a gentle slope, and on the north side of the hill was a cliff with a drop of about forty or fifty meters, Fornak Manor was built on top of the cliff, and under the cliff was a lake covering an area of about ten acres, and behind the lake was a large forest.

From the south side of the manor, a winding path leads to this side, and from a distance, the depressed façade and broken gate of Fornak Manor are still covered with a thick layer of snow, although they have been repaired, but there is not a trace of life, and the window under the lookout is only a window frame, on which it looks like a messy bird's nest, and a large ibis bird with black feathers flies out of the window, and flies in a circle over the manor before flying away.

Karl instructed Miluo: "Send two people to search carefully outside the manor, let's find a sheltered place to eat a hot bite to fill our stomachs, and then enter the manor to investigate." ”

Probably worried that Captain Thor and his party would not be able to keep up in time, Karl and the first team did not walk quickly, at this time there was a makeshift tent set up next to the forest, a bonfire was set up to set up a large iron pot to boil the water, and the baked wheat cake was broken and thrown into the large iron pot until it was boiled soft, and then it was hot to eat in the stomach, this kind of wheat cake with salt and meat filling cheese was much more delicious than the marching rations.

After lunch, the group slowly walked into Fornak Manor, although the broken gate was hung with iron locks, but the railing on the big iron gate broke a big hole, even the huge bear can get in, everyone tied the horses outside the manor, leaving a member of the first team to take care of the horses, Carl led the other five people from the manor into the manor.

After Surdak entered Fornak Manor, he found that although the manor was so dilapidated that it could not be inhabited without renovation, the design pattern of the entire manor could still be seen in the general outline, under the cover of heavy snow, the whole manor could fit well into the surrounding mountain scenery, no wonder this manor has been abandoned to this point. When Christie recommended the knight collar to herself, she also recommended this land to herself.

Apparently Darcy. Christie is not optimistic about the land here, but optimistic about this abandoned manor, if this big lake here and the large mountains and forests on the opposite side can become his own knight's territory, in the capital to buy this dilapidated manor, it is obviously an excellent land purchase plan, but if you want to occupy such a large piece of land for yourself, it is estimated that the small knight's domain can not be accommodated.

There were only a few messy footprints in the manor, Miluo walked in the front with a shield in his hand, followed by three members of the first team, Surdak and Karl followed, which made Surdak, who had been rushing to the front of the mission, very uncomfortable, he took out the dwarven chain shield and the blood-red crescent from his magic waist bag, and came to Miluo's side to walk side by side with him.

He was dressed in red salamander leather armor and held a magic weapon in his hand, much to the eyes of the members of the first team.

It was supposed that the night watchman was supposed to live in the gatehouse, but the gate of the gatehouse had disappeared without a trace, the glass of the windows had been smashed, and the house was filled with snow, and there was almost nothing but broken tables and chairs, and there was no sign of inhabitants at all. However, the stable next to it looks very large, the horse trough alone is dozens of meters long, and the whole horse shed is also built with good wooden planks, and there are main beams and columns every four meters, and now in addition to snow, there are some weeds and horse manure on the ground that is not covered by snow.

Passing through the arched doorway at the entrance to the manor, the shrub wall in the courtyard had not been trimmed by the gardener, and had grown wildly and had become unremarkable, and walked around the dry fountain in the courtyard and up the steps of the main house, where there were some shallow footprints, and it was not known whether they had been left by the night watchman, or by the son of the night watchman who had come here to look for his father.

The main house is a four-storey building, built on the top of the rock wall to appear extraordinarily lonely, the walls are made of local quarried cyan mountain stones, when the original construction of the craftsman who excavated these stones is superb, the stones are very regular, and the wall has regular flowing water moire, I have to say that the building foundation in this manor is extremely compact, and all the materials used in the whole manor are very hard bluestone strips to cut out of the square stones, each stone has a wedge in the middle, The mortar of the triple soil is poured into each other, so that the whole building is almost integrated.

Walking into the living room of the main building, all the furniture in it was retained, but it was once a stronghold of the bandits, although the decoration of the four walls of the room was not much damaged, but the carpet in the hall was full of filthy and dried blood, some furniture was pushed to the edge of the wall, and the empty hall was full of long tables and stools, which seemed to be the place where the robbers gathered and shared the spoils.

A set of soft leather sofas on a makeshift platform at the front of the hall looked like they were supposed to be where the bandit leaders were sitting.

There is a side door next to the main hall, the clutter at the door has been cleaned out, Surdak took the lead in walking towards the side door, pushing open the wooden door, inside is indeed a fairly intact bedroom, there is a wooden bed in it, there is a brazier next to the wooden bed, there is a blackened bracket on it, an iron pot is hanging on the shelf, the wall opposite the wooden bed is stacked with sawn firewood, although the room looks messy, but there are many living materials, Consisting of half a bag of baked wheat cakes and two frozen and hard-frozen, air-dried pheasants, it seems that this is the night watchman's abode.

Thinking that this night watchman is really lazy, obviously there should be a very luxurious kitchen in this building, but he just put a brazier and an iron pot in his cabin, obviously unwilling to go to the kitchen, Carl walked around the room, and asked Miluo, the leader of the first team, "Did the Isaac knights mention that they have not found the whereabouts of the night watch?" ”

"I guess I didn't find it, but they found a basement in this building, and after cleaning up the debris, they opened the door to the basement and encountered evil spirits!" Miluo immediately replied.

"Let's look for the basement entrance first, go there and check it out!" Carl said that he knew that this place had just been visited by Captain Sauron the day before yesterday, but Captain Sauron had not found evil spirits here, and he touched the magic flare in his arms, thinking about how to send out the signal as soon as he encountered an evil spirit.

However, because Captain Sauron was hiding outside the manor, Karl was quite confident in his heart, so he was bent on ending this matter as soon as possible, and it was best to return to Highlandsa City on the same day, and no one wanted to spend the night in this abandoned mansion.

According to the architectural habits of the city of Highlandsa, the basement entrance is often connected to the kitchen storage, and the other members of the first team are wearing metal armor, carrying light shields and knights' swords, the only thing that is not so good about this armor is that when walking, there is always a very harsh sound of metal rubbing.

"To be honest, I've always thought that Fornak Manor is the most scenic manor outside of Highlandsa, but I didn't expect it to be abandoned like this now, and if the evil spirits here are solved this time, I would like to participate in an auction, and if the auction price is affordable, I will buy it! Refurbished and it's really nice here. Carl walked down the hallway on the side of the living room to the kitchen at the back.

Next to the hall on the first floor is a spacious dining room, the dining table is made of thick indigo wood, there are some exquisite reliefs on the legs, there are even some dusty tableware on the tabletop, and the shelves on the wall are also full of kitchen utensils, which have not been damaged, and even some cutlery remains.

The kitchen had a meat table on one side, a stove on the other, a long oak table in the middle, and a frozen pig's leg hanging from the kitchen hook, with marks of a knife and axe, which looked like the night watchman's stock.

The storage room is just across from the kitchen, and in the hallway leading to the storage room, there is a lot of clutter piled up, but most of the clutter has been cleared, and a dark basement door is in this hallway, the door is open, according to Isaac, a member of the 5th Squadron, who woke up, when the investigation team found the entrance to the basement in the manor, and cleaned up the clutter piled up at the basement entrance, just before entering the basement, it was attacked by evil spirits.

Everyone became nervous when they walked here, and everyone had shields in their hands, almost surrounding the entrance to the basement.

Karl, as the squadron leader, was about to be the first to enter the basement, but was held down by Surdak on the shoulder, Surdak shook the heavy dwarven chain shield in his hand, and said to Karl, "Let me ......"

Karl knew that this was not a good time to be reckless, so he let Surdak go to the front.

The entrance to the basement was filled with a musty smell, Miluo lit a torch, and was just about to hand it to Surdak, but he didn't expect Surdak himself to carry a delicate bronze torch, the whole torch looked heavy, and he didn't see how he lit it, but he saw a white light cluster at the top of the torch, which was much brighter than the torch in Miluo's hand.

Everyone only thought that this torch was a kind of magic lighting instrument for life, and no one cared too much about it.

Surdak walked into the narrow passage of the basement with his torch in his head......