The train, which had few passengers, stopped at the small station in Wodenia, and the three men, still in a tense atmosphere, got off one after another. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Figured that everything was ready to be set up before they arrived, outside the low white railing outside the station, there was already a four-wheeled carriage drawn by two Northland dwarfs waiting. Their arrival seemed to be a big deal, and several porters and staff gathered around them, helping to carry their luggage.

Wodenia isn't too much of a town in the Northland, and even though Northgate's Gate has become a well-known new town, it's still just a quiet and unpretentious country town. But as the three of them leave the station, Flick notices two men in black uniforms standing guard at the sentry box near the exit.

The two men looked like soldiers, but their costumes were not adorned with the insignia representing the Imperial Legion, which made Frick suspicious of their identity. They leaned slightly against the wall, their new mechanics in their hands, and their eyes stared straight at every passenger who walked in front of them.

"Don't care about those people. ”

Curt seemed to see the identity of these people, and said casually to Frick: "Those guys are exclusive guards independent of the army, and they are generally guards who have a relationship with the royal family. Now that they're here, it's probably some big guy in the neighborhood -- it has nothing to do with us anyway. ”

With that, he led the two men to the waiting carriage, where the driver, who was small but had clearly seen the muscles bulging under his clothes, though he was small in stature, had clearly been trained for a long time. He bowed slightly to Curt and didn't make any more sounds.

The preparations for departure were not complicated, but in a few minutes, they were speeding along the avenue paved with gray and white stone tiles. Only the woodland of dry branches spread along the sides of the road, and through the gray and monotonous crevices, some houses with snow-covered walls and roofs could be seen.

Sir Leonster's manor was in the opposite direction of the city, and from this side you could see the mountains that rose behind the streets, the moorland in the moonlight darker than in the daytime, and a few small snow-covered farms in between.

As Flick stared out the window, the carriage turned into a nearby fork in the road, and they zigzagged their way up a gravel path paved by locals in their free time, turning onto a country road that was rarely used. Both sides are covered with dead branches covered in snow, and only a few hardy plants with fine foliage grow out of the cracks in the stone wall on one side, adding a little vitality to the winter days.

The carriage had been heading northwest, and after crossing a bridge made of white rock, it headed west along a tributary of a white river. The wondrous magic of the White River was still present in these currents, but it was clearly weakened, and the rapids that made a fierce sound of water rushed on the side of the carriage, splashing a series of white foam, but a slight edge of ice could still be seen between the gray rocks.

The land the Leinster family had purchased was surprisingly far away from the town of Wodenya, and the road to their destination stretched through a valley of dense shrubs and pines of varying heights, and the wagons drove along the winding river banks in the direction of forests and valleys further north.

The road here is much smoother than the one leading to Lemongrass, and the magic of the leylines can be clearly felt in the surrounding land. Frick immediately understood why Sir Raven had chosen to build a manor here, but he always felt that there was something about decay in the countryside.

The inaccessible path was littered with withered leaves, and crows parked on the branches made a noisy noise as the carriage passed through the grove. The crunch of the wheels on the snow was doubly ominous when accompanied by the crows' chirping.

"Wait, it looks like someone is coming...... And heavily armed. Curt, who had been recuperating with his eyes closed since he got into the car, suddenly opened his eyes and looked to the other side covered in the night, "What are they searching for? Could it be that another monster has escaped from the mountain during the time I was away." ”

As he spoke, his gaze appeared in front of him on a slope with evergreen shrubs such as heather, and farther away was a shallow shallow beach embedded in the edge of the moor. Through the clatter of the wagons on the snow, the sound of horses' hooves could indeed be heard from far away.

A moment later, at the highest point of the slope, a man on a horse appeared, dressed in the same costume as the man they had seen at the station, and with better armor. The all-black cuirass made him as majestic as a statue of a knight stepping down from a pedestal, and the cavalry gun in his hand rested on his left arm stretched out in front of him in a position ready to be fired—he was clearly on guard against them approaching from this direction.

"We are from Count Patrio's family and are on our way back to the manor. ”

The coachman showed the Leinster family insignia to the knights who were guarding them, and then turned to Curt in his seat and explained, "I don't know, sir, it's been almost three days since they've been in town, and they're watching every road and every station, but we don't know what their purpose is. Although the nearby farmers were very upset about the heavily armed knight lord moving around their homes, they did not cause any trouble because of their generous efforts. ”

"Ho, is that so?" said Acully for some reason, "this is an interesting situation—I thought it was the old crow's research that had finally provoked the royal family, and that was why he had to send his immediate guards to surround him." ”

"Please, Miss Acully, that old crow will be forever loyal to the Empire, for the little benefit of betrayal is too pitiful compared to the reward for serving the Crown—you must know that we are not some unscrupulous evil organization. ”

For some reason, there seems to be a long-standing grudge between Acully and Sir Leinster, and even in normal times, Acully does not forget to slander Urs. Although they are now on the united front for some reason, given the relationship between the two, Frick has some doubts about the stability of this alliance.

As they spoke, their carriage finally climbed to the top of the slope, revealing a vast snowy field dotted with trees and hills. Stone mounds and huge white pillars of unknown age stretched all over the front, shimmering in the cold moonlight.

Under the gloomy sky, a cold wind mixed with ice particles blew through the snow-covered fields, bringing a chill to the bone. There is a huge population of demon species living in the deserted snowfield, and they may be lurking in some ravine, carefully preparing for their next hunt.

The fertile countryside had been left far behind, and Frick looked back in the direction he had come, and there was no trace of Wodenia in the frosty road that had been painted by the cold moonlight. In contrast, the road ahead of it is full of irregular boulders.

The carriage went on, sometimes passing huts built into the woods, houses with walls and roofs made of stone, perhaps temporary quarters for the servants, whose rough outlines could be seen through the frost and frost. Frick's gaze crossed the nearby snowdrifts and saw patches of trees bent by the wind in the distance, and small monsters almost the same color as the snow were faintly active in the forest.

Finally, a black minaret appeared at the end of the woods in the distance, and after a few minutes of driving in that direction, the carriage finally reached the gate of the manor. I don't know what happened, but the porter had become a pile of black stone fragments under the bombardment of external forces, revealing charred wooden blocks.

"So they've been here once?"

Seeing the gatehouse, which was undoubtedly destroyed by spells, Curt couldn't help but sigh before pointing ahead and saying, "Welcome to the Leinster family's manor in Wodenia, although the local residents seem to like to call this 'Crow's Nest' - after all, this is also the largest stronghold of the Raven Society in the Northlands, and a group of sorcerers in that kind of clothes will always make ordinary people feel suspicious when they gather together." ”

He was obviously reluctant to say much about the manor, but gestured to the coachman to move on and sat back in his place. The road that had been cleared by the servants passed through a wide clearing, and the main building of the manor awaited in front of it.

In the dim light, Frick could see that it was a fortified castle-like house, with a low wall protruding from it like a rampart. The surface of the main building was covered with cold-leaved vines, only the windows or where the coat of arms were mounted had been cut off, and the leaves that emitted a faint blue cold light swayed in the cold wind.

The tower they had seen was in the center of the main building, and the holes had been either sealed with stone of other materials or with shiny windows. Two symmetrical wings of black stone are also built on the left and right sides of the tower, with dim light shining through the solid windows of the mullions, and at the other end a column of black smoke peeting out of the narrow chimney from the sloping roof.

Just in front of the main building's gates, several sorcerers in the robes of the Raven Society lined up in a welcoming queue, and the owner of the manor was already waiting there. The cloak that felt like a crow's feather was draped over his body, making him look like a giant crow perched on the snow.