ragginovel Chapter 546: Village Outside the City
Chapter 546: Village Outside the City
Chapter 546: Village Outside the City
The wild edge rises, and the moon dyes the wild edge.
The bloody road is opened, and blood splatters all over the world.
Under the waning moon, in the misty forest, the fight between humans and monsters continues.
Under the leadership of Sun Yixie, the rangers tore a hole in the zombie army's encirclement with great ease, and advanced rapidly following the sound of the organ.
Of course, even though the pressure on the side responsible for clearing the way was not great, because the team was very long and the fog was too thick, there were still some casualties at the rear of the team from time to time.
The group fought and marched like this for about ten minutes before the fog around them thinned a little and the density of monsters seemed to have decreased.
After walking for a while, the path in front of the team finally became wider, and some shadows of buildings and sporadic flames appeared in the distance.
Although it was already dark, many people could still see that the fire in front came from the village they had seen on the cliff at the end of the mountain road.
Dangdangdang——
The rangers thought that they were temporarily out of danger once they saw the village, but they didn't expect that as soon as they approached the village entrance, they heard a burst of rapid banging sounds of pots in the village.
Immediately afterwards, a large group of villagers armed with steel forks and sticks rushed out, formed a human wall at the edge of the village, and blocked their way.
"Stop! Who are you?" Soon, a bald, bearded middle-aged man walked out from the villagers and shouted over here.
The rangers took a look and saw that although the other party was hostile, they seemed to be ordinary people, so they did not go in any further.
"We are just passing by!" Since Sun Yixie's oriental face might surprise the other party, Lao Feng stood up and shouted to the other party, "We just encountered a monster in the forest and finally managed to get out. May I ask if you are local villagers?"
I have to say that Lao Feng's style of a middle-aged leader is quite effective. Just by seeing his appearance and hearing the tone of his voice, the people on the other side can vaguely get a feeling that "this guy seems to be a very reliable and serious person."
"Passers-by?" But the middle-aged man didn't seem to buy it. "I don't think so..." He glanced at the ranger team. "Would every passer-by be equipped with weapons? And there are so many of you... I think you are bandits!"
"Friend, we are from the circus, and the things we have the most are manpower and weapons." However, an experienced person like Lao Feng could answer this question fluently. "If you don't believe me, I still have a few circus flyers and some tickets. Do you want me to show them to you?"
Just after Lao Feng finished saying this, someone in the crowd behind him suddenly said, "What do you mean by 'friend'? Who said 'friend'? I'm not your friend... Um——"
Fortunately, before Ugly Bob could finish his sentence, several brothers nearby came up and covered his mouth and held it down.
The middle-aged man on the opposite side was a little puzzled when he saw this, but he didn't think much about it. After thinking for a few seconds, he said to Lao Feng: "Okay, come here by yourself."
Upon hearing this, Old Feng turned around, exchanged glances with his companions, and without saying anything else, walked towards the villagers alone.
It seems that he is a little arrogant here, but it doesn't matter actually, because the cross that Lao Feng carried with him didn't react after they walked out of the foggy forest just now, which means that these people in front of them are really just ordinary villagers.
"Gaoying Circus?" After a moment, the middle-aged man who took the circus flyer from Lao Feng began to mutter the words on the flyer while looking Lao Feng up and down with a suspicious look.
"Yes, I am the circus leader Silas." Old Feng calmly reported his fake name that he used when he was the circus leader, and then continued, "Look, my name is right there, in the middle of the flyer."
"How would I know..." The middle-aged man's tone was much calmer than at the beginning, but he still didn't seem to be completely relaxed. "...Did you deliberately forge these things to make us let down our guard? After all...they are just a few pieces of paper."
"Heh..." Hearing this, Lao Feng could only sneer, "Hey, take another look... look at our number, equipment, and the fresh blood on our bodies... Do you think these fellow villagers around you who are shaking even when holding their weapons can really stop us? Believe me, if we were really bandits, we would have chosen to attack by force long ago, and would not be standing here talking to you."
At this point, it really doesn’t matter whether the middle-aged man believes what Lao Feng says or not, because Lao Feng’s last words are equivalent to revealing all of his opponent’s cards.
Old Feng could also tell that the middle-aged man in front of him was not an ordinary farmer, because after a closer look, it was not difficult to find that this bald man had many scars and calluses on his body, which were only found by professional soldiers. Moreover, the other party was literate and even taught other villagers how to form basic combat formations... although the villagers did not execute it very well.
Anyway, it is more relaxing to talk to someone who seems to have a regular military background. As long as you make the accounts clear to him, he will not argue with you out of stupidity or paranoia.
"Hmm..." Sure enough, the middle-aged man hesitated for a few seconds, then pondered for a moment, and then waved his hand to signal the villagers around him to put down their weapons.
To make a long story short, about twenty minutes later, the rangers all stopped to rest in the village, and the middle-aged man sat at a table with several leaders of the circus and had a drink together.
"You are demon hunters, right?" The middle-aged man introduced himself. His name was Hama. He had indeed been a grassroots commander in the army, but later retired to the countryside for various reasons.
"Oh? Why do you think so?" Lao Feng still wanted to play dumb.
"Don't pretend. You are not the first group of demon hunters to come here." Hama replied, "Of course, the cover of 'circus' is indeed good. If you don't want me to, I won't deliberately tell the villagers about it."
Hearing what he said, the people at the table with him looked at each other and soon reached a tacit understanding.
"Then you should know something about what happened to the demon hunters who came before us, right?" After making sure he wasn't pretending anymore, Sun Yixie asked first.
"What else can we do?" Hama took a sip of wine and continued, "They all went to that castle and never came back."
At this moment, before anyone else could ask more questions about the demon hunters, Coman interrupted and asked, "What can you tell us about the castle?"
To be honest, it was not easy for this lord to follow the circus all the way here. Instead of asking about the experiences of other witchers, he was obviously more interested in how to capture the castle when he came to save his wife.
"Well... of course, you can also tell us about the demon hunter. It should be helpful to us as well." Two seconds later, Lao Feng added.
So, Hama thought for a while before saying, "The castle had always been a ruin until last year, when several girls in the village disappeared. Everyone searched everywhere nearby but to no avail. So they went there to try their luck and found that the place had changed without them noticing - not only was the drawbridge over the moat taken up, but even the iron fence at the gate was closed, as if someone lived there."
When the few people who had read the "letter for help from Belmondo" heard this, they immediately realized that, at least so far, Hama's description was almost consistent with the information given in the letter.
"Then the village chief brought a group of strong men from the village, took ladders, ropes, shovels and other things, and tried to go into the city to look for people, but they were attacked by monsters not long after they entered. In the end, only three people escaped, and I..." Hama said, raising his hand and pointing to his face, "... was one of them."
"Oh? So what did you see in the castle?" The strong man who spoke without considering other people's feelings asked curiously, "And... how could three ordinary people like you escape from the monsters?"
Hama didn't seem to mind it, and just replied calmly: "I only saw one monster clearly, which was a huge, moving steel knight armor. As for the other monsters... To be honest, it was too dark there, the monsters moved very quickly, and the people around them soon fell into chaos... So I didn't see anything else clearly." He paused, "As for the fact that we were able to escape, I think it was only because we didn't go too deep. Basically, we were attacked just a short distance in, and then we started to flee... By the way, besides me, the other two people who escaped, one had a broken arm and died a few days later because of the serious injury, and the other was so scared that he became confused and bedridden ever since, and died in less than half a year."
Hama took another sip of wine before continuing, “The day after the man with the broken arm died, my minor injuries had almost healed, so I left the village and rushed to the nearest town to seek help.
"I first went to the town's sheriff and told him a story about someone in the village who disappeared in the castle. I deliberately omitted the part about the monster in the castle to make it more believable...
"However, in the end, the sheriff dismissed me perfunctorily, saying something like 'if' there were extra people, 'maybe' he would send someone to the village to check...
"Afterwards, I went back to the church and told them the true story of 'encountering a monster', but their reaction was even more perfunctory than that of the sheriff. It was really annoying.
"I stayed in the town for three days in total. On the afternoon of the third day, when I was about to return to the village in disappointment, a young man named Philibert came to me and said he was the man sent by the sheriff.
"At that time, I didn't know he was a demon hunter. I told him, 'It's better for you not to come alone, because that would be suicide.' He listened to my advice and said that to be on the safe side, he could write a letter for help and send it out first, so that if anything happened to him, someone would come to help him later.
"So, I waited for him to mail the letter in town, and then I took him back to the village.
"I talked to him a lot along the way. After I found out that he really wanted to help our village and his attitude was very firm, I told him about the monster in the castle. He also told me at that time that he was not a sheriff's subordinate at all, but a demon hunter. That day, he heard a drunk sheriff's subordinate talking about our village in the tavern and thought it was strange, so he came to me."
When he said this, the people who were listening realized that, at least when Philibert was accompanying Hama back to the village, nothing had happened to him, so his letter was really a letter for help.
But no one expected that precisely because Philibert had no problem with the timing of writing the letter, the letter would later become a perfect bait.
"Unfortunately, Philibert's prediction came true, and something unexpected really happened to him..." Hama continued his narration, "The day after he returned to the village with me, he said he wanted to go to the castle and never came back.
“After that day, there were more strange things happening around the village.
“Every night, fog would gather in the woods outside the village. Under the cover of fog, the woods seemed to transform into another world… a world full of monsters.
"Then... occasionally, some wandering zombies would come out of the fog and attack the livestock in the village, or some unlucky person who happened to be relieving himself outside..."
"So that's why you set up this 'village defense team' that gathers people by banging pots?" Sun Yixie added.
"Yes," Hama said, "In fact, it is quite effective. My team has saved the lives of at least dozens of livestock this year."
"Eh? Didn't they save a few of those 'people'?" the strong man asked suspiciously.
"Brother..." Hama looked at Zhuangke with a look as if he was looking at a fool, and explained in a sarcastic tone, "After a few incidents and knowing clearly that there are monsters in the fog, 'people'...will no longer wander around the village alone in the middle of the night."
"Uh..." Zhuangke was a little embarrassed, "Drink, drink..."
"Well... well..." Two seconds later, Lao Feng, as if to save face for his partner, quickly changed the subject and asked, "What happened next?"
Hama replied: "Later, several groups of people claiming to be witchers came, with varying numbers of people.
"Some were lucky enough to pass through the forest before sunset, so they were fine. But some came at night, and there were only a few left when they came out of the forest. Some were even alone and died just as they reached the edge of the village...
"According to those who have passed through the fog forest, if you don't notice how to use the 'blood moon' to navigate in time, you will be trapped in the forest and unable to get out.
"But most people, surrounded by monsters, naturally find it difficult to calm down and observe and think so much...
“It’s the first time that dozens of people like you have managed to fight your way out of the woods.
"I was so wary of you just now because... rather than suspecting you were bandits, I was actually more suspicious of whether you were actually human.
"Of course, in order not to cause panic among the other villagers, I couldn't tell them directly."
We have to mention here that the information provided by Hama is basically correct.
As he said, if you want to get out of the forest without external interference, you must first observe and understand the navigation function of the blood moon in the sky. Otherwise, don't even think about getting out after walking for several hours, let alone more than ten minutes.
Secondly, there were only "dozens" of rangers left, and Hama did not miscalculate - despite the guidance of the piano music and Sun Yixie using his precious weapon to clear the way, the rangers still lost a lot of manpower when they finally rushed out of the foggy forest.
Some of them were killed by monsters while escaping, while others were lost in the fog.
But going back to look for these people now is undoubtedly unwise. It would be like "the more you look, the more you give away". It would be better to pray that those people can discover the function of the blood moon and get out of it on their own.
"Then do you know that there is a demon hunter named Nicholas Roman?" Tyrael asked again, "He should be the leader of one of the demon hunters. What happened to that team later?"
Hama thought for a long time before replying, "Every demon hunter team has had contact with me, just like you now, but I have never heard of the name you mentioned, so either he used a pseudonym, or he never made it here."
He did not lie in his answer, because before Roman and others came to the village, they had "connected" with Philibert in the town, and then they took another route directly into the castle. Hama had naturally never seen that group of people.
"Impossible. With the strength of the elite team, they should be able to pass through the forest even if they arrive at night." Lao Feng continued.
Then, the rangers described to Hama the appearance and characteristics of several elite team members based on the information they had, but Hama still said he had never seen these people before.
"That's weird." Dan said with a puzzled look, "Could it be that they backed out on the way here?"
In fact, Dan had no doubts, or he didn't care. At the moment, he just wanted to take the opportunity to say something to disrupt the morale of the troops and test the reactions of the people around him to see if his plan of "dividing the luggage" would work.
As a result, the next second, Sun Yixie slammed the table and said, "What the hell are you talking about? Do you think they are all like you? Why don't you say that they robbed others on the way here to divide the luggage?"
Ladies and gentlemen, this is called a villain knowing a villain. With this casual remark by Brother Sun, many of Dan’s later words were stuck in his throat.
"Uh..." But Dan's mind worked quickly, and he was able to continue the other person's words, "Speaking of 'luggage'...our horses, carriages, and most of our money are still in those woods. Aren't you considering recycling those things?"
"Come on, your mother!" Unexpectedly, Sun Yixie started cursing after hearing this, "Even if you pretended to go back to pick up your luggage and said, 'So many brothers got lost just now, should we go back and look for them'... that's at least human language, right?
"You're so good, you start talking about horses, carriages, and money... How about this, you stand up and ask if anyone wants to go with you to recycle those things, then you take them with you, and after you're done you don't have to come back, just run away with the money, okay?"
Well, this second paragraph completely put a stop to the little plan in Dan's mind.
"Hey, Brother Dan, that's definitely not what you meant." Fortunately, Old Feng came out to smooth things over. "But it's really inappropriate to talk about recovering money now. Compared to that..." At this point, he suddenly became serious and said to Hama, "Brother Hama, you just said there were a lot of 'strange things'. What else is there besides this foggy forest?"