Chapter 17 Potato Roots
The wind carrying the stench blew from the cave, making people hold their breath. The entrance of the cave is not big, but the cave is very open.
Under the illumination of the torch flames, skeletons of various shapes are scattered on the ground. They are either matte, glossy or frosted bones, exuding a jumping luster.
In front of the Road of Bones is a trench, and a strong smell of bloody iron and rust is coming from the trench.
Following Father Cosset, several brave young men protected Horn and Jeanne as they walked deeper into the cave.
While the human shields were exploring the way ahead under the leadership of Father Coser, Horn looked around at the cave itself.
Walking to the edge of the cave, Horn reached out and touched the gray-white wall of the cave.
This rough and solid texture is exactly the same as the cement from a previous life.
Looking up at the semicircular vault, Horn discovered that there were no load-bearing columns in the cave, and they were all supported by the unknown gray-white vault.
“This is mortar.” As expected of a wandering refugee, Jeshka recognized what it was at a glance. “Evil wizards use a kind of magic to turn fossils into mud. This magic can Turns rock into a special slime, often called mortar, that becomes as hard as stone when dried. ”
"So, this is a wizard's stronghold?"
"Not necessarily. In fact, many nobles or priests will buy this mortar on the black market when building churches or castles."
"Black market?"
"Yes, the wizards in Black Snake Bay often entrust the mortar to the secret party and sell it in the black market. As you know, the black market here in Qianhe River Valley is basically under control. In the hands of the secret party and the cultists."
Horn nodded and walked forward across the bones on the ground.
As for the young men at the front, they were gathering in front of the trench, holding their noses and discussing in low voices.
Horn stepped forward, and before he could speak, he was almost choked by the stench of corpses rushing towards him from the trench.
In the trench, there were rows of metal spikes. The carcasses and bones of various animals were pierced on the sharp spikes, fermenting out a strong odor.
The most conspicuous among these corpses is a villager who fell on his back.
He was about the age of a junior high school student. He died not long ago when a long thorn pierced his throat.
The bright blood followed the sloping slope and merged into a pit.
The small pit filled with blood did not smell of blood at all, but had a hint of milk aroma.
In the small pit, two small pink creatures as big as thumbs were floating in the blood.
“It’s the cub of the magic rabbit!”
“No wonder they didn’t attack him. It turns out they knew he was here to feed their cubs.” Busak suddenly realized.
Jeanne showed unbearable expression. She stepped forward, resisted the stench, stretched out her hand, and pulled the villager out of the thorn.
Reaching out his hand and closing his wide eyes, Horn said to the young man beside him: "Carry it out and return it to the camp with the brave archer."
Call someone Qing Zhuang fished out the two young magic rabbits with a handkerchief, and Horn grabbed their heads without hesitation and twisted them off.
This kind of sinful object carrying the blood of others should not appear in the world.
Up to now, Horn and his group have made enough noise, but the legendary Pied Piper still has not appeared.
Holding a torch in one hand and a butcher's knife in the other, Father Cosset stood in the first row and headed towards the depths of the cave.
Surrounded by everyone, Horn and Jeanne walked all the way to the bottom of the cave, but there was still no sign of the Pied Piper.
There was only a pile of hay and a few broken boxes in front of him. Father Cosset stood beside a crack as high as one person, staring at the crack with a gloomy face and being lost in thought.
In the crack, there is a bone piccolo inserted.
The other end of the crack is obviously ventilated. Whenever the wind blows, a whimpering flute will slowly move forward mixed with the wind.
I thought it was something, a flute was numb.
Horn couldn't help but cover his forehead.
Being with these villagers who chattered every day, even his thoughts started to chatter along with them.
With a wink to Jeshka who was standing aside, Jeshka stepped forward very sensibly and pulled out the bone flute through the handkerchief.
Picking up the bone flute from Jeshka, Horn turned his hand and handed it to Jeanna: "Jeanna, try playing it."
As the king of monsters, it would be difficult for such evil things to have an impact, so Jeanne was the safest experimenter.
Without any doubt that he was there, Jeanne picked up the bone flute and blew it as hard as she could.
The next second, it was as if the sound wave was tangible, rippling towards the outside world.
All the villagers present seemed to have heard something terrible, covering their heads and screaming in pain.
Some of the weak ones even had blood flowing from their noses.
Horn did not hold Jeanne's hand this time, but he was still not affected in any way and could only hear a simple and unpleasant noise.
Why won’t I be affected? Because he is a time traveler, his soul is stronger?
Picking up the bone flute from the somewhat helpless Jeanna, Horn carefully wiped the saliva on the bone flute with a handkerchief, but suddenly found that a line appeared on the bone flute. crack.
Horn originally thought of giving it a try himself, but when he saw the crack, he let it go.
"How do you feel when you blow it?" Horn asked in response to Jeanne's dissatisfied look.
Jean Na frowned: "I feel sick and want to vomit."
He probably understood what happened. Someone should have stuffed the bone flute into the gap. The wind blows and the bone flute sounds, luring animals in the forest to enter.
If these animals die in the hands of the magic rabbit, their bones will fall at the entrance of the cave. If they die in the thorns, their bones will be in the ditch.
No wonder there is no food in the forest. It turns out that you kid gave me a kickback to raise monsters.
If you think about it carefully, this rabbit is a terrifying monster to ordinary people, but to a knight in full plate armor and a dedicated demon hunter, it is much weaker than other monsters.
Although it consumes the prey resources of the entire forest and bears the risk of monsters getting out of control, the price of a pound of monster meat is comparable to gold.
The 8 rabbits outside alone can produce forty pounds of meat. What is the concept of forty pounds of gold?
Equivalent to 500 gold pounds, equivalent to 60,000 dinars or 540 tons of wheat.
The total annual income of the knight is only 2 or 30 gold pounds. Even the hard-working leeks cannot earn this income, especially after the Hundred Years War ended and the price of food dropped sharply.
No wonder the hunter's cabin is so luxuriously decorated and comfortable. This is where the money comes from.
It’s really difficult for the knight. He can’t live in a nice manor villa. He works as a ranger every day, living in a hunter’s cabin, monitoring refugees and public farmers to prevent poachers.
Think again that Barnett’s father dedicated the woodland to the Archbishop of High Castle. The Archbishop of High Castle did not come to visit himself. Instead, he sent specialized hunters to hunt every two or three years. The last time he came was exactly three years ago. ...
Hey, it’s scary to think about it, it’s scary to think about it.
Raising monsters is a serious crime, and even Barnett cannot afford it, let alone hiding an evil bone flute.
Now the reason why Barnett refused to let them enter the forest was discovered. In the end, he even risked his life to attack Horn, probably because he was afraid of being discovered.
As long as there is not enough food in the forest, someone will find it.
Especially because the Archbishop of Gaobao was involved in this matter. It only weighed four taels if it didn’t go up on the scale. If it really got on the scale, it would have weighed a thousand kilograms.
As for the origin of the bone flute, Horn also had a rough guess.
Since this flute was made by the secret party or wizards to abduct children, it should be that the church caught such a group of traffickers, but seized the bone flute and failed to report it.
I don't know where I got the method of raising magic rabbits, plus the rotten forest in the backcountry of Moulin Rouge Village and the knight who was so poor that he was so poor.
It is simply the most correct choice brought together.
But this also shows that the man behind the scenes this time is not the "Pied Piper", and the clues about Father Cosset's two daughters have been interrupted again.
Horn's eyes turned to Father Cosset.
Sure enough, Father Cosset leaned against the wall and sat down slowly. He seemed to have aged several years, his dejected eyes looking down at the ground.
Busac, who was familiar with the priest, couldn't bear it, so he stepped forward and patted the old man on the shoulder. Although he didn't say anything, Father Cosset knew what he meant.
Standing up, Kesai forced a smile: "It's all over. I have sworn to serve my Lord for the rest of my life. Just treat them as they have gone to Paradise Mountain."
Hesitation. After a moment, Horn stepped forward and patted Father Cosset on the shoulder: "There are not many clues about your daughter that can be found in the High Castle. If you have a chance, you can go there and ask, maybe there is news."
Father Cosset's eyes lit up at first, but then he shook his head with a wry smile: "Master Saint Sunson, how can I, a priest from the countryside, have the qualifications and ability to continue investigating?"
He stood up numbly. Father Cosset walked out of the cave dejectedly, and the rest of the young men also walked out of the cave.
After finding out the truth of the matter, the villagers felt a lot more relaxed, but Horn, who was walking at the end, had a headache.
The danger has been solved, but the problem is that all the animals in the forest have been killed, and the roads and bridges to other mountains and forests have been damaged. Where can we get food?
Monster meat can speed up breathing practice, but it cannot provide enough calories.
The remaining food can only survive today, but it will be uneaten tomorrow. So why should we strictly order the armed farmers to hand over their stored grain?
Those who have stored up food can last at most another day or two. What should they do next?
Walking to the forest clearing, he raised his head and greeted the remaining people: "The matter has been solved. It was the devil Barnett who caused it. I will tell you in detail when I get back, including those rabbits and these two... eh ?”
Horn pointed to the three corpses lying neatly on the ground, and asked Haze, who was staying behind, with a dark face: “Why is there another corpse?”
Haze said with a mournful face: "Master Holy Sunson, you really don't blame me. This bastard was born with a big belly. He just got greedy for the roasted rabbit, so he dug out a piece of poisonous potato root from the ground and ate a whole piece. He just ate it. It didn't work anymore. The air was coming in but not coming out. He kept pumping and died in the blink of an eye. We couldn't save him in time."
"Potato root?" Horn quickly searched for it in his memory.
Potato roots are a specialty of Qianhe River Valley and Black Snake Bay. They are cylindrical in shape, earthy yellow with a little purple, and bearded on the outside, a bit like a thickened and enlarged version of a yam.
It looks edible, but in fact it is poisonous. A mild case of diarrhea, but a serious case of diarrhea, like this person digging for food on the ground, disappears in a blink of an eye.
Recalling the memory of potato roots, Horn rubbed his chin. Why does this thing look so like cassava?
(End of this chapter)