The iron fence outside the cemetery is mainly to prevent wild animals from intruding. This remote and shabby family cemetery has no gravekeepers, so it cannot prevent tomb thieves.
However, the Bennet family has a very good reputation in the local area and has been very popular among the townspeople since the Baron era. In addition, the folk customs in Ximu Town are really simple, so there has been no vicious tomb robbing incident so far.
"Thomas Bennet's father is Bruce Bennet, his grandfather is Baron James Bennet, and his great-grandfather is Howard Bennet at the time you arrived in Ximu Town. All three of them are here."
After using the [Door Key] to open the cemetery door, Shade continued to mutter something.
The structure of the cemetery is relatively simple. Behind the gate is a walking path that leads to a low stone house in the center of the cemetery. Opening the door of the stone building is the steps leading to the underground crypt, where all the Bennets are buried.
The underground tomb is not complicated. The cold but dry open square space is supported by six pillars. The coffins are placed in the grooves of the walls. The stone walls next to the coffins are inlaid with stone tablets one by one to introduce the achievements and achievements of these barons.
past.
With a snap of his fingers, the torches on the walls and stone pillars lit up one by one. Shade, who originally expected to encounter evil spirits, glanced around and was disappointed to find that the place was very clean.
The red-haired girl raised her hands, and with a rumbling sound, the heavy sarcophagi flew out of the wall and were neatly placed beside the wall.
Shade glanced at her in surprise. Using the power of seven rings to cast such a basic spell "moving objects" shouldn't be so powerful. Obviously her spell has been uniquely adjusted to be so amazing, and that
The young sorceress smiled and said:
"Even if I am one level lower than you now, I am still not an ordinary seventh level."
There is no cremation tradition in the area, so those stones are full of corpses. Shade asked Miss Denister to be on guard while he opened the coffins one by one for inspection.
Mummies, skeletons, funerary objects, Shade touched every item just to be on the safe side. The order of inspection was from modern times to ancient times, but there were no traces of the curse of time on any of the corpses.
But when Shade inspected the oldest coffin, that is, the bones of the first Baron Bennet whose tombstone marked "1499 to 1551", although he still had no time to curse, he felt it when he touched the bones.
An extremely dirty cold force:
"This is a sight demon!"
The thaumaturgy was activated, and in the dim firelight, my eyes immediately saw a layer of faint black light attached to the remaining bones:
"demon?"
"What?"
Miss Danister, who was checking the inscription on the tomb, turned around and asked, and walked to Shade:
"what have you found?"
"The stench of demons, ancient evil spirits and demons."
Shade squinted at the contents of the coffin:
"It's a very faint demonic power. If it weren't for my powerful perception and this thaumaturgy specifically targeting demons, I wouldn't even be able to detect it.
The first baron of the Bennet family was once contaminated by the power of the devil, but he probably did not directly accept the devil's deal, otherwise his power would be stronger."
Miss Denister stretched her head and glanced at the inscription on the side:
"He lived in an era more than 300 years ago. He was granted the title of baron for military merit. He participated in the war between the United Kingdom of Kasenlik and the Kingdom of Delinall in the east, which had not yet been unified. During the war, his right leg was injured. After being injured, his legs were amputated and his left eye was lost. Finally, he was discharged as a lieutenant general and returned to his hometown of Ximu Town.
It was a truly magnificent life, so the skeleton does not have a right leg."
Shade thought for a while:
"Three hundred years ago? When I first came to the local area, I heard from the locals in the black market that ancient evil spirits and demons appeared in Ximu Town about two or three hundred years ago. The town was very small at that time, and the only church was the Natural Church. There are not many chapels in the church, and there are not many ring magicians. That accident almost caused the town to disappear."
Miss Denister nodded slightly, obviously she had heard this story before:
"There are records specifically about this ancient evil spirit in the college library. I did see this incident when I was looking up the history of Ximu Town. The first Baron Bennet most likely encountered that incident. He was considered to be at that time It is normal for the few nobles in the town to be corrupted or controlled by demons."
Although the demonic power still remains on the corpse, there is no need to worry about it. It will disappear completely in a hundred or two hundred years. The only value of these bones is probably to be sold on the black market as "cursed materials". Of course, Shade will not do this kind of thing.
"Did the book say who the devil was? Where did he come from? How was the matter resolved at that time?"
After confirming that there were no clues in the last coffin, Shade closed it again.
"The source was neither mentioned nor the specific identity. The demon was finally sealed by the Thirteen-ring Warlock 'Ranger Hunter' sent to the local area by the Church of Nature using an angel-level relic. The relic is still in the Holy See of the Church of Nature. It's being contained, so we don't have to worry about running into this thing while we're in Vista City."
"How come I haven't heard of this 'ranging hunter'?"
Shade asked again, and the red-haired girl looked at her student with a smile:
"Because that gentleman lived more than three hundred years ago, and he passed away when my teacher was still a student. Of course you have never heard of it. The teacher once told me about that gentleman. At that time, I"
She suddenly smiled, obviously looking at the sarcophagus, but she seemed to see something more distant:
"When the teacher told me about that gentleman, I happened to be eighteen years old."
She looked up at her students in front of her again and thought of that conversation many years ago. Everything had changed, but she remained the same. She was a little absent-minded for a moment, and her eyes were a little dazed.
Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up to see Shade looking at her with a smile:
"If we can see your teacher in the future, and your teacher sees you like you are now, do you think she will be surprised?"
"But the library stated that the teacher had died in Sikal Mountain."
She shook her head, but Shade said again:
"Yes, but this is Ximu Town, and there are tree holes here. I just don't know if your teacher has also been to Ximu Town."
Miss Denise Gustave was startled for a moment, and then laughed:
"Shad, I know you are joking, please don't give me such unrealistic expectations."
Since no clues were found in the cemetery, the next step of the investigation can only be based on tonight's banquet, or the half of the newspaper that the two ladies brought back from a hundred years ago.
However, it is difficult to divine the origin of the newspaper because it traveled through time twice, at least until new coins are obtained and Shade is willing to consume the coins. Therefore, Shade still hopes to find something interesting at tonight's banquet.
But this outing with Miss Danister does not end there. She also has another purpose for going out this time, which is to establish contact with the "Forest Hermits".
When she first came to the local area, she hoped to meet the hermits through her identity as "Red Moon Witch-Danister", so that communication would be relatively convenient.
But she turned into the eighteen-year-old she is now before meeting the other party, so she can only communicate with the [Forest Hermits Group] as an ordinary ring warlock first. If the other party is unwilling to cooperate, she can then declare her holy worship.
Lens background.
The [Forest Hermits] is based deep in the Vesta Woodland, but no one knows the specific location except themselves. The Hermits believe in the departed old god - the White Holy Tree. The size of the sect is based on the Holy Worship.
Lens estimates that the core members should be between 50 and 80 people.
Although this sounds like a lot, the core members actually include a large number of ordinary hermits who have given up their lives in the civilized world and voluntarily retired to the mountains and forests. Therefore, there are probably only about twenty ring magicians among them.
Although Miss Denister successfully established contact with the hermits, it was obviously impossible to take Shad directly to their base. The meeting place between the two parties was a small village in the southeastern part of the Vista Woodland, which has only one road to the city.
The village was connected by a small road that allowed carriages transporting lumber to pass, and the village was called "Little Migu Village".
The reason why the village can exist so deep in the forest is because there are large logging camps in the east, west, and north directions. Except for a few farmers and hunters, most people in the village rely on the workers of these logging camps for their income.
Therefore, there is actually a tavern in the small village. However, it is noon on Tuesday, and the loggers usually do not appear in the village but eat at their workplace, so the tavern is very quiet.
The low row wooden house is the main body of the tavern building. The sun is bright outside, but the inside of the tavern is a bit dark and cool. When Shade and the red-haired girl walked around the edge of the city and arrived at Xiaomigu Village.
, the hermit who came to meet the two people had already arrived at the tavern in advance and sat down at the table against the wall.
Shade ordered drinks and lunch from the butcher-like bearded tavern owner at the front desk, and then walked over with Miss Danister.
"John Watson."
After sitting down, Shade stretched out his hand to the middle-aged man wrapped in a brown robe and with a stubbly beard, who shook hands with him:
"Bell Van Buren."
He looked about forty years old, and his whole person was very vicissitudes of life. Although the brown robe was washed very clean, it was obvious at a glance that the material of the fabric was not very good. He looked extremely shabby, but his eyes were particularly bright.
There is a god, which is very consistent with Shade's imagination of the special profession of "hermit".
There is only a newspaper, a glass of water and a piece of bread on the table in front of the hermit Mr. Van Buren. The people in the "Forest Hermits" really live the life of hermits and do not advocate eating and drinking:
"Good afternoon, Mr. Watson, and this strange lady, you contacted us through the black market in Ximu Town? Before we officially start the conversation, please allow me to ask, where did you get the piece of 'Friendship Oak'?
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PS: Thank you to the reader @Bapustheorem for the reward! Thank you very much, I will add another chapter.
