A strong man opened the door of his house and let in the person who knocked on the door.
"I am Philip," the strong man shook the guest's hand: "I am from this village."
The guest wore a gray hood and a simple gray coat, with a cross-shoulder belt tied inside, which was fastened with various gadgets that Philip couldn't understand. He also wore a pair of lizard boots that were convenient for walking, and tied behind his back.
A long object tightly tied with a strip of cloth - Philip guessed that it was probably a weapon.
"My name is Youss." The guest put down his hood, revealing a face that looked young no matter how you looked - except for his eyes, which were a pair of weathered and numb brown eyes that seemed to have seen too many things in the world.
"Are you the village chief here?" the guest asked.
Philip shook his head: "I'm just a member of the village, but everyone in my clan trusts me, so they entrusted me with this matter."
Yus nodded.
"It's a long way to get here from Xiongjun City. You must be starving at this late hour." Philip brought a plate of food, but Yous smiled and waved his hand, rejecting his offer.
"I'm on a diet." He said calmly, "I just need water."
Yous placed the long thing behind his back on the table and took off his gray coat.
This should be a warrior who has experienced many battles, Philip thought.
Just look at his arm muscles and movements.
But how could Cahill recommend a fighter?
To solve such a problem, a mage is more suitable, right?
"So," Philip picked up a bundle of firewood, went to the fireplace to add some firewood, then turned around and handed out a cup:
"Are you also a friend of Cahill? You met him when he was traveling around the world?"
"No, I'm not familiar with Cahir...but I know his brother, Xiwei Yeluo." Yousi took the cup, picked up the kettle on the table and poured a glass of water, observing the room with interest.
The decorations inside - bows and arrows, animal traps, various hunting equipment and trophies of prey, showed a look of confusion in his eyes.
"Sylvie Yeluo?" Philip frowned: "I heard Cahill said that his brother is very... rebellious?"
Yousi chuckled and put down the cup, took off the hunting bow on the wall, and tested its strength: "Yes, it's not an ordinary rebellion... The Yeluo family has been troubled by him."
Philip sat down and watched Yoss playing with his hunting bow, thoughtfully.
"Can you hunt?" he asked the guest.
"Well," Yousi said with a smile, "did you see it?"
"The way you draw the bow," Philip frowned, "isn't like a shooter, but a standard hunter's technique."
"I was once a hunter, making a living in the birch forests of the Northland Province," Yous sighed and hung up the hunting bow: "It was a long time ago."
Phillip raised his eyebrows: "You must be a good hunter."
"It's all in the past," Yousi shrugged, "Let's talk about business."
Phillip's face became solemn.
"So," Yousi sat back on the table and said seriously, "Why don't you ask the local lord for help? There must be a mage advisor from the Soul Tower in their castle."
"Lords? Those cold-blooded lords?" Philip chuckled: "Our place is too remote, too far away from the rule of the empire - to them, we are just mountain barbarians, what do we do with life and death?"
Yousi shook his head and hummed: "How can the descendants of the Iron-Blooded King and Medi be mountain barbarians?"
"Ha, Iron-Blooded King? Not to mention that this happened two thousand years ago..." Philip said disdainfully: "Queso Lumba is also a descendant of Tamu, the ancestor of the north. He just protested with his tribe against the local tax collector of the empire.
, look at his fate!"
"There are also the Republican rebels in the Province of Thorns... they are also descendants of the founding six stars!"
"Will the emperor and the dukes look down upon them because of this?"
"You know a lot," Yousi took a sip of water and still smiled: "It seems you are not as remote as you said."
"I went to the city to serve as a soldier more than ten years ago. Although I gained a lot of knowledge, but..." Philip shook his head: "It was a really bad experience."
"By the way, I heard from traveling merchants that since the old emperor was beheaded by the Black Knight ten years ago..." Philip thought of something, and he immediately raised his head: "The entire empire has been in chaos, and there are wars everywhere?"
"Chaos? Ten years ago?" Yous flicked the cup and said with a smile, "It must have been more than twenty years ago..."
"Two generations of emperors could only sit on the Pegasus throne, lamenting the disrespect and transgressions of the dukes again and again, and watching them fight against each other."
"Chaos? This was what the empire was like long before the Black Knight and his Dark Legion entered the Capital of Triumph."
Philip chuckled: "Look, this is the result of a tyrant's rebellious behavior."
Yousi smiled and said nothing.
"It's a pity, the empire has been around for almost two hundred years," Philip shrugged: "But it won't fall for a while..."
The two were silent for a while.
"How bad is the situation?" Yos suddenly asked for no reason: "Compared with what you wrote in your letter?"
Philip clenched his fists.
The strong man sighed:
"Very bad," he said sadly:
"Half a year ago, some tribesmen became afraid of light..."
"Three months ago it was even worse. Some people couldn't even touch silver utensils...it would hurt..."
"In addition, for us - myself included - our sense of taste began to dissipate, and the food in our mouths felt bland and tasteless."
"And the situation is getting worse," Philip said with an extremely serious face:
"I found that some tribesmen have begun to eat raw meat with blood..."
Yusi frowned.
"The desire to eat raw meat?" he began to think:
"Sounds really familiar..."
"Any clues?" Phillip raised his eyebrows: "Cahill said that you are both knowledgeable and skilled..."
But Yusi raised his hand gently to stop him:
"I'm not sure. I have to see actual cases before I can tell... It's just that this symptom reminds me of the 'corpse trembling' incident a hundred years ago."
Philip was stunned: "What is 'corpse trembling'?"
"A baron who lost his lover..." Yous stopped talking and shook his head: "The Alchemy Tower received a joint warning from the Empire and the Myojin Church for this, and even the Tower of Ascetics... In short, it is a disaster, you
Don’t want to know the details.”
Philip was stunned for a moment when he heard these usually aloof groups.
"What you mean is...but our village is too remote. Except for explorers like Cahill, even traveling traders rarely come here, let alone mages..." Philip recalled doubtfully.
"I will send a letter to my acquaintances in the Alchemy Tower and the Soul Tower," Yousi pondered: "Ask for the records of this symptom... Of course, I need to check the patient's current condition first."
It seemed that he had a close relationship with the mages... Philip's eyes lit up.
Phillip nodded, stood up and walked to the door: "I'll go say hello to them first, and I can visit them tomorrow..."
Yus nodded.
"Philip!" Just as he was about to walk out the door, Yos suddenly turned his head: "You are descendants of Medea, right."
Philip put his hand on the doorknob, a little stunned: "Yes, that's what the old people say, the Iron-Blooded King is our ancestor, and Medea is his wife..."
strangeness.
Why does he keep mentioning the Iron-Blooded King's wife and calling her by her first name?
Obviously the Iron-Blooded King is more famous, right?
"I'm wondering if your symptoms... are related to the curse?" Yousi pondered: "You know, when we resisted the orcs a long time ago... about the curse in Medi's blood?"
Philip looked confused:
"Curse? I've never heard of it...and what does the Iron-Blooded King's wife have to do with the curse?"
He shook his head inexplicably: "Bloodline... We have lived here for more than a thousand years. What kind of bloodline curse can last for so long?"
"Really?" Yousi smiled and nodded: "Maybe I'm overthinking."
Phillip shook his head and walked out the door.
Yousi was sitting alone at the table. Suddenly he stretched out his hand and pressed the long cloth-covered object on the table.
"This is not something you can move around casually," Yous smiled at the boy whose head popped out from under the table: "Are you Philip's son?"
The boy nodded in annoyance, let go of the hand holding the cloth, and crawled out from under the table.
"Are you from the empire?" The boy patted the dust on his body and showed curiosity to the guest: "That big, big empire?"
Yousi grinned: "That's right."
The boy's eyes lit up: "Then you must know the Black Knight! The guy who killed the emperor!"
Yousi frowned: "Yeah."
"Then can you tell us about him?" The boy held on to the edge of Yusi's table with infinite hope and asked: "Ensa came back from the city and said he was the most terrifying knight! The top ten strongest in the entire empire.
All the knights were killed by him!"
Yusi laughed out loud.
"It's impossible for him to kill all the ten knights appointed by the emperor," Yousi shook his head, looking lonely: "However, he did defeat six of them."
"Wow!" The boy's eyes almost flashed with stars: "So he is the strongest knight?"
"It doesn't count," Yousi raised his head, showing nostalgia and regret: "At least, the third knight can tie with him."
"Although the First Knight died in his hands, he was actually stronger than him in terms of strength."
Yousi was silent, his eyes deep.
The boy looked at the ceiling, imagined it in his mind, and then his face drooped.
"But he's dead, right?" the boy asked sadly.
Yusi had a meal.
"Yes," he took a deep breath, and then slowly exhaled: "He is dead."
"He died a long, long time ago."
The boy sniffed and lowered his head sadly.
Yousi raised his eyebrows: "Why, are you unhappy?"
The boy shook his head sadly: "The Black Knight is dead - then I can't compete with him."
Yousi laughed dumbly.
"Kid, you are so ambitious - what is your name?" He shook his head helplessly.
"my name?"
The boy raised his head, showed eight teeth, smiled at the guest and said:
"listen!"
"I am a descendant of the Iron-Blooded King..."
"The son of Philip and Lysa..."
"First I have to defeat my brother, then my father, and then I have to defeat all my opponents in the world..."
"He will definitely become the strongest man in the world!"
The boy stretched out his thumb and pointed at himself confidently and proudly: