Page 68

Page 68

Wang: "Yes. When a teacher with experience in this area shared his experience in tactics class, he said that when facing off against the mages of the Arcane Union, we must pay attention to spell recognition."

"Wait a minute!" Elizabeth raised her hand. "What is a tactics class?"

"It's a course about fighting against various opponents. It's a temporary lesson for apprentices in the tower before they go out for their first study tour. We'll focus on the target plane and the high-threat targets on that plane."

Elizabeth's mouth opened wide. "I have known you for such a long time, and I am still constantly amazed by your amazing wizard tower. Does your tower need warlocks?"

Wang: "We have a warlock in our tower, but he is mainly responsible for being studied. There are teachers who want to find out how the warlock obtains magic, and then use this knowledge to improve the wizard."

Elizabeth: "The warlock is under house arrest?"

"No, he lives a happy life and goes to the theatre every day."

"Watching a show?"

"This is just a metaphor. After all, our Mage Tower is in chaos every day, and dozens of accidents can happen."

At this time, Xiao Bai also finished meditating. She stood up and shouted with full energy: "Meat!"

Elizabeth, who had been concentrating on the story, immediately responded: "Here!"

**

At noon, the king rode his wolf over the hill. Marika, the leader, stopped and pointed at the wooden castle in the distance and the magnificent stone fortress next to it and said, "That's the town of Ximu. The stone fortress next to it was once a mining center, but now it's half-abandoned because the population of the town has dropped sharply."

Elizabeth asked in confusion: "Why would you rather live in a wooden castle than a stone house?"

Dwarf: "If a stone house is not built well, it may not be as comfortable as a wooden house. In my opinion, that stone fortress should be very 'breathable', and it may not be useful to make a fire in winter."

Marika: "There was a forge inside the stone castle, so a lot of special designs were made for ventilation and heat dissipation. Now that the flames of the forge are no longer burning, that place is only suitable for summer heat relief."

The king put down the telescope and said, "I see flags on the stone castle. So Lord Ximu is here to escape the summer heat?"

Marika: "I don't know. Let's go and see."

The king nodded, then took out the flag of Lord Landon from his dimensional bag and gave it to the barbarian to hold, while he took out the glowing scepter.

Elizabeth: "I suddenly feel that your scepter has many uses. I thought it was useless if it didn't transform into a dragon and spit out dragon breath."

Wang: "I just discovered it yesterday too. This light is so useful. It can scare the enemy's horse during the day, dazzle their eyes at night, and even be used to boost prestige when necessary. This thing is so versatile, Erwin only uses it to spray dragon breath, what a waste."

Marika: "Then let's go visit Earl Xiaximu with great fanfare."

Wang: “Let’s go!”

Chapter 83: A Small Problem in Creekwood

The group descended the mountain and walked along the mountain road toward Ximu Town. Before they approached the wooden city wall, the guards on the wall shouted, "Stop!"

The king patted Elizabeth on the shoulder.

Elizabeth spurred her horse forward and said in a loud voice, "I am the sister of Duke Langdon, and I am here on the Duke's orders to resolve the crisis of world destruction. When I was about to pass through the Valley Territory, I was stopped by Stoke, who claimed to be the Duke. I have come to ask for help from Earl Ximu."

The guards on the wooden wall looked at each other, and the captain with the feather on his helmet shouted, "I sent someone to tell the count. We have no notice that the princess is coming."

Elizabeth: "We set off in a hurry yesterday. Stoker wanted to arrest us, so we didn't have time to send an envoy to inform."

Besides, the princess team doesn't have the manpower to do the reporting. Xiaobai can do it, but she doesn't know how to read a map and may not be able to find where Ximu Town is.

The captain of the guard continued, "Then please wait a moment. The count should be out soon."

"I'll wait here." Elizabeth said as she fanned herself with a folding fan. Today's temperature seemed to be higher than yesterday. Although Elizabeth rode a horse, she was also sweating. When she fanned herself, the sleeves of her skirt slipped down, revealing her arms with wrist guards. You could see that both sides of the wrist guards were covered with sweat.

In fact, the ones who suffered the most were the drow elves. When Elizabeth was speaking, the drow, as guards, put down the cloth they had been holding up as the sun for the sake of dignity and respect. As a result, they began to sweat profusely in just a short period of time.

After all, the pure black skin of the drow elves is simply a natural sunlight absorber.

The situation is similar for others.

Wang is the kind of person whose skin gets sunburned very easily. After yesterday afternoon and this morning, his exposed skin has turned completely wheat-colored and will probably start to peel off soon - the surface layer of skin has been sunburned.

Xiaobai was all white, and after turning into a wolf, he had fluffy fur as insulation, but he was still so hot that he stuck out his tongue, and sweat was pouring down his tongue. I had given Xiaobai water several times along the way.

Gao Trick seems to be very heat-resistant, probably because he is wearing cool clothes?

The dwarf is in the frame, and no one can see what's going on with him except Gotrek.

The group waited in the sun for a long time before they saw an old man with a white beard appear on the city wall.

"Hello, Princess of Langdon County," the old man said. "I am the Earl of Creekwood."

Elizabeth: "Hello. We are..."

"You don't think that I will forget what you did to our lord just because of the conflict with Stoke, do you?" The Earl interrupted Elizabeth. "If you came to me to overthrow Stoke, please go back."

Elizabeth was stunned for a moment, then glanced at the king and suddenly came up with an idea: "We came here because we heard that you wanted to clear out the cave dwellers occupying the mines. As you can see, our team includes drow elves and dwarves, who are experts in underground combat!

"And you may not know that we have already wiped out the army behind this world-destroying crisis in the underground of Landon City. This army is composed of goblins and kobolds, and has some similarities with cavemen!"

Elizabeth looked at the king again after saying this, and the wizard gave a thumbs up.

Lord Ximu looked at the troops under the city again and said, "I see the evil drow elves. Where are the dwarves?"

Flint stretched his hand out of the frame, cursing, "Here! Here!"

Earl Ximu stroked his beard and thought for a few seconds, then said, "I guess the price of helping us take back the mine is that I will send troops to overthrow Stoke and let the deputy sent by your damn treacherous brat run rampant in the valley!"

Elizabeth: "But by then you will have retaken the mines and will have regained their former glory. You can even tear down the sluice gates, because ships will once again dock at Lakeside City, and the long-abandoned pilot station will be bustling with people again."

Lord Ximu: "It is indeed tempting, but not enough to make me betray my lord!"

"He is not your lord! Your lord is Duchess Ruth! She is in Langdon City preparing for her wedding in half a year! Sir Stoke is the usurper! Legally, he is the one who should be condemned."

Earl Ximu sneered, "The sister of a man who did such a heinous thing as assassinating a guest actually turned around and accused Stoke! Humph, you really live long enough to meet such shameless people."

Elizabeth corrected him righteously, "No! The Duke of Old Valley was convicted by the Imperial Parliament because he teamed up with the former Duke of Styria to attack our Landon Territory, causing huge casualties! He will die because he resisted arrest with arms!"

The king raised his eyebrows and looked at Elizabeth, who was lying without changing her expression, with surprise.

Earl Ximu on the city wall was stunned by Elizabeth's words.

He probably didn't expect that the most beautiful woman in Kusaniya would be so shameless.

But this matter requires a tacit understanding. The rest is all about considerations of interests. If it is in their own interests, then the Duke of Old Valley is guilty and should be executed.

Earl Ximu was no fool. After a brief thought, he said, "What if I send troops and you change your mind?"

Elizabeth looked at the king again.

The wizard nodded.

So Elizabeth said, "We will deal with the cavemen first and help you take back the mines."

Earl Ximu snorted, "You are a great braggart. Don't stop standing outside the door. Isn't the gate open? You should come in and find me directly in the castle, so you don't have to stand outside in the sun."

Elizabeth: "We are an official diplomatic mission, so we must follow diplomatic etiquette and ask the host before entering the city."

The count nodded and said, "I will not meet you in such an awkward place as the reception room. Come to my study. I want to see what the 'professional underground combat expert' has to say."

After saying this, the Earl disappeared from the city wall.

Elizabeth immediately turned around and asked the king excitedly: "How did I perform?"

Wang: "It's much better than when we were in Watergate. At that time, you even asked me to give you a hint for the next sentence."

Elizabeth: "I learned the first half from Bruce, and the second half from you!"

Marika: "We can talk about this later, let's go in first."

**

The study of Earl Ximu is different from his castle, it is actually a stone building. In fact, after entering this wooden castle, you will find that the core part of the castle is a brick and stone structure, and the outer expansion part is made of wood.

All in all, the whole castle is just a makeshift one.

In the Earl's study, through the window you can see the all-stone fortress on the other side, and clearly see the flag of the Earl of Creekwood family hanging on the fortress.

As soon as the king entered the room, he asked directly: "My Lord, I heard that the stone fortress facing the window is no longer inhabited. Why is the flag still flying?"

The count looked at the king and asked the princess in confusion, "Who is this?"

It seems that the Earl does not know about the king's deeds. This is normal. It is unlikely that a bard would visit Creekwood Town. After all, this place is in visibly declining.

Without a visit from the bard, and the earl didn't seem to be able to afford to keep spies in the neighboring duchy, it was understandable that he only knew the surface of what happened in the Duchy of Langdon and didn't know the details.

The Count: "My son is stationed there. Recently, the cave dwellers have started to come out of the mines and attack the humans on the surface, maybe because they are running out of food or something else."

Wang frowned. "The cavemen started to attack the surface? This is unheard of."

Count: "But this is what happened. Look at this, this is a list of those attacked this month. They would appear in the dead of night and attack the residents scattered in the fields. Sometimes they would go to a village with dozens of households and kill people."

Wang: "Cave dwellers rarely leave their caves to come out of the ground. They are integrated with the underground ecology and mainly feed on lichens such as mosses and fungi such as mushrooms. Unlike kobolds, cave dwellers almost never eat meat, and their visual organs have also degenerated.

"Dwarves and drow have dark vision, which gives them an advantage in underground battles, but their vision on the ground is not affected. Troggs are different. They rely on their developed hearing to locate themselves underground, which puts them at a disadvantage on the ground."

The Count shook his head, took something out of the drawer, put it on the desk, and gently pushed it forward.

"Look at this. This is what was formed when melted wax was poured into the strange footprints that the hunters found and solidified. Do you recognize it?"

Wang looked at it carefully, shook his head, and passed it to Marika beside him.

Marika confirmed it immediately: "It's the troglodytes. In my hometown, these weak and evil creatures were driven to the corners of the underground tunnel network to survive."

The drow gave the item to the dwarf. The dwarf immediately made a judgment: "They are indeed cave dwellers. When I was a child, the kingdom's security forces always patrolled the mines and drove these guys back deeper into the ground. They are not afraid of strong light because they can't see at all.

"They use a strange spirit magic, like some kind of shamanic magic. God knows where they found the spirit underground."

Spirits represent the will of nature. Shamans believe that druids' magic is also bestowed by spirits, but druids scoff at this statement.

When Xiaobai heard the word "spirit", he expressed his disdain very explicitly.

The king stroked his chin and said, "The cavemen have begun to attack the ground. Tsk, let me ask a seemingly irrelevant question. Your Excellency, have the number of cats and dogs in your territory decreased?"

The Count looked at the King in confusion: "What are you talking about? Does this matter?"

Wang turned to Xiaobai and said, "Ask."

Xiaobai immediately turned into a sparrow and flew out of the window.

Count: "What's going on? What's the difference between this and cats and dogs? I have many hunting dogs. I would know if they were missing."

"They're not the dogs you raise, they're the wild cats and dogs outside," said Elizabeth.

"Wild cats and dogs? What does this have to do with taking back our minerals?"

Wang: "If the number of wild cats and dogs decreases, it means that the same thing happened in your territory as in Landon's territory. Someone is performing an evil ritual to cause the positive energy in your territory to mutate. If he succeeds, the positive energy treatment here may kill some frail elderly people."