Why are all your skill bars full of weird moves?

Gauss quickly drew his bow and turned around to see a hunchbacked old woman, wearing a cotton and linen dress with seven or eight patches, walking unsteadily with a peach wood cane.

Gauss activated the Eye of Fate, and the panel silently unfolded.

Zamcia Ellis (Human)

Rating: 0

Power: 3

Agility: 3

Physical condition: 4

Intelligence: 6

Equipment: None.

Assessment: The elderly woman, frail and nearing the end of her life, has not shown any abnormalities so far.

With stats even lower than a goblin, it doesn't seem to pose much of a threat.

Gauss drew back the bow, but his fingers did not leave the bowstring.

"Out-of-towners, it's getting dark, don't stand outside." The old woman forced a smile, revealing a mouth missing two front teeth. "Come inside and rest your feet, I'll cook you some root vegetable soup."

Balk leaned close to Gauss's ear and whispered.

"Brother, you can't even see a dog in this place. If an old woman suddenly pops up, don't you feel a little creeped out?"

Gauss did not answer, but instead looked sharply at the old woman.

Her clothes didn't look like those of a noblewoman, yet there was no dust on her body, and no mud stains on the hem of her skirt; she didn't look like a woman from a remote mountain town at all.

This place is too eerie and too strange.

"Hello, sir, we are adventurers, here to carry out a guild bounty," Gauss began, his tone calm. "Where are the other residents here?"

The old woman tapped her cane twice on the stone slab, and the tightly closed doors behind her opened one after another.

Men and women, young and old, emerged from the house one after another.

Some people were wearing blacksmith aprons, some were wearing coarse wool shawls, and some were holding bowls of unfinished wheat porridge.

Some of their faces were stiff and numb, others were dull and lifeless, and their overall movements were too mechanical, completely lacking the vitality of living people.

Gauss used the Eye of Fate and the life heat source to check everyone in turn, and found that everyone was normal without any surprises.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid," the old woman turned around and waved to the residents, "They are adventurers who have come to help us."

A crowd began to gather, their faces gradually showing eager expressions.

A bearded human man squeezed to the front and shoved half an oat cookie into Balk's hand.

"Hungry? Eat! My wife grilled this; it's the best in town!"

Balk looked down at the bread, then at the uncle's overly enthusiastic face. Perhaps he was too hungry, he hesitated for a moment, wagged his tail twice, and then reached out to take the bread.

Gauss reached out and blocked it, sweeping the pancake across.

Oatmeal cookies

Ingredients: Wheat flour, special seasoning.

Note: Mild taste, non-toxic, and edible.

Balk looked at Gauss with a puzzled expression, not understanding his actions.

"Eat what the common people eat," Gauss said calmly and naturally, "and remember to pay."

"Don't worry, brother, we're adventurers, not bandits."

After speaking, Balk took out three copper coins from his purse, placed them in the other man's hand, and began to wolf down the bread.

"Mmm...it's delicious."

Suddenly, more people rushed up. Some helped Mia brush the dust off her white robe, while others tried to take Ula's staff, but she coldly refused.

Gauss neither hindered this enthusiasm nor participated in it, focusing his attention on the composition of the crowd.

No children, not a single one.

The town, both its outsiders and its inhabitants, exudes an air of strangeness.

After the initial enthusiasm subsided, the townspeople led the four people toward the town center.

Along the way, people brought chairs and placed them by the roadside, and others handed out ceramic cups filled with well water, showing great hospitality.

After turning past a stone house, the circular square in the center of town comes into view.

The fountain pool was completely dry, and the walls were covered with dried moss.

What caught Gauss's attention even more was the scorched ground on the east side of the square.

Extensive carbonization marks spread from the ground to the exterior walls of three surrounding houses. The stones on the walls were discolored by the high temperature, and only charred remains of the wooden door frames remained. In the center of the ground, there was a circular scorch mark about two meters in diameter, the darkest in color, with cracks appearing in the stone slabs.

A flame strong enough to crack a stone slab must be at least 800 degrees Celsius.

"What happened here?" Gauss pointed to the circular scorch mark.

The old woman stood beside her, leaning on her cane, her smile still present in her wrinkles.

"Oh, that... The smelting furnace caught fire last month, and it burned for several days before it was put out."

"A smelting furnace?" Ula raised her chin, her gaze sweeping towards the center of the scorch marks. "Why isn't the smelting furnace in the mining area, but in the town center?"

The old woman's smile froze for a moment, then returned to normal.

"I'm getting old, my memory's failing me, maybe I was struck by lightning."

Mia walked over to the scorch mark, flattened her cat ears to the sides, and twitched her nostrils.

"This... isn't the smell of burning lightning." Her voice trailed off. "I took a basic alchemy course at church. The smell of burning sulfur and phosphorus powder is completely different from that of lightning. This burnt smell is mixed with... the smell of oil."

grease?

Gauss looked at the old woman, who still had a smile on her lips, but it was no longer as natural as before.

"Never mind, it's not important." Gauss changed the subject.

Forcing someone to answer is not a wise move.

This cannot be done until the child and the Underdark are found.

"Have you seen a large number of children coming into town?"

The question seemed to have struck a nerve with the townspeople, and their smiles vanished instantly. The bearded man looked down at the tips of his shoes, while the woman beside him turned her head to adjust her headscarf. The old woman blinked and her lips moved a few times.

"What child? We've never had a child come to our town before."

"Never been here before?" Balk asked vaguely, still chewing on an oat biscuit. "All the clues point to this place."

"I don't know." The old woman shook her head, speaking faster. "We're just an ordinary mining town, nothing special."

During the conversation, Gao paid special attention to the expressions of the surrounding residents.

There was no fear, nor the guilt of being caught lying.

"What about the mining area?" Gauss changed direction. "I heard the mines in town have stopped operating. Why?"

"No...no reason." The old woman tapped her cane on the ground twice more. "The mayor said the mineral resources were depleted, so it was stopped."

"The mayor? Where is he?"

"It's been a long time." The old woman raised her cane and pointed to the deepest part of the town, the circular square that Gauss had seen from the mountain. "Perhaps she hasn't been feeling well lately and hasn't been going out much."

"Okay, let's go pay them a visit."

As Gauss took a step, the old woman's voice drifted from behind him: "It's getting late, aren't you sure you want to rest?"

"Thank you, but you really don't need to."

As the group left the square, Gao deliberately slowed his pace and walked at the very back. Only after he had distanced himself from the residents did he speak in a low voice.

"We'll split into two groups and look at some empty houses that no one lives in."

"We can't get anything out of these people, and their behavior is extremely strange. We have to do it ourselves to find clues about the child."

Upon hearing this, the three stopped talking and instead felt that Gauss had observed things very carefully.

Is this an innate advantage of the wandering knight?

Gauss and Balk went into a house with a broken door first, while Mia and Ula went to the house across the street.

As Gauss stepped inside, the smell of burnt and musty wafted out. The setting sun shone through the windows, and dust motes danced in the sunlight.

The living room wasn't very big, but it was fully equipped with tables, chairs, and benches. There was still some unburnt firewood in the fireplace, and two ash-covered ceramic bowls sat on the dining table.

Gauss saw adult coats, aprons, and mining hats on the clothes rack in the corner, but no children's clothes.

However, the bottom row of hooks on the clothes hanger is noticeably too low, requiring adults to bend over to reach them; this height is only suitable for children.

"Hey bro, come look at this."

Balk stood in front of the wall above the fireplace.