I was accidentally injured by God and I just want to be an ordinary person

"Well, since it's all in the past, there's no point in pursuing it further. Is that 'City of Death' that Berg mentioned just now a place name?"

Ella quickly changed the subject, and Cang Yan's team members couldn't help but give Ella a look of gratitude.

"Yes, the City of Death is located in the Kingdom of Uriel, very close to the elves. It was built about a hundred years ago by the goblins who ruled this area at the time. However, not long after its construction, the country founded by the goblins was swallowed up by a neighboring country. The neighboring country was replaced by the Kingdom of Uriel thirty years ago, and now it has become the territory of the Kingdom of Uriel."

"Ownership changes so frequently..."

Ella couldn't help but murmur, but this kind of thing was commonplace in the kingdoms.

The one who asked the question was Elise, who raised her eyebrows slightly.

"If I remember correctly, the mission assigned to you by the Holy Academy was to go to the Elf Territory, right? Why did you mention the City of Death?"

"Well, the Elven Territory has a World Tree defensive barrier, so the academy's teleportation array can't take us directly to the Elven Territory. So, we can only choose to teleport to the Kingdom of Uriel first and then enter the Elven Territory from there. We learned about the City of Death while passing through the Kingdom of Uriel. The academy director gave us two years, so we decided to investigate the City of Death first."

"That guy is really forgiving."

Ignoring Elise's sigh, Berg continued to explain.

"According to the intelligence we've gathered so far, Death City is a city that suffered two massacres within the past hundred years. When the Kingdom of Uriel took over thirty years ago, they were unable to promptly accommodate new residents due to the massacres. Three months later, when the regime stabilized, they discovered that Death City had become a paradise for the undead and a black substance. No living creature could approach Death City."

"But this has nothing to do with you."

Shen Gan frowned. Cang Yan's purpose in joining the Holy Academy was very clear, which was to seek revenge on the Seal of Original Sin. Now that it was confirmed that the Seal of Desire was in the elves, there was no reason to shift the target to something else.

With a very serious and mysterious expression, Berg lowered his head slightly.

"There are certainly deeper reasons why we chose to go to the City of Death. I hope everyone in the Branch of Disaster will not spread this news, especially as it could cause panic within the Kingdom of Uriel."

"Yes, I understand. I guarantee it in the name of Mistydin."

Ella tapped the Pestle of Heavenly Punishment vigorously.

Berg took a deep breath, glanced at Ella and the other three, and spoke slowly as if what he was going to say next was very important.

"Based on the information we have so far, we infer that the City of Death may contain the Seal of Envy, which controls monsters."

"puff!"

Unable to hold back, Mitis burst out laughing, and even the expressionless Shen Gan turned his head away, which was rare.

Berg couldn't help but frown slightly, while the shield warrior in the blue flame directly questioned Mitis in a harsh voice.

"What are you laughing at? This is information we obtained at great cost."

"Sorry, sorry, I suddenly thought of something else. Don't mind me. Oh, by the way, I'm going to help Angelina. I'll leave this to Ella."

"I'll help Angela-chan too. Ella-chan, keep up the good work."

Even Ella could sense the forced smiles on the two people's faces, but the truth was, Ella herself was almost on the verge of laughing. For her, cheering them on now was no different from a punishment game.

In order to prevent herself from losing composure, Ella bit the tip of her tongue hard. The piercing pain almost made tears burst out of her eyes, but the effect was also very obvious. The expression that was about to laugh disappeared.

"Well, leave this to me and Fukagan."

"It would be nice if I could keep my expression unchanged like Fukagan and Eve, but then again, Mitis, you're being too rude!"

Mitis could be heard trying to hold back her laughter as she walked towards Angelini. Ella had never heard Mitis make such a sound as if she was wiping glass. Ella was even sure that if she made such a sound on the street, passers-by would definitely look at her sideways. In fact, many soldiers had already looked at Mitis with strange eyes, especially Cang Yan and his group behind her. She could feel the anger emanating from them.

After taking a deep breath to adjust her mood—mainly her facial expression—Ella turned around and faced Berg with a smile.

"Can you tell me why you came to this conclusion?"

There was no doubt that Mitis, the Seal of Jealousy, was right beside him. Even the forged Seal of Jealousy was in his warehouse. The conclusion that there was a Seal of Jealousy in the City of Death was undoubtedly extremely wrong.

After glancing at the receding figure of Mitis with dissatisfaction, Berg continued to speak hesitantly with a mysterious frown on his face.

"It's able to keep so many undead creatures within the city, even evolving a black substance resembling something from the Land of the Dead. Besides being able to control and summon monsters, and even allowing them to evolve the Seal of Envy, there's probably no other possibility. While we've considered the possibility of a powerful undead controlling the undead, that black substance, whose true identity is unknown, likely has nothing to do with the undead. Rumors in the Kingdom of Uriel say that black matter is like a living being, actively approaching and devouring nearby creatures."

"Hmm, is that so? I see. Since we're on our way, we, the Branch of Disaster, will go with you."

The journey to the City of Death shouldn't take long. Plus, it happened to be on the planned route, and since it was necessary to clear up the misunderstanding for Mitis—although it wasn't necessary—Aila chose to go with Cang Yan.

Berg couldn't help but be stunned for a moment.

"Is this okay?"

"Of course that's fine. Or does Berger not want that? In that case, we can stagger our departure times."

"No, no, it would be an honor for us to be able to travel with you from the Branch of Disaster. Also... Your Majesty, what kind of reward would you like for the high-grade magic potion?"

Berg's blue eyes showed worry and hesitation.

Feeling amused, Ella waved her hands.

"No need, just consider it a gift for our first collaboration."

If she stayed, Berg might be grateful to her, but Ella didn't like that kind of troublesome situation, so she turned around.

"Well then, we'll take our leave now. Once Berg has finished explaining things to the soldiers, we'll all head to the City of the Dead."

Chapter 18 Papermaking and a Doubtful History

After Berg finished explaining to the commander of the Kingdom of Uriel, Cang Yan and his group drove their own carriage in front to lead the way for Ella.

Of course, judging by the results on the map, the two teams' current locations were still quite a distance away from the City of Death. If they wanted to brave the snow, it would take at least half a month. In order to shorten the journey as much as possible, Cang Yan and his party chose the official road where the leaders would regularly clear the snow.

It is now the second day after our journey. The sun has revealed its true appearance since the morning, which is very rare. Although the pale sunlight is not warm, it is at least much better than the heavy snow in recent days.

Iris sighed as she half-leaned on Ella's back in a lazy posture.

"What kind of imagination can you have to connect the City of Death and Mitis-chan together?"

Under normal circumstances, Ella would definitely move aside because Iris's actions were too aggressive, but because of the cold weather outside and the fact that it was not yet 9 o'clock in the morning, the former was sleeping soundly on a bench placed along the edge of the carriage and was completely unaware of the movements outside.

"That's right. Although the undead are easy to control, their appearance is really not flattering. Even if I don't have any monsters to control, I won't choose to control the undead."

"But if it's just the undead wandering the city, then it could be that people weren't purified in time after death, and were affected by their resentment and resurrected as undead. But what is that black substance Cang Yan described?"

Angelica posed the question to Kamisia, who was sitting upright and concentrating on watching Ella sleep.

"Teacher Camisia?"

"Oh, sorry, I was distracted. What did Angelina just say?"

"It's the black substance from the City of Death. Teacher Camisia, do you know anything about it?"

"Black matter? As far as I know, it's a collection of creatures. These creatures live in the abyss of the Far North Land of the Dead. Dean should know more. The Eastern Demons are closer to the Land of the Dead and are more familiar with the black matter."

Camisia answered Angelini very seriously.

"Is it a collection of vengeful spirits?"

"Well, it's roughly like what Fukagan described, but while the vengeful spirits still retain human habits, the black matter possesses only biological instincts. Upon encountering a human, they will actively attack, capture, and devour them. When struck by magic, they will quickly flee. While they aren't very powerful creatures, the trouble lies in their endless numbers and their proclivity for revenge. Even if you use area-of-effect magic to wipe them out in one go, they'll reappear years later if they're not completely eliminated."

"If it's the liquid black substance from the Land of the Dead, then the records of the God-Human Tribe do mention it as the 'Black Predator'. However, I didn't understand it in detail back then, so I'll have to wait until I return to the God-Human Tribe to read the details."

Iris, who was yawning, tilted her head and explained to everyone.

"Well, anyway, that kind of creature isn't a threat at all. Fire or light magic can easily incinerate them—hmm?"

Before Iris finished her words, the carriage suddenly stopped and Mitis, who was near the door, lifted the curtain.

"Lotte, what's wrong?"

"Cang Yan's carriage has stopped."

Lotte pointed at the carriage in front with a troubled expression. Not long after, Cang Yan's captain Berg jumped off the carriage and came to Lotte.

"We're almost at the next post station. We'd like to stay here for a while."

"Excuse me, why are you stopping here?"

"We need to tell the dean about our trip to the City of the Dead. Although regular post stations sell letter paper, the exorbitant prices are unbearable. And I'm not sure if the post stations have sold out of letter paper, considering the weather."

During the heavy snow season, merchants will not go out to purchase goods. If they run out of paper, they can only wait for the weather to clear up and find a life magic caster with the "papermaking technique" to help replenish it.

Lotte, sitting in the driver's seat of the carriage, hesitated for a moment. Although there were many high-quality papers in the dimensional backpack, they all belonged to the demons - or to be more precise, they were the property of Ella. If she was serving Ella, there would be no problem, but it would be difficult for her to give them to others without permission like this.

"In this case……"

Ruthie turned her head and saw Ella sleeping soundly. She became even more hesitant. Seeing Ruthie's embarrassment, Iris stood up, patted Ella's shoulder and woke her up.

"Ah, Iris?"

"Berg suggested staying here for a while. What are your plans, Ella-chan?"

Having just woken up from sleep, Ella, whose eyes were still a little closed, yawned subconsciously.

"Then let's do as Berg said. The time now is... wow, it's already nine o'clock."

Like an office worker who wakes up to find that he is late, Ella woke up instantly, slapped her face hard, and glanced around the carriage.

"Already set off?"

"Yes, Princess."

Camisia stood up and took off the blanket covering Ella. It was Ella who was on the last night watch. However, when everyone woke up in the morning, they found that Ella was already asleep, so they carried Ella onto the carriage with her clothes on and continued to sleep.

Ella felt embarrassed when she noticed this. She glanced at everyone awkwardly, but her companions seemed to be used to it and didn't pay any attention to her. Ella's embarrassment deepened and she began to try to change the subject.

"Um, Berg just said he wanted to stay here for a while, right?"

"Well, Mr. Berg has gone back and said he's going to prepare for papermaking."

"He's back. Then I'll go down and take a look too."

One was to clear his still groggy brain and escape from the predicament, and the other was to observe the process of "making paper". Although he had lived in this world for two years, he had never understood the origin of paper. His only knowledge of paper was that it was "very expensive".

[Come to think of it, all the magic books I bought before were handwritten, which probably means there's no such thing as movable type in this world. However, since this is a magical world, the papermaking process might be related to magic. If it were a common technology, it wouldn't be sold for a single silver coin.]

Regarding the technology in the original world, he had seen cannons using gunpowder when he was on a ship in the Kingdom of Untermier. However, according to the crew, cannons were abandoned and backward products. The real wealthy businessmen would use magic cannons as a means of self-defense. It seemed that this was because cannons were prone to exploding and had poor accuracy and range.

However, what surprised Ella was that in the past two hundred years, there were many people in the Kingdom of Kumheim who, like herself, traveled from Earth to this world. But from what she saw, the Kingdom of Kumheim was no different from other countries on the continent. From the political system to the economy and culture, there was no difference from other countries. This really puzzled Ella.

If political reforms made people hesitate, then improvements in life should be easy to achieve for the Son of God. For example, he had promoted composting, multiple cropping, and crop rotation in the demon tribe, or tried building canals and raising fish. These were all easy things to do, but he had never seen these in the Kingdom of Kumheim. Even when he mentioned them to Camisia, who had six thousand years of knowledge, Camisia only thought about the proposed plan and did not mention any region where such cases had occurred in the past.

"Well, I'll ask Iris and Camisia after I've finished observing the papermaking process. Maybe there's some reason behind this."

Of course, asking Kro would be more direct, but Kro has closed the entrance to the dream world. He can only wait for the "revenge" that Kro mentioned to come in two days before he will have the chance to meet Kro.

"But revenge... I have a bad feeling that Kuro will do something terrible."

Thinking this, Ella bent down and walked out of the carriage. After waving to Lotte and Angelica who were feeding hay to the horses, she walked slowly on the snow to the carriage in front where Berg was.

The carriage that Cang Yan and his group were riding in was purchased in the Kingdom of Uriel. Considering that it would be sold to someone else soon, Cang Yan did not purchase a particularly luxurious one. If anything, it was perhaps even worse than an ordinary carriage, as there was no shock-absorbing magic circle engraved on the base. People sitting inside would be tossed up and down as the carriage swayed. If it was a first-time carriage rider, after the first day, they would definitely have back pain so much that they could not stand up straight when they got up the next day.

Of course, it wasn't that Cang Yan deliberately chose a carriage that wasn't comfortable enough, it was just that most carriages on the continent were like that. The carriages used by the Branch of Disaster not only had a shock-absorbing magic circle, but were even equipped with a kotatsu. There were only a very small number of them - perhaps the only one in the entire continent.

Probably because they wanted to get some fresh air, all the Cang Yan members, wearing thick animal furs to keep warm, got off the carriage. The shield warrior and Berg took out long-handled axes from the storage backpack. The young man carrying a bow and arrow was in charge of vigilance, while the magic caster and the healer sat on the shaft to rest.

"Good morning, Your Majesty."

"Well, good morning."

Ina, the healer with the regrettable breasts, waved to Ella, and Ella smiled and nodded, then came to Berg.

Seeing Ella coming, Berg, who was flexing his shoulders and getting ready for a big fight, put down his long-handled axe and rubbed his hands embarrassedly.

"Oh, your majesty, what's the matter?"

"No... just taking a walk."

Of course, you can't say something like "I want to observe the papermaking process". If papermaking is common sense in this world, it would make you seem too ignorant, even though you really don't know it.

Berg, with his messy blue hair, bulging chest and thick arms, grinned.

"Is that so? Well, I'll go to the woods over there with my friends. Your Majesty, please be safe."

"Can I come along?"

"If Your Majesty doesn't find this vulgar."

After obtaining the other party's permission, Ella carefully put her hands behind her back and followed Berg step by step. Naturally, she focused her attention on the large axe in Berg's hand. As far as she knew about papermaking - not to mention the product of ancient Egyptian civilization called papyrus - it was true that wood was needed as raw material, but if she wanted to make it on the spot, not only the time, but also the venue and climatic conditions would not allow it.

Ella asked, pretending not to be that curious.

"Is Berg going to make paper next?"

"Yes, that's right. While theoretically one sheet is enough, there's no guarantee it will always work, so we need to chop down a few more trees. If there are any extras, we can save them for later use or sell them to the post station for money. Your Majesty usually uses expensive parchment, right?"

"Uh, probably."

"Parchment! Just one palm-sized piece of parchment costs five silver coins. Even nobles had to be frugal when using it. When I was little, my father often showed off the entire parchment box to me. At the time, I didn't know parchment was such a precious thing, so I didn't take it seriously. Now that I think about it, I think I can understand my father's feelings, hahaha."