Witch Troupe and the Undead

The knight commander was at a loss for words, and even the most learned sorcerer looked bewildered. They not only didn't know how to evaluate him, but they didn't even know how to write his epitaph.

If his epitaph read, "He was a powerful swordsman, but he accidentally lost his hand in a battle with salted herring," his family would probably go crazy.

At the very least, it could turn the atmosphere of the cemetery from solemn and dignified to that of a clown amusement park; someone who didn't know better might think he had swallowed a fish bone while eating salted herring.

However, the reality was... he did indeed fight a battle with a salted bluefish that could walk and wielded a long spear made of fish bones. In the end, the latter used a special technique of charging forward with its head as a spear. The swordsman was outmaneuvered and was pierced through by the bluefish, dying instantly.

After battling various bizarre monsters, the team finally arrived at their destination, exhausted. It was a barren flat area shrouded in a barrier, with stone slabs covering the ground and only a staircase leading underground. To be honest, if they didn't put a boss here, not only Roach but even the Knight Commander felt something was off.

"Something's not right... Let's rest here for a bit and recover our stamina and spellcasting resources." Those idiots who rushed into the BOSS room died inside the ruins. Experienced teams like theirs wouldn't make such a mistake.

The remnants of the defeated monsters frantically converged on the open space, forming something resembling a candy house in front of everyone. Bones formed the outer walls, tiles and windows were made of candy and cookie crumbs, and fried meatballs formed thick, muscular arms. Ye Long became the weapon in the monster's hand, and the whole thing smelled like kitchen waste.

"What would have happened if we had eaten those things before?" The adventurers' caution prevented them from consuming any of the monsters' parts, which made the final battle, which was normally of average difficulty, exceptionally difficult.

Finally, this enormous candy house, made of food, kitchen scraps, mushrooms, plant scraps, and even candy, opened its massive mouth full of fishbone-like teeth and roared deafeningly: "Eat me!"

"Damn it!" The knight commander realized he had miscalculated. He should have eaten the monsters' bodies earlier. It seemed that was the real secret route. Now, they had to pay the price for their misjudgment.

"Prepare for battle!" The squad was locked in combat with the candy house monster. Various kinds of food were closely connected, sharing special abilities. The muscular arms made of meatballs could make the knight holding a heavy shield lose his footing with every blow. He could only withstand the impact by the weight of his equipment and the blessing of magic.

The sharp teeth made of countless fish bones jammed the warrior's spear, fixing the blade firmly between the teeth, unable to move. The biscuits that made up the roof released some kind of strange magic.

White soul missiles, mixed with biscuit crumbs, rained down on the magic shield, forcing the arcane mage to cease supporting the frontline warriors and instead focus on maintaining the shield while retaliating with fire to try and melt the armor-like frosting.

"Wow!" Thick, maltose-like syrup sprayed out. "Oh no!" The scout dodged quickly, but the archer couldn't avoid it. His body was covered in syrup, and he let out a scream. The syrup seemed to be extremely hot and the liquid was extremely viscous. The burns and suffocation quickly turned him into a corpse covered in a sugar shell.

Witch's hut.

Roach stirred the fire in the fireplace. The little witch sat on the chaise lounge in front of the fireplace, holding a storybook in her little hands. Her face was tilted to one side, and her light golden hair flowed in front of her like a golden blanket.

Livia's sleeping posture is very cute. Her face is half covered by her hair, and her pink lips are slightly open, making you want to poke her face hard to see if she will spit out her soul.

"Hey~" Roach draped the blanket over her, and the little one gently twisted her body, making indistinct mumbling in her sleep. The whole house instantly became much quieter than usual, and even the crackling of the flames seemed to have subsided.

"Yes, everything's ready." Leslie put the washed dishes back on the wooden shelf. The house shook slightly, and under the cover of night, they continued their journey towards Rock Tower County.

Before going to sleep, Luo Qi glanced at Weiye, eight question marks popping up above his head. Why... why had the kill count for the murderous dish increased by several more? When did he kill someone with his cooking? Could this system be broken?!

The candy house monster finally fell apart, revealing the stairs leading to the lower level. The knight commander was panting heavily. These candy and food monsters looked comical, but their fighting power was beyond imagination. Fortunately, it was finally over. It seemed that the road to the treasure had been opened. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any traps down there.

Descending the short flight of stairs, the only thing in the spacious room was a rather ornate treasure chest. The emptiness and the chest's antique appearance gave the knight commander a very ominous feeling. "Check for traps."

No one wants to be taken away by a trap at this final moment. Many stories unfold like this: after going through all sorts of hardships to finally reach the treasure room, they are either cursed or trapped and sent away when they open the treasure chest, or the entire ruins suddenly start to explode and collapse.

Especially in this place where there are no signs of anyone having been there and it is exceptionally empty, the scout checked the surroundings. "There are no traps, but something is wrong. If this is an ancient ruin..." He wiped the ground. "There is too little dust. Either this place is a fake, or..." Something is preventing dust from accumulating here, and this open space is the real scene of the final battle.

"Check it out! Mechanisms, traps, curses, anything!" But the result of their vigorous inspection was that there was nothing there, everything was normal.

"Then it seems the problem lies inside this box." After the sorcerer's examination, the box was confirmed to be genuinely ancient in style and quite old, not a fake. Therefore, it's highly likely that there's something like a mimicry or something similar inside, or that there's something else hidden within the box.

"Open it, there's no escaping it anyway." The knight commander looked at the scout, who sighed and forcefully opened the treasure chest, but nothing happened; there were only two pieces of paper inside.

The paper features a cute, cartoonish drawing of an adventure team holding hands, surrounded by illustrations of the cartoonish monsters they've encountered. On the back is the message: "Happiness is the greatest treasure," along with a cartoonish self-portrait of a little witch.

"..." The scout's hand trembled slightly, as if he were grasping at the last straw. He picked up the last piece of paper, since the last one looked much more exquisite. Perhaps it was some kind of magic scroll or talisman. After all, the prank was over, wasn't it?

The note did indeed have rather complex runes drawn on it, but just when the scout thought it was some kind of scroll, he flipped it over and saw on the back that it read, "Witch's Hug Coupon: With this coupon, you can ask the witch for a hug."

"Pfft!" The scout coughed up a mouthful of blood and collapsed to the ground.

Chapter 83 The Horse-Headed Saint Lord

"Don't stop me, I'm going to kill that damned fortune teller!!!"

"Calm down, calm down, maybe this is just an illusion. What if this... hug coupon really works? Wait, think about it again." The mage and the knight commander held the scout back tightly.

"This is a witch's hug voucher, which means... this thing might be used to communicate with a witch. A sorcerer who can obtain the title of witch might really have a solution to lift the curse."

"Yes, yes, and think about it carefully. The person who could leave this note in the midst of danger is definitely not an ordinary person, and this note was only recently written." It even used ink produced in Hearthstone City. For someone like the arcane mage who is familiar with all kinds of stationery, he can basically tell where the paper is from just by smelling it.

After his companions tried to persuade him, the scout finally calmed down. "So, although this looks like something a child would play, it's actually actually somewhat useful?"

“Yes,” the sorcerer examined the runes on the “Hug Scroll.” “This rune isn’t just random scribbles; it’s a real rune, only half of it. The other half is incomplete.” The sorcerer spread the paper out on the ground and tried to complete the half-finished rune. “Perhaps this is a ticket to some reclusive great witch.”

"This is a bit complicated... Wait, why is a trigger rune being used here? Everyone come closer and raise your shields." The arcane mage's alertness saved the entire team.

"This might be a teleportation array seal. I knew it. Such a simple treasure vault couldn't be a real treasure. Prepare for battle." As the seal was completed, a larger magic array began to light up the entire room, and rune stones lit up one by one, outlining a beautiful star map scene.

"Boom!" The entire living forest shook violently, the trees trembled, and the billowing smoke and dust were filled with dense arcs of electricity and unknown energy flows. The carefully calculated explosion range only slightly affected the mages. If they were standing on the high platform of the treasure, they would not have been affected at all.

The entire makeshift underground treasure chamber was blown to pieces, with rubble and dust falling like a torrential rain. The trees in the living forest rustled, as if mocking the storm.

"Don't fucking stop me! I'm going to kill that damn fortune teller!!!" The knight commander's roar echoed throughout the forest. "What kind of bullshit prophecy is that!"

Rock Tower County.

Located in the northwest of Luster Plain, the terrain is a standard subarctic hilly landscape. Icy streams flow down from the low hills, and tall coniferous trees stand close together. Hardy moss and shrubs grow behind sheltered rocks. In late autumn, fine snowflakes fall, quickly melting into a damp mark on the little witch's palm.

The Yanta people built numerous rock totems on roads and hills. These totems were made of rocks of varying sizes, supported and reinforced with wooden frames, and strips of homespun cloth with various patterns hung around the stone towers.

"These are what are called 'rock towers.' That's how the Rock Tower Clan came to be. They use these creations to express their achievements. The taller the tower, the greater the achievement." Vilandella explained the local features to everyone, just like a qualified tour guide.

"When they hunt wild beasts, defeat powerful monsters, win a war, or even win a village tournament, they will use the stones that are readily available in the area to build such a structure and draw the corresponding story content on the cloth."

"Therefore, the Rock Tower people are not the primitive and reckless barbarians that people generally think of, although the 'civilized people' in the central region of the empire do indeed call them 'barbarians'."

“Yes, a race that can consciously record and preserve history cannot be barbarians.” Roach nodded. Don’t underestimate this behavior. More than half of the races on Earth at the same time did not have this habit or ability. Their limit was being able to record some myths and the deeds of great people through murals and stone carvings.

These undulating rock towers are the biggest attraction in Rock Tower County, and many travelers come specifically to see them. Most of the towers have been ravaged by time, struggling to hold on by their own weight and decaying wood in the cold wind.

Soon Roach and his companions spotted a strange group of people dressed in uniform, earth-yellow coarse cloth robes, barefoot, carrying wooden scrolls, staggering toward a rock tower that was about to collapse.

These people lit a bonfire in the open space under the rock tower and played some kind of stone instrument. The bald old man at the head of the group raised the scroll in his hand, placed it on the stone platform under the tower, and then unfurled it outwards.

"Who are those people?"

“Hmm… this is a bit hard to explain. It’s a word from the local language of the Rock Tower tribe. Hmm, let me think…” Vilandella thought for a while before speaking. “To put it simply, it can be called a ‘storyteller.’ They are responsible for finding these rock towers that have lost their priests and maintenance, recording the still legible pictures and texts on them into their own scrolls, and then finding the descendants of these rock towers and handing the scrolls over to their descendants’ families.”

If the descendants still exist, one of the important tasks for the entire family after obtaining the scroll is to build a new rock tower in the new settlement and family territory. If conditions permit, they will dismantle the previous collapsed rock tower and transport these ancient rocks piece by piece to the new place to build the tower.

"As resilient as a rock" is their motto.

"What if it's destroyed? What if it can't be found?"

"Then it would be enshrined in the Giant Rock Temple in the capital of Rock Tower County, and its contents would be carved onto a huge rock, which would then be erected in the temple's backyard. Oh, this isn't a legitimate church recognized by the Empire, but..."

Who would talk to these fighting fanatics? So, the local noble lords and the elders of the Rock Tower tribe made a pact: they were not allowed to preach to outsiders, their customs were limited to their own settlements, and the Rock Tower temple could only be used as a library or record book for the Rock Tower tribe; no sacrificial rites could be held inside.

Of course, if they do it behind closed doors, the lord won't interfere. But if they cross the line, even if the empire doesn't intervene, the recognized orthodox churches will send combat priests to debate with them.

"So, these Rock Tower people have submitted?"

"Otherwise what? You've never debated scriptures before~" Vilandella complained.

"Are you referring to debate using your mouth or your hands?"

"...Um, so we're probably coming together?"

"That's probably a bit difficult."

"Of course, there is another key point. This thing... is not really a kind of divine belief. What I mean is, it does not have the sacred power of 'blessing', nor does it have a high appeal. For the various families of the Rock Tower Clan, it is just a kind of common cohesion similar to ancestor worship. It does not mean that they can really command the Rock Tower Clan."

"So, now that the priests and priests have realized this, they're not provoking them anymore. If they really manage to worship some evil god, then something really bad will happen."

"You can summon an evil god by worshipping him?" Roach was shocked. What kind of subspace thing was this? Had he fallen into some medieval cesspool?

“You can’t bring an evil god out by worshipping him, but it’s possible for him to come over. Such a huge mass of undirected faith power, what do you think…” Vilandella glanced at the black horse. Everyone understood what she didn’t say. Naturally, all sorts of things from other worlds that needed this spiritual power as sustenance were attracted over.

The better ones are those ethereal, mystical beings, like higher original sin demons; the worst are those who actually worship some great demon or demon lord from hell, which would really cause a huge mess.

Black Horse guiltily looked away, because the faith connections on his body had recently increased by a lot for some reason. Judging from the scale, there was probably a large group of people worshipping him. Afraid of being discovered by the witch, he had no choice but to reluctantly gather these faith powers into a ball, randomly take some magic from the witch, knead it into a strange thing that was hard to identify at a glance: a blessing from hell, and throw it back.

The demons know how to process this power with the power of faith. After all, the so-called demons are essentially gods of the destroyed world and candidates for gods of the new universe yet to be born. It's just that this secret cannot be spoken or written down; it is knowledge that cannot be recorded in words or writing, like the inheritance of memories.

"High Priest, why is this statue a horse's head?" asked the apprentice in a white robe. A rough statue of the Holy Lord of Light had been erected in the middle of the village. The only problem was the head... why was it a horse's head?

"Gods have seven aspects, gods have a hundred aspects." The white-haired girl devoutly offered the silver flames she held in her hands to the brazier in front of the god's statue. "The seven aspects of gods are only the appearances seen by mortals, so what's wrong with gods having horse heads?"

"..." The apprentice looked at the strange horse-headed statue, then at the silver holy fire in the brazier, and hesitated for a moment. "The high priest is right."

During the pilgrimage to the relics, many ascetics and hermits follow behind the main group. There are many hermits, but each one is very small. The Church does not mind their behavior, after all, having gifted abilities is a hard indicator, isn't it?

At the same time, the church's team would recruit pilgrims and people along the way, and then continuously send these devout preachers to various remote villages to carry out missionary work and provide medical services in rural areas.

The group of girls blending in with the crowd were completely inconspicuous. They passed by several proper processions of priests without anyone noticing anything amiss. Each of them carried a brazier with a burning sacred fire, which was the epitome of piety for these novice priests.

Along the way, they were even invited several times to join the main force, mainly to take charge of the more prosperous and populous towns. However, the girl, who knew full well that she would be doomed if she appeared in front of the bishop, declined. Instead, she took on the appearance of an ascetic and volunteered to go to the outlying villages and towns to preach and serve.

Thus, the traveling priests lamented that they had missed the richest region, while also marveling that only such piety, undeterred by hardship and sacrifice, could produce such a pure and radiant holy fire.

Then the topic would veer off to the extravagance and immorality of the church's upper echelons, and the fact that the bishopric was becoming hereditary, with the bishops claiming to be celibate but actually having dozens of illegitimate children and lovers outside the church.

Furthermore, these bishops and their relatives monopolized missionary and fundraising activities in the most lucrative towns, and even the routes for pilgrimages to sacred relics were the result of these bishops abusing their power for personal gain. The pilgrimage routes only passed through their dioceses and hometowns, while truly devout pilgrims had to travel a long way to catch a glimpse of the relics.

At this point, the girl would listen to their complaints with a smile, and then say that it was all a test from the gods, and that the bishops' impiety and selfishness would be punished.

The more people question her, the more blurred it becomes when her power is found to be different from that of the bishops, and the question of who possesses the power of the devil and who possesses the power of the true god will become.

Given that both sides can emit holy light, is a simple, hardworking saintess, whose body is burning with holy fire, chosen by God, or is a fat, bloated old man with eight hundred illegitimate children chosen by God? Anyone would choose the former.

The silvery-white sacred fire suddenly burst into flames, its core even tinged with a dazzling yet strange gold. A wondrous vitality spread upwards from the statue, even reaching the entire village and the people who were praying.

"Our Lord has appeared!" The apprentices all bowed down in worship. The sacred fire, which Old Ma had mixed with all his faith and the little witch's magic and thrown into it as fuel, rose wildly, almost reaching the top of the statue's head. The flames seemed to be alive, changing shape.

Everyone felt their physical ailments, fatigue, and mental lethargy being rapidly burned away in the warm flames, along with any trace of dark malice. Everyone felt that they had never felt so enlightened in their lives, as if they had been reborn.

The sacred flame continued to burn away these dark emotions and things, gradually fading away as it was consumed.

"Second Master, Second Master, what's wrong?"

"Me? I'm fine." The old man looked at his junior in confusion. Wait, wasn't he dead before? Countless invisible fire threads split from the sacred fire wrapped around the souls that had not yet completely left their bodies, pulling them back into their flesh.

Of course, after a brief period of happiness, the old man suddenly died again, because only his soul had been put back in, and the damage to his body had not been healed. So, after the power of the sacred fire disappeared, he died instantly.

Faced with this sudden turn of events, everyone was stunned. What was going on? The girl, quick-witted, shouted, "It's a miracle of resurrection, one of the five great miracles of our Lord!"

Anyway, she died right after being resurrected, so she wasn't a soul-bound corpse or an undead, but a true resurrection. Anyone who disagreed could come and debate with her mace. Besides, she believed that the old guys in the church would spread the word after they heard about it, and no one would say that she looked a bit like a soul-bound corpse.

"Missionary work successfully completed." The girl wiped the cold sweat from her forehead with trembling hands. This missionary work was full of all sorts of unexpected accidents from the very beginning. Fortunately, it was successfully completed in the end... right?

Shortly after leaving the village, the villagers noticed something was wrong with the horse-headed statue. It seemed tired of standing still and started walking towards the depths of the forest on its stone legs.

"Ah... the Holy Lord has appeared!"

"The Holy Lord has appeared!" If you can't understand what happened, just assume it's the Holy Lord appearing.

A few days later, rumors began to circulate among the pilgrimage groups that some small groups had seen a white statue in a forest during their missionary work, but for some reason the statue had a horse's head...

"Could it be that the Holy Lord really has a horse's head?" Such questions began to appear in the minds of some lower-ranking priests. After all, the Holy Lord has seven aspects and a hundred aspects. The seven aspects are only one of the "hundred aspects of the Holy Lord" currently recognized by the Church. It is not impossible that one of the aspects is a horse's head.

"..." The black horse was a bit numb. What had happened these past few days? Why hadn't the power of faith decreased, but instead increased? He couldn't even keep up with the burning power. Was this the legendary "blown by a strong wind"? Well, this wind really was quite strong.

“Bullhead, come here, let me show you something good.” Black Horse approached Bullhead, who had just finished his farm work for the day. The latter looked at him warily. “Look, what is this!” Black Horse pulled out a ball of processed faith power, which was like a dreamlike, dazzling radiance. Only a demon, a candidate god, could sense such a thing.

"This... Brother Ma, where did you get this from?" The power of faith is one of the core keys to whether demons can forge their own divine kingdom and become gods when a new universe is born. This is also why demons in hell use various methods to extract souls and enter the mortal world.

"It was blown in by the wind..." Black Horse said, looking into the distance. He really didn't know where this thing came from. It couldn't have been made by that unlucky guy who had been contaminated before, could it? She was all alone, how did she get such a huge lump of faith?

"This is for me?" Minotaur looked at the power of faith before him in surprise. "No, it's for you to process into divine power. Hurry up, I need it urgently."

"..." I thought this horse-headed thing had taken pity on me. Well, you can't really count on a demon from hell. Turns out it's just making me work as a laborer. But... the bull-headed one glanced at the power of faith. It should be fine if it loses one unit out of every 100 units, right?

Chapter 84 Low-Internal-Friction Lifestyle

Although Rock Tower County is theoretically part of the Luster Plain, it is mainly composed of rolling hills, which means that the little witch's mobile house can only travel through relatively flat and gentle valleys.

Because of the hilly terrain and abundant easily quarried stone, the buildings in Rock Tower County are mostly constructed of irregular rocks, and there are a considerable number of semi-cave-style buildings. The city is often built along river valleys or mountains in a long and narrow urban structure.

Roach and his companions bypassed most of the towns, setting up camp only near a few large cities to replenish their supplies of food and fruit. Rock Tower County, due to its mountainous and hilly terrain, was rich in herbs and spices, and also had a large fruit production capacity.

Leslie placed the fruits on drying racks to dry them into large quantities of dried fruit. These high-sugar dried fruits are perfect as rations for adventures or travel, and also great as everyday snacks.

With a "thud," the eight giant stone pillars slowly folded and knelt down, causing a small patch of ground behind them, incongruous with the surrounding environment, to sink along with the houses above. Several revitalized giant trees growing on the edge of the open space quickly pierced the soil with their roots to absorb nutrients. At the same time, their roots and stems wrapped around the edge of the stone steps, forming a structure similar to a railing.

On the edge of the distant Black Forest lies Tarlin, one of the three largest cities in Rock Tower County. It is a city built primarily of sandstone and inhabited mainly by the Rock Tower people, who make their living by hunting monsters and crafting.

For most people, the Black Forest is a place to be avoided at all costs, but for the Rock Tower people, it is a natural and inexhaustible gold mine. They hunt monsters and process their materials into various handicrafts, from luxurious ivory carvings to carpets and tapestries made from monster fur, as well as a wide variety of leather, tooth, bone and animal tendon products.

Even in the late autumn when winter was approaching, the city streets were bustling with people. Livia held onto Roach's cloak with one hand and pressed down her own large hat with the other, looking curiously at the stalls set up with colorful cloth banners on both sides of the street.

Most shops in Tallinn are like these sheds, some large and some small. The smaller ones display exquisite ornaments, while the larger ones hang various monster corpses, which are cut and processed on the spot. It seems that in the belief of the Rock Tower Clan, processing on the spot in front of customers is a very important ritual.

Well, considering they're often ripped off by unscrupulous merchants, it's hard to say whether they've learned their lesson and decided to see for themselves what's being processed before they can feel at ease.