Witch Troupe and the Undead

The trees in the cemetery were all completely withered, the jagged dead trees reaching towards the sky like the claws of demons. There were no crows or other creatures that would be present in this environment. Under the huge dead tree in the center of the cemetery, hordes of greedy demons were fighting over the burial goods.

"What should we do? Charge straight through the middle, or take a detour?" Roach looked at Livia. The little witch leaned on her cane and thought for a while before looking up at Roach with her emerald eyes. He quickly understood her idea, nodded, and gripped his wand with both hands. Runic energy rapidly flowed along the wand and into the lens at the top.

The magical reaction quickly alerted the greedy demons in the distance. They soon noticed Roach and his companions, as well as the little witches surrounding the crowd. They immediately became agitated, no longer fighting and causing a ruckus among themselves, but instead brandishing all sorts of weapons and rushing over. Some of them even possessed the ability to use great sin magic.

"Clang!" The arrow bounced off the greatsword. Vilandera braced herself against Alessina's shoulder with one hand and leaped into the air, transforming into a dragon shape in mid-air. The moment she landed, she unleashed a breath of ash dragon breath. Unlike in the Black Forest, these Greedy Demons clearly had a faster reaction speed, and the direct lethality of the ash dragon breath was not high.

Many greedy demons, their bodies still writhing in smoldering dragon flames, burst through the mist, brandishing their tattered weapons at Vilandella. She raised her upper body, her dragon wings swooping down, leaving several bloody streaks and throwing the greedy demons off balance. Alessina, dragging her greatsword, charged out from the side, twisting and turning, swinging her greatsword to send the foremost greedy demon flying back to its original position.

Livia raised her hand and tossed up a string of magical lenses. Roach's silver-white mental piercing ray struck the first lens, splitting it into countless silver-white threads. Under Livia's manipulation, these lenses and threads formed a complex three-dimensional structure, creating a ritual field.

The ash dragon flames quickly transformed into a silvery-white barrier of soul fire, trapping all the greedy demons within this silvery-white cage of beams of light, gradually burning them to ashes.

"It's resolved, but the commotion was too great." The greedy demons further away had clearly noticed the battle and gathered around.

"Speed ​​up!" Roach grabbed the little witch by the collar and threw her toward Vilandela. The dragon-shaped Vilandela caught the little witch's clothes in her mouth, flapped her wings and made a long-distance gliding leap, soaring over the middle of the cemetery, crushing a magnificent tomb near the church, and then tossed the little witch toward the collapsing church.

The black horse emerged from the shadows of the ruins like a shadow, catching its young master precisely. Roach and Alessina, though slower, managed to run into the church before the greedy demons could attack. At that moment, Vilandera unleashed an even more concentrated breath of ash dragon fire to seal the breach.

"Come to the church crypt!" Several members of the investigation team shouted as they spotted Roach and his group. The group quickly slipped through a small door on the side of the altar into the crypt.

This is the church basement, where the priest performs the final procedures for the deceased. Empty coffins and various religious ritual items are placed everywhere. To avoid the appearance of undead creatures, the deceased usually need to undergo encoffining in the church basement, which includes removing the internal organs, soaking them in holy water, wrapping them in a specially blessed shroud, and placing them in a coffin.

The body is then placed on a consecration table in the basement for a consecration process that lasts 3 to 7 days. During this time, spices are used for preservation. Only after the final treatment of the deceased's soul is completed will the body be sent to the cemetery for burial.

This entire process takes about several months' income for a middle-class person, so not everyone can afford it. Moreover, it cannot completely prevent corpses from turning into undead creatures; it can only prevent them from turning into undead creatures in the natural environment. If a lich or something similar comes along, then there is no hope.

However, even in such special circumstances, the strength of the resurrected can be reduced to the minimum. What might have been a death knight's corpse after resurrection can, after this treatment, at most be resurrected as a zombie.

A purification lamp pillar made by the little witch was already placed on the stone platform in the center of the basement. Several pieces of charcoal were burning in the recess, illuminating the dark basement with a faint light. Red butterflies fluttered around the lamp. When Roach and the others came down, the old man with glasses picked up a few more pieces of rotten coffin wood and stuffed them into the lamp, making it burn even more vigorously.

“No need, we brought lamps.” Roach turned on the kerosene lamp on the black horse’s back, which made the members of the investigation team frown, because in this environment, the requirements for lighting were not high, and it was essential to save fuel such as kerosene as much as possible.

"You are... Miss Livia?" The old man with glasses looked at the little witch who was hiding behind Roach because she had encountered a large group of people. She nodded timidly, and her eyes kept drifting towards the Knight Commander of the Thunderbird Knights sitting in the corner, as if she had sensed something.

"That's wonderful! I've heard there's a Gold-level witch here, and I can hardly believe it. Are you also interested in the culture of Gurust?" the old man asked with great interest.

“…No,” Livia hesitated for a long time before answering softly, then gripped Roach’s clothes tightly. Sensing her nervousness, the old man could only helplessly take two steps back, sit cross-legged, and be surrounded by some obviously ancient books.

"Clang!" Alessina stepped forward, placing her greatsword diagonally beside her to block the Thunderbird Knight's view, and carefully examined him. "..."

"A beast-human warrior? Tch," the other party scoffed.

"This is..." Roach was a little confused about what was going on, or rather, Alessina and the other people's attitudes were a bit strange.

“That man is malicious,” Vilandella said in a very soft voice.

Livia is very perceptive of people's emotions. Do you really think she's just a naive and innocent girl who would take just anyone home? The people she takes in are all people who have no ill intentions or ulterior motives towards her.

As for those who have no malicious intent but some ulterior motives, she adopts an attitude of not intending to get close to them and tries to handle things as officially as possible. However, she is also very sensitive to the malice of others, and in such cases, she will show fear.

Although she might be able to kill an entire enemy squad if she kept her distance or had the cleaver for protection, however... what's that saying? The human heart is more terrifying than a ghost. Even if she could physically eliminate the enemy, that malice still terrified her.

Compared to Roach and Vilandella, who knew that humans were a diverse species, Alessina was simply straightforward. After hearing Vilandella's explanation, she decisively grabbed her greatsword and pointed it at the Thunderbird Knight, "What are you looking at?"

The sound of weapons being drawn filled the air as several knights simultaneously drew their weapons to protect the non-combatants and their knight commander.

"..." The Thunderbird Knight sighed, waved his hand to signal his men to put down their weapons, and looked like he couldn't be bothered to argue with them. "Gold level? Heh~" He sneered, looking Livia up and down, his malice becoming more obvious.

"I don't know where it came from or how it obtained the certification, but this isn't a place for children to play house. Your guards are indeed very responsible, but you..."

"..." In this world, there are no obvious class distinctions for arcane mages like those in different domains. Otherwise, Livia's mentor, Niel Riley, would have been arrested long ago. She could simply remove her badge, put on makeup, and change her appearance. As long as she doesn't say anything, no one would know her true strength and identity, which would allow her to swindle people and obtain magic books from hairy people everywhere.

“I don’t recall anyone with such a low rank being among those awarded the Gold rank, especially one like this…” The other person shook their head, giving off an attitude of “I won’t call you out on it.”

Other knightly orders might be intimidated by the insignia, but the Thunderbird Knights are known as guardians of knowledge. They have close ties with various arcane societies. Knowing how many gold titles have been awarded, who they are, and what their physical characteristics are is a required course. Although it cannot cover everything, at least everyone with a name and distinctive features is known.

Obviously, Livia, who is strikingly beautiful and significantly older, is not among the recipients of the Golden Emblem. Therefore, it is quite normal to suspect that there is some inside story or even to make malicious speculations.

And his guess was quite accurate. The little witch's golden emblem belonged to her teacher and was, in a sense, a semi-forged document—a fake certificate made with a real document, only with the registration information changed to her own.

Black Horse glanced at the young lady, considering whether to reveal his true form here and beat this idiot up. However, after seeing the little girl's confused and bewildered eyes, he could only sigh and decide to beat her up later when he had some free time.

[PS]

The magic system in this world allows apprentices to cast legendary spells if they are well-prepared and have enough time. Therefore, one cannot judge an opponent's actual skill level simply by what level of spell they can cast. However, mages of different ranks, with the same ritual assistance and the same resources and time, can cast spells of vastly different scales.

The precision and controllability of spells vary greatly. Fireball bombardment is an apprentice's skill, but accurately burning only your lungs without destroying other organs is the work of a high-level mage.

Chapter 115 Shovel to Luoyang

Because of the unpleasantness with the other side, Roach and his group did not rest there. Instead, they waited for the Greed Demon above to disperse before leaving the temporary resting place.

"Sigh~" The old man sighed and didn't say much. After all, the person in charge of this investigation team was the knight commander of the Thunderbird Knights, not himself. As for the little girl who called herself the Golden Witch, he wasn't sure if she was a Gold-level, but at least he was certain that she was able to break through the barrier of the Greedy Demon outside, so her actual magical level should not be too low.

The ancient church had collapsed, leaving only four columns and broken walls. The once solemn spires and beautiful stained glass windows had been reduced to a pile of rubble. The ancient statues on the altar were reduced to mere bases. If it weren't for the greedy demons roaming outside, Roach would have been itching to dig them up. He figured he could probably find something by turning over all that rubble.

However, considering the risks, I didn't stay there for long, especially after having a very unpleasant encounter with the group below.

The church was quite large. Apart from the main hall where Roach and his companions were, there was a courtyard shaped like the Chinese character "回" (hui) extending out from the two wings. The central fountain was now just a pile of rubble, and the flowers, plants, and trees had all withered and died. The corridor was even more desolate, with only a few scattered pillars and bricks that were almost entirely left near the baseboard.

"It's somewhat similar to the structure of a Roman temple," Roach nodded slightly. Of course, it's quite different from actual Roman temples on Earth, but that's in terms of construction methods and materials. In terms of general layout and structure, they are highly similar.

After passing through the courtyard, you will reach the front hall, which is a place for ordinary believers and non-believers to visit and make offerings. It is relatively well preserved, but the statues and murals here are almost all destroyed. Only the broken stones and rubble are scattered all over the ground, and the relatively intact, lonely giant portico stands in the cold wind.

In front of the gate are two platforms connected by steps, which are obviously places for large-scale religious activities. The upper platform is the area for preparing for ceremonies. The metal braziers at the four corners are still intact, but they are covered with layers of rust.

Roach and the little witch studied it for a while. Livia determined that the brazier was not enchanted, while Roach judged that it was made using bronze casting techniques. Judging from its size, the civilization that built this church or temple was very advanced in smelting and casting technology.

"It doesn't seem to be the craftsmanship of the ancient Kingdom of Luster, but I can't tell exactly what kind of craftsmanship it is." Because of this related knowledge, he would have to start learning from scratch, unless it overlapped with archaeology on Earth, and even then, it might not be accurate.

Because there's no magic on Earth to assist us. Besides, even on Earth, after seeing those Warring States and Han Dynasty steel swords, halberds, and knives made of 45# steel unearthed in Hubei, you can only conclude that all those academic papers and textbooks were written in vain. [This is true; what you thought was last week's work is actually from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.jpg]

The second platform was prepared for poor believers who were not qualified to go up. It was a flat area with mythological statues at the four corners. However, at most, only a pair of feet remained of these sculptures, and it was impossible to tell what they were originally carved into.

Roach looked at the pile of rubble and thought that if he had time, he might be able to restore the statues. Although he couldn't restore them completely, he could at least restore about 40% or 50%.

Leaving the area of ​​the church or temple, there is a winding avenue leading to the capital. On one side of the road is withered woodland, and on the other side is a river. Across the river is the location of the slums. If you continue along the avenue, you will come to a crossroads. Turning right leads to the Dragon Castle Mountains, turning left leads to the middle of the slums, and going straight leads to the south gate of the capital.

At the edge of the intersection, a campfire was still emitting sparse smoke, indicating that someone had camped and rested here before.

“This road…” Roach rubbed his foot on the ground, hesitating to speak. “Hmm?” The blonde girl tilted her head, somewhat puzzled as to what he had discovered.

"It's nothing, it's just... a little strange." He knew that magic existed in this world, and he knew that the capital was maintained in a special state by some kind of supernatural force, but these roads shouldn't be so intact.

Unless the Luster people of that time had not invented the wheel and the carriage, they should have left deep ruts, and these ruts would have been very deep, at least 3 to 5 centimeters deep, and would have been crisscrossed, making the road uneven.

Of course, it's possible that the other party repaired the road every now and then, but these roads are clearly made of paved stones, not Roman-style cement roads. The latter can theoretically be repaired, but even so, traces of repairs of varying shades should still be left.

Although the capital was protected by magic and thus not reduced to ruins by time, these roads shouldn't have been so intact before the ritual magic began.

“They couldn’t have finished repairing the road and then immediately activated the magic, could they?” Roach crouched down, grabbed a handful of gravel mixed with mud, rubbed it between his fingers to make sure it wasn’t ancient cement or Roman cement made from volcanic ash, “Sandstone…”

This type of rock is not very strong and is more likely to leave wheel tracks. Moreover, the fact that this type of rock was used as a road construction material suggests that the technological level of the ancient kingdoms was not much higher than that of today.

“Someone has been here, and not just a small group,” Roach said, straightening up. “They might even have repaired the road to transport heavy supplies. As for when… well, it’s hard to say.”

Because he remembered that this was a secluded realm or ruins of a remote level, and the number of vehicles and people coming and going was estimated to be less than a hundred in several years. If it had been repaired along the way, it would not have left any obvious traces.

“This road was built after the capital was sealed off by magic, which means… I don’t know how strong the barrier you’re talking about is, but it definitely has loopholes, and the kind of loopholes that allow a large number of people to enter and exit.”

“How come you see?”

"When you were entering and leaving Tallinn, did no one pay attention to the roads?"

"Is there... a problem?" The roads in Tallinn City, like those here, are made of sandstone slabs. Thanks to the physique of the otherworldly beings and their supernatural powers such as alchemy, paving a sandstone road is not a serious problem.

"Didn't you notice the ditch-like marks all over those roads?"

"Huh?" Vivi and Livia exchanged a glance, completely bewildered as to what this meant. Wasn't that normal? All cities were like this, or rather, if there weren't cheap stone resources nearby, they would be dirt roads that turned into mud pits in the rain, were dusty in the summer, and as hard as steel plates in the winter.

"Those are marks left by wheels. Year after year, if no one repairs them, these marks will soon be left behind, and because of the texture of sandstone, the marks will be more obvious and wider." Sandstone is easily crushed by heavy carriages or horses' hooves, which is why the streets of Tallinn are always covered with potholes as large as washbasins and as small as bowls, as well as wide ditches.

"So, the roads here are too complete?"

“Not only is it too intact, but this layer of stone is also too thin. It is obviously a one-time use or not intended for long-term use. Moreover, it could not have been built during the ancient kingdom period, but was added later.” Roach took out a strangely shaped cylindrical shovel. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

The Luoyang shovel is a useful tool for both archaeology and tomb raiding. It is also very useful for digging up the tombs of ancient civilizations in other worlds. Soon, Luo Qi took a large sample of soil from the middle of the road.

"Hmm...look here." Immediately, three heads crowded around, but no one could see anything wrong with the structure of the pile of soil.

"The soil at the bottom is mainly yellow clay, mixed with calcined aggregate. The raw soil is calcined into mature soil, and then compacted with tools to become such dense clods. The most obvious thing is that you can see that the roots of these grasses hardly grow inwards."

To prevent rammed earth roads from being quickly covered by vegetation, mineral salts and other materials are usually added during the calcination process to prevent plants from taking root and growing.

"Then this is the middle layer, which is just ordinary small pebbles mixed with mud and sand. It looks more like the dried product of river sand and mud brought up by the river after it rose. Finally, there is the surface layer of sandstone."

"In other words, the lowest layer is the original road of the ancient kingdom. Over a long period of time, it was buried and eroded by the river, and covered with a layer of silt. The uppermost layer was laid later, and it must have been laid after the barrier was formed."

"Why not before?" Alessina didn't quite understand. What if they had built the road before setting up the barrier?

"In that case, this kind of project is no different from a one-off project. Besides, this should have been the main road of the kingdom back then, right? In terms of pedestrian and vehicle traffic, it would only take one or two days to leave indelible marks."

Roach shrugged. "Of course, if you say they finished the project in the morning and destroyed the country in the afternoon, then there's nothing I can do. I wonder how much money the guy who contracted the project actually made."

“So, the most reasonable explanation is that this road was actually rebuilt on the basis of the original main road of the kingdom, hmm…” Roach quickly found new evidence with his Luoyang shovel.

“Look at this…” He dug a white stone about two palms wide out of the ground. “What kind of stone is this?” It looked like marble, but it didn’t quite look like it.

“Alabaster, a specialty of the northern mountains, is very cheap and is usually used for building temples or altars. As for paving roads, it’s a bit luxurious, but not much more expensive than sandstone.” Alessina examined it for a while and nodded.

“These are the original road stones,” Roach pointed to a smooth, rounded indentation about three fingers wide on the thick stone. “These are the tracks left by wheels.”

"In other words, we can be certain that this road has at least two layers. One layer is a roadbed raised by rammed earth, on which these snowflake stone slabs were laid, forming the true main road of the kingdom. After many years of use, these obvious traces have been left. And before or after the fall of the kingdom, these stone slabs were destroyed by the rising river or simply by time and evil."

"Then when the rest of the people arrived, they found that the road was severely damaged. In order to transport supplies and people, they had to remove the damaged stones or simply lay a layer of fine soil on top and then reinforce the road surface with cheap sandstone to allow people to pass."

Moreover, Roach was certain that this approach indicated that the people who built this road were not small-scale, because if it were a small-scale operation, the simplest solution would be to fill the potholes and damaged areas with the silt and soil from the side and then compact it, thus creating a temporary passable road.

"So there's such knowledge in mud!" Alessina exclaimed. Cultured people are cultured people. She's played with mud countless times since she was a child, so why didn't she have this skill? It seems that smart people are different.

"Ha, there's a lot to learn about mud." After all, Roach used to deal with the knowledge of mud. Although he wasn't as specialized as the tomb raiders, he wasn't completely ignorant either.

“So we need to be more vigilant. I don’t know when this road was paved, but since someone sent a large amount of supplies in there, it’s impossible that nothing was done.” Roach stood up, and his companions nodded in agreement.

King's Road isn't long, or rather, the section preserved by the barrier and magic isn't long either. Soon, we arrived at the edge of the barrier that still shrouded the outer edge of the city outside the city walls. From here on, it was impossible to enter by normal means. We could clearly see through the barrier the amber-like commercial district frozen in time.

Amber light enveloped the panicked people and things, as if everything had been paused, like insects wrapped in honey. On the dividing line, a caravan worker dressed in ancient clothing sat on the ground, pointing to the sky above the royal city.

The merchant beside him frowned, examining the ledger in his hand. Further away, a small squad of guards assumed a jogging posture, but they were all frozen in mid-air.

“Sloth…” Livia nodded. This static phenomenon was a characteristic of the ritual field of the sin of sloth, and the Sloth Demon was much more troublesome than the Wrath Demon and the Greed Demon outside.

Those gargoyle-like amber statues, perched on buildings, by the roadside, and integrated with the frozen people and things of this generation, are dormant sloth demons. They do not move on their own, but will disguise themselves as various common objects and only attack when you pass by.

"Habits are like those of gargoyles." The little witch pulled out her book and pointed out the appearance of the Sloth Demon to everyone. Its true form is an amorphous, slimy substance, so it can imitate various shapes.

"Immune to physical attacks?"

"Hmm!" Sloth Demons are immune to physical attacks, including magical physical attacks, such as the flames controlled by the Little Witch. Only true magic power itself can harm Sloth Demons, such as that silvery-white soul fire.

In addition, the Sloth Demon also possesses many troublesome support spells, such as pulling friendly units into a state of stagnation, where they cannot deal damage and are also immune to physical damage, unless they are shattered by a powerful magical attack.

Moreover, there are many disruptive spells such as Stop and Sleep. The only saving grace is that the nature of Sloth Demons means they don't chase enemies or have any lethal skills; they are simply annoying.

"So it seems that if the barrier collapses at the same time..." then it's really doomed. No wonder the ancient kingdom couldn't withstand it and had to seal off the entire capital with a barrier.

Imagine those raging demons of anger and greed followed by these demons of sloth; the threat level would increase several times over.

Having reached the foot of the barrier, Livia laid out her belongings one by one and placed a lampstand for purifying the magic of great sins along the roadside. Near the barrier, the red light butterflies almost connected to form a bright red cloud, creating a vortex shape.

Roach needs to enchant the weapons of Alessina and Vivi in ​​the team to prevent them from being unable to deal damage to the Sloth Demons after they enter the barrier.

Alessina's weapon was the simplest. A greatsword wasn't enough to be effective in this situation and would only waste energy. So, Roach found her an ordinary one-handed straight sword, coated with a layer of crystal powder, and then treated with a magic potion to serve as the base material for carving runes.

"Does that Sloth Demon only suffer magical damage?"

"Hmm... a favor would also be acceptable."

"Understood." That makes things easier. Luo Qi took out his own highly concentrated essence of secret essence and carefully applied it to the blade. Soon, the straight sword turned a bright red.

"The elemental sword has no actual elemental function; it just has a lot of elemental magic power." It won't burn with flames or anything, but it will release a large amount of elemental magic power, enough to disperse the great sin magic power that makes up the Sloth Demon, thus causing substantial damage.

According to the information given by the little witch, the Sloth Demon has very poor resistance to magic, or rather, poor resistance to all active and lively energy. Therefore, the most active forms of magic, such as mental magic and elemental magic, are essential against this, while death magic, which is extremely dull, has the worst killing effect.

"Yeah, I got it."

“As for me, dragon breath is also a kind of magical breath, which does not require separate enchantment, and I am also a legitimate alchemist.” Vilandella showed Roach the magical alchemical bomb she had prepared, which was also filled with several times the amount of activated secret essence.

"Well, now we're just waiting for Livia's research progress." The little guy sat cross-legged on the ground, writing and drawing in his open notebook, leaving behind a bunch of incomprehensible text and pictures.

Chapter 116 Good Words Are Hard to Persuade a Damn Ghost

"How long will it take to complete the research?" Livia looked up at Roach, her mouth slightly open, and her emerald eyes revealed a look that, for the first time in a long time, said, "With your intelligence, it's difficult for me to explain this to you." However, she still gave a rough estimate: "Ten days, um, ten days."