Things about the female knight in black stockings

Great ability.

This is what Celant, a former top eight duelist and current coach, said about Valencia's magic abilities.

Needless to say, [Updraft] and [Skirt Explosion], if they hit an opponent who is ashamed of themselves, they will almost instantly kill them.

[Slippage on the soles of the feet] and [Mysterious bulge] are also favored by Celant. In addition to being difficult to prevent without any warning when activated, this trick will not affect Valencia's normal fighting rhythm.

Because only vision and thoughts are needed to activate the trick, when activating the trick, Valencia can completely cooperate with the offensive movements of her hands and feet to seize the moment of the opponent's physical imbalance to expand the advantage or directly defeat the opponent to win.

This is an excellent ability that is difficult for opponents to target even if they learn the information in advance.

Of course, the combination of [Updraft] and [Skirt Explosion] can still be targeted, and it's easy to target... just don't wear a skirt.

If it were a serious duel match, the duelists who knew that Valencia had such skills would definitely choose to wear tight pants when facing her.

However, America's duel competition is a commercial competition, everything is for the sake of looking good, everything is for making money from the audience, and by the way, promoting the various chambers of commerce participating in the event.

Just like the idol girls in Valencia's previous life almost always wore miniskirts when performing on stage, the beautiful girl contestants in the duel competition are also dressed mainly in hot and bold styles, or like Valencia's black silk and silver dress. The Armor Paladin outfit has a special temptation brought by status.

To put it simply, beautiful girls participating in duels must wear short skirts...even if they don't want to wear them themselves, the chamber of commerce behind them that sponsors their competition will force them to wear them.

All in all, these tricks that Frigia once used to tease her maids were perfectly suitable for Valencia to use in America's dueling competition.

. . . . .

This year's New Year's Eve royal banquet was generally similar to last year's.

To be honest, the biggest difference is that after Valencia becomes the Sunflower Baroness, she can no longer attend night banquets with Tia among the noble families in the side hall. She needs to stay in the main hall with other kingdom ministers. His Majesty the King ate and listened to His Majesty the King talk about France's development plan for the new year.

The status of a concubine is almost the lowest among the nobles who can attend the palace night banquet.

But there are no unscrupulous nobles looking for trouble for Valensa... Valensa and Tia are publicly engaged, with the Brittania family and the military counselor as their backers, which is enough to make most of the small nobles hate Valensa. I can't afford to offend him.

And the big nobles whose family power is not afraid of Britannia more or less know the identity of the Knight of the Inner Palace of Valencia... This identity is even more important, and no one wants to find trouble.

Therefore, the palace night banquet that Valencia attended for the first time in the main hall went very smoothly. She also gained a lot of knowledge and took the opportunity to become familiar with many ministers of the kingdom.

During this palace night banquet, His Majesty the King and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince not only talked about the Kingdom's development plan for the new year as in previous years, but also announced a major event.

Royal Princess Elsess Farlan will lead an envoy to America after the New Year to enhance friendship between the two countries and negotiate more cooperation.

Of course, this is a high-sounding statement, and everyone can understand the subtext - because Her Highness the Princess was too poor and had a bad reputation in the past, the young men of the country's big aristocrats disliked her, so Her Highness the Princess, who failed in the blind date, had no choice but to go to Ami. Lika found someone to marry.

This kind of thing is not new in the history of France. Marriage with friendly countries is one of the responsibilities of a royal princess. There were not too many French princesses who married to the Four Islands Alliance and America in the past. Now there is another Ai Elseth is also normal.

Of course, Valencia knew very well that Elsess's blind date in America was actually an excuse. The real goal was to participate in the hunt for the ghost tribe in order to obtain enough spinal cord of the ghost tribe to create a sword that could control the undead. .

The Ghost Tribe lives on the polar ice sheet north of America, and together with the wild beasts and fog demons, they are known as the three-day plague on the continent of Frenoia.

Wild beasts are called natural disasters because they are difficult to exterminate and have extremely strong reproductive capabilities. Millions of them are killed by France every year, and they can still launch wars of the same scale the next autumn.

The Autumn War in France seems relatively easy now because the two sides have been fighting for thousands of years. The French military has rich experience and a nearly inviolable fortress defense line.

Before the fortress defense line in the north was established, France was having a hard time every autumn, and even almost lost the northern territory several times... In the end, it was the Church of the Sun that sent support from the Divine Continent to drive the wild beasts back to the Wild Ridge. of land.

The name of the wild beast as a natural disaster is definitely worthy of its name.

Not to mention the fog demons that come from the sea. This kind of enemy has been ravaging the four-island alliance and human coastal towns for thousands of years. However, humans don’t even know what the fog demons are, where they come from, and what their purpose is. They can only fight in each place. The foggy weather tightened the nerves and passively defended oneself.

In many towns near the coast, especially those in the Four Islands Alliance, many people will be scared to cry when they hear that fog is coming... not only children, but adults too!

As the Ghost Clan is as famous as the Wild Beasts and Fog Demons, they are naturally not weak... Although the number of individuals of the Ghost Clan is small, and they sleep like hibernation for more than eight months every year, their The threat is no less threatening.

Although Frigia's research now shows that the ghosts are actually living creatures, before this, people regarded the ghosts as high-level undead... They were still the kind who were not afraid of the weaknesses of the holy light and other undead. The perfect undead.

This misunderstanding is naturally related to the ability of the ghost clan.

Just like the dragon blood warlock can naturally use the spell-like ability to cast dragon breath, the ghost tribe can naturally use the spell-like ability to use various undead spells, creating and controlling the undead with almost no limit.

A bit like the brood zombies in various biochemical apocalyptic works of Valencia's previous life, even the most ordinary individual among the ghosts has the potential to destroy an entire human town.

Even the Plague of the Undead of the Ghost Tribe is more terrifying than the zombie virus... The zombie virus also requires zombies to bite or scratch humans in order to be infected, while the Plague of the Undead of the Ghost Tribe is similar to the halo effect in the game. As long as humans enter the affected area, If the resistance is not enough, it will be transformed into an undead!

The ghost tribe is also intelligent, and what some ghost tribes with bad personalities like to do most is to sneak into a populated human town, spread the undead plague, and destroy human civilization!

Chapter 17 From the depths of the ice sheet

For a long time, America suffered from the ghosts.

Not only were many towns destroyed due to the ravages of the ghosts, but more Americans died at the hands of humans themselves.

Just like Valencia's witch hunt in her previous life, during that time the Americans were extremely afraid of the Hades. They would believe in the principle of "killing the wrong rather than letting go" and would kill and burn anyone who was suspected of being a Hades. As a result, almost no ghosts were actually killed, but instead countless ghosts were created.

There is nothing that can be done about it... Except for the fact that their skin is whiter, the ghosts are completely indistinguishable from humans in appearance. They are a bit like vampires, but do not have the weaknesses of vampires.

Even the paladins and priests of the Church of the Sun have no reliable means to distinguish the ghosts from humans.

It wasn't until the Council of Sages made an initial breakthrough in their research on the bodies of the ghosts that a special potion that could identify the ghosts was invented.The ghost tribe's favorite behavior of sneaking into human towns and then spreading the undead plague was greatly curbed.

However, even if there is a potion that can identify the ghost tribe, the risk of the ghost tribe sneaking into the town and spreading the undead plague still exists and cannot be ignored.

Therefore, in order to minimize the disaster caused by the ghosts, as early as hundreds of years ago, America not only strictly guarded the entrance and exit of the town, but also took the initiative to hunt the ghosts.

For some reason that is still unexplained, the ghosts sleep in their lairs like hibernation for more than eight months of the year.

This is the best hunting opportunity for humans... Every time during the hibernation period of the ghost tribe, America will send a large number of hunting teams and even regular troops to hunt on the periphery of the polar ice fields to hunt those hibernating in their nests. The ghost clan found them and cleaned them up.

It's a pity that just like Fran has been unable to eradicate the wild beasts, America can't completely eliminate the ghost clan no matter how hard she hunts.

Because the periphery of the polar ice sheet is like the remote countryside of human beings to the ghost tribe, their real settlement is the interior and central area of ​​the polar ice sheet... There are even legends that deep in the ice sheet, there is a huge tower made entirely of ice and snow. The ghost city.

But it's just a legend, no one has seen it with their own eyes...or maybe no one who has seen the ghost city has ever left the polar ice field.

In the inner and central areas of the polar ice sheets, the temperature is below minus 100 degrees for a long time.Even a powerful person with a brilliant level would have their combat effectiveness greatly reduced in that environment. The lighthouse and the pearl would be as fragile as ordinary people, and there would be no chance of survival under the pearl.

Therefore, the humans in America can only hunt on the periphery of the polar ice fields to minimize the harm caused by the ghosts as much as possible.

This time Elsess is on an envoy to America, and she will bring a French army to participate in the hunting operation against the ghost tribe to show the friendship and goodwill of the other human countries.

Of course, its real target is the bone marrow of the ghost clan, which is used to create weapons that can control the undead.

According to Frigia, the special substance in the spinal cord of the ghost tribe is actually the crystallization of technology at the peak of Eve's civilization.

That is also one of the means used by the Eve civilization to fight the catastrophe. It is a combination of biotechnology, alchemy and necromancy. The purpose is to transform living creatures into self-aware undead.

The original intention of the Eve civilization to do this is actually quite simple... They believe that since the essence of the catastrophe is the depletion of energy, then as long as people are transformed into undead that can survive without food, they should be able to survive the catastrophe, right?

The result proves that of course it is not possible... Undead creatures do not need food, but they also need energy to maintain their activities.In that catastrophe when the energy of the entire universe is exhausted, even the undead that theoretically do not need to rest will stop moving due to the loss of energy.

How the failed undead plan of the Eve Civilization evolved into today's Hell Ghost Clan, Frigia is not sure, but after getting the corpse of the Hell Ghost Clan, Frigia has completely analyzed the control of the Hell Ghost Clan. The secret of the undead.

The necromancer's control of the undead is actually a puppet show with magic as the thread...the puppet will stop moving if the thread is cut, and the same will happen if the puppet master is beheaded.

The Ghost Clan is different. The undead they create are all self-aware... Even the undead that are too low-level to form self-awareness will still have survival instincts, such as eating and evolving.

Such undead creatures can objectively be regarded as a kind of living entity.

The way the ghosts control this kind of undead creature is not as crude as the necromancer directly taking over the body with mental power, but by controlling emotions through a kind of biological information.

The undead controlled by the ghost clan are objectively free.

It's just that these undead have a very special and strong feeling for the ghost clan.

Like a young boy who obeys the advice of a girl he has a crush on.

It's like a fanatic fan who loses his mind and obeys his idol when faced with it.

Like a devout believer who has no doubts about God's will when facing a priest.

It is by relying on special biological information to control emotions that the ghost clan can control those undead souls that are actually free in theory.

The organ that the ghost clan can produce this kind of biological information is their spinal cord.

So theoretically, if a weapon could be made from the spinal cord of the Hades, it would be possible to control the undead like the Hades.

For example, if everything goes well with Elsess's plan, an army of undead will become licking dogs who have a crazy crush on her, become fans who are mindlessly infatuated with her, and become devout believers in her, thus being completely dominated by her.

In this way, Elsess no longer has to be troubled by forced marriage, Valencia and Tia will have a reliable ally in the royal family, and the plan to exterminate the wild beasts can be smoothly advanced, and everyone is happy.

Therefore, Valensa is also very serious about America's hunting operation of the ghost clan.

Acquiring the extremely colorful giant chicken, hunting the ghost tribe, and hunting down Savat Langdon are the three most important purposes of Valencia and Tia going to America.

Of course, if you want to compare these three goals, the most important thing is to get the extremely colorful giant chicken.

Because there was also an army from Fran that participated in the hunt for the Styx, and the main force behind the search for Sarvat Langdon was also the Church of the Sun and the Sage Tower. Even if Valencia and Tia did not participate, there was a high probability of success.

Only getting the extremely colorful giant chicken from that collector was something that Valensa and Tia had to figure out on their own.

After getting the information about the extremely colorful giant chicken, Valensa and Tia have been trying to find out more about the collector.

It's a pity that they are only the Knights of the Inner Temple of Fran and the heirs of Britannia of Fran. All the intelligence channels are not very useful in America... It has been several days since the incident, and nothing of value has been obtained. information.

Chapter 18 Preparing to Sail

The Sun Church's database contains the collector's detailed information, and Valencia can also access it through her own authority.

But what to say about this kind of information... Just like Valencia's personal file in her previous life, it mainly records a person's resume and family relationships.As for personal privacy and hobbies, there is quite little content in the information.

What Valensa could find out through the Sun Church database was the identity, status and general strength of the collector, but she knew very little about his preferences and personality.

As for the extremely colorful giant cock, Valensa is determined to get it, but she doesn't want to use force until she has no choice. It is best to get it through trading.

However, in most cases, this kind of transaction of precious collectibles does not involve gold coins. It is all about bartering for precious items that have the same price but no market.

It is very important to find out the other party's preferences and prepare in advance to complete this kind of transaction.

Visiting the collector in person will be Valencia's first goal after arriving in America.

This is one of the main reasons why Valencia chose to participate in the duel competition as a cover.

It's not impossible to sneak into Elsess's envoy to go to America like Tia did, but the envoy will definitely be closely watched by all parties. It's very difficult to do some small tricks or to leave the team to go to some places privately. inconvenient.

But participating in a duel competition does not have this problem.

The duel competition is a large-scale event that lasts for half a year. There are competitions every day, and the competition venues are also distributed in various towns throughout America.

It is normal for a duel competitor to appear in any corner of America. It can be said that he is preparing for the competition in advance.

This is what Valencia values ​​most about qualifying for the duel competition... With her status in France and the Church of the Sun, without the excuse of participating in the competition, it would be easy to attract attention by running around in America.

And Valencia's goal of going to America destined her not to stay in a small area.

. . . . .

Princess Elsess's mission to America had a huge impact, and even the eldest lady of the Nola Chamber of Commerce, Yahiro, changed her plan.

Yahiro's original plan was to take people to compete in America as pure entertainment. He would only bring his close friends and relevant personnel with him, and use the teleportation array to get there. He would have time to leave two days before the official start of the qualifying competition.

However, Elsess was sent as an envoy to America, and in order to show her friendship and participate in the hunt for the Hades, she would also take half of Fran's naval fleet with her and take the sea route along the coastline on the west side of the Frenoia continent.

This has made many chambers of commerce brighten their eyes and plan to get involved.

Since it is difficult to transport large amounts of goods through long-distance teleportation arrays, trade between France and America has always been by sea.

But the sea route is much more dangerous than the land route... Marine monsters that are more powerful than land monsters, weird and dangerous fog demons, and even wild beast pirates active in the coastal areas of the Wild Ridge are all what merchants use when transporting by sea. Risks to be taken.

Although Fran's naval fleet also protects merchant ships during daily patrols, the collective action of nearly half of the fleet is still rare and is an excellent opportunity.

The chambers of commerce that have maritime trade with America all plan to take advantage of Elsess's mission to sell more goods to America, and the Nora Chamber of Commerce is no exception.

Therefore, the original plan to leave in the second half of the new year was moved forward by nearly 10 days, and Valensa had to make a large purchase with Tia to go to America.

The first thing the two women bought was a large amount of ingredients, especially various fruits and vegetables and monster meat.

Valencia even spent a lot of food points to redeem some rare ingredients with great taste from the Food Association.

This is not because the two of them are too much foodies, but in America, these ingredients are more useful hard currency than gold.

If you want to expand your social network there, or even establish a friendly relationship with that collector, these ingredients can help.

Because although America is also protected by the Sun Goddess, the food resources there are much worse than those in Franke, and the food self-sufficiency rate is even less than 70%.

Before the establishment of maritime trade with France, if the Church of the Sun had not been providing food to ordinary people in America for free, America would probably be like wild beasts, and many poor people would die of hunger every year.

There are two main reasons for America’s low food production.

First, America is located close to the polar ice sheet, too far north. Many towns even have snow all year round. Even in the warmest time of the year, the temperature is only as high as the coldest time in winter in the Kingdom of France. almost.

The second reason is because of America's topography. There are very few plains here, and most of them are rugged mountains. It is difficult to develop either planting or animal husbandry... Even with the blessing of the goddess and the help of magic, the food output is not even enough to satisfy the people. .

Of course, as a place blessed and protected by the goddess, although America has low food output, its mineral resources are ridiculously rich.

All kinds of metals are as cheap as stones in America, and magic crystals are just glass beads. Some low-quality magic crystals are even piled on both sides of the street, and no one will take them.