Miss Witch, please don't leave your fragrance everywhere

Even if Angelica told Lady Knight that goblins reproduced by consuming magic power and spitting out eggs like Lord Piccolo, Lady Knight wouldn't understand. Anyway, she should deny her wrong idea first.

91 The Witch Lady and the Gu Hero

After a brief exchange, Angelica roughly understood the ins and outs of the matter.

The knight lady is named Victoria. She does not live near the Dokum Mine. Similar to Angelica, Victoria is a knight lady who travels around the human world. In this age when knights are generally lackeys of the nobles, it is rare for Victoria to have a heart that promotes the spirit of chivalry.

"Miss Victoria must have only been in the industry for a short time, right?"

"We just started traveling a month ago...Huh? How do you know?"

"Because Miss Victoria doesn't look very smart, the reason she wasn't sold must be because she's new."

"Who isn't smart... I'm a top graduate of the Knight Academy!"

Victoria was very proud of it. Although Angelica had never attended the Knight Academy, the Knight Academy was essentially a place to train top fighters who could use magic. There were no requirements for command ability. In other words, magical aptitude was the most important factor, and IQ could be completely ignored. It was actually easier to trick people into working for them if they had a low IQ.

"Then Mr. Honor Student, why do you think that the goblins kidnapped the woman?"

"...I traveled around here and heard from the villagers that many women in the village had disappeared inexplicably recently. I also found out that there happened to be a mine where goblins settled in this area. Isn't the answer obvious? It must be the goblins who kidnapped the poor women. How can I tolerate such injustice as I bear the name of the Holy Light? So I broke into the goblin camp alone, but was defeated twice by them using despicable means! What a shame!"

Victoria became more and more excited as she spoke, but the goblins who had come to listen in on the discussion, noticing that Victoria and Angelica had already sat down to discuss the matter face to face, expressed different opinions.

"No! It's clearly this human woman who is being weird!"

"That is, we didn't do anything... The first time she chased us, she sprained her ankle and fell to the ground crying. In the end, we took out the medical kit and bandaged her so that she could walk down the mountain by herself."

By the way, although Victoria was wearing armor, her boots were high heels. To be honest, Angelica wanted to know if this design would really not hinder her movements in battle. But on second thought, in the world of swords and magic, we shouldn't care so much. After all, even the stockings were of ridiculously high quality.

"A few days later, she came running over again, yelling for revenge. Then, as we were chasing each other, she suddenly said she had a stomachache... She lay on the ground, motionless..."

"She kept saying things like, 'Kill me... Even if you get my body, you can't get my heart.'"

"We didn't dare to intervene. A few hours later, she staggered up and walked away."

Angelica recalled what she had seen and heard on the way to the Dokum Mine. She did not use space warp to jump here directly, but flew slowly on a broom.

"You must have eaten the timid mushroom."

"Cowardly mushroom?"

"A rare poisonous mushroom that can be used as a material for alchemy and medical treatment. People who eat the timid mushroom will become weak in their limbs for a short period of time, but..."

Angelica looked at Victoria meaningfully.

"The cowardly mushroom can be easily removed with magic. As an outstanding graduate of the Knight Academy, you must have mastered purification magic. Why don't you use it?"

"That's because I accidentally forgot!"

"You actually hope to be picked up by a goblin, right?"

“No, no, no!!!”

Victoria was so incoherent that she almost bit her tongue. There was nothing she could do about it. The other female students in the Knight Academy all thought that goblins were creatures that liked to capture human women. It was better to say that novels about female knights captured by goblins had always been popular among female knights. As for spraining her ankle and eating the timid mushroom, it was really just an accident. It was definitely not Victoria's desire to lose the battle.

"Anyway, you should realize that goblins are not that kind of creatures. It's just that they have no way to speak out, so they are misunderstood."

"Oh... I understand. I will go to the town and explain to the villagers..."

Victoria dropped her shoulders in frustration. The nearby villagers' misunderstanding of the goblins started with Victoria's arrival. After all, their previous agreement to let the goblins work in the Dokum Mine was enough to prove that they had no prejudice against the goblins.

"But if it's not the Goblins, then who kidnapped the women from the nearby village?"

"How would I know... Well, I don't have anything else to do anyway, so it doesn't matter if I go with you."

Angelica's plan is to look for the descendants of other heroes, but there are no clues at the moment, so she might as well go with Victoria to solve the missing cases in the village. Besides—

"You are such a good person."

...This kid doesn't seem very smart. I can probably figure it out in one night.

Angelica and Victoria said goodbye to the goblins of Dokum Mine. Victoria apologized to the goblins solemnly and promised to restore the innocence of the goblins of Dokum Mine.

Angelica had used magic to search the Dokum mines before Victoria arrived, and confirmed that there were no signs of human life or debris inside. There was no doubt that the disappearance of the women in the nearby village had nothing to do with the goblins.

There are many rural villages and a town near the Dokum Mine. Women have been missing in the village one after another recently. The governor has offered a large sum of money as a reward for clues, but so far there has been no clue.

"What? Not a goblin?"

"I'm so sorry! I was wrong. The goblins are innocent. The real murderer might be someone else."

"Who is it then?"

"This... I have no idea yet."

Victoria brought Angelica to meet the Archon. When the Archon heard that Victoria had found nothing after several days of investigation, he couldn't help but reveal a distressed expression.

Angelica spoke up: "Mr. Archon."

"Oh...you are? A friend of the knight?"

"I am her master."

“Hmm?! Master, are you going to put a collar on me and keep me like a livestock…? I won’t give in!”

That being said, Victoria's wandering eyes were totally unconvincing, and Angelica actually just wanted to tease Victoria.

Ignoring the Archon's bewilderment, Angelica continued to ask.

"Miss Victoria is the only one in charge of investigating the disappearance?"

"Yes. We don't have many guards here to begin with, and we can't spare any extra personnel for patrols these days. We can only hire adventurers to investigate. But no matter how we strengthen patrols, disappearances are still happening, and there are no clues at all. It's really weird."

92 Hannibal the Man-Eating Tree

According to the Archon, no matter how hard they patrolled recently, they could not find any clues about the disappearances. He suspected that the culprit had used the power of magic to cover up the truth, so he entrusted the entire investigation to Victoria.

I wonder how he would feel if he knew that Victoria had been rushing towards the meaningless Dokum Mine in the past few days without conducting any substantive investigation.

"Can I look into the clerk's history? I think there might be some clues there."

"Investigating history? If it can help you catch the criminal, that's fine, but please don't take the historical archives away."

Victoria followed Angelica in confusion and went to the clerk's room to ask for the town's historical records. The rural areas near the town were under the jurisdiction of the town's governor, and the history of other villages could also be found here.

"Why do we need to check historical archives? Shouldn't we go to the missing person's village to collect evidence?"

However, Angelica did not answer Victoria's doubts. She opened the history recorded by the clerk and found the evidence she expected.

"It's just as I thought... you see."

Historical archives clearly record that about ten years ago, the land in nearby rural areas began to become fertile, the harvest increased year by year, and life in the small town and the countryside suddenly became prosperous. Some families even began to have the financial resources to hire full-time servants.

Victoria looked left and right but couldn't see what was wrong.

But Angelica, who already had an idea about this, found the Archon again.

"Mr. Archon, have there been any missing persons in the nearby villages before this year?"

"There are some every year... but never as many as this year."

"Huh? Does it happen every year?"

Victoria was shocked. She couldn't help wondering why the governor didn't mention this matter. She had always thought that the disappearances happened only this year.

Perhaps knowing Victoria's confusion, the Archon took the initiative to explain.

"Because we have a good harvest here, people choose to move here every year. Some come, and some leave. It's hard to tell whether many of them left without saying goodbye or disappeared. If we have to track everyone's whereabouts in detail, we simply don't have enough manpower."

"I have already found the information I need, and I roughly know what's going on."

"Then I wish you a safe journey."

Angelica and Victoria said goodbye and left the town. Angelica still did not choose to investigate in the countryside. She pulled Victoria into a sparsely populated woods.

Victoria finally couldn't hold back her doubts and stood in front of Angelica.

"Wait a minute! What's going on? You act like you know everything. I don't understand anything. Doesn't this make me look like an idiot?"

"So you're not stupid?"

"I am a top student at the Knight Academy! Calling me an idiot is an insult to the hundreds of years of history of the Knight Academy. I demand that you apologize immediately."

"Then let me test you. There are four academic terms for timid mushrooms. Do you know what they are?"

“………………I’m sorry, I’m stupid.”

"Just kidding, there's only one kind."

Angelica dodged Victoria's angry punch with a smile. This person was really easy to tease.

But to be precise, it is true that it is related to the timid mushroom.

"Okay, I'll answer you seriously. The timid mushroom is not a common plant. It only grows in certain environments."

Angelica said as she drew a magic circle.

"Clovers Sequence V. Regional Search."

Area search, different from the star map, is a kind of magic that checks things within a certain area. Just like in the wild in the survival game, the area search will instantly list all the items within the range and feed them back to Angelica's mind, and tell her in which direction these items are.

Although it does not apply to higher intelligent life forms, plants and animals will also be retrieved.

No matter how stupid Victoria was, she finally discovered the problem when she saw Angelica drawing the magic circle.

"Eh...the magic circle I was just in...the ley lines of this land...?"

The ley lines are a symbol of the surging magic power of the earth, representing the vitality of the land, and it will also be fed back to the magic circle. Generally speaking, drawing a magic circle on land with normal ley lines and casting magic will consume some of the magic power of the earth and then replenish some of the magician's own magic power.

But if the ground veins are abnormal, it will consume more of the magician's magic power, and even worse, it will disrupt the activation of magic, and all of these will be reflected in the magic circle.

Victoria discovered that there was something wrong with the magic circle drawn by Angelica, which meant that there was a serious problem with the land's geodynastic veins. However, Victoria was even more confused and puzzled. Historical archives clearly recorded that the land was fertile and suitable for farming. Logically speaking, problems with the geodynastic veins should also affect farming.

After Angelica finished her investigation, she walked deeper into the forest while continuing to explain to Victoria.

"The timid mushroom is a plant that is easily affected by the earth veins. Magical power flows in the earth veins, but this magic is extremely toxic to the timid mushroom. Therefore, unless it is cultivated artificially, wild timid mushrooms are very rare. They can only grow on land with damaged earth veins. The earth will heal its own wounds, so the earth veins can always recover normally. After recovery, the timid mushroom will become extinct again. It is indeed a very timid plant."

Unfortunately, the Shrooms in this world cannot fire spores.

"However, there is a special plant that can damage the earth veins and create a living environment for the timid mushrooms. Do you know what it is?"

“Could it be…?!”

"bingo."

Angelica and Victoria came to a dry riverbed somewhere in the forest. It was a sparsely populated place, and even the most naughty children would not run to this place.

In the dry riverbed was a plant that Victoria was stunned to see. It was the plant she had learned about in textbooks. It looked completely different from other trees and was more like a giant Venus flytrap.

"The Hannibal Tree... aka the Man-Eating Tree."

Angelica said its name. It has a scary name, but judging from its appearance, it looks like the tree is welcoming everyone who climbs it with open arms. But that is just a disguise of the man-eating tree. If a living creature, even a human, falls into the trap of the man-eating tree, the trap will close immediately, just like a Venus flytrap catching an insect, and decompose it with digestive juices.

In order to catch prey more easily, the man-eating tree grows in low places, so that even children may mistake it for a foothold and jump into the hunting trap, making it easier for it to hunt.

Victoria clearly remembers the lecturer's comments in class: the killer plants bred by nature are capable of decomposing a person down to the bones without leaving any trace.

"The missing villagers were all killed by it...?"

"Not entirely, Miss Victoria. The Hannibal tree is also a plant and cannot be moved."

93 The Witch Lady and the Sacrifice

"Miss Victoria, do you know anything about living sacrifice?"

"Live sacrifice? Of course I know. In order to offer sacrifice to the gods, devout believers will carefully select fat cattle and sheep, and kill them to offer to the gods in the sacrifice."

Miss Victoria is a religious knight lady. Many knight academies are funded by the church. In addition to learning magic and fighting, knights also have to learn to pray.

"In some places, there are similar beliefs in living sacrifices, but their sacrifices include not only livestock, but also... humans."

"Alas?!"

Victoria shuddered.

"No, that's impossible. That's too cruel. Besides, only evil gods and demons would be happy with sacrificing living people." "But if there are clear benefits, that's another matter, Miss Victoria. For example, making the land fertile, you should know that the characteristics of the Hannibal tree include more than just cannibalism."