Recap
Golden Retriever recalled, his body trembling subconsciously, “The leader didn’t allow this to be spread, but my grandfather said that he heard the two sorcerers calling that door the Gate of Hell.
The leader also said that when all the eyes of the stone statue on the door are opened, the beastmen will dominate the Holy Continent and usher in new glory.”
Chu Shici and Ji Huaizhe were stunned.
Gate of Hell?
But isn’t the place under the jurisdiction of the Goddess of Death the underworld?
___
After the Golden Retriever finished telling his grandfather’s story, he looked around nervously.
Chu Shici waited for some time, and when he saw that he didn’t continue, he asked, “Is that all?”
Golden Retriever nodded: “My grandfather only knows so much about the shadows. Before he died, he told me that the shadow is very dangerous. He has seen people parasitized by the shadow many times and started to go crazy and eat people.”
“When I first saw the witch crying out that she was hungry, I didn’t think of it. It wasn’t until I saw the shadow that I realized that her situation was consistent with what my grandfather had described.”
Chu Shici remembered again that the Golden Retriever reminded the Husky not to enter the forest at night.
He inquired the Golden Retriever.
The man scratched his long blond hair with a complicated expression: “It was the leader who recently told us not to go to the forest, but that’s not the point. I don’t want him to go in because every time the full moon approaches, the night in the forest becomes strange. Of course, it’s not that it is completely normal other times either.”
Ji Huaizhe frowned: “For example?”
“When you enter the forest at night, there is a certain probability that you will encounter an identical figure from behind. You may also encounter a situation where you will return to the starting point no matter which direction you walk in, or you may bump into something transparent, made with a material similar to a mirror.”
Chu Shici looked at the Golden Retriever carefully: “How do you know so much? Your grandfather told you all these?”
The Golden Retriever shook his head: “My grandfather doesn’t know about this. He is the leader’s guard and has been guarding the tribe all his life. What I said was all discovered by myself because I wanted to leave.”
“Why? Aren’t all your family and friends in the tribe?”
The golden retriever’s ears were lowered, and his body couldn’t stop trembling slightly.
“I don’t want to either, but the leader is crazy. I want to escape from the Erya Mountains first so that I can go to other beastmen territories and find people to help.”
He clamped his tail, with a cry in his voice: “The leader’s guard is a position passed down from generation to generation. My grandfather is a guard, and so am I. We are all the leader’s confidants, and he will order the guards to do some very confidential things in private.
Ever since I became the leader’s guard, I have discovered that every time the night of the full moon approaches, the leader will order us to take some young beastmen from the tribe and let them go out to wander outside, saying that they will become real warriors when they return. This is for the tribe. Only then can we become stronger.
People in the tribe have great trust in the leader and will not have any doubts. Whenever it is time to sign up, many parents will send their children of appropriate age there. Then the tribe will hold a very grand farewell ceremony for the warriors, and the young beastmen will walk out of the tribe with parents’ expectant eyes trailing behind them.”
The golden retriever started crying halfway through.
“But these are all lies. The leader ordered us to take them to the Goblin Cave and kill them. Even if we don’t kill, the leader will do it himself. If the guard resists, not only will he die, but so will his relatives and friends. The leader won’t let it go.
My mother gave birth to more children, and I have seven younger brothers and sisters at home. The youngest brother is still breastfeeding. I didn’t dare to resist at all, and secretly helped the leader to kill many compatriots.”
The Golden Retriever lowered his head and wiped away his tears. Chu Shici was in a complicated mood.
When the canine beastman’s mood calmed down a little, Chu Shici asked softly: “Why does your leader want to kill those young beastmen? Was it to feed them to the gargoyle?”
The golden retriever’s handsome face turned pale from crying, “No, that gargoyle has a very unique taste. It only likes to eat the rocks in the cave. The corpses of those young beastmen were given to your principal and vice principal.
I don’t know much about the Sorcerer Academy. The leader won’t take the initiative to let us go there. The beastmen believe that only by burying the body in the soil and letting the soul return to the forest can we be favored by the beast god after death.”
After the golden retriever finished speaking, he looked at Ji Huaizhe pleadingly: “I think you seem to be very interested in the shadow. If you want to know more about the shadow, I can ask others to help you collect clues.
In exchange, can you help me steal the beastman corpses back from the Sorcerer Academy? I want to bury them.”
Chu Shici smacked his lips: “I have a little question. Have you killed any new young beastmen recently?”
The guilt on Golden Retriever’s face became even more pronounced, and he answered softly: “It was just last week; after the night of the full moon.”
Chu Shici turned to look at Zhe-ge and asked him silently with his eyes, ‘Was the food served during those times only human flesh?’
Ji Huaizhe nodded silently.
Chu Shici: …
It’s over.
Given the voracious appetite of those in the Sorcerer Academy, even if there were some other small mountain villages in the Erya Mountains, they would have been devoured long ago.
He once pondered why was it that in this shabby place with no village or shop, the Sorcerer Academy was able to obtain so much human flesh for the apprentices to eat? It turned out that their supplies were from the beastmen tribe next door.
The golden retriever was still looking at them expectantly.
Chu Shici didn’t know what to say to him, but his Zhe-ge was as upright as ever.
While other sorcerers were eating human flesh, Ji Huaizhe was nibbling on vegetable salad. Maybe he thought he had done nothing wrong, so he spoke with confidence.
“Sorcerers are followers of the Goddess of Death and have the habit of eating corpses. We usually eat ordinary meat, but every time around the night of the full moon, the academy prepares human flesh for our meals.”
The Golden Retriever was stunned for a moment, not understanding why he suddenly said such words.
After he came to his senses, he burst into tears.
This canine beastman is good-looking, but his life is miserable. Now he was kneeling on the ground crying, and Chu Shici felt distressed just looking at him.
He wanted to jump down to comfort the Golden Retriever, but Zhe-ge held him down and stuffed him back into his pocket.
Ji Huaizhe lowered his eyes and looked at the golden retriever.
He was silent for a long time, then handed over a handkerchief and said in a cold voice: “I haven’t eaten those. I only eat ordinary meat.”
The golden retriever seemed to feel better, at least he no longer bared his teeth at him.
Chu Shici looked at the canine beastman and sighed silently.
If the Golden Retriever investigates further, he will find out sooner or later. If he came to question them then, it would be even more awkward.
There is no need to hide this kind of thing. Behind the cruel truth, there must be a conspiracy hidden.
The more the Golden Retriever knows, the better it will be for his investigation.
The canine beastman was an adult canine after all, and he quickly forcibly separated himself from his sorrow.
The information Ji Huaizhe gave him made him realize the seriousness of the matter.
There is something fishy about the alliance behind the Sorcerer Academy and the beastmen tribe, and there is more to it than meets the eye.
If the beastmen leader is so bold now as to give the young beastmen in the tribe to the Sorcerer Academy as a food source, in the future he may even resort to donating the entire tribe.
The matter was earth shattering that the Golden Retriever was going back to discuss countermeasures with his companions.
Chu Shici asked him what his plans were.
The canine beastman looked around cautiously, “As a canine beastman, I should be loyal to the leader, but I also want to protect my family and friends. If I have the chance, I will still find a way to leave the Erya Mountains secretly and pass this information to the outside world.”
He gritted his teeth: “If we really can’t get out, then we can only… change to a wiser leader.”
Chu Shici heard that the canine beastman wanted to rebel, and he thought for a while: “I heard that your leader is not in the tribe recently so the Husky was able to run around on his own, so there should be no one in the tribe to monitor you. Since the forest will only be abnormal at night, Then why don’t you try leaving during the day?”
Golden Retriever sighed: “I don’t know why, but I can’t get out without the leader.”
“Why? Did you get lost? Was it ghosts hitting the wall*, or something else?”
*(keep going back to the same place.)
“I can’t explain it clearly, but every time I feel like I’m about to leave this place, the world will suddenly start to spin. Then I will inexplicably return to the vicinity of the beastmen tribe near the exit of the Erya Mountains.”
The spinning of the world that the Golden Retriever mentioned, Husky has also encountered it before.
Chu Shici asked him to detail this phenomenon more carefully.
The golden retriever thought hard, several golden hairs fell out.
“You can’t see it clearly at night, but when you rotate during the day, you can vaguely see your reflection in the mirror, and some things around you will also be slightly distorted. Oh! Sometimes I see that as I rotate, several me appear all around me at the same time.”
The canine beastman struggled for a long time and finally managed to come up with a less abstract description.
“It felt a bit like…a spinning kaleidoscope.”
___
Because the husky has a good impression of Ji Huaizhe, the golden retriever also has a high impression of him.
In order to protect himself, Ji Huaizhe wanted to escape from the Sorcerer Academy. In order to save the beastmen tribe, the Golden Retriever wanted to leave the Erya Mountains.
The two hit it off immediately and formally formed a team.
Ji Huaizhe is responsible for investigating the anomalies in the Sorcerer Academy, while the Golden Retriever tries his best to find out the secrets of the shadow and the beastmen tribe.
Before leaving, he gave Ji Huaizhe a small whistle. The style of the whistle was the same as the one given by Husky.
This whistle is unique to the canine beastmen, and only canine beastmen can hear the whistle.
After each canine is born, his mother makes him a whistle. She hopes they can find a good owner who is willing to play the whistle and play games with him one day in the future.
The husky and the golden retriever obviously did not regard Ji Huaizhe as their owner, and they only gave it to him for him to contact them.
Although the Golden Retriever has explored the woods many times, he still has not understood the laws governing the changes in the forest.
He only knew that the possibility of anomalies occurring at night was much higher, and the probability of anomalies occurring on the night of a full moon was even greater.
It was getting late now. After separating from Golden Retriever, Ji Huaizhe hurried back to the Sorcerer Academy.
Chu Shici had nothing to do, so he sat in Zhe-ge’s pocket and meditated.
The system shared the good news with him, saying that its boss’s side was going very smoothly, and now only the Supervision Department was still struggling.
The Ministry of Supervision is a prosecutorial and law enforcement agency, they have their own armed forces.
The rebellion of the combat team members has not yet been leaked. Everyone and the commander-in-chief thinks that the invaders are from another dimension.
After all, after the combat team was disbanded, without Zhe-ge and his team to guard against the opposing forces, there were frequent breaches.
The Minister of Supervision also sent a letter of help to the original members of the combat team, hoping that they could reorganize the disbanded combat team and help the Ministry of Supervision survive this crisis. As a condition, they promised to let Zhe-ge leave the world of punishment after the crisis was over.
The system’s boss is ready to take advantage of the situation and take the opportunity to stuff some members of the combat team in to protect their former combat leader who is locked inside, and then cooperate with outside forces to defeat them in one fell swoop.
The operation was proceeding according to plan and Chu Shici was very happy to hear it.
But this world of punishment was a little weird, and he didn’t know if they could hold on until members of the combat team came to save them.
Seeing that the system had nothing to do, Chu Shici dragged it with him to discuss the situation of the forest.
‘Ge, let’s discuss.’
[No! I don’t want to discuss anything with you, I don’t understand anything every time! Just tell me the conclusion directly.]
‘…It’s just because I’m not sure that I wanted you to think about it with me.’
The system sneered: [Hehe, it’s as if my brain will be of any help.]
Chu Shici gave the system a kick.
The system deliberately disgusted him, [Beauty, kick me harder and give me more rewards.]
‘……Get out.’
After arguing with the system for a while, Chu Shici fell into deep thought again.
When Grandpa Golden Retriever was young, the forest was still normal, which meant that the problem was not with the Erya Mountains themselves. The reason why these abnormalities occur is that someone has set up some kind of formation here.
Senior Tom, the Husky, Ji Huaizhe and the Golden Retriever have all seen their figures in the forest. They also encountered a situation similar to a ghost hitting a wall. No matter where they went, they would always return to the starting point.
But after Senior Tom reported this matter to the Sorcerer Academy, other students in the Academy came out to join in on the fun and kept trying for several days, but no one noticed anything strange.
When something happened to Senior Tom, Ji Huaizhe had not yet arrived in the academy, and there was no intersection between them.
There are no similarities shared between the two sorcerer apprentices and the two canine beastmen.
The night before yesterday, Ji Huaizhe went to the forest alone, and something unusual happened in the forest. When he dragged Lilith with him last night, the abnormalities disappeared.
At present, the conditions for triggering the formation should have little to do with the people entering the forest.
In order to find external aid, the golden retriever made many attempts multiple times and in different locations, but ultimately failed to leave the forest.
This also shows that the triggering rules of the formation have little to do with time and place.
Chu Shici frowned in thought.
Who, when, where and how you enter are not triggers.
So how does this formation work?
A sudden thought flashed in his mind, and Chu Shici instantly felt a chill running down his spine.
Who said that the formation must be triggered automatically?
In order to forcefully sign a contract with Zhe-ge, Vicente used many manual activated formations.
Chu Shici immediately raised his head, “Ge! Zhe-ge! Go back to the beastmen tribe first. I’m worried that something will happen to that golden retriever!”
Ji Huaizhe paused and said, “What?”
“The formations in this forest are most likely manually operated by humans. There are too many strange things here. Don’t go back to the Sorcerer Academy yet. Go back to the beastmen tribe. The beastmen there may be able to help you.”
Ji Huaizhe reacted quickly and walked back decisively.
Yet, the moment he turned around, the world in front of him suddenly began to spin slowly.
___
T/N: Oh no. Please please please let the Golden Retriever be safe.
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Update: 1 minute later~
- After becoming enemies with the lord god
- Blog
- Completed
- Don't talk to me!
- Dropped
- Ghost Marriage
- Hunger Academy
- I opened a safe house in the Infinite Stream
- Notices
- Ongoing
- The Dragon Lord is Weak and Helpless but Has a Big Appetite [Interstellar]
- Want to ascend? Then fall in love.
- What can I do, I'm not human.
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