This escort mission was strange.
An ordinary girl... Even though she claimed to be a detective, they didn't take her seriously at first.
It was already outrageous to dispatch precious Flint Knights to serve as guards, not to mention that one of them was a gold-level knight like Frick.
...This includes the several orders issued jointly by the Pope of the Order and King Sarah during the audience at the White Shadow Palace.
All these factors combined indicated that this girl named Aisuen Hitzfeld was quite special, but based on their encounters and observations along the way, to be honest, they couldn't see what was special about her.
She is pretty, but there are many girls in Wayne Port who are prettier than her.
One eye, unhealthy gray hair...these are all demerits.
Appearance doesn't show anything special, and neither does strength.
According to Frick's observation, the target of protection, named Aisun Hitzfeld, has at best only half the physical strength of his peers.
He is also a divine devourer, suffering from insomnia. Needless to say, his spirit is extremely weak, probably comparable to or even stronger than that of a golden squirrel.
At this point he thought the matter was settled, thinking that the girl might have offended someone, or that it was just coincidence or bad luck that attracted such attention.
Many years ago, the identity of a God Devourer was special enough. But as time went by, most God Devourers could not demonstrate any value, and the royal family and the church gradually relaxed their attention to them.
There are still controls, but that's it. Just let them fend for themselves - most of the Devourers don't live long anyway, and will die on their own in a few years.
But now they suddenly realized that they had really underestimated her.
This ability to mobilize and control the atmosphere.
Although she didn't do it deliberately, she had gained everyone's trust and had the influence to gather around her. Frick immediately raised the girl's status to a higher level.
"Stop showing off!"
White-haired Thores shouted impatiently, "What did you find? Tell me quickly!"
"Not all the people on the land rescue team are dead," Hitzfeld said quickly to meet his wish, "but they are not alive anymore."
?
A big question mark popped up on everyone's forehead.
What does it mean?
"Look at these bones." Hitzfeld shook his head, loosened his hands, and threw all the bones in his arms onto the table.
She didn't care whether it would dirty her clothes or the table. She picked up one of them and showed it to others: "Look here carefully. Pay attention to what's left on it."
Others looked closely and found some tiny red lines and red patterns on it, as well as some uneven, dark red condensates.
"Traces of flesh and blood." Hitzfeld pointed out the answer. "Bones like these truly belong to the deceased... Just like the pile of bones we saw in the underwater cave, they were truly eaten."
"But these—"
She picked out some other bones and held them up in the same way for them to see.
"As you can see... it's very clean."
"What do you want to say?" Torres frowned. "The dirty bones were eaten recently, and the clean bones were eaten first... Isn't this normal?"
Several people nodded - the bones of the person who died first might have been taken care of by some small animals or insects during this period of time, so it was reasonable for the remaining flesh to disappear and become clean.
"There are no remaining meat strands, meat chunks, coagulations, or blood eggplants... I understand that." Hitzfeld shook his head again, "But there aren't even any blood streaks or blood veins. It's as beautiful as a work of art... What animal can be eaten so cleanly?"
"So these bones did not belong to the deceased."
Before anyone else could react, she concluded, "They belong to the living—those stinking mud monsters—and they excreted them from their bodies on their own initiative."
what did she say?
Including Xia Yibing, the other seven people were all dizzy from the explosion.
Those stinking, wriggling pieces of mud...are they human?
Are they survivors of the rescue team?
And the reason they became like that was because they pushed out the bones in their bodies? And turned into a pool of rotten meat?
"Are you crazy? Aisuen?"
Torres couldn't stand it anymore.
He thought this person was just daydreaming.
"So how do you explain all this?"
Hitzfeld immediately asked him back.
"Two different handwritings... They both come from the same writer, but when he wrote the last paragraph, his body had already started to distort. His body tissues, flesh, blood, and organs all melted together. He was expelling the bones in his body, and he gradually lost his strength... That's why these characters appear to be getting weaker and weaker - at that time, he couldn't hold the pen anymore!"
"Also - when Carlo approached them, I noticed that they didn't attack. That doesn't necessarily mean they can't attack, but they may not want to. They don't want to attack their own kind!"
similar……
This word gave everyone goosebumps.
That rotten, smelly stuff that looks like rotten mud and meat.
They... treat us as one of their own kind?
So their purpose of approaching us at that time... wasn't it to attack us, but to ask for help?
"Oh!"
Carlo covered his head with his hands.
"What have I done?"
"Don't worry too much..." Hitzfeld glanced at him.
"This is just speculation. No one knows whether there is still consciousness in that state."
"But—but Miss Hitzfeld!"
Sister Cybertron interrupted in a panic, her pale face filled with fear.
"Although your analysis makes sense, but... why did it turn out like this?"
"I mean...at the beginning of the rescue team, they were all human? Right?"
"They won't become like that on their own initiative without encountering anything strange."
"Why, then, would they - and about half of them were eaten?"
indeed.
Frick and his companions had originally looked extremely gloomy, but after hearing these questions, their brows finally relaxed a little.
It makes sense, but it's just a guess, and this guess is so... weird.
Maybe Hitzfeld was wrong?
Maybe--
"That's easy to explain."
Hitzfeld picked up the little blue notebook again, turned to the page and pointed at it.
"The first one, 'Do not try to enter the Crystal Sea.'
"This means they arrived much earlier than we thought. Maybe it was out of a spirit of adventure, or maybe it was out of boredom, that some people launched an expedition into the Crystal Sea... and then encountered something there, and the result now is the backlash of their actions."
"The second sentence is, 'Humanity will never understand the power of God.'"
"It further confirms my guess. They believe they encountered a 'god' in the Crystal Sea."
"And judging from the third sentence, 'This is God's punishment,' we can infer that the recorder's mental will had been almost destroyed at that time. This must be a kind of torture that they have never seen or even heard of. That's why they were so terrified."
"And the last one... 'Whoever dares to touch the sun will be reduced to ashes.'"
At this point, Hitzfeld paused and frowned.
She was sure about everything else, but this was the only thing she wasn't sure about.
"Go ahead, Hitzfeld."
Xia Yibing encouraged her.
“There are no ordinary people here.”
"Speak, we can bear it."
"…I'm not sure if the 'sun' here is purely descriptive, metaphorical, or something else."
Hitzfeld moved his lips, his expression somewhat solemn.
"But based on the current clues... no matter whether the mud monsters are unwilling to attack us or do not have the ability to attack us, it at least proves that it is difficult for them to hunt humans... it is impossible that the remaining half of the rescue team died in their hands."
"Something else killed the rest of the people. Those bones piled in the cave were eaten by another thing."
"I think this thing is what the recorder called 'God' or 'God's punishment'."
"It came from the Crystal Sea, the result of their reckless exploration."
"But how did it come about—"
Having said this, she paused again.
"If we want to confirm our guess, we may have to go in and take a look..."
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Thanks to: Aili vs. the Ninja Alliance, Aili-chan, Do you have a fishing rod?, Gorgeous Blue, extra9, A Genius Physicist, ω be, Denki Bailan... the above readers for their blades and rewards~!
Thanks for your support~!
ps: ??? Can this map be changed? I traveled to Naruto, right?
Chapter 17 Premonition of Disaster
"no!"
"I don't think this is a good idea..."
"Too dangerous."
Three different voices, coming from Xia Yibing, Torres and Frick.
"I'm not trying to oppose you, Hitzfeld... but this is really not good." Xia Yibing immediately explained, "Think about it, the firepower network of the land rescue team of 300 people couldn't stop that monster - you also saw the metal debris in the pile of bones in the cave, right? Those are all guns! There are only 8 of us here! It's not wise to enter the Crystal Sea without knowing more information!"
"She's right." Torres nodded. "Although everyone here is not an ordinary person...but that's not how you use your power. The mystery of the Crystal Sea has not been solved for nearly 200 years. I don't want this to be my last mission."
Hitzfeld accepted all these suggestions. But she did not immediately change her mind, but looked at Frick.
"Does Mr. Knight think so too?"
"Almost." Frick nodded naturally, and then added: "If you want to go to Blade Point, it's no problem."
Really confident, this guy.
The others were stunned.
Does this mean that the reason he disagreed was "it was over the sea"?
As long as they are on land, he is sure that he can protect Hitzfeld from harm?
"There's our armor in the warehouse." Frick didn't want to explain. "Based on the size of the underground cave, let's assume that thing is four meters thick and ten meters long."
"As long as we put on our armor and encounter it on land, I am more than 60% sure we can kill it."
This confidence surprised Hitzfeld.
The 300-man firepower network is ineffective against monsters. She thinks there are two possibilities here.
The first type is a monster covered in thick armor, which is strong enough to withstand machine gun bullets within five meters.
The second one is more mysterious... Because it is speculated that the monster has aquatic habits, and not being afraid of bullets does not necessarily mean that the body is hard enough, and being soft enough can also have a similar effect. So it is not ruled out that the opponent may be some kind of cartilaginous animal, such as an octopus, or even a jellyfish.
In either of these two possibilities, the imagined monsters would be difficult to deal with.
But Flick has such confidence.
why.
Besides his great strength, does the Gold-rank Flint Knight have any other special qualities?
"Ah!" At this moment, Torres suddenly let out a short scream and jumped up from the chair.
