"Not really." Hitzfeld breathed.
"I can't be sure for now, let's go back and talk about it first."
It was almost half past ten when we went back and forth.
The servants who stayed behind in the restaurant had obviously been given orders, and as soon as the two returned, someone immediately came forward and asked if they should be taken to see the owner of the manor now.
"Right now," Hitzfeld said.
"Please lead the way."
This is another long journey.
According to the servant's explanation, the person they were going to meet this time lived on the top of the watchtower. That was the highest point in the entire manor - the spire protruding from the middle of the main building. They had to go through a half-circular corridor from the third floor of the main building to the annex building, then go around the spiral staircase at the connection to the middle of the other end, find a separate suspended corridor from there, walk to the end, and then take the stairs to get up.
The complexity of the process is amazing.
Going up the last staircase, Hitzfeld felt his aching muscles and his heart beating faster and faster, and tried to keep his breathing steady.
Her physical strength has improved a lot compared to a year ago, but strenuous exercise like this is still a bit difficult for her.
The last section of the journey was also a spiral staircase. The corridor was dark, with no windows or handrails, and everyone had to hold onto the cold wall to ensure safety. Otherwise, if you took a wrong step, you might fall off the edge of the stairs, which would at least end up as a disabled person.
Hitzfeld stared at the people in front of him, trying to hold on, and then he found that the servants had stopped.
Are we there yet?
She frowned slightly.
Not quite.
Through the dim light of the lantern, she could vaguely make out the dark blue stone slab less than two meters above her head.
This has reached the top floor.
The leading servant was at the top of the stairs, within reach of the stone slab. He fumbled in the darkness and propped up a trap door embedded in the stone ceiling.
"crunch-"
Sunlight shines through the square gap.
Very dazzling.
Hitzfeld narrowed his right eye slightly.
"The master is up there."
the servant said.
"please."
Taking a breath, Hitzfeld walked past them.
Passing through the trapdoor, she saw a not very spacious platform.
A small half of the platform was empty, and the other large half was occupied by a shabby house built with a pile of wood and branches.
Is this the spire I saw at the beginning?
Frowning and staring at the hut, Hitzfeld walked a little further away, came to the edge of the platform and looked down. In the distance, he could see a winding dirt road leading to the town.
On her left hand side there was a cylindrical stove with a fire in it and a copper kettle on top of it emitting steam.
There was a chair between the stove and the house, also made of dead branches. In front of the chair, there was an X-shaped bracket on the platform crevice, with a long... thing that seemed to be a fishing rod in Hitzfeld's opinion placed on it, and there seemed to be something floating at the end.
What exactly is this?
Hitzfeld was a little puzzled.
If giving up the comfortable villa and building a hut on the roof can be attributed to experiencing life and integrating into nature, then she completely couldn't understand this fishing rod.
It's half empty here.
no water.
What can you catch with this thing here?
Asuka?
Or a dragonfly?
"That's for the dragons."
An old voice suddenly sounded behind me.
Hitzfeld shuddered and turned quickly to see a little old man wearing a tattered cotton jacket, with a wrinkled face, gray hair, and a hunched back, standing at the door of the hut, sucking on his pipe and smiling at her.
Chapter 28 Howling
"dragon?"
Ethan saw this scene as soon as he came up from the trapdoor, and stared at the old man for several seconds.
He really... couldn't connect this crazy old man with the imaginary Bar-Gallant in his mind.
After all, Bal-Gallant is the mayor, the only heir of the Gralant family in this generation, and a de facto lord recognized by the Sara royal family.
But the person standing in front of him now looked like... like a country bumpkin who had nothing to do in the winter and had enough food and drink, so he came out to smoke, take a walk, and find someone to brag about his glorious past.
Oh - maybe it's a bit impolite to say this, but he really has tried his best to use neutral adjectives.
"You are Bar-Glarant, the mayor of Green Town, the lord of the land from the red maple forest to Lake Evans..."
Hitzfeld said in a low voice, with a strong sense of disbelief in his tone.
"Ah~ If there's no other person here with this stupid name, then it's me." The old man took a puff of his cigarette, blew out three smoke rings, and grinned at them.
"I know you, Hitzfeld and Doyle... are from Wayne. You came to me to investigate the disappearance of Eugenie Kopperfeld and what happened to me in the pigsty..."
"Did Duke arrange for you to come up?" His eyes narrowed into slits. "Obviously, there is no one here who is more idle than him, but he had to send people up to disturb an old man like me. It seems that he is very dissatisfied with my living here all the time, and he wants to use this method to urge me to go down."
"...Mr. Gran also means well." Hitzfeld said with a stutter.
At the same time, she tilted her head to look at the thatched cottage, wondering if it would be blown down by the wind and snow in winter.
After all, the platform of the watchtower was cast in stone. There was no space to lay a foundation. The whole hut was essentially no different from a rootless duckweed. Not to mention the wind and snow, it was estimated that it would collapse if pushed a few times.
“Hehe~” The old man laughed strangely and shook his head, “He’s not worried about me because of this! He may worry about me for any reason, but he won’t consider that the house will collapse and I will be crushed to death or frozen to death!”
As he spoke, he walked to the stove, sat down on the worn wooden chair, and crossed his legs calmly.
"Okay..." He stared at the two stunned people, "Your ultimate goal in Green Town, your ultimate achievement has been achieved at this moment - did he tell you that he could only accompany me for half an hour?"
The two nodded.
"Oh, if you have any questions, please ask them now."
"Mr. Mayor." Hitzfeld took a deep breath and tried to take control of the atmosphere back into his own hands. "Can you give me a brief description of Mr. Kopperfield's background?"
"Didn't they answer you that question?"
"I have answered, but I still want to hear your side of the story."
"There's nothing much to say - those bastards didn't listen to my grandfather's advice and were determined to get out. They don't understand the mission of this family at all." The old man frowned.
"mission?"
"That's it." Hitzfeld saw him pointing at the huge "fishing rod", "That's it... Didn't you see it? This is a weapon specifically used to hunt evil dragons! I've been waiting for it here for many days!"
“…” Hitzfeld opened his mouth, his mind going blank for a moment.
She had tried very hard to adapt to the rhythm of the conversation, but after the communication she felt that she suspected that Bal-Glarant was simply a lunatic with Alzheimer's disease.
She immediately understood why others didn't find a doctor for him. His illness was so serious that if a doctor came, he might be mistaken for a fire dragon and beaten to death.
"Do you think I'm crazy too?" Perhaps her eyes hurt the old man, he jumped off the chair and glared at her fiercely with a pair of cloudy eyes.
"Unless there is evidence to prove it," Hitzfeld's brows twitched, "it's hard for me to believe what you say."
"What evidence do you need?" The other party waved his hands vigorously and shouted loudly.
"This land!"
“This wind!”
“This fog!”
"And there's the howling coming from the red maple forest!"
"Can't you see it? Can't you hear it?"
"Let's talk about something else, Mr. Mayor..." Hitzfeld changed the subject, "You mentioned your grandfather just now... Does that mean the Kopperfield family left the town when your grandfather was still alive?"
There was less than half an hour left, and she didn't want to waste her precious time worrying about the other person's fantasies.
"That's right!" The old man lowered his chin arrogantly, "They had a big fight at that time... God, you didn't see what the scene was like... Those bastards! I'm going to kill them!!"
This communication is too difficult.
Hitzfeld felt that she probably knew why Duke Gran agreed so readily.
"Then your grandfather...your grandfather, or your father, are they still alive? Or did they leave any letters recording this incident?"
"Of course not. They never do these things."
"why?"
"Because they don't know how to read, they don't even know the characters, so of course they can't write."
???
Hitzfeld and Ethan were both filled with questions.
The heirs of the Gralant family are... illiterate?
"Forget about words, I'm not even sure I've seen them." Bar-Glarant suddenly fell into deep thought at this moment.
"Yes... I was still young at that time, and I don't remember much about it. I just remember someone told me to remember... my mission, but I don't remember, oh! This damn——"
His condition is very, very unstable.
Sometimes his demeanor and speech are no different from those of ordinary people.
Sometimes he would suddenly go crazy and start talking nonsense.
This made Hitzfeld completely confused as to whether he was just talking nonsense in the previous situation, so he could only ask Ethan to write down everything the other party said.
"Next question."
She was just holding on by sheer grit.
"Regarding the mansion where the charred corpse was found..."
"You mean the pigsty?"
"…if you insist on calling it that."
“Hahahaha——” the old man let out a low laugh.
"I didn't mean it, miss." He shook his head vigorously. "In fact, that place was originally used by them to store prey. Wild boars, pheasants, elks, horses...all kinds of messy things were put in there, most of them were alive. You can imagine the smell, and then you will understand why I don't like that place."
"But that's not the real reason why I don't like it."
Having said that, his face darkened.
“It’s because of the charred corpse.”
"Ok?"
"It's not the one you found yesterday. It's another one - it happened many, many years ago. There was also a body found nearby, also burned to death - if you must find a connection, then this must be it."
Hitzfeld stared in surprise.
His statement is too conservative.
Really... If he was not lying, then she was sure that the murderer who killed Luke moved the body there to serve as a warning!
"Can you tell me more about it?"
Ethan's breathing began to become rapid.
"That was my fault."
The old man looked up at the sky, half-closed his eyes, and seemed to have entered that dream-talking state again.
"It was because I failed to fulfill my duty and my mission that the Baines family ended up like that..."
