Chapter 128: Understanding the Nightmare World
After the current true situation in the cemetery gave rise to the hypothesis that there were still living people in the nightmare world, Leo could not help but think of the memory fragments of the nightmare ghost he had obtained before.
Among those fragments, when the Nightmare Ghost was still alive, when he fell into the Nightmare Realm, he appeared alone in a village with very old-style houses, and the people in that village also wore very ancient clothes. Later, he was captured by that village.
He was captured by others, burned to death and sacrificed. Then his body was surrounded by thick fog and turned into a nightmare ghost, returning to the projection of No. 9 Golden Oak Street in the nightmare world.
In this way, the people that the villa security guard saw during his lifetime should have been living people, and they were probably ancient villages that lived in the Miria Swamp and were inadvertently involved in the nightmare world. Some of these villages died.
Some people survived the attacks of dream spirits and almost maintained their original civilization.
However, it is not difficult to see from those memories that the people in those villages seemed to be very unfriendly to outsiders, and they would directly use them for sacrifice after catching them.
Leo didn't know whether the young man in the tombkeeper's hut was as unfriendly to outsiders as the people in the ancient villages, but he still chose to get in touch with him. If the contact failed, he would directly use necromancy to extract it.
He used his spiritual memory to understand the situation here, and then went to look for the wasteland shaman who was trampling in panic.
After making the decision, Leo walked towards the tombkeeper's hut, and his mental network was always monitoring the actions of the young man in the hut.
The young man was confused and very nervous about the sudden disappearance of the barking of dogs. From time to time, he checked the situation outside through the peephole, and added firewood to the fireplace to make the fire burn brighter.
When Leo walked to the tombkeeper's hut, the nervous young man was adding firewood to the stove for the third time. Leo's knock on the door made the young man, who was already in a state of panic, sit down on the ground in fright, and put on the mechanical repeating crossbow.
The finger on the trigger also pulled the trigger due to uncontrollable nervous tremors.
With a few whooshing sounds, several circular saw blades were shot out from the crossbow and hit the wall of the room, firmly embedded in the wood. The blades were still vibrating because the force had not completely disappeared.
"Who? Who is outside?" The young man quickly took out two more blades and loaded them on the crossbow, then pointed it at the door and asked in a trembling voice.
The language the young man spoke was not some weird language, but Maresian. Fortunately, Leo had learned this main language of the Minsk continent from old man Rembrandt. Although he was not very proficient, he could barely use it.
"A passer-by." Leo put down the hood of his leather trench coat, stood under the firelight at the door, and said in Maris language.
Because Leo was not very proficient in Maris, and the young man's own Maris had some local accents, he did not understand Leo's words for a while. He was stunned for a while before he realized what Leo had said.
.
"Passers-by?" The young man looked surprised. He never expected such an answer, let alone anyone who would come to the cemetery in the suburbs to pass by during the Silver Moon period.
With strong doubts in his heart, the young man walked to the door cautiously, stretched out his hand to open the baffle of the peephole and peeked out, but suddenly felt that it was unsafe to put his head on the peephole, so he picked up the door next to the stove.
He used the iron rod to push open the baffle, and turned sideways to look out.
With the help of the torch outside the door, the young man saw Leo's appearance clearly. Seeing that the other person was not a monster, his nervousness relaxed a little. However, he did not completely trust Leo because Leo's clothes were too different for him.
There seems to be something unusual, not like someone from the town.
So, the young man said cautiously: "I won't stay here. If you want to find a place to stay, you can go to the town along the path in the woods outside. You should be able to find a place for you to live there."
Leo was very aware of the young man's worries. He had no plans to break in by force or use psychic techniques on the young man. Instead, he said patiently: "I'm not looking for a place to stay, I just want to find out where this place is."
?”
"Of course this is Hushang Town." Hearing Leo's question, the young man responded with some confusion, but soon he seemed to have thought of something, and his originally relaxed mood became tense, and he asked in a deep voice: "You
Are you a foreigner?"
"I don't know if I'm the kind of foreigner you call me. I just got lost while traveling and came here while walking." Leo took two steps back, making himself look harmless, and asked curiously
He said: "Why do I show hostility when I mention the strangers? Did the strangers who came here before cause any unpleasant things?"
The young man in the room did not answer, but it was easy to see from the expression on his face that Leo might have guessed correctly. The foreigners in the past did seem to have done some things that were outrageous to both humans and gods.
In order to ease the current atmosphere, Leo added: "You don't need to worry about those Yubatos wandering around the cemetery just now. I have taken care of them all. It should be safe here in a short time."
"What? Have you already dealt with those Yubatos?" Hearing Leo's words, the young man had a look of surprise on his face. Although he couldn't believe it, he thought that he hadn't heard another barking sound since just now.
This forced him to believe that Yubato, who had been causing headaches to the entire town for a long time, had been solved by the man in front of him.
Thinking about this, the young man seemed to realize something, and regardless of the danger, he moved closer to the peephole and looked Leo up and down. When his eyes fell on the king and queen who were pinned to Leo's waist, his eyes lit up and he shouted anxiously.
Said: "Are you the night watchman?"
Hearing the young man's tone became more respectful at this moment, which allowed Leo to find an identity that he could use. So according to the introduction of night watchman etiquette in the book, he made a night watchman's greeting gesture, nodded and said: "Yes.
, I am the night watchman who is conducting a patrol ceremony."
According to Velen's rules, unless they are retired Night Watchmen, in order to better fight against enemies such as the Familia and Evil God believers, the Night Watchmen will conduct a patrol ceremony every once in a while and wander around the three continents. They can both
Night watch organizations from various places communicate and strengthen contacts, and can also find new night watch candidates and increase the number of night watchmen.
It is obvious that the night watchmen of the Nightmare Realm also retain the ritual of patrolling, and unlike Velen who hides the ritual from others, they openly make it public. Even such a tomb guard is not interested in this ritual.
Have some understanding.
So after hearing Leo's admission, the young man didn't doubt Leo's words at all. The tension on his face instantly dissipated, replaced by an expression of trust. He didn't even consider whether the person outside the door was lying, and just opened the door.
He walked out, stretched out his hand to Leo and said, "Hello, I am Valentin, the gravekeeper of Hushang Town."
Valentin is the most common name in the Kingdom of Maris. It is usually given by some underground freemen or serfs.
This name reminded Leo of the mining tycoon from the Maris Kingdom who disappeared at the beginning. He also thought that the owner of the villa who disappeared last seemed to be from the Maris Kingdom. He couldn't help but suspect that the person in front of him might be related to those of the Maris Kingdom.
It’s about people.
However, before guessing the identity of this young man, Leo was also a little surprised that the young man showed such trust based on just a few words of his own. In his opinion, this undoubtedly showed that the Night Watch organization had a very strong position here.
With a generally good reputation and considerable influence, at least the people here don't think anyone would dare to pretend to be a night watchman.
"Leo Dodd, Night Watchman." Leo didn't say too much to avoid revealing his secret.
"Let's go inside first! In case we encounter other monsters!" Valentin looked outside, then nervously returned to the house. He waved to Leo. After waiting for Leo to enter the house, he immediately closed the door.
I carefully looked outside through the peephole, and after confirming that there were no monsters, I relaxed a little.
Valentin let Leo sit wherever he wanted, then found a cup and gave Leo a cup of hot water, and then asked doubtfully: "Didn't your night watchman's patrol ceremony just take place two years ago? Why is it so early this time?
So much?"
"This is a temporary tour ceremony." Leo made up a simple lie and didn't say much to avoid being exposed.
Valentin obviously didn't know what the rules of the parade ceremony were. He had only heard some things about the parade ceremony, so he had no doubts about Leo's words.
Maybe it was because he stayed here alone for too long and it was rare for someone to talk to him, or maybe it was because his nervousness was relaxed. After asking Leo about it, Valentin began to say to himself: "Seriously.
, I envy you night watchmen for having the ability to kill monsters. When a night watchman came to our town on a patrol, I was also selected. Unfortunately, I only have a single seedling at home, and I am worried that I will die.
That's why I was not called a night watchman during the initiation ceremony, otherwise, I might be a night watchman now."
Leo did not interrupt him, but drank water while listening to the other person's chatter, and occasionally interrupted to guide the flow of the words so that he could get more information from these words.
Soon Leo obtained a lot of information about this nightmare world from Valentin's words, which gave him a certain understanding of the situation in this nightmare world.
This nightmare world is a dream alien plane centered on the Crescent Moon Lake. Just like the Upper and Lower Crescent Moon Lakes in the Miria area, this Crescent Moon Lake is also divided into the Upper and Lower Crescent Moon Lake areas, but the two lake areas are not separated.
It is separated by a large piece of land, but is integrated, except that there is a small island in the middle. The main city of this world, Crescent Moon City, is located here.
There are one city and ten towns in the entire nightmare world centered on Crescent Moon Lake. One city is Crescent Moon City, and the ten towns are ten small towns built on the lake. Because the lake water can isolate monster attacks, the towns are all built on the lake.
Except for the ten towns, the surrounding area is all forest. After going deep into the forest and continuing to push outward, you will reach the dense fog area.
According to Valentin, if entering the forest is a narrow escape, then entering a dense fog area has no possibility of survival at all.
However, perhaps because he let it slip, Valentin mentioned that there were villages in the dense fog area, but he seemed to be very afraid of those villages and did not want to mention more, and Leo would be suspicious of the other party.
No further questions were asked.
In addition, Leo also learned from Valentin that there are two forces that rule this nightmare world, one is the Wizards Association of Crescent Moon City, and the other is the Olcott family that rules the ten towns.
The appearance of the Wizards' Association did not surprise Leo. After all, among the people who fell here, there were also great wizards from the Wizards' Assembly.
But the wizard has become one of the forces that rule here, which puzzles Leo, because the wizard is definitely not the strongest among the people who fell here. Logically speaking, there should not be a powerful ruling force like the Wizards Association.
However, the accessory brain system soon gave out the analysis results, and this result pointed directly at the half-true and false legend of the First Quarter Moon Lake area.
According to the content of that legend, the first person to bring people here should be an ancient wizard who once ruled the entire Miria Swamp and built a magnificent city. Therefore, the Wizards Association probably originated from that wizard, not
The pseudo-wizard he guessed at the wizard's gathering house also coincided with the legendary knowledge that ancient wizards existed here.
If Leo was a little surprised that the Wizards Association became the ruler here, then the Alcott family, which fought against the Wizards Association and ruled the ten towns, was obviously a huge surprise.
Andrew Alcott, the builder and first owner of No. 9 Golden Oak Street, was also the first to disappear.
Leo has always regarded Andrew as an ordinary victim of misfortune, but now it seems obvious that Andrew Alcott's construction of No. 9 Golden Oak Street was premeditated, and Andrew himself may not be anything.
Ordinary people.
Compared with the two forces that have absolute dominance, the Night Watchman's position is a bit better. He does not participate in any actual rule, but only takes hunting monsters as his own duty. His station is built in the forest, and he has control over various towns and even strings.
Yuehu City has a certain influence and can be regarded as a neutral force.
In addition, perhaps due to the environment, the people here have a very deep grasp of the occult science that has disappeared in Velen. Even low-status free people like Valentin know that the place they live in is a dream alien plane.
Know what monsters are here, how to deal with them, etc.
As for witchcraft, clans, supernatural cells and other things, we can also talk about them, but the most important thing is missing here, and this thing is religion.
Logically speaking, in such a harsh environment, religion is definitely the greatest tool to appease people's hearts, and such an environment is also a hotbed for the development of religion.
If it develops according to normal circumstances, even if there are hostile forces like the Wizards Association, religion will not disappear completely. There should be some sprouts of religion more or less. But it is not difficult to see from Valentin's words and deeds that he
There is no concept of religion in my mind at all.
Chapter completed!