Mage's Secret

The sun in the late autumn morning is not aggressive, and it radiates light and heat softly.The gaps between the deciduous branches paved on the path in the forest became a lot larger because of the scarcity of leaves, and the mild sunlight fell gently on the dead leaves from these gaps.

A carriage was driving unhurriedly on the small road, and the fallen leaves covered the sound of the horse's hooves, but it was rattling under the pressure of the wheels.

A mage, a paladin, and two apprentices are sitting together in this carriage heading for Karen.

It was very quiet in the carriage, and the interior space of the carriage was much larger than it looked from the outside.Elvis was sitting with a tense face, and beside him, Cyril, who had a generous figure, was a little restless in this serious atmosphere, and kept wiping the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.The mage Traphael and the paladin Dewitt, who sat opposite the two, were obviously much more relaxed.

Traphael leaned against the back of the chair with his staff in his arms and closed his eyes to rest, while DeWitt was looking at the magic pattern carved on the inner wall of the carriage, which is like a decorative pattern and has the effect of expanding the space.

The strange atmosphere in the carriage was due to a small quarrel between the paladin and Traphael before departure.

After learning that they would go to Karen in a carriage, DeWitt was a little surprised: "I thought we would use the teleportation array to teleport directly to the city. After all, isn't the time of you mages very precious?"

Regarding the Paladin's question, Traphael explained: "Although multi-person long-distance teleportation is not a difficult spell for me, it still takes some energy. A person's energy in a day is limited. Paladin My lord, I would rather take a carriage than waste unnecessary energy on this matter."

And Elvis is not as gentle as his teacher. He felt offended by the question of the Paladin, so he directly sarcastically said: "It turns out that the noble Mr. Paladin in the rumors is nothing more than that, and he is terribly ignorant." .”

As soon as Elvis' words came out of his mouth, Cyril trembled in fright, lightly pulled Elvis's robe, and carefully looked at the paladin's face, for fear that he would suddenly get angry.

But as the object of Elvis' provocation, Devitt just gave him a cold look. After all, Elvis was just a child and a junior to him. He cares.

Although DeWitt did not pursue it, Traphael still gave Elvis a disapproving look, and reprimanded him a few words.

In the end, although Elvis apologized awkwardly, he became more and more dissatisfied with the Paladin in his heart, and lost his temper all the way.

The carriage reached the city gate before noon, because the direction of the destination was different, and the mage and his two apprentices were separated here.The mage and the paladin continued to take the carriage to Harold's mansion, while the two apprentices found another carriage and went back to the mage's tower by themselves.

After listening to Traphael's instructions, Elvis looked at DeWitt again with an unfriendly expression—closer to a stare—before he got out of the carriage, and Cyril got out of the carriage behind him dripping with sweat. .

Seeing the two students walking away, Traphael turned his head and said to DeWitt: "I am very sorry, Your Excellency Paladin, my students have never been proficient in secular etiquette. If you feel uncomfortable along the way, I will replace them I apologize to you."

"It's nothing." The paladin said, "Let's go."

The carriage traveled through more than half of the city, and finally arrived at Harold's home.

Harold had received the news that the paladins and mages would be visiting early in the morning, and he had already waited at the gate with his servants. He was dressed in complicated, gorgeous and irrelevant clothing and accessories, and went up to meet the mage's carriage as soon as he saw it. .

Harold's already pale face was even more haggard from standing in the sun for too long. With a flattering smile, he walked to the side of the carriage and waited for the two to get off.

The side where he was standing happened to be the side where Traphael was sitting. As soon as Traphael opened the car door, he was immediately sneezed by the smell of incense mixed with an unknown number of spices. , he closed the door and followed the paladin and got out of the carriage through the door on the other side.

Harold hurriedly walked half a circle around the carriage and came to the two of them.

When the mage saw Harold walking in, his nose started to itch again, and he hurried to the other side of the paladin, keeping as far away from Harold as possible.

The paladin couldn't help but frowned when he smelled the incense, but in the end he held back and followed Harold into the ornately carved gate.

Coming here for the second time, the way of visiting and the position we are in are completely different, and Traphael feels a little subtle.

The dim light when sneaking in last night made people overlook many things. After passing through Harold's garden again, Traphael could see the whole garden clearly.To his surprise, this garden, which is much smaller than the City Lord's Mansion, is very delicately decorated. Although the varieties of flowers are still expensive, the garden layout does not have Harold's usual vulgarity, but makes people feel beautiful. Elegant, even the paladin Dewitt nodded secretly when he saw this garden-this almost changed Traphael's taste for Harold.However, compared with other things in the mansion, this garden still retains Harold's consistent impression - abrupt.

Through the garden, I saw Harold's house.The outer wall of the house is carved with reliefs from ancient poetry and legend scenes, but the pillars are extremely contemporary, and they are quite nondescript when placed together.

At this time, Traphael was no longer in the mood to continue complaining about the taste of the nouveau riche. He followed DeWitt and Harold, walked from outside the house to Harold's room, and checked all the way the two pointed him. The place where the late "Black Robe Mage" may have left traces.

Although Traphael is confident that he has left no clues, he still has to pretend on the surface.He walked very slowly all the way, raised his left hand, which was not holding the staff, and slowly stroked in the air to feel whether there were any remaining magic waves.He also casts a few revealing spells from time to time to look for traces of casting spells.

Of course, the result was as he expected, nothing.

It was a perfect sneak—Traphael commented in his heart.

DeWitt wasn't as relaxed as he was, and while that was the expected answer, he felt somewhat frustrated.He didn't show his frustration, but urged the mage to get into the carriage with him, and then ordered the coachman to rush to the city lord's mansion as soon as possible.

Leaving Harold's house early is actually a good thing for Traphael. When he was investigating inside, although he had ordered Harold to open all the doors and windows, he was still suffocated by the strong smell of incense. .DeWitt is also very repulsed by that kind of mixed incense, and even feels that he can't find any clues about the "black-robed mage". There is also the reason why the incense is so strong that it makes people breathless—of course, The mage denied his conjecture, otherwise the paladin would not just be dissatisfied.

Even though the air at this moment was already cold, the two people in the carriage still pushed open the windows on both sides.After being blown by the fresh cold air for a long time, the two of them felt that the fragrance on their bodies had faded.

Most of the roads in the city are paved with neat stone slabs, on which horseshoes make a crisp sound.The joy of yesterday's festival still remains in the city, and the flower petals scattered during the parade can still be seen on the road.Accompanied by the chatter or laughter that drifted into the car window from time to time, the City Lord's Mansion also appeared in the sight of the two of them.

Like Harold, the city lord was also waiting in front of the mansion, but he didn't go directly to the carriage to help him get off.He waited until both of them got off the car before walking towards them, leading them to walk inward.

The City Lord's Mansion is of course much larger than Harold's mansion. As soon as you enter the door, you will find a wide stone road leading directly to the house where he used his office and residence. On both sides of the road are large gardens, and outside the garden is a small forest.

The first thing everyone came to was the forest, which was also the place where the demons attacked the paladins last night.

DeWitt told the mage about what happened last night in detail, and also pointed out where two humans and a demon were standing at that time.

Traphael first walked to the place where he cast the spell yesterday, and symbolically used a revealing spell, but there was no trace of using the scroll.Then he went to the place where the demon and the paladin fought.

There was still a slight evil smell in the air, so thin that the paladins, the city lord, and the officials and servants following behind the city lord couldn't detect it, but the mage was still quite keen to detect it.This is not normal, and it is not a large-scale spell. How could the magic breath remain for so long.With the level of spell last night, under normal circumstances, it should have dissipated in two or three hours.

Traphael closed his eyes and felt for a while, finally distinguishing where the breath was wrong.This doesn't look like a residue from casting spells, but rather like the evil aura Murphy released uncontrollably after he was injured last night.

Following the breath, Traphael lowered his head, and finally found the source of these evil breaths - on the ground, there was a small puddle of blood that had turned dark brown, which was the trace left by Murphy's injury last night.

Traphael squatted down, carefully inspected the small piece of blood, and exclaimed at the right time: "My God, this is evil, I mean, such a pure evil breath can't be felt from those black robes. "

Then he took out a small glass jar from the space, carefully cut off the grass stained with demon blood and put it in.Just like a real person would react to seeing such an evil intelligent creature for the first time—curiosity, surprise, and then collecting all of this precious research material.

It was not the first time that Traphael encountered this kind of evil aura, and his surprise was also pretended to be seen by others.But it is true to collect magic materials. Although he can get fresh blood from the devil, these can't be wasted.Of course, more importantly, these may be important clues, so take them away if you can.