Serious Witch's Travel Book

Not only does she know, she also...

Gnicia was suddenly a little shy. She was afraid that people would see her face, so she raised her head slightly and leaned to the side.

She burned a little, because she remembered something that would make her feel good... She remembered... the keeper of the cedar forest, and her wonderful tongue.

Although she still feels that what the archdruid did was a little too offensive, Gnicia also has to admit that it was indeed an experience that made her feel very comfortable. In the behavior, I got to know Adlia more deeply-she is a very gentle and considerate woman.

Obviously, the coachman did not understand her complicated thoughts.

He went on to say: "Druidism is the most primitive religion in Gaul. Strictly speaking, it is not the same as the universal Catholicism we believe in now. Druidism is more like a part of the elves' own social system." , Just like the elders of the Pantheon period often held the post of chief priest, the 'druid' is not only a priest who is admired by the people, but also a link in the elven society."

——A few epochs ago, the conqueror of the empire, "Holy Julius", before Caesar completed his Gaul campaign, the elf kings had already established a splendid ancient Celtic civilization in Gaul .

Very close to the beliefs of the current Germanian residents, the elves active in Gaul and Britain also admire the culture of trees. They are born with a particularly strong characteristic of being close to nature. Most elves can learn from natural plants. Understanding the so-called "natural language" is something that the imperial people simply cannot imagine.

And the best among them - Druid, has the meaning of "a person who is familiar with the oak tree" in the elf culture.

The oak tree is a very common and sacred plant for the northerners of Europa.

These elves can not only understand the "language of nature", but also communicate with nature in turn, and use the power of nature to meet the needs of the group. Gradually, people with such talents become the leaders of the group. In the primitive social system, they surpassed the "commoners" and "craftsmen" and ranked in the class of "leaders".

Even after the empire completed its occupation of the entire territory of Gaul and disbanded dozens of "royal courts", large and small, the social class of "Druids", a theocracy, still remained.

For the elves, primitive nature worship is already an essential part of their lives. The empire has tried many times to eliminate the influence of the druid group by means of assimilation and coercion, but no matter what they try, apart from turmoil No better results can be achieved, because the druids of the elves have practical "strength", not weak people who cannot resist oppression.

In the end, the two sides chose to compromise.

The Pantheon at that time, as well as the current state religion, recognized the legitimacy of Druidism and respected its right to preach and retain property. In turn, Druidism had to accept the rule of the empire and actively avoid Catholicism In the secular diocese of Gaul, the two sides did not interfere with each other.

Of course, for the elves themselves, this is obviously a concession. The price is that the current Druidism can affect less than two-tenths of the land in Gaul—the elves like valleys, foothills and various forests. Originally, druids were priests active in the mountains and forests. With the soft oppression of the empire's human beings in Gaul day after day, the lands of both elves and druids are decreasing. Up to now, Large coherent Celtic settlements are found only in eastern and northern Gaul.

But this does not mean that the Druid Church has disappeared like this. In fact, in recent years, with the decline of the imperial court, many indigenous cultures in Gaul have shown a tendency to reemerge.

Economic recession and increasingly serious corruption have made it difficult for the governor's courts across the empire to squander their administrative capabilities as they did in the prosperous period, and financial constraints have brought about a reduction in the living standards of ordinary residents, so that no matter whether it is public security or public loyalty There was a clear downward trend in each era.

What is more serious is the decline of the central power - the Gyeonggi region, which has been hit one after another, has severely damaged the power of the core population of the empire, and Italy, which is directly controlled by Augustus in the west, has begun to find it difficult to provide political resources and military force for the frontier The price of deterrence is that the barbarian invasions become frequent and in-depth. From time to time, some small and medium-sized clans even migrate across the entire Gaul region for long distances, but the head of the region has nothing to do with it and has to let it go.

Under such circumstances, maintaining the cohesion of the empire on the frontier has become a luxury.

In order to live, the frontier residents began to integrate more into the local cultural circle, not only the elves, but even the orc culture.

The Valley of the Vosges is a typical case. It has been the territory of the elves for many years, but in the last one or two eras, due to the incompetence of the imperial lords, a large number of humans have entered the mountains and forests in search of shelter, hoping to get Thanks to the protection of the elf rangers, Gaul was originally a remote parish in the empire, and the Catholic faith had not yet solidified locally, so the Druids naturally followed suit and accepted these human civilians.

The same thing happened in quite a few places in Gaul... Germania, Belgica, even Lugtown in the north.The coachman circulated these places to transport and sell supplies. He himself was a baptized formal Catholic believer, but now he has prepared two sets of religious items on a daily basis, one is used to deal with Catholic missionaries, and the other is used when needed He can join the congregation of forest devotees.

"Let's get down to business—you probably know the main elements of the druid belief, right?"

Gnicia, who was aroused by the narration, quickly replied clearly: "Sun and moon, mountains and rivers, forests and beasts?"

"Yes, they worship these natural and more practical things, which are not quite the same as the shamanism in the north."

Seeing that the horse slowed down a bit, the coachman whipped his whip again: "Drive—the sun and the moon revolve, the stars and rivers flow, the four seasons change naturally, life and death rise and fall endlessly—this is what those preachers often say. And the magical spells used by those druids are related to these: the sun, the moon, nature and life."

"They are basically good and kind, because the survival of the people is very dependent on a rich and comfortable natural environment. No one likes to live in a wet and dark swamp, or a dead and diseased forest."

"But since there are guardians of nature, according to their philosophy, there must be something hostile to this thriving nature."

"I've heard—and I just heard that those archdruids who are really capable often have to fight against some weird things. They are very evil and terrifying, far more terrifying than common forest monsters and mountain ghosts. .”

"They are undoubtedly the enemies of druids. They do things that are completely different from these natural guardians. The elves plant and maintain trees, and they secretly spread diseases, let the trees rot, and the farmland wither, just like those crazy and perverted witches... ..."

"In short, sometimes druids use 'night without light' to describe some bad things. Maybe that means that there are some restless guys in the nearby forest haunting them."

Speaking of deep, the coachman suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck, and immediately shut his mouth.

Gnicia snorted imperceptibly, and then asked him calmly: "The enemies of the druids, why did they destroy the woods and farmland? If the environment is ruined, what will they eat in the future?"

Gnicia was just curious, but she was a little confused by the driver's question.

Yes, the nature on which we live has been ruined, so what will we eat after that?

"Who knows, some spirits feed on human spirits, and it seems that some may have recipes that are completely different from what we imagined." The coachman shrugged. "It's also possible that bad people don't need to eat. People often say that, so maybe it's true."

Gnicia couldn't deny it.

The wheels turned and turned, and the round sun in the sky soon began to tilt westward.

The speed of the pack horses slowed down, and they rested for half an hour when they passed a stream. During this period, a few imperial soldiers who claimed to be from Central Gaul caught up with them, but neither side wanted to communicate more. They just went their separate ways after meeting each other.

After a break, the carriage started on the road again.

In order to dispel the drowsy fatigue in the afternoon, the coachman found a new topic: "So miss, is there anything you need to do in the capital?"

He instinctively guessed that the little girl might be a lady from a rich family who ran away from home, because her clothes, appearance and the location where they met were too subtle.

He guessed—just guessed, maybe the girl had a conflict with her family because of something, so she ran to that kind of wilderness place alone and wandered aimlessly.

As for Lessonides, maybe she has some relatives there... We met by chance, and he doesn't mind sending the girl back to a safe place by the way.

However, even though the coachman was very confident in his guess, and was mentally prepared that the girl might lie because of embarrassment, he was a little surprised when the girl really answered him.

"I came to Lysonid to inquire about the Holy Grail."

"Uh... what happened... the Holy Grail?"

It never occurred to the coachman that such a delicate young girl would care about such matters.

It sounds like a joke, like a mature nun who suddenly falls in love with a dragon from the mountains—the two have nothing to do with each other.

However, the girl was surprisingly serious about it.

"Uncle, do you have any news to share? I really need to know this. If you have any, please let me know."

The girl paused for a moment, and began to reach for her wallet: "I can exchange it with money, it's a rule in some places, isn't it?"

"Don't don't—"

The coachman hurriedly stopped her.

"I'll just talk about it. I'm not a professional information dealer, and I can't say much about it. You can just listen to it and show it for fun."

He cleared his throat and continued talking...

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Note: For European and American cultural circles, terms such as "uncle, nephew" and "brother" are usually not used for people who are not related by blood.However, some changes have been made in this article for easier understanding.

Chapter 86 004. Do you want to sleep with me?

When the sun had almost set and approached the top of the mountain, the carriage arrived at the outskirts of Bruyères.

Before entering the suburbs, there is a wide mountain road that surrounds the hills. On one side is a low hill about a hundred steps high, and on the other side is a gravel beach. Naturally, the carriages from the road cannot go around, so The locals set up an inspection post here.

There was a queue of about a dozen vehicles on the mountain road. Seeing that there was still a wait, Gnicia turned over and got out of the carriage to move around.

She was soon fascinated by the scenery below the hill.

"Great—!"

The girl stretched out against the evening wind approaching dusk, excitedly looking at the scenery on the low ground.

Below the hillside is a road through the forest leading to the distance. Although the leaves of the trees near the front have become sparse with the arrival of the cold season, half of the tree species still maintain tenacious vitality. The warmth of summer, coupled with the already pleasant climate in the valley, gave the girl the illusion that it was early summer.

But something beyond the woods immediately reminded her—after she left the nearby grove, she saw neat patches of fields. Out of the triangular area, she saw farmers with their trousers rolled up still busy in the fields, cattle dragging wooden plows leisurely wandering in the fallow farmland, and more pieces of crops just picked out from the field When I came out, I saw the growing green crops for the first time.

"It's wheat. People here plant it in autumn and harvest it next summer."

The coachman looked at Gnicia, who raised his hand to the level of his eyebrows, and said with a smile, "The wheat here is planted later. It is said that it is because of the climate of the valley. Miss, be careful not to drop it. "

"understood."

Gnicia took two steps back to the side of the road.

Her gaze then looked further afield.

Farther away, at the end of the road, a huge imperial city lies quietly between several rolling hills.

It is located on a slightly higher terrain. One-third of the entire city borders the forest, and the rest connects to the surrounding agricultural plains.A small stone mountain is located in the north of the city. The mountain is not high. Simple city walls and fortifications have been built on it, enclosing a small piece of independent military buildings.

In addition, perhaps because the residential area is too large, it does not have a city wall that completely surrounds the town like Pinecandle Castle, but only built low walls in a few relatively flat areas, relying on natural The terrain and road guidance roughly surrounded several scattered areas of the entire city, but now there are piles of stones piled up next to those vacant places, as if they are going to continue to expand.

This is the second town that Blücher, Gnicia has seen. The only administrative unit in the Vosges Valley that can be regarded as a "city", and it is also one of the largest cities in Upper Germania.

As a city built after the imperial occupation, Blücher now has more than 1 permanent residents, even more than the capital of the Vosges Valley, Les Sondes. The residents here are highly mixed, with a considerable number of Elves, a small number of tail descendants (Note [-]) orcs who came out of the Black Forest, and occasionally even dwarf caravans can be seen-they came down from the southern mountains to sell ore to elf craftsmen, because the ancient city of Lessoni De did not welcome them, so Bruyère only got to seek business opportunities.

Of course, the most here are humans.

After the sentry guarding the simple sentry checked the carriage, Gnicia returned to her seat.

As the vehicle drove down the mountain, the sun's light gradually turned golden red. It gently swayed on the city wall, the streets, and the red tiles on the roofs of the houses in the distance. With the rising smoke, The city under the sunset seems to be a busy person sitting at the dining table after a day of work, shrouded in a cozy, quiet and peaceful atmosphere.

The tops of the trees gradually covered the city wall, but Gnicia's anticipation grew stronger.

"Shall we live in the city?" She asked the driver expectantly.

"No, I think it will be out of town."

"Why..." The girl was a little puzzled. "Oh—is it the travel expenses for the accommodation? Don't worry, I'll just pay for it."

"That's not the problem." The coachman stroked the curly beard on his chin. He always felt a little weird. Although this lady from a wealthy family was willing to pay, he shouldn't say anything, but there was a subtle feeling in his heart. Intuition—maybe it's the middle-aged man's self-esteem. He doesn't think it's appropriate for such a young lady to pay for the accommodation.

Although he picked up this big girl by the way, it is reasonable to ask for a little reward, but the other party's mentality is completely immature, which makes the driver feel that it is not appropriate to talk about money, just like bullying someone with insufficient IQ... What's more, there is a fairly talkative travel companion behind the car who injected a lot of vitality into this boring journey, which is enough.

Seeing that Gnicia suddenly turned from anticipation to unhappiness, the coachman couldn't help explaining: "At this time, the city may not allow people to enter, and in addition, there are so many chariot and horse merchants running for the autumn festival recently, even if they enter the city I'm afraid there's no good place to live, so it's better to find a tavern outside for a night."

Gnicia nodded half-understood.

What the coachman said was correct. When the carriage drove all the way north and was close to the city gate, they happened to see the gatekeeper persuade other civilians who were still queuing up to enter the city.

"It looks like we can only live outside."

Without any choice,

The coachman turned the horse's head and led the horse towards the small settlement off the main road.

Gnicia was very disappointed, she stared eagerly at the gate that entered the city for a long time, but in the end she could only follow the carriage into the country road.

But as she withdrew her gaze and looked back at the teams entering the city that turned back one after another, Gnicia suddenly noticed several figures.

There were a few guys on horseback far back on the road to Bruyères, and she didn't even have to look closely to recognize them as the Imperial soldiers Gnicia had met around noon.

After all, horses are indeed a precious asset. From what she's seen along the way, there are very few travelers who can own a horse of their own, so the few travelers who travel in a group are particularly conspicuous.

These guys...are they going to post a wanted warrant in the city?

Maybe it was even worse—Gnesia remembered that the leader said that some temporary inspection department would be set up in Bruyères, and they were going to catch the "Red Hood" here—Gnesia is now In my mind, there is absolutely nothing worse than this.

The lines on the arrest warrant confirmed what she knew. The Senate determined that the Red Hood had attacked the governor of Belgica, but she knew that Adria was captured by the governor's army and was arrested together. There are also many members of the Red Hood; in addition, those people seem to believe that the Red Hood attacked themselves...or, in other words, their other body, and the sisters of the monastery who were traveling with them—but it was obviously a A legion called the Iron Hinds!

Gnicia didn't know whether these people were simply following orders, or if they knew the situation but deliberately concealed it. She only knew that she saw the absurdity of the paper and heard the lies, but seeing those imperial soldiers who were showing their might Full of grievances, it is also fortunate that our heroine is not a very capable person now, otherwise she would definitely have the idea of ​​​​confronting these so-called inspectors.

No matter how complicated her inner activities were, the carriage finally stopped in front of a simple bungalow.

Apparently it was also a tavern, and provided lodging - in most parts of the Empire, the sideline of taverns is to provide temporary shelter for passing travelers.

The store is very simple, and the environment is worse than that of "Wheat Valley and Reindeer", but it is much larger in scale.There are already more than a dozen diners in the tavern, most of them are people from the farm who are familiar with each other. The farmers who were playing wooden cards yelled from time to time, and the whole tavern was completely enveloped in a noisy atmosphere full of life.

When Gnicia walked in, two burly men at the door were wrestling their wrists. Her appearance caused some commotion. Gaining momentum, they looked at Gnicia with the eyes of others, and suddenly, the atmosphere in the tavern became subtle.

The farmers were all wondering which family's lady came to this place suddenly... But there are already many nobles in the city of Bruyères, and they are not so shocked by a little girl .

After being quiet for a while, the tavern quickly regained its excitement.

"Sorry, give me a break—"

The coachman squeezed away a few drinkers who were standing in the way, and escorted Gnicia to the bar: "Accommodation, boss."

"Well, this happens to be the last room."

The boss took a key from the container behind him and handed it to the driver. The driver looked at the key with a frown and asked, "Are there no more rooms? I stayed with you last time. I remember that there are quite a few rooms." ah."

"Sorry, I remember you, but there are really no rooms today." The tavern owner also noticed Gnicia at this time, and he immediately understood what the coachman meant, so he explained: "...there are a few people who spend a lot of money The travelers in my house have all the other rooms covered. I have two beds in each room, but they insist on sleeping alone... There are a few elves, and some people carry weapons. , let this young lady communicate with them?"

The boss didn't want to deal with elves, he left the decision to Gnicia who seemed to have some status, and the girl nodded silently.

"Then follow me—Mir, look after the store!"

So the tavern owner greeted his wife and took the two of them to the backyard.

This country tavern is quite large, and the whole structure is in the shape of a "back". It looks a bit like the courtyards favored by the old dignitaries in Rome. It is surrounded by buildings, and there is an open space in the middle, which is enough to park two or three carriages. .While beckoning the two to go in, he ran to open the side door so that the coachman could park his carriage and horses in the yard.

It was completely dark, but Gnicia didn't see any light in those rooms. The lively contrast between the liveliness of the front hall and the desolation here made her even feel a little scared for a while.

The coachman looked at the uneasy girl, and suggested: "Why don't you forget it, you can rest in your room by yourself, and a rough person like me can make do with the bar all night... Elves are not so easy to get along with."