When the Saint comes, she does not collect food.

A foul-smelling wind blew from inside the cave, making people want to hold their breath. The cave entrance wasn't large, but the cave itself was quite spacious.

Illuminated by the torchlight, skeletons of various shapes were scattered on the ground, their bones displaying matte, glossy, or frosted textures, emitting flickering glows.

Before the path of bones was a trench, from which a thick, bloody, metallic smell emanated.

Following behind Father Cosey, several brave young men protected Horn and Jeanne as they walked deeper into the cave.

Letting those meat shields lead the way under Father Cosey's guidance, Horn looked around, examining the cave itself.

Reaching the edge of the cave, Horn reached out and touched the cave's grayish-white wall.

The rough, solid texture was almost identical to the concrete from his previous life.

Looking up at the semi-circular vault, Horn realized that the cave had no load-bearing pillars, relying entirely on the unknown grayish-white vault for support.

"This is mortar," Jeshka said, as expected of a wanderer who has traveled far and wide, instantly recognizing what it was. "Evil wizards use a type of magic called petrification, which turns rocks into a special liquid, commonly known as mortar. After it dries, this mortar becomes as hard as stone."

"So, this is a wizard's stronghold?"

"Not necessarily. In fact, many nobles or priests buy this mortar on the black market when building churches or castles."

"Black market?"

"Yes, the wizards of Black Serpent Bay often entrust the mortar to the Secret Party for sale on the black market. As you know, the black markets in Thousand River Valley are basically controlled by the Secret Party and cultists."

Horn nodded and stepped forward, crossing over the dry bones on the ground.

As for the young men at the front, they were now gathered in front of the trench, pinching their noses and whispering.

Horn walked forward, but before he could speak, he was almost knocked unconscious by the stench of corpses coming from the trench.

In the trench, rows of long metal spikes stood upright, with the corpses and bones of various animals impaled on the sharp spikes, fermenting a strong odor.

The most conspicuous of these corpses was a villager lying on his back.

He was probably around middle school age and had only recently died, a long spike piercing his throat.

Bright blood flowed along the sloping path, converging into a depression.

The small pit filled with blood had no bloody smell at all, but instead had a milky fragrance.

In the small pit, two thumb-sized, pink, tender creatures were floating in the blood.

"They're demon rabbit cubs!"

"No wonder they didn't attack him. They knew he was there to feed their cubs," Busak realized.

Jeanne looked pained. She stepped forward, enduring the stench, and reached out to pull the villager from the spikes.

Reaching out to close his wide-open eyes, Horn said to the young men beside him, "Carry him out and send him back to the camp with that brave archer."

After a young man used a handkerchief to scoop out the two juvenile demon rabbits, Horn didn't hesitate to pinch their heads and snap their necks directly.

Such sinful objects bearing the blood of others should not exist in the world.

By now, Horn and his party had made enough noise, but the legendary Green Piper had still not appeared.

Holding a torch in one hand and a pig-slaughtering knife in the other, Father Cosey stood in the first row, advancing towards the depths of the cave.

Surrounded by the crowd, Horn and Jeanne walked all the way to the bottom of the cave, but there was still no sign of the Pied Piper.

Before them were only a pile of dry grass and a few broken boxes. Father Cosey stood by a man-high crack, staring blankly at the crack with a pale face.

In the crack was inserted a bone flute.

The other side of the crack was obviously ventilated. Whenever the wind blew, a whistling flute sound mixed with the wind, slowly moving forward.

He thought it was something, a flute caused so much trouble.

Horn couldn't help but cover his forehead.

Being with these villagers who were always talking about supernatural things made his thinking become supernatural as well.

He winked at Jeshka, who very sensibly stepped forward and pulled out the bone flute through a handkerchief.

Taking the bone flute from Jeshka, Horn handed it to Jeanne, "Jeanne, try blowing it."

As the King of Monsters, such evil objects would probably be difficult to affect him. Jeanne was the safest test subject.

Without suspicion, Jeanne picked up the bone flute, took a deep breath, and blew hard.

The next second, it was as if sound waves had a shape, rippling outward.

All the villagers present seemed to hear something terrible, covering their heads and groaning in pain.

Some of those with weaker constitutions even bled from their noses.

This time, Horn didn't hold Jeanne's hand, but he was still unaffected, only hearing simple, unpleasant noise.

Why wasn't he affected?

Was it because he was a time-traveler, so his soul was more resilient?

Taking the bone flute from the somewhat flustered Jeanne, Horn carefully wiped the saliva off the bone flute with a handkerchief, but suddenly discovered that a crack had appeared on the bone flute.

Horn had originally thought of trying it himself, but seeing the crack, he gave up.

"How did it feel when you blew it?" Horn asked, meeting Jeanne's dissatisfied gaze.

Jeanne frowned. "There's a nauseating feeling."

He probably understood what was happening. Someone must have put the bone flute in this crack, so that when the wind blew, the bone flute made a sound, luring animals in the forest to enter.

If these animals died at the hands of the demon rabbits, their corpses would fall at the entrance of the cave. If they died in the long spikes, their corpses would be in the trench.

No wonder there was no food in the forest. So you were eating rebates and raising monsters.

Come to think of it, these rabbits were terrible monsters to ordinary people, but for knights with full plate armor and professional monster hunters, they were much weaker than other monsters.

Although it would consume the hunting resources of the entire forest and bear the risk of the monsters getting out of control, the price of a pound of monster meat was more than gold.

The 8 rabbits outside could yield about forty pounds of meat. What's the concept of forty pounds of gold?

It's equivalent to 500 gold pounds, equal to 60,000 dinars or 540 tons of wheat.

A knight's total annual income was only 2 or 30 gold pounds. Even if they tried their best to harvest leeks, they couldn't harvest this much, especially with the end of the Hundred Years' War and the sharp drop in grain prices.

No wonder the hunter's lodge was decorated so luxuriously and comfortably. So the money came from this.

It's really hard for the knight. He couldn't live in a good manor villa. Instead, he worked as a forest ranger every day, living in the hunter's lodge, monitoring the refugees and serfs to prevent poachers.

Think about Barnett's father dedicating the forest land to the High Fort Archbishop. The High Fort Archbishop didn't come to play himself, but instead sent a special hunter to hunt every two or three years. The last time was exactly three years ago...

Eww, the more you think about it, the more terrifying it is.

Raising monsters was a serious crime, even Barnett couldn't afford it, let alone secretly hiding the evil bone flute.

Now the reason why Barnett didn't let them enter the forest was found. In the end, he even attacked Horn at the risk of his life, probably because he was afraid of being discovered.

As long as enough food couldn't be found in the forest, someone would always discover this place.

Especially since the High Fort Archbishop was involved in this matter. It only weighs four ounces without being weighed, but it must weigh a thousand pounds when weighed.

As for the origin of the bone flute, Horn also had a rough guess.

Since this flute was made by the Secret Party or a wizard for trafficking children, then the church should have caught such a group of human traffickers, but they detained the bone flute and didn't report it.

They didn't know where they got the method of raising demon rabbits, plus the Red Mill Village's poor forest and the knight who was so poor that he was breathtaking.

It was simply the most correct choice gathered together.

But this also showed that the mastermind behind this was not the "Pied Piper". Father Cosey's daughters' clues were interrupted once again.

Horn's gaze turned to Father Cosey.

Sure enough, Father Cosey leaned against the wall and slowly sat down. He seemed to be several years older, his decadent eyes staring at the ground.

Busak, who was familiar with the priest, couldn't bear it and stepped forward to pat his old friend's shoulder. Although he didn't speak, Father Cosey knew what he meant.

Standing up, Cosey forced a smile: "It's all over. I have vowed to serve our Lord for the rest of my life. Just think of them as having gone to the Mountain of Paradise."

After hesitating for a moment, Horn stepped forward and patted Father Cosey's shoulder: "You might be able to find clues about your daughters in High Fort. If you have the opportunity, you might be able to ask there. Maybe there's news."

Father Cosey's eyes lit up at first, but then he shook his head with a wry smile: "Holy Grandson, I'm just a country priest. What qualifications and ability do I have to continue investigating?"

Numbly getting up, Father Cosey walked out of the cave with his head down, and the rest of the young men also walked towards the outside of the cave.

After clarifying the truth, the villagers relaxed a lot, but Horn, who was walking last, had a headache.

The danger was resolved, but the problem was that the animals in the forest had been killed, and the roads and bridges to other forests were damaged. Where could they get food?

Monster meat could speed up breathing exercises, but it couldn't provide enough heat.

The remaining food could only last through today, and tomorrow they wouldn't have anything to eat. Should they order the armed farmers to hand over their stored grain?

Their stored grain could only last for another day or two at most. What should they do next?

Walking to the forest clearing, Horn looked up and called out to the remaining people: "The matter has been resolved. It was caused by the devil Barnett. I'll explain in detail when we get back. Bring those rabbits and these two corpses... eh?"

Horn pointed at the three corpses lying neatly side by side on the ground, his face darkened, and asked Haze, who was staying behind: "How did one more corpse appear?"

Haze said with a sad face: "Holy Grandson, it's really not my fault. This bastard was born with a big belly. He was hooked by the roasted rabbits just now and dug out a poisonous potato root from the ground. He ate a whole one. He couldn't do it right after eating it. He had more air in than out. He kept twitching and died in the blink of an eye. We couldn't save him even if we wanted to."

"Potato root?" Horn quickly searched his memory.

Potato root was a specialty of Thousand River Valley and Black Serpent Bay. It was cylindrical, yellowish-brown with a bit of purplish-red, and had whiskers on the outside. It looked a bit like a thickened and enlarged version of yam.

It looked edible, but it was actually poisonous. Mild cases would cause diarrhea, and severe cases would be like this guy who ate things he randomly dug up from the ground, dying in an instant.

Recalling his memory of potato roots, Horn stroked his chin. How did this thing look so much like cassava?