Chapter 2537: Century-Old Demon and Hermit

The iron fence around the cemetery was mainly to prevent the intrusion of wild animals. This remote and shabby family cemetery had no grave keeper, so it could not prevent grave robbers.

But the Bennett family had a good reputation locally, and had been supported by the townspeople since the Baron era, plus the folk customs of Creekwood Town were truly simple and honest, so no malicious grave robbery had occurred to this day.

"Thomas Bennett's father was Bruce Bennett, his grandfather was Baron James Bennett, and his great-grandfather was Howard Bennett from the time you arrived in Creekwood Town; all three are here."

After opening the cemetery gate with the 【Key of Doors】, Xia De said while muttering to himself.

The cemetery structure was relatively simple. After the gate was the walkway, leading to the low stone house in the center of the cemetery. Opening the door of the stone building was the stairs leading to the underground tomb. All the Bennetts were buried there.

And the underground tomb was not complicated either. The cold but dry open square space was supported by six pillars. The coffins were placed in recesses in the walls, and stone tablets were embedded in the stone walls beside the coffins one by one to introduce the achievements and past events of these Barons.

Snapping his fingers, the torches on the walls and stone pillars lit up one by one. Xia De, who had been expecting to encounter evil spirits, scanned the room, only to find in disappointment that it was very clean.

And the red-haired girl raised both hands, and with a rumbling~ sound, the heavy stone coffins flew out of the wall together and were neatly placed against the wall.

Xia De looked at her in surprise. It shouldn't have such powerful force for a Seventh-Ring to cast such a basic spell "move object". Clearly, her spells had also been uniquely adjusted to be so amazing, and the young female warlock smiled:

"Even if I am one ring lower than you now, I am not an ordinary Seventh-Ring."

There was no cremation tradition locally, so those were corpses in the stones. Xia De let Miss Dannis Te be responsible for vigilance, while he opened the coffins one by one for inspection.

Dried corpses, skeletons, funerary objects; for the sake of safety, Xia De touched every item. The inspection order was from modern to ancient, but there were no traces of a time curse on any of the corpses.

It was just that when Xia De checked the oldest coffin, which was the first Baron Bennett's corpse marked on the tombstone as living from "1499 to 1551", although there was still no time curse, he felt an extremely dirty and cold power when touching the withered bones:

"This is... Demon Vision!"

The strange spell was activated, and his eyes immediately saw a layer of faint black light attached to those remaining bones in the dim torchlight:

"Demon?"

"What?"

Miss Dannis Te, who was checking the tombstone inscriptions, turned to ask, and walked to Xia De's side:

"What did you discover?"

"The stench of a demon, an ancient evil demon."

Xia De narrowed his eyes and looked at the contents of the coffin:

"Very, very faint demon power. If my perception wasn't powerful, and this strange spell wasn't specifically aimed at demons, I wouldn't even have been able to perceive it.

The first Baron of the Bennett family had once been stained with demon power, but he shouldn't have directly accepted a demon's deal, otherwise this power would be stronger."

Miss Dannis Te leaned over and glanced at the inscription on the side:

"He lived in the era more than three hundred years ago, and was granted the title of Baron because of military merit. He participated in the war between the then-ununified Karsenrik United Kingdom and the eastern Delin-Oll Kingdom. He had his right leg amputated after being injured in the war, and also lost his left eye. Finally, he retired and returned to his hometown, Creekwood Town, with the rank of Lieutenant General.

It was truly a magnificent life, so the skeleton is missing the right leg part."

Xia De thought for a moment:

"Three hundred years ago? When I first came locally, I heard local people talk about it in the black market. About two or three hundred years ago, an ancient evil demon appeared in Creekwood Town. The town was very small at the time, the church only had the Natural Church, and there weren't many ring-warlocks, and that accident almost caused the town to disappear."

Miss Dannis Te nodded slightly, clearly having heard the story too:

"There are special records in the Academy library about such ancient evil spirits. I did see this matter when I was looking up the history of Creekwood Town. The first Baron Bennett likely encountered that incident. He was one of the few nobles in the town at that time, so it was normal for him to be sought out, corrupted, or controlled by a demon."

Although the corpse still retained demon power, there was no need to worry about it, as it would completely disappear in a hundred or two hundred years. The only value of these bones was to be sold in the black market as "curse materials". Of course, Xia De would not do such a thing.

"Did the book say which demon it was? How did it come? How was this matter resolved at the time?"

After confirming that there were no clues in this last coffin, Xia De closed it again.

"It didn't say the source, nor did it say the specific identity. That demon was finally sealed by the Thirteenth-Ring warlock 'Forest Hunter' sent by the Natural Church to the local area using an Angel-level relic. Now that relic is still being contained in the Natural Church's Holy See, so there is no need to worry about us encountering this thing while in Vista City."

"Why haven't I heard of the name of this 'Forest Hunter'?"

Xia De asked again, and the red-haired girl smiled and looked at her student:

"Because that gentleman lived more than three hundred years ago, and he passed away when my teacher was still a student, so of course you haven't heard of him. The teacher once told me about that gentleman's affairs, and at that time I..."

She suddenly smiled, and although she was looking at the stone coffin, it was as if she saw something more distant:

"When the teacher talked to me about that gentleman, I happened to be eighteen years old."

She looked up at her student again, thinking of that conversation many years ago. Everything had changed, but only she remained unchanged. She was lost in thought for a moment, and her eyes were a bit dazed.

Suddenly, she felt a hand placed on her shoulder. She looked up and saw Xia De looking at her with a smile:

"If we can see your teacher in the future, how surprised do you think she would be to see you as you are now?"

"But the library states that the teacher died on Mount Sikar."

She shook her head, but Xia De said again:

"Yes, but this is Creekwood Town, and there are tree holes here. It's just that I don't know if your teacher has also been to Creekwood Town."

Miss Dannis Gustav was stunned for a moment, then laughed:

"Xia De, I know you are joking, please don't give me such unrealistic expectations."

Since no clues were found in the cemetery, the next step of the investigation could only be pinned on tonight's banquet, or the half newspaper that the two ladies brought back from a hundred years ago.

But because that newspaper had traveled through time twice, it was difficult to be divined for its origin. At least it was difficult to divine without getting a new coin and Xia De being willing to consume the coin. Therefore, Xia De still hoped that tonight's banquet would discover something interesting.

But this outing with Miss Dannis Te did not end here. She had another purpose for going out this time, which was to establish contact with the 【Forest Hermit Group】.

When she first arrived locally, she hoped to meet those hermits in the capacity of "Red Moon Witch-Dannis Te", so that communication would be relatively convenient.

But she hadn't met them before she became the eighteen-year-old appearance she was now, so she could only communicate with the 【Forest Hermit Group】 in the capacity of an ordinary ring-warlock first. If the other party was unwilling to cooperate, then she would reveal her Saint Byron background.

The station of the 【Forest Hermit Group】 was deep in the Vista Woodland, but no one knew the specific location except themselves. The group believed in the departed Old God-White Holy Tree. According to Saint Byron's estimation, the core members should be between 50 and 80 people.

Although this sounded like a lot, in fact, the core members also included a large number of ordinary hermits who voluntarily returned to the mountains and forests after abandoning the life of the civilized world, so there were probably only about twenty ring-warlocks among them.

Although Miss Dannis Te successfully established contact with the hermits, it was clearly impossible to bring Xia De directly to their station. The place where the two sides met was a small village in the southeast of Vista Woodland, which was connected to the city by only a small road that allowed carriages transporting timber to pass through. The village was called "Little Mig Village".

The village could exist in such a deep forest location because there were large lumberyards in the east, west, and north directions, and except for a few farmers and hunters in the village, most people's income had to rely on the workers of these lumberyards.

Because of this, there was actually a tavern in the small village. However, it was Tuesday noon, and lumberjacks usually wouldn't appear in the village but would eat at the workplace, so the tavern was quite quiet.

The low row of wooden houses was the main body of the tavern building. Although the sun was very good outside, it was a bit dim and cool inside the tavern. When Xia De and the red-haired girl walked around the edge of the city and came to Little Mig Village, the hermit who came to meet the two had already arrived in advance and sat at a table against the wall.

Xia De asked the bearded tavern owner who looked like a butcher for drinks and lunch at the front desk, and then walked over with Miss Dannis Te.

"John Watson."

After sitting down, Xia De reached out to the middle-aged man wrapped in a brown robe with a green beard, and the latter shook hands with him virtually:

"Bell Van Buren."

He looked to be about forty years old and was very weathered. Although the brown robe was washed very clean, one could tell at a glance that the material of the fabric was not very good. He looked very shabby, but his eyes were exceptionally bright, which was very consistent with Xia De's imagination of the special profession of "hermit".

There was only a newspaper, a glass of water, and a piece of bread on the table in front of Hermit Mr. Van Buren. People in the "Forest Hermit Group" truly lived the life of hermits, not advocating eating and drinking:

"Good afternoon, Mr. Watson, and this strange lady. Did you get in touch with us through the black market in Creekwood Town? Before officially starting the conversation, please allow me to ask, where did you get that 'Friendship Oak'?" ===== CHAPTER 2538 =====