Monster Hunt: Notes from a Hunter

The hunters set off from the public tavern located in the center of the city and walked all the way outside the city.

When they passed by their chamber of commerce, Anshir got out a carriage, which made their actions a lot faster, but even so, it still took more than two hours to reach their destination.

The outskirts of East Doruma are not the kind of endless plains, facing the sea in the south (the Inner Sea of ​​Geokruk), and the hills in the north. The ruins of the fortress at the destination are located between the hills.

Although the road on this road is quite well built, flat and wide, it still takes a lot of time to go around in the hills.

"Stop!"

The horse was blocked in the middle of the road ahead, and several soldiers with spears came forward and stopped the carriage.

The coachman was a little dissatisfied. The carriage had the family crest of the Sterling family on it.

However, those kingdom soldiers did not let them go unconditionally because of this, and it seemed that they had also received strict orders from above.

After all, not all the armaments stored in the arsenal were used to supply Battle Street, and the Kingdom's military's logistics department also suffered heavy losses.

Kurt Aiz got out of the car and showed the order document from the guild headquarters, and the soldiers moved away and refused to let the horse go.

The destination was within sight, and Gordon and the others had no intention of continuing to take the car, and jumped out of the car one after another. Anshir asked the driver to wait here, and a group of people walked through the checkpoint and came to the ruins of the fortress. forward.

This is a castle built on the hillside. Looking at the map provided by Kurt Aiz, the arsenal is built inside and below the mountain, while the castle outside the mountain has been completely turned into ruins of bricks and stones. The original outline is not visible at all. Out.

"What kind of power is needed to destroy a fort like this." Hayata murmured.

"What's even more frightening is that no one survived, and no alarm was raised in time."

Gordon squatted down, took out a stripping knife, found a piece of broken brick and chiseled it a few times, "It's very strong, this is not a shoddy project."

"Understand what I said, why can't it be man-made?" Kurt Aiz also squatted down and fiddled with the broken bricks, "Even if there is a group of thieves who can break through the defense of the defense team, it is impossible Destroy the fort like this."

"Didn't you say before that there is a large amount of gunpowder stored in the arsenal? Is it possible that the castle was shattered because the gunpowder arsenal died?"

Before Kurt Az could say anything, Pig Chop spoke up first, "No meow, the main reason for the shattering of the castle is definitely not the gunpowder explosion meow.

The explosion of the gunpowder magazine shattered the castle into such a state that the broken bricks were scattered hundreds of meters away, and there were meows everywhere, but there were no meows. "

"Yes." Kurt Aiz nodded, "This is also the judgment of our guild knights in charge of the initial investigation."

Kanran, who had been covering her nose since arriving here, muttered, "It stinks meow! The smell of burning in the air meow!"

Kurt Aiz spread his hands, "In addition to gunpowder, there is also some kerosene stored in the arsenal, it should be the smell left after burning kerosene.

Some soldiers who hid in the depths of the arsenal were suffocated to death by the poisonous smoke of burning. "

"It's not the smell of kerosene meow." Pandan held her nose and murmured, but said with certainty, "The smell of burning kerosene is very faint meow, which smells good. No, it's not like this meow anyway.

It's more like the smell of burning heavy oil meow. "

Gordon looked at Pandan curiously, "Do you know anything about oil?"

"Sneeze meow—"

Pandan sneezed, "I'm a cat who grew up in Baru Barre, and Baru Barre sometimes moves to the vicinity of the oil springs to use oil to refine kerosene as a commodity meow.

Many little Ai Lu like to gather around the still pot and smell the smell of kerosene. "

"It's meow? Your desert Elu is so weird." Pork Chop couldn't believe it.

Xiang Lan squinted at it, "Doesn't Ai Lu in your mountains also like to smell monster poop and urine stains?"

"That's to confirm the danger meow!"

Having no time to pay attention to the bickering of the two Elu, Kurt Aiz frowned and thought for a second, then said "I'm going to find something", and rushed into the ruins.

Gordon took the pork chop aside and asked Panlan, "What did you mean by heavy oil?"

Pandan gestured, "It's the sticky and black waste left after extracting kerosene from petroleum. It can also be burned, but it burns slowly and the smell is too stinky.

Therefore, it is basically useless. After refining the kerosene, it will be thrown away directly. "

Kurt Aiz ran back with a brick, and he pushed the broken brick in front of Pandan, "Is this it?"

The bricks and stones were stained with a little bit of black grease traces. After sniffing a little bit, Panlan folded her ears, covered her nose and said, "Yeah. The taste is a little different, but it's pretty much the same."

Gordon dipped some in his hand and rubbed it on his fingertips. It was very sticky, almost sticky like glue.

"Are you sure there is no heavy fuel in the materials stored in the arsenal?" Anshir asked.

"It's not on the list." Kurt Aiz shook his head and said, "Besides, what's the purpose of storing that, it's not easy to use."

"It seems that the assailant brought it here." Gordon rubbed the grease off his fingers on the ground, "The mantis should have nothing to do with heavy oil, right?"

An Xier shook his head, "It's hard to say, Ge Mantis is good at burrowing into the ground, and the ruins of the ancient village are in the desert, so it's not impossible for it to pass by a certain oil spring and get soaked in oil.

More importantly, doesn't Ge Mantis like to collect metal utensils? As far as I know, some large boilers also use heavy oil as fuel, so it is not impossible for Ge Mantis to bring heavy oil unintentionally. "

Speaking of this, Anshir paused, and emphasized: "I said this just because I don't want to rule out the suspicion of Ge Mantis just because of the existence of heavy oil.

But this does not mean that the real culprit must be relied on Ge Tanglang. We still need more evidence and objective analysis. "

"Um."

Kurt Ez adjusted the brim of his hat, obviously agreeing with Anshir's statement, "We know too little about the mantis, and you two can even be said to be the people who know this mysterious creature best in the world.

Judging from the current evidence, Ge Mantis is the most suspected.

But whether the attacker is it or not, what the guild needs is the truth, not a forcibly created enemy. "

"Go on." Gordon stood up, "I may not understand other aspects, but I think I'm quite good at analyzing monster traces.

I asked before, and I also confirmed on the way here that there are no footprints left by large monsters near the ruins of the fortress, so there are basically only two possibilities for the way the attackers came and left.

—fly, or burrow.

The mantis should not be able to fly. We can look carefully to see if there are any underground tunnels. Even if the attackers filled the tunnels when they left, there would always be traces of excavation.

From those traces, it should be possible to basically determine whether the attacker was Ge Mantis. "

"Well, it makes sense."

Kurt Aiz smiled and said: "The Great Elder is right to call you back in a hurry. In terms of tracking monsters and analyzing footprints, our guild knights are ultimately inferior to you hunters who are fighting on the front line.

Let's search separately, it will be more efficient, and meet and communicate after the search. "

Ps. As mentioned in the setting, the destruction of the fortress was wiped out several times. It is actually quite difficult to explain the fact that there are no surviving witnesses.

Let’s barely give a possibility here, that is, the survivors hide in the depths of the fortress, and then they are suffocated to death by the poisonous smoke of black oil burning