The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

With the real situation in the cemetery now and the hypothesis that there are still living people in the Nightmare Realm, Leo couldn't help but see the fragments of the memory of the Nightmare that he got before he was alive.

In those fragments, when the Nightmare Ghost was still alive, when he fell into the Nightmare Realm, he appeared alone in a village with very old houses, and the people in that village wore very old clothes. Afterwards, he was caught by the people in that village, burned to death as a sacrifice, and then his body was surrounded by thick fog, turning into a nightmare ghost, and returned to the projection of No. 9 on Golden Oak Street in the nightmare world.

In this way, the people the villa security saw before his death should all be living people, and most likely they were ancient villages that lived in the Miria Swamp and were accidentally involved in the Nightmare Realm. Some of these villages died from the attacks of the dream spirits, while others survived, almost maintaining their original civilization.

It's just that from those memories, it's not difficult to see that the people in those villages seem to be very unfriendly to outsiders, and they directly use them as sacrifices after they are caught.

Leo didn't know if the young man in the gravekeeper's hut was as unfriendly to outsiders as the people in the ancient villages, but he still chose to make contact with him. If the contact was unsuccessful, he would directly use spiritism to extract With his spiritual memory, he understood the situation here, and then went to find the wasteland shaman.

After making a decision, Leo walked towards the gravekeeper's hut, and the Spirit Net was also constantly investigating the behavior of the young man in the hut.

The young man was puzzled by the sudden disappearance of the dog barking, and was also very nervous. He saw the situation outside through the peephole from time to time, and added firewood to the fireplace to make the fire burn more vigorously.

When Leo came to the gravekeeper's hut, the nervous young man was adding firewood to the stove for the third time, and the knock on the door made by Leo frightened the young man, who was already in a panic, to sit on the ground, resting on the mechanical repeater crossbow. The finger on the trigger also pulled the trigger due to uncontrollable nerve shaking.

With a few swishing sounds, several circular saw blades shot out from the machine crossbow, hit the wall of the room, and were firmly embedded in the wood. The blades were still vibrating because the force had not completely disappeared.

"Who? Who is outside?" The young man hurriedly took out two blades and quickly installed them on the machine crossbow, then aimed at the door, and asked outside with a trembling voice.

The language spoken by the young man was not a strange language, but Marisian. Fortunately, Leo had learned this main language of the Minsk continent from the old man Rembrandt. Although he was not very proficient, he could barely use it.

"A passerby." Leo put down the hood of the leather windbreaker, stood under the firelight at the door, and said in Maris.

Because Leo's Maris language is not very proficient, and the young man's own Maris language has some local accents, so he didn't understand Leo's words for a while, and he was stunned for a while before realizing what Leo said .

"A passer-by?" The young man looked suspicious. He never expected such an answer, let alone anyone who would come to the cemetery in the suburbs to pass by during the silver moon period.

With strong doubts in his heart, the young man walked to the door cautiously, reached out his hand to open the baffle of the peephole, and peeped out, but suddenly felt that it was not safe to put his head in the peephole like this, so he picked up the door by the stove. With the iron rod, he used the iron rod to open the baffle, while he turned sideways and looked out.

With the help of the torch sticking outside the door, the young man saw Leo's appearance clearly. Seeing that the other party was not a monster, he relaxed his tension a little, but he didn't fully trust Leo, because Leo's outfit was so obvious to him. It seems that there is something abnormal, not like the people in the town.

So, the young man said cautiously: "I don't stay here. If you want to find a place to live, you can follow the path in the woods outside to the town, and you should be able to find a place for you to live there."

Leo is very aware of the young man's worries, and has no intention of forcibly breaking in for the time being, nor does he have the idea of ​​using spiritism on the young man, but patiently said: "I'm not looking for a place to stay, I just want to find out what kind of place this is. ?”

"Of course this is Hushang Town." Hearing Leo's question, the young man responded in a puzzled way, but soon he seemed to have thought of something, his originally relaxed mood became tense, and asked in a deep voice: "You Is it a foreigner?"

"I don't know if it's the kind of foreigner you mentioned. I just got lost while traveling and came here after walking." Leo took two steps back to make himself look harmless, and asked curiously Said: "Why did I show hostility when I mentioned the foreigner? Could it be that the foreigner who came here before had something unpleasant?"

The young man in the room did not answer, but from the expression on his face, it is not difficult to see that Leo may have guessed right, the outsiders in the past seem to have indeed done some things that both people and gods outraged.

In order to ease the current atmosphere, Leo said again: "You don't need to worry about those Yubato who wandered around the cemetery just now. I have already dealt with them. It should be safe here in a short time."

"What? You've already dealt with those Ubatos?" Hearing Leo's words, the young man showed a look of surprise on his face. Although he couldn't believe it in his heart, he thought that he hadn't heard a dog barking since just now. This made him have to believe that Ubato, who had been a headache for the whole town for a long time, had been solved by this person in front of him.

Thinking about this, the young man seemed to realize something, and he didn't care about the danger. He moved to the peephole, looked Leo up and down, and when his eyes fell on the king and queen pinned to Leo's waist, his eyes lit up, and he called out anxiously. Said: "Excuse me, are you the night watchman?"

Hearing the young man's tone became more respectful at the moment, Leo found an identity that could be used, so according to the book's introduction to the etiquette of the night watchman, he made a gesture of greeting the night watchman, nodded and said: "Yes , I am the night watchman who is conducting the pilgrimage ceremony."

According to Velen's rules, unless they are retired night watchmen, in order to better fight against enemies such as family members and followers of evil gods, the night watchmen will conduct a pilgrimage ceremony every once in a while and travel on the three continents. Not only can communicate with night watchman organizations in various places to strengthen contact, but also can find new night watchman candidates and increase the night watchman team.

Obviously, the night watchmen in the Nightmare Realm also kept the pilgrimage ceremony, and they did not hide the ceremony like Velen, so that no one would know about it. Instead, they generously made the ceremony public. understand.

So after hearing Leo's confession, the young man didn't doubt Leo's words at all, and the tension on his face instantly dissipated, replaced by a trusting expression. He didn't even consider whether the person outside the door was lying, so he opened the door directly. He came out, stretched out his hand to Leo and said, "Hi, I'm Valentin, the gravekeeper of Hushang Town."

Valentin's most common name in the Kingdom of Maris is usually given by freedmen or serfs with underground status.

This name made Leo think of the mining tycoon of the Maris Kingdom who disappeared at the beginning, and also thought that the owner of the villa that disappeared at the end seemed to be a member of the Marris Kingdom. related to people.

However, before guessing the young man's identity, Leo was a little surprised that the young man showed such a trusting attitude with just a few words of his own. In his opinion, this undoubtedly shows that the Night Watch organization has an extraordinary reputation here, and its influence is not small. At least the people here think that it is impossible for anyone to dare to pretend to be a Night Watch.

"Leo Dodd, the night watchman." Leo didn't say too much, so as not to reveal his truth.

"Let's go into the house first! Don't encounter other monsters!" Valentin looked outside, then returned to the house nervously, waved to Leo, and immediately closed the door after Leo walked into the house. Carefully looked outside through the peephole, and after confirming that there were no monsters, he relaxed a little.

Valentin asked Leo to sit freely, then found a cup, got a cup of hot water for Leo, and then asked suspiciously: "Didn't your night watchman's patrol ceremony just take place two years ago? Why is it earlier this time? so much?"

"This is a temporary pilgrimage ceremony." Leo made up a simple lie, and didn't say much, so as not to be exposed.

Valentin obviously didn't know what the rules of the pilgrimage ceremony were, but he had heard something about the pilgrimage ceremony, so he didn't have any doubts about Leo's words.

Maybe it was because he stayed here alone for too long, and it was rare for someone to talk to him, or maybe it was because he was able to relax his nervousness. After asking Leo, Valentin began to say to himself: "Seriously , I am very envious of you night watchmen who have the ability to kill monsters. When a night watchman came to our town on a tour, I was also selected, but it is a pity that I have only one seedling in my family, and I am worried that I will die in At the initiation ceremony, that's why I wasn't called a night watchman, otherwise, I might be a night watchman now."

Leo didn't interrupt him, but drank water while listening to the other party's chatter, and interrupted from time to time to guide the direction of the words, so that he could get more information from these words.

Soon Leo obtained a lot of information about this nightmare world from Valentin's words, which gave him a certain understanding of the situation in this nightmare world.

This Nightmare Realm is an alien plane of dreams centered on Crescent Moon Lake. Just like the Upper and Lower Crescent Moon Lake in the Miria region, this Crescent Moon Lake is also divided into Upper and Lower Crescent Moon Lake areas, but the two lake areas have not been separated. A large piece of land is separated, but it is integrated, but there is a small island in the middle, where the main city of this world, Crescent Moon City, is located.

The entire Nightmare Realm centered on Crescent Moon Lake has one city and ten towns. One city is Crescent Moon City, and the ten towns are ten small towns built by the lake. Because the lake water can isolate monsters from attacking, the towns are all built on the lake.

Except for the ten towns, the surrounding areas are all forests. After going deep into the forest, and then continue to push outward, you will reach the dense fog area.

According to Valentin, if entering the forest is a narrow escape, then there is no possibility of surviving entering the dense fog area.

However, perhaps because of a slip of the tongue, Valentin mentioned that there are still villages in the dense fog area, but he seems to be very afraid of those villages, and he doesn't want to mention more, and Leo can't help the other party's suspicion Did not follow up.

In addition, Leo also learned from Valentin that there are two forces that rule the Nightmare Realm, one is the Wizards Association of Crescent Moon City, and the other is the Alcott Family that rules Ten Towns.

The appearance of the Wizards' Association did not surprise Leo, after all, among the people who fell here back then were the great wizards of the Wizards' Gathering House.

But the wizard has become one of the forces ruling here, which makes Leo feel puzzled, because the wizard is definitely not the strongest existence among the people who fell here, and logically speaking, it should not form such a powerful ruling force as the Wizard Association.

However, the sub-brain system soon gave an analysis result, and this result directly pointed to the half-true legend of the first quarter moon lake area.

According to the legend, the first person to bring people here should be an ancient wizard who once ruled the entire Miria Swamp and built a magnificent city, so the Wizard Association probably originated from that wizard, not The pseudo-wizard he guessed was the pseudo-wizard of the wizard's gathering place, which also coincided with the legendary knowledge of the existence of ancient wizards here.

If Leo was a little surprised that the Wizarding Association became the ruler here, then it was obviously a huge surprise for the Alcott family, which was fighting against the Wizarding Association and ruling Ten Towns.

Andrew Alcott, builder and first owner of 9 Golden Oak Street, was also the earliest missing person.

Leo has always regarded Andrew as an ordinary victim of bad luck, but now it seems that Andrew Alcott's construction of No. 9 Golden Oak Street is premeditated, and Andrew himself is probably not a big deal ordinary people.

Compared with the two forces that occupy an absolute dominant position, the status of the night watchman is a bit better. He does not participate in any actual rule, but only takes killing monsters as his own responsibility. The resident is built in the forest. Moon Lake has a certain influence and can be regarded as a neutral force.

In addition, perhaps because of the environment, the people here have a very deep grasp of the mysticism that has disappeared in Velen. Even a low-status freeman like Valentin knows that the place where they live is an alien plane of dreams. Know what are the monsters here, how to deal with them, etc.

As for witchcraft, family members, alien god cells, etc., you can also talk about it, but there is only one most important thing missing here, and this thing is religion.

Logically speaking, in such a harsh environment, religion is definitely the greatest weapon to appease people's hearts, and such an environment is also a hotbed for the development of religion.

If it develops according to the normal situation, even if there are hostile forces such as the Wizarding Association, religion will not disappear completely, and there should be some sprouts of religion more or less, but it is not difficult to see from Valentin's speech and behavior. There is no concept of religion in my mind at all.

This also made Leo curious about what happened to the Ability God Judge and Orthodox High Priest who also fell here back then, making them disappear completely, leaving no legacy behind.