The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

"Didn't those people want to enter the Black Forest? Let them go." A councilman dressed in hunting attire from Dashu Town suddenly proposed when the discussion did not have a definite result.

"Franco, are you crazy?" The other councilors sitting next to this councilor asked immediately, "Let them in, if they find out our secret..."

"Isn't that better?" The hunting suit councilor showed a ruthless expression on his face, and said, "Everyone knows that the methods left by our ancestors have begun to fail, even if adventurers in the village enter the Black Forest, there will be a lot of trouble It’s a big danger, but have you ever thought that it’s not that our method has failed, but that the sacrifices used in the method are useless.”

After hearing what the hunting suit councilor said, an elderly councilor raised his hand to stop other people from continuing the discussion. When the room became quiet, he asked the hunting suit councilor: "Franco, you said the sacrifice is useless?" Is there any basis for it?"

"Of course there is a basis." The hunting suit councilor immediately replied: "Everyone should know the third child of the Brick family, right?"

"That lunatic?" Everyone thought for a while after hearing the words, and soon thought of who the third child of the Brick family was.

"Not long ago, after the team led by Kerry disappeared in the Black Forest, I carefully investigated why the method left by our ancestors failed." Hunting Councilor In order to let everyone hear his voice, from the position Standing up, walked to the middle of the seats, and then said with a serious face: "After my careful investigation, I found that the first time the method failed was not in the last few months, but two years ago, that is, Brick The harvesting team that the third child of the Brick family participated in. Everyone should remember that time when all the members of the team died, only the third child of the Brick family came back, but although he came back, he lost an eye and One ear, and people are crazy."

A member of parliament in police uniform took the conversation and said: "Yes, I remember this incident. I was responsible for the investigation of this incident. The result of the investigation at that time was that they violated the rules of their ancestors and entered the scope allowed by the contract. The Black Forest outside, that's why that tragedy happened."

"Actually, it's not that anything has entered the Black Forest beyond the scope of the contract. It's that the mysterious contract we signed with the Black Forest back then has gone wrong, and the sacrifices have begun to fail." The hunting suit senator refuted the senator's words. Before the other party opened his mouth to refute himself, he added: "Everyone, recall carefully, after the tragedy, our people entered the Black Forest, and the casualties began to increase, until now they have become similar to outsiders."

After the voice of the hunting suit councilor fell, the room became very quiet. Everyone was thinking about his words, and felt that his words seemed to be right. The village had entered the Black Forest before, and as long as the ceremony was completed, there would basically be no danger. , but since that tragedy happened, even if their rituals were completed perfectly, accidents would still happen to the villagers when they entered the Black Forest, but the casualties were much less than that of outsiders, until not long ago there was a time when everyone died in the Black Forest of the Black Forest.

The hunting suit councilor looked at the expressions on the faces of the people around him, and knew that what he said had been approved by everyone, so he went on to say: "After I investigated this point, a question arose in my mind. It stands to reason that if those people failed the contract for some reason, then everyone should have died in the forest, why did the third child of the Brick family come back alive?"

According to the words of the safari councilor, some councilors maliciously guessed: "You mean that the third child of the Brick family is also one of the people who caused the contract to fail. He should have died in the forest, but now he walked out of the forest alive. , the reasons for the failure of the contract still exist, we should send the third child of the Brick family back to the Black Forest, right?"

Although these words were full of malice, many people seemed to agree with this proposal and nodded inadvertently.

"Of course not!" The member of the hunting suit immediately argued: "Since the third child of the Brick family can walk out of the Black Forest alive, it means that the Black Forest has allowed him to leave. The reason why I raised that question is mainly to say that Brick There must be a special way for the third child of the Ke family to walk out of the Black Forest alive."

"Franco, do you already know that method?" A member of the council heard some clues and asked.

The Huntsman no longer went around in circles, nodded and admitted: "Yes, I have already got the method from the third child of the Brick family."

"I got the method from a lunatic, Franco, are you crazy too?" A senator with a bad relationship with the safari senator sneered at the right time.

The hunting suit councilor didn't care about the other party's ridicule, and said calmly: "Although the third child of the Brick family is crazy, as long as the method is right, even a lunatic can say something useful. The reason why he was able to walk out of the darkness alive Forest, mainly because he made another sacrifice in the Black Forest, but this time the sacrifice was not the sacrifices prepared by our village, but one of his own eyes and ears, so I feel that our The ritual may still be useful, but the offerings have changed."

After the hunting suit councilor's voice fell, everyone present couldn't help but let out a burst of exclamation.

For a long time, the sacrifices required for the ceremony in Dashu Town were just wild animals, they had never done anything like living sacrifices, and now the meaning of the hunting suit councilor's words seemed to mean that they wanted to let them If the ceremony is successful, so that the villagers can continue to enter and leave the Black Forest safely as before, they need to use living people to sacrifice.

"Damn it, do you know what you're talking about?" The member of the police uniform suddenly stood up and shouted loudly: "You can even say such things as sacrifices of living people, don't you know that the empire has such a time limit?" How taboo? If you dare to do such a thing today, people from the Imperial Security Bureau will come here and take you away tomorrow. Do you want to kill everyone?"

Hearing these words, the faces of the members of the House of Representatives present became extremely ugly, and the eyes looking at the hunting suit members also became a little gloomy.

Seeing that he had become the target of public criticism, the hunting suit councilor did not appear flustered, but smiled relaxedly and said, "You guys have misunderstood me, I never thought about performing human sacrifices, I just thought the sacrifices Now that it has changed, our ceremony can also be changed."

Someone immediately asked in puzzlement, "What do you mean by that?"

The hunting suit councilor explained: "We can complete the ceremony in advance, but don't offer sacrifices, and wait for the sacrifices to dedicate themselves to the mystery of the Black Forest."

Another questioned: "Are you crazy? How could someone be willing to be a sacrifice?"

"Why not?" The hunting suit councilor smiled and said: "You have forgotten that there are many foreigners in our town now. Don't they all want to enter the Black Forest through the road we opened? Since they are going to , we don’t need to stop them, do we?”

After these words, the members of the House of Representatives present seemed to understand what the hunting suit member wanted to express, and their gloomy faces eased, and they discussed with each other in a low voice, and quickly reached a consensus.

The next day, an announcement was posted on the bulletin board of Dashu Town's town office. This announcement mentioned that Dashu Town agreed to open the Black Forest Road opened by Dashu Town to adventurers from other places. You need to issue a pass at the town hall.

This news did not surprise the foreign adventurers gathered in the town. In their view, although Dashu Town tried every means to prevent foreign adventurers from using the road opened by Dashu Town, some people still escaped from Dashu Town. Blockade of Tree Town.

There are still not many adventurers from other places in the town, and they cannot be blocked. When the number of adventurers hides in the future, it will be even more impossible to completely block them, so the road is still open in the end.

Now that Dashu Town is taking the initiative to open the road, it will not only save face for the people in Dashu Town, but also make the adventurers from other places feel that they owe Dashu Town something. At that time, all the items needed to enter the Black Forest will also be in Dashu Town. Town to buy, so that people in Dashu Town can benefit from it.

Now that Dashu Town has given way to foreign adventurers, foreign adventurers will also abide by the rules set by Dashu Town to avoid unnecessary conflicts.

Originally, those foreign adventurers thought that they only needed to register their names to obtain a pass, but what they didn't expect was that things were not as simple as they thought. Although there was nothing unpleasant about the whole process of obtaining a pass, But the procedures are a bit cumbersome.

The most troublesome thing in these procedures is the need to fill out a waiver of liability, in order to prevent their relatives and friends from using the road they opened up in Dashu Town to cause trouble in Dashu Town.

Although this waiver is a bit unpleasant, it is still within the tolerable range, but another procedure after that makes the out-of-town adventurers who apply for the pass full of unhappiness.

According to Dashu Town, because entering the Black Forest is very dangerous and the death rate is high, no one can guarantee that they can come out of the Black Forest, so in order to prevent these foreign adventurers from dying in the Black Forest, no one knows, Dashu Town hopes All foreign adventurers who entered the Black Forest left a suicide note, and wrote the address of the recipient on the suicide note. Once they did not come out of the Black Forest, Dashu Town would send these suicide notes to the address on the letter.

In the eyes of many people, Dashu Town's approach should be regarded as good intentions, but doing so at this time always makes people feel weird, like some kind of curse that must die.

It's just that they were annoyed, and they didn't resist Dashu Town's move. After all, Dashu Town had opened up the road, giving them a chance to make a lot of money.

In fact, in the towns around the Black Forest, there are still many roads that have been opened up over a long period of time and a large number of human lives. Many roads have even penetrated into the depths of the Black Forest. The only way to harvest and come back alive is Dashu Town.

Someone once specifically counted the chances of the local adventurers in Dashu Town coming back alive after entering the Black Forest, and the harvest every time they entered. It was amazing to find that the local adventurers in Dashu Town were able to harvest a lot of things almost every time. Nearly half of the things related to the Black Forest come from Big Tree Town, and the survival rate of adventurers in Big Tree Town is also the highest.

It is also for this reason that those adventurers who put their minds on the Black Forest choose the road opened by Dashu Town as their first choice. According to the current prices of items related to the Black Forest on the market, they only need to enter the Black Forest Bring out an item unique to the Black Forest, and they won't have to worry about spending for years to come.

So for the sake of great benefits, these adventurers are willing to endure everything, including the kind of reserved suicide note that looks very unpleasant.

However, this kind of dissatisfaction soon dissipated among the adventurers from other places, because some people who entered the Black Forest survived and gained something, which made all the adventurers from other places see their chance to make a fortune, and started to prepare to enter the Black Forest. forest.

However, they did not find that there were only a few people who could come out of the Black Forest alive, and other people who entered the Black Forest did not come out again.

Maybe they all discovered this too, but they all focused on the gains from the few people who were alive, and didn't care about other things.

In this way, more and more adventurers gathered in Dashu Town, and Dashu Town seemed to be the most prosperous of all nearby villages and towns.

It was already night when Leo and Sylvia arrived in Dashu Town. Instead of driving the carriage directly into Dashu Town, they abandoned the carriage on the road and changed into unobtrusive adventurer costumes .

"There are many more adventurers here than expected, and the Imperial Security Bureau will definitely send people to monitor here." Standing on a hillside, looking at the town surrounded by simple wooden walls in front, hearing all kinds of noise coming from the town Voice, Sylvia said calmly.

"It's okay, we don't need to stay here, tonight..." Leo who was talking suddenly stopped, looked at the huge umbrella tree in the center of the town in front of him with a serious expression, frowned, and said: "Then There's something wrong with a big tree."

Sylvia looked at the umbrella tree suspiciously, but didn't see any clues.

The umbrella tree is a common tree in the northern part of the French Empire. Because its branches and leaves grow in the shape of an umbrella, it has the name of the umbrella tree. This kind of umbrella tree is the favorite planted in various gardens of the French Empire. Visitors are provided with a place to enjoy the shade.

However, although the umbrella tree in Dashu Town has the same shape as other umbrella trees, its shape is much larger than half of the umbrella trees. Even outside the town, you can clearly see this big tree. The origin of the name of the town.

"This umbrella tree has energy fluctuations, very strong energy fluctuations." Knowing that Sylvia did not see the details of this umbrella tree, Leo explained: "It should be a family."

"Family?" Sylvia immediately had bad associations in her mind when she heard the words, and the expression on her face became a lot more serious.