Please abide by the Basic Law

Chapter 169 The Lost God

When Cecil saw Brian again, he felt that the archmage seemed to have changed a little bit, not so obvious, but more easy-going, and no longer aggressive, which made Brian's temperament more similar to Langdon's.From time to time, he would be fascinated by the same face, but wearing different clothes and acting differently. However, this kind of "peeping" behavior usually ended with his jaw being pinched and turned in a different direction. Langdon With a half-smile, he said: "Who are you looking at?"

"Look at you." Cecil grinned and said, "My king's knight is so handsome!"

Langdon said "hehe" and said to Brian, "Teacher, are you really unwilling to come to Moon City?"

"I don't want to." Brian said decisively, glaring at Cecil, "The way this guy looks at me is disgusting!"

Cecil: "..."

Langdon gave Cecil a sideways look and said, "Master, you must not be prejudiced."

"I'm not prejudiced, I just don't like you liking men, groups like the Gay Knights shouldn't exist at all!" Brian talked a lot about the dangers of "gays", only the Brian who passed by at this time Then came back again, "Why do you want to do this? Can't you change it?"

"This kind of thing can't be changed." Langdon said helplessly, "Since you have made up your mind, teacher, I wish you the best of luck."

Brian snorted, and stared at Cecil for a long time with unfriendly eyes, like an old man, which made him feel chills.

Brian finally left Green Bank, saying that he was going to pursue the true meaning of magic. To be honest, it was a pity that Cecil didn't abduct Brian. After all, he is an archmage talent.However, thinking about the chaos caused by Bryan's arrival in Moon City, he felt that it would be fine if he didn't come. If nothing else, his ass would definitely hurt for a long time...

The magic expo didn’t last for a few days, but it took a long time for the round-trip journey, rest and various messy things. Apart from a large number of orders, this trip also gained the friendship of the Green Bank elves. Alanster chatted with Cecil all night , and drank all the ale and fruit wine he brought with him.The next day, the elf king desperately wanted the wine recipe, and was willing to pay a lot of money. In the end, he successfully tricked three hundred Green Bank elves to go to Moon City to study. The elves are also obsessed with tea. Although they have the concept of "all beings are equal", they seem to be slowly changing.

Those who don't change will be eliminated. Cecil mentioned this to Alanster. The Elf King of "Muscle Lolita" didn't say anything at the time, but a few days later he proposed the idea of ​​learning workers in the wine industry , probably figured it out.

Serena is also on the list. Before departure, she enthusiastically "popularizes" how incredible and interesting the Middle Kingdom is to her compatriots.

In this way, St. Panier's trip to the magic fair was over, and more than 1000 people set foot on the return journey. Cecil found that the Highgarden elves who built the road had disappeared and were replaced by Green Bank elves. At the same time, Green Bank elves also promised to Building roads to the west for Moon City, not just for the Middle Kingdom but for themselves.

The return journey was very smooth, and Cecil found that oil lamps had been hung in the tunnel. The simple cylindrical lamp holder and the bean-sized flame formed a dim light, illuminating the tunnel road. He felt that sooner or later the two ends of the tunnel would be blocked. The highway outside has eight lanes. If the tunnel is directly turned into two lanes, it will kill people.

The regular shaking of the carriage is the best hypnosis. Cecil slept all the way back to Moon City. It was early in the morning when he arrived. He slept all night. Although his body was sore due to the wrong posture, he was in good spirits.

Moon City was as prosperous as ever, with carriages everywhere, and Cecil was surprised to see a three-carriage carriage passing by.

"What the hell is that?" Cecil watched the thing rumble away before recovering.

"A heavy-duty horse-drawn vehicle," Langdon said. "Someone has been researching this thing. It seems that the running coupling with only three carriages is not good enough. I didn't even know this thing was successful."

Cecil said excitedly: "The differential has been solved?"

The differential of a four-wheeled carriage is relatively primitive and can only simply solve the problem of four-wheel steering. The differential of a modern car is gear-shaped, which is more complex and more sensitive. If you want to build a train, this is an essential research. .

Cecil got out of the car and went straight to the research center, completely ignoring Langdon's resentful eyes behind him, broke into the Transportation Research Institute and asked, only to learn that the solution to the complex differential was due to Oakes.

"Mathematics is an amazing thing."

The person in charge of the Carriage Branch of the Transportation Research Institute is called Hope. This middle-aged man was the person in charge of the Los Angeles Branch of the former Magic Carriage Company. Not long after the Battle of Gods, he was fired on the grounds of poor support. In a fit of rage, he simply "" surrender to the enemy".When I first came here, I really complained a lot. This is not good and that is not good. With the development of Yuecheng, I gradually stopped complaining but did not make much contribution. The magic of "integrating the shell of a carriage" was observed by Cecil once, and it was really amazing. He could create a shell of a carriage in one day, including the decoration and materials on the carriage. It was a very fine and gorgeous magic.

Cecil asked Langdon quietly, and Langdon said that this kind of magic generated out of thin air is guaranteed to be an intermediate magic. This Hope is at least a high-level mage, and the potential may reach the level of an archmage.

After eating and drinking for free for three months, the potential "Great Mage" seemed a little embarrassed, and began to take the initiative to find trouble. In the end, he discovered the biggest role in his life: poaching corners.

It has to be said that besides the natural "Zhao family", the people who can become leaders are more or less capable. Hope's popularity is very good. Shipments have dropped sharply, a large number of highways have been built to further reduce transportation costs, and magic carriages are becoming less and less marketable. The head of the magic carriage firm anticipated this situation and preemptively fired a large number of people. The station is even more unemployed.

Therefore, Hope quietly pulled all his former colleagues over. Although these people only knew the "craft" of magic, under the threat of supporting their families, they obediently gave up everything they knew about the carriage, even All the customer information was brought in, and they put down their airs and began to learn how to build a carriage without magic. Some of them actually became interested and entered the research center as soon as they learned it.

Therefore, the Carriage Academy under the Transportation Institute of the Research Center is divided into two distinct factions: one is the "veteran" researchers who started from scratch, and the "veteran" researchers of the Moon City Carriage, and the other is the former enemy, the latecomers who have abandoned the dark and turned to the bright.The two factions often quarrel with Cecil over trivial matters. This situation has been alleviated after Hope took office, and now he has perfectly solved the differential.

"This is the perfect combination of magic and science." Hope has basically exhausted Cecil's knowledge about the carriage, and now he is full of scientific practice and physical knowledge, "We finally found what you are looking for. The sawtooth model mentioned, however, some complex calculations cannot be achieved, and we cannot know the specific matching size, fortunately, Lord Oakes helped us do the calculations."

As soon as the name Oakes came out, Cecil understood it. He had always wanted to complain about why there was magic specializing in calculations. Was it nonsense? Now it seems that it is destiny for him to know Oakes.

"Simply speaking, this is destiny." Cecil smiled and said to Oakes, "You will be needed in too many places in the future, so come and be my king knight."

Oakes rolled his eyes, and said angrily: "You are really shameless, don't you have enough kidneys?"

"I don't have enough kidneys and Langdon's, such a big kidney." Cecil really wanted Oaks to stay, and calculating this need would never be enough.

Unexpectedly, Oakes didn't answer, but said seriously: "I think you should stop talking about this for now."

It was rare to see Oakes with such a dignified expression, Cecil asked curiously, "What's wrong?"

"Something happened to O'Casey."

In Cecil's impression, O'Casey has always been the low-key one, quiet, well-behaved and sensible, and never caused any trouble. On the contrary, Moyer always fears that the world will not be chaotic. Langdon said that if it is not With O'Casey watching, Moyer might have already messed up the world.

O'Casey was Moyer's lock, and now, the lock is broken.

When Cecil saw O'Casey, the handsome guy who always had a cold expression looked bewildered, like a child lost on a busy street, at a loss in the face of the endless crowd.

"What's wrong?" Cecil looked at Moyer.

The half-breed devil lost his playful look, and replied with a cold face: "The god of the paladin has lost contact."

"what?"

The god of paladins, Garris, is considered by most mages to be just a god of civilization created by the group of paladins. Those who believe in him will live forever, not to mention that the god of paladins looks exactly the same as the senior knights when he manifests.

Paladins have a whole set of prayer methods to contact Garris. Through various "dialogues" with Garris, they can obtain mounts, holy swords and other equipment, as well as magic. The magic that Garris sends is very unique and completely different from the outside world. , self-contained, sometimes some magic will go wrong, paladins usually think that it is not pious enough, and the magic will be corrected after praying and whipping day and night.

"Of course, the paladins don't think it's magic. They have a saying that it's a sanctuary, sanctuary spell." Langdon explained.

Cecil frowned: "I remember that the Gay Knights also have a sanctuary?"

"Oh, that's just changing the name of magic. A certain leader thinks that we should have what the paladins have, so he made a will rule. This is a bit too unreasonable, so most young gay knights None of us know," Langdon said.

Cecil: "..."

"The mount of a paladin is called a holy warhorse, the sword he wears is called a holy sword, and the magic is called a holy domain spell." Langdon leaned closer to Cecil and whispered, "However, some mages have done analysis and experiments, and the holy warhorse and holy sword In fact, they are all the result of the short-term materialization of magic energy, which is a kind of magic. Therefore, these two things cannot exist for a long time. The paladins only summon them when they need them. The paladins think this is a kind of convenience, which means that they don’t need to carry these things. , but in fact it is because the continuous use of this kind of magic consumes too much."

"So..." Cecil had a faint thought in his mind, he looked at O'Casey and asked, "When did Garris lose contact?"

Hearing Gary's name, O'Casey reacted a bit, and moved his eyes to look over: "He ... ten days ... fifteen days ago, he suddenly disappeared, no matter how much he prayed, there was no answer, plus There's nothing but endless nothingness on the other end of Reese, and we're like abandoned children..."

"Evening?" Cecil murmured the word and gave Langdon a look. "Um, what else is there?"

Russell said with a serious expression: "The plague has appeared."

"This must be the sign of Gareth..." O'Casey muttered to himself, like a mental patient.

Cecil's first contact with the plague was from the arrival of Mrs. Klass, but it has never appeared since then. He felt that the plague should be very easy to see from the cold, dry, abundant ultraviolet rays, and sparsely populated areas in the plateau area. It's far away, but Moon City is already a big city now. There are several cities like Ebo, Tongcheng, Serin New Town, and Serin Port scattered on this grassland, and the population is quite dense. Once the plague comes, it will be very bad.

Cecil asked nervously about the cause and effect, and felt very heavy after listening.

The small country to the north of Tambuneta was "empty" by Cecil's misfortune. Some "countries" even "kings" ran away overnight. If these are considered civilizations, the title of destroyer of civilization is still not It really lives up to its name.

Because of this "relocation" trend, many empty villages appeared in that area. Occasionally, some adventurers would try their luck to see if they could find anything useful.

In fact, where would there be anything? These "countries" are already extremely poor, and those who leave will take everything with them like cleaning a battlefield, not even a little cloth left behind.The adventurers who go there are well aware of this situation, and the real idea is to arrest people—those who cannot leave temporarily for various reasons, such as children, the elderly, and the sick, and then sell them, not necessarily It is sold to St. Panier, thousands of miles away, and there is nothing special about the "goods", so it is not worth it at all.

The most common ones are sold as servants and human sacrifices, but I have never bought them as human flesh. The main reason is not morality but that people who are poor enough to eat human flesh cannot be rich...

This day is also the same. After completing a mission in the northern tundra, a small group of adventurers passed by a certain village and glanced at it. They were "good luck". There was a sound in a room, and they broke in. There was a person lying on the bed, and excitedly leaned over to see a grown man huddled up and seemed to be sleeping.

The adventurers happily pulled the man's hair and dragged him off the bed. Just as they were discussing how much he could sell, a pair of black fingers were exposed as the man turned over.

The man had a high fever and was trembling non-stop. His fingertips to the palms turned black, and he groaned in pain while talking nonsense. His neck was swollen and rough, and a stench came out, as well as the redness on his body. of swelling.

This symptom is too typical, especially the blackened fingertips. The three characters of "Black Death" immediately appeared in Cecil's mind.

The adventurer team scrambled and ran away, and even lost something in the room, and no one dared to go back to get it.After that, they paid a lot of money to hire a healing mage to join the team for a good treatment, and lived in the wild for three days. After confirming that they did not have any fever symptoms, they returned to their home in a small town in Tambunita.

This is not out of a sense of morality, but once they are found to have the plague in the city, the end will not be very good, and it is impossible for them not to enter the city forever.Unfortunately, the healer couldn't save them.

On the second day after returning home, the entire adventurer team started to have a fever and vomit. These people who realized the seriousness of the problem made an incredible move.

"They didn't say anything, they didn't go out, but they tried to heal themselves at home." Russell said, "Six days later, the neighbors found their bodies. Only one person was still alive. He told everything and was executed by the healer. .”

Cecil blinked and said, "Are they afraid of being kicked out?"

"Yes." Langdon sighed, "If the therapist is sure that the other party is suspected of plague, he will not treat him, he will just drive him away, because the plague is considered a curse, even if the current one is cured, it obviously does not Any contact will cause other people in the city to get sick, and now that small town has started the whole city to sacrifice and prevent it, but..."

Langdon didn't finish his sentence. It seems that the result may not be too good.

A sentence emerged in Cecil's mind. He was inexplicable at the time, but now he felt that everything was intrinsically connected.

"I'm going to find Owen!" Cecil stood up and ran out.

Master Owen was not surprised by Cecil's arrival, and he had already prepared relevant remarks.

"Does healing magic remove everything that does not conform to the principle of health?" Cecil wondered, if the treatment had this effect, then even those people who had the Black Death could be cured, why did the treatment not work?

"Even the plague can be saved. The problem with the plague is that healers don't have so many magic slots to save everyone. Five people get sick on the first day, and fifty people will be sick on the fifth day." Owen deserved it Having been in Moon City for a long time, the conversation hit the point, "The most critical problem is that we can't find out the cause of the plague. Since we can't pinch the source of the infection, it's useless to invest in many healing mages. It's better to get rid of the diseased people as soon as possible." Drive people away, and then perform sacrifices... Cough, this is a traditional method, although I don't think it is very useful."

"What will the priest do?" Cecil asked.

"Pray to the local god of civilization, burn the patient's belongings, including the house, and watch the suspected sick person. It is said that this can remove the curse, and whip oneself, bloodletting, and eating various things." Owen shook his head. , "However, as far as I know, these are of no use. They cannot curb the spread of the plague at all. Once the plague enters the city, it is only a matter of time before it becomes popular."

Cecil nodded and asked, "I have another question, what do you think of cats?"

"Cat?" Master Owen was stunned for a moment, "It's just... an animal."

"Will cats be hunted and killed on a large scale in cities where the plague occurs?" Cecil pointed out directly.

Master Owen seemed to have thought of something, frowned and said: "I haven't heard any rumors about this, but there are not many small animals in the city, and most of them are preyed on by poor people, even Tambuni In a city like Tata, you can also see people eating all kinds of small animals, such as cats, mice, bugs, frogs, etc.”

"Cook it and eat it?"

"That's not necessarily true." Master Owen said tactfully, "In the past few years, your creations have brought a lot of new things to Luoye Bay, and people's lives have improved to a certain extent, but everyone must live a better life. The life of Yuecheng people is impossible, especially the poor, even in Algi, the capital of Tambunita, there will be people living in the dark alleys, this is inevitable."

Cecil sighed: "I see."

"Are cats the source of the plague?" Master Owen asked curiously.

"On the contrary, cats are the animals that drive away the plague. Without cats, the plague would have the conditions to spread." Cecil didn't want to hide it, and said bluntly, "The Black Death is spread through rats and fleas."

After listening to Cecil's description of the disease, Master Owen agreed: "The disease you described is indeed the same. I just don't understand why the plague is always prevalent in the city."

"The city is densely populated, and droplets and various human secretions are easy to spread in the air. Do you remember the little things I described to you? One is called bacteria and the other is called virus. These two things leave the human body After a suitable environment is like a plant leaving the land, it can’t live for long. If it is in the wild, the source of the disease may die before the next suitable parasite, and eventually only kill one or two people, and no one may notice Yes. In addition, the poor in the city eat up small animals. Cats are easy to catch but mice are not necessarily. What's more, if the city does not produce edible waste, there will not be many cats. It is better to live in the wild. This is all That's why plagues always happen in cities."

Master Owen nodded while listening: "Sounds very reasonable, so, do you have any preventive measures?"

"Uh... have you researched that hair transplant surgery yet?" Cecil asked a little embarrassedly.

Master Owen didn't understand: "It's okay, there are some clues, but it's impossible to do it immediately."

"Then let's put it aside and study sterilization first." Cecil grinned, wanting to laugh but feeling inappropriate.

"Sterilization? Human? Can this cure the plague?" Master Owen said inexplicably.

Cecil was even more embarrassed: "No, it's for the cat."

Master Owen:?