Chapter 419: The Forsaken Realm (8) (1st + 2nd update) [VIP]

The village chief took a small step back in embarrassment: "This...commission fee?"

There is naturally no commission fee.

This small village of theirs, which makes a living from mining, is extremely poor. It is difficult to even scrape together a few hundred or dozens of copper coins, let alone thousands or tens of thousands.

The land around the village is not suitable for farming. When there is no accident in the mine, they rely on this special mineral resource to sell it in the nearest town, Rossburg, and use the copper coins obtained to purchase the food and daily necessities they need for life in Rossburg.

At first, the sales of this mineral were not smooth. Rossburg was just an ordinary small town. The residents' demand for metals and minerals was limited. The weekly market could only basically ensure that they would not starve to death.

Later, an Adventurer's Guild was established in Rossburg, and there were more blacksmiths who specialized in repairing or making weapons for adventurers. The metal mined from the mountains around them became popular, and life in the small mountain village gradually improved.

But it's only a little better.

After experiencing the hard times before, everyone is actually more inclined to stock up on supplies. As for money, there really isn't much.

Therefore, they simply could not afford the cost of bringing together such a team of elite adventurers.

Whether it was the abnormal heat coming from the direction of the mine after this team of adventurers entered it just now, or the fact that the adventurers captured the "elemental spirit" in just a few hours and made it lie on the ground obediently and motionless, or the fact that these adventurers just casually broke into this mountain village that they had been unable to leave for more than two months and no one else could enter.

All these behaviors showed that they were not capable of doing this.

The village chief took a deep breath nervously in his heart.

"What?" The wizard who interrupted him seemed to have noticed something was wrong with him. "No reward?"

Bai Jinshu looked at the village chief strangely.

To be honest, even the simplest mission of delivering a message or running errands in the Adventurer's Guild would at least cost a few copper coins.

They are now helping this village to deal with an elemental spirit born in a mine. Even if this spirit is so weak that ordinary humans can deal with it, if there is no magician on the scene, no one will be able to recognize that it is an elemental spirit, and no one will find that these minerals have weak magic fluctuations and are a low-level magic material. Doesn't this village intend to pay for it?

"Do you want to default on your debt?" Bai Jinshu frowned and looked at the village chief who looked embarrassed.

Village Chief: "Uh... no no no no!"

The desire to survive drove him to shout out.

The half-human, half-skeleton adventurer frowned, and the ghostly blue flame in his right eye swayed up and down in dissatisfaction, with the frequency rising and falling, just like his breathing.

breathe……

The village chief suddenly felt a hair on his back.

He suddenly discovered that the adventurer in front of him was not breathing!

The adventurer stood in front of him, with almost no sound of breathing, and his chest was not rising or falling. On the half of his body that still had flesh and blood, his scarlet eyes flashed with a light that seemed both bloodthirsty and scrutinizing.

The village chief broke out in a cold sweat silently.

There were many strange adventurers coming and going, but this was the first time he had seen one that gave him such a strong sense of oppression.

Is this really an adventurer?

Or is it some unknown, terrifying existence?

"Then give me the money," the adventurer stretched out his hand, the white bones almost poking the village chief's skin, "Hurry up, we are in a hurry."

"Actually... actually we think," the village chief stared at the finger bone. He felt that the joint was so white that it didn't look like bone, but some kind of precious jade. He stuttered even more, and his brain had never worked so fast before, "We think that the reward of money is too vulgar!"

I always feel like if I don't pay you, something serious will happen...

He took several deep breaths and felt like he had lived for a short time after saying this.

Originally, the commission was not issued by their small mountain village. The mission that initially brought the adventurers here was just an exploration mission issued by an ordinary blacksmith in Rossburg, and the reward was only a few dozen copper coins. No one expected that an elemental elf was born in this village.

Such a powerful adventurer certainly cannot be dealt with with just a few dozen copper coins.

As a small mountain village that has been besieged by elemental elves for more than two months, they have little food and minerals left. Even the coins normally used to exchange with the residents of Rossburg are almost gone because they have not traded with the outside world for more than two months.

It is naturally impossible to ask the residents to hand over their personal assets to the adventurers.

But the look in the eyes of this strange adventurer was too terrifying. The village chief was sweating profusely and quickly explained: "Copper coins are definitely not too much for all the adventurers. As a reward for saving our entire village, we want to give you some special rewards!"

"Oh..." Bai Jinshu nodded, "Is that so? Then you guys give it to me."

He still held out his hand.

"Uh...ah...this special reward requires time to prepare!" The village chief's collar was soaked with sweat. "The adventurers have been fighting for an entire afternoon. Why don't they have dinner here before leaving? No, our village is more than half a day's journey away from the nearest town. It's too late to set off now. Why don't we stay overnight..."

It takes as long as you can delay.

"Does it take so long to prepare?" Bai Jinshu asked curiously.

"Yes, yes," the village chief quickly waved to the villagers behind him, "Hurry up and take the adventurers to dinner! What did you cook tonight? It smells so good."

"Ah?" The villagers he called looked at each other in bewilderment, "We don't have anyone to cook..."

The adventurers from the village are all fighting monsters in the mines. If the adventurers fail, everyone will be eaten by the monsters. Who will have the mind to cook?

Isn't this just stupid?

"Have you cooked?" several people asked each other.

"I didn't," the villager who was asked looked confused, "I thought you were cooking, it smelled pretty good."

"It's not us," several people took a few steps forward in surprise, "We thought it was the village chief..."

"How is that possible!" The village chief said righteously, and quickly threw the pot away, "I have been waiting for adventure here... The heroes have returned, and I have nothing to do. How can I have the energy to cook?"

"But..." After he quickly denied it, a trace of doubt appeared on his face. He sniffed hard a few times, "What on earth is this smell? It smells so good..."

A few hours ago, this strange meaty aroma floated throughout the village. In all his years, he had never smelled such a special aroma.

And it must be said that this scent seemed to be strongest on the terrifying adventurer in front of him.

The village chief unconsciously took a small step forward.

"What are you doing?!" The adventurer's reaction was even more violent than his. He quickly took a few steps back and grabbed the arm of another half-human, half-skeleton adventurer with one hand. He looked at him with a warning, "I have a partner. Don't think of using this method to pay for the commission!"

Exploration team members: ...

Dermis, you...

The village chief is still the village chief after all! Although he doesn't look like an old man, he is at most in his forties. Because of years of exercise and some magic in the Western fantasy world, he looks much younger than his actual age. His body is full of strong muscles accumulated from so many years of mining. He may be very suitable for the XP of certain specific groups, but no matter what, he is still the village chief, and he is not going to sacrifice himself for a few copper coins...

"Young people nowadays are really... I have a partner," Delmis grabbed his partner's hand, and whispered in fear while hugging his partner, "Believe me, I have never looked at him straight in the eye. He is not as good as you... Not a hair. I only have you in my heart. If you don't believe me, feel it."

The two of them actually held the other's hand and reached in from under the wide wizard robe on the side that belonged to the skeleton.

"Did you feel it?" Dermis whispered to his partner, "You were the only one there more than six hundred years ago."

His partner: “Yeah, I felt it.”

Members of the exploration team: ...What a psycho!

Is what you two are doing now worthy of being broadcast on Jinjiang? Damn it!

We are all part of your play, right?

There are so many complaints in this whisper that it's hard to know where to start.

Whether it's calling the village chief "young man", or thinking that he's trying to pay off his debts, or telling him in front of him that he's not worth a hair of your partner...

They all sound extremely explosive.

But thinking about it, these two have been married for 523 years, and calling someone who can only live to be a hundred years old at most "young man" is surprisingly reasonable. And Delmis is not a simple person in his native world. Throughout history, there have been only a few ways of currying favor with superiors. Maybe he has really been stuffed with many men and women sent by his subordinates.

For a necromancer of this level, it is possible that what his subordinates send over may be a village chief who is engaged in mining, but may also be a skeleton, a hip bone, an elbow, or a city gate tower.

but……

But no matter what, this kind of art is a bit too advanced for humans like them!

The village chief was so dumbfounded!

"This..." The exploration team members looked at each other awkwardly. Yun Guang hurried forward and stood between the village chief and the couple. He quickly put his arms around the village chief's shoulders, quickly diverted his attention and said, "This fragrance, we may know what's going on."

"After we entered the mine, the wizard used some fire magic," he said as vaguely as possible, "Maybe these magics attacked the beasts and roasted them, so this fragrance appeared."

“Oh, so that’s how it is!” The village chief also briefly recovered from his petrified state and laughed dryly twice, “Then it’s… still… still… still…”

He was stuck for a long time: "It's pretty impressive..."

The village chief experienced a very severe shock in his heart, and his CPU might have burned out.

Yun Guang glanced at the village chief with sympathy, and quietly waved to the villagers behind him: "Why don't you send your village chief back first? Have you prepared for tonight's dinner? If not, you can go to the cave to have a look. Most of the beasts are probably cooked."

Although it stands to reason that meat that has not been bled would taste fishy after being cooked, the smell was abnormally fragrant. Not only the exploration team members, but even the indigenous people could not help swallowing their saliva.

He actually suspected that Delmis thought the village chief was planning to commit suicide because he swallowed his saliva when he took a step forward.

Which good person swallows his saliva when he sees others talking?

No wonder Dermis misunderstood...

Yun Guang held his forehead with his hand again.

"Go prepare dinner first," he said gently to the villagers, "Can we stay here tonight?"

They really need to stay here for one night.

—if they don’t want to spend a night on a ghost ship.

After all, this mountain village is too remote, and Rossburg, together with it, is actually located in a remote area of ​​this continent.

According to legend, it is always spring in the truly prosperous area of ​​the continent. To get there, one must first cross an entire mountain range.

This was the mountain range that they had to cross in the commission they had originally planned to take.

Whether they were hiking or riding a ghost ship, it sounded like they would have to spend a night in the outside world if they didn't stay the night here.

Naturally, the villagers had no objections. Everyone expressed their gratitude to the adventurers one by one, and then curiously looked at the elemental elves they had captured, and then headed towards the mine.

While the crowd was almost gone, the exploration team members finally couldn't help it.

"I'm not saying anything..." Guan Hongyan couldn't bear to watch, "They were touching each other in public?"

"Don't make your words so ambiguous..." Xu Zichen held his forehead with his hand, "These are just two half-human, half-skeleton mages, passing through each other's skeletons and touching each other's flesh... There is nothing indecent about it."

"Fuck, isn't it indecent to put your hand into someone else's body in public?" Guan Hongyan said in shock, twitching her lips. "Isn't what you said even more ambiguous than what I said?"

Xu Zichen: ...That’s right.

He was powerless to refute.

Although there is nothing wrong with this action, it just sounds weird no matter how you describe it.

It doesn't look like something that can be broadcast on Jinjiang.

"I feel like we're going to get stye if they keep touching each other here," Zhao Yinglai said faintly, "Excuse me, can someone get a room for these two inseparable people?"

"No need to book a room..." Yun Guang held his forehead again, "I'll go and interrupt."

"Wait," Guan Hongyan suddenly called him, "Turn around."

Yun Guang turned his head in confusion, and felt his vision darken.

Guan Hongyan put a pair of sunglasses she had exchanged at the mall on his nose and waved at him: "Go, brave boy! To prevent you from getting stye!"

This thing... When did Guan Hongyan find it in the mall?

"Okay, I'll go," Yun Guang was speechless for a few seconds, then he adjusted his glasses and couldn't help but correct her, "Don't make it sound like they were doing something in public."

At best, Delmis and his partner were a little tired of each other, but it wasn't to the point of getting styes.

Facing everyone's gazes of a warrior, Yun Guang took a few steps forward and politely interrupted the two men: "Dermis. Can we stay here tonight?"

"Hmm?" Bai Jinshu turned his head, "No problem."

Actually, he doesn't care where he lives.

It’s okay to live here, it’s okay to live in the wild, and it’s okay to live on a ghost ship.

One of Delmis's strengths is that although he is already the strongest wizard on the continent, and even a being comparable to a god, he is still extremely easy to feed.

When a person is out looking for rare materials and can't find a place to sleep, he would randomly choose a lucky dead person to stand up from the coffin and make room for him. Delmis has done this many times.

He casually resurrected the dead just to borrow someone's coffin to sleep, otherwise how can he be called a villain...

"Then let's wait here for the villagers to come back." Yun Guang is a good man who is easy to talk to.

Specifically, although they were the adventurers who saved the mountain village, when the villagers went to the mine to deal with the roasted beasts, he directed everyone to move the tables and chairs and enclosed a large open space in the village.

Of course, Bai Jinshu and Huai Jiamu are not included in this commander.

The two men sat on the stools like uncles, watching the exploration team members busying around without making any comments on their behavior.

"Hey, Dermis," the white moth came closer and whispered, "why don't we just leave tomorrow morning without collecting anything?"

It doesn't seem like this small mountain village is rich. Let alone copper coins, what kind of treasures could it possibly need to prepare?

Anyway, they are not doing this task for money, so just treat it as a good deed.

"Why?" Bai Jinshu looked at her strangely. "The adventurer completes the commission, and the client pays the reward. Isn't this what they deserve? Isn't it necessary to pay a certain amount of money when hiring adventurers?"

"That being said..." White Moth scratched his head, "But there is not much money here, and there is no possibility of any treasure."

It was obvious that the village chief said that because he was frightened by Dermis.

They didn't come here to plunder the poor mountain village, so there's no need for them to take this little money, right?

"No," Bai Jinshu shook his head, "I have to take it."

"This is the price they have to pay for me to take action," he tapped the table with his finger bones, his voice clear, "To ask a being above the gods but not belonging to the kingdom of God to take action, every bit of magic and every element he controls must be paid and paid accordingly."

"This is the price you pay for my help," he repeated. His eyes revealed a kind of divinity and indifference that was totally inconsistent with his previous image. "Whether the reward is a few copper coins, or endless gold and silver jewelry, or a lost spell, or a bottle of blood from an extinct race, these are what they need to worry about. I am only responsible for accepting or rejecting it."

"What will happen if you refuse?" White Moth asked cautiously.

"Generally speaking, the people or races whose price I refuse will quickly send me better things," Delmis returned to his usual self, "but it actually has nothing to do with what they send. They can't send me what I need, and I don't lack what they send. I usually accept or reject it based on my mood."

White Moth: ...I pity those people or races who have to offer more things just because Dermis is in a bad mood.

Outside the mine not far away, people had already brought back the roasted monsters.

But the strange thing was that the villagers who were carrying them were drooling like crazy as if they had lost their minds, and those who had poor self-control began to tear the roasted meat from the monsters with their bare hands, feasting on it as they walked.

"Hector," just as everyone was wondering what was going on, Dermis called out calmly, "You can eat more of this."

"What? Is this a roasted beast?" Hector felt that his saliva was secreting crazily.

Obviously, this smell wasn't so fragrant when it was in the cave, so why has it become so tempting now?

"Well," Bai Jinshu changed his posture, crossed his legs, supported his chin with one hand, and looked at the villagers who quickly put the monster on the table and shared the barbecue with knives and forks. "This is meat that is directly processed and roasted using fire elements. There are some trace amounts of fire elements in it, which can be directly absorbed into the body. For people who are close to fire elements, it is a delicacy."

It seems that these villagers have a high affinity for the element of fire.

"Then...then I'll go too?" Hector was eager to go.

Bai Jinshu nodded indifferently.

"Teacher, do you want me to bring some back for you?" He still had some rationality left as he had become a disciple of a big boss.

"No," his big boss teacher looked at him with an expression that was like seeing a pig climbing a tree, "Why do you think I need to eat this?"

Hector: "Okay...Okay teacher."

Sorry, he was overthinking it.

He could no longer suppress the part of his body that was close to the fire element's desire for this special food supplement, so he joined the crowd.

"You can eat whatever you want," Bai Jinshu stretched and looked at his teammates. "Although this thing is useless to you, it tastes good for you."

After all, few of the Foundation's exploration team members would attempt to learn spells.

Yun Guang looked at him with some concern: "You and your...partner, don't you need to eat?"

"To be precise, no," Bai Jinshu waved his hand, "but it's up to us to decide what we want to eat."

I have never heard of a wizard who is comparable to or even surpasses gods starving to death.

After everyone confirmed this issue, they joined this special dinner without hesitation.

The aroma of barbecue in the air brought the dazed village chief out to join in. Bai Jinshu yawned and dozed off on Huai Jiamu's shoulder.

To him, the smell really wasn't appealing.

Just like a person worth hundreds of billions will not bend down for a penny while walking on the street.

And in most cases, he didn't need to go over, because the trace amounts of fire elements remaining in the roasted meat were eager to run towards him.

This is probably just a small privilege for some big guys.

As the sun gradually set in the sky, the villagers finally finished eating the wild beasts that were dozens of times larger than themselves, and walked around on the ground with their bodies full.

The members of the exploration team did not have much affinity for the element of fire, so they did not eat too much. They just ate until they were 80% full and then left the table.

Yun Guang was obviously concerned about the "price to be paid for asking him to help" that Bai Jinshu mentioned, and came over to ask in detail: "Dermis, if you don't pay this price, what will happen to you?"

"To me?" Delmis' eyes flashed with a hint of surprise, "Of course it will have an impact on them."

Is he just some random wizard who can be easily ordered around?

If someone uses his power without paying a certain price, the one who will be in trouble will be that person, not him.

"Well... I understand," Yun Guang nodded and advised gently, "This is just a small mountain village. They definitely can't come up with anything. Whatever the village chief offers is fine, right?"

"Hmm," the necromancer glanced at him sideways, "whatever."

Yun Guang left with peace of mind.

But the village chief was worried.

As the day for these adventurers to leave drew closer, he fell into anxiety after coming back to his senses from the barbecue.

"What should we do?" He quietly called representatives from every household in the village. "Now this adventurer... this brave man needs us to give him some rewards. Do you have any good ideas?"

Villager A: "Give money to the adventurers?"

Aren't most adventurers just after money?

"No," the village chief refused. "Do they look like they need money? Change them."

Wouldn't it be nice if money could solve the problem?

"What should we give you?" Villager B scratched his head. "Weapons made of metals dug out from our mines?"

"Not really..." The village chief thought for a moment, "I think these adventurers should not be short of these things."

"But this is pending," he took note, "Whoever has good craftsmanship can work on a weapon tonight."

"Anything else?" He looked at everyone, "Something a little more creative! It looks like we put in a lot of effort and cost, so we need to prepare!"

"The elemental spirits caught from the mine in our village?" Villager C raised his hand. "I think all mages like this, right?"

The village chief gave Villager C a slap on the head: "That's originally someone else's stuff! It's someone else's! If you don't allow the hero to take it away, do you want to keep it in the village?"

Villager C covered his head and shut up.

"Village leader," Villager D said hesitantly, "are you willing to make some sacrifices?"

Village chief: "What sacrifice?"

Villager D hesitated: "It seems... there's an adventurer who likes you quite a bit?"

The author has something to say:

Villager D: I think you, village chief, are still charming.

village head:?

Yun Guang:?

I had a low-grade fever for two consecutive days, and today it finally subsided! I will never run to the suburbs to watch fireworks in the middle of the night during the Lantern Festival again. Why did the retribution come so quickly?

First 20 + Random 20~