"Wait?" Father Linus's brows immediately furrowed, his tone filled with obvious displeasure and a hint of urgency. "Captain Edgar, you and I both know the current situation in the camp!"
"Despair is spreading, and people's hearts are collapsing! Every day could bring a new outbreak of corruption and frenzy! Brother Kyle and Sister Ruby? Humph, two fresh graduates from Holy City College, what experience could they possibly have?"
"They spent a whole month, and besides working themselves to death, did they come up with any effective solution? Mage Harold? He could only shake his head and sigh at those magic crystal fragments!"
"The people from the Royal Capital and the Holy City are just idiots who only know how to stay in textbooks and laboratories!"
He took a step closer, lowering his voice with a worldly shrewdness: "Brandon, this is a credit that comes right to your door! This is a great opportunity for the Dragon Slaying City Diocese to resolve this crisis!"
"Do you want this achievement to be taken away by two ignorant young men who only know their place and stick to dogma?"
"Wait for them to come back? Wait for them to take their time investigating? That's too late! By then, the credit will be theirs, but the responsibility and blame will fall on us, the Dragon Slaying City Parish and the Guards!"
He pointed at the adventurers who were eagerly looking at the potion:
"Look at them again! The Holy Light is performing miracles through this potion! As servants of the Holy Light, are we going to prevent this miracle from happening? Are we going to watch them continue to suffer and even become alienated?"
"This is dereliction of duty! Captain Edgar! Distribute the potion as quickly as possible to stabilize the situation. This is the top priority! As for those two young men... by the time they return, the matter will have been resolved, and they'll naturally have nothing to say."
Edgar Brandon looked at the gleam in Father Linus's eyes. That gleam was not pure faith, but was mixed with a desire for merit and a rejection of Kyle and Ruby, the "airborne" people from the Holy City.
He looked again at the excited adventurers who seemed to be grasping at their last straw, and at the successful case where the symptoms had indeed been suppressed.
The heavy pressure made him hesitate.
In the end, the duty of guarding and the desire to stabilize the camp overwhelmed the uneasiness in my heart.
He sighed heavily and waved to the guards maintaining order. His voice was tired. "... Maintain order. Distribute the potion as the priest instructed. Each person is limited to one bottle. Please register your name."
"Yes!" The guards responded and began to organize the distribution.
Father Linus smiled triumphantly. He personally picked up a bottle of potion and walked towards the adventurer who was kneeling in gratitude. His voice was loud and full of love:
"Child of the Holy Light, arise. Your piety has been answered. May the Holy Light protect you forever."
He pressed the potion into the man's hand as if bestowing great grace.
The drug dealer's smile grew even brighter, but a barely perceptible hint of sarcasm flashed through his eyes.
Bottles of "Holy Light Purification Potion" were distributed, and adventurers scrambled for them, eagerly pouring them into their mouths.
The ecstasy of being able to solve their own safety temporarily overwhelmed the despair, and a roar of gratitude rang out in the camp.
Only Captain Edgar still had a frown on his face.
His eyes swept over the adventurers whose symptoms seemed to be suppressed after drinking the potion, and then looked in the direction where Kyle and Ruby disappeared. The heavy uneasiness in his heart grew heavier, like the lingering dark cloud over the camp.
He didn't know whether this free "good news" was good or bad for him.
————
The chill of the Falling Star Lake and the morning dew of the Warcraft Mountains still seemed to cling to the leather armor.
But the familiar smell of Osborne Town, a mixture of cheap ale and roasted mountain goat, was already coming to my face as I approached.
Mark and his group trekked for three days through the mud of the Corrupted Dragon Swamp and the Warcraft Mountains that blocked out the sun, and finally set foot on the gravel road leading to the town.
The air seemed a little more stagnant than I remembered; even the two dilapidated water wheels on the banks of Zhennan River seemed to be struggling to turn.
"Tsk, this smell is so... familiar!" Enzo sniffed hard, only to cough twice when he choked on a pile of fresh cow dung on the side of the road. "It smells just like the mine! No, it's even worse!"
Anna wrinkled her small nose in disgust and pulled up the brim of her hood, trying to block out Enzo's embarrassing behavior with her sight.
Monica walked beside Mark, holding Xiao Mu in her arms, but her clear eyes had already keenly scanned the sparse flow of people at the town entrance and the obviously increasing number of patrol teams in the distance.
"The atmosphere is a bit weird." Mark murmured, his fingers unconsciously stroking the rough edge of the cover of the forbidden book in his arms.
There were more notices posted at the town entrance than before, covering the walls in a mottled pattern of colors. Several of them were obviously new notices issued by the Church of Holy Light. They were dazzling white, and the warning red cross emblem on them was particularly eye-catching.
Most of the pedestrians were in a hurry, and their eyes lacked the roughness and carelessness of the adventurers' gathering places in the past, but were more vigilant and with a subtle gloom.
It seems that during this month, people from the Church of Holy Light did come to Osborne Town.
Could it be that such a simple matter as the Valley Investigation has not been completed in a month?
"With my skin like this, I'm afraid people will mistake me for an orc when I go in." Enzo muttered, looking down at his arms that were covered in mud but still looked dark.
In the Holy Dragon Continent, dark-skinned humans are not that rare.
But the dark-skinned dwarfs are inevitably a bit eye-catching.
On the way, Anna suggested to Mark many times that he shave off Enzo's beard and cut his hair into the style of an ascetic monk of the Church of Holy Light.
That way, as long as Enzo covered himself with the cloak, others would just think of him as a black kid and wouldn't notice anything unusual about him.
But after hearing her proposal, Enzo was so scared that he kept vigil for two consecutive nights.
He didn't feel relieved until Mark finally said that he respected his freedom of hairstyle and beard.
"Let's go to the market first." Mark made the decision.
It was morning, and time for the Osborne Town Market.
Instead of going straight to Chunhui Hotel, the four of them turned to the open-air market in the center of the town.
The few of them walked easily to the magic workshop on the second floor of the attic of the market tailor shop, and Monica carefully selected an [Intermediate Mimicry Scroll] for Enzo.
As the magic power was infused, a faint ochre light enveloped Enzo, and his striking dark skin quickly faded into a healthy, tanned dark brown.
"Well, this color is much better." Anna looked Enzo around, "At least it's not too eye-catching."
"Hehe, okay, at least I don't have to be sold as a slave miner." Enzo grinned and moved his newly dyed arms.
After dealing with Enzo's disguise, everyone felt an inexplicable sense of depression along the way and went straight back to Chunhui Hotel.
As soon as I pushed open the door of the hotel, noise and a mouth-watering mixed aroma immediately rushed over from the backyard.
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