Working hard in the fields, feeding livestock, carrying goods...

The village was an extremely busy scene, but everyone's movements seemed a little stiff.

A middle-aged man who looked like a blacksmith woodenly swung the hammer in his hand, hitting the red-hot sword again and again.

The body leaning forward suddenly shook, and it turned out that the round head broke off and fell onto the hot sword. However, the blacksmith did not notice it at all, and continued to hammer it, hammering the flesh and brain matter into the red iron sword.

It was not until noon that a group of uninvited guests arrived in this quiet village.

Ivana led a team of God's Punishment Knights into the village, but the moment they entered, the girl already sensed something was wrong.

The village looked desolate and dilapidated, many houses had collapsed, and the roads were muddy. There were many signs that this place had been devastated by war not long ago.

But the townspeople of this village did not repair these dilapidated places. When they saw them coming, they did not avoid them like ordinary poor people, but continued to work on their own.

A knight of the God's Punishment Army suddenly grabbed a man who was passing by. When he saw the man's wooden expression, lifeless eyes, and the obvious marks of being pierced by a sharp blade on his chest, he couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart.

"They have been dead for at least five days!" said the Divine Punishment Knight with a serious look.

"It's half a month!" Ivina corrected. She judged based on the traces of war.

As she spoke, Ivana took out the magic sensing instrument with a serious look on her face. The pointer spun a circle and finally pointed to a house in the village.

The twenty or so knights who entered the village drew their swords.

"Another lackey of the church? They are haunting us!"

Cold curses soon rang out from the mansion, the words full of disdain.

Then, an old and haggard face appeared in everyone's sight. The old man in a black robe had gray hair and skin as dry as tree bark. He looked like a skeleton.

"【Corpse Snatcher】Wally!" Ivana's mind raced and she quickly recognized him, because his information was on the bounty list in the Sinners chapter of the Bible!

The bounty is 15,000 Imperial gold coins! "I hate the name of a body snatcher!" The black-robed wizard frowned in dissatisfaction.

These corpses were the product of war. Without him, they would be abandoned in the wilderness and eaten by wild beasts. In the end, nothing would be left. It was such a waste! But it was different in his hands. They could create greater value! Thinking of this, the wizard named Wally opened his hands, his face showing excitement and enthusiasm.

"Look at how great the new type of ghouls I developed are! In the past half month, they have produced so much food and made so many tools. They don't need to eat or rest, and they only know how to obey orders..."

"Perfect... This is simply the most perfect existence!" The corpse snatcher said in a high voice. "Let the dead do the work and the living enjoy themselves. Is there a better world than this?"

The black-robed wizard finally found a few people to talk to, and he talked endlessly about his great research. He spent several years and conducted countless experiments before he finally awakened the memories of these corpses, allowing them to spontaneously start farming and smelting iron...

Next he will teach these zombies more things and let them do more work!

Ivana and the others looked at the rotting, festering, and foul-smelling corpses in the village, becoming increasingly angry. They clenched their swords and interrupted the corpse snatchers.

"Stop your nonsense and accept your judgment, sinner!"

Hearing the name of sinner, [Corpse Snatcher] Wally's expression became very bored. "It seems that you all cannot understand how great my research is!"

"Realm of the Dead!"

After coming into contact with the black fog, the eyes of the corpses with wooden faces and sluggish movements suddenly turned red, and their bodies twisted and swelled, turning into corpses with hideous muscles.

"Field? Is it a great wizard?!" The faces of the Divine Punishment Knights present suddenly changed and they shouted in panic. This was completely inconsistent with the three-ring wizard described in the intelligence!

Although the difference between the third ring and the fourth ring seems to be only one ring, the combat power is vastly different!

"Fight!" There was no fear on Ivana's face. She took the lead and rushed forward. The sword in her hand slashed out horizontally, and in an instant she cut a charging corpse into two pieces.

"Corpse Explosion!" The black-robed wizard smiled grimly, stretched out his hand and pointed, and the separated body of the corpse ghost suddenly exploded. The blood mist was filled with corpse poison and plague, and even the Divine Punishment Knight who had taken the [Divine Grace Potion] could not withstand it.

However, Ivana had already disappeared under the blood mist with her extraordinary speed.

…

After half an hour of fierce fighting, more than half of the thirty Divine Punishment Knights were killed, and Ivana's body also had several scars with black mist.

The head of the corpse snatcher [Wally] had been nailed to the slender blade.

With the death of the caster, all the zombies in the village lost their support and fell to the ground. The exhausted Ivana breathed a sigh of relief, "Thanks to you this time, Ivana!" A Divine Punishment Knight showed a look of fear. If it weren't for the girl's desperate fighting style that confused the corpse stealers and gave them the opportunity to attack in close combat, everyone would have died here and turned into zombies.

"What a pity, they still..." Elena looked at the bodies of her colleagues around her and sighed.

"When dealing with these wizards, casualties are always inevitable!" said the Divine Punishment Knight angrily and helplessly.

In fact, it was extremely lucky to be able to kill a great wizard with less than twenty casualties of the Divine Punishment Knights.

At least they protected more of the Empire's citizens from being killed by the enemy! Elena nodded, and together with the rest of her colleagues, she gathered the bodies together and burned them to prevent the possible spread of the plague.

Melodious hymns soon rang out in the village.

"May your souls escape from purgatory and ascend to heaven to enjoy eternal bliss..."

Ivana prayed softly, looking at the rising flames, and couldn't help but recall the past.

More than two years ago, in Harbor Town, it was this fire that made her wake up, break away from her family, and see a wider world.

As someone said, the world is big, so big that it is unimaginable, and a small baronship is nothing.

The high and lofty title, like a dome, had once obscured all her vision, but now she only needed one sentence to decide the life or death of a baron...

The original vision, obsession and hatred seem extremely ridiculous at this moment.

But...why did you become a wizard?

(End of this chapter)