Several captured halflings looked very thin, and with their short stature, they looked like children from a poor family. They were staring at them with horror on their faces, making continuous squeaking sounds that seemed to follow some pattern.
Yolande guessed that it was some language they couldn't understand.
"Leave it to you, Tika!" Raphael looked at the psychic wizard who was communicating with the demon bat.
Tika immediately walked forward, grabbed the head of one of the halflings, and performed [Memory Retrieval].
The rest of the halflings were all frightened, their faces turned pale, and the shouts from their mouths became even louder.
About five minutes later, after exploring his memory, Tika opened his eyes again, and the half-orc's difficult to understand words gradually became clear.
"Let go of Maka, human! Otherwise the high priest will not let you go!" "Great Moon God, please save us..."
Tika glanced at several halflings who were either looking terrified or praying sincerely, and spoke with disdain.
"Your God is dead!"
Even though Tika's newly learned native language was very poor, several halflings understood it. All threats, insults and prayers suddenly stopped, and everyone stared at him with horror and despair.
Tikka ignored them and turned to report to Raphael. "Master, these people are natives from a foreign land and believe in Diana, the moon goddess."
"The dead god?" Raphael glanced at the halflings and continued to ask. "Why did they appear here by such a coincidence?"
"This is not a coincidence. In fact, this halfling settlement has been stalking here for several years," Tika explained.
Raphael paused for a moment, a bit of surprise on his face, but fortunately he reacted quickly. "Is it because of the church's expeditionary force?"
Tika nodded. In this cold and dark foreign land, obtaining food was a huge problem. Every time the church's expeditionary force cleared out the magical beasts nearby, a large amount of body parts and flesh would always be left behind.
The abundant food and smell of blood not only attracted the other monsters to come in, but also attracted the attention of this halfling tribe. Although their strength was very weak, their advantage was that they possessed wisdom!
The previous two times were to take advantage of the window period after the church's expeditionary force left and before powerful monsters entered the valley to do some post-war processing. Each time, they were able to obtain enough food for the entire tribe to eat for several months or even a year or two.
This low-risk, high-reward way of obtaining food has trapped the halflings, who are almost going crazy with hunger, but they don't know when the next expedition will arrive, and they dare not rashly come into contact with these creatures that are more brutal and dangerous than Warcraft, let alone enter the space-time gate that is their lair.
So they sent a few spies to guard here all the time, waiting for the next big harvest!
It is worth mentioning that the tribe sent not four but five people to investigate. One of the halfling spies had already reported the news in advance after discovering the unusual movement of the space-time gate!
"Isn't this what Speaker Lin En meant by waiting for something to happen?" Raphael didn't know whether to laugh or cry for a moment. Now that the church had been destroyed by them, if they didn't need to go back in to gather intelligence on the Lord of the Dead, these halflings would never be able to wait for the arrival of the expeditionary force even if they were waiting to die.
"Is there any other important information in his mind? Especially about the Lord of the Undead..." Raphael asked again.
"Unfortunately, no, but I saw some low-level undead creatures in his memory, far away on the other side of these mountains." Tikka shook his head regretfully, and continued, "These people know too little... I think their high priest must know more."
"Then go find the high priest!" Raphael said firmly.
Judging from the performance of the people in front of him, there should not be any strong people in this half-orc community, otherwise they would not have fallen to the point of relying on picking up corpses for a living.
The one who deserves some attention is the high priest, but without the protection of the gods, he might not even be able to use his magic, and in all likelihood he is just a showpiece.
Raphael estimated that with sufficient food and absolute power, they were fully capable of controlling the tribe.
To some extent, they were quite lucky... Although they were attacked by two [Sand Worms] as soon as they entered the door, it also gave them an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of this world.
Thinking of this, Raphael's frown suddenly relaxed, and he already had a rough plan in his mind for this exploration of foreign lands.
"Tika, write a report and send the half-orc to the other side of the space-time gate. This way, we won't have to send anyone back for the time being." Raphael gave the order thoughtfully. Since a half-orc had already gone back to report the news, they had to set out immediately to stop the tribe in order to prevent them from escaping and migrating.
According to the original plan, if they cannot receive electromagnetic communication, three of the nine people will need to return to the space-time gate one by one within one day to report the situation here one by one, and decide whether to send more reinforcements depending on the situation.
Now it seems that there is no need to return to the two places so frequently. They can fully utilize these indigenous halflings to go out and gather intelligence. This way, they will not be so conspicuous and they will not need to apply for more support from the parliament in the short term.
Tika nodded and quickly wrote a report on a piece of animal skin scroll. Then he grabbed one of the halflings, tied him up, stuffed the animal skin into the man's mouth, and threw him heavily into the space-time gate.
…
At the same time, Lin En and others who had sent off the exploration team were not in a hurry to leave, but were waiting for news from the other side.
In order to ensure that the exploration team really enters the foreign land smoothly, and is not taken to some other strange place by the space-time gate, or even swept into the space turbulence and killed, Raphael and others will conduct a preliminary exploration for half an hour, and after confirming that there are no problems, send one of them back to report on the situation.
Correspondingly, they will also send another person to exchange and confirm the information with each other.
Due to the different flow rates of time, half an hour over there is about three and a half hours according to this time.
However, four hours have passed and there is still no movement from the space-time gate.
"We can't just wait like this. Master Raphael should be aware of the importance of the first contact. We'd better send another group of people in." Vittorio frowned. He suspected that the exploration team that entered the space-time gate had encountered some big trouble, otherwise they would not have missed the time to send people back.
“Let’s wait a little longer.” Lin En shook his head. A six-ringed wizard would not be killed instantly unless he was unlucky enough to run into an extremely powerful legend or the Lord of the Undead head-on.
Although the other members of the exploration team are not very strong, they are comprehensive, covering almost all elements such as reconnaissance, treatment, melee combat, ranged combat, magic, and technology. If they really encounter an opponent that they cannot deal with, they can also retreat back into the space-time gate.
“Fifteen minutes…if there is still no movement after fifteen minutes, we will send a second group of people in.” Lin En said solemnly.
Vittorio nodded and waited patiently.
Time passed minute by minute, the numbers on the quartz clock kept changing, and the wizards present were all very anxious.
Fifteen minutes passed quickly, and just when Lin En began to wonder whether Raphael and the others had really encountered something unexpected, the surging space-time gate was activated again!
"Here they come!" Vittorio's expression immediately became serious. Rune chains glowing with golden light spread out in all directions, surrounding the area near the space-time gate.
Lynn was also ready to take action at any time.
After all, the time didn't match the agreement, and no one knew what would happen next. It could be that Raphael sent someone back, or it could be an invading enemy! As everyone watched, a figure tied up flew out of the surging space-time gate, and was then tied up again by the rune lock.
Vittorio became increasingly dissatisfied with Raphael when he discovered that the person who came out of the space-time gate was not a member of the exploration team, but a prisoner who had lost the ability to resist.
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"This should be a halfling." Lin En recognized him immediately. Having had a lot of contact with Lydia and others, it was impossible for him to make a mistake. Then he saw the animal skin that the other person was biting in his mouth.
Paper pages are difficult to preserve and may be torn apart by the space-time gate. Electromagnetic wave signals cannot communicate across the two worlds, so the exchange of information can only be recorded on hard Warcraft leather.
Lin En's mind moved, and under the effect of the [Mage's Hand], the animal skin quickly stretched out, with encrypted text written with magic power on it.
Tika recounted what he had seen and heard after entering the space-time gate in the most concise words possible, such as there was also a valley on the other side of the space-time gate, with a temperature of around minus twenty degrees Celsius... Another example was that they were attacked by two [Sand Worms] as soon as they entered, and discovered that they were being monitored by several natives. They wasted a lot of time dealing with these troubles.
In addition, they have now set out to besiege the halfling tribe, and they will send people back to report more news at this time one day later.
One day there is exactly one week in their world, so there is still plenty of time.
"Very good, it looks like things are going very smoothly." After reading the encrypted messages, Vittorio nodded, and his previous dissatisfaction with Raphael disappeared.
If you find yourself being monitored, you naturally cannot send people in and out rashly, and it is normal to take some time to resolve the problem.
Lin En was considering who should be sent into the space-time gate to exchange information. Tikka said in the letter that they did not need too many people for the time being, but the congressman could not really send some useless people in.
"How about we send a few halflings over there?" Vittorio suggested. Since the halflings are the indigenous people there, it would be more convenient for them to act with such identities.
Lin En nodded. This was also his idea. According to the information that Tikka extracted from the captives' minds, although this tribe was a believer of Diana, the moon goddess, most people did not seem to have such a firm belief...
But it makes sense when you think about it. It has been a long time since the death of the Moon God, and no miracle has yet to appear. Even the strongest faith will always waver.
What's more, the lifespan of a halfling is not long, even shorter than that of a normal human, usually only about sixty years. Those staunch believers before should all be dead by now.
"Since everything is fine here, I should return to the capital." Lynn turned to look at Vittorio. "What about you, Speaker Vittorio?"
"I will stay here and continue studying this space-time gate to figure out how the speed of magic influx affects time." Vittorio said with a raised eyebrow.
He can also prevent some abnormal situations from happening here.
As for the alchemical array for stripping tritium and deuterium elements, Vittorio had already completed it three days ago, and the efficiency had increased by about five times. The rest could be left to the alchemists.
Lin En nodded, said goodbye to Sean and others, and turned into a stream of light and disappeared into the sky.
"Find some psychic wizards and take this halfling away for interrogation!" Vittorio gave the order as he looked at the halfling who was tied up tightly on the ground with a terrified expression on his face.
Although this native is weak, he is very valuable. They can use his memory to decipher the language and obtain a lot of basic information about foreign lands. This is why Raphael sent him here on purpose.
…
About forty minutes later, Lin En returned to the royal capital. He took the time to tell Harof and Aurora about the information he had gained during this trip. He also called a wizard who was in charge of managing intelligence and asked about the whereabouts of Lydia and others.
Speaking of which, he hadn't seen Lydia for quite some time. He had been busy studying the application of magic at the microscopic level and had no time to pay attention to her. When he wanted to see her again, he found that she had disappeared and was no longer in the newly built air force base.
"Lady Lydia may be in the Alchemy Institute now..." the wizard said hesitantly.
He heard that Master Dennis was recently researching a new explosive propulsion device to be used in new fighter planes. Several accidents had occurred in the past few months, and the parliament had received many letters of complaint.
"Explosive propulsion device?" Lynn suddenly became interested.
This is about making a jet plane.
No wonder Dennis didn't even attend this year's academic seminar...
(End of this chapter)
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