There was an inexplicable silence in the castle study.

The housekeeper glanced at his master's expression, which suddenly became as pale as paper, and then thought of some things that happened in the past two days, and his expression changed slightly.

"master?"

He called softly, and Baron Carter came back to his senses. He made a hasty sound, stretched out his slightly trembling hand to take the official document, and said to cover it up, "I'm a little tired, you go down first."

"yes."

When the butler walked out of the study and went downstairs to leave, the baron was the only one left in the dark brown house.

This middle-aged man who was slightly stout suddenly seemed to be holding his breath, his whole face turned red, and he felt that the official document in his hand was burning hot, and he had the urge to throw it away.

But he finally controlled it, remained silent for a few seconds, walked with heavy steps to the desk by the window, and pushed open the window.

Although spring has arrived, the chill of winter has not yet dissipated. Especially in this early morning, the refreshing cold wind blew against his face, finally making Baron Carter's chaotic thoughts clearer.

Dragging the heavy wooden chair, he slowly sat down and unfolded the official document from the church. Because of his nervousness, he did not notice the slight damage to the seal.

The document is short and official.

The general meaning is that the local lord, Baron Carter, is required to cooperate with the church knights to further search for the heretical wizard who is suspected to be hiding in Oak Town on the wanted poster.

"Sure enough..." Putting down the thin, cool paper with trembling hands, Carter leaned back and closed his eyes in slight pain.

Everything was as he suspected, the church came to his door.

It's not surprising. In fact, Baron Carter had already had a vague premonition of this day ever since the church headquarters issued the "Ordinance on the Heresy Trial".

He didn't know exactly when the change occurred.

In his memory, the entire kingdom used to be peaceful until a year ago, when the headquarters of the Royal Capital Church suddenly announced that it had received an oracle from the God of Creation.

The specific content of the oracle is not clear, but the general meaning is that the devil is resurrecting in the darkness, and the wizard groups across the continent have long been secretly servants of the devil.

In order to save mankind from being corrupted by evil spirits, the church joined hands with the king to sign and issue the "Ordinance on the Trial of Heretics."

As a result, the Templar Knights of the church, who had extraordinary powers, began to hunt and kill wizards throughout the territory with the king's permission.

All this happened very suddenly, without any warning in advance.

The scattered wizards were caught off guard and were completely unable to withstand the menacing Templars. The search started in the royal capital and soon expanded to the entire kingdom.

Due to poor information exchange, news from various places is seriously lagging behind.

Wizards in many places finally learned the news until the church came to hunt them down. Throughout the year, countless wizards were captured and killed.

Together, the relatives and families of the wizards suffered all kinds of incredible harm.

In addition, during the raids, some nobles colluded with the church and used the oracle to eradicate dissidents, which made all the people panic.

The entire kingdom has fallen into some kind of "white terror".

The wizards who reacted had no choice but to leave their homes and hide in various places to escape the pursuit of the church. Gradually, this prairie fire spread from the prosperous place of the royal capital to every corner of the kingdom.

As soon as he got the news, Carter hurriedly sent a letter to hint that the brother and his family, who were far away from home and were wizards, were hiding. However, not long after the letter was sent, he suddenly heard the bad news.

During the process of being hunted by the church, his brother and his wife were unfortunately killed together with his wife in order to protect a pair of children who were also wizards. A brother, sister and their children were also missing.

After all, his news came too late.

The only good thing is that not long ago, his missing nephews and nieces quietly escaped to Oak Town and fled to this castle, hungry, cold, and scarred.

Carter was surprised and delighted, and hurriedly arranged for the brother and sister to hide in the back house of the castle.

In order to avoid being seen by outsiders, he hid in a secret room all day long, and Carter personally delivered food every day.

Originally, in his plan, he just had to hide patiently for a while, wait for the gust of wind to pass, and then find a way to send his nephew away from the Terai Kingdom to the safety of the Southern Continent.

However, what Carter didn't expect was that just yesterday, the Knights Templar came to the town with the wizards they captured along the way, and claimed that they were hunting a pair of wizards.

This kept Carter awake all night. He didn't know how much information the church had. He was even more worried that he would be stormed into the castle by the terrifying knights in his sleep and hanged for hiding.

But he never thought that he did not wait for the knights to break in, but that he got a letter from the church this early morning.

It seemed that the other party was still unaware of the connection between the wizard it was hunting and him... This was the only thing that gave Baron Carter some comfort.

However, facing the terrifying knights, this little lord could not control the fear in his heart.

Once his crime of hiding a wizard is discovered... then...

Thinking of this, Baron Carter, who was sitting in front of the window, shuddered hard, his heart pounded, and cold sweat flowed down his forehead uncontrollably.

He stood up and began to pace around the house, his face uncertain.

Finally, he gritted his teeth and made a decision.

Turn around and push the door open, heading towards the back house.

He didn't dare risk being hanged!

Of course, as an uncle, he couldn't hand over his brother's child with his own hands.

He planned to send the two children away before the church found out, and hide in the nearby pale mountains, waiting for the church to leave before taking them back.

"That's it... you have to do it quickly and covertly... otherwise, once you are discovered..."

Muttering these words vaguely and unconsciously, the middle-aged Baron Carter went downstairs in a slight panic, crossed the garden again, and entered the back house.

He had arranged for the servants in the back house to be elsewhere. After looking around warily for a while, Carter quickly walked through the corridor, took out a key from his arms, and came to the door of the storage room in the back house.

However, the moment he came outside the door, his whole body suddenly felt as if he had been struck by lightning, and his body became stiff!

I saw that the heavy wooden door in front of me was slightly open, and the metal lock on it had been disconnected, as if it had been forcibly broken by some tyrannical external force!

"Ah... Morey! Karina!"

The next second, the middle-aged lord suddenly pulled out the short blade from his waist and opened the door.

Then, all they saw was a young brother and sister lying on the floor, not knowing whether they were alive or dead.

In the other corner of the room, a strange, strangely dressed man was sitting leisurely at the table, flipping through a book.

"You...you are from the church..." At this moment, Baron Carter was shaking all over, feeling like the world was spinning, and the knife in his hand seemed to fall to the ground.

In his opinion, the only one who could break into the castle quietly and control the two wizards was the church's search team!

Although the clothes and appearance of the person in front of me are a bit strange.

"Shh, don't shout too loud, otherwise I won't be responsible for attracting other people."

Lin Tuo, who was sitting at the table, slowly closed the book in his hand, looked at the middle-aged man who was almost limp at the door without any surprise, and said with a smile in the local language he had just mastered.

After a pause, he tapped his forehead with his finger again, as if thinking and curious:

"Church? You mean those guys in armor in the church-like church in the center of the town? Unfortunately, I don't know them."

Not...acquaintance?

At the door, Baron Carter looked dazed, and was stunned for a while.

Seeing this scene, Lin Tuo sighed helplessly, put the knight novel in his hand aside, pointed to a chair next to him, and said lightly:

"I think you can sit down first and don't be so nervous. I don't mean any harm."

Baron Carter looked at the young brother and sister lying on the ground like he was crying, and thought to himself that there was no malice?

"Ahem, this was just an accident." Lin Tuo coughed slightly awkwardly, "I originally just wanted to ask them about something, but unfortunately they were young people and overreacted, so I had to knock them unconscious.

But now, I ask you the same question, well, you should cooperate with me, right?"

While speaking in a gentle tone, Lin Tuo slowly broke off the corner of the solid wood table next to him, making Carter's eyelids jump.

"Dang Cang." After two seconds of silence, Baron Carter dropped his weapon and said with a wry smile, "What do you want to ask?"

Then, he got a weird answer:

"everything."

…

…

Half an hour later, Lin Tuo finally got the information he wanted and established a preliminary understanding of this era.

Likewise, I finally found out that the unconscious young brother and sister on the ground were the so-called wizards.

Well... He originally just saw two obvious "etheric lines" floating in the sky above the castle, so he came here.

Unfortunately, the opponent's reaction was quite fierce, and he launched an attack the moment he saw him. Lin Tuo had no choice but to knock him out.

I asked another little lord, and the process turned out to be much smoother and more pleasant.

According to the little lord named Carter, this era is indeed similar to the Middle Ages, with nobles, commoners, and slaves. Of course, there are also extraordinary beings.

Wizards, knights, and church priests all possess powers far beyond ordinary people, but there are differences.

The most significant difference is that most of the power of knights and priests comes from practice, absorbing "magic power" from nature, and then achieving extraordinary effects by learning specific "combat skills" and "magic arts".

As for wizards, they can also practice, but the difference is that these people are often born with some unique and strange abilities.

By learning "cultivation methods" the day after tomorrow, it usually only improves physical fitness and strengthens natural abilities, and does not rely much on acquired spells.

Of course, the three are not so distinct.

This is consistent with Lin Tuo's guess.

"It seems that wizards are the descendants of those genetically mutated people who evolved with special abilities... while knights and priests are mainly ordinary people with talents in cultivation.

As for ‘combat skills’, ‘divine skills’, and ‘spells’, the names are different, but in essence they are all a kind of superpower that can be learned through research and summarization by generations of humans..."

As for the so-called "magic power", it is obviously the name of "ether" in this era.

——
Chapter completed!