Chapter 67 Source
In the city of Ashgra, Locke and Gabby Montoya came to a group of dusty houses together.
This group of houses has been deserted for a long time.
The residents in Ashgra City did not dare to come near this place. After all, the owners of the houses were all infected with diseases that they could not understand.
Locke looked at the house made of red and white bricks in front of him. The whole house resembled a small bungalow. He took Gabby Montoya and briefly inspected the three houses nearby.
It has to be said that the living standards of mortals in the wizarding world are, on average, better than those of civilians in Corfu mainland.
The common people in Corfu live in thatched houses without floors, and some even live in cowsheds, living with the livestock, without a bed.
But in the wizarding world, every household of the common people in the southeast corner has at least a small, simple but independent small house.
Gabby Montoya, after inspection, shook his head and said to Locke: "Senior Locke, I still don't see any problem."
"These houses are not connected. We checked three, and there were five or six separate houses in between each one. So why are the civilians living in these three buildings infected with that strange disease, but the owners of the dozen or so houses in the middle are fine at all?"
Locke swept through several surrounding houses. There were still some residents living in these houses. Maybe they had nowhere else to go, but the doors and windows of each house were nailed with wooden boards.
Seeing themselves and Gabi approaching, they opened the door slightly, observed the situation, and looked very excited when they saw the wizards coming.
They obviously live in fear all day long, fearing that they themselves will be infected with that weird disease, but because the mortal doctors have no way to do anything, they are helpless. Seeing themselves is of course like seeing a great savior.
Locke shook his head slightly in response to Gabby's question, "Didn't you notice, these houses actually have a common feature."
Gabby Montoya, who was in his early thirties, was stunned.
Locke pointed to a house in front of them and said: "Have you not noticed that the residences of these three sick mortals have one common feature, that is, they are extremely dirty?" It looked like the owners of these houses had a very poor sense of hygiene. "
Locke's eyes glanced at the gap between the bottom of the house and the ground, which was a short-tailed mouse running quickly in the middle of the moisture-proof overhead layer.
The mouse ran out from the elevated floor, ran to the shadow of a tree, and hid.
Gabby Montoya was a little confused. "Senior Locke, are you saying that the residences of those who are sick are all dirty? But there are some buildings in the middle that are not very clean either."
Locke said: "That's because they have cats and dogs."
Locke quickly moved forward and caught up with the mouse hiding behind the shadow of the trees.
Gabby Montoya looked at Locke, "Senior Locke...wait for me..."
Locke could no longer care about her, and whispered to himself: "That mouse has a big problem."
He keenly discovered the problem. "Ordinary rats will hide immediately when they see a humanoid creature larger than themselves, but that rat, seeing us approaching, actually ran out of hiding on purpose."
Locke caught up with the rat, stood in front of it, and carefully observed its body.
The world of magic is full of mysteries. Even if you are a second-class wizard apprentice, you must be careful.
Teacher Sophia once said that in the complex environment of magic plants, it is not that there are no wizard apprentices who make mistakes and die in the wild because of carelessness.
"Sure enough, the consciousness of this mouse is very slow. When it saw me approaching, its first reaction was not to run away." Locke took out a bottle from his pocket and spent 1 magic stone to buy a bottle of general-purpose simple antidote - [Darcissus Antidote Water] from the Chimera Market. Then he held his breath and looked down at the mouse.
"Sure enough, as I suspected, those mortals were not the first batch of creatures to be affected. The first batch of creatures to be affected were these rodents." Locke found some extremely tiny mycelium that was almost transparent in color on the neck of the mouse.
And there is some hidden carrion on its neck.
When Locke got extremely close to it, he smelled a faint fragrance. This fragrance was extremely difficult to describe and very special, but in short, it was a fragrance that once you smell it, you will never forget it.
This kind of fragrance is between smelly and fragrant, which is very special.
Locke felt that some kind of substance entered his body along with the fragrance. The back of his hand became slightly numb. However, due to the medicinal properties of the daffodil detoxification water and the blood of ancient creatures in his body, this slight toxicity soon disappeared completely.
Locke said: "I found it. This is the source of the illness of those civilians."
Gabby Montoya stood behind Locke, looking at the inconspicuous little mouse, slightly shocked. She has been wandering here for almost half a month, always trying to find the magic plant that causes the disease. Who knows, the murderer is not a plant, but a mouse that can run away!
No wonder, she searched for more than half a month and couldn't find it at all.
Because she was looking in the wrong direction.
Gabby Montoya looked at Locke with eyes full of respect. This breeder assistant, who was much younger than her, was indeed more capable than her.
Having only been here for half a day, I have already locked the target.
This made Gabby Montoya feel the gap between her and Locke.
Gabby Montoya said: "Senior Locke, what should we do next? Should we write a report to the college and let others handle it, or should we solve it ourselves?" Locke thought about several types of magic plants in his mind, and finally settled on the most suspicious type of magic plant. "These mice are essentially controlled by that kind of magic plant. 』
『The fungus produced by the magic plant parasitizes on their bodies, making them no longer afraid of humans and slowing down their reactions.
The purpose should be to allow humans to get close to them and create a large-scale plague. The result of this plague is the death of a large number of humans. 』
This is a reproduction mechanism. This reproduction mechanism is most likely to be the mulch konjac. 』
『The seeds of this kind of magic plant must be grown on a large number of human corpses, and it is likely to fail. It is a magical plant with particularly harsh growth conditions, and therefore, it is very difficult to see in the wild. 』
It is difficult to grow if it is not specially cultivated. 』
Locke thought quickly, "So, if it is really a mulch plant, then there must be a corpse with high energy density around this kind of magic plant." 』
The Rot Amorphophallus is a very rare magic plant, and it is very valuable to first-class wizard apprentices. Moreover, Amorphophallus arum rarely appears in the natural environment. It would be a shame if I didn't record and study this unusual situation. 』
Locke looked at Gabby Montoya and said: "We can handle this matter ourselves. There is no need, just make a few more trips and notify the academy."
"I remember that you are a wizard apprentice in transformation magic. I need you to turn into a cat to search for the gathering place of these rats."
Gabby Montoya did not hesitate, nodded and said: "Okay, Senior Locke."