Mercenary Wars

Chapter 178 Blinding Headband
If there were a high-ranking priest or a high-ranking necromancer among them, these ghosts would be much easier to deal with.

However, given the dominance of the church, neither of these scenarios is likely to occur.

Necromancers are a given, and Gao Jiano wouldn't even dare use his psychic vision. Even if someone in this makeshift team were truly skilled in necromancy and could easily control ghosts, they would never reveal themselves to others.

The pastor doesn't need to conceal his identity like that.

But as noble clergy, they enjoy the worship of laypeople and are blessed by God every day, so they are naturally unwilling to associate with a group of adventurers who reek of money.

Low-ranking priests might even go into prostitution.

High-ranking priests are almost never to appear on such occasions. They may take risks, but their reason for doing so can only be the glory of God, not worldly interests.

Therefore, they could only deal with the ghosts using the most clumsy method, which was to tear up all kinds of holy light spell scrolls.

Only mages have a more respectable way of dealing with things. Their magical shields can block ghost attacks, and their rich spells also allow them to directly attack ghosts. Although their efficiency is not as high as Holy Light, their cost-effectiveness is obviously much higher.

And then there's Michael, who clearly has some special blessing that allows him to directly wield his sword to attack ghosts.

Other than that, when dealing with ghosts, people can only tear up holy light spell scrolls with a pained expression—these scrolls are not cheap!

But compared to being devoured by ghosts, losing a few spell scrolls is obviously nothing.

Therefore, the scene in the room was quite astonishing for a time.

The ever-increasing holy light illuminated the place, making it almost magnificent and hard to connect it with the dark scene just now.

Gao Jiano was initially taken aback.

But he soon discovered that the Fabiano Ring allowed him to remain unaffected—under the influence of the "exorcism," no ghosts were willing to approach him.

Therefore, what others were doing—tearing apart holy light spell scrolls—seemed like a fireworks display to him, even somewhat comical.

After a brief moment of distraction, Gao Jiano glanced at the scene and his expression suddenly changed slightly.

The room was now completely illuminated by the holy light.

While dark vision potions can grant some night vision, they are ultimately not advanced dark vision potions.

Humans cannot obtain a field of vision comparable to that during the day through it.

Therefore, some details in the room had not caught Gaucano's attention before this.

He didn't notice the skeleton on the floor until the room was filled with light.

In fact, the location of the skull itself is noteworthy—it is close to the front of the Hoddle statue and appears to have died in a kneeling posture.

In contrast, the other skeletons were lying haphazardly, and one was even lying at the doorway.

Besides its somewhat unique location, this skull, situated directly in front of the Hoddle statue, also has a headband on its head.

Black headband.

The headband was almost touching the skull. Considering that the skeleton still had flesh and skin when he was alive, and should have had hair as well, it is conceivable that the headband was probably a bit tight for him.

The headband's material is unknown, and it was covered in dust, making it stand out in an otherwise dusty environment.

However, upon closer inspection, one can see that the black headband has no signs of damage, rust, or deformation; it is merely stained with ash.

Even though Hoddle's statues were damaged and most of the skulls were severely missing or broken, the black headband was remarkably intact.

The last thing that was this well-preserved seemed to be a stone guardian statue.

Therefore, after noticing the black headband, Gaucano quickly sensed something was amiss.

He glanced at the crowd who were still busy dealing with the ghost, and immediately turned slightly to the side to block their view.

Then, using the swift breeze to lift the skeleton, he bent down and reached in, immediately taking the headband into his hand.

A few lines of information flashed by immediately.

【Item: Eye-Covering Headband】

[Level: Level 9]

[Equipment Effect: Increases Spirit by 9 when equipped, and also blocks vision]

……

Spirit +9!

Gao Jianuo was surprised.

This was the first time he had ever seen a magical item with such exaggerated attribute enhancements, and it didn't even have any magic rune burden!
Of course, there is a price to pay: visual impairment, which means going blind.

While blind, one is definitely not good at fighting.

However, with a mental attribute bonus of up to nine points, Gao Jiano was certain that the headband could still be effective in certain specific situations.

Without hesitation, he immediately put the blindfold into his storage ring, his expression remaining unchanged.

After a while.

Under the barrage of holy light spell scrolls, the ghosts in the room seemed to have finally been cleared out.

The group gasped for breath, looking around in disarray.

They were furious to discover that the room, which had cost them so many scrolls of holy light spells, contained only one thing that could barely be considered valuable.

The statue of Hoddle.

As an ancient and exquisitely crafted statue, its relatively well-preserved condition makes it obviously possess considerable collectible value.

If a suitable buyer is found—such as a Hoddle’s secret admirer or a wealthy mystic—it should still be possible to fetch a large sum of money.

But such buyers are obviously hard to find.

Moreover, needless to say, the Hoddle statue is a contraband item of the church, and even if it is disguised as an "artwork," its circulation would face numerous obstacles.

The only feasible solution would be to cut off the key parts of the statue so that people would not realize that it is actually depicting a deity, but this would inevitably greatly reduce its value.

Therefore, someone immediately cursed, "There's nothing here again! If I had known this would happen, I shouldn't have gone to that fortune teller. That bastard wasted six gold coins of mine!"

"Don't say that. More than one fortune teller has said there is a precious treasure here. Surely they can't all be lying?"

"But several people have already died, and we haven't even seen a glimpse of the treasure! Even if there is a dragon crystal deep inside the church, so what? Can we get it alive?"

"What should we do with this statue? It looks like something a collector would like."

Someone immediately retorted, "What statue? This is clearly just a work of art!"

"Oh right, the artwork... I'll offer twenty gold coins for it, what do you guys think?"

"I'll offer forty gold coins! Look at its material, it's Marduk Black Rock!"

Surprisingly, the price of this Hoddle statue eventually rose to over a hundred gold coins.

For most adventurers, this is finally a small reward.

Several people immediately expressed their unwillingness to explore further. They believed that there were still many unknown dangers ahead, and that stopping now would at least allow them to make a small fortune, enough to cover the expenses of the divination.

If they continue exploring, who knows how many more people will die.

With their departure, the temporary team was further reduced to only five people: James, Michael, Niels, Mage, and Gaucano.

They all looked quite determined.

At least Gaucano considered himself to be fairly steadfast.

After all, the plant's senses clearly told him that there was a level 10 plant nearby.

Moreover, he was the one who reaped the most rewards.

So despite further reductions in team size, he still has no intention of leaving.

The others seemed to be the same; they might be greedy or radical enough, or they might know more information, so they harbored a certain conviction.

"Those cowards are finally gone." James said contemptuously, watching the group leave in a hurry. "If they were in the Fireblade Mercenary Group, they would never be able to hold their heads up again!"

"Let's go, everyone, let's continue our search for the treasure that belongs to the truly brave!" he said, turning and leaving the cramped room, heading towards the stone door adjacent to it in the auditorium.

Perhaps being a "coward" really does bring bad luck.

With the departure of these individuals, the team's luck suddenly improved.

When James pushed open the stone door and carefully entered, he was greeted only by the ancient, dusty atmosphere, without any danger.

There were neither stone statues guarding the place, nor any ghosts or anything like that.

"This is the library!" The monk quickly recognized it from the room's layout and his eyes lit up.

Niels frowned slightly: "The books here look like they've been rotting away for ages."

“Most of the books are,” the monk said, “but how could a cathedral’s library contain only such vulgar texts?”

The others exchanged glances.

James said, "Let's look for it then."

The five then searched carefully in the library, which was covered in decaying dust.

The library is quite spacious.

Therefore, it is permissible for the five people to split up and each search independently.

Gao Jiano chose a direction and began searching along the bookshelves.

The bookshelves here are made of stone.

So they didn't completely turn into a pile of dust. Although most of them broke and collapsed, you can still occasionally make out the shape of the bookshelves.

Gaugano's method of searching was simple: touch.

Like a scavenger, he repeatedly rummaged through the ruins, soon becoming covered in dust and debris.

A moment later, as he reached into yet another pile of bookshelf wreckage, several lines of unusual information immediately flooded his mind.

[Item: Unknown]

[Level: Unknown]

Gao Jianuo's expression changed slightly.

"Unknown" means that this is something he has never even heard of before, and "unknowable" means that this thing is at least level eleven!
He quickly pulled.

Then, amidst the rising dust, a stone slab appeared before him.

The stone slab is engraved with dense text.

Or rather, a pattern.

Since Gaucano had never seen this script before, to him, these crooked and irregular things could only be called patterns.

However, judging from the regular arrangement and repetition of many of the shapes, Gaucano concluded that they should be characters.

This surprised him somewhat.

He had some exposure to secret things and knew many languages ​​he didn't understand, but languages ​​he had never seen before were truly rare.

But on second thought, Gao Jiano felt that this was perfectly normal.

Humans can understand the boundaries of their own knowledge, but who can know the limits of their own ignorance?
Without giving it any further thought, Gao Jiano scanned the mysterious characters again and then put the stone tablet away.

He then continued his search, hoping to find another similar mysterious stone tablet.

Unfortunately, this is clearly not something that's readily available everywhere.

Until he met Nils in a pile of bookshelf ruins, Gaucano did not find another mysterious stone tablet or anything that was not junk.

"Did you find anything?" Niels asked, staring into Gaugano's eyes, a slight smile playing on his lips.

His expression was unsettling.

“No,” Gao Jiano said coldly.

Niels clearly sensed his resistance, and his expression returned to normal: "To be honest, I have a question for you."

Gaugano did not respond.

Niels, however, asked to himself, "I heard that Lucius had something going on with Lena from Prestoburg... Is that true?"

“You seem to care a lot about our commander.” Gao Jiano still didn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t know either, although he had vaguely heard some rumors.

Niels did not seem to deny the statement: "Lucius is my friend, at least... he used to be."

Meanwhile, the others also found their way to the vicinity.

Clearly, this period of trial and error has come to an end.

All five people have finished searching their respective selected areas.

The monk frowned: "You found the book?"

"No," the four said almost in unison.

The monk frowned even more deeply: "I don't believe you. Tell me honestly, what exactly did you find? Do you think I would be so shady as to try and keep what you found for myself? I'm not that kind of person."

Niels said, "Then tell me about yourself first. What did you find?"

"I didn't find anything!" the monk said, letting out a frustrated sigh. "I really didn't find anything, this isn't normal!"

He paused for a moment, then continued, "I bet one of you has found something!"

"We really didn't find anything."

(End of this chapter)