Wizard: This witcher is neglecting his duties.

Chapter 216 Princess Elizabeth and the Search for Clues

Jack the Giant Slayer!

Wayne also sat by the fire, listening to the old man's story, which was actually very simple, like a fairy tale.

The monks discovered God, and then, in an unknown way, they created the Bean Pod. Using the beans taken from the Bean Pod, they grew a path to heaven, wanting to find God.

But when they climbed the path to heaven and arrived at a new place, thinking they had reached the gates of paradise, they were met with a tragic fate.

Between the human world and heaven lies a floating continent called Gantowa, the territory of a cruel race of giants.

When they killed the monks and discovered the path to the human world, the giants brought calamity upon humanity.

They burned, killed, and looted. Human soldiers were like ants in their presence. When they discovered the deliciousness of human flesh, these giants went completely mad and began to treat humans as food, causing even greater destruction.

When King Erik of the human race witnessed this disaster, he immediately ordered the monks to use magic again to create something that could control the giants' minds.

So the monks melted a magic bean and added all sorts of magic, finally creating an unprecedented crown, which became known as Eric's Magic Crown.

Once the king wears this crown, all the giants will become his slaves and obey his every command.

So King Eric ordered the giants to return to their homeland and had the vine bridge that had grown from the magic bean cut down, severing the road between Gantowa and the human world.

In the end, the kingdom was safe, and King Eric, before his death, took his crown and the magic beans and went into eternal sleep.

After the story was told, Thomas's granddaughter listened with great interest, and afterwards, she excitedly asked her grandfather:

"Grandpa, do giants really exist? Do the magic beans and the magic crown really exist?"

The old man stroked his beard, shook his head, and said:

"How could that be? It's just a story. There are no giants, no spells, and no magical crowns. However, there was indeed a King Eric, who was the ancestor of our current King Bravel. The current royal family is descended from King Eric."

After explaining to his granddaughter, the old man noticed Wayne was also listening to the story, so he smiled and asked:

"Mr. Wayne, haven't you heard this story? It's very famous in our kingdom; practically every child has heard it."

Wayne smiled and explained that he came from a distant country and had never heard such a story.

However, he knew very well that this was not a story. Although he was not sure what time period it was, in the movie, the protagonist obtained a magic bean and accidentally planted it, which caused the path to heaven to reappear and connect to the giants' territory of Gantowa in the sky.

Even the kingdom's princess was unexpectedly sent there and captured by giants. Humans also stole the crown. In the end, the giants launched a massive attack on the ground. The male protagonist unexpectedly obtained the crown, married the princess, and became king, bringing the story to a perfect ending.

A rather clichéd story.

He couldn't remember the specific details, but he did remember that this happened after the princess came of age and was about to be betrothed to the villain. The villain stole the crown, and the protagonist Jack obtained the magic bean. As long as he went to the royal city to check, he could find out what time period it was.

Having sorted out his thoughts, Wayne took out the gold nuggets he had prepared, showed them to old Thomas, and asked:

"Mr. Thomas, I don't have your local currency. Can I pay with gold?"

"If possible, I would like to exchange some more gold for your currency."

"Of course, I won't let you suffer any losses. I can pay you a little more as a reward for your hospitality."

………………

In the afternoon, Wayne rode away from Thomas's farm on a mare.

He was quite lucky this time. The first indigenous people he met were a kind group. They not only gave him some money and sold him a gentle mare, but also invited him to have lunch together.

Clearly, the common people in this world are normal people, unlike the scoundrels in the wizarding world who are always thinking about despicable things like cheating, swindling, murder, and robbery.

The journey of over ten kilometers took Wayne two hours on horseback. As he led his somewhat panting horse closer to the capital of the Kingdom of Albion, the city, which could be described as a fortress, finally came into full view.

It not only has a moat seven or eight meters wide, a huge drawbridge-style city gate that can be raised, lowered, and recovered, but also city walls that are nearly twenty meters high, and the building materials are all hard rock.

On the walls of this royal city, there are four huge repeating ballistae. Wayne remembers this weapon; it is a powerful weapon capable of killing giants.

Behind the main city wall is a secondary city wall, which can be used for secondary battles, making the whole city virtually impregnable.

Unfortunately, in Wayne's memory, those giants were all seven or eight meters tall and very strong. They could use an entire tree or a boulder as a projectile to attack, and they were practically human catapults.

Human soldiers were like rats in their hands, and even fully armored knights were probably just tin cans, unable to cause them any real harm.

The city's defenses might be able to handle ordinary human soldiers, but they were insufficient against giants and could be easily breached by various methods.

In the original movie, if the male protagonist hadn't appeared at the last moment with the crown that controls the giants, the soldiers and civilians in the city would probably have all been captured and used as food by these giants.

The entrance fee was not expensive, only two copper coins. After paying the money, Wayne led his horse into the city.

Just like the medieval cities he remembered, there were some shops in the city. He led his horse and first found an inn to stay at. Then he wandered around the shops, wanting to see if there were any local specialties worth buying and taking back with him.

Unfortunately, after browsing around for an afternoon, Wayne didn't find anything good. It was mostly common food, daily necessities, and clothing. However, it wasn't a complete waste. After wandering around for half a day, he found a bookstore and bought several books with gold coins, mostly about history and mythology.

Wayne wanted to see if there were any other noteworthy storylines in this world besides the story of the Giant Slayer.

The main reason for not buying more books is that the books here are too expensive, several times more expensive than those in the Wizarding World.

Perhaps because printing technology was not yet widespread, almost all books were handwritten copies, and the paper was quite thick, so each book was a luxury item that ordinary people simply could not afford.

Fortunately, the written language here is almost indistinguishable from English. With his English proficiency, he could barely understand the text and read through most of it.

But this world may not be as simple as Wayne imagined, because he saw the legend of Merlin, the Viking warriors of the North, and various other legends that were somewhat similar to those on Earth, but also different.

So he stayed in the city until evening. When night fell, he found the liveliest tavern in the city and went inside. While drinking, he used his keen hearing to gather the information he wanted.

However, perhaps because the country has been at peace for too long, the patrons in these taverns mostly talk about trivial matters, such as whose wife has cheated on him, whose business has made money, or which young man has become a knight's squire and gained the favor of a nobleman.

Moreover, this kingdom called Abiran was practically a culinary desert, and he ordered their best dishes at the busiest tavern.

What was served was mashed potatoes, fried fish, and a meat pie decorated with a salted fish head. The sheer size of the dish, comparable to Stargazing, made Wayne, a top chef, feel incredibly uncomfortable.

He barely managed to finish the mashed potatoes and fried fish, and drank two bottles of fruit wine before finally hearing some useful information from someone else.

A strong, young man, possibly a palace guard, boasted to his friend:

"Princess Elizabeth is so beautiful, and she is of marriageable age, being the King's only daughter."

"Whoever marries her will become the future king of this country."

"I wonder which lucky man will be."

After hearing the young man's reflections, some of his friends immediately asked with interest:

"Blott, you spend all your time in the palace, don't you know which man the king is planning to choose as the princess's husband?"

The young man named Brot smiled mysteriously upon hearing this, and only after being urged by his friend did he lower his voice and say:

"I guess it's Earl Roderick. He's a high-ranking nobleman and a great lord in the kingdom, and he's unmarried. His Majesty the King has always kept him in the palace and trusts him a lot. I think it's definitely a deliberate attempt to match him with Princess Elizabeth."

Upon hearing this news, Wayne nodded in satisfaction. At least he could confirm that Princess Elizabeth was not yet married and had reached marriageable age, which meant that the story in the movie was about to unfold.

Unfortunately, he didn't know where the crown and the magic beans were hidden. Otherwise, he could have infiltrated the palace directly and found those two magical items, thus avoiding the need to wait for the movie's plot to unfold as it did.

However, this doesn't really matter. Anyway, once that towering vine appears, he can go get the crown and the magic bean, and deal with the giants as well. It won't affect the final outcome.

Moreover, he hadn't figured out how to handle what was to come.

Of course, he definitely wanted to get his hands on the crown. Once he had the crown, these giants would become his slaves, a powerful group of giant warriors, who could be taken to other worlds to fight for him when necessary.

However, Wayne hadn't yet figured out how to treat the other mortals.

He was not an evil person, and he could not allow the giants to slaughter ordinary civilians, yet he did not want to give up the power he could control over the giant race.

However, the giants' territory was too far from the ground, probably several thousand meters high, and without a bridge made of magical vines, he could not fly directly to the giants' territory.

The number of magic beans is limited. Cutting down a magic vine that is thousands of meters long will cause great damage to the surrounding buildings when it falls to the ground.

If we want to use the power of the giants in the future, the best way is to tame the entire giant race. At the same time, we must also maintain the existence of the magic vines so that he can travel between the giants' territory and the ground at any time.

(End of this chapter)