The bustling crowd immediately erupted into turmoil.
Some found it unbelievable, thinking Gauss was just speaking nonsense.
They had lived here for generations, how could they be "lambs" raised by a witch?
Others were instantly appalled.
Especially those who had lost children in their families before, their pupils shrank as past incomprehensible events suddenly all connected.
To prove he wasn’t spouting nonsense.
Gauss displayed the recorded images from the Memory Ball using magic power for the villagers to see.
They saw a pile of jars soaking human organs and page after page of experiment data records.
The names of villagers, ages, and experiment processes were detailedly recorded by Witch Megan.
Of course, she only recorded these for her own human experiment data, but now they became evidence supporting Gauss’s statements.
"It’s Fann! Fann he..."
"Didn’t he go to Bari Town to be an apprentice blacksmith?"
"And Sera..."
Soon someone in the crowd found familiar names, covering their mouth and nose in disbelief.
Naturally, there were more names on the notes, and the current villagers had no impression of them; those were villagers who had disappeared over the past hundreds of years, their relatives whom the villagers knew were long buried.
The most direct evidence was also the return of Abby.
If other disappearances spanned at least years, Abby was a village girl who had gone missing only half a month ago due to "collecting herbs."
The notes and Abby’s return forced villagers who refused to believe to face reality.
So their perceived "pure land" was simply a witch’s experiment site.
The ones with the strongest reactions were those who had lost relatives, with the witch deceased, they could only angrily surround the silent head-down village chief and several knowledgeable elders.
"Hodder, why did you become the witch’s accomplice!"
"Give me back my beloved Georgina, you beast!"
"..."
Gauss shook his head as he watched the plaza descend into chaos.
Villagers were angry, confused, some even feeling a bit uneasy and fearful because their familiar environment they relied on had been shattered...
The witch was certainly not a benevolent person, but objectively speaking, her presence maintained a bad yet reasonably stable order to some extent.
Herb Village would soon face a post-witch era, where they’d have to rely on their strength to survive in these dense woods, defend against possible monster invasions, or relocate to relatively resource-poor but safer areas.
Gauss observed all this.
Ultimately, he was just an outsider.
As an adventurer, he could only offer help within his ability.
He looked at the mage in the village who appeared to be around thirty years old.
Since Gauss and the others returned, he had been silently watching the situation unfold.
"You’re called... David, right?"
On the way back, Gauss had inquired with Village Chief Hodder about the village’s only Professional Mage.
After all, he needed to ensure this professional had no collusion with Witch Megan.
Village Chief Hodder had repeatedly assured that David had no direct contact with the witch.
His skills, spells, and meditation method mostly came from Witch Megan, but they were requested by the knowledgeable ones to improve Herb Village’s ability to resist risks.
"Yes, Lord Gauss," David replied cautiously.
"On the way back, Hodder assured me you had no collusion with Witch Megan, but I suspect you are aware of the village’s situation, right?" Gauss said softly.
Faced with Gauss’s calm inquiry, David fell into a prolonged silence.
After a long while, he nodded bitterly.
"Yes."
He had tried to investigate the matter of the missing villagers in the village but was soon stopped by Village Chief Hodder.
Hodder forbade him from investigating.
Though Hodder was just an ordinary person, he was David’s foster father.
He raised David, who was orphaned, and supported him in becoming a Professional Mage.
So even though he realized the missing villagers were not due to accidents, he still never conducted in-depth investigations, just numbly ignoring everything happening.
On regular days, he taught other young villagers skills, took them outside the village to hunt beasts and demons, but dared not step even a foot into the forbidden area Hodder mentioned.
Actually, he also realized that the missing villagers, absence of monster village invasions, and occasionally provided professional resources likely all came from that forbidden area.
But he indeed lacked the courage to break it all until Gauss arrived.
Facing Gauss’s piercing gaze, he lowered his head, feeling exposed inside and out by the penetrating sight.
"I will report all this to the Adventurer’s Guild," Gauss sighed. "Hodder and their matters are none of my concern."
"But I hope you, as the village’s only professional, can protect this village."
Though they lost the witch’s "protection," theoretically, having a Professional Mage combined with the village’s young adults should be enough to solve most problems.
Regarding reporting to the Adventurer’s Guild, he had already written a brief letter documenting the occurrences here, sent by Raven Aik to the nearest Yuge Town.
Given his influence in Yuge Town, someone would surely come to investigate and handle subsequent issues very soon.
After all, to some in Yuge Town, he was not just a regular adventurer, but the "earthly messenger" of the Lake God.
"Let’s go."
Gauss took one last look at the village.
Serdur had already brought Abby’s father and luggage over.
Abby and her father both needed Serdur’s treatment, and after consulting Abby’s opinion, Gauss decided not to leave them in Herb Village but planned to take them along to the next town.
Nightfall descended.
Gauss and his team found a piece of open ground to set up the folding house.
"How is Abby?"
The folding house had six rooms in total.
Aaliyah chose to stay with Ying, leaving a room for Abby.
As for the spare room, it was left for Abby’s father York.
"She’s already able to move around," Serdur turned to Gauss, speaking softly.
He had dispelled the magic seal left on Abby by Witch Megan.
Now Abby, exhausted, had fallen asleep.
"However, it may take some time to recuperate."
"Okay," Gauss nodded.
"What about York? Can he recover his sanity?"
York wasn’t insane; he was made delirious by potions.
He always harbored suspicions about his wife’s postpartum death, but with his daughter Abby around, he never dared to make up his mind to investigate.
And after his daughter Abby went missing, this man who lost his last concern finally decided to investigate and found traces of Hodder leaving the village at night.
Subsequently, someone discovered him, and Hodder, with a faint conscience, did not choose to silence him.
Just had someone drug him, causing York to fall into a muddled, insane state.
This world isn’t black and white; most people are just ordinary, neither saints intolerant of a speck of dust nor great evildoers.
Hodder allowed the witch to capture villagers as experiment subjects, even providing food and buying living supplies for the witch...
But he also distributed the resources obtained from the witch to villagers, organized villagers to gather herbs in resource-rich areas, improved their living standards, and, upon being discovered by York, did not cruelly act.
Not a good person, but not entirely bad either.
So he could only leave it to the villagers and the subsequent investigating officials from Yuge Town to handle.
"It shouldn’t be a big problem; now that the medication has stopped, plus my dissolution of the body’s effects, he should regain clarity, then gradually recover over time..."
Gauss couldn’t help but feel a bit sympathetic.
If they hadn’t happened to pass through Herb Village on this journey, this man’s life would be like a nightmare.
His wife was taken by the witch to become a body for extending her life, and the only daughter accompanying him encountered the same misfortune years later.
This is power...
Gauss’s palm clenched and then relaxed.
Power can create tragedy, dragging people into an abyss but can also bring salvation.
It has no distinction between good and evil, depending only on how people use it.