The girl who was punished by the gods counterattacked and became the group's favorite

Walking from one end of the village to the other, there was nothing but mess everywhere and not a single living person in sight.

"How could this happen? When we received the news, didn't they say that the people upstream were still safe? Now how come the entire village is gone?"

Fina said in disbelief. It had only been a few days since they received the news from the academy and arrived to accept the mission, and the village was already deserted.

"Judging from the bodies we saw along the way, the people in the village must have hidden themselves." Giselle looked back at the houses one after another. It was impossible that there were only so few people.

"Don't we have a map? Let's use the map to see if there is any place nearby suitable for people to hide?" Juno looked around and didn't see any place to hide.

"It's here. I'll take it out." Pierre said as he took out the map and unfolded it. "This is the most detailed map I can buy. After all, this place is quite far from us, and it's not a famous village."

The lines on the simple map were crooked. The scattered squares on the map were the approximate arrangement of houses in the entire town. A few thin lines with an arc around them represented several small woods nearby. Two parallel curved lines represented the river next to the village. A line shaped like an inverted triangle marked a mountain, and there were several circles whose meanings were unknown.

"How about we go inside the mountain and take a look?" Fina noticed the cave at a glance. The inverted triangle painting was quite large, which should indicate a relatively large cave. If there were people hiding there, there should be a lot of people hiding inside.

Pierre also echoed, "Yes, caves are the best places to live. Maybe these people are hiding in the caves."

"And since there are trees next to this cave, maybe we can pick some fruits or something to keep ourselves fed." Juno also looked towards the cave.

Gisai always felt that it was not that simple, but she had no other ideas in her mind for a moment. "Tia, what do you say?"

"Huh?" Tia looked up at everyone's gazes, a little embarrassed. "Sorry, I was just wondering what these circles represent."

"We were talking about going to that cave first to take a look." Fina pulled Tia's arm and pointed to the location of the cave.

"Then let's go over there and take a look first." Tia thought it would be okay to take a look.

But when the five people walked all the way there along the map, they were still stunned.

"How could someone draw such a big hole as a mountain?" Pierre looked back and forth, almost thinking that he had taken the wrong path.

Tia didn't know why, but Austin's face suddenly flashed in her mind again.

"Is there anything unusual about the person who sold you the map?"

Pierre was a little confused. "What's wrong?"

Looking at Pierre's confused eyes, Tia realized that she had lost her mind. What could be so abnormal about a map seller?

"It's okay, I just suspect that the man is a liar."

Juno looked at the awkward smile that flashed across Tia's face, wanting to ask something, but finally kept her mouth shut.

Pierre scratched his head in embarrassment. If he had known that the man was a liar, he would not have bought the map from him.

"What doubts? That guy is a liar." Fina said indignantly, "How can someone draw such a huge pit into a mountain for no reason?"

"Should we go down and take a look? The road below this huge pit is winding and there seems to be another road, which should be able to hide people." Gisai stood at the edge of the cave and looked down. "Look, there are traces over there!"

Everyone's attention was quickly drawn to the direction Giselle pointed, and they only saw a pile of dirt. When they got closer, they discovered that there was an obvious mark on the dirt that looked like it had been tied with a rope.

"Wow, Gisele, your eyesight is so good!" Fina couldn't help but exclaimed. She was just there but didn't see anything.

Giselle smiled but looked at Juno, who also followed suit and praised, "It's really amazing."

Gisai was satisfied, smiled happily, and continued to look for clues. She looked in this direction and saw obvious strangulation marks on a tree not far away.

"Look at this part of the tree. It's obvious that something has strangled it. Someone must have tied the tree with a rope or something, and then followed the rope down to the pit."

Fina originally wanted to pull Tia over to take a look, but found that Tia stopped there looking for something, so she had to pull Juno over.

"Tia, this place is really strangled by the rope!"

Tia took out a rope from her bracelet and saw that Pierre was still staring at the map. She went over and patted his arm gently.

"What are you thinking about?"

"This map doesn't look right even when viewed upside down!" No matter how Pierre thought about it, he felt something was wrong. No normal person would deliberately draw a wrong map. Could it be that there was something wrong with the person who sold him the map?

"Even though it's drawn wrong, at least it points in a direction. Let's go down and take a look together." Tia took Pierre to the tree.

Pierre felt that it was his fault that caused everyone to run to the pit, so he volunteered to pick up the rope and tie it to the tree.

"Let me take care of it!"

Seeing how anxious he was, they knew he might want to make up for his previous mistakes, so they let him get busy, with Giselle helping out from the side.

Finally, the rope was tied and pulled outside to make sure there was no problem before letting it go.

"I'll go down first!" Pierre volunteered.

"Then I'll be second." Tia stood behind Pierre.

"Then I'll be the third one!" Fina followed closely.

"Then I'll be the last one!" Giselle signaled Juno to go forward.

Several people were pulling the rope from above, and Pierre went down first to explore the way. It was pitch black below the cave and nothing could be seen, but the deeper he went, the more he could smell a foul odor of decay.

Pierre swallowed his saliva. Is there really a living person down there? Such a strong stench of decay.

With an uneasy heart, he landed on the ground carefully. Fortunately, the ground under his feet was still wet soil, not soft and bumpy.

He took out a small lamp and looked around below. The walls were very flat on all sides, and there was only a dark cave. He couldn't tell what was inside.

He reached out and pulled the rope to signal everyone to come down, and then everyone went down into the cave in this order. The pit was quite large, and the five people did not feel crowded when they landed on the ground.

Gisai felt the surrounding walls, reached out and pushed, and found that the walls were relatively soft. "This pit must have been newly dug."