I Am Louis XIV

   The Veil of the World in Chapter 110 (3)

  Marie's answer made Louis incomprehensible: "I remember you said that mortals can't enter the inner world."

"Because those aren't mortals either." Varo Vesari said rightfully: "Your Highness, there is a little problem with Miss Mary's wording here, I mean, they, no, they should be said, they are all used as materials. The ones sent into the inner world are like our luggage, of course, the corpse and the ghost will not bite the furniture and equipment, and those are the same."

  Louis paused, very briefly. If Mr. Bishop was here, he would have noticed, but only Mary and Varo Vesalius were here.

   "So, they," Louis asked cautiously, "were they... dead when they entered here?"

   "So to speak," Vesalius said, "their souls have been destroyed, leaving only obedience and instinct."

  Mary nodded absently from the side.

  Louis remembered what they saw when they rode the nightmare carriage. He stared at Varo Vesalius for a while, but couldn't see the unease and fear in this wizard whose grandfather was still a mortal.

  ——

   No one knows, it was from this moment that the king made his verdict, and although many things have happened since then, it has never been shaken and changed.

  ——

Louis came to the inner world for treatment, but to the people in the inner world, he is the Duke of Colonna. Interestingly, the name of the Duke of Colonna is the same as him. Louis, although in the inner world and the outer world, the name There are only a few people to call.

The poisons and curses that Louis suffered are difficult to get treated in the outer world - the monks of the Inquisition can pray and purify him, but their speed is definitely not as fast as the spells and poisons, but in the inner world, it can be said a little bit. It's tricky, after all, those who control the inner world are not stupid enough to directly break the tacit understanding between the inner world and the outer world, so the wizards and potions that the assassins can recruit should only be some lowly foreign wizards - Vesalius Both think so with Mary.

Louis also thinks so, but it also shows that the situation in the inner world is so bad that it can no longer be tightly controlled. Those high-ranking wizards and nobles are not as powerful and sophisticated as they say, and the foreign wizards they despise. It is not as docile and innocent as they thought. The inner world now is similar to those chaotic areas with destructive weapons a hundred years later. The violent conflict within them seems to have nothing to do with the peaceful outside world, but the people and things that come out from there. Japanese things are undoubtedly a devastating blow to people who are used to a peaceful life.

Just like the two assassinations that Louie encountered closely related to the inner world, mortals are to wizards or dark creatures of the inner world as babies are to warriors, and the latter, whether wizards, werewolves or vampires, are obviously right. Mortals hold a contemptuous attitude.

It can only be said that the number of dark creatures and wizards in the inner world for today's mortals is compressed to a terrifying level by the small living environment, so the order of this world can barely maintain a balance-perhaps the so-called agreement is also the inner world and the The rulers of the table world discovered this and were determined.

The mansion they were in was beautiful, and the convenience and sophistication brought by magic could have made a mortal linger, but Louis never forgot to mention the "tools" scattered in the wilderness by Mary and Vesalius. His eyes and tone, perhaps for wizards, mortals will always be one step below them.

And Mary's usual stubbornness - Louis at first only thought of them as a little girl's innocence, and now think of it, this innocence is also a bit cruel, just like Mary wanted to do when he was injured and unconscious. The thing—she didn't know how much effort Louis put in to become a qualified ruler? Did she not understand that France was both a duty and a power for Louis? She should understand that what Louis has to bear and inherit is much more and more precious than being a witch's husband.

   But she still wanted Louis and her to conclude a blood-sworn marriage and become a lowly capable wizard. Perhaps in her heart, even the humblest wizard is stronger than mortals.

If it wasn't for Prince Theoderic of the Van Gogh family, he might have been forced to become the second Varo Vesalius by now, perhaps worse than Varo Vesalius, and Varo Vesalius, perhaps Out of resentment, perhaps because he was more accustomed to obeying the surname Mancini, he didn't stop him.

   Louis had nothing to say about this. He was also responsible for making that decision. He made a light stroke on the booklet in his heart and crossed out the name of Varo Vesalius.

The only thing that can make Louis happy is that his body is really improving rapidly. He can walk around the courtyard for a while, or ride a unicorn (pegasus is temporarily not), or play with the goblins for a while, or Can read a morning or an afternoon of books, either in Greek or in Latin, fortunately he has studied both languages, and he has learned them well.

   But the books prepared here are almost all about the world. So on a sunny morning, Louis asked Luca, the manager, if there were any merchants or shops here to buy books.

  Luca is a calm person. He glanced at Louis and asked respectfully, "It's better to choose the books yourself. Then, Your Highness, would you like to go out for a walk?"

   "May I?" Louis asked.

   "Of course, Your Highness." Luca said, "Your body now allows you to look around. This is your first time back here, so you must be very curious."

   "Indeed," said Louie.

Luca didn't mention Vesalius, although Vesalius should be counted as the first servant by Louis' side, but when he noticed that Louis summoned him more than Vesalius, he quietly dismissed the other servant. Tunoti came up, so when Vesalius came out of the potion-making room for lunch only to find that Louis was not there, he paused for a moment and asked his servants where they were going, of course, he couldn't get an answer , At that time, accompanied by Luca and Tuno, Louis had already appeared in the ring fort.

The inner world here has inherited many things from ancient Rome, including public baths and arenas, as well as some love places. Louis has no interest in the latter. He is not a person who is keen on courtship, and is more afraid of the disease at this time. Surrey knew here that the herbalism and medicine of the wizards took precedence over the mortals at this time, but it was not worth mentioning compared to a hundred years later. At this time, there was syphilis - the world was not spared, and some wizards had syphilis. Variations have arisen that are more lethal.

But in addition to these, wizards also have fixed and mobile marketplaces. The mobile marketplaces are mainly outside the ring castle—that is, the linked castles that Louis saw when he arrived, and the fixed marketplaces are inside the ring castle. , If you just want to find books, you must find them within the ring castle. After all, books, especially the books of wizards, are a very important wealth.

The market in the ring castle is located in the main square. The six passages emanating from the central point divide them into seven equal parts. There are open channels on both sides of the passage, and the water flows inside. Things, you can use the currency that circulates among the wizards, or you can exchange them for things.

Wizards are generally dressed in monochromatic robes, with pointed hats, or with their hoods pulled up, and in general, pointed hat wizards tend to have less family history than hooded families, although at first only because of their respective The tradition, but before you know it, the hood has become a status symbol, Louis is now the Duke of Colonna, so his dark purple velvet cloak hangs a large gold-rimmed hood, which he still holds in his hand. Wearing an ebony and silver-footed staff that exceeds the top of his head is said to be a must-have configuration - even if he can't do a single spell now.

Louis came to observe and satisfy his curiosity, so he chose to walk, but there are many mounts for wizards. Pegasus belongs to the direct line of nobles, but there are wizards riding large three-headed dogs, and wizards riding giant owls. , there are also wizards sitting on the slow flying carpet, and some wizards even choose to ride brooms, "Is there a rule that manticores are not allowed?" Louis asked, "Yes, Your Highness," Luca replied: "That's official business. Mounts, non-emergency events are not allowed to appear in the market."

   As for why a bazaar is only allowed to sell one type of goods, it’s probably because…

After a shrill scream, in the open channel beside Tuno, the water suddenly overflowed and flew up, forming a high crystal wall in an instant - Louis was protected by Luca, but his current The height was high enough for him to see what happened behind the transparent barrier. It turned out that a wild monster from a shop ran out, scratched one wizard's face, and tore off another wizard's arm. About ten feet over the sphinx, this monster from Egypt has the face of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings and claws of an eagle. Blood, dripping, it could have escaped, but out of anger, it attacked every wizard frantically - at this time, you can see the respective reactions and abilities of the wizards, some wizards in plain clothes and pointed hats reacted Fast, but their spells can barely restrain the sphinx, the hooded wizards are slow to respond, but they have minions by their side, and when the minions are down or injured, their whistling spell will kill the sphinx It was tightly bound, and it fell from the ground to the side of the open channel, but no matter how much it bit and struggled, it couldn't affect the wizards in the other division.

It turned out to be a cordon and a barrier, Louis thought. The first time he saw a wild monster like the Sphinx gave him a greater impact than seeing a unicorn, because he saw a unicorn. When he was a beast, the first thing that came to his mind was that there was indeed a unicorn soup on the palace recipe. At that time, he thought it was another name for a narwhal, but after seeing a unicorn, he wondered if it really existed. The king ate a unicorn.

It happened quickly and ended quickly, two wizards riding a manticore descended from the sky, although all they did at this point was fine and collect the sphinx: "What about the wounded wizards? They Can your injury be cured?" Louis asked.

   "It depends on whether their family is willing to give them medicine, Your Highness." Luca said.

   "Can wizards regrow broken limbs?" Louis asked.

   "It's hard," Luca said, "because it requires blood that the vampires give voluntarily."

Perhaps because of hearing Luca's words, a hooded wizard glanced at them and grinned suddenly. After seeing his two sharp teeth, Tuno couldn't help trembling, and Luca's face was also a little bad, The vampires rarely appear in the daytime, so he replied casually. Although there was no disrespect for vampires in his words, but...

   The kitten in Louis's pocket popped out of its head and meowed.

The vampire's face suddenly became strange, he seemed to want to say something, but the cat meowed again, his eyes stayed on the heraldic pin that Louis used to fasten the cloak for a short moment, then bowed and saluted, and then left in a hurry.

  Louis heard Luca sigh softly.

   "Wizards and vampires seem to have a good relationship," Louie said.

"Better than werewolves." Luca was more careful this time, but compared to blood clan, werewolves were less likely to appear at the wizard's fair: "There is a clan in the blood clan that was transformed by wizards, and there is a relationship between blood clan and wizards. There are always collaborations and deals.”

   "Where are the werewolves?"

   "Werewolves are more arrogant," Luca said, "and wizards think werewolves are more similar to animals than people." He hesitated: "In the Wizard's Ring, werewolves are generally only possible in the arena."

  The arena, then there is no need to ask what role the werewolves play in it, the referee or the audience is always missing.

The district where they are located sells the most knowledge-related things, and books are the most, but like many markets, the main shops are concentrated in the central area. There are almost only traveling merchants and unknown wizards, many of which are handcrafted. Codices and annotated books, some books are intentionally raised to high prices, and the owner will talk nonsense and say it's from Merlin or Vivienne, or any famous wizard, but you open it only to find it's inside They are all things like literacy textbooks for young children; some are not allowed to be opened at all, and some are even weathered when touched - Louis didn't expect to see Pengci here, but these people would not recruit Louis With such a coat of arms, hoods hanging down, and servants behind them, they obviously also knew that such wizards were not good targets for their extortion.

But Louis still took a few pieces out of it with great interest. It's not all liars here. In a book about herbal medicine in his hand, as soon as he opened it, the herbs on the corresponding page grew out of it, although Luca said it was An illusion, but Louie thinks it'll be useful, uh, he means, once he's identified that the herbs in it really fit the description in the book.

What Louis used to trade was the common currency among wizards. He was entering the inner world for the first time. Of course, there would not be anything that wizards were interested in. After Luca gave the book to Tuno, Louis asked him for a few gold coins. Looking at it in your hand, in France, the national currency does not have too high credit, but the Spanish gold coin Piast has become the main currency in circulation. This situation has not been completely reversed until now, but in 1943, the bishop of Mazarin cast I bought some silver coins of one acre, and the silver coins have Louis' chubby profile face, very childish - Louis can do nothing about this, because this master is even confirmed by the Queen Mother, and it is said that there are many noble ladies who regard it as a collection This means that even if Louis deliberately recycles after taking office, it is very difficult to do.

But he thinks more about how to take the common currency of France for his own use, and no one knows better than him how much profit can be obtained in coinage and currency issuance - no such currency is pure gold or pure silver. , even if it is a copper coin liad, there are many non-precious metals mixed in it, that is to say, the marked value of the currency is completely unequal to its real value.

Of course, if you do too much, you will be abandoned like a shoe, but Louis just estimated the weight of his hand and the size of the currency, and found that the common currency of wizards has a big problem - and whether it is Neither the gold nor the silver is the right color: "Who's in charge of minting the coins here?" he asked.

Luca's answer is not surprising at all. Although there are formal departments on the surface, they are intertwined behind them. Almost all of them are members of the House of Lords. The aristocrats manipulate and control the economy and finance of the inner world. People, whether they are collateral or outsiders, firstly have no right to question, and secondly, there is no possibility of choice. In the inner world, the coins of the outer world must be exchanged for the coins of the inner world. There are only a few exchange exchanges. Others, whether it is an exchange or a direct transaction, will be convicted, and the crimes are serious enough to be directly executed.

   "Look there, Your Highness," said Luca, "that's the Exchange."

Louis looked at the place that he mistook for a church at first. Of course, there will be no church where the wizard is. Even if there is, it can't be so glorious. It seems that no matter where it is, the bank is always the richest. .

   More achieved.

   (end of this chapter)