Miss Witch, please don't leave your fragrance everywhere

Chapter 92 Hannibal the Man-Eating Tree
 

According to the Archon, no matter how hard they patrolled recently, they could not find any clues about the disappearances. He suspected that the culprit had used the power of magic to cover up the truth, so he entrusted the entire investigation to Victoria.
I wonder how he would feel if he knew that Victoria had been rushing towards the meaningless Dokum Mine in the past few days without conducting any substantive investigation.
"Can I look into the clerk's history? I think there might be some clues there."

"Investigating history? If it can help you catch the criminal, that's fine, but please don't take the historical archives away."
Victoria followed Angelica in confusion and went to the clerk's room to ask for the town's historical records. The rural areas near the town were under the jurisdiction of the town's governor, and the history of other villages could also be found here.
"Why do we need to check historical archives? Shouldn't we go to the missing person's village to collect evidence?"

However, Angelica did not answer Victoria's doubts. She opened the history recorded by the clerk and found the evidence she expected.
"It's just as I thought... you see."
Historical archives clearly record that about ten years ago, the land in nearby rural areas began to become fertile, the harvest increased year by year, and life in the small town and the countryside suddenly became prosperous. Some families even began to have the financial resources to hire full-time servants.

Victoria looked left and right but couldn't see what was wrong.
But Angelica, who already had an idea about this, found the Archon again.
"Mr. Archon, have there been any missing persons in the nearby villages before this year?"

"There are some every year... but never as many as this year."
"Huh? Does it happen every year?"
Victoria was shocked. She couldn't help wondering why the Archon didn't mention this matter. She had always thought that the disappearances happened only this year.

Perhaps knowing Victoria's confusion, the Archon took the initiative to explain.
"Because we have a good harvest here, people choose to move here every year. Some come, and some leave. It's hard to tell whether many of them left without saying goodbye or disappeared. If we have to track everyone's whereabouts in detail, we simply don't have enough manpower."
"I have already found the information I need, and I roughly know what's going on."

"Then I wish you a safe journey."
Angelica and Victoria said goodbye and left the town. Angelica still did not choose to investigate in the countryside. She pulled Victoria into a sparsely populated woods.
Victoria finally couldn't hold back her doubts and stopped in front of Angelica.
"Wait a minute! What's going on? You act like you know everything. I «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» don't understand anything. Doesn't this make me look like an idiot?"

"So you're not stupid?"
"I am a top student at the Knight Academy! Calling me an idiot is an insult to the hundreds of years of history of the Knight Academy. I demand that you apologize immediately."
"Then let me test you. There are four academic terms for timid mushrooms. Do you know which ones they are?"

“………………I’m sorry, I’m stupid.”
"Just kidding, there's only one kind."
Angelica dodged Victoria's angry punch with a smile. This person was really easy to tease.

But to be precise, it is true that it is related to the timid mushroom.
"Okay, I'll answer you seriously. The timid mushroom is not a common plant. It only grows in certain environments."
Angelica said as she drew a magic circle.

"Clovers Sequence V. Regional Search."
Area search, different from the star map, is a kind of magic that checks things within a certain area. Just like in the wild in the survival game, the area search will instantly list all the items within the range and feed them back to Angelica's mind, and tell her in which direction these items are.
Although it does not apply to higher intelligent life forms, plants and animals will also be retrieved.

No matter how stupid Victoria was, she finally discovered the problem when she saw Angelica drawing the magic circle.
"Eh...the magic circle I was just in...the ley lines of this land...?"
The ley lines are a symbol of the surging magic power of the earth, representing the vitality of the land, and it will also be fed back to the magic circle. Generally speaking, drawing a magic circle on land with normal ley lines and casting magic will consume some of the magic power of the earth and then replenish some of the magician's own magic power.

But if the ground veins are abnormal, it will consume more of the magician's magic power, and even worse, it will disrupt the activation of magic, and all of these will be reflected in the magic circle.
Victoria discovered that there was something wrong with the magic circle drawn by Angelica, which meant that there was a serious problem with the land's veins. However, Victoria was even more confused. The historical archives clearly recorded that the land was fertile and suitable for farming. Logically speaking, problems with the veins should also affect farming.
After Angelica finished her investigation, she walked deeper into the forest while continuing to explain to Victoria.

"The timid mushroom is a plant that is easily affected by the earth veins. Magical power flows in the earth veins, but this magic is extremely toxic to the timid mushroom. Therefore, unless it is cultivated artificially, wild timid mushrooms are very rare. They can only grow on land with damaged earth veins. The earth will heal its own wounds, so the earth veins can always recover normally. After recovery, the timid mushroom will become extinct again. It is indeed a very timid plant."
Unfortunately, the Shrooms in this world cannot fire spores.
"However, there is a special plant that can damage the earth veins and create a living environment for the timid mushrooms. Do you know what it is?"

“Could it be…?!”
“That’s right.”
Angelica and Victoria came to a dry riverbed somewhere in the forest. It was a sparsely populated place, and even the most naughty children would not run to this place.

In the dry riverbed was a plant that Victoria was stunned to see. It was the plant she had learned about in textbooks. It looked completely different from other trees and was more like a giant Venus flytrap.
"The Hannibal Tree... aka the Man-Eating Tree."
Angelica said its name. It has a scary name, but judging from its appearance, it looks like the tree is welcoming everyone who climbs it with open arms. But that is just a disguise of the man-eating tree. If a living creature, even a human, falls into the trap of the man-eating tree, the trap will close immediately, just like a Venus flytrap catching an insect, and decompose it with digestive juices.

In order to catch prey more easily, the man-eating tree grows in low places, so that even children may mistake it for a foothold and jump into the hunting trap, making it easier for it to hunt.
Victoria clearly remembers the lecturer's comments in class: the killer plants bred by nature are capable of decomposing a person down to the bones without leaving any trace.
"The missing villagers were all killed by it...?"

"Not entirely, Miss Victoria. The Hannibal tree is also a plant and cannot be moved."