There was a clearing in the woods, with no shrubs and no trees. I don't know if it was deliberately cleaned up or formed naturally. A small bonfire was piled up on the dark soil, and the twisted shadows reflected were dancing wildly with the crisp sound of singing. Salomon slowed down and leaned over. He held his wand tightly and looked over quietly from the bushes. They were a few little girls, wearing extremely old clothes, and the previous song was made by them. They sang songs while waving the branches in their hands, as if they were holding some ceremony.

The secret mage looked around and after repeatedly confirming that there was no one else in this strange place, he then pushed the bushes away and walked to the place where the firelight shone. Salomon's appearance scared the little girls, and they stopped singing and quickly squeezed together like quails.

"Don't be afraid." Salomon put his wand in his sleeve, ready to pull it out at any time, giving any strange person who appeared in this weird place a magic missile. He slowed down his voice, opened his hands, and signaled that he had no weapons, "I won't hurt you... In fact, I'm a student from London, attending school in London. Do you know Eton? It's near Windsor Castle in the west of London."

Faced with Salomon's explanation, the little girls remained silent, just looked at each other, and then waited for him to continue talking. Before the Age of Discovery began, Henry VI had already founded Eton School, and Salomon had few loopholes in his words.

"Listen, I..."

"I've heard of London, you came from a big local city!" a slightly bolder girl asked, "Have you been to Boston?"

"An!" Another girl quickly pulled her sleeve, as if she was a little dissatisfied with her recklessness.

"Mary, don't worry, he doesn't look scary at all."

"But he is a foreigner..."

"I have not been to many places, New York and London are the ones I go to most often." Salomon slowly moved his footsteps and approached the bonfire. He was thinking about how to weave lies to create a suitable identity. Since he didn't know the specific year now, his words must not reveal the terms from certain places and eras. But the little girl's words still revealed some key information - the local. This is New England, but only when the United States was not independent yet, the colonists would call Britain like this. If he guessed correctly, these little girls were all Puritans.

"I'm just a student...I'm separated from my companions," he said. "This is my homework, observing the folk ecology of the New World, this is a very hard work."

"Your clothes are weird!" the bold girl named Ann asked again, "Is this the new style of London?"

"This is just an outfit for adventure." Salomon shrugged, "After all, you can't wear gentlemanly clothes when crossing mountains and hills, right? I just want to know how to get to the nearest settlement. My tent and luggage were lost. If I don't find a place to have a meal, I'll starve to death."

It seems that because Salomon was not old and not fierce in appearance, the rosy face raised by his superior life was very different from the boys in the village and the sailors on the docks. In addition, his educated temperament made the little girls slowly lower their vigilance. Because they were not well aware of the loopholes in Salomon's lies. They gradually regained their liveliness and began to talk about their village Salem. Salomon smiled and took out some candy from the dimensional bag, unpacked the wrapping paper and handed it to the little girls, while sorting out useful information from their words.

Under the candy offensive, these thin girls who were malnourished all year round quickly spit out what the Secret Master wanted to know. First, there was a priest in the town. The white church spire that Salomon saw on the hills before belonged to a priest named Paris, and one of the four little girls was the daughter of Pastor Paris.

"Hello, Elizabeth." Salomon touched the little girl's head.

Elizabeth bit the candy very shyly and let Salomon touch his head.

"It's a pity that Abigail didn't come. Her uncle locked Abigail up again." An said, licking the candy, "or she could eat these delicious candies."

"Abigail?" Salomon's hand stopped, "You still have companions?"

"Of Williams," Ann said, "her uncle is taking care of her."

"What's her uncle's name?" Salomon asked anxiously, he already had a rough understanding of his age.

"Mr. Carter, his full name seems to be Randolph Carter."

———————————————

"Kolson, hurry up! Don't look back, don't look at those monsters! Run to places where there are gunshots." Natasha Romanov ran in front, being chased by a group of humanoid monsters with dog-like faces and pointed claws. They have a broken human appearance and barking loudly in the process of chasing with a rapid, crying sound.

Colson and she had fired at these monsters, but the monsters' rubbery skin greatly reduced the blocking power of the bullets until the magazine was empty, and she and Agent Colson were unable to kill all the monsters. The more these monsters gathered, she had to escape with Colson.

Natasha Romanov agilely crossed the shrubs and stones and ran towards the place where the gunshots rang. After she came to that bad conclusion, she had a general idea. She thought that she and Colson should have encountered the same situation as Salomon. To outsiders, they had already evaporated from the world. Natasha was not sure whether these monsters were created by magic, but she still hoped that Salomon was here too. If her guess was correct, they should have been involved in some magical incident. In the face of magical incidents, Salomon was the expert.

Agent Colson was also a field agent. He quickly followed Natasha Romanov's movements. A fire was faintly reflected in the woods in the distance. Natasha Romanov accelerated, jumped past the low bushes and jumped into the clearings. She saw the person she wanted to see, and there were several little girls behind Salomon holding a pistol. Then Agent Colson broke in and stopped breathlessly because Salomon pointed a pistol at them.

"Why are you here?" the secret mage frowned and asked. When he went to Salem, he did not find Agents of S.H.E.L.D. was carrying out a mission.

"You are missing," Natasha Romanov said simply and clearly, "Director Fury asked us to find you. But now isn't the time to talk about this, and you have encountered monsters too?"

"We only see some wild dogs!" Elizabeth said timidly, "If it weren't for Mr. Damonnet..."

"Maybe it was attracted by the bonfire." An, who was originally brave, was also scared, "Abigail told me that the ceremony could not be held tonight..."

"Wild Dog? That's..." Agent Colson was about to speak when he found Salomon winked at him. Although he didn't know what was going on, he seemed to have noticed the strange atmosphere. After years, the agent stopped his next words in time.

"Yes, we also encountered some dangerous 'wild dogs', but I shot them away." Salomon reinstated the pronunciation of the noun. Of course, he knew that he was not seeing a wild dog, but a monster. But these little girls said that they were often chased by wild dogs in the forest. This statement made Salomon very alert. When they saw the monster's appearance, these little girls still regarded the monster as wild dogs, which seemed to be a cognitive distortion. Salomon was unwilling to break this distortion before fully understanding the situation, because suddenly speaking words like monsters would only arouse the hostility of conservative Puritans, even if these Puritans were just a few little girls.

Since knowing what era he was in, Salomon made up his mind to not use magic in front of these Puritans for the time being. Because only in this way could he let these little girls take him into Salem, and he could successfully approach Abigail Williams and kill that dangerous target in one fell swoop.

"Do you still have bullets?" asked Salomon. "Let us escort these little girls back to Salem... Don't worry, they are my companions. Although we are not Quakers, but Catholics, we will not tell what you do."

Salomon looked at Agent Xiang Colson, "After all, it's around 1692..."

Colson, a major in the history department, immediately recalled what he had learned. With the previous tips from the secret wizard, he suddenly understood the time he was in - on the eve of the Salem Witch Trial.
Chapter completed!