According to Dr. Sven, as long as they found and destroyed that corpse, they could break the plague's transmission chain and eliminate the infectiousness of the infected.
If the transmission element—one of the three core elements—was destroyed, the replication element in the grain would still remain, meaning anyone who ate it would still contract the disease and become infected. However, wounds would no longer spread the plague, effectively neutralizing the most dangerous part of the disease.
Once the cure was concocted, the plague would lose all its lethality.
Only now did the four realize that this was likely the true requirement for breaking the ritual to fulfill the suppression conditions.
Yet that was easier said than done.
The person suspected of hiding the corpse was the City Lord, the man holding the supreme authority over the entire city.
Although Knight Terry was in charge of the city defense, in a small city like this, the City Lord was hardly an aloof ruler detached from the populace. Here, one could go out for a night drink and bump into the City Lord bringing men out to poison wheat, perhaps even stopping to chat for a few words, so his relationship with all the citizens was quite close. Knight Terry alone would struggle to rally the soldiers into forcing the City Lord to step down—unless he managed to incite the emotions of every citizen, or in short, stage a civilian riot.
Anyone experienced in rioting knew it was a troublesome endeavor; at the very least, one needed a convincing reason for the public to rally behind. Yet Lynch himself wasn't even entirely certain of the situation, nor could he tell whether the City Lord was acting out of pure malice or being deceived. It was hard enough convincing Terry and Sven, let alone using this as an accusation against the City Lord.
After agonizing over it for a while, Knight Terry took the initiative to step forward.
As a defender of the city and a loyal knight to the City Lord, he felt it was his duty to uncover the truth, find the real perpetrator, and prevent the City Lord from committing a grave mistake.
He decided to use his daily report at the City Lord's residence as a pretext to scope out the place. With a legitimate excuse to cover his actions, he believed that as long as he kept his true purpose hidden and didn't alert the mastermind, he would remain safe.
Heh.
Lynch felt as if he were looking at an old general on a theatrical stage, so weighed down with death flags that there was no room left on his back for another.
Still, Lynch let him go. Someone truly needed to take the risk, and Terry was impossible to stop anyway. Even so, Lynch pulled the knight aside and gave him a thorough stern warning.
He was absolutely forbidden from eating anything—even drinking water was out of the question—and must never mention the corpse or try to play smart.
Most importantly, he had to be completely honest with the City Lord about everything except the four's analysis regarding the corpse. He was to hide nothing else and display as much loyalty as possible to avoid drawing the City Lord's suspicion.
Watching Knight Terry depart with a solemn expression, Lynch sighed softly. He had warned him about everything he could; the rest was up to fate.
“They're all gone,” Lynch said, turning around to stare at Dr. Sven. “So let's not beat around the bush. Do you already know who that ghoul is?”
“I don't know yet, but just as you thought, this ritual is recorded in the 《Necronomicon》, and I do happen to know it.” Dr. Sven bit her lip, her expression dark. “After I returned, I mentioned it to a few priests in my tribe. Perhaps one of them leaked it.”
Officer Natalie said bluntly, “You're lying.”
“Yes, I am,” Dr. Sven replied just as bluntly. “This is our internal business. You're asking too much.”
Natalie opened her mouth to argue further, but Lynch took her hand, making her hush immediately. Squeezing the police officer's rough hand to signal her to stay calm, Lynch spoke earnestly, “We can stop asking, but we hope our friend won't do anything foolish or get hurt because of this.”
“Rest assured. Even if I intend to do something, I'll concoct the cure first and hand over what you want.”
Lynch didn't speak, merely staring at the ghoul with a calm gaze.
“You butt into everything. I already said I won't mess up your business, so why keep staring at me?” The irritable doctor turned her head away in annoyance. After muttering for a bit, her tone softened, and she grumbled sullenly, “Fine, fine! If I really decide to do something, I'll tell you beforehand. I won't go off and quietly get myself killed, alright? Honestly... aren't you keeping secrets too? Do you dare claim you don't know where the corpse is hidden?”
Lynch gave a wry smile and sighed.
He had indeed figured out where the corpse was, but he had his own selfish reasons.
Once that dangerous corpse was found, given Dr. Sven and Terry's positions, they would undoubtedly insist on destroying it on the spot to cut off the spread of the plague at its source—and the sooner, the better. Every minute wasted could mean more deaths or irreversible consequences.
However, after discussing it with the three ladies, none of them could be certain whether destroying the corpse was a sufficient condition for suppressing the relic's outbreak. If it was, destroying the corpse would cause the four of them to leave this memory within minutes, meaning their task of growing human-faced sunflowers would end in failure—a foolish act of putting the cart before the horse.
Therefore, the four had to wait at least until tomorrow, when the first batch of human-faced sunflowers was harvested, before they could find a way to track down the corpse. Until then, they could only pray that the people in this memory looked out for themselves.
“The most likely location is the basement of the City Lord's residence,” Lynch said, hiding nothing as he met Dr. Sven's gaze. “We all heard Steward Locke mention that the City Lord suddenly decided to move his deceased son's belongings into a specific room without explanation. My guess is that he was preparing a new room to welcome his young son back home. The issue is that I didn't dare share this information with Knight Terry. If he acted recklessly and snuck into the basement to check, I would only end up harming him. I plan to wait at least until the cure is concocted before taking action. That's a safer approach.”
“That's sensible,” Dr. Sven said, looking satisfied. “We must wait for the cure to be finished before making any decisions.”
Miss Diana understood immediately. “Is that corpse very dangerous?”
“Of course it's dangerous. It's a corpse that can affect fields across a hundred li, with an extremely potent contamination effect. A single misstep could lead to widespread infection, and for us in direct contact, a slight mistake could prove fatal. So let's wait. There's no rush tonight—let me focus on concocting the cure first.”
Indeed, once the cure was concocted, everything would turn out fine.
In theory, at least.
Since Dr. Sven had to pull an all-nighter, Lynch and the others, worried about potential emergencies, simply had the soldiers clear out a barrack. The four moved in together, beginning their first night of living under the same roof.
What they did during that time was truly appalling—so much so that Lynch would be embarrassed to tell anyone, even for money.
Because all four of them were actually just reading books—a complete waste of precious time.
To be exact, the four had borrowed some of Dr. Sven's collection of books. Judy was tasked with reading aloud, while the other three focused on memorizing.
Dr. Sven possessed many profound arcana techniques. If the four could bring them back, they might gain quite a bit.
However, copying them down in writing was impossible; writing them out would produce mystery documents, which was far too taxing on the scribe. Thus, the four could only rely on memorization, bringing back as much as their memory limits allowed.
Though with two academic duds and a privileged official's child among them... Lynch was already beginning to feel despair.
Time spent studying always flew by, especially with only a few days left. The sky grew darker as the red moon drifted westward and the silver moon moved toward the center of the vault.
It was almost midnight.
Things were fine on Dr. Sven's end. Aside from Lynch interrupting her a few times during his check-ins, which ultimately led to her furiously throwing him out, everything proceeded smoothly.
Knight Terry had not yet returned, seemingly staying overnight at the City Lord's residence—though whether it was for one night or permanently remained to be seen. Even with unease in their hearts, the four couldn't help him and could only pray for his safety.
Not many soldiers remained in the barracks; most had been dispatched on patrol duty across the city, leaving the fortress eerily quiet.
All of Norin was blanketed in tranquility. Wrapped in the embrace of the Goddess of the Night, the city seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep.
Peaceful, serene, calm, and quiet.
Everything was so calm and quiet.
Until suddenly, a burst of light flared up in the southern night sky.
A red firelight.
A fire had broken out in the direction of the city center.
Rate on N.U.
