Before Yang Qiu returned to Earth, Wagner was still having his men affix their thumbprints on the contract.
When Mia stepped out of the hall in a rush, she noticed that there were increasingly more undead in the town hall courtyard, which surprised her quite a bit.
Within Weisshem, she could be considered an "elder" of the "Taranthan faction." Besides Mr. Rex, Hal, and the others, she was probably the most familiar with the Taranthan undead and understood them best.
In Mia's eyes, the Taranthan undead weren't repulsive and, in fact, were comforting to her.
They were the fairest creatures she had ever encountered. Even when they asked her for help with sewing clothes, these undead would pay her with sugar cubes.
They were also the most just beings she had ever known. Her colleagues could stand confidently in the light of day because the undead had destroyed the old order in Weisshem.
"The last time the undead appeared here in large numbers, Mr. Pitt and the others were captured. Have enemies come to Weisshem again?" Mia thought to herself as she flashed a friendly smile at the undead "looking" at her.
She was not the slightest bit afraid of these undead. Mia firmly believed that these undead were fighting to protect civilians like her.
"Our Exile Town NPCs are still the most thoughtful, unlike the NPCs here that are cold and unfriendly." The players waved cheerfully at Mia.
During the second expedition quests, players had confirmed that human civilian NPCs would not give out quests (many players had criticized the previous quest announcement as false). So, no one bothered Mia or the other male and female clerks who were identified as civilians by Identify.
Mia seemed to gain strength from the friendly responses of the undead. She left the town hall, lifted the hems of her skirt, and rushed toward the town's main street.
Once Hal and his former bandit brothers were done with their business at the militia headquarters, they returned to their posts on the main street of the town. Due to the sudden departure of all the undead, they stood around idly, chattering away.
Mia rushing over caught Hal's eye. He found a random excuse to leave the ongoing hypermarket construction site and pulled Mia aside to ask, "What did Yang say?"
"Mr. Lord says there's no need to disclose the person's crime, just arrest the perpetrator on the pretext that he was reported for old deeds," Mia said firmly.
"Alright, I'll go arrest the person." Hal nodded, turning around and preparing to inform his comrades. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he turned back and warned Mia sternly, "Don't tell anyone that I was the one that discovered this, got it?"
"It concerns that lady's reputation, so I won't tell anyone, of course," Mia gave her word right away, then added in slight puzzlement, "Mr. Hal, you uncovered some hidden illegal activity; isn't that a good thing? Why are you—"
"Shut up, ugly freak, mind your own business!" Hal suddenly turned menacing.
Mia hurriedly covered her mouth.
Hal gave Mia another threatening glare and then strode off.
Mia patted her chest in relief afterward… Hal was frightening indeed!
"Hal, what's going on?"
Hal had left in a rather relaxed manner but returned with an air of hostility, causing Tuttle to become solemn.
"Nothing. Yang had that ugly freak run errands to convey a message, asking us to go arrest someone," Hal said impatiently. "That bastard keeps ordering us around."
Tuttle just nodded and said, "Well, we have nothing better to do, so let's go."
"It's just to arrest a small fry; we don't all need to go." Hal waved irritably. "Jerome, you're coming with me."
Tuttle didn't think much of it and sat back down. They were in charge of a lot of tools at their construction site, and someone had to keep an eye on things.
Hal led Jerome along the street undergoing construction and soon spotted their target.
Jerome hadn't even been able to react when he suddenly saw Hal roll up his sleeves and rush into the crowd of workers who were busy at work. He grabbed the shoulder of a skinny male townsperson, violently threw him to the ground, and kicked him with full force.
The temporary workers, who were engaged in plastering and wall mending, were all stunned.
The clerk in charge of this construction site was also shocked. It was only after seeing Hal use his two big feet to kick the poor and weak man into a miserable state that she reacted in a panic, rushing over and asking, "What's going on, Mr. Maxwell?"
"This guy has committed a crime, and I'm here to arrest him!" Hal raised his hand to stop the clerk from approaching. He kicked the man again forcefully, then bent down to grab the collar of the frail man's clothes. He lifted him up like a chicken and held him high for all the townspeople present to see. "Everyone, take a good look. This bastard is Jesse Taleroms, am I right? I didn't make a mistake, did I?"
"Yes, yes, it's Jesse," a townsperson who seemed to be related to him replied, both shocked and fearful. "Sir, what has he done?"
Hal, acting as the thug he was, glared fiercely at Jesse, who was being held up by the collar. He shouted angrily, "You've committed a crime, you scum! Do you want me to speak for you, or will you confess on your own?"
Held up by the collar with his feet off the ground, Jesse couldn't even breathe properly, and his face turned red. Of course, he couldn't say a word…
"Damn you, still daring to be stubborn at this point!" Hal angrily shook Jesse a couple of times, causing Jesse's eyes to roll back. Even the one who had spoken up for him regretted it now…
The puzzled clerk, filled with questions, was about to ask something when she saw Hal lift Jesse up high again, spinning him around to display him to all present. "Look at the character of this scumbag. Everyone, take a good look! If anyone else wants to commit a crime, go ahead, but be careful not to get caught! Once caught, I won't let you have a good ending!"
The clerk shut her mouth.
Among the "Taranthan faction," Hal had the worst temper and was the most violent. Since Hal had made it clear that he didn't want to disclose this person's crimes, the clerk had no reason to ask.
The townspeople were extremely curious about what Jesse had done. However, since Hal, a thug who didn't seem like someone you could ask about things, was handling the situation, they exchanged glances and no one dared say a word.
Hal, not content with just showing this construction site, continued to hold the pale-faced Jesse and ran through the construction sites on the entire town's main street. As soon as he stepped in one, he would shout loudly that Jesse Taleroms had committed a crime, ratted out, and would be taken to the militia headquarters. He warned the other townspeople to be cautious.
Jerome followed behind Hal throughout the whole process, looking bewildered and having no idea why Hal was acting so irrationally.
Having run through the entire street, Hal disdainfully tossed the barely conscious Jesse to Jerome. "Take him to the militia headquarters and let Finley give this guy a taste of suffering."
"Um… Hal, what exactly did this guy do?" Jerome mustered up the courage to ask.
"How would I know? If you want to know, go ask Yang!" Hal glared back.
Without saying a word, Jerome clamped Jesse under his arm and dashed away.
"Nosy!" Hal scoffed and swaggered back.
As he passed by a certain construction site, a woman wearing a linen cloth around her waist and covered in mud eyed him eagerly as if she wanted to say something but hesitated.
Hal acted as though he hadn't seen her, striding past in his tough thug demeanor.
After Hal had walked quite a distance, the woman lowered her head and bowed slightly.
People at various construction sites whispered about Jesse Taleroms' incident. In the eyes of the townspeople, Jesse was an inconspicuous, quiet, and honest person. Everyone was puzzled by how such an honest person like Jesse could have gotten into trouble.
Before long, a large number of undead, wielding swords and clamoring loudly, passed through the town's main road. This quickly diverted the townspeople's attention, and they soon forgot about the unremarkable Jesse, speculating on what these undead were up to.
Wagner Pitt was unaware of the little incident on the town's main street.
After obtaining the cuckoo flower lapel badge, he found that he could understand the language of the undead. He attempted to organize the undead into a formation as if they were marching properly. While they were in town, the undead managed to maintain some semblance of formation. However, once they left the town's gates, the undead scattered in all directions.
Wagner, wooden-faced, leading his soldiers and watching the undead running everywhere, sighed constantly.
"Make way, make way."
Two undead ran from behind and brazenly passed through the soldiers who were trying to maintain formation. They chatted while running, "I'll have to log out later when it's time. Can you help cover for me?"
"For what?"
"Get my attendance taken. I've skipped too many classes this semester…"
Wagner silently looked at the two undead passing through them.
In less than half an hour of being able to understand the language of the undead, he had already heard the words "log out" several times in their exchanges.
Although he understood that curiosity about dark creatures could easily be fooling him, he couldn't help but wonder what "log out" meant—especially since the undead seemed to have another way of life hinted at when they mentioned "log out."
Could it be that these undead lived in some unknown realm like ordinary creatures during the time when they weren't summoned to this material plane by Yang?
Could that unknown magical realm be a world belonging only to the undead, similar to the material plane, with its own laws and system?
Wagner felt a faint ache in his head…
He was just too curious, yet he was also afraid that knowing too much would put him in danger—knowledge related to the chaotic realm wasn't something anyone could delve into and come out unscathed!
He had heard about the madness that could befall someone simply from knowing the true name of a demon!
This is a test, Wagner told himself. He decided to ignore the incomprehensible words and actions of these undead and instead focused on his own task—leading the undead to Lakeside Village, launching an attack, capturing as many members of the mercenary group as possible, and striving to secure the freedom of his men.
Wagner wasn't at all worried about whether they could defeat the enemy.
With the undead's characteristic of never truly dying, even the Kenyan knights, who were currently stationed in the city of Indahl, flaunting their might, wouldn't fare well. Humans grew tired, but the undead didn't!
Just as Wagner was silently psyching himself up, one of the two undead running together ahead of him suddenly fell apart.
Bones scattered all over the ground, with their worn fish-scale armor, steel swords, waist pouches, and backpacks clattering as they hit the ground.
Wagner: "??"
The soldiers: "??"
"The heck? Helmet taken off again?" The other undead seemed accustomed to this and muttered as he crouched down to collect his scattered bones.
Less than 20 meters behind them, Wagner stood stupefied.
Wh-what is going on?? Aren't the undead immortal?!
Wagner had personally witnessed it himself!
He had once believed that Yang possessed an army of countless undead, but he later learned from Mr. Lowell that Yang only had just over three hundred… The same group of undead that had tormented him and his soldiers repeatedly.
What does helmet taken off again mean? The fallen undead wasn't even wearing a helmet!
Wagner was questioning the meaning of life when he suddenly saw the scattered bones move on their own. The tiny finger bones pieced together into a hand, and the elongated arm bones floated to the joint of the palm. In just a few seconds, a fully formed skeleton with the ability to move and speak had reassembled itself.
"My darn idiot roommate took my helmet again!" The reassembled undead grumbled while picking up its clothes and equipment from the ground and putting it back on. "Does he have nothing better to do than to be jealous that I have an account and he doesn't?! Damn it, he should remember that he laughed at me for being dumb back then!"
"Just move out of the dormitory. Taking off your helmet isn't that bad. If he stole and smashed your helmet, you'd be crying," remarked the skeleton's companion.
"I'm moving out next month. I found a senior to share a rental with. He wants to start a social media channel and asked me to record gameplay videos for him to use as material. If it goes viral, we'll split the profits 50-50…" The skeleton, who had been disassembled once, put on his backpack and continued jogging alongside his companion.
"Oh, trying to be a content creator like Boss Vanilla, huh? Why don't you edit your own videos instead of collaborating with someone else?"
"Um, every day, I'm attending class when I'm not playing. I don't have that much spare time to edit videos. Plus, it's too much of a waste if I don't use up my 12-hour daily login limit…"
Wagner silently watched the two undead as they ran further away. Then, he removed the lapel badge from his chest and kept it in his waist pouch.
He couldn't bring himself to continue listening to their exchange; any more, and he might get too absorbed in it.
Lakeside Village was rather remote, over 20 kilometers from Weisshem, and most of the journey was through mountainous terrain.
This journey would take at least a day to complete for an ordinary person. However, it wouldn't take that long for well-trained city defense force soldiers like them. A great deal of stamina was required to be a heavy-armored cavalry, and they had only brought supplies for one day. Moreover, Wagner and his men were only wearing light armor this time, and they reached the designated gathering point, a forest to the north of Horsehoof Lake, by early evening.
Upon arrival, Wagner's forehead veins started throbbing again before he even had time to catch his breath… Those undead that had left them behind and run off a long time ago hadn't arrived!
Not a single trace of an undead could be seen either inside or outside this dense forest!
These undead bastards… What good are powerful arms if they can't follow orders? Can they really be controlled? Wagner cursed inwardly.
On the surface, Wagner couldn't show any signs of wavering. He calmly ordered his soldiers to set up a temporary camp and prepare dinner.
As the evening sky darkened, Wagner was busy leading his troops in setting up the camp when they suddenly heard a series of clacking noises.
He looked up and saw the late-arriving undead boldly entering the designated rendezvous point in the forest.
These undead still had no semblance of formation or order. They were a disorderly mess that could make any commander fume. However, this wasn't the scariest part.
Even more frightening was that these undead were coming from the south of the forest.
Going south from the forest led to Horsehoof Lake, and along the lake's shore was Lakeside Village.
In other words… These bastards, who only decided to gather now, were coming from the direction of Lakeside Village.
Wagner forcefully swallowed the dry rations in his mouth and took out the cuckoo flower lapel badge with a trembling hand…
"This village is incredibly impoverished. It's like those indigenous Africans you see in documentaries."
"Yeah. They just build a round wall of mud, put thatch on top, and call it a house. From a distance, it looks like the straw stacks in my hometown."
"At least it's easy to distinguish between enemies and allies. Anyone with flesh on their faces is an enemy."
"They won't attack us until it's time for battle. How strange."
"I think it's because there are so many of us. At first, I saw those red-named monsters drawing their weapons…"
Listening to the reckless chattering of the undead made Wagner feel he was about to cough up blood. These darned skeletons had actually visited Lakeside Village even though the plan was to attack under the cover of night!
Oh god… What was the point of traveling light and hurrying!
With great difficulty, Wagner forced down the blood rising in his throat. He couldn't afford to crumble. No matter what, he had to do his best to secure the freedom of his men.
Players noisily entered the forest, and seeing the friendly NPC soldiers seated and eating dry rations displeased them.
"Slow on the road, and now they want to have a meal before the battle?"
"Are these NPCs here to help or just be a burden?"
Wagner couldn't hold back and coughed out blood.