This reaction was quite wrong.

In the era of hell recorded in the history books, Zoroastrianism was the savior of the homeless survivors, lurking in the dark corners of the earth full of dangers, building shelters one after another, while actively going out to shelter more survivors and preserving the last fire of human civilization in their own way. Even if I have never trusted the historical records, and have never had a deep enough affinity with religious believers, I must admit from my own life experience that regular Zoroastrians are mostly good guys.

However, the three people in front of them seemed to group Zoroastrians and the undead, as things that threatened their own survival. I vaguely realized that my next self might hear some information that subverted my common sense.

"We are not Zoroastrians." I say.

The leader looked at Hu Ma seriously, and the latter hurriedly said, "Me is not either." ”

"I'm sorry to say it again." Said the leader.

"Aren't you able to detect lies? Saying it again isn't enough? I asked rhetorically.

The leader shook his head, "It involves Zoroastrianism, and it must be confirmed again and again." ”

It seems that it was the remains of the living dead that had been burned by flax earlier that aroused his suspicions. Anyway, it wasn't a difficult thing, so I followed his wishes, and repeated my previous words, and Hu Ma did the same. After hearing this, he finally reassured, and then took off his helmet, revealing the face of a man in his forties, and said apologetically: "I'm really sorry, I misunderstood you." I'll make amends after that, so please forgive me. ”

"I don't mind." I'm telling the truth. Because when it comes to doubt, I'm also each other.

I was equally suspicious of them.

People who have been trying to survive in such a ghost place for a long time are either already crazy or about to go crazy. These three people are probably not healthy people psychologically. To put it mildly, it's likely that they are all "people with brain problems". Now it looks like he's going to settle his old suspicions with us, and maybe he will turn around and kill him with a hideous expression. Don't take it lightly.

Hu Ma interjected next to him, "If we were Zoroastrians, would there be any trouble?" ”

"It's a big problem." One of them spoke on the other side, "Don't you know? Zoroastrians, those are a bunch of evil infidels. He doesn't care if he dies or not, but he is extremely obsessed with mutilating his fellow human beings. Once the group is caught, they will be reduced to living sacrifices in the blood sacrifice ritual, and will be burned in the ritual. ”

"What!" Hu Ma was shocked.

"It sounds incredible, but now it's the way of the world, and there are all kinds of crazy people." The man continued, "Zoroastrians are even worse among the madmen, they act in groups. I heard that the object of their sacrifice was not even the gods of this world, but the gods of other universes. ”

Gods of other universes—this keyword grabbed my ears.

Isn't the Hasta to whom my blood ritual points to the "gods of the other universes"?

But shouldn't Zoroastrian beliefs be directed to the sun of this world?

As I pondered, I asked, "Wouldn't a sacrifice to a god in another universe be punished by the heavenly curse of the native universe and not be able to die a good death?" ”

"You know a lot." The man gave me a surprised look, "Yes." It will be punished by God, and the appearance of death is also quite cruel. But they don't care. ”

"Well, this is not the place to stay for long." The leader intervened in the conversation, "Let's take a back seat." ”

Then he asked us, "Will you come with us?" ”

Hu Ma gave me another inquiring look, and I nodded.

Yes, the three people in front of them are indeed not to be trusted. But in this kind of ghost place, no matter how terrifying the threat posed by humans is, it is far less terrifying than the threat posed by the undead. If they have any schemes, then we will go on and it will be better than wandering around outside. If it were on other occasions, I wouldn't be so careless, it's really because of the environment.

The leader took a map from his backpack and looked down at it. Then he put away the map, opened the manhole cover on the side of the road, and got into it first.

I see, if you pass through the underground waterways, at least you won't be attacked by the living dead. It is likely that the map just now recorded the detailed route of the underground waterways.

We all followed.

The underground waterways here are surprisingly "clean", they seem to have been abandoned for a long time, and although there is a lot of garbage, there is not much of a nasty smell. The three men were the first to walk in front, all equipped with flashlights, and there was no need to fear the lack of light sources. At the same time, the leader turned to us and asked, "Let's exchange each other's names first." My name is 'The Prophet.' ”

He pointed to the two people next to him, "He's a 'soldier' and she's a 'nun'." ”

The soldier is the one who explained to us about Zoroastrianism, and the nun is the one who hasn't spoken since then. According to the prophets, the latter turned out to be a woman, and because she wore a helmet and was wearing a dense cloth, she could not be seen.

"What about the two of you? By the way, explain in advance, don't say your real name. The prophet kindly reminded.

"Why?" The person who asked the question was still flax.

"The town is hovering with undead who can kill unconditionally as long as they know their real names." The soothsayer said, "Maybe we're out of town now, but don't be careless." ”

"I see." I jot down this piece of information that may not be useful, and then made up a pseudonym, "My name is 'Black'." ”

As he spoke, he pointed to the flax again, "His name is 'Bai'." ”

The prophet nodded his head to remember, and then thoughtfully instructed, "Remember to change it again after forty-eight hours." That's what we do. ”

"Wouldn't that be hard to remember?" Hu Ma wondered.

"It's hard to remember." The prophet solemnly said, "Otherwise, over time, the pseudonym will be able to be used as a real name." ”

They were so careful. But if you weren't careful, you probably wouldn't be able to live now.

The prophet is about to go on to say something. Suddenly, the flashlights of the three of them swept a suspicious black shadow in front of them.

I immediately grabbed him by the shoulders so that he would not act rashly; The three people who were walking in front also immediately stopped advancing, as if facing a great enemy.

We looked at it carefully, and the black shadow turned out to be really a "black shadow".

To put it simply, it is a shadow that has nothing to do with anything, like a puddle of ink spilled on the ground, its shape changing all the time, and if it were gathered into a circle, it would be about a meter in diameter. I didn't recognize the origin of this black shadow, but since the three of them didn't act, I didn't move smartly, let alone make a rash noise. At the same time, he was also prepared to stop him immediately if he acted rashly.

A moment later, the shadow swam from the ground to the wall, like an agile fish, and then moved away into the distance until it disappeared around the corner.

After three minutes, the prophet said in a bitter voice, "Let's go." ”

So we walked again.

"That was just now?" Hu Ma asked scaredly.

"We call it 'wandering darkness,' and it's a type of undead." The person who spoke was a soldier, "If someone accidentally touches it, the color of the whole body will instantly turn black, and then it will be instantly absorbed by the wandering darkness." He deliberately used two moments to show how difficult it was to react to the speed of the hit.

"But according to the divination of psychic mediums in the past, those who are absorbed do not die." The prophet said, "Even those who were absorbed a long time ago do not seem to be dead." ”

The nun, who had not spoken, finally spoke at this time, "I would rather die than end up in such a situation where I don't know the details." ”

No one spoke again.

Everyone was on alert, and the silence lasted until the exit of the underground waterway.

We climbed up the ladder that was fixed to the wall.

When I opened the lid and went out, the outside world was not outside, but indoors.

To be exact, the interior of a building that looks like a department store, it seems that this is the shelter mentioned by the prophet.

There were quite a few people around, and a rough count of them showed that there were about thirty in the field of vision. Some sat on the ground, some with their backs to the wall, and some whispered. Seeing us open the lid (a square iron lid) and come out of it, everyone focused on it. Then an eight- or nine-year-old child ran up and shouted happily, "It's hanging upside down...... No, it's Uncle Prophet! They're back! ”

*

After a short exchange, I finally grasped a more concrete situation.

It turns out that the Prophet is not only the leader of the team, he is the only psyker here and the leader of the Vault.

By the Alliance's standards, the Prophet is about a first-level psionic being. Because he has a specialty in exploration, he always leads the team to collect supplies outside. There are more than 90 people hiding here, and the prophet is trusted by them.

The department store was in a state of ruin for a long time before the undead broke through the "barrier" – an unfamiliar word caught my eye – and entered the town. And the prophets, like avid doomsday lovers, remodeled it on a large scale and turned it into a shelter in times of peace. Then, when the disaster struck, the survivors who fled here one after another were accepted, and so many people were able to survive.

The shelter has a large number of survival materials and tools stored in advance, the windows are all sealed with cement, the entrances and exits are re-sealed with iron doors, and the interior is equipped with an engine to provide electricity, but it is usually not used until an important moment in order to save resources.

In addition to this, the Prophet has personally devised many emergency plans and has done a lot of work inside the Vault.

But if you want to expand the statement, it will be too long, so I will mention it here.

"What is 'Enchantment'?" I ask the prophet questions.

"A hundred years ago, there was an incredibly powerful psionic here, but he lost control." The soothsayer was talking about a dream monster, "A moment before he finally became a monster, he sealed himself and set up an enchantment that covered the town. The monsters in the seal uncontrollably supply psionic energy to the enchantment, which has the function of preventing all undead from invading the town. ”

How is that possible, I thought to myself.

Not to mention monsters, even particularly powerful undead cannot have the ability to prohibit all undead from invading a certain place. Unless it's a doomsday deity, or a withering that doesn't know if it's real.

There are some lies or misunderstandings.

At this moment, a grim-looking man walked up to the prophet and said, "What should I do if someone in the vault has seen the 'man in the mirror' in the form of the living dead outside?" ”

Hearing this, the prophet's face changed, and then he fell into deep thought.

Hu Ma looked at me suspiciously. I knew what he was trying to ask, and it happened to be within my knowledge, so I replied, "The Man in the Mirror is a spirit of the dead that appears in the same appearance as an eyewitness, but usually takes the form of a corpse. Once it is witnessed, whoever it is, will die within a week, and the specific law of death depends on the form of the person in the mirror. Since the man witnessed the mirror man in the form of the living dead, it meant that he would inevitably become a living dead within a week...... Although this is not dead in a sense, it is better to be really dead. ”

"Definitely going to die?" Hu Ma asked, "There's no way to crack it?" ”

"There has never been a record of this." I say.

"Neither can the psyker?" Hu Ma asked.

Psykers? I didn't answer. Not to mention psionics, in this absurd period of history, even elves and gods can die as easily as the unlucky person who witnessed the person in the mirror.

"The man in the mirror is also an unresolved undead. There's no way around it......" The prophet smiled bitterly and said to us, "I'm sorry, please leave this sanctuary and go somewhere else." ”

"Why?" Hu Ma was surprised.

The soothsayer looked around, while the others looked at him without saying a word.

Then the prophet spoke, not so much giving his own decision, but reading out the decision of all, in his own mouth, "for we will not give up on that person." ”

"Are you sure? If he had been left behind, the living dead would have poured into the shelter along with the undead. No matter how much emergency planning you have had, no matter how much preparation you have made, it will not be enough when you are fighting against the undead. The worst-case scenario is total annihilation. I said to him, "Then it's not going to be over when you're dead." All people who are not psionic will eventually become the living dead who are worse than dead. ”

"Living in this hellish world, we don't want to live anymore. Instead of becoming more rotten in order to survive, why not take this opportunity and end it all here. The prophet said expressionlessly, "Don't worry, everyone can die well, and even the soul will not be left." Neither will you become the living dead, nor will you be captured by other inexplicable undead spirits and fall into never-ending torment. ”

The child next to him also turned his face and showed an innocent smile, "Uncle Prophet has already planted a psionic bomb for us, as long as he is alive, we can all die well!" ”

Someone like his mother touched the top of his head and smiled gratefully at the prophet. The soothsayer laughed too.

Hu Ma watched all this in shock, he seemed unable to understand, and could not comprehend, this view of life and death, which defied common sense. As an "outsider", I can only be silent, and in this era, even the death of my soul is a hard-won treasure.

At this moment, the nun, who rarely spoke, asked the rare question: "So, what should the Turin doctor do?" ”