A few hours later, the clock was approaching noon from early morning.

The upper limit of the number of Heroic Spirit Knights that Urs can control is more than 500 people, and the group of people who came to relieve the siege of the tavern led by him and Thea is only a vanguard force of fifty people, and the remaining 450 knights of the Lion of the Thorn Legion are accompanied by Alice, Scambed, Sirudelt and others, and wait for the information from the young man and the wolf maiden to be brought by a few scout knights, and then escort the large group of people mainly from the Northland court to converge from the direction of the church, and use the tavern after the siege is lifted as a temporary stronghold for the time being.

Alice, Scambed, and Sirudelt were on the side of several noble officials of the Northland court, a small number of paladins who escaped from the Basilica of San Antonios with the crowd, and another group of normal citizens who were found and rescued along the way from the church to the tavern.

As the survivors of the disaster gather, the tavern run by the drunken and fat boss Paulsson transforms from a chaotic battlefield to a temporary shelter.

Urs arranged for the Immortal Knights to further clean up the entire neighborhood where the tavern was located, eradicate the deviants with strong offensive tendencies, rescue the citizens in distress as much as possible and escort them to the tavern, and then divide the knights into multiple teams to scout the rest of the city after searching the neighborhood almost completely.

In this way, the figures of the knights shuttled through the city under the arrangement of the young man.

There are no drunks in the warm house today, but there is still a wisp of fireplace warmth left in the tavern room, especially in the relatively spacious hall on the first floor, which is lying or full of wounded people who have died in the city, and all kinds of estrangements between people have to be dissipated in the atmosphere of shared suffering.

Thea, Sirudelt, and the paladins who had escaped from the cathedral with them were tasked with caring for and treating the wounded, and the healthy men were distributed around the outside of the tavern under the command of Shappel, gradually building improvised defenses in the streets near the outside, so that the makeshift stronghold they were located would not be attacked for at least this time.

Dorothy, Belenis, Gloridon, Brian, and Akalila had just finished a fierce battle and rested in the two rooms on the second floor of the tavern.

On the second floor of the same tavern, Urs, Alice, and Scambed closed the door at the same time, and secretly discussed the current events in another room on the same floor.

The young man did not hide his speculation during the discussion, and directly explained the clues related to the legendary necromantic spell of 'Oktar Disaster' to the mage lady and the old manager, as for why he knew so much, he also used the old way to explain it by "I have heard of it", anyway, the story of the god of death Des casting this spell to create a 'zombie' in the legend of the First Age was originally a half-mythical and half-historical rumor.

Alice lightly grasped the Ice Crystal Orb Staff in her hand and sat on the edge of the wooden edge of a bed in the room, listening to Urs slowly finish this guess with a blank expression, and after a while, she sighed lightly and echoed: "I roughly understand your hypothetical situation, Knight Urs. I have read bits and pieces of information in the library of the Imperial Royal Mage Academy in the past about the special undead of 'Zombies' and the legendary necromantic spell of 'Plague of Oktar', and the madness symptoms of the deviants in the city do match the descriptions mentioned in the book. ”

"But there are two problems, Ms. Alice." Scambed stood beside Alice with his hands folded in front of him, his azure eyes slowly closed, and then opened, "First of all, who cast this terrifying spell?" Or rather, who has the ability to cast this spell? ”

"It's a secret we can't know, Chief Scambed, at least for the time being." Alice quickly replied, "In the First Age of Castaño, at the end of the Age of Mythology, Warnes, the Lord of the Gods, created the Tablet of Destiny to perfect the laws of the world, thus isolating the power of the gods from the main physical plane, and 'Scourge of Oktar' is both a legendary spell and a part of Des's power as a god of death, so it stands to reason that there should not be anyone who has the ability to cast this spell in the mortal world today. ”

"However, the disaster in our city is indeed happening to us now, and it is as unfortunate as the nomadic herders who lived in the steppes of Oktar." The old court manager clasped his hands, took a deep breath and frowned slightly, "Then it doesn't matter who the culprit is." Problem two, according to the information provided by the knights of Urs, the 'Plague of Oktar' is a plague-type slow-heat spell that takes time to infect people, and even more so, it needs to be planted in the first place. ””

"What do you mean?" Alice blinked, looking up at him.

"The Korrick gangster, ma'am." The old manager also turned his head to look at her and said this inference, his face was a little solemn, "Have you forgotten?" After you personally led the Knight of Urs and Reverend Thea to Hyena Street a few days ago to investigate, it is possible that the drugs smuggled by the Korrick gang are inextricably linked to the city's plague that began a few months ago, and Colin Korrick himself has even behaved strangely in the fight with you. ”

"Of course I remember that, Chief Scambed. But ......"

"But?"

“…… Assuming this speculation is true, the drugs of the Korrick gang may only involve transmission, but not the initial source of the disease. ”

Alice pondered for a moment, got up from the edge of the bed with her cane, and after a moment of thought, decided to give a complicated but necessary explanation.

She understood that neither Skambed nor Urs were mages, and it might be a little difficult to understand her own academic mage views, but she still tried to choose simple sentences and said: "Chief Skambed, Knight of Urs, the essence of necromantic spells lies in the transformation of the two states of life and death, just like on a line segment that exists at both positive and negative ends, whether it is the treatment of the transformation from death to life, or the damage of the transformation from life to death, both of these transformation processes are inseparable from the line segment as the carrier, That is, a creature or plant that has the concept of life—"

"On the line segment where there are positive and negative ends, we humans are creatures on the positive half of the line, and once we move from the line of the positive half to the zero point in the middle of the line segment, we will die, and if we cross the zero point in the process of death to the line of the negative half, we will transform into creatures in the negative half, that is, the undead."

"In the theoretical system of magical knowledge, the magical plague and the transformation ritual of undead creatures belong to the process of transformation from life to death, the former pushes the living creature from the positive half of the line to the zero point, and the latter pushes the dead thing on the zero point further to the negative half of the line to turn it into an undead."

"The 'zombie' is in the position of 'infinitely approaching the zero point but never reaching the negative half' on this line, so it is an incomplete transformation of the undead, without the soul fire that the undead creature should have, and the final destination is still the real death at the zero point."

"'Plague of Oktar' transforms living people into zombies in the form of a magical plague, and it needs to push the creatures from the front half of the line to the zero point first, so it is the easiest and most effective to directly sow the source of the disease into the living group, and there is no need to borrow the drugs of the Kolik gang...... According to the logic of the mage's thinking, and assuming that I am the caster of this spell, I will think like this. ”

As the words fell, she calmly glanced at the old steward and the young man present.

Scambed frowned slightly, unable to fully understand Alice's explanation, but still understood, so he looked at him and nodded in silence.

Urs stood near the door of the room, relying on the memories of the previous life to understand that what Alice had just said was right, that the essence of necromantic spells was indeed the case, and that the god of death in the legend of the First Age had directly infected the nomads of the Oktar steppe with the living as the source of disease, and then when the plague matured, all those unfortunate nomads were transformed into pathetic zombies.

He knew many things based on the memories of his previous life, and even could predict many things, but he could not predict events that he had not experienced in his previous life.

The curse of ancient legends seems to have fallen on a point in time that should not have appeared across time and space. The young man never remembered that there was such an outrageous episode in the Northland War that he had already experienced in his previous life, so he became more and more suspicious that the future he once knew had undergone all kinds of qualitative changes, and it was unknown whether the butterfly that accidentally flapped its wings was himself.

At least...... Wall, although I even scared the Apostles of Doom when I was in Twilight, I haven't done anything out of the ordinary in the plot events related to Byron Tas and the Northland counties, have I?

Of course, the Imperial Expeditionary Force in the Snowmelt Moon in the Year of the Candle Flame should have been wiped out on the snowfield, but in this life, he escaped with Thea in that almost certain death, and if this is considered an outrageous thing, there is really nothing to say.

He thought helplessly.

……

… Well?

Wait a minute.

"What's wrong, Knight Urs?" Alice glanced at the corner of her eye, as if the slightest movement in the room could not escape her attention, and suddenly saw that the expression on the young man's face seemed to be slightly distracted, and then the eyes in the pupils suddenly lit up, as if she was thinking of something.

Urs did think of something, but he was not sure, and suddenly subconsciously raised his fingers and pinched his chin, and only reacted suddenly when he heard Alice call himself, and after hesitating for two seconds, he looked at the mage lady in front of him and the old court steward and asked: "Lady Alice, Chief Scambed, regarding the original source of the disease, I think we may have missed one thing." ”

"Which thing?"

"Viscount Pierdigot, when was he ransomed from Byron Tas by the Duke of Ducatlet?" ()

。 m.