Chapter 73: Where did it come from
The rapid response of the Lancarus City Lord's Mansion and the military headquarters really reassured Rococo, she felt that with her early disclosure, Bekaz's undead invasion plan would definitely be discovered in advance, but the next day, she found that she had really set a huge flag for herself yesterday.
Since Chu Jiajia will not be online today, Rococo embarked on the journey to the Greenland clinic alone early in the morning, but before she arrived, the commotion from the main gate of Lancarlos City made her change her mind.
Is the Lancarus army back?
If you just went to investigate, there would be no problem if you left yesterday afternoon and come back this morning, after all, the village of Gru is not far from Lancarus, but the problem is that there should be a large number of undead armies hoarded in that valley, so didn't there be any fighting?
Rococo hurried to the side of the avenue where the Lancarus army returned to the barracks in the city, and after seeing the tired but very neat column of the army, she couldn't help but confirm her suspicion, sure enough, it didn't look like they had experienced a battle at all, it seemed that they really went out for a spin and came back.
Didn't they find the enemy in that valley?
Rococo was very puzzled, obviously according to her reasoning, it should be the hiding place of the main force of the first undead army that attacked Lancarus in the undead invasion in the previous life, how could it be that nothing was found...... Could it be that someone whistleblower prepared Bekaz? Does Lancarlos City Lord Farouo have a problem?
No, you must know that it was Farouo who repelled Bekaz in his previous life, if it is said that Farouo and Bekaz secretly colluded...... Theoretically, this is possible, but many details do not make sense.
Soon, following the army to Rococo outside the fortress of the military camp in the city, he obtained information from the NPCs of the soldiers patrolling and standing guard outside the fortress. Sure enough, yesterday the upper echelons of the military department suddenly ordered half of the garrison troops stationed in the city of Portoman, the military governor of Lancarlos, to conduct a surprise investigation in a valley near the village of Gru, but the so-called army of the undead in the message from the city lord's mansion was not found in the local area. After a night of unsuccessful searching, a small number of scouts were left behind to continue the investigation, while the rest returned to Lancaros this morning.
Rococo was a little confused, and her first instinct was to sneak into the City Lord's Mansion again to ask what was going on with Farouo, but she quickly vetoed the idea herself.
If there is really a problem with Farouo and there is something related to Bekaz behind it, then she will undoubtedly throw herself into the net, and even if Farouo has no problem, then since Bekaz can hide and withdraw the army of the undead before the Lancaros military, then this also proves that there must be an informant on the side of the Lancaros City Lord's Mansion who secretly conveyed Farouo's decisions and military movements to Bekaz, and the NPC rulers in Lancarlos are obviously not as reliable as she originally thought.
No, this matter must be clarified, thinking like this, Rococo put away the idea of going to the City Lord's Mansion, turned around and went out of the city as fast as he could, and hurried to the direction of the valley near Gru Village.
Although it was only before 9 o'clock in the morning, and it was not even an hour before the online opening time, the surrounding area of Gru Village was already full of people from all walks of life. Yesterday, the main city guards urgently dispatched troops and forcefully cleared the area around Gru Village for an afternoon, and it is not difficult for players with a bit of brains to see that this is definitely an obvious signal of events. Although everyone still doesn't know what happened on the side of Gru Village, it is absolutely impossible to give up on the fact that such a major story event is basically possible among players.
Players who came to Gru Village early in the morning asked around what happened in Gru Village yesterday, but no one has been able to figure out anything about it, whether it is the intelligence vendors who claim to be well-informed in the game, or the local NPCs in Gru Village. Obviously, the Lancarus army's attack yesterday seemed to be in a hurry, but it was careful enough, and it didn't reveal much information to the outside world, and the unrelated personnel didn't know anything except that Lancarros's army seemed to be looking for a valley near the village of Gru and didn't know what they were searching for.
Of course, for the vast number of players, just the keyword of valley is enough for them to find the location, but it will take some time after all, and Rococo, who knew the inside story in advance, was one step ahead of the players, and low-key bypassed the village of Gru where the players gathered and went straight to the valley yesterday.
Since Lancarus's army had entered the valley, it proved that the barrier that Bekaz used to camouflage the players outside the valley must no longer exist, and Rococo quickly came to the eerie valley of yesterday, carefully avoiding the zombie creatures roaming around and approached the entrance of the valley where she and Chu Jiajia were stopped yesterday.
Sure enough, this time there was no resistance, Rococo easily entered the valley, and after walking along a narrow road that could only be three or four people side by side for a few minutes, the valley path began to sink significantly, and finally Rococo came to a place that seemed to be the bottom of the valley, except for a waterfall from top to bottom and the cold lake water accumulated below, only the intersection of the original road was left behind.
As early as choosing this valley as an introduction to uncover the plot of the undead invasion, Rococo had already sorted out most of the terrain information of this valley from the game information of his previous life and memorized it by heart. The terrain here is indeed old-fashioned enough, and there is a cave under the waterfall, which is a rather half-baked cover before the final hiding place. If yesterday's investigation team of the Lancarlos Army did not find out about the cats here, Rococo did not believe it.
Sure enough, when she stepped on the raised stone path on the cliff wall on the side of the lake and walked around the waterfall little by little, and entered the hole hidden there, she saw some footprints in the soft mud here. The Lancarlos Army did discover the secret, but even so, they were not able to find the Undead Legion...... So, the undead hidden inside have indeed disappeared out of thin air?
Taking out his bow and arrows, summoning the water elemental in front of him, Rococo cautiously walked through the cave that was not narrow but rather tortuous, and after about ten minutes, the exit of the cave finally appeared in front of him.
Walking out of the cave, a vast flat land perfectly surrounded by the surrounding towering cliffs appeared in front of the girl's eyes.
However, Rococo didn't get any good mood because of the magnificent scenery in front of her, no, nothing, and sure enough, as she feared, let alone an army of zombies, even the scattered zombies or two, even the unique rotten stench of undead creatures, did not exist here at all.
Is there really nothing?
Rococo was silent, what went wrong? Did she really make a mistake? This is not the place where the main force of the undead army that attacked Lancarus in the previous life was hiding?
The inner vacillation made Rococo a little confused, but after standing in place for a while, the archer girl's expression suddenly changed drastically.
Something is wrong, there must be something wrong here...... It's so quiet.
It is true that there are no traces of the existence of any undead here, but in fact there is not only that, but the Rococo does not even feel the traces of ordinary creatures here.
Except for the gentle rustling of the leaves by the wind, it was terrifyingly quiet, and there were no animals, nor any sound related to living creatures.
Directing the water elemental to approach him, Rococo tensed his nerves and walked cautiously, observing his surroundings vigilantly as he made his way towards the center of the valley.
In this way, he groped his way forward for a while at the bottom of the valley where there was no movement of any living creatures, and soon Rococo found some clues. It seems that there is nothing strange here, but in fact, in many places at the bottom of the valley, Rococo has found a large number of suspicious traces of open space. The hard work paid off, and with Rococo's patient search, she finally found a thick strip of linen wrapped in a hidden shade of a tree.
After opening the package, there was actually a roll of straw mat mat that looked brand new, and it was different from ordinary people's homes, this straw mat mat was obviously not for one person, and it could sleep at least seven or eight adults after it was spread out.
"Xiao Ke, this seems to be a straw mat set up in the army for soldiers to sleep in tents?"
Arya's rumors made Rococo's heart beat inexplicably.
Here it is again, and this ominous feeling is again, what is it? What did she miss in the City Lord's Mansion and didn't think about it clearly? What did this straw mat make her subconsciously aware of, so she used this way to warn?
"But it's so strange, Xiaoke, obviously the Lancarus City Guards only came here yesterday to search all night, without any baggage and without camping to rest, and returned to the city after dawn, where did the straw mats for ordinary soldiers to camp and rest came from?"
It was as if it was the last push in front of the foggy gate, and after hearing Arya's words, countless memories of information in Rococo's mind that she had doubted or ignored suddenly exploded.
- The armaments and weapons of the regular army of Lancarlos are not likely to leak out easily, and according to common sense, they will not appear in the body of a lost zombie right now......
- Xiao Ke, this seems to be a straw mat set up in the army for soldiers to sleep in tents......
- Plague Mages are a variant of Necromancers, and unlike Necromancers, they can rely on the Plague to directly turn the living into undead......
- There have been reports of plague in many places recently, but fortunately there have been no reports of a large number of infected people dying due to the plague, otherwise we mercenaries who have to run around would be in bad luck......
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Whether it is a plague mage or a necromancer, if they want to create an army of undead people, they must have so-called "materials" and cannot make them out of thin air - the premise of a necromancer to create an army of undead is to have enough corpses, and the plague mage wants to create a legion of plague undead, and it is also a plague undead soldier equipped with regular army weapons, which means that he must first find such a force.
However, in recent times, there have been no reports of mass casualties among the army in Lancarros, no reports of theft of armaments, and not even reports of ordinary people dying in large numbers due to the plague.
So the question is, where did the undead soldiers with regular army equipment come from, the undead army that Rococo tried to guide the forces of Lancarlos City to find hidden in this valley according to the intelligence of his previous life?