Chapter 22: The Cemetery
"Many dwellings in my Father's house;"
"If not, I would have told you;"
"The barren underworld is not as beautiful as the kingdom of God, but it never discriminates against the autonomy and freedom of the soul. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info"
"I went to prepare a place for you."
"You don't need to call me a pioneer, I'm just a guide and a forerunner with an oil lamp;"
"If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to me."
"There is no need to resist, life and death are a natural alternation;"
"Just as a withered yellow leaf must fall, a withered flower and leaf will sprout out of the earth. ”
"Where I am, there you may be also;"
"You know where I'm going;"
"You know the way. ”
The solemn old man was reciting the eulogy, and the deceased was lying not far in front of him with a peaceful expression, his hands naturally placed on his chest.
The family members of the deceased stood reverently behind the old man, although tears were still rolling in their eyes, but no one would choose to cry out at this stall.
After reading the eulogy, the old man turned to leave with a heavy expression, and the cries of the deceased's family members sounded behind him.
After the ceremony and before the burial begins, there will always be such a cruel process that makes the family of the deceased grieve inexplicably. It is called the "fire ceremony" or "burning ceremony".
As the name suggests, in this ritual, the remains of the deceased are burned to ashes by a characteristic flame, and it is their ashes that are actually buried in the tomb.
In other places, this link is not mandatory, and if the family of the deceased does not want to, they can also directly bury the body of the deceased, but all the consequences in the future can only be borne by themselves.
And the consequences?
That's of course, after all, it's a magical world. There will always be some necromancer or apprentice passing by and turning the corpse into their material or servant.
And in some strange terrains, corpses will also spontaneously breed into undead. At that time, even if the professional dismantles the dead into a pile of bones or minced meat, the family of the deceased cannot complain.
No one wants their loved one's body to be desecrated by a necromancer, so the family will choose to have the priest of the temple bless the body once to protect it from necromantic magic or the Tidal Moon. At the same time, they will build the tomb as solid as gold to dispel the covetousness of some "craftsmen" for funerary goods.
In fact, the blessing of the Temple Priest could not stop all necromancers from using the corpses, at least those who had stepped into the realm of gold or even legends could easily do so.
But such a thing could not have happened, and the corpses of a few merchants or wealthy people were not worth it. It's like no one has ever heard of a night king who has a monopoly on many gray trades jumping on the street like a shrew for one or two copper plates.
As for the bodies of some powerful people, it is natural that they are blessed with a grand ceremony by the Pope or the bishop himself, so as to ensure that nothing goes wrong.
If the conditions at home are not enough, then you can only receive a free alchemy flame to perform the "fire ceremony".
If you don't care about the future of the deceased's body, you can just bury it.
Unlike other regions, the Frozen Coast has a mandatory requirement for a fire ceremony, and the families of the deceased who refuse to do so are arrested by law enforcement officers on charges of disturbing the peace, who then enforce the fire ceremony.
Although it is written in the legal code, no one has been arrested for this matter. This is not to say that the clause is a non-existent provision, but that every household is very conscious.
No one wants to see their loved one's face turned to ashes before their eyes, especially when they have enough money to pay for a pastor's donation. But there is no way, firstly, there is no temple of gods on the entire frozen coast, and secondly, the climate here determines everything.
The former is a problem left over from history, while the latter is beyond the control of human power.
In the climate of the frozen coast, it is difficult for a body to decay for several years after burial. If something happens, countless walking corpses will crawl out of the ground, and the entire frozen coast may be reduced to a human realm in a matter of days.
After all, walking corpses carrying corpse poison are not to be confused with skeletons, and the former causes far more panic and damage to the crowd than the latter.
After the ceremony, the old man walked towards the outside of the cemetery, but stopped halfway through.
"Are you a relative of this child?"
The old man asked with some curiosity.
The person he asked was a young man with black hair and black eyes, and his black dress and deerskin hunting boots on his feet made him look very heroic. On his chest, a white thorn flower worn on it swayed in the wind.
"No, I'm just coming to see. ”
The young man bowed slightly to the old man and said in a calm tone.
"No wonder the aura on your body is out of place here. The old man seemed to understand something, he nodded lightly, and said in an easy-going tone: "You are really a peculiar person. ”
"Why do you say that?"
The young man seemed to be intrigued by the old man, and he removed the white thorn flower from his chest and placed it in front of the tombstone, as if intending to concentrate on the conversation in front of him.
"Some people come to the cemetery to say goodbye, some people come to the cemetery to commemorate, but you really seem to just come to have a look. ”
"There are very few people like this?"
"It's the first time I've seen it. ”
"Oh," the man chuckled, "you speak like a poet." ”
"Bard?"
The old man asked with some confusion.
"Even so. ”
I don't know what I thought, but the man's face showed a look of remembrance. Then he restrained the emotions on his face and replied perfunctorily.
"You're a lot like us. ”
The old man said slowly, as if stating an established fact.
"I don't think I can be attributed to the undead. ”
The man looked at the old man's dark blue eyes, and there was a slight hesitation in his words.
It is obvious that the old man is the undead. But even the priests of the temple had to show their respect when they saw them, because they were "the ones who told the dead."
After the death of a person in the material world, there are only two places for the soul to go.
A godly believer can trigger the reaction of the kingdom of God and be drawn into the kingdom of God in which he or she believes. At the end of the judgment of the gods, their consciousness will change to the person who invokes them to become beings in the kingdom of God, and their souls will be reincarnated.
Those who believe lightly, have no faith, or are in other situations may go to the underworld. There, their consciousness will gradually dissolve, and some souls will combine with the sins of life to become the inferior undead in the underworld, and the clear part will be reincarnated.
Other than that, there is no other way to be reborn.
In fact, less than one percent of the souls that have entered the kingdom of God or the underworld have been dissipated, and the rest have decayed and dissipated between heaven and earth like their corpses or fallen leaves in the forest.
For humans, such a thing is terrifying, just like the fate of Mephistopheles in his previous life when he heard that his soul was scattered.
But fear does not solve the problem, and whether or not you can enter the underworld or the kingdom of God is not subject to the will of the individual soul.
The incompetent only tremble in the face of the rules, comforting the trembling hearts with lies and luck, but the hero can give his best to accomplish a feat that even the gods will look at.
The "Elder Sleep Guide" Rakuma, a legendary necromancer.
Because of the death of his beloved wife, he went to the underworld alone, gave up his life, and continued his previous life with his wife, who did not want to be reincarnated unconsciously.
If this is the end of the matter, then it is nothing more than a love story to sing and cry about, and at most add a little talk to the bard.
But it didn't end like this, because Rakuma and his wife were worthy of the word "great".
Lakuma's wife, a lady whose name has not even been left to the world, has a noble soul that puts all the despicable to shame.
Although she does not want to be reincarnated with her consciousness consumed, she pities the world and begs for the underworld.
She went to the depths of the underworld to seek death and ask the ancient god for mercy.
Unfortunately, the Grim Reaper is different from other gods. He has no need for believers, and he is rarely blessed, he is more like the embodiment of the will of the world in the underworld than some independent being.
The lady was put to the test of death, and although she almost lost her soul in the process, she finally passed and obtained some negligible qualifications.
These alone could not help all the people of the world, so Rakuma stepped forward.
At the cost of his own soul, he provides a "coordinate" for all those living in the main world. Although this does not guarantee that the soul of every deceased will reach the underworld, it is much better than before.
After that, all living beings sang his name and called him the mentor of their souls. Many powerful necromancers and other professionals were inspired by Rakuma's character and chose to dedicate their souls to the Grim Reaper, becoming strange undead living in the Overworld, and at the same time receiving the qualification to send souls to the underworld.
They call themselves the students of the "Sleeping Mentors", absolute neutrals on the material continent.
They were called "Dead Dead" and were honored as priests.
"You're kidding, I don't mean that, I just think you have the same attitude towards life and death as we do. ”
The old man said to the man with a smile.
"Attitude?"
"Indifferent but not indifferent, respectful but not afraid. ”
"It's a lot like that, indeed. ”
The man nodded, agreeing with this statement.
"What do you think about this child's death?"
For some reason, the old man mentioned the dead man who had just worshipped. His name was Bell, and he was the young master of the Earl of Bronck's family.
Maybe it was for fear of arousing the resistance of the people, or maybe it was just to set an example, anyway, all the nobles on the frozen coast did not build their own cemeteries, and they were buried in public cemeteries after the "fire ceremony". And there are no funerary goods in the tomb, probably because of the fear of the "craftsman".
"It's a pity. ”
The man gave his evaluation without thinking.
"To you or to him?"
The old man seemed to have guessed something.
"Yes, I will treat him. ”
"I want to hear about it. ”
"For me, it's a pity that he died. ”
"It's a pity for him, too. After all, he has not seen the beauty and darkness of the world, experienced redemption and depravity, just like the bones of flowers that have not experienced the sun and rainstorm, and are scattered among the dirt, isn't it a pity?"
The man asked with a smile.
"Do you think it's a pity because you didn't find a chance to start?"
The old man said tentatively.
"I don't know what you've guessed, but I think you'd better not force these guesses on me. Because it's going to irritate me, and the consequences, you won't want to know!"
With that, the man lost interest in continuing the conversation and turned to leave the cemetery.
The old man looked at the man's departing back and sighed helplessly.