September is not as hot in the north as in the south, and the nights can get cooler. As a result, the carcass maintained a good profile and was not contaminated by flies.

The knight captain sent the scouts to the surrounding area and town, and he and Annan stopped in front of the corpse. It was a young man about Annan's age, the arrow pierced through his bloated and rotten chest, and he held the arrow in his left hand, trying to pull it out but failed.

The scouts who probe the town return and confirm that this is Ghost Town, and that there are no living people.

The knights improvised the corpses and entered the town. Wooden walls blocked the bloodshed after the slaughter. Flocks of rotting corpses lay around the wooden walls, covered with black debris, which had been scattered by the arrival of the cavalry and turned into flocks of crows.

A rich rancid stench permeated the surroundings. It won't be long before there will be a plague here.

"Why did the nezumi leave these corpses?"

Annan swept over the corpses in a low mood, from children to the elderly, with farm forks and sticks scattered around him. The nezumi don't even spare the corpses and feces of their companions, so there's no reason to ignore them...... Flesh and blood.

"It's not the rat tide that attacked Ghost Town, it's the elite nezumi who attacked it."

So there are not even the corpses of the nezumi.

Annan, who had gone deep into the town with the team, suddenly clenched the reins as a young corpse was nailed to a wooden door by an arrow.

The knights searched the mayor's mansion first, but there was nothing. I don't know if the mayor has fled, or if he has become one of those corpses.

Mage Aemon recounted the situation at the time of the attack: an elite nezumi raided Ghost Town from the direction they came, and they did not react, so that the nezumi broke through the trench and wooden wall, and the old and sick guards were only able to resist for a moment before they were defeated, and the collapsed crowd began to flee and be overtaken by the nezumi......

The corpses gathered in front of the wooden wall left the knights without much time to waste, and they stacked the corpses in the town up a hill to prepare to clear the plague.

Annan was also helping, and the girl's body was tilted up, and the hollow eye sockets that had been taken out of the eyes by the crow were facing the roof. Annan looked up in accordance with her "gaze" and saw the sack on the beam.

A knight was called in to help remove it, and the bag contained only semolina.

Annan stuffed the food bag into the little girl's arms, picked up the arrows with her own hands, picked up her swollen, decomposed corpse, and gently placed it on the edge of the pile......

When the knights brought the oil in their hands, Annan suddenly said, "Wait a little longer, check the cellar." ”

They spent dozens of minutes searching the cellar, but found nothing, and their last hope was extinguished.

Several knights doused fire oil and burned the plague. Annan and the others retreated outside the town so as not to smell the profanity.

As the black smoke rose and flocks of crows hovered over the town, the knights and their horses fell silent.

And such a scene happened hundreds of times in the south.

Annan realized that this was the best time to ask the knight: "The traces of the nezumi have appeared outside the royal capital, why are you still indifferent?" ”

“…… We just need to obey orders. ”

The problem is back to the upper level full of riddles.

"Then why do you think the chief head is indifferent?"

The captain of the knights was still pondering, and the shouts of terror broke the silence of the group.

"They are all dead...... All are dead, and there is not a single one left! ”

A deranged middle-aged man, who was escorted by the knight, said he had found him in a pile of bushes a few miles away. Master Aemon threw him a lucid spell and asked, "We are from the royal capital, do you know what happened in Ghost Town?" ”

"Ghost Town...... Raid! Armour...... Not a nezumi! It's just that the middle-aged people have regained limited consciousness, but when the clouds disperse and their armor reflects the light, the middle-aged man cries out in horror: "It's you! You've slaughtered the town! ”

"We?"

The captain of the knights was puzzled, and seeing that the middle-aged man had fallen into madness again, Annan asked Mage Aemon to unleash his lucid spell again.

"Then he'll be a fool."

Annan had no choice but to try to calm the middle-aged man. Let the knight control him, Annan stood in front of him: "I am Annan, the king of the north, the nezumi...... Nemesis, we are from the royal capital, tell me everything you encountered. ”

The man gradually quieted down and dreamily recounted his experience:

After the news of the nezumi approach spread in Ghost Town, most of the people who could walk were gone. The man was no exception, but he had nowhere to go, and the nezumi hadn't been seen for days, so he returned to Ghost Town with a chance to meet the killer who attacked Ghost Town.

"They...... That's them! They took refuge in the nezumi! ”

The knights around him reminded the man of a terrible nightmare.

"It's not them, I've been with them all the time, we were on our way when Ghost Town was attacked." Annan said.

"But their armor is the same!"

The murderers rode the same horses as the Knights, wore the same armor as the Knights, and held the same weapons as the Knights.

Annan did not answer, and looked quietly at the knight captain.

"That doesn't prove to be a Knights." Mage Aemon replied, "The Knights are equipped with standard armor, which is expensive, but easy to buy. ”

But the man who regained his consciousness swore an oath: "I can tell the difference between a knight and a mouse!" They're just like you! ”

"Where did they go after attacking Ghost Town?"

The man pointed to the east.

Asking the knight to take the man to check and rest, Annan and the knight captain said to Master Aemon, "We need to know the answer." The nezumi disguised as us, or the nezumi polluted us, or ......"

"We" are engaged in an unspeakable conspiracy.

"You're the commander of this team." The knight captain raised his sword firmly.

"I want to know who's doing the ......," said Master Emon.

Whoop -

The surrounding knights raised their weapons. Their mindset has changed after experiencing the carnage in Ghost Town. It's just that will they be able to bear the weight of the truth?

"Then let's go and find out where they are."

The burning of Ghost Town is nearing its end, and the crows in the sky have dispersed. The future of Ghost Town may be prosperous again, but it will no longer belong to those who once were.

Over the next few days, Annan and the Knights follow the trail of Ghosttown's killers in Illida. During this period, several waves of rat men were encountered, and Annan did not need to make a move, and the knight team launched a charge, and they completely collapsed. Also encountered a new killing by the murderer of Ghost Town. These villages are like the vengeance of the undead, pointing them in the direction of the murderer.

After leaving the survivors of Ghost Town behind in a passing city-state, they set off at full speed.

Evening, east of Illida, dark forest.

Squads of knights are stationed outside the forest. Further east is Yeongwang County...... If there is nothing there, they can only abandon the investigation.

As he thought this, a puff of smoke rose from the depths of the forest. Next, they found a temporary garrison of a cavalry in the woods.

(End of chapter)