Chapter 447: The Forsaken Realm of Gods (36) (1st + 2nd update) [VIP]

As expected, the clergyman in the room should be the builder of this church deep in the mountains.

The bedroom where the ascetics live is even narrower than the church. Judging from its location, it is a small piece separated from the main building. There is only enough space for a bed and a table. The remaining space is enough for two people to stand side by side, and it is difficult to turn around.

Now there was a dead person lying on the ground, leaving even less space for them to stand.

Bai Jinshu stood at the door, and the exploration team members behind him couldn't squeeze in at all.

"Dermis?" Xu Zichen poked his head out, "Why do I see someone there?"

No matter how sleepy they were, they were scared away by his sudden opening of the door. The exploration team members behind Bai Jinshu were yawning or stretching, but when he suddenly opened the door, everyone was startled.

After recovering from the shock, Xu Zichen, who was closest to the room, immediately saw a person lying on the floor in the narrow room behind the door.

"It's a corpse," Bai Jinshu frowned slightly, "someone died."

This means that the plan to have everyone rest on the ghost ship has failed.

The room was narrow and could only accommodate two people at a time. Xu Zichen volunteered to examine the cause of death. The others did not argue and covered their foreheads dejectedly, preparing to take a nap on the few remaining benches in the church that could accommodate people.

The first death scene could not be destroyed. Xu Zichen squatted down and observed the deceased. He carefully reached out his hand and gently touched the skin of the priest.

"He's been dead for quite some time," he judged in a low voice. "Looking at the condition of the body, he must have been dead for at least a year."

The corpse looked incredibly thin, with its skin all wrinkled up into patches. It had lost its elasticity due to the long time since death, and had become wrinkled and dry, reminding people of mummies that had been placed in the pyramids and preserved for years.

"Longer than a year," Bai Jinshu interrupted, "at least four or five years."

The Necromancer's words were much more accurate than his judgment, so Xu Zichen changed his words accordingly: "So he has been dead here for four or five years. It's been so long? No one has discovered it?"

"Deep in the mountains and old forests, it's not easy to find a dead person," Yun Guang leaned against the door frame and rubbed his temples, "Can you tell the cause of death?"

The deep mountains and old forests are sparsely populated. Apart from adventurers and bounty hunters running around, no one comes here most of the time.

On the other hand, the fact that the dead are not easily discovered also means that no one would come here to kill people for no reason.

An ascetic monk living deep in the mountains wouldn't offend anyone, right?

"The cause of death..." Xu Zichen walked around and gently moved the fabric of the deceased's famous parts with his fingertips to observe, "At least it's not an external injury."

All parts of the body that could have caused death were intact and the deceased's expression was peaceful.

"Could it be some kind of curse?" He looked up at the necromancer standing aside.

"No," Bai Jinshu shook his head and drew a circle on the opponent's forehead with his knuckles. A light green circle lit up in the air. "There is no trace of curse. It was a natural death."

This spell tests the state of the deceased before death. Green means that the other party is healthy.

When this color lights up, it generally means that the death of the deceased was not caused by curses or spells, and there was no serious illness or fatal injury at the moment of death. Most of the time, it will appear in elderly people who die of old age.

But this priestess on earth looked different from the old person who was at the end of her life. She looked to be only in her forties or fifties at most, but because of her long-term ascetic life, her figure was very thin and her appearance was older than her peers.

But according to the average human lifespan, this is definitely not the end of life.

"Natural death, died four or five years ago?" Xu Zichen muttered while trying to find more clues in this room, "Doesn't the Perlan Mine deliver magic sand every month? If she died of natural causes, then who went out to receive the magic sand when it was delivered four or five years ago? Or was this person moved here? Isn't this the first death scene..."

This person was moved into the room, and then the person who moved her in locked the door, trying to create a secret room?

You have to be a very materialistic person to create a secret room in a western fantasy world. Any random wizard can teleport, right? What's more, there are things like teleportation scrolls here.

"This may not be the first death scene," Yun Guang rubbed his temples and stood up from the door frame. "There were no footprints on the ground when you went in."

"What footprints?" Xu Zichen didn't hear him clearly and was still observing the corpse.

Yun Guang: "The footprints left when entering a heavily dusty room."

If this person really had died here four or five years ago, the room should be covered with dust, but now the room seemed a little too tidy, as if someone had cleaned it not long ago.

What's more, apart from the dead body on the ground, the room was actually full of the atmosphere of life, with a half-written manuscript on the table, a clergyman's robe casually draped over the back of a chair, and a quilt that had not yet been folded on the bed.

There was no dust on any of these things, and there was even half a cup of water in the cup on the table.

There was not even any dust deposited on the water surface. Only when looking towards the light source could one see some tiny dust floating on the water surface. There was no water level mark on the side of the cup that would be left behind after the drinking water in the cup evaporated.

“This room must have been occupied a few days ago…” Yun Guang frowned.

This is strange. Could it be that the deceased was not the priest but someone else? Someone moved the body into the priest's room, but the priest who was living here didn't know where he had gone in the past few days.

"What's that letter on the desk?" he inquired.

"Let me see," Xu Zichen bent over and read, "To Kurt, the person in charge of the Perlan Mine, the mine has been late for more than three days in delivering the goods..."

He suddenly realized: "This is not a manuscript, this is a letter from the priest urging the Perrin Mine to deliver the goods!"

This church is located at the unloading point of the Perrin Mine, so the people living here must also be responsible for processing the magic sand.

Xu Zichen quickly read the rest of the content.

"It was probably asking why the goods didn't arrive as scheduled, and wondering if there was a problem during transportation, and whether they needed help. There was also a name signed at the end of the letter," he roughly summarized the contents of the letter. "It didn't say what the magic sand was used for, but it can be seen that the clergy here must be responsible for handling the magic sand."

"The Perlan Mine was shut down a few days ago," Xu Zichen calculated the time with his fingers, "If you calculate it, it would take at least one day for the mine to get here at the original speed. It's three days late, so the time to write the letter is four days after the original scheduled delivery date."

The accident at the Perrin Mine was discovered six or seven days ago, and mining was suspended two or three days ago. So it took only two days from the time the owner of the room wrote the letter to the time the body appeared here.

"So this body might have been moved in two days ago?" Xu Zichen guessed.

"Clothes," Bai Jinshu said, "do not look like the clothes of a deceased person."

"Yes... she was given a new set of clothes. If this person has been dead for four or five years, his clothes would not be in this state..." Yun Guang murmured.

The clothes on the deceased were too new compared to the time of her death. Although the fabric was very old and the color around her elbows and knees was whitish, it was obvious that they had just been washed. When you got close, you could even smell a hint of soap.

"I'm using the same soap here." Xu Zichen sniffed twice and quickly found another thing with the same scent as the clothes.

Inside the box with some simple cleaning supplies were the other clothes of the ascetics who lived here.

"It's the same smell." Xu Zichen sniffed it, "So the person who moved the corpse here is this ascetic priest?"

"He moved the body of a person who died four or five years ago into his room and even changed her into his own clothes," Guan Hongyan stood at the door at some point, her tone confused, "Why does it sound so perverted?"

Where can I find a body of someone who died four or five years ago that is so well preserved and has not yet decayed?

What is a hobby like changing clothes for corpses?

"They are all women's clothes," Xu Zichen quickly rummaged through the clothes in the box, "It seems that the ascetic monk living here is also a woman."

"What do you mean?" Guan Hongyan yawned, "Is there any connection between this corpse and the magic pattern and magic sand we are looking for?"

“It’s hard to say…” Yun Guang shook his head. “At the moment, it looks like… the clergyman who lives here moved this body in before leaving a few days ago, and then changed her clothes?”

He felt strange even when he said it out loud.

"It's already stiff, how can we move it?" Guan Hongyan replaced Xu Zichen and went in herself. She gestured at the joints of the corpse and tried to bend them. "It can't move at all."

How to change clothes for a corpse like this?

"It's a bit strange," Xu Zichen lay at the door, "Why can this corpse remain intact for four or five years? Is there any special magic?"

In the Western fantasy world, all the laws in the normal materialistic world have no effect, and many things that cannot be achieved in the materialistic world can be solved through magic.

"Not on this body," Delmis shook his head unexpectedly, but added, "But generally speaking, the bodies of the gods' followers will not decay."

"Why?" Guan Hongyan looked up.

"Faith, this is normal for believers," Bai Jinshu said with his eyes downcast, "The bodies of believers with firm faith will not decay after death. In most cases, part of their body will even become the raw material for alchemical items or holy relics within the church."

Guan Hongyan roughly understood it: "It's like the body of a great monk who passed away and was worshipped, or the relics of a monk who was cremated and worshipped?"

"That should be about what it means," Yun Guang thought, "So this deceased is also a believer of the God of Light?"

"Could it be that she was an ascetic monk here before, and after her death, there was a new person here. Because her faith was very firm and she was not corrupted, she was left here by her descendants..." Guan Hongyan carefully stepped over the corpse on the ground, took a look around the furnishings, and pointed at the clothes on the bed, "Because look at this dress, it's obviously a girl's dress, and it's about the same size as the corpse on the ground."

The only explanation that makes sense is that the successor left behind the remains of his predecessor to take care of them.

"But this room can't hold it either?" she wondered. "Putting a body in the middle, could it be that she is like me, stepping over the body of her predecessor every morning before going out to pray? Her mental state is too advanced."

It was three hundred years ahead of the world.

Even a cultist can't be so crazy.

"This guy probably puts his ex next to the statue of the God of Light outside the church, and changes her clothes from time to time..." Xu Zichen defended the ascetic monk, "When he is going on a long journey, he keeps the body in the room."

"Then why lock the door?" Guan Hongyan muttered.

"Well... maybe they were afraid that someone would break in like us," Xu Zichen said weakly, "I didn't expect someone would still come in."

Guan Hongyan was speechless.

"Excuse me, we will leave immediately," she silently put her palms together and bowed, "Goodbye, venerable monk."

Never mind the group of them stepping over her corpse.

If they had known that this was someone's corpse, there would have been no need for them to break in.

It was already daylight outside the window, and the deep forest, where few people go, was filled with the sounds of birds singing in the early morning. The sunlight shone through the shadows of the trees and projected onto the letters on the table.

"No," Bai Jinshu stared at the letter for a few seconds, "If the current clergyman wanted to leave, why didn't he send the letter halfway through and tidy up the room?"

If a person is going on a long journey, among other things, he should at least fold the quilt, pour out the water in the cup, and put away the half-written letter on the desk, right?

What's more, this letter was asking about the transportation of magic sand at the Perrin Mine.

This is one of the nodes for transporting magic sand. The priest probably left to ask why the Perrin Mine did not deliver the goods on time. Then why was the letter not sent?

The people in the room clearly showed signs of a hasty departure, and there were no signs of fighting outside or around the church. It was more like someone was living here one second and disappeared the next.

"What if the people on earth had not been dead for four or five years... but had been dead for four or five days?" Guan Hongyan paused, "This would all make sense."

The clergyman living here died unexpectedly when he was preparing to write a letter to inquire about the contents of the Perrin Mine. He didn't even have time to send the letter or tidy up the room.

Inside the room, the four of them slowly looked at each other.

"Is it possible?" Yun Guang's eyes unconsciously moved to the dead man's face. "He was only dead for four or five days, but the final state he presented was like he had been dead for four or five years?"

Or is it that in the past four or five years, the person who handled the magic sand in the Perrin Mine was not a living person, but a "corpse"?

*

The identity of the deceased in the church deep in the mountains eventually became a mystery.

The exploration team members carefully searched the room, and the dead body on the ground was checked again by Guan Hongyan.

There was no object in the room that could identify the deceased, nor was there anything on the deceased that could prove his identity. This ascetic monk who appeared in a church deep in the mountains was like a math problem that had an answer and a formula but was not sure what string of values ​​should be substituted.

It seems that the numerical values ​​in each guess can lead to the final answer, but there is a part in each guess that doesn't make sense.

In the end, there was no answer, and no one could deal with the body without permission. They could only try to restore the room and the church to their original state. Then Bai Jinshu locked the door again and left the church deep in the mountains.

Although a strange corpse appeared in the church, their main purpose of coming here was achieved.

"Take a look," Guan Hongyan held out two pieces of paper, "Can you fill in the missing part in the middle?"

One of the two pieces of paper is the magic pattern in the Hunter Association's supply point, and the other is in the church deep in the mountains.

These two pictures are on the route of the Perrin Mine, but the patterns cannot be connected. Guan Hongyan copied the two magic patterns, took them out after getting on the boat, and placed them in front of Enoch.

"Let me try..." Enoch picked up the pen hesitantly and traced a few lines on the paper between the two pieces of paper. "Maybe it's not right?"

"My memory is very vague," he paused, "but I think it should be like this."

"It's okay, just follow your memory or your sixth sense," Guan Hongyan waved her hand, "You draw, you draw."

Enoch took the pen and drew a distance crookedly.

"Like this... let me trace it." Guan Hongyan sat back in her seat and tried to replicate the pattern that Enoch had restored.

For some reason, this reproduction process is very strange.

At first, while he was drawing, the pen in his hand suddenly ran out of ink. Guan Hongyan removed the nib and found that there was still plenty of ink at the back. He casually tried the pen and drew a few times on white paper, and it also produced ink.

But when I try to continue drawing this pattern, I can't draw any trace.

Then the paper suddenly broke.

The drawn pattern was broken in the middle. Guan Hongyan looked blankly at the neat cut on the paper that looked like it was cut by a knife. With an inexplicable expression, she picked up the two sheets of paper and looked at them, then looked at the table which had no scratches at all.

Then, the table, which should have become a dead object, suddenly had problems and collapsed to one side.

The corner of the table broke off for unknown reasons, and everything on the table rolled down to the lower corner.

Even if Guan Hongyan was slow-witted, she should have noticed that something was wrong.

She quickly grabbed the paper and pen on the table and turned around to look for Delmis.

As a result, when she turned around, she found that this living father was standing behind her. He had no idea how long he had been watching her.

"Dermis?" She held the table with one hand and held a pen and paper in the other.

"You can't draw this magic pattern," Delmis glanced at the paper in her hand, "When drawing that pattern, you need to inject some magic power to complete it smoothly."

As an ordinary person, Guan Hongyan certainly cannot draw it.

"Why didn't I have this problem when I was reproducing it before?" Guan Hongyan didn't understand. "Those two patterns dug out from the ground looked normal to me?"

"Because the two patterns were incomplete," Bai Jinshu fixed his gaze on her hands, "after the middle part was completed, the two patterns were connected."

This is why Guan Hongyan couldn’t draw it.

She can draw magic patterns without any complete circuits, but when two magic patterns are connected together, she cannot draw the connecting line in the middle without magic power.

"And I suggest you use eye drops," Bai Jinshu took the paper from her hand and motioned her to look in the mirror. "Look at your eyes."

Guan Hongyan:?

She put the table down and pulled a reflective knife from her pocket.

On the narrow blade, her eyes were red as if she had been up all night for three or four nights, and the red blood vessels around her eyes were so numerous that they almost overflowed.

Guan Hongyan subconsciously looked around.

Everyone stayed up all night digging that hole last night, but now it seems that she is the only one whose eyes have become like this.

"It's that magic pattern..." She suddenly realized.

"Well," Bai Jinshu nodded and put away the two pieces of paper, "You can't look at these things."

Just like the magic pattern used by the Grand Mage on the Adventurer's Guild's emblem, the higher-end the magic pattern, the more difficult it is to spy on. Fortunately, Guan Hongyan only copied a small part of this large magic pattern, so she was not attacked by the magic pattern.

Some people who understand the comments also posted a few sentences on the barrage:

[Sister Yan is really brave. She dares to use magic patterns. Even a master of magic patterns wouldn't dare to use this kind of unknown pattern casually. Who knows what it is used for?]

[Fortunately, it is only a small part, otherwise it would not be so simple. 】

[So it’s okay for us to watch this thing, right? ! ! ! ]

[It stands to reason that there is something wrong... When the entire pattern is finally pieced together, we will definitely be vexed when we see it. Can the house manager make a code? @房管]

[Speaking of reason...is there a housing manager in this space? ]

[It seems not...]

[Doesn't that mean that only the gods of virtue can see this pattern? ]

[It seems like you forgot someone. ]

【?who? 】

【Enoch.】

[Hiss… It is known that only the god De can spell it out, and it is also known that Enoch remembers many details of this magic pattern and feels familiar with it, so Enoch = Delmis? ]

【？ 】

【I can’t accept that.】

…

What the commentators in the live broadcast room didn’t know was that, at the same time in the mother space that generated this child space, a long-outdated holographic game on the Internet suddenly gained a strange popularity.

An up who for some unknown reason suddenly returned to "Breath of Slenkmed" recorded a video in which the game producer Lao Zhang appeared wearing women's clothing.

At first everyone thought it was just a joke, but suddenly someone who knew the truth showed up and told everyone that Lao Zhang had actually been in a car accident and turned into a vegetable, and that the NPC in the game could not possibly be Lao Zhang himself.

One stone stirs up a thousand ripples. Some people with bad intentions tagged Wei Yu's official Weibo account, wanting to find out about the situation of Lao Zhang, the producer of Breath of Slenkmed.

The debate over whether the producer of this outdated game is dead or alive has suddenly become a hot topic.

Wang Wenhua arrived at the company early in the morning, opened the planning document, and then glanced at the message record.

[Resentment is heavier than ghosts]: Xiao Wang, are you free tomorrow afternoon?

Wang Wenhua:?

[Grudge is heavier than ghosts]: Xiao Chun made inquiries from many sources and found a care center in the city that accepts vegetative patients. Lao Zhang originally lived in City A, and the car accident most likely took place in City A. Both of us are not in City A, and you are the only one there. Do you want to go and see if Lao Zhang is there?

Wang Wenhua: What do you want to do?

[Grudge is heavier than ghosts]: Don’t you want to know?

[Grudges are heavier than ghosts]: Why did the game suddenly become so real? Is Lao Zhang dead or alive? Is Enoch in the game him? And why were your bound items taken away by n.pc? This is something that cannot be traded between players in the game settings.

Wang Wenhua: …

He felt that the other party was thinking too much.

But... he looked at his comment under Lao Zhang's Weibo, which had been drowned out by the multitude of onlookers.

Wang Wenhua: Please send me the address.

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