Alien Knights

On the seventh day after the "Relief Society" dinner, Todd stood at the door of the church in Muxi Town, and a group of residents watched the excitement, watching a group of taciturn craftsmen tamping stones and laying foundations in the open space next to the church.

Not far from the construction site, Rachel and Karin were standing aside in loose, pure white nun robes.

Karin's eyes lit up when she saw the priest, and she just moved two steps when she was grabbed by the head of the nun behind her and whispered something.

Seeing this scene, Todd shook his head amusedly and helplessly.

Early the morning after that dinner, Todd intended to return to Mussey immediately. Originally, he thought that Rachel would have to prepare for a few days before rushing over. Unexpectedly, the other party just took a leather bag and a small wooden box, and jumped into the carriage.

The morning after the two arrived in Muxi Town, the craftsmen who built the nun's convent appeared next to the church, which made Todd amazed at Rachel's high efficiency.

In addition, I don't know what method Rachel used. Karin, who was free and unfettered in the town, obeyed Rachel's orders in just a few days, and even put on the nun's robe that she refused to wear before.

Leaving the door of the church, Todd returned to the small laboratory building, and once again opened the "Sutherland History" given to him by Theodore. Regarding the research career of the sages when they were young, there was a passage that caught his attention the most.

『Sutherland was twenty-six years old. When he was working at the Taylor Academy of Alchemy, he built a hut in the Albano active crater for eight years in order to conduct alchemy experiments. He carries fresh water and dry food every morning, and goes down the path of the volcanic cave to the depth of tens of meters to collect and refine materials... At the age of thirty-four, he returned to the capital, continued to study alchemy, and traveled around with the legion as a pharmacist...』

Todd closed the book slowly, thinking carefully. After the "Sutherland Archaea" is injected into the human body, the number almost never increases or decreases. But if the heterogeneous bacteria exceed its carrying capacity and break the balance between the two, the archaea will wantonly attack and turn the host into a monster. And according to the records of the church, in the past thousand years, almost all people who have been contaminated with the "Sutherland heritage" have turned into monsters, with the exception of one person, that is Sutherland himself.

Based on this reasoning, the alchemist Sutherland should have obtained a large amount of archaic bacteria and stored them in his body stably through some channel, which suppressed the foreign bacteria in his body, and did not mutate until he died in battle.

So how exactly did this archaea get into Sutherland's body?

According to the research results of the microbial world in the previous life, from the discovery of the species of archaea in 1977 to the year of crossing, there were only more than one hundred kinds of archaea discovered. According to their habits and places, they are generally divided into "thermophilic archaea" living in volcanic craters, "halophilic archaea" living in high-concentration salt water, "acidophilic archaea" living in strong acid, and other minorities.

Combined with the records of "Sutherland History", the Sutherland archaea is most likely to be the first type - the "thermophilic archaea" near the crater.

So, there is one last question left.

How to obtain a large number of Sutherland archaea to solve the crisis of its own "successor"?

Todd didn't intend to learn from the alchemist a thousand years ago and went to the crater to find archaea. If you do that, you don't know if you can find it. Maybe you will mutate into a monster first during the round trip.

The best way is to artificially propagate the "Sutherland Archaea", but this time the bacterial culture needs to simulate the environment of the crater.

After confirming all this, Todd was finally able to let out a long breath at the experimental table.

The answer to the huge puzzle of "Sutherland Archaea" has a total of four puzzle pieces, which are: microbiological knowledge from previous lives, experimental equipment that can observe bacteria, the secret history of the Church's hunting of "Heirs", and Sutherland's life experience. So far, the jigsaw puzzles have been put together, the riddles have been solved, and everything has finally been cleared up and the truth has come to light.

Finding out the drawings and tools, Todd began to write and draw, a metal airtight petri dish used to simulate the volcanic environment, and quickly completed the design drawing. It was packed into a wooden tube, and it was planned to be handed over to Huggins at a later date so that the craftsmen could build it.

After finally settling on a big matter on his mind, Todd stretched himself on the chair, looked at everything in the laboratory, and suddenly couldn't remember how long he hadn't gone for a walk in the town.

Putting down the pen in his hand, locked the door of the room, and Todd walked onto the street of the town.

It was around four o'clock in the afternoon, and the people who had worked all day gradually returned to the streets, and there were more and more people in the center of the town.

Around the location of the church, all the prosperity of Muxi Town is gathered. There is the sound of shouting and shouting from the tavern, various humming sounds from the livestock store, and there are weaving and dyeing shops, linen shops, peddlers, snack carts, etc. Although it was lively, Todd glanced at the dust flying all over the floor and the litter on the street, and touched the bridge of his nose in distress.

The public management of Muxi Town relies entirely on the voluntary and conscious maintenance of the residents. Although this can greatly reduce municipal expenditures, it is far from meeting the proper sanitation standards and planning levels.

"Control is not a good thing, but you have to rely on it?" Todd said hello to the passing residents, while thinking about the various thoughts in his mind, he walked further and further away, and gradually walked towards the edge of the town.

From a medieval village to a small town, the most critical and important part is the city wall. But now there is no way to do it in Muxi Town, because it is close to the sea. Although the town has a defense force, the armed force on the sea is almost zero, and the best city wall is just a decoration; secondly, it is because of expansion. As the town's population gradually increases and its extension increases, the planning and construction of the city wall is not a realistic thing.

Passing through the outermost part of the town, the farmer's thatched huts, Todd saw one piece after another of the green fields separated by paths through the afterglow of the setting sun.

Busy farmers with dejected expressions and heavy steps passed by the priest. Some lowered their heads and some bent their knees. Todd made a sign of the cross towards the heads of the crowd, prayed a few words, and then planned to turn around and walk back to the church.

The faint crying sound not far away attracted his attention. Todd walked to the side of the path and brushed aside the grass.

A farmer in his twenties and his wife sat on the farmland, weeping bitterly. The sword bean and chickpea seedlings beside the two are yellow and withered, drooping towards the ground.

Seeing the priest getting closer and closer, the farmer, who guessed the identity of the visitor through the clothes of the priest, quickly pulled his wife up and knelt down on the ground.

Ignoring them, Todd squatted down first, turned over the soil under his body, glanced at the coastline at the end of his vision, and then at the lifeless vegetable seedlings, probably understanding what happened.

Muxi Town is close to the sea, and the seawater can seep into the surrounding land through the groundwater. As a result, most of the land around the town is saline-alkali land. It is okay to plant some alkali-resistant plants, but if you plant neutral-loving crops, you will naturally fail.

The priest looked at a large area of ​​dead seedlings in front of him, sighed, and said to the couple, "Change the crops to wheat, and start over as soon as possible while there is still time."

"My lord priest, we have run out of money. These vegetable seedlings were borrowed from the owner of the manor after we mortgaged our last belongings."

Todd was taken aback by the farmer's words, and after thinking for a while, he asked, "How many farmers like you have no spring harvest?"

The couple looked at each other and gave an answer that surprised Todd.

Almost all.