Steam Old Days: The Extraordinary Begins with a Corpse Collector

The sun is tilting westward.

On the dirt road, an old horse was pulling a cart.

On the cart, a young man dressed in a white robe and wearing an earth-colored shawl was idly waving his whip.

The whip struck the old horse weakly.

Old Ma shouted a few times in his hoarse voice.

The horse's hooves seemed to have traveled further.

Looking at Old Ma's listless appearance, the young man seemed to see his own reflection.

He stopped cracking the whip and took a roll of parchment from the luggage on the cart.

The parchment was stamped with the church's seal.

[The novice monk Philip Scott is hereby dispatched to the Sanctuary of Grotto Point, to be under the jurisdiction of Reverend Daphne.]

Philip stared at the image of the Styx Sanctuary on the parchment, his frustration evident.

Styx Corner Sanctuary.

It is a very small church located in the northern suburbs, in a very remote area with few people and large forests.

It is said that there were only three pastors in that place before, one of whom retired because of his old age.

That's why he was assigned there.

Philip resisted the urge to throw the letter of introduction away and stuffed the parchment back into his luggage.

Of those who were admitted in the same batch, some went to St. Anne of the Weaver Valley, some went to the Leeds Abbey, and others stayed at St. Caleb.

"Hey! I at least ranked in the top ten in the written test, in the top twenty in the physical fitness test, and even my spiritual power test wasn't inferior to others!"

Philip shouted to the sky.

I remember my mentor once said that he was the most hardworking person he had ever met, and that someone as hardworking as him was bound to have a bright future!

But now, unfortunate Philip, the young pastor whose teachers said had a bright future, has been assigned to a remote little sanctuary.

The pain he endured is probably only known to Philip himself.

The dirt road was not smooth; on the contrary, there were more and more gravel on the road.

The cart shook like a sieve as the wheels rolled over the pile of gravel.

Philip felt his stomach churning.

Having barely made it through the road, Philip sat pale-faced on the cart.

This distance nearly cost Philip his life.

The old horse pulled Philip over the hill, and the road ahead became much flatter, with strangely shaped trees growing on both sides.

Even the grass on both sides of the road has grown to waist height, its slender stems swaying in the wind and making a rustling sound.

It's like something is moving through the grass.

"That's strange!"

As Philip walked along the road, he rubbed his arms. He had a feeling that the place was eerie, as if something was watching him.

It was already past four o'clock in the afternoon.

Although the sunlight was bright, the sky had already become somewhat dim.

Philip felt increasingly uneasy, so he picked up the whip again and lashed the old horse a few times, urging it to go faster.

Old Ma took a few steps forward, but then refused to move any further.

"Old buddy! Let's go! Let's go!"

Philip was extremely anxious as he watched Old Ma go on strike!

No matter how loudly he cracked the whip, the old horse closed his eyes and refused to move forward.

Just then, a hissing sound of teeth grinding suddenly came from the bushes on both sides.

Philip was shocked. He quickly dropped the whip in his hand, jumped onto the cart, and looked down at the bushes on both sides.

He tried to find the source of the teeth grinding sound with his eyes.

The wind still blows, and the grass still sways.

The sound of teeth grinding still lingered in the air.

It seems to be getting bigger and closer.

Suddenly, Philip heard a noise and his gaze locked onto an area in front of him.

The grass there is swaying violently!

Philip held his breath, waiting for the thing to reveal its true form.

at last!

As soon as something thin and long peeked out of the grass, Philip gathered air in his hands and blasted it towards the thing.

boom!

In an instant, the air blast tore the slender object in two.

The surrounding grass also looked as if it had been cut by a knife, and it all fell down in unison.

Philip looked closely and realized that what he had just blasted in two with his energy blast was just a large snake.

The snake's head was writhing in agony on the ground.

"Oh, it was a snake..."

Philip had just breathed a sigh of relief when suddenly, a fishy smell entered his nostrils.

"roar!"

With a low growl, a monster lunged out from behind Philip in his shocked peripheral vision!

Immediately, all the birds in the surrounding area flew out of the forest.

……

It was past four o'clock in the afternoon when Lyndon and his two companions left the city in a carriage and headed to Burton's house.

The sun was setting even lower in the west, and it was already quite dim under the trees.

Robin Hood drove his chariot, his eyes fixed on the road, his forehead covered in sweat.

"Don't be nervous, everyone feels this way the first time! You'll get used to it."

Alastor said to Robin Hood with a smile.

He and Lyndon sat in the carriage, with the tent they had just bought at their feet.

"With this, we won't have to squeeze into that little hut anymore."

Alastor bent down, patted the tent, and said to Lyndon with a grin.

With more and more people coming in, the Burtons' house was definitely not big enough, so they simply bought a tent and set it up in the open space outside.

You can also use it later when you enter the Dark Oak Forest.

Lyndon sat next to Alastor, his head resting against the car floor.

He was thinking about the fur shop.

Robin Hood wasn't lying to himself; there really was an old hunter who, even with Viscount William's blockade, could still enter and leave Dark Oak Forest on his own and bring out the finest furs.

The fur shop owner said that the old hunter's whereabouts were unpredictable, but whenever he had any goods, he would come to the shop to sell them.

As they were leaving, the fur shop owner gave them the hunter's address.

"He lives in Gaogang Village in the western suburbs. There is a crooked tree on the edge of the village. If you walk in the direction the crooked tree is pointing, you will see a stone house. If there is a string of fox tails hanging at the door, someone is at home."

Robin Hood told them that this was the hunters' custom.

The carriage turned onto a dirt road.

Looking at the fork in the road, Robin Hood asked, "Sir, left or right?"

Lyndon glanced at it and said, "The left side."

Robin Hood agreed and continued driving forward.

The carriage rolled over a dirt slope.

There was a dense forest on both sides of the road.

Only a narrow path remained in the middle.

The carriage stopped before it had traveled very far.

"Sir! The road is blocked!"

Robin Hood shouted.

A cart ahead was overturned and lying on the ground.

There was also a horse carcass nearby.

"parking!"

Linden smelled blood and immediately shouted.

Lyndon jumped out of the car, his leather shoes making a crisp sound as they stepped on the gravel.

Alastor jumped down as well.

Robin Hood hesitated for a moment, but decided to stay in the carriage.

Lyndon cautiously walked to the horse's carcass.

There were two ferocious teeth marks on the horse's neck.

The wound is so deep that bone is visible.

There were four dagger-like scars on the horse's belly.

Thick blood was gushing out.

The luggage on the cart was carelessly discarded on the ground.

"Linden, there's blood here too!"

Alastor shouted, pointing to a long trail of blood that stretched deep into the woods.

Lyndon crouched down and touched the blood on the ground with his hand.

"It's still a little sticky, even though not much time has passed."

"So what do we do now? Should we leave here or what?" Alastor asked Lyndon for his thoughts.

Lyndon thought for a moment, then said, "Let's go in and take a look."

With that, he and Alastor followed the trail of blood and headed deeper into the woods.

"Hey! Sir! Where are you going?! What should I do?!"

As Robin Hood watched the two men walk into the woods, and seeing the corpses and blood on the ground, he felt a chill run down his spine.

"never mind!"

Robin Hood gritted his teeth, abandoned the carriage, and followed him into the woods.