Armored Cavalry, survive in a world full of mods

Anyway, Ark knew in his heart that his mediocre skills were probably no match for this guy, and Zoroya was about the same. If the two of them didn't come up with a plan, they would probably be done for today.

"Calm down! Don't panic. Maybe this person has gone mad. If he attacked you first, he might be able to get away with it! So don't rush, let's call the sheriff first!"

In desperation, Ark blurted out nonsense—of course, one can retaliate when attacked, and there will be no punishment. However, if one takes a life without the other party having a lethal weapon, it will be impossible to clear one's name. But the most urgent thing now is to calm the other party down and prevent them from killing the two of them in the heat of the moment.

Soroya finally realized that this guy seemed to be the type whose brain slowed down in emergency situations, which was especially bad in the current situation, leaving him as the only one who could negotiate with the other party.

"No! You don't understand! Normally, if someone attacked me like this, I wouldn't immediately use my killer hand. He really wanted to kill me! And it was very dangerous, so I acted instinctively..."

The fear on Morsaforso's face gradually faded, but he was clearly a little anxious. However, he did not let his emotions get too intense. Seeing him like this, Ark also breathed a slight sigh of relief. After all, the calmer he was, the less likely he was to turn against them, and the safer the two of them would be.

"Yes, you're right, but no matter what, we definitely have to tell the sheriff first. We'll both speak up for you, don't worry. Let's see who this guy is first. Maybe he's some kind of saboteur who infiltrated the city, and then you'll actually get credit!"

Yak tried to continue his nonsense, but Morsaforso suddenly calmed down, sighed, swayed, and his shoulders slumped.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Ark, I won’t hurt you… I’m just sad for myself. I barely survived that hellhole, and I thought I could finally live a more human life… but it still ended up like this. Maybe this is my fate. I’ll turn myself in to the sheriff in a bit…”

Ark and Zoroya were at a loss for words. After learning each other's stories, they could more or less understand each other's feelings—who could accept ruining their future life and prospects by accident? Especially for such a tragic reason.

Seeing that Morsaforso had squatted on the ground, clutching his head and falling into a painful, withdrawn state, Ark approached him with mixed feelings and then came to the motionless corpse on the ground.

This guy was like a beggar in every city, wearing tattered burlap clothes, the edges of which were frayed and torn from long-term use, and the clothes were covered with patches of all sizes... These clothes could not even be washed with water, because if you tried to wring them out, they would be torn to shreds like paper, and you could only let layers of dirt reinforce their fragile fibers.

He didn't even have shoes; his pale, withered feet were bare. Beneath his messy hair was a wound the size of a fist, through which one could easily see the gaps in the cut bone, blood vessels, and muscles—the dagger had unconsciously chewed up the flesh when it was pulled out, creating a wound powerful enough to kill even the strongest man.

It's unclear under what circumstances such a terrible habit could have developed... but without a doubt, the victim was beyond dead, so he could only sigh and turn the body over, hoping to find out if he could learn anything more.

Unsurprisingly, the face, covered in filth and blood, was completely obscured, so he had to spend some time plucking a handful of leaves from the nearby grass and vigorously wiping his face.

It was a very thin, scarred face with sparse, almost bald eyebrows and crooked, yellow teeth, clearly indicating a very poor diet. The features were thin and sharp... but none of this was as striking as the mouth.

"...What the hell is this thing?"

Ark let out a sigh, his eyes fixed on the black tentacles extending from the mouth—slippery, shiny, and with rings upon rings, stretching out from the upper palate and extending five inches outside the mouth.

"These are cult members of the Holy Order of Knowledge!"

Morsaferso jumped up suddenly, all the despair and anxiety he had just felt vanished. He stared intently at the strange tentacle, his expression rapidly changing, even revealing a hint of joy and a great sense of relief.

"Is this the Holy Retreat of the Supreme Consciousness?"

Soloar approached with considerable surprise, examining the corpse from head to toe... Fortunately, most of the people from the Rat's Den had left, otherwise they would probably have already started making a scene upon seeing them handling a corpse.

He certainly knew what the Holy Order of Knowledge was. In fact, a month after the Empire took over the city, there was related propaganda, which emphasized this so-called cult. Anyone who had any contact with this organization was an unforgivable crime in the Empire, and anyone who discovered any clues about this organization and confirmed them would receive a generous reward.

No one knows why this terrible country harbors such great hostility towards such an organization. The black-clad prison guards often search the city for these cultists... and those who are arrested never show up again.

Because the bounty was so generous, quite a few attempts to frame others were made on this newly conquered land. But somehow, the framing people were always caught in time and punished cruelly... No one knew how the Empire judged this.

“That’s right, it’s definitely them! I heard in Cerisonas that these guys also have disgusting and bizarre things growing inside their bodies, they’re not human anymore, this guy is a cultist!”

Moorsaforso, who had been drenched in cold sweat, was now completely relieved, even somewhat delighted. In an instant, he had gone from hell to heaven, and even had the mind to retrieve his dagger.

"Now everything's fine. Anyone can kill them without any consequences. At least I don't have to worry about being punished... But these guys definitely aren't planning anything good to be here. We should report them now."

"That's true... Uh, were there these people around us just now?"

Soloar suddenly turned pale and shakily pointed around them. At that moment, Ark noticed that several other raggedly dressed men were slowly approaching them from the darkness, their limbs twitching as they walked.

Morsaphso narrowed his eyes, reached for the simple short sword at his waist, and gripped a curved dagger in his right hand.

"Stop spacing out, these guys have bad intentions!"

As soon as they finished speaking, the two in front of them pounced forward, their black tentacles still dripping with disgusting slime. At the same time, the blade in Morsafoso's hand drew a cold arc, easily slicing open the filthy neck. At the same time, the dagger in his right hand viciously pierced through the opponent's jaw and went all the way into the brain.

Compared to his composure and ferocity, Ark and Zoroya were caught off guard and flustered. After all, they were not professional soldiers, but an official and a bakery owner. Faced with the reckless attacks of these strange guys, their first thought was not to fight back, but to frantically parry.

This approach was so clumsy that it destroyed their advantage of being armed. They retreated in panic as these beasts attacked them relentlessly, eventually getting into a terrible stalemate, only able to scream in terror and try to keep the tentacles and teeth away from their necks.

Meanwhile, Morsaforso was already dealing with his third opponent. Faced with the opponent's swift but reckless grappling, he simply lowered his body slightly to avoid the two arms. As he bent down, he used his dagger to sever the tendons behind the opponent's knees. Then, as he stood up, he struck the back of the head with the hilt of his sword and finally pulled on the hair to slit the throat with the blade.

Ark was yelling and trying to avoid the tentacles reaching towards his face, while the short sword in his hand was being gripped tightly by the guy's two hands. The sharp blade cut through his flesh but got stuck on the hard finger bones, leaving Ark completely bewildered.

"Aren't you fucking going to let go?!"

Moorsaforso, who was dealing with his fourth opponent, finally couldn't hold back any longer:

"Since that sword didn't grow into your hand, throw it away and pick up a stone!"

He almost couldn't help but curse at the two guys for their slowness, but Yak suddenly realized what was happening, immediately released his hand and turned to the side, causing the guy to slip right past him due to the force of his movement.

In his panic, he had almost no choice but to reach out and grab a pitchfork from the carriage next to him. Taking advantage of the fact that the man had his back to him, he howled and stabbed him.

The sharp pitchfork pierced through his back without any resistance, but he was horrified to find that the body still had the strength to struggle. However, he dared not let go and could only forcibly hold on with the pitchfork, trying to disturb the other's internal organs by shaking it up and down.

This didn't work, so he suddenly pulled out the pitchfork and started stabbing and stabbing at the creature wildly, while letting out incomprehensible screams and howls. Finally, he didn't know where he had stabbed it, but the thing finally stopped moving...

Meanwhile, Zoroya was rescued at that moment. When Zoroya was about to collapse, Morsafosso beheaded the last attacker from behind. After the fierce battle, everyone was covered in crimson blood, and the ground around them was covered in blood, just like a slaughterhouse... Of course, there was only one who could be called the butcher.

391 Water source (4)

Yak now believed that the difference between people was greater than that between people and dogs... Morsaforso killed these guys as quickly and naturally as dancing. While the two of them were still clumsily trying to push each other away, he had already cut the necks of several people in a row, as easily as killing a few clucking chickens.

Although he never boasted about his strength in the past, he still considered himself a strong man who could handle any situation... But now he no longer had any unrealistic ideas. If he really encountered a guy like Morsaforso, all they would do was yell louder when they died.

He fared slightly better, taking down one with a pitchfork, while Zoroya merely yelled and screamed the whole time… but both of them were equally exhausted at this point. Their panic had drained most of their strength, while Morsafoso remained energetic, seemingly capable of taking on several more men at any moment.

“This place is probably not very safe. Let’s leave first and then report to the city’s garrison commander immediately. I estimate that these guys are still hiding in the shadows of the city, but I don’t know why they attacked us… It would be good if we could leave one alive to ask them.”

Soloar finally caught his breath and immediately stood up to make a decision. This guy's mind always worked very fast, and he could always find the most important thing to do in the midst of chaos, so the other two had no objections. They hurriedly got up from the ground and rushed to the garrison camp in the north of the city, not even bothering to care about the corpses scattered on the ground.

………………

"What happened...?"

The city outside remained as quiet as when they arrived. After all, many of the city's residents had been evacuated to nearby towns and villages. The once bustling streets were now deserted. But as they passed through the wide roads without hindrance, and after turning a few blocks, just as they were about to reach their destination, they suddenly smelled a strong, acrid odor.

When they finally arrived at the street outside the garrison camp after some hesitation, they were immediately choked by the thick smoke and stench, and stared in astonishment at the huge burning bonfire.

It was undoubtedly a burning pile of corpses, with large amounts of wood and fuel thrown in as fuel. Imperial soldiers in steel armor stood guard around, holding blood-stained weapons, while the Imperial centurion he had seen that day was currently hacking at a still twitching corpse on the ground with a battle axe.

The steel-forged axe blade easily sliced ​​through bone and tore through muscle, each swing producing a chilling cracking sound... It didn't look like an execution at all, but rather like torture and desecration of a corpse.

He swung the axe three or four times in succession, ravaging the corpse's jaw, neck, and chest in a gruesome manner, before kicking the body into the nearby fire. He then stood up, his axe blade still stained with blood and bits of flesh.

The three of them stopped in their tracks as if struck by lightning. Seeing this horrific scene, they couldn't help but have all sorts of ominous thoughts... such as soldiers starting to commit massacres in the city.

This was not a rare occurrence. Even if they hadn't witnessed it firsthand, they had heard about it from various terrifying rumors. In the midst of war, conquest, confrontation, and destruction, terrible killings were always easily bred... For citizens like them, that was the real catastrophe and hell.

Ark's legs began to tremble again, and he almost instinctively turned and ran away. Meanwhile, Morsafoso, who had just displayed great prowess among them, was now stiff-faced and trembling as if he had encountered his natural enemy. He also had an urge to turn and run away. Only Zoroya met him with a natural expression.

"May Goddess bless you, sir! What has happened? We can smell the stench of burning corpses from far away."

The centurion looked up at them and waved his hand impatiently.

"This is none of your business. Once you've finished your business, go home early. There will be a public notice posted later."

“Uh… actually, sir, we have something else to report. It’s quite important. We’ve discovered traces of the Holy Order of Knowledge cultists in the city. They even attacked the three of us… We felt we couldn’t afford to be negligent, so we came here to report immediately.”

"What!?--"

Suddenly, Commander Bai frowned and reached out to pull Zoroya towards him:

"You mean you encountered the Holy Order of Consciousness?!"

“That’s right, sir. Our Morsaffer knows these outlaws, and they all have disgusting tentacles growing from their mouths, so they must be—”

The hand gripping his arm suddenly released its hold, and the centurion interrupted him with a hint of regret:

"No, what you encountered were not those wicked people, but just some living corpses."

"A corpse?!"

Now it was Zorua's turn to be surprised. The words "come back to life" and "corpse" together were enough to evoke a kind of terrifying association... But generally speaking, this should be a little story told in casual conversation after drinking at night, and it would be best if told by an old man or woman with a weathered face, accompanied by a hot beer to dispel the chill.

But the stern-faced soldier in front of me clearly wouldn't be telling stories at this moment... which means this is actually true?!

Perhaps seeing how surprised he looked, the centurion offered him a few more words of explanation:

"This morning, there was some unusual activity in the morgue where the citizens who had died from accidentally drinking poisoned water were kept. When I led the team there, we found that the corpses had come back to life. Each of them had sharp tentacles growing out of their mouths, covered with a corrosive, sticky substance. It took some effort to get rid of them."

"The things those corpses turned into weren't particularly powerful, but they were quite difficult to kill. You had to destroy their spines to make them stop moving. Just in case, we piled them up and burned them as ordered from above... What you encountered were probably poor people who died in their own houses after drinking water, and it just so happened that you ran into them at this time."

"...Uh...I think I've said a bit too much...Never mind, just be careful and don't keep talking nonsense, otherwise if you break the law and get arrested and thrown in jail, no one will save you. Okay, go do what you need to do."

........................

The decay and stench brought by death is an unsolvable problem in this era, and people can only rely on the thick and broad earth to contain the decay, so as not to have a greater impact on the living.

However, if it becomes necessary to transport a corpse and other perishable items to one place, using ice to cool them down is a barely acceptable method.

Ice cellars exist only in the northernmost cities of the entire Kingdom of Hols. They are responsible for providing comfortable temperatures for the border dukes and other nobles during the hot summer. Some of the ice blocks are even specially purchased from the north in winter and stored in deeply dug low-temperature ice cellars.

This could have an effect, but it could never be perfect. The body still began to decompose, but it didn't decompose to the point where it was inaccessible, nor did it turn the important parts into putrid liquid that was no longer recognizable.

Wearing three layers of gauze treated with herbs and potions, and completely wrapped in a protective suit soaked in potion, Talina, with the help of three assistants, began to dissect the corpse.

The entire room was covered in marble, including the ceiling and walls, and was spotless. It made one subconsciously feel that walking into such a place with dirty shoes was a sin. At the same time, the stench of the rotting corpse was also tightly sealed inside, continuously damaging the sense of smell.

Anyone who stays in such a place needs a strong will, let alone personally dissect that decaying corpse.

The sticky flesh, the white and discolored bones and blood vessels, and the large mass of internal organs that had begun to turn green were not easy to approach. Even the two assistants occasionally looked hesitant and subconsciously wanted to stay away. Only Tarina remained calm as she busied herself in front of the corpse, using tweezers, a knife, and pliers to separate and dissect it.

It wasn't until several hours later that the mutated parts of the corpse were completely removed. The tentacle fibers growing from the bones and muscles were carefully extracted, and even the obviously mutated and twisted bones were meticulously drawn and recorded on parchment.

This mutation didn't involve many changes, only some minor differences, but it didn't affect the overall picture... So Tarina quickly shifted her attention to the well water that had also been delivered and the liquid remaining in the broken glass bottle.

The deliberate act of sending people to release this liquid into the water source was obviously intended to pollute it, while simultaneously creating chaos and destruction in their newly conquered lands. However, the specifics of how this would be achieved remained to be investigated… Talina did not believe that these vicious enemies would go to such lengths simply to deliver a deadly poison.

So they carefully sampled, filtered, and analyzed the samples... They even placed them in a nutrient solution for catalysis. Talina dared not be careless in the slightest... She knew very well that the situation had become dangerous. The land they had just conquered was not yet stable, and people's hearts were still somewhat unsettled. The reason why nothing had gone wrong was entirely because the imperial army had swept across the entire south and crushed all its opponents.

Ultimately, they could not maintain their rule over the South through mere suppression. The widespread pollution of water sources was precisely a vicious and targeted scheme. If they could not find a solution in time, it was entirely predictable what kind of destruction and turmoil would erupt in the newly conquered lands.

Regardless of how she goes about hunting down these vicious individuals lurking in the shadows, she must find a solution as soon as possible...

And so, after an unknown amount of time, Tarina finally reached her final conclusion—

........................

"A living thing? —"

“That’s right, sir. We can now confirm that this liquid contains a large number of insect eggs, rather than the highly toxic substance we originally thought it was… However, we still need time to investigate the specific function of these insects. But it is unlikely to be simple. Just because of their strong reproductive ability, it will be difficult for us to completely eliminate this thing from the water source. Even if a few escape, they can continue to reproduce and return to their previous state.”

Tersolius frowned, his expression grave as he continued his conversation with Talina:

“I have just received a report that the same signs are occurring in several major cities, which must be related to the contaminated water source… If this continues, I will have to worry about whether there is enough water in the entire south to safely supply the army.”

"Is the situation bad, sir?"

"It's really bad."

Tersolius gently picked up the three parchments placed on the left side of the table. Although the cheap paper they had developed was beginning to become more widespread, no one dared to be negligent when it came to such important information. They still used the expensive but reliable parchment to record things. And at this moment, the contents recorded on these three parchments were surprisingly consistent.

"Many people died from drinking contaminated water before. Their symptoms at the time of death were like those of someone who had been poisoned. Their bodies were temporarily collected and prepared for further processing... But now, the reports I've received all show that these bodies have come back to life and are growing bizarre and twisted limbs, causing chaos in the cities we've conquered."

"Of course, these corpses won't be as lethal or dangerous as those elite soldiers, but they're still enough to cause panic in the city. If we hadn't already carried out an evacuation to alleviate the city's water problem, the situation could have been much worse."

"As long as the water problem remains unresolved, the unrest among the people will not cease... I must admit that their vicious and despicable methods have indeed been effective. After all, I cannot abandon the entire South, much less give up the land I have finally acquired. This gave them an opportunity."

"For now, we can still manage by relying on uncontaminated water sources. I have also ordered the army to keep a close watch on the water, so it should be difficult for them to continue polluting it. But we still need to find a way to solve the water source problem in those major cities and towns as soon as possible... I'll have to rely on you for that."

Tarina nodded calmly and accepted the task very naturally... or rather, the girl had already prepared herself; she knew she had this ability, so she did not shrink back or hesitate.

"In fact, sir, I already have a solution in mind—since this isn't a toxin, but a living organism, we can use methods for dealing with living organisms to solve it..."

392 Danger (1)

"Should we use poison to solve this?"

Tersol immediately understood; after all, in previous similar situations, the terrible toxins concocted by Talina had played a crucial role. He naturally assumed that the same method would be used this time, but Talina chuckled and shook her head:

"Toxins will certainly be very effective, but they will also cause considerable damage to water sources. After all, toxins that can completely kill all parasites in the entire underground water system also have terrible destructive power and are difficult to eliminate in the short term. In fact, they may cause even greater long-term consequences."

"Would boiling it with lime have any effect?"

"Unfortunately, not possible."

Talina gently shook her head:

"The other party was clearly well-prepared. This sample showed an unusually high level of environmental tolerance. Moreover, the well water is connected to an underground water source, which is not something that can be easily dealt with."

"...This is indeed a very tricky situation. Has my doctor come up with any good solutions?"

Tarina pursed her lips, deliberately ignoring a certain form of address, and finally adjusted her expression, trying her best not to become smug: