Vivian jogged along, several orange fruits tucked into her arms.
She stepped lightly on the humus covering the upper layer of the earth. With every step she took, the withered leaves made a soft, rustling sound. Vivian raised her hand to shield her eyes from the piercing sunlight. In her peripheral vision, she caught two black figures silhouetted against the light ahead.
Nolan and Blake were already waiting for her at the exit. Vivian unconsciously quickened her pace. She ran a short distance, passing a few thick fruit trees, before the view ahead suddenly opened up.
“Wow, a great desert!” Vivian couldn’t help but exclaim.
Before her lay an endless, clay-yellow wilderness. The wasteland was sparsely dotted with waist-high, withered thorns. To the left of Vivian’s field of vision stood a crooked tree with a crown devoid of green leaves, its branches covered in sharp spikes.
Without realizing it, the three of them had reached the edge of the jungle. The jungle and the desert were separated by a single slope. To the north of the slope was the jungle, and to the south was the desert. Right now, they stood at the very top of that slope. The lush trees were left behind as they prepared to enter the wilderness.
“Where is Mr. Gareth?”
Vivian put down the fruit she had mostly eaten and wiped the residual juice from the corner of her mouth with her sleeve. She tilted her chin up and looked at Nolan, who was standing to the side, asking about the living corpse’s whereabouts.
Vivian was still concerned about the matter regarding the Demon. After all, she wasn’t actually here for a vacation. The purpose of this trip was to bring down the price of bread!
“He has already found the location where the Blue Whale Caravan was attacked.”
Nolan pointed toward a side of the wilderness. Vivian followed his finger with her gaze. A packed dirt road cut through the wasteland, and not far from them, the remains of the attacked caravan lay strewn across it.
Even the birds dared not approach; it was a scene of total silence. There wasn’t a hint of life. Originally, the bodies of the caravan members and the pack animals had been moved by Edward. Only the lame living corpse, Gareth, remained wandering among the wreckage, adding an even more ghastly air to the unsettling scene.
Several log carriages were tilted or overturned beside the dirt road. Broken axles were stabbed into the sand, covered in charred marks. The cargo boxes that had been tied to the back of the carriages with hemp rope had long since broken loose, half-buried in the sand with only their corners exposed. Linen cargo bags had been slashed open with sharp blades, but the goods inside were nowhere to be seen.
Just then, a sudden gust of wind swept in from nowhere, swirling the yellow dust into the sky. Vivian quickly turned around and covered her face tightly with her hands. After a moment, the sandstorm gradually dissipated. Vivian lowered her hands and slowly opened her dark red eyes.
The caravan remains were now covered in a thin layer of dust and sand. She felt a surge of relief. ‘It’s a good thing we arrived early… If more time had passed, the wilderness would have swallowed these remains, completely erasing all traces of their existence. By then, we would have been wandering the desert like headless flies…’
The three of them hesitated no longer and began walking toward the wreckage of the caravan.
***
*Tweet—*
Standing in the midst of the wreckage, Vivian blew into the bone whistle in her hand with all her might. A sharp, mournful sound echoed back and forth between the remains of the carriages, spreading across the empty wilderness.
“Sit down and be good!” Vivian said clearly to the living corpse, Gareth.
Gareth shook his head slightly. Then, he lowered his stiff body and sat down on the soft sand. Dark brown corpse fluid trickled down his leg bones, seeping stickily into the sand and creating a murky wet stain beneath him.
Nolan closed his eyes, his face filled with a look of piety as he slowly recited a prayer. A ball of pale gold flame ignited out of thin air in his hand. Nolan walked up to Gareth and gently pressed the flame against the living corpse’s forehead.
*Whump!*
The moment the fire touched Gareth, the pale gold flames erupted. In the blink of an eye, the fire engulfed Gareth from head to toe. A two-meter-high pillar of fire appeared in the middle of the wilderness.
Standing beside the fire, Vivian stared intently as Gareth gradually melted within the flames. A few untimely thoughts flashed through her mind.
‘I’m also undead. If that kind of fire touched me… would I be finished too?’ At the thought, she couldn’t help but hug her arms and shiver. ‘The people from the Church are so scary…’
“Thank… you.”
A raspy voice drifted from the pillar of fire. Gareth used the last of his consciousness to thank Nolan. At that moment, the soul remaining in the corpse finally broke free from its rotting shackles, heading toward the underworld to enter the cycle of reincarnation.
After a while, the pale gold flames slowly died out. In their place remained a pile of grayish-white ash. A gust of wind blew, and the ash scattered into the air.
And just like that, the temporary member of the team, the living corpse Gareth, was completely purified by Nolan’s holy fire.
***
When they had bid farewell to Edward, Edward had made a request to Nolan. He asked that after Gareth led them to their destination, Nolan would help complete Gareth’s purification. Now, that promise had been fulfilled.
“May Eleos protect you,” Nolan whispered a blessing with his head bowed.
Then, he turned around and said to Vivian, “Vivian, come with me to check the remains of the Blue Whale Caravan. We need to look for any abnormal information that might be hidden here.”
“Oh—” Vivian took out a fresh orange fruit and bit into the skin, responding absentmindedly.
Right at that moment, Blake, who had been keeping watch nearby, ran over with hurried steps. Despite his pace, his voice remained steady. “Someone is coming!”
“Who? How many?” Nolan’s expression tightened as he immediately asked.
“It should be another merchant caravan, about thirty or forty people. They have freight carriages and pack animals. Among them, there are about ten armed personnel wearing armor and carrying weapons.”
Hearing Blake’s report, confusion and doubt filled Nolan’s heart. Ever since the Demon attack occurred outside Ma’en City, all merchant caravans had been avoiding the city like the plague. He hadn’t expected anyone to actually dare take this route for trade.
‘Risking their lives for money… How troublesome.’
“Let’s go, Vivian. We’ll go talk to them. It would be best if we can persuade them to abandon this route.” Nolan sighed, rubbing his forehead in exasperation. Having said that, he followed Blake toward the approaching caravan.
“Ah… om…”
Vivian stuffed the last piece of fruit into her mouth, mumbling incoherently. Then, she lifted the clothes over her midriff and reached inside, feeling her soft belly.
‘I’m so hungry…’ Vivian complained inwardly.
As she looked at Nolan’s broad back, a hint of hunger and thirst that she couldn’t hide flickered in her eyes. She quickly shook her head, trying to banish those terrible thoughts from her mind.
‘No, I have to hold out until tonight…’
With a thought, Vivian summoned her semi-transparent panel to check her status.
**[Satiety: 61]**
‘Oh my god!’ she screamed in her head. She hadn’t paid much attention over the last few days, and her satiety was almost at its critical limit! ‘If I don’t get a sip of blood today, I might actually go crazy…’
The edges of Vivian’s dark red pupils began to tremble irregularly like water droplets. Countless blood-red threads spread from the center of her pupils toward the edges, gradually staining the whites of her eyes red. It gave off a lethal and terrifyingly viscous sensation.
Vivian rubbed her eyes vigorously, trying her best to make herself look less frightening. ‘I can’t let Nolan purify me later…’
Taking a deep breath, Vivian steadied herself.
“Wait for me!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, then used her short legs to chase after Nolan and Blake.