Mining Village

Everyone turned to look at Wu Heng, and he was taken aback as well.

Then he realized they were talking to him.

Looking at the miner, whose mannerisms resembled a Zombie's, Wu Heng was somewhat speechless.

Though he was a Necromancer, that only meant he could cast skills.

He was not some actual scholar. How would he know how to examine these things?

But since they had asked, he could only step forward to inspect the miner's condition.

The miner looked utterly deranged, drool hanging from the corner of his mouth.

Like a madman, he tried to attack the people in front of him.

His pupils were still focused, and his skin did not have the same condition as a Zombie's.

Wu Heng removed his glove and pressed his hand against the skin of the man's neck.

He could feel the warmth of a living body, and there was no aura of a Necromancer either.

Rather than a Zombie, he seemed more like a rabies patient.

Irritable, crazed, like a wild beast.

The difference from a Zombie was that his body still showed signs of life.

"He isn't Undead. He seems more like he's gone mad," Wu Heng said, then added, "Though I can't rule out other methods of the Undead."

Even though he had not seen many Undead Creatures, he could tell that the miner before him was not a unit transformed through Necromantic Magic.

Then the Curly-haired Investigator stepped forward to conduct an examination as well.

He reached roughly the same conclusion.

Plamon nodded, casually tossed the frenzied miner aside, and ordered, "Tie up all the ones still alive. Don't let them interfere with the investigation ahead."

"Yes!" the guards answered. They searched the village for some hemp rope and Scrap Cloth, then began tying up the miners.

Of the more than twenty crazed miners, nearly half had died in the earlier clash, while the rest were all wounded.

With injuries like those, and with their mad, self-destructive struggling, even if they regained their senses later, they would likely be left disabled.

But that was still better than being killed outright by the guards.

Before long, the miners were bound tightly and thrown into a wooden house.

Once the Investigation Team confirmed there were no other dangers, they continued deeper into the village.

The entire village was empty.

Desolate and abandoned.

Along the road, they could see wooden buckets and pickaxes left by the roadside, along with clothes hung out to dry.

The guard squad formed up and chatted quietly as they walked.

The Adventurer Team followed behind them.

Cavina spoke in a low voice. "This isn't as simple as missing people."

The intelligence Blackstone Town had received, as well as the information provided by the Mine Owner, had all said the villagers had vanished.

No one could be found alive or dead.

But what they had encountered was an entirely different situation.

The crazed miners had rushed out at them. It was completely different from people going missing.

"There are two possibilities. First, the information changed over time. The missing people returned to the village, and for some reason, these villagers began to lose their minds. Second, whoever provided the information concealed the truth," Wu Heng analyzed.

"As if we needed you to tell us that!" Cavina said.

"What I mean is, if it's the second possibility, then our situation may be dangerous."

His voice was not loud, but the surroundings were unnaturally quiet.

When the others heard that, their expressions changed, and they looked at one another.

If it was the second possibility, it meant this mission itself was a conspiracy, and their Investigation Team might already have fallen into the enemy's trap.

Thinking of the first Investigation Team that had gone missing made it even more worrying.

Neither possibility was difficult to understand.

A brief explanation was enough for everyone to grasp them.

Once they realized it, unease crept into their hearts.

After a brief silence, the Curly-haired Investigator spoke up in rebuttal. "The Mine Owner has no reason to lie. The mine is his source of income. If something happens here, he'll be more anxious than anyone. He has no reason to deceive us, and deceiving the Investigation Team would carry serious consequences."

That made sense.

It really did.

Wu Heng nodded, indicating that he agreed with him.

Blindly speculating now would only make matters more complicated.

The group advanced along the road.

The village was larger than they had imagined. Houses crisscrossed one another, forming a maze of winding paths.

There was more and more clutter along both sides of the road.

Mine carts and pickaxes, stones and miscellaneous debris piled into small hills.

Several trees as thick as thighs had hemp ropes and strips of cloth hanging from them like trailing curtains.

A breeze passed through, making them sway gently.

Quiet, yet eerie.

Soon, the group passed through the village and saw a massive mountain.

Mining Village had been built around this mine.

Years of excavation had left the mountain riddled with holes, with countless mine shafts.

"Someone's over there," a guard said.

Looking ahead, they could see three corpses in front of a rubbish heap piled with broken stones and debris.

The squad quickly approached, and everyone's expressions turned somewhat grim.

Judging by their clothing, they were members of the missing Investigation Team.

Someone had actually dared to attack the Investigation Team.

This matter was likely far more serious than they had imagined.

The Curly-haired Investigator began examining the bodies. From the arms of one corpse, he found a notebook and opened it.

Wu Heng and the others immediately gathered around, reading its contents by the light of dusk.

The village was completely empty. Daily necessities and valuables had not been taken away, and traces of everyday life remained...

The earlier entries all recorded the state of the village.

Unlike Wu Heng's group, the first Investigation Team had not encountered any crazed villagers at the entrance. They had only recorded an empty village.

This matched the intelligence from Blackstone Town.

It had all said the village was empty and its people had gone missing.

But they clearly had more time. They had inspected the houses, yet found no useful clues.

Curly Hair flipped to the second page.

Late at night, firelight appeared in the village, along with noisy voices. Following the firelight, we arrived at the center of the village and saw the missing villagers gathered in the open space. They seemed to be holding a dance.

Some threw back their heads and sang, blood flowing from their mouths. Some danced, the flesh of their feet already mangled. These people were like madmen, behaving abnormally.

We waited until dawn. The crazed villagers began walking toward the mountain behind the village. We followed them, intending to see where they had been hiding and why they had become like this.

The record ended there.

The later entries provided very useful clues.

At night, the crazed villagers would come out to sing and dance. By then, their mental state had already begun to deteriorate.

When Wu Heng's group arrived, the villagers' condition had become even more severe, and they had begun to lose control.

At dawn, they would head toward the mine.

And yet, this Investigation Team had all died at the foot of the mountain.

Had they been discovered?

That shouldn't have been possible. They had managed to follow them all the way to the mountain. How could they have been discovered at the very end?

Wu Heng analyzed it inwardly and was just about to raise his head to speak.

But he discovered that everyone was staring at him in unison.

"What?"

Wu Heng instinctively stepped forward. The others all took a step back together, staring warily behind him.

Damn!

In an instant, Wu Heng felt every hair on his body stand on end, his spine turning cold.