The Bearded Pirate Who Volunteered His Allegiance (Part 2)

Pei Chao kept making small talk. Though he was rough by nature, having entered this strange and Weird world, he still felt somewhat uneasy. He simply had no one to confide in normally.

And Feng Buzhi was the first person he had genuinely admired since arriving in this world.

"Eh, found it! Haha!"

Delight appeared on Pei Chao's face. Carrying Feng Buzhi on his back, he hurried forward, picked up his lost machete, and let out a hearty laugh.

This machete had been with him for over a decade, and it fit his hand perfectly.

Feng Buzhi said, "There are two Goblin corpses over there. Did you kill them?"

Pei Chao said, "Oh, so you saw those two corpses. I killed them this morning."

Feng Buzhi said, "When did you kill those two Goblins?"

Pei Chao said, "This morning, I suppose. Why are you asking?"

Feng Buzhi said, "I need to confirm the condition of the corpses. Can you take me to them?"

Pei Chao quickly arrived beside the two corpses and set Feng Buzhi down.

One of the two Goblin corpses was headless. According to Pei Chao's recollection, he had beheaded the Goblin with one stroke, then kicked its head away in passing.

He could no longer remember exactly which direction he had kicked it.

Perhaps he had kicked it too far. Pei Chao searched around for a while but failed to find it.

As for the other corpse, Pei Chao had stabbed a large hole through its right chest. It remained comparatively intact.

Feng Buzhi still could not stand up and walk normally, but his body had stopped convulsing. He could move his arms a little, so long as he did not exert force.

When he placed his palm on the corpse, it yielded like tender meat boiled soft in a pot, and he pressed a depression directly into it.

In just over ten hours, the Goblin's flesh and blood had already decayed beyond recognition.

Feng Buzhi continued examining the other Goblin corpse. Its degree of decay was nearly the same.

Pei Chao had seen such a situation before. He said, "It seems that people who die in the Mist rot incredibly fast. In just a few hours, the corpses spoil. I've even seen a Green-skinned Dwarf that had been dead for several days. The moment you touched its corpse, it turned into something like rotten mud."

As though recalling something, Pei Chao's expression turned grave. "Actually, it isn't just those Green-skinned Dwarves. Humans are the same. If they die here, it won't take long before they rot away."

Feng Buzhi nodded. "The fog here should be accelerating the decomposition of corpses."

As he spoke, Feng Buzhi tore off a piece of decayed flesh and held it beneath his nose to smell it.

Whether living people in the Mist or dead bodies in the Mist, all of them were surrounded by Eerie Whispers.

Feng Buzhi recalled the human corpse he had seen in the dense forest, the one that had been frightened to death. When he touched it and the corpse turned into a pile of stinking rotten mud, the sonar feedback from the whispers had vanished as well.

"So, if a corpse suffers severe damage, it will no longer attract the Weird?"

Feng Buzhi plunged his hand into the Goblin's rotten flesh and stirred it continuously, intending to dismember and break apart the corpse to verify his conjecture.

Pei Chao, standing nearby, saw Feng Buzhi's actions and the corner of his mouth twitched.

He had no psychological burden when it came to killing these Green-skinned Dwarves, and he could chop them into eight pieces without hesitation. But that did not mean he could deal with this rotten flesh. Such decayed meat was simply too disgusting.

He truly could not understand why Feng Buzhi had to pick a fight with this pile of rotten meat.

Pei Chao urged, "We've found the machete. Let's hurry up and leave. We still have a long way to go before we get back to town. Besides, nighttime is different from daytime. I can still hack those Green-skinned Dwarves to death, but they're more agile at night, and there are more of them."

Feng Buzhi did not answer. He merely continued stirring the Goblin's corpse.

As the Goblin's rotten flesh was churned to pieces, the whispers lingering around its corpse soon dissipated.

Feng Buzhi had reached his conclusion—only intact corpses would attract the whispers in the Mist.

As for what proportion of a corpse counted as intact, that required further measurement.

Feng Buzhi said, "Next, I'll return by my own route. You don't need to keep helping me. I can go back alone."

Pei Chao frowned. "What are you talking about? Since I said I'd carry you back, then I'll definitely carry you back. Besides, you saved my life!"

As he spoke, Pei Chao placed Feng Buzhi on his back once more.

Pei Chao said, "Tell me, which way do we go?"

Following Feng Buzhi's directions, they spent over an hour reaching the spot where Feng Buzhi had killed four Goblins and inspected it.

Compared to the two Goblins Pei Chao had killed that morning, the four Goblins Feng Buzhi had killed had died later.

Thus, these Goblins were fresher, and their decay was less severe.

Though their bodies had still decayed, they had at least not become rotten flesh that crumbled at a touch.

After comparing them, Feng Buzhi had confirmed that the true culprit behind the corpses' accelerated decay was the Weird fog pervading the forest.

The only question was what these corpses would become if left alone beneath the lingering Eerie Whispers.

Would they completely decay amid the Whispers of the Fog, eventually turning to dust and becoming soil for this forest; or would these corpses undergo some unknown change beneath the Mist's whispers and become something like Monsters?

Feng Buzhi ultimately failed to find an answer.

Without wasting much time, Pei Chao carried Feng Buzhi onward. Before long, they arrived at a birch grove.

Looking at the birch trees around them, Pei Chao relaxed. "Boss, it's a birch grove. Looks like we'll be back in town before long. Eh, this crooked-necked tree... I should have been here before. I know the way from here. We just need to head northeast. After walking for a bit, a small path will appear. If we follow that path all the way, we can return to town."

Over the course of several hours on the road, the bearded pirate from the Caribbean had unknowingly changed how he addressed Feng Buzhi, calling him Boss.

Feng Buzhi did not correct him. After all, he had already decided to undergo Mortal-world Mind Tempering, and Pei Chao was a good person through whom to blend into the mortal world.

And after calling him Boss a few times, Pei Chao gradually grew accustomed to it, seeming to truly regard himself as Feng Buzhi's subordinate.

Listening to the sonar feedback in the Mist, Feng Buzhi said, "Don't head northeast. We'll go southeast next."

Pei Chao asked doubtfully, "Wouldn't going northeast be faster?"

Feng Buzhi said, "If we continue north, we'll run into a Goblin ambush. There's no need for that."

"So that's how it is."

Pei Chao nodded thoughtfully, remembering what Feng Buzhi had said earlier in the Spider Cave: if one listened carefully to the whispers in the Mist, one could sense nearby Monsters.

Thinking about it carefully, they had not encountered a single Green-skinned Dwarf on their way back. That was clearly abnormal.

After all, there were more Monsters in the forest at night than during the day.

It seemed Feng Buzhi had been leading him around the Monsters in the forest all along.

Pei Chao was still thinking when he suddenly heard Feng Buzhi's voice.

Feng Buzhi said, "Come to think of it, I haven't told you my name yet."