Assignments, Burst, and Redemption

Horn was quick to act. The moment he finished speaking, he shouldered the shovel and ran out of the cave. After a bout of digging, he dragged the mummified corpse they had buried outside back in.

"Look!" He hooked the edge of his shovel under the corpse's shirt, lowered his shoulder, and flipped it onto its back. "The photo is blurry, but the ratio between the distance between this man's eyes and the height of his forehead is almost one to one. That's pretty unusual."

The Brigadier General slowly approached the corpse and bent down with difficulty. After studying it for a moment, he rubbed the stubble on his chin.

"Horn is right," he said gravely. "The only person still present in this black-and-white group photograph is the mummified corpse that shot himself in this cave. The question now is, where are the others?"

"The others became wild men with salt covering their faces," Xia Lun answered at once. "After all, I found this photo on the body of the 'wild man' who ambushed us. His face was covered in white salt, just like the monsters we encountered in the ship's cabins."

Horn cupped his chin and thought for a while before realization struck him. "So those salt monsters used to be people?!"

"..." The nun, Delis, poked her head out from behind Horn, then gave her lover a rather speechless glance.

The bizarre turn of events seemed to have rekindled her courage. Her timidity gave way to composure once more. She pushed up her glasses with a finger and began laying out her deductions in a clear voice.

"By the undying sacred flame, those loathsome evil spirits made of white salt were once human. And once they transform, they disappear from the group photograph." She blinked. "That also explains