Undead Art

Before long...

Lu Ran and his companions had lined the three little squirrels up in a neat row, trembling with fear.

"Don't be afraid. I'm a good person."

"Just answer a few questions, and I'll let you go."

Lu Ran looked kindly at the three little squirrels.

"Woof!" "Waka!" General Ha and Sudden Death King nodded.

They had no idea why Lu Ran wanted to catch these three, but he certainly was a "good person."

Hopefully, the three little squirrels would know what was good for them.

Telepathy really was convenient.

Lu Ran conveyed his meaning clearly.

Once they understood, the three little squirrels nodded frantically.

"What were you talking about just now?" Lu Ran asked.

The three little squirrels exchanged glances, and the one in the middle began chattering.

[Yesterday, two people fought on the mountain.]

"Two people fought on the mountain, and they were commanding creatures that looked like monsters?" Lu Ran asked.

The little squirrel immediately nodded.

"Two Beast Tamers?" Lu Ran paused in surprise.

But why would two Beast Tamers be bored enough to come out here to fight?

"And then?" Lu Ran asked.

[One died. Got buried.]

[The other left.]

Lu Ran: ???

"Holy shit." Lu Ran's eyes widened abruptly.

He had thought the squirrels' talk of people killing one another was just figurative, referring to a fight.

Someone had actually been murdered?

"What kind of creatures were they commanding?" Lu Ran continued.

[A dead cat...]

[The other one, don't know. Very scary.]

"Do you remember where they fought? Take me there," Lu Ran said.

The three little squirrels exchanged glances again. They were very reluctant, but their fear of Lu Ran made them nod anyway.

A short while later, they led Lu Ran to the site of yesterday's fight.

As soon as they arrived, Lu Ran and General Ha caught the lingering scent of blood.

Looking at the mound of dirt, where the signs of a hasty burial were obvious, Lu Ran's heart began racing again.

Fuck, what was going on?

Although he could easily intimidate animals, when it came to murder and dead bodies, he still had the mindset of an ordinary high school student.

Faced with this, Lu Ran froze on the spot, unsure what to do.

A Beast Tamer had been killed, and their body dumped in the wilderness!

Judging by the scene, the killer didn't seem to be an official Beast Tamer.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have disposed of the body so carelessly.

So was this a murder case?

What should I do?

Call the police?

Would that bring trouble down on me?

But if I don't report it, and the killer is a repeat offender, won't more people die if they aren't caught soon?

"Damn squirrels, making me hear about something like this. I'll remember this grudge."

General Ha and the squirrels: ???

After only a brief moment of thought, Lu Ran took a deep breath and decided to contact the authorities.

He couldn't help it. That was how he had been raised, and he couldn't bring himself to ignore something like this.

Hadn't he enjoyed learning swordsmanship as a child precisely because he wanted to be a wandering hero who drew his sword to right wrongs?

Even if he had passed that dream on to General Ha now... he should at least set an example!

"I'll call Little White Dragon." After thinking it over, Lu Ran realized he was the only person he could contact.

He should have a way to reach the official Beast Tamers in Jinling City.

Before long, Little White Dragon answered the call.

Little White Dragon was quite pleased to hear from Lu Ran. "Hey, Lu Ran! It's been a while."

"Let me guess. You want me to help with something at school? High school's starting soon, right?"

"No... I found a buried body out in the mountains. General Ha has a keen nose, and he determined that a Beast Tamer and a supernatural pet beast are buried here..."

Little White Dragon: ???

"Holy shit." Little White Dragon swore too. The last time Lu Ran had called him, he had found an escaped tiger. This time, he had found a Beast Tamer's corpse?

Why did this kid keep running into trouble?

What did he do all day?!

"Where are you? Still in Green Sea City?" Little White Dragon's expression turned serious as he hurriedly asked.

A Beast Tamer mysteriously buried in the wilderness was no small matter!

"No, I'm in Jinling City now."

"Jinling? That makes things easy!" Little White Dragon said. "My former supervisor transferred to the Beast Taming Tower in Jinling. I'll give him your contact details."

"Public security is now handled separately in each province. I'm in Magic City, so I don't know much about things over there."

"Okay." Lu Ran nodded.

Then Little White Dragon ended the call with Lu Ran and contacted his former supervisor.

The call was answered quickly again.

"Team Leader Zhao!"

"Bai Junjie? What is it? We only parted ways a few days ago."

"Do you remember that rookie Beast Tamer, Lu Ran, also known as John Doe? The one whose family has worked with animals for eighteen generations, whom Dr. Gu thinks highly of?"

"Of course I remember! How could I forget? Now that I've transferred to Jinling, I'm closer to him. Perhaps we'll get a chance to meet."

"He's actually in Jinling right now..." Little White Dragon quickly explained what Lu Ran had encountered.

The other end of the line fell silent for a moment, then an urgent voice said, "Bai, send me his contact details right away. This is urgent."

The three parties connected quickly.

"Is this Lu Ran? I'm Little White Dragon's supervisor, Zhao Chen. He's already told me what happened. Where are you now?"

"I'm at..." Lu Ran quickly gave him the location.

"Lu Ran, thank you for reporting this. It's very likely connected to a case we're investigating. We're heading over immediately. Be careful out there."

After hanging up, Lu Ran sighed softly and looked at the burial site again. Things really weren't simple.

A case the official Beast Tamers were investigating... So the killer might already be on the authorities' radar?!

"You can go now." Lu Ran turned to the three little squirrels. They were no longer of any use, so he decided to send them away.

"Chitter..." The three little squirrels practically wept with joy, turning and running off.

Lu Ran stayed where he was with General Ha and Sudden Death King, waiting.

He hadn't dared dig up the bodies, either, for fear of disturbing the crime scene.

It definitely wasn't because he was scared.

[So scary. There's a dead person. I'm going to drop dead...] Sudden Death King, meanwhile, was worked up the entire time.

As for General Ha, the fearless fellow was staring at the sky, thinking about who knew what.

The official Beast Tamers in Jinling City responded quickly. But rather than the crowd Lu Ran had imagined, only two people arrived a little over ten minutes later.

One was middle-aged, and the other was young.

Upon arriving, they immediately looked toward Lu Ran. The middle-aged man said, "Lu Ran, I'm the one who spoke to you just now. Is this the place?"

"Yes." Lu Ran nodded.

Zhao Chen looked at the burial site, his expression grave.

"Xiao Wang, I'll leave this to you. I'll take Lu Ran away first."

"Okay." The young man made an OK gesture.

"Lu Ran, come back to the city with me. Leave this to the professionals," Zhao Chen said.

"Sure." Lu Ran figured Little White Dragon's former supervisor thought that, as a student, he shouldn't witness bodies being dug up, and wanted to take him away first.

Lu Ran wasn't interested anyway, so he called to General Ha and the lizard perched on his back, "Let's go, then."

Sudden Death King should stop eating, too.

This place... had bad feng shui.

Soon, Lu Ran and his companions headed down the mountain.

On the way, Zhao Chen asked Lu Ran for a more detailed account of what had happened.

Naturally, Lu Ran couldn't say he had heard about it from squirrels, so he embellished the story and adapted it a little.

He explained everything, from his arrival in Jinling City to why he had gone up the mountain.

"You're really lucky. You actually used an Awakening Leaf to evolve a reptile with good potential!"

Looking at Sudden Death King on General Ha's back, Zhao Chen couldn't help commenting. As expected of a rookie Dr. Gu had taken an interest in-and a descendant of eighteen generations of people who worked with animals.

Just then, Zhao Chen answered another call.

"Is it him?" Zhao Chen asked.

"Yes. Tao Hua, a first-year student at Jinling Normal University. He only recently became a Beast Tamer. His roommate reported last night that he'd gone into the wilderness to train, but hadn't returned all night. A friend who's also a Beast Tamer discovered that his Identity Card had been deactivated, and couldn't reach him in Infinite City either," the person on the other end said.

"It looks like he was indeed killed. Both he and his pet beast are dead."

"Then get someone over to handle the bodies and contact his family. I'll head to headquarters and see if we can find some powerful outside help to resolve this as quickly as possible." Zhao Chen sighed, then hung up.

"Uncle Zhao, what kind of case is this?" To build a closer relationship with Lu Ran, Zhao Chen had told him to call him Uncle Zhao.

Although Lu Ran had no interest in the bodies, he was quite interested in the case.

At his question, Zhao Chen smiled bitterly. "You really picked a bad time to come to Jinling. Things haven't been peaceful here lately."

"You only recently became a Beast Tamer, so you might not know this, but there's a mysterious international organization called Other Shore. They possess a special skill that lets them level up by hunting other Beast Tamers and pet beasts."

"Other Shore's members are spread across the world. It's an international criminal organization."

"With the arrival of the fourth wave of Beast Tamers, they've been especially active lately. I had only just transferred to Jinling when I discovered signs of Other Shore's involvement."

"If our assessment is correct, that person was prey hunted by a member of Other Shore."

"They can level up by killing Beast Tamers and pet beasts? How can a skill like that even exist?" Lu Ran was shocked. Fuck, why hadn't I heard of this before?

Being a Beast Tamer came with dangers like this, too?

Even if I stay out of dangerous Secret Realms, I could still become a target?

You can't even level up by killing monsters in Secret Realms... but Beast Tamers can do it by killing one another?

On General Ha's back, Sudden Death King's eyes widened. He could only think how dangerous the world was.

"Woof!" General Ha was speechless. Stop shaking.

"Don't worry. Other Shore's main base is overseas. The ones here are mostly small fry, and they're eliminated as soon as they show up. We won't give them a chance to establish a foothold in Xia Country!" Zhao Chen said.

"But these people are good at hiding, and they really are difficult to deal with. If you encounter them in the future, your best option is to find a chance to run immediately. Use your Identity Card to escape into Infinite City as quickly as possible."

"That rookie probably had no experience dealing with the undead, so he couldn't escape in time, and his soul was devoured."

"The undead? Souls?" Lu Ran was confused.

Zhao Chen explained, "Calling Other Shore's members Beast Tamers isn't really accurate anymore. They possess a special skill, and they kill their own contracted pet beasts, converting them with Undead Servitude. Then they hunt other Beast Tamers and pet beasts to level themselves up by devouring the souls of other supernatural beings."

"That's why, internationally, they're more commonly called Necromancers than Beast Tamers."