World of Disorder, morning.
Ed found Gray again and asked him about the Blood Corpse.
After being infected, the players' status is displayed as [ Blood Curse--Antos ]. Ed naturally wants to ask who Antos is.
"That must be the name of a vampire grand duke."
Gray for a moment and then answered.
Ed frowned slightly:
"Should?"
"Yes, just like Xilǐ'er mentioned before about the Earl of the Wens Lineage he murdered, both names should belong to the Grand Duke of Vampires, although I don't understand how you know that."
Ed nodded and asked again:
"What about the remaining five?"
I don't know either.
Gray gave an embarrassed, awkward laugh.
" The Graycast Corridor doesn't teach these things."
"All right."
Ed mentally summarized the current information about the Grand Duke of Vampires.
Besides Wens and Antos, there should be five other Grand Dukes whose names are unknown. According to Xilǐ'er, Wens and his three brothers (sisters) must have been imprisoned in the Demon Realm by the two Gatekeepers, while Antos and the other two Grand Dukes were sealed outside by two Elf Sealers.
What he was encountering now was the gradually resurrecting Blood Corpse of the Antos Lineage. If he could pinpoint the location of the seal, he might be able to persuade the Eternal Domain and the Graycast Corridor to send a separate force to annihilate them.
The idea of a three-way coalition wiping out a lineage of Blood Corpse made Ed think it could be turned into a massive campaign.
But this can only be considered a backup plan.
Just as the Graycast Corridor would capture Blood Corpse to use as power components, Ed would also repurpose the corpses of Blood Corpse into his own nourishment and experience points.
He didn't want to share this dangerous yet tempting experience with anyone else.
However, Gray also mentioned the method used in the Graycast Corridor to destroy the Blood Corpse...
Since it uses a mechanical structure for pulverization, how to handle the meat scraps and fragments must be a problem, right?
If I had the opportunity to start my own recycling business, it wouldn't be a bad idea, would it?
In short, Ed still hopes to contain the resurgence of the Blood Corpse on his own before things get out of control.
Unless all three sealed lineages of Blood Corpse awaken simultaneously, he absolutely cannot contain himself and will have to seek help from other forces as much as possible, whether it's the Eternal Domain, the Graycast Corridor, the Elves, or even... the headquarters of the Tree Worship Church Cult.
" Duolin, can you hear me?"
Ed's voice echoed in Duolin's mind, Duolin, who had effectively become the mayor of White Wax Town, immediately sat up straight with a jolt:
"What are your orders, Son of God?"
Have Aoda, Tasi, and Baluo, who went to deliver the message, returned?
" Aoda, who delivered the message to Fir City, the capital of Aduolin, has returned. Tasi and Baluo are going to the Holy City, so they will probably need about five more days."
"Alright, a package will be delivered to you later today. Have Aoda go to Fir City to deliver the message."
"What are you planning to deliver...?"
"Send a Blood Corpse corpse's head to the archbishop and tell him that the legendary monster has revived near the White Wax Town Parish."
Ed explained with a smile in Duolin's mind:
"Perfect timing. It's been a while since your last letter, hasn't it? It's time for you to strengthen your connection with that archbishop. I know you're not very good at this, so I'm giving you a heads-up. Besides, aren't Blood Corpse a ready-made excuse for not paying taxes?"
Duolin thought about it and felt that it made sense logically. Things in the world are all about comparison. Even though the Tree Worship Church had become corrupt and decadent, it still had a semblance of order compared to the Blood Corpse who followed their instincts completely.
In this World of Disorder, a world where everyone is trying to be the worst, all forces seem to be in a perpetual state of competing and creating more chaos, with no limit to how bad things can get.
With this in mind, Duolin already had a rough outline in his mind:
"I will write this letter carefully, expressing White Wax Town's inability to pay taxes."
"More than."
Ed reminded him again:
" The White Wax Town Parish nominally has fewer than thirty priests capable of fighting. Do you think thirty people can defeat Corpse Tide?"
"So you want me to...?"
"Of course we should ask for help! They Tree Worship Church Tree Worship Church. Shouldn't we help each other out?"
Is that so?
Duolin's brain was overloaded, and Ed kept giving him hints:
"If he sends the Stained Ones to help, they'll be ready-made cannon fodder; if he sends the Pure Ones, then... they'll never be able to go back."
"What if the archbishop sends a mixed force?"
"Then we'll just have to do a few more rounds of screening, picking out those like you who can be saved, and throwing the rest into the battlefield or to Yiden for some training."
"Understood."
No matter how many times, Duolin was always impressed by the wisdom of the Son of God. Just as he was about to unfold the letter paper and write a sincere plea for help, Ed, whose connection had been lost, suddenly spoke again:
"Oh, right, there's one more thing."
Please speak.
"When you have some free time, order a batch of metal plaques from the blacksmiths in Dragonborn Village that can be worn around the neck. Have the names and adventurer ranks of the Soul Returner engraved on them and then distribute them."
What are adventurer ranks?
"Hmm, well, just use any expensive or inexpensive metal as the name. Let me think, from lowest to highest: 'Black Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold...'. In short, start with these four and let them complete guild tasks to accumulate merit and level up. Remember to set the merit value a bit low so they can accumulate more experience over time."
"Um, what's the use of this?"
"This will be incredibly useful. It's a pity you would have understood this if you had been born before the Demonic Tide, but it's not too late now. You just need to modify some of the Adventurers' Guild's regulations and give High Tier adventurers some extra preferential policies, and they will naturally take shape on their own."
"... Okay, I roughly understand."
Hearing Duolin's somewhat ambiguous reply, Ed knew that the other party was not yet able to accept such "avant-garde" ideas.
But in reality, this thing should be a product of the Order Era more than a hundred years ago, only to be dormant for a century due to the Demonic Tide. So, it might not be "ahead of its time" but rather "retro"?
In White Wax Town, Duolin called in Tailun, the last teammate who had taken up his post with him, and handed him a piece of paper with "dog tag" drawn on it:
"Go to the blacksmith's shop in Dragonborn Village and have them make some of these."
Tailun looked at the drawing with simplified dimensions marked on it, examined the metal plate that was neither perfectly round nor perfectly square, and asked in confusion:
"Okay, Captain, how many do you need?"
Duolin the ever-growing number of unfamiliar faces among the Soul Returner, and finally uttered a number that even he himself found hard to believe:
"Let's start with two thousand."