Returning from the abyss

Chapter 1467 Birthday
With Veronica's consent, the pharmacist performed simple tests on several babies.

Their growth is an adaptive process. If they can ingest enough nutrients in the short term, their growth rate will accelerate, but if the nutrient supply is insufficient, it will slow down.

This kind of development does occur in childhood, but it usually results in either overnutrition or malnutrition. However, for these children, whether they eat a lot or a little does not affect their health. They can grow a month's worth of weight in a day, or they can go three days without food and almost stop growing.

It was obviously impossible to conduct extreme tests on infants. The pharmacist simply prescribed a food amount sufficient to sustain their normal growth and did not continue the tests. Veronica was left to handle the matter here.

On the other hand, with the pharmacist's reminder, Vanessa also launched an investigation, focusing primarily on the recently missing pregnant women. Such cases are much rarer in Violet City, but even if all the cases in the South District were combined, only three would be found, and unless there were multiple births among those children, the number wouldn't reach that level.

The missing pregnant women, along with their husbands, had also disappeared. These people were outsiders who had been in Violet City for less than three years, coming here to work and earn money. They lived in the most basic shacks and had almost no acquaintances except for their roommates.

Vanessa asked some vendors and shopkeepers who regularly interacted with these people, but ultimately no one knew when they disappeared. Most assumed the woman was about to give birth, so the family went to a church or clinic first.

She didn't want to complain to anyone, so after yet another fruitless investigation, she could only return to Veronica and tell her about the frustrations of the past few days of investigation.

"It's very strange. The clues always go cold halfway through the investigation. Whenever I find someone who might know the information, they say they don't remember anything—a living person is gone! How can they not remember anything at all?"

“Vanessa, they probably won’t remember the people and things around them like we do. After all, everyone’s lifestyle is different. It’s already hard enough for them to live well,” Veronica comforted her. “If we really can’t find any clues, so be it. These babies are all in good health, and the church can afford to take care of them.”

“Veronica, you’re too kind. Luckily we dealt with it early, and no one else knows about it. Otherwise, if anyone knew that babies abandoned at the church would be taken care of, we could see another bunch tomorrow!”

“I will try my best to avoid this situation... You see, I haven’t even let those children know about it.”

Vanessa sighed, and Veronica reached out and patted her cheek: "Cheer up, today is a good day."

"What good day? I just experienced a failure—"

Before Vanessa could finish speaking, Veronica magically produced a package and placed it in her hand.

"Today is your seventeenth birthday, Vanessa."

Vanessa, holding the package, paused for a moment, then belatedly realized that it was indeed true. She had told Veronica on the way to Violet City that they should celebrate properly, but now she was too busy with other matters and had completely forgotten about it.

"Let's go."

"Where...where to?" Vanessa asked, somewhat flustered.

"Of course we're going to the cafeteria. Father Thorne has reserved a small room for us; your birthday dinner has been prepared long ago!"

The small room was originally intended for dining by some high-ranking church officials. When the two arrived, a sumptuous meal was already laid out on the table. Although there were no expensive items, it was still considered a luxury for Vanessa.

Father Thorne didn't come in person; a large package and a letter he had written were placed on the table as a birthday greeting for Vanessa. Several nuns and young knights who were on good terms with her had already arrived, but Knight Gael didn't come. However, his wife brought a rough-looking soft leather armor, which wasn't even packed, but Vanessa liked it very much.

"Come on, let's open the presents?" Veronica pressed Vanessa down into the main seat, and everyone piled their gifts around her, making it difficult for her to even get up. Vanessa, both amused and exasperated, opened Veronica's gift first, discovering it was a brand-new set of pharmaceutical equipment.

“Your set is too old. It was originally bought from the market. Now that we have the means, of course we have to get a new set,” Veronica said with a smile.

"Thank you, it's exactly what I needed." Vanessa smiled as she opened Father Thorne's package.

Inside are eight sets of custom-made Sister Carmel's robes, two for spring, two for summer, two for autumn, and two for winter.

She opened the envelope; inside were only a few words:

[Your ties with the church are growing stronger, and you'll encounter occasions requiring formal attire. These clothes were made by professional tailors in Violet City; their names and shop addresses are printed on the hem. I hope I haven't misremembered your size. Happy birthday, child.]

Vanessa happily unwrapped the other gifts. The others' gifts were mostly things like books and candy; after all, compared to Vanessa and the others, ordinary nuns and knights weren't as wealthy.

However, after unwrapping all the gifts, Vanessa still glanced towards the door.

She wasn't asking for more gifts; she just wanted this birthday, which she herself had forgotten, to be remembered...

"Is there anyone inside who can help me?"

Suddenly, the pharmacist's voice came from outside the door. Everyone was stunned for a moment, and then they all crowded to the doorway.

The pharmacist was struggling to walk this way, dragging a bunch of packages of various sizes. Although she had spells that could make things lighter, she didn't have any that could make them smaller, which made the pile of things quite a hindrance.

Veronica quickly ran out to help fetch a few more, asking, "Why are there so many things? Pharmacist, where should we put these?"

The pharmacist, having no free hands, simply gestured with his chin at Vanessa: "Put her in her arms."

Vanessa pointed to herself in surprise.

“These are all from people transferred from the various churches’ Saviors’ Cardinals who worked with you before. A coming-of-age ceremony is a significant event in the Saviors’ Cardinals, and those people are all quite busy, so they asked me to bring them over. These two are from the two people who almost got into trouble after infecting the Gourmet; it's just a coincidence that they didn't know it was your birthday today.” The Pharmacist piled the things he was carrying at the doorway, glanced at Vanessa, and said, “Just take them all in yourself. Do you really expect me to hand them all to you?”

"oh oh……"

"And this, Poirot gave it to you; who knows how he found out your birthday. And this is from the Cardinal Savior of Violet City; it's three injections of blocking agent, as is customary." The pharmacist pulled out two more packages from his pocket and tossed them to Vanessa. "For someone new here, you're quite popular; at least everyone you've worked with remembers you."

Vanessa was also very surprised by this. She felt that she had not been in close contact with those people, but she did not expect that they would still remember her.

"Unfortunately, Ledda doesn't seem to know the concept of a birthday. It will take him some time to learn about human things." The pharmacist shrugged. As for the others, it was clear that they couldn't expect Liu or anyone else to prepare a birthday gift for Vanessa.

"Thank you. Would you like to come in and have something to eat with us?"

“Of course—oh, I almost forgot.” The apothecary lifted his robe, pulled out the “Plague” from his waist, and handed it to Vanessa.

Firearms in this era can only be handcrafted, and each one is extremely precious. Vanessa instinctively tried to refuse, but the apothecary had no intention of taking them back and went straight into the room.

"Pharmacist, this is far too valuable!"

"It's nothing. Firearms aren't hard for me to obtain, but you need them to help you with some investigations. If you feel bad about it, just consider it a loan for two years, and you can return it to me after two years."

Hearing this made Vanessa feel a little better.

"Then I'll borrow it for a while, not two years, just one year. I'll return it to you next year on my birthday."

"Okay. Let's eat now. I've been out all day and I'm quite hungry. Perfect timing, I'll share some information with you. The situation here in the south is relatively good, but it's not so optimistic in other places."

Everyone noticed the hint of weariness in the pharmacist's words.

"Poirot's investigation has yielded some results. The good news is that our guesses weren't entirely wrong; someone was indeed planning to set up a Kiss of the Rainbow here. The bad news is that the person has been caught—a few Plague Apostles who, seeing the recent outbreaks of plague in Violet City, were willing to take the risk and become famous overnight. In other words, we haven't uncovered the true purpose of the person behind it all."

Although Poirot had done a good job for this, he was not particularly happy.

Some dismissed his later speculations. While the Church certainly took the plague seriously, it wouldn't be to the point of doubting everything; only a few extremists in the Burial Pivot would likely do so. At least for those in the Burial Pivot, capturing a group of apostles preparing to launch the "Rainbow Kiss" was a very exciting achievement. What more could Poirot possibly want?
Few could understand his concerns, but Poirot continued his investigation despite the pressure.

Then, the incident happened at the cemetery.

Violet City has several cemeteries, the one in the northwest being the oldest and largest. Aside from nobles with their own family plots, many people with a modicum of wealth choose that cemetery, as if doing so would allow them to become part of Violet City's history. However, just two days ago, some people discovered that the soil around their family's tombstones had been disturbed when they went to sweep the graves. This enraged them, and they immediately went to the cemetery caretaker.

The guard argued that no suspicious person had entered the cemetery unless other people who came to sweep the graves deliberately damaged them. He said it was impossible for him to keep an eye on all of them, since the cemetery was so big, how could one person possibly keep an eye on everything?

However, the grave-sweepers could not accept this explanation, and the two sides started arguing, almost coming to blows.

The reason I say "almost" is because I was interrupted by "someone".

It was the very person who should have been buried in the cemetery. His body was severely decomposed, yet new flesh was still growing from it. He walked up in this state, patted the gravedigger on the shoulder, and scared him away on the spot. Later, the guards, having received the news, arrived and, with some effort, knocked the suddenly resurrected corpse down again and burned it to ashes.

The problem of tomb sweepers has been solved, but an even bigger problem has emerged.

The idea of ​​a corpse rising again is almost unheard of. In the known magical systems, only the eighth-tier divine spell "Resurrection" of the Savior's Nexus possesses such power. While the decaying state of a corpse is obviously not as perfect as an eighth-tier divine spell, this is indeed a case of the dead coming back to life.

"So what were the results of the investigation?" Everyone was quite involved in the story, and Vanessa asked directly.

"No, the only sample was burned by the guards. They can't exactly dig up the bodies in the cemetery to examine them. They've already checked the surrounding area; it's an isolated case, so it's not easy to continue the investigation."

“But isn’t this a very serious matter? Who knows if there will be a large group of corpses later? Besides, the reason that corpse came out first might be because the newly buried body wasn’t decomposed as much,” Veronica analyzed. “I don’t think it can achieve the effect of a high-level divine spell; it might be more like a monster.”

"Tell me?"

“I have studied some of the ways in which monsters are formed. Plague Apostles usually use monsters to facilitate the spread of the plague, so this method is meaningless for humans. But what about corpses? Animal instincts can drive the body’s actions without much judgment. And there is only one missing condition for turning a corpse into a monster, which is the lack of life force.”

Veronica became a little nervous as she spoke.

"But if enough life force is gathered, the corpse can actually be made to move. I calculated that the monsters created from fifteen rats combined are roughly equivalent to the minimum life force required for a person to move. In other words, first modify the monsters, then fuse them with the corpses, and so on..."

“So we got monsters made from human corpses. But that’s too obvious; we can’t use them to spread the plague unless our purpose is to use them for combat,” the pharmacist interjected. “It’s a very bold guess. I can tell this idea to Poirot and let him verify it. As you said, a bunch of corpses might appear later. These guys aren’t very lethal, but if they really become plague-carrying bombs, that would be a real headache.”

"It's just an idea, you can take it as a reference," Veronica quickly said.

“I know they might not think that way, but we have to investigate these high-risk possibilities. You should also keep a close eye on things lately. The south hasn't had too many incidents because of its smaller population. But based on experience, if a region starts to become unstable, those people who can live anywhere will inevitably move to this ‘safe’ area, and then strange events might occur here as well. Oh, considering those babies, I think it’s already starting to happen.”