Returning from the abyss

Chapter 1491 Territorial Consciousness
Liu saw the pharmacist walk over and sit down next to her, but she did not take her hand off the weapon at her waist.

"Long time no see," the pharmacist said.

“Indeed…it’s been a long time.” Liu looked at her. “When we first came here, we never imagined things would escalate to this extent, right?”

"Yes." The pharmacist took out a piece of bread and handed it over.

Liu reached out and took it, squeezed it, and couldn't help but laugh, "It's still soft. You guys have a lot of supplies. I've been eating bread that I could use as weapons all this way."

"Have you been in the city since the day of the divine calamity?"

"We need to deal with those high-risk targets. The plague apostles and traitors who infiltrated Violet City before, as well as the monsters sent in through various channels, are almost all out of control. The Burial Pivot's duty is to take care of these things."

"But it's not your responsibility alone."

"Then I have some bad news for you. There aren't many burial grounds left in the city. Those on the front lines are the first to die if an uncontrollable disaster strikes." Liu took a bite of bread. "More than ninety percent of our personnel have been lost. Remington himself sent the message. Even here, I can smell the blood of wolves as they die... Which colleague is it?"

"Kyrios".

"We've lost another excellent hunter," Liu sighed, swallowing the bread in his mouth.

The pharmacist looked at her, now appearing much more weathered, and didn't know how to respond. Liu, however, spoke up after taking a few bites.

“I suspect these people I brought are a nuisance to you. They’re not exactly young adults, and they need someone to take care of them. It’s already quite a challenge for Sneijder and his team to look after them, so it’s no wonder they wanted to find a safe place to take them in.”

"Why didn't we go to the Church of St. Ist? Theoretically, it should have resumed operation by now."

"The roads around the Church of St. Ist are blocked. To the west, a huge lake of putrid scum blocks the way; even the Plague Apostles eat that stuff. To the south, there are numerous insect nests; the insects that leaked out from the mountain that day have probably started multiplying again. They may have found a way to increase their numbers, and they don't even need to eat people anymore. To the east... there's a dense forest, clearly within the domain of the King of Decay. I can get through, but most of these people would die if they did. Finally... to the north, there's no natural terrain to obstruct people, but many powerful monsters roam there. Some are monsters, and some are unknown; they're impossible to kill and impossible to defeat."

Liu's statement clearly indicates that he had investigated everything thoroughly.

“These are not insurmountable barriers, but that’s only for me. The Church of East can send reinforcements, but I don’t think they have enough manpower to clear these things.”

"It hasn't been long, and Violet City has become like this..." the pharmacist said, frowning.

"This is probably exactly what some people intend," Liu shook his head.

"So you can only try to carve out a passable road in the city?"

Liu smiled upon hearing this: "I dare not take credit for this. The passable road was found by the people of Jishishu. I was just a guard. There are many things in the city that don't get along. I've seen monsters and some infected people fighting each other, which has given us a lot of advantages."

"So what are you going to do next? What if the final result is that they don't accept you?"

"Let's find another place. Violet City is quite large, but I can't guarantee anything. After all, it's already autumn, right?"

The temperature is already dropping.

The southern part of Violet City is only defined by the empire's territory. In reality, the entire empire would fall into a long period of cold weather after winter. Without sufficient fuel and clothing, it would be difficult to survive the winter. Food was not the most important issue.

"Go around from here and walk a little further east. There's a storage area there, but we don't know how much grain they still have. There are many supply depots in Violet City. If you have the chance, you should look for them. To protect those supplies, the warehouses are usually built very solidly, some even dug directly into the ground. It's just that very few people know where they are. We only found out about this place because one of the veterans in our team retired from the garrison."

"Then why don't we just use this as the basis for the transaction?" the pharmacist said.

Liu smiled and said, "I have thought about that, but we also need to be wary of you taking our things and then not taking us in. Who will guarantee our credibility these days? Even if we swear an oath to the gods, it only binds the person making the oath. The gods never make oaths for the whole group."

“We have to give it a try.” The pharmacist stood up and brushed off the dirt. “You know Father Thorne, he’s the kind of person who won’t do anything without a profit. If you can really bring him enough benefit, he will accept it.”

"I...can't make a decision lightly. If you think it's possible, please help me ask around and come up with a solution that both sides can accept."

"Okay, I'll go ask, but you'd better have an estimate of the resources there." The pharmacist got up and left, leaving Liu with an encouraging look.

But Liu could only manage a bitter smile.

She was indeed searching for a safe place, but she couldn't tell anyone; she saw the creeping branches in everyone. Therefore, there was no safe place, and everyone was at risk of being taken by the gods.

However, the pharmacist understood what the triggering condition was, so he didn't really tell many people about it. He just came back and found Father Thorne and the others to tell them about it.

Vanessa immediately stared intently at Father Thorne, as if to say, "You should at least agree to this, right?"

Father Thorne sighed and waved for Vanessa and Veronica to leave, leaving only himself and the pharmacist in the room. He then said to her, "Next time, could you wait until I've convinced Vanessa..."

"You're still planning to persuade her?" The pharmacist looked at him incredulously. "I saw you two arguing without any result, so I went to Liu You to discuss this method. Ask yourself honestly, can you really persuade Vanessa? Although your idea is indeed the best choice at the moment, you can't deny that Vanessa is actually the more correct one, can you?"

"Right and best can easily conflict... Pharmacist, thanks to you, I feel like I'm no longer the person who could get them to listen just by speaking a little more seriously."

"This is something that will inevitably happen as they grow up. You should be happy that they have their own ideas instead of always listening to you."

“Ah…that’s true. Let’s get back to the most crucial question, about that warehouse. A warehouse is the only place we can leave them,” Father Thorne said.

The apothecary narrowed his eyes: "I knew you must have hidden quite a bit. The supplies in the Clockwork River District should still be more than enough." "I've been poor all this way, so I have to leave my forces some options. After all, the Clockwork River District is the capital I brought back through trade, and I'm counting on it to secure a better future for me, even in this situation." Father Thorne was completely unfazed. "Of course, it's not an exaggeration to say that supplies are scarce. But that's a general statement. Food, water, housing, clothing, medicine, and utensils—I didn't stockpile them this carefully. Who knew we'd encounter something like this?"

"Alright, alright, I'm not in the mood to listen to your complaints. Resolve this matter quickly. You are the leaders of the Clockwork River District. If you two are at odds, who knows how many people will be filled with anxiety."

Father Thorne, of course, had already planned these things in advance. He even enlisted Rosalind and Crom's help to investigate the warehouse.

For these two seasoned veterans, this wasn't too difficult. They went to scout in the morning and returned in the afternoon, bringing back both good news and bad news.

The good news is that the warehouse does indeed have abundant food reserves; after inspecting several storage rooms, they were all found to be piled high with grain. The bad news is that a group of unknown origin has occupied the area; they can only be identified as human, not monsters, through the magic of the Alarm Point.

As for the level of danger... Rosalyn can only say it's very low. However, since everyone is hiding, the Warning Hub, while capable of issuing warnings, is not good at searching for hidden people. This matter will probably have to be handled by the Burial Hub.

Or, as it is now, Vanessa directly mobilized a group of people and led them straight to the warehouse.

The apothecary was still with them, but this time, she was only there to observe. This was also Lu Ning's request, to see just how much Vanessa had grown. This time, Vanessa's group included not only the original knights and monks of the church, but also church personnel who were resting there. When Crom and Rosalind left, they would take half of the veterans with them, while some of the younger recruits would stay behind, as crossing the treacherous road was quite dangerous. Vanessa also selected some recruits, making a group of fifty, and headed towards the warehouse.

There was no large-scale battle in the adjacent area; it just appeared that almost all the personnel had been evacuated. Occasionally, there were small-scale battles that looked like they had taken place, with clear traces of burning and cleanup. It was too difficult to reconstruct the scene from what had happened after the damage.

The team moved quickly, thanks to a pre-surveyed safe route, and encountered no obstacles along the way. The warehouse in this location had both underground and above-ground sections; it appeared to be a factory from the outside, but some of the buildings inside had been converted for use as a storage facility for emergency supplies.

In this era, factories were the private property of nobles, whose accumulated power deterred ordinary people from approaching them. In addition, there were some ferocious monsters roaming around the gate and the courtyard along the only way, so no one dared to touch the place.

After arriving near the factory gate, Vanessa pulled out the plague.

"Everyone hide, don't let the monster find you."

The bacteria dispersed silently in the air. Vanessa's use of the plague had become increasingly sophisticated; she quickly covered the factory's front yard with colonies and then, based on the feedback, learned the routes the monsters had taken.

The church's army was not afraid of monsters. Vanessa quickly divided the troops into groups of five and wiped out the monsters, leaving none alive.

As for Vanessa herself, she didn't rush to make a move this time. She simply transformed the Plague into the form of a longsword and followed behind, observing everyone's actions. The apothecary could see that after this period of learning, she had become more familiar with combat, but she hadn't yet reached Rosalind's level.

"Pharmacist, this factory is very large. Do you know which noble family it belonged to before?"

"You should have already investigated this matter."

"The person in question is a tax collector, but while tax collectors can be wealthy, it's rare to find someone this rich. So I suspect he was sent by a nobleman. There must be a reason why he wouldn't do something legitimate openly, right?" Vanessa asked.

"It could also be to avoid trouble," the pharmacist replied.

"Well... since they are from two different systems, the tax collector might indeed be exempt from some auditing troubles. But since we know that this place is actually used as a warehouse, there are even more suspicious parts. As everyone knows, the tax collectors in Violet are ruthless in their exploitation, but they are not the ones responsible for storing the collected money and grain."

"The money from tax revenue should be divided into three parts," the pharmacist said.

“Part of it will be transported to the capital, where it is the royal property. Another part will be put into the Grand Duke’s treasury for his family’s daily use. The last part will be used for government affairs, people’s livelihood, official appointments, and military training,” Vanessa said.

She naturally had no idea about the proportions involved.

"Which part is stored here? The capital is in chaos right now, and the emperor's position has not yet been decided. Would Grand Duke Toril transport it there? Probably not. I don't think they would easily abandon their own reserves here. Even for them, losing the wealth of Violet City would be painful. So those have probably already been transported out."

"You mean the first two parts have already been moved, and what's left here are the last few?" the pharmacist asked.

“I really hope we’ve found a nobleman’s private treasury.” Vanessa did not answer the question directly.

Before long, the monsters were killed one by one. Vanessa's reconnaissance had no blind spots, and after easily dealing with those seemingly terrifying monsters, these people trusted Vanessa even more.

"Let's go check on the warehouse."

Vanessa dispersed the colony and headed deeper into the factory. Occasionally, monsters would emerge, but they were all safely dealt with thanks to Vanessa's advance warnings, and there were no casualties along the way. Vanessa only stopped when she reached the warehouse area.

According to the previous investigation, those people were hiding underground.

After searching through all the gaps that led downwards, Vanessa finally found the people hiding together behind a well-hidden entrance. Her face immediately darkened.

"Come with me."

She strode to the disguised entrance, cleaved through the disguise with a single stroke, and forcefully opened the door. Those inside heard the noise and reacted with panic; someone shouted, "Who goes there!"

Vanessa didn't answer. She rushed inside and immediately saw that in this not-so-small underground space, the young men and women bound to ten wooden stakes were already dead, while the remaining people, regardless of age or gender, were drinking the blood that had flowed from the dead in containers.

It's part of the standard sacrificial ritual, but these few lives aren't even enough to attract the filth around the gods. At most, they might experience a moment of intoxication when trying to establish a connection.

Vanessa's gaze swept across the room, but she didn't see a single innocent person.

"Kill them all."

Happy Lunar New Year's Eve everyone! A new year is just around the corner. Wishing you all success in your studies and promotions at work! Treat yourself after a busy year!