Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 1471 1443. The Breath Behind

'The cry of a baby'.

This seemed to be the thing that this person who was contaminated with [filth] cared about and feared the most when he was finally scared to commit suicide.

But that's not right.

Because Lan En was the first person to come into contact with him tonight.

He asked the witcher for help, and the witcher rescued him.

However, there was no image of a baby in the situation at that time.

Although Lan En was a newcomer, he was not very familiar with the local mystical laws.

However, whether it is Japanese ghost stories or the work experience of demon hunters, there are some basic consensuses.

For these kinds of mysterious things, no matter how crazy the images they present are, there should always be a connection between them.

For example, when a person is haunted by a ghost of someone who was beheaded, it is impossible that while it is haunting the person, all the person sees is the person choking to death while drinking water, right?
When Lan En saved this man's life, what was the image that both of them saw?

——The sound of cloth rubbing against the tatami, and a piece of exquisite cloth suddenly retreating into the darkness.

What's up with the baby?

Why did he shout "Stop crying, baby" in his last moments before hanging himself?

In the short period of time since he was rescued by Lan En, what tortured him to the point of committing suicide?
Is it true that he is just stained with a kind of [filth]?
Lan En frowned as he thought, and at the same time, he sighed slightly for the man whose life he had just saved.

"Hey."

But, as Lan En sighed
"Whoo~"

A warm breath brushed lightly across the side of Lan En's neck.

It was as if someone was sighing behind him, moving and expressing the same thing as him!

The warm heat did not make Lan En feel comfortable at all. On the contrary, the hairs on his neck suddenly exploded almost the moment the air flow blew past!

With a "clang" sound!
Lan En's body turned suddenly, and the movement was so fast and sharp that even the heavy collision sound of the armor became sharp!

The cat's eyes, glowing slightly in the dim torchlight, looked around in doubt.

His hand was already on the hilt of the knife at his left waist.

In the eyes of the others present, Lan En seemed to have lost his frame, and suddenly changed from facing the corpse to facing away from it.

The wind created by his tall body as he turned quickly was so strong that it even caused the flames of torches in the distance to flicker for a moment.

Everyone else was startled.

"What's wrong?" Daisuke Kikuchi was a step slower than Lan En, but he immediately put his hand on the hilt of the knife vigilantly, looked outside, and asked cautiously.

All of a sudden, everyone became nervous.

But Lan En frowned, looked around and said, "Did you see anything behind me just now?"

"No." The old warrior said affirmatively, "Did you feel something?"

"Yeah." Lan En did not hide it, "There was a gust of hot air blowing on the back of my neck. It felt like something was sticking to my back and breathing."

"Is it an illusion?" the young warrior muttered, and his hand holding the sword relaxed a little.

"Don't take it lightly!" Daisuke Kikuchi scolded his son loudly as usual, "What happened tonight was too weird. Can you fool yourself with a simple word 'illusion'?"

"It's okay to fool yourself, but don't fool your life away!"

But having said that, Daisuke Kikuchi slowly put down his knife-pressing stance.

These warriors have the ability to fight the monsters and evil spirits summoned by [Remnant] with real swords and guns, which is not without its problems.

However, when the evil spirits have not yet been summoned and are just hysteria and illusions caused by the [filth], the warriors have no way to deal with it.

We have to invite professional monks, Yin-Yang masters or priests to do it.

"Maybe you had a few fights with him tonight." Although Daisuke Kikuchi put away his knife, he still spoke to Lan En cautiously, "The [filth] on him has also stained you. Wait a moment, we will ask the village chief to come again."

It’s the same process again.

Seeing the sleepy village chief jogging over with two villagers helping him move things, just like before.

Lan En and the other militiamen felt an inexplicable sense of joy in this dangerous night.

Just like the previous ceremony, as the corresponding number of dolls were burned clean, the ceremony of exorcising evil spirits and removing filth was declared complete.

However, after performing two rituals in one night, both the village chief and Daisuke Kikuchi must have been unable to sleep.

The two of them and Lan En talked about the body that had been put down. "What do you think?"

Daisuke Kikuchi asked after relaying to the village chief how Lan En felt and what had happened.

The old warrior frowned.

"This is definitely not normal, right? He is just a coachman. How long has the team been resting in the village for two days? In just two days, the [Residue] he brought with him was enough to summon hungry ghosts in the village?"

"Well, it's not normal, not normal." The village chief straightened the black gauze hat on his head and nodded in agreement.

Daisuke Kikuchi glanced at him sideways.

"Where are the other people in the convoy? Did you check them just now?"

"I've checked, I've checked." The village chief nodded casually, "They're fine, and the pack horses are fine too."

"I'm talking to you about serious matters, you old bastard!" Daisuke Kikuchi shouted angrily, "Can you be more serious?"

"Oh, I'm not leaving yet, so why shouldn't I be serious?" The village chief waved his hand and said perfunctorily.

Looking at the two noisy old guys, Lan En lowered his head and sighed silently, and then his whole body shuddered.

He raised his hand as if asking a question to a student: "Um. Is there really nothing behind me? I just felt something blowing at the back of my neck."

"Then there's nothing I can do." The village chief pulled up the wide sleeves of his priest's robe and shook his head. "Maybe the [Filth] you put on him is too strong? Oh, I don't know how to cast the Yin-Yang Eyes spell, so it's possible that my [Void Wisdom] can't see it."

"And if the [Residue] is particularly strong, it is possible that the ritual cannot remove it."

"Is that so unreasonable?" Lan En covered his head and sighed, "I just ran into his house to help!"

"It's [filth]," the village chief priest said perfunctorily, "It's always like this. If you get involved, you'll be in trouble."

"But logically speaking," Daisuke Kikuchi analyzed seriously, "how could there be such a powerful [Zanhu] recently? Did something horrible happen somewhere?"

"Never heard of it." The village chief shook his head.

"Don't look at me, you are the locals!" Lan En also shook his head.

"What should we do?!" Daisuke Kikuchi said madly, "According to what you said, he was the only one who was contaminated with [Filth], and in our village, with the protection of the sacred tree, it only took two days for a hungry ghost to be summoned!"

"This kind of [filth] should be reported to the lord! Even Ando Morinari can't suppress it!"

The "name" that Daisuke Kikuchi mentioned made Lan En look sideways.

After all, if the lord of Iwamura Castle was Ando Morinari, then according to the time, the lord of Mino Province should be the "Mino Viper" Saito Dosan.

He repeatedly rose above his superiors and succeeded every time, eventually rising from an oil seller to become a national celebrity.

In troubled times, this legendary life experience will inevitably make people feel envious, admiring, but also fearful and repulsive.

"The most urgent task," Daisuke Kikuchi frowned, "is to inform Lord Ando Morinari of Iwamura Castle, and to find out where this [filth] came from. Judging from its active performance, how long ago should it have happened?"

The old warrior muttered the first half of the sentence to himself to sort out his thoughts, and in the second half he turned around and asked the priest and the village chief.

At this point, the village chief's expression turned into deep thought: "Probably. No more than a month. It means it happened within a month."

Although [Remnant Filth] has the spreadability of an epidemic, this power cannot stay in the human world for long.

After all, if you really count, from ancient times to the present, is there any land where people have not died? Where tragic or painful things have happened?

If [filth] can always occupy the human world, then there will be no such concept as [the human world], and everything will become [the eternal world].

So from this perspective, the dirt that the person was contaminated with was still very "fresh and strong", and the incident must have happened not long ago.

"In other words, if we want to deal with this [filth], we need to first find out the source and the incident, right?"

Lan En suddenly interrupted when Daisuke Kikuchi was distressed.

"Huh?"*2
The village chief priest and the old warrior both turned their heads to look at Lan En who had spoken.

"I'm pretty good at tracking investigations." Lan En showed a tiny gap between his thumb and index finger. "I have some experience in that. Well, I make a living by doing this."

As he spoke, Lan En touched the back of his neck and shook his body.

"And speaking of which, I am definitely also contaminated by this [filth]. If I don't investigate and resolve it, I will probably be like the people in the ghost story, unable to sleep, right?"

"That's great. We don't have to involve others in this."

The old samurai and the village chief priest looked at each other and exchanged glances with slight hesitation.

Then he nodded again.

(End of this chapter)