Chapter 446 – Camp Anomaly

“Use this.” Mo Lan produced a card.

“{Dawn Society Trial Invitation}? What is this?” Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph all looked on with curiosity.

“This is the contract guidance card I specially prepared for non-witch contractors.

It can guide non-witchs through a step-by-step screening process, ultimately turning them into contractors of our magic.”

Mo Lan gave them a rough explanation of her design philosophy behind the card and its functions. “However, although the card’s design is complete, it hasn’t actually been tested yet, so I don’t know how effective it will be in practice. Greta is all alone and caught in a life-or-death crisis—we can take this opportunity to test the card on her.”

“Let’s go with your plan!” Lilith said. “I can’t imagine what kind of effect this card will ultimately produce, but even if it doesn’t succeed in the end, it won’t cause us any harm, right? And it’s a good thing for Greta too. At the very least, she’ll survive because of it.”

Vasida agreed as well. “The Dawn Society—it sounds impressive and convincing. It’s not so grandiose that it feels fake like the Temple of the God of Light, but it’s also not unsettling like the Temple of the God of Darkness!”

“The name ‘Society’ has a very mage-like feel to it. Mages would probably like it a lot,” Sylph said.

“I put a great deal of thought into this name!” Mo Lan said proudly. “The Mage Empire isn’t like the Yala Empire—many people actually know that the God of Light and the God of Darkness are both schemes of the Angels and Demons, and that gods no longer exist in Valen.

Rather than intimidating people in the name of a god, it’s better to approach them as a mentor. After all, knowledge transmission in the Mage Empire follows the mentor-apprentice system, so ‘mentor’ naturally carries connotations of erudition and power, making it easier to earn human trust.

And when word spreads to the non-witch races, the first thing anyone will think of when they hear this name is human mages—not us witches.”

“So what do we do now?” Vasida asked.

She was a little eager to see the card’s effects.

“Let her stay asleep for now. Once Sylph’s blackdeath tree has finished cultivating, we’ll put her back where we found her, let her become tainted by Death Force, and lure her into binding the card,” Mo Lan said.

“So we take her to the camp first?” Sylph asked.

Mo Lan nodded. “Lilith, Vasida—you two can go back to what you were doing. Sylph and I can head back on our own.”

Vasida and Lilith exchanged a glance. “We’ll come back with you.”

“Not training Spicy Hotpot and Nick’s combat abilities anymore?” Mo Lan asked.

They hadn’t been out for very long, had they?

“After you, senior sister.” Vasida nudged Lilith with her shoulder.

“…” Lilith said, “You first.”

“What’s going on with you two?” Mo Lan detected a hint of embarrassment in their expressions, and an unpleasant thought immediately came to mind. “Don’t tell me Spicy Hotpot and Nick are both injured?”

Since she had already guessed it, Lilith and Vasida stopped being coy and fished their death servants out of their coffins.

Mo Lan and Sylph stared in silence at the two death servants before them—missing arms, broken legs, covered in wounds from head to toe.

They had been a refined aristocrat and a rugged warrior just before. In less than a day, they had turned into the kind of tattered zombies you could find anywhere in the Black Forest? How badly had they been beaten?!

“They were just born, and their limbs are still a bit stiff. Starting combat training this early was perhaps a bit too hasty,” Lilith said.

“Right, let’s go back and nurture them properly first. Having Mama’s zombie death servants serve as sparring partners with controlled force would be more appropriate,” Vasida said.

When Spicy Hotpot’s perfect face and figure had been torn apart by other undead creatures, it had broken her heart.

“Alright then! Let’s all head back together,” Mo Lan said.

The group boarded their flying carpets and flew toward camp.

When they encountered the first skeleton patrol, they didn’t think much of it.

When they ran into an unfamiliar zombie patrol shortly after, they assumed it was just a coincidence.

But when they encountered several beast-shaped ghosts drifting in the same direction, they knew something was wrong.

“How many waves of undead creatures has that been now?” Vasida wondered. “Don’t they normally head north and go fight over newly appeared human corpses after nightfall?”

“Aside from detours around obstacles, they’re all moving in straight lines—as if they have a clear destination?” Sylph said uncertainly.

“This direction…” Lilith frowned as she studied the map.

“It’s toward the camp!” Mo Lan said with certainty.

They had split up onto separate flying carpets for the return trip, and to keep each other’s positions in sight, they hadn’t activated their invisibility shields.

Lilith and Mo Lan exchanged a glance, and both pushed their flying carpets to maximum speed.

The two carpets raced toward camp.

The closer they got, the more undead creatures they encountered.

Some were wild undead creatures. Others were witch death servants marked with brightly colored cloth strips.

But unlike usual, they weren’t fighting each other on sight.

Instead, they were all advancing in the same direction, with no conflicts breaking out between them whatsoever.

By the time they reached the area around Lady Ginia’s zombie army graveyard, the undead creatures were so densely packed that even the coffins were submerged beneath them.

Lady Ginia’s zombies were nowhere to be seen.

It wasn’t until the flying carpets reached the vicinity of their camp that they discovered every zombie wearing a red cloth strip was crowded around the camp’s barrier.

Even the skeletons from the neighboring logging-and-planting operation were here.

Each and every one of them was pressed right up against the protective barrier, as if something inside was irresistibly drawing them in—so much so that they had forgotten all about guarding the graveyard and camp.

While Mo Lan and the others hovered in shock and uncertainty, Vasida pulled out her camera. “Click~”

“???” Mo Lan, Lilith, Sylph, and the dense masses of zombies, skeletons, and ghosts on the ground below all turned to look at Vasida.

Vasida gave a sheepish grin. “I’ve never seen this many undead creatures before. Taking a photo as a memento.”

“Get extra prints made. Give me one,” Lilith said.

Sylph also pulled out her camera. “It looks like the blackdeath tree has borne fruit! Let me get a shot first!”

Mo Lan: “???”

In a situation like this, was taking photos really the priority?

Lilith guided her flying carpet down toward the camp. Mo Lan hurriedly called out, “Wait! Let me take one too!”

She could include it in her next letter to Mama Shanna as a curious anecdote.

After quickly snapping her photo, she steered her flying carpet down into the camp as well.

At that moment, beside Sylph’s tent, the mutant blackdeath tree—half black, half green—was bustling with activity.

From the green branches dangled green ghost dolls. From the black branches dangled black zombie dolls.

Big heads, tiny bodies, hanging from the tree like hanged spirits, swaying back and forth.

Sylph finally learned from the mutant blackdeath tree itself what effects these two types of dolls it had borne would have.

(End of Chapter)