Chapter 1857: Chapter 1857
Chapter 1857: Chapter 78: “M
Zheng Qing did not delve into the truth of the One-eyed crow’s words.
It’s not that he completely believed the Old Crow. In fact, the school allowed these remaining tribes of magical creatures to settle in the current Black Prison World, clearly for the purpose of observing the impact of world transformations on creatures.
A world that was almost like the Ruins began to come alive again. To simply ponder the effects of the newly surged Magic Tide on creatures, knowing this is a vast and astonishing subject, the costs incurred would be enough to make the wizards responsible for the project’s expenses pull out all their hair.
Free experimental subjects should not be wasted, and it saved the cost of purchasing live subjects from the outside. Also, for this second-year opening trial, the final choice to place the trial field here, it’s hard to deny that the school considered saving costs.
The latter words of the One-eyed crow also confirmed some of Zheng Qing’s speculations:
“When the war ended, the number of remaining ogres in the tribe was nearly a hundred, but no one expected the situation to change so quickly…”
While speaking, it looked up, glanced at the gloomy sky, and the one eye on its forehead showed a trace of confusion:
“The Magic Power gradually became ample, the underground water sprang up, and the food also became abundant gradually. Everything seemed to be developing in a good direction… but for some reason, many good young men became increasingly weak, coughing blood, losing teeth, the Magic Power they absorbed leaked like a deflated balloon, and can you imagine ogres being poisoned?”
Indeed, Zheng Qing found it hard to imagine.
Ogres are said to be immune to a hundred poisons, and they do not shy away from anything from fresh to long-decayed food. Poisons are equivalent to spices like peppers for them. Many older ogres would even specifically look for various toxic plants and animals to throw into their soup pots to make the food more palatable.
It seems that only changes in the underlying rules of the world could cause the ogres to show symptoms of poisoning.
The One-eyed crow murmured, its voice becoming lighter due to unease:
“…In the first month, due to food shortages and poisoning, a third of the tribe died; in the second month, due to inexplicable curses, another third died.”
“Later, although the curse gradually disappeared, the females in the tribe couldn’t give birth to offspring… For two whole months, not a single offspring survived in the tribe. And a tribe without offspring has no future.”
“With no way to lift the world’s curse on the tribe and no way to escape misfortune… so when it challenged me, the warriors in the tribe all remained silent.”
“It sounds like you don’t hate it for turning you into a crow?” Jiang Yu suddenly interjected, asking. Zheng Qing glanced at her and nodded slightly. Witches always have a keen grasp of emotions.
The Old Crow clacked its beak twice and after a moment of silence, answered in a low voice: “Turning the loser into a crow, though a bit lousy, is not an unforgivable crime… Perhaps I just felt a bit unlucky, that’s all.” Latest content publıshed on 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭·𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮·𝙣𝙚𝙩
“Then why did you just attack it?” Zheng Qing kicked the corpse of the Two-headed Ogre at his feet.
This time, a hint of dread and hatred appeared in the Old Crow’s one eye: “Because it is a true monster… The tribe accepted it because it was a Two-headed Ogre, I originally thought an ancestor spirit had appeared to bring a glimmer of hope to the tribe… but unexpectedly, this guy was unusually brutal, and during a time of abundant food, it set its sights on the warriors.”
“Because of its appearance, in just four or five days, nearly a third of the warriors in the tribe disappeared. Others might not know, but I could see clearly from the side, this monster not only devoured the warriors of the tribe but also consumed their souls.”
This answer left all the young wizards in silence.
Ogres have always appeared in wizard rumors with an image of ferocity and brutality, but they generally only destroy wizard’s flesh and rarely toy with souls like demons or black wizards.
On one hand, this is because magic involving souls is quite advanced, and the ogre shamans’ rough magic seldom touches upon it; on the other hand, it’s because ogres, like horse-men, fishmen, and other magical creatures, have customs respecting concepts like ancestors, souls, and traditions.
Thus, the One-eyed crow had sufficient reason to attack the Two-headed Ogre.
“Do you know which tribe this ogre belongs to?”
Squatting beside the Two-headed Ogre, Xin Fat Man wearing silkworm skin gloves, held a long-handled tweezers, and a silver knife in one hand, skillfully cutting on the ogre’s corpse, suddenly asked after listening to the One-eyed crow: “Its bone age and the number of lumps on its back do not match… its underlying skin is also somewhat strange.”
Saying that, the Fat Wizard raised the long-handled tweezers in his hand, holding a thin piece of ogre arm skin at the tip. The outer-facing side of the skin was intact, but the side adjacent to the muscle was filled with strange white mesh structures, the grid filled with a rotten aura, even with Zheng Qing’s vision, he could discern that its skin was completely unsuitable for tanning into a law book.
“Ugh, that’s really disgusting! How can its skin be !”
The young cost student pinched his nose, leaned in a bit closer, and examined the skin, so vastly different on each side, suddenly looked up at the Fat Wizard: “Wait, does this mean its skin can’t be sold?”
“Not only the skin, its bones, blood, heart, eyes, even the lumps on its back are abnormal.”
The Fat Wizard casually tossed the rotten skin aside, sighed: “If you don’t mind the trouble, I can try to get some black wizards from the Wandering Bar to take it, but you have to be prepared to stir up a mess rather than profit.”
Zheng Qing immediately shook his head, waving his hands to indicate giving up.
Meanwhile, the One-eyed crow hopped a few steps forward, raised its claws, and fiercely shredded the discarded piece of skin by the Fat Man.
A few young wizards did not stop its act of venting anger.
After venting, the Old Crow fluffed its wings, raised its head again, and answered the Fat Man’s earlier question: “It doesn’t belong to our tribe, nor to any clan I know… it named itself ‘Blackhand’, but it’s not related to the Black Hand Clan, I only know it lost its memory, and just chose that name because its hands were rather dark.”
“Could it be a subordinate brought by other Great Demons or Dark Beasts?” Jiang Yu suggested another possibility.
The One-eyed crow hesitated for a moment: “I won’t exclude that possibility…”
“It’s more likely to be an experiment escaped from a wizard’s laboratory.”
Xiao Xiao, at some point, had also put on a pair of silkworm skin gloves, and while cutting open the chest cavity of the Two-headed Ogre with a knife, interrupted the Old Crow’s uncertain speculation: “You can see, there are many signs of stitching inside it… as well as signs of wound healing after the use of healing magic… and this! Dark Beasts wouldn’t put this thing in their subordinates.”
He reached into the ogre’s chest cavity, yanked out a bloody section of spine.
Inlaid on the spine was an oval brass plaque, with no complex runes, only a large capital letter ‘M’ engraved using an intaglio method.