Chapter 72 The Cemetery

Summer was nearly upon them, and the sunlight was fierce.

The traces left by the previous night’s torrential rain vanished beneath the sun in a single morning.

Only the occasional roof tile ripped loose by the wind and the collapsed grass sheds along the roadside still hinted at how violent the storm had been.

A silver-white robin fluttered over the dense rows of dilapidated houses.

Beyond them stood a disorderly cemetery crowded with countless stone markers.

“Achoo!”

Alton sneezed hard.

He rubbed the goose bumps on his arms and complained, “This is the place? Don’t you people ever maintain it?”

In Xia Nan’s former world, cemeteries often felt cold and sinister for perfectly ordinary reasons.

They were usually built in remote, open areas. There was little vegetation, no tall buildings, and nothing to stop cold air from flowing freely. Add in the psychological pressure of being surrounded by graves, and the atmosphere practically created itself.

Here, however, the sudden drop in temperature inside a cemetery might genuinely be caused by negative energy saturating the air.

In many densely populated cities, churches and dedicated municipal organizations regularly inspected and maintained nearby cemeteries specifically to prevent certain unpleasant situations from developing.

Kalanfor was only a small town on the kingdom’s frontier.

Worse, its only church worshipped Amaunator.

Naturally, the town did not have the resources for that sort of thing.

At Alton’s complaint, a trace of embarrassment crossed Ingram’s handsome, sharply defined face.

He clearly had no good answer.

So the sheriff simply pretended not to hear and began scanning the cemetery for anything suspicious.

Xia Nan cared far less about its maintenance.

What concerned him was the wooden sword [Green Pine] strapped across his back.

From the moment he had stepped through the cemetery gates, it had begun to grow faintly warm.

His vigilance immediately rose.

At the same time, his satisfaction with the blue-grade weapon climbed another notch.

He rarely needed to draw it, but simply carrying it was almost like having a portable detector for undead and snake- or scorpion-like monsters.

Extremely useful.

Once his strength grew high enough that the wooden sword itself could no longer keep up, maybe he could somehow use its properties to craft a portable detection accessory.

[I wonder if its Sunfire damage could…]

“Hey!”

Alton’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

“Isn’t there anyone around here who actually knows this place?”

He was speaking to Ingram.

“There is, there is.” Seeing that the halfling had finally moved on from criticizing the state of the cemetery, Ingram visibly relaxed. “There’s a cemetery keeper who’s worked here for years. He was already in town when I first arrived.”

He checked their direction, then led the two of them deeper into the cemetery.

…

The cemetery keeper lived in a particularly shabby little wooden hut.

Cobwebs filled the corners beneath the eaves, and a thick layer of dust coated the windowsills.

Only the footprints in the mud outside and the scattered rubbish along the path suggested that anyone lived there at all.

Knock, knock, knock.

Ingram stood on the doorstep, his tall, broad frame nearly filling the entrance, and rapped lightly on the door.

“Who is it!?”

An impatient man’s voice came from inside.

Furniture scraped over the floor.

Then came slow, dragging footsteps.

Creak…

The wooden door slowly swung outward.

An emaciated old man in his seventies or eighties stood behind it, his head covered in white hair.

“What do you…”

Then he saw the sheriff.

The cemetery keeper’s gloomy, irritated expression froze.

A stiff smile appeared on his face.

“Honored Sheriff Ingram. What brings you here?”

Ingram skipped the pleasantries.

“A passerby reported seeing unclean things in the cemetery.”

“You’re the cemetery keeper. Did you notice anything unusual last night?”

Xia Nan caught the reaction immediately.

The old man’s face had already been bloodless.

Now it turned even paler.

“Anything unusual? No… no!”

As though Ingram had struck a nerve, the cemetery keeper’s voice suddenly rose.

“I went to bed very… very early last night. I don’t know anything!”

The corner of Xia Nan’s mouth twitched.

He had absolutely no experience interrogating people, and even he could tell the old man was acting guilty.

Ingram had served as Kalanfor’s sheriff for years.

Naturally, he noticed it too.

His gaze instinctively shifted past the half-open door and into the hut.

Bang!

That one glance was enough.

The cemetery keeper reacted as though someone had stepped on his tail.

He suddenly shoved the door outward.

The door slammed into Ingram, and at the same time, the old man’s frail body ducked low and slipped past him like an eel.

Then he saw Xia Nan and Alton blocking the path.

A vicious gleam flashed through his cloudy eyes.

His hand darted to his waist.

A coldly gleaming dagger appeared.

He stabbed.

Xia Nan had been on guard ever since entering the cemetery.

The unfamiliar environment and the heat radiating from the wooden sword on his back had never allowed him to relax.

The instant the cemetery keeper moved, Xia Nan reacted.

Thud!

The dagger struck the flat of [Green Pine] with a dull sound.

Xia Nan frowned.

Too slow.

The cemetery keeper’s thrust was painfully slow, and the force behind it was weaker than even a Goblin’s.

He truly seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary old man.

Xia Nan had instinctively drawn [Green Pine] because the weapon had heated up.

Yet although its hilt grew even hotter when it met the cemetery keeper’s attack, there was no burst of Sunfire like the one from the previous night.

The thought flashed through his mind and vanished.

The old man had attacked first.

There was no reason to hold back.

Xia Nan had only been studying combat-technique manuals for a few days. He was nowhere near the point of turning what he had learned into true combat techniques.

Still, the training had given him more ways to respond in a fight.

He tightened his grip on the hilt.

His wrist dipped and twisted, guiding the dagger along the wooden blade.

Then he snapped the sword upward.

“Block and Rising Slash!”

Whoosh!

A short, taut whistle cut through the air.

The black blade flashed.

“Aaaahhh!”

The shriveled hand clutching the dagger spun into the air along with half the forearm, framed by a spray of bright red blood.

The pain almost knocked the cemetery keeper unconscious on the spot.

He staggered wildly, looking ready to collapse.

Yet somehow, he kept his balance.

His remaining left hand trembled as it plunged into his clothes and pulled out a bone whistle.

He raised it to his lips.

And blew with everything he had.

Peeeeep!

The piercing note swept across the entire cemetery.

Xia Nan stepped forward with his sword raised, ready to pursue.

The cemetery keeper suddenly hurled the bone whistle onto the ground between them.

Tap.

The pale whistle landed on damp black soil.

A few flecks of mud stuck to it.

Then the ground trembled.

Not from above.

From below.

Boom!

Mud and fragments of stone exploded upward.

A jagged skeletal hand, gleaming with a cold and sinister sheen, burst from the earth.

Its fingers closed.

The bone whistle disappeared into its grip.