Chapter 172

"Mr. Kraft, I have a request." Kup followed Kraft through the ruined camp, hesitating for a long time before breaking his usual silence to speak up: "I want to learn from you."

"Isn't that already the case?"

"Well, I mean further—learning your knowledge as a physician."

Kraft turned his head, staring at him as if he'd seen a ghost, waving the torch before his eyes. "That's unusual. I thought you had no interest in this."

"I've thought it over carefully," Kup said, forcing himself to speak. "It's necessary to learn at least a little." He hadn't suddenly decided to change careers; rather, observation in practice had inspired him—he realized certain knowledge held practical value beyond its original intent.

Knowing the vulnerable points of bones could help locate fractures—and could just as easily be used to cause them. The power of knowledge was indeed considerable.

Kraft himself had just demonstrated this best in the recent battle, with remarkable effect. For the first time, Kup realized that seemingly distant, profound knowledge had always been nearby, applied in simple, unadorned ways.

Medicine was this simple!

Kraft was pleased by Kup's proactive desire to improve and readily agreed.

"I'm glad you've made the right choice. Knowledge is never too much—but you must take it step by step. Start by adding bone names to your new vocabulary."

"Thank you for your generosity." He foresaw the burden ahead would grow heavy, yet Kup no longer found dry textual study so repulsive. He decided to sample it lightly—set a small goal: master the section on bones, to make future actions easier.

Kraft nodded, finalizing the arrangement. The schedule would need reworking—but that could wait until the immediate problem was resolved.

He bent down, grabbing one corner of the overturned tent. He remembered catching a glimpse of a squire near the edge of a dust explosion, tangled and rolling in panic, wrapped inside the tarp.

Now, in the cleanup, the squire had not reappeared. Kraft pulled out the support pole and, following the direction, untangled the bundled cloth, stretching it flat.

On the leveled ground, the cloth lay soft and spread out—no human shape rose beneath it.

"Where is he?" Kraft yanked the tarp fully open, rolled it into a bundle, and found nothing underneath—only a fallen broadsword, likely dropped during the struggle.

He turned toward the group of survivors. Their emotions remained uncontrolled, even worsening—some curled into tight balls, weeping uncontrollably.

There was no uniform yet; everyone dressed as they pleased. Even without faces, it was clear the squire was not among them. Kraft felt a pang of regret—he'd thought the man might survive.

The two began helping Ma Ding with the dead. They covered their faces with cloth, lifting the unfortunate corpses from the dust, gathering them together. Greater care was needed than when they were alive—to avoid stirring dust and causing secondary harm to the living.

The hardest part was separating the fungal-hosted shells from the people entangled with them. Their contact surfaces had fused indistinguishably; even ignoring residual fungal spores, brute force would only rip away the permeated skin.

After several failed attempts, Ma Ding abandoned the idea of peeling them apart intact. Instead, he selected some of the felled firewood and piled it around the corpses with no salvage value.

Hearing footsteps approach behind him, he said calmly: "At least most who fell still have intact bodies; and these, at least, aren't left unattended."

"Though it sounds cruel, I must remind you—keeping intact bodies isn't wise. We don't know if they'll become that." The corpses impaled on the ground, arms still reaching toward the living, needed no explanation—"They might rise again."

The fungus transformed bodies into growth beds, turning them into something else. The process took unknown time, but keeping them was never wise.

He hoped the transformation took as long as possible. The situation in Westminburg was worrying—he could only hope the messenger sent to warn them arrived in time, or at least didn't reach Yin Feng.

Though rationally he knew helplessness was pointless, Kraft still felt restless, kicking savagely at a conspicuous cluster of fungal clumps beside his foot.

"You're right—we'll need more firewood… Wait, sorry." The knight was about to stack his wood when he suddenly raised a hand to shield his eyes, rubbing them. "All right."

"Are you unwell?" In the battle, everyone had been exposed to some fungal spores; minor symptoms demanded vigilance.

Ma Ding lowered his hand, rotating his eyes left and right, as if searching for something fleeting. He quickly turned back to Kraft. "No, just a momentary blur. There's nothing left to do here. Professor, you should rest."

"Not yet. I have one question—did you see those things dragging bodies away?"

"No, I didn't notice. Did you?"

"Neither did I. That's strange." His gaze swept over the survivors and the gathered corpses, then added the pile soon to be burned. In the chaos, one unattended issue emerged: "The numbers don't add up."

"Four missing…?"

That included the squire they'd noticed. The forest floor, churned by battle, showed no trace. Kraft hadn't paid close attention until he circled the camp and confirmed: several people, dead or alive, were gone from the camp's perimeter.

He'd asked Kup the same question earlier—the answer was no.

The chaos had been too great; no one could confirm their fate. They might have wandered off lost in the woods—or been dragged away. Without witnesses, neither could be proven.

"Assume they're dead. We can't go looking for them." Missing persons during battlefield cleanup were normal. Their fates were many; here, it was effectively the same as death.

Ma Ding stacked more wood atop the pyre, covering the dead's faces. He performed a rare, solemn church gesture—a half-circle in the air, as if sealing a coffin. He paused halfway, realizing it blurred too closely with that damned heresy, and awkwardly switched to a hand-over-heart salute.

"May their souls remain whole." He turned toward the fire to call for helpers. Few had recovered; most still shouted incoherently, instinctively curling and flinching.

Kraft stood before the pyre a moment longer, then crushed the fungal cluster beneath his foot. No residue crumbled—only the sensation of force expended into emptiness.

His vision felt slightly off, as if overlaid with high-transparency colored blotches—but these blotches didn't move with his gaze. Instead, they clung to objects, like swollen, misshapen soap bubbles stuck to surfaces, everywhere, making his surroundings feel crowded.

He rubbed his eyes. The afterimages faded considerably—nearly invisible unless deliberately sought.

He blinked to moisten his eyes, adjusting focus between near and far, trying to shake them off. When he looked at the pyre, he noticed a piece of wood covered in fungal blotches—placed prominently, already sprouting scale-like mushrooms. It wouldn't burn.

Why was this wood placed here? It had to be replaced. Kraft reached to pull it out, intending to discard it—but the texture felt rough under his fingers, not smooth as it appeared.

A subtle conflict between sight and touch.

The throwing motion halted. He reexamined the wood. The blotches darkened, gaining faint outlines, soft and moist, filling his tactile sense.

In his hand, it felt simultaneously like a bloated, rotting mushroom stalk—and a rough firewood log.

Kraft released it. It fell freely, striking the dense earth—but the impact felt less solid than it looked, as if cushioned by a sticky, furry layer.

He lifted his foot and stomped again. As he stepped forward, the ground remained firm beneath him—only broken twigs and leaves.

【Hallucination?】

Simultaneously, he realized the persistent, fluctuating unease he'd felt since entering the forest had vanished. The change had occurred subtly during the battle, when his focus had silenced distractions. If the old sensation had been like floating on water, constantly buffeted by ripples, now it was stillness.

And in that stillness, he sensed a pervasive vitality.

He was affected—not just him. Kraft tensed his left arm. The muscles contracted naturally; the odd sensation from the embedded stone fragment, strangely, eased—like a primal, homecoming relaxation.

【Spores】

Fungal spores were now the prime suspect. They caused more than mere physical harm—they might also act as a medium, deepening the link between the inhaled and the deeper layer.

"Kup, have you experienced blurred vision?"

"Maybe a little?" Kup closed his eyes and shook his head, then, understanding Kraft's implication from context, instantly grasped it.

For a moment he panicked, then calmed. He silently repeated something, drawing closer to Kraft. From his lips, it looked like "Don't act rashly."

Kraft's reasoning now contradicted itself. He considered the possible fate of the missing squire—and from this angle, everything seemed to connect.

They had fallen—or been pulled—into the deeper layer. But combining this with spore inhalation created an unavoidable logical flaw.

【Why didn't those who inhaled more disappear?】

Those in the center of the dust, embraced by fungal hosts, lay quietly on the pyre, awaiting ash.

This directly contradicted his theory.

Kraft lowered the torch, bringing it close to the dead's faces. He forced open their mouths—lips blue, nearly purple, contorted in violent struggle.

They had suffered rapid, violent coughing fits, then collapsed, losing consciousness. Kraft himself, having inhaled only a little, felt throat irritation. The substance was likely a highly irritating spore mist, causing airway spasms and severe ventilation obstruction—like a massive asthma attack.

Further, once inhaled, the spores caused diffuse lung damage, impairing gas exchange.

A true case of acute respiratory distress syndrome—faster than any he'd seen. During exertion, inhalation led to loss of mobility within seconds from hypoxia, and death by asphyxiation within minutes.

As a weapon, carried by mobile fungal hosts, it was terrifying. But as a medium…

【Dead bodies cannot be pulled into the deeper layer.】

This created an impractical condition: one must not inhale too much, or die before the spirit could be drawn in; nor too little, or the effect would be insufficient.

Yet upon reflection, it made sense for them: a simple concentration mechanism pulled some into the deeper layer, while leaving others to die in the world, their bodies controlled by fungal hosts. It was astonishingly mature.