Chapter 222: Why Are These Skeletons Coming?

At the other end of the Central Mountain Range, a Minotaur auntie was picking mushrooms in the fields; mushrooms have no nutrition and waste oil and sauce, so actually, most people aren't very willing to eat them.

Legend has it that on the Prime Material Plane, some people loved eating mushrooms very much; they pan-fried mushrooms with butter, added a bit of spices, and it was very delicious.

The Minotaur auntie really wanted to try, so she went to ask people what butter was...

Although mushrooms didn't taste good, when added to white clay, they could fill the stomach without causing bloating; every time the Eternal Night was about to arrive, the Minotaur auntie would dig some up, add it to the white clay to make white clay cakes, and eat them with grain; with only half the grain, one could obtain the same feeling of fullness.

Saving half the grain made surviving the Eternal Night simpler; actually, when she was young, the Minotaur auntie didn't understand why a darkness lasting only one month was called the Eternal Night, until she went hungry for the first time, then she understood.

In the darkness under hunger, every second felt as long as forever.

Since then, the Minotaur auntie's greatest hobby was getting food, and her second hobby was matchmaking.

As she picked, the Minotaur auntie unknowingly approached the Land of Deathly Silence; just then, the sky darkened without warning, strips of multicolored light bands descended, dyeing the sky with multicolored hues, and the Eternal Night descended.

With the descent of the Eternal Night, the earth suddenly trembled slightly; suddenly, a pale white hand bone pierced through the soil and rested on the Minotaur auntie's hoof.

"Ah!" The Minotaur auntie was startled, kicked hard, sending the hand bone flying, and jumped back several steps herself.

But after she saw clearly what she had kicked away, she wasn't afraid anymore; she patted her chest and said, "Scared the cow to death! Couldn't you say something before you popped out?!"

A gray-white skeleton missing one hand crawled out of the ground; it happened to hear the Minotaur auntie's complaint, so it turned its hollow eye sockets toward her, and its jawbone clicked and clacked open and shut a few times.

"Over there." The Minotaur auntie didn't know if she understood or what, but she pointed a big finger at the hand bone she had kicked off.

The gray-white skeleton propped itself up with one hand, crawled out of the ground, walked toward its hand bone, picked it up, attached it, and stood there blankly.

Not far away, another skeleton, for some reason whether it was buried too firmly or otherwise, had its upper body poking out while its lower half was stuck in the soil; there it pushed and pushed, pushed and pushed, unable to crawl out.

The Minotaur auntie hurried over and said enthusiastically, "Come, let me help you."

She grabbed the skeleton's ribs with both hands and pulled hard.

The upper body was pulled out, but the lower half remained in the soil; crack, the skeleton split into two pieces.

The half-skeleton propped its body up blankly, looked blankly at the lower half still in the soil, and looked blankly at the Minotaur auntie.

The Minotaur auntie was so embarrassed: "Sorry, sorry..." While apologizing, she backed away; after retreating a distance, she turned her head and ran.

The half-skeleton's jaw opened and closed, silently accusing; finally, it crawled over itself, dug at the ground, and dug out its own lower half.

With the Minotaur auntie's running, hand bones pierced through the ground one after another across the entire land; one after another, pale white bone skeletons crawled out of the ground, stretching like a white carpet to the end of the horizon.

The Land of Deathly Silence, which had been empty just a few minutes ago, was quickly filled with skeleton zombies.

Seeing this scene, the Minotaur auntie was utterly shocked and ran even faster; she ran into the town and frantically beat the stone drum: "They're coming, they're coming, the Eternal Night is here, the Undead Flood Tide, come out and look!"

The villagers, who had been waiting for this day, quickly took out small stools or climbed onto the rooftops to watch this magnificent and gorgeous scene.

For the living creatures living on the eastern side of the Central Mountain Range, undead creatures were something they couldn't avoid; rather than trembling with fear and anxiety, it was better to enjoy it happily, anyway, undead creatures didn't kill people.

Undead creatures had no desires or needs, the number of intelligent high-level undead creatures was small, so they consumed not too much; they possessed endless labor power, could be satisfied easily, and there was no need to oppress the living.

To put it inappropriately, the living creatures on the eastern side of the Central Mountain Range were more like free-range pets; no one would oppress a group of pets, and occasionally someone would come over to feed them.

Just as if on cue, from the direction of the Land of Deathly Silence, six corpse-witch horses, with eyes glowing red and feet treading blue flames, dragged a wide carriage galloping over.

The village's old village chief hurriedly went to meet them and called out loudly: "Oh, is it the Great Sage? May your soul rest in peace."

The carriage stopped in front of the old village chief; an old mage with a form as substantial as reality, white hair and long beard, holding a staff and wearing mage robes, walked down with elegance, took off his mage hat, and returned the greeting:

"May your spirit, uh, be healthy, let me think, this is Qiaotou Town, you are Little Kamo the Twenty-First? From the time I knew your ancestor until now, twenty-one generations have passed; how is your body? When will you pass on?"

"Great Sage, aren't you advising me to die sooner? That's not a good blessing," Little Kamo the Twenty-First, the village chief, complained.

"What's wrong with dying sooner? Look at your body; it's already osteoporotic," the Great Sage said, patting Village Chief Kamo's shoulder with disdain.

Immediately, he asked again: "How is it? How was the harvest these past few months? Is there enough to eat?"

Village Chief Kamo hurriedly replied: "Thanks to your blessing, the harvest was good, there's enough to eat; this Eternal Night should be survivable."

"That's good, that's good, then I'll spare your place; I don't know if the villages behind have a harvest; every extra bit of grain means a few more people alive. Since your grain is enough, I'll give you a bit more salt; recently, the salt mines have become harder and harder to dig, and salt will become scarcer and scarcer in the future; save it and eat less," the Great Sage said, both happy and helpless.

"Ah, are the salt mines decreasing? What should we do?" Village Chief Kamo said, somewhat at a loss, but as soon as the Great Sage took out the salt bag, he skillfully took it over without a second of hesitation.

Every year when the Eternal Night arrived, the Great Sage would drive over to relieve everyone; if a village's harvest was low, the Great Sage would leave some grain; if a village had enough grain, the Great Sage would leave a bit more salt.

Compared to grain, salt was more precious, because grain could still be grown oneself, but salt could only be brought by the Great Sage, or smuggled back from the west by undead merchants.

The consequences of lacking salt were very serious; hearing that the salt mines were decreasing, Village Chief Kamo immediately panicked, but apart from panic, he had no other way; if even the Great Sage couldn't handle it, he certainly couldn't.

He couldn't possibly go dig the salt mines himself; if even skeleton zombies couldn't dig the salt mines, humans certainly couldn't.

"Alright, do you need any help here? If not, I'll go to the next village," the Great Sage asked.

"Oh oh oh, yes yes, the well we mentioned to you during the last Eternal Night; we have prepared all the materials; please, Great Sage, help us dig a well, so we won't have to wait for the Eternal Night's rising water to have water to use."

"Dig a well? Sigh, actually, it's meaningless; the surface water is shallow; there will be water for the first month, but the next two months will still lack water; in the end, you still have to store water. Alright, where are the materials?"

Although saying it was useless, the Great Sage still went to the place where the materials were piled, waved his staff a few times, and a mud pillar quickly rose from the ground, rising and rising continuously.

After rising more than ten meters, it fell to one side, revealing a vertical deep hole; water traces had already begun to gather at the bottom of the hole.

The Great Sage waved his staff again; the piled materials flew up on their own, as if an invisible hand had grabbed them—Mage Hand.

The materials fell into the well, quickly stacking up to support the well walls; only in this way would the well not collapse.

"Alright, say it again: the well is useless; you still have to store water regularly; don't let people die of thirst when there's no water to drink," the Great Sage instructed.

"Yes yes yes, I also know it's useless; mainly, we want to extend the time for storing water; during the Eternal Night, everyone crowds to the riverbank to fetch water, which is too dangerous; with a well, fetching water from the well is much safer," Village Chief Kamo replied.

"That's true, alright, I'll leave first; may you pass on soon," the Great Sage said, waving his hand without looking back, and walked toward his carriage.

Village Chief Kamo was angry and said: "Goodbye, and may your soul not rest in peace."

Just as the Great Sage was about to board the carriage, a horn-like long blast came from the direction of the Land of Deathly Silence: Woo—Woo—Woo—

The Great Sage paused for a moment, looked in that direction, and murmured to himself: "Huh, why are these skeletons coming?"

PS: My enteritis flared up last night and has hurt until now; it's late, so I'll update one chapter first.