Chapter 43: Clouds of Doubt

Xiahou Yan had no intention of blaming Mayor Joel.

He knew that Old Joel’s proposal to purchase Elf Crop Seeds was purely out of a desire to plan for the future development of the new territory. It was just that due to a fixed mindset, Mayor Joel subconsciously assumed the Igor Family was still the prominent, wealthy household that once dominated the Western Territory.

If it had been a few years ago, no matter how precious the Elf Plants on the market were, as long as the Igor Family truly needed them, they wouldn’t have blinked an eye or frowned even if they had to drop a fortune. But after the Imperial Court subjected them to a raid akin to the ransacking of the Grand View Garden, the Igor Family had long fallen into a miserable state where even a landlord had no surplus grain left. Even if the Lord went out and sold his body on the streets, he couldn’t earn enough to buy half an Elf Plant!

As soon as Mayor Joel spoke, he remembered their current funds were tight and the proposal for Elf crops was unfeasible, so he simply kept his mouth shut. With all matters settled, the Lord climbed into his carriage.

Thus, after surviving the thrilling days of dancing with corpses in the Infected Zone, the wheels of the Igor Family’s migration expedition began to turn once more, heading straight toward a bright future. Behind the procession, the surging tide of corpses followed closely like the trailing flames of a firework or the wake of a cruise ship, escorting their new master all the way south.

Out of respect for the Lord’s status and position, his carriage was the most spacious in the convoy, large enough to fit five or six burly men. At this moment, however, only Xiahou Yan and his maid, Anjie Rendall, were inside.

The remaining space was almost entirely crammed with various valuables. The harvest from Adrian’s Laboratory was extraordinary. The Lord hadn’t even had the time to examine everything individually, much less feel comfortable entrusting them to anyone else. Therefore, upholding the fine tradition of a miser sleeping while clutching his Gold Yuanbao, he stuffed all these precious treasures into his own carriage.

This behavior nearly caused Anjie Rendall, who usually favored tidiness and bordered on being a neat freak, to break down. However, the little maid had more important matters to ask the Lord about.

"Lord Eliot, have you seen Alice?" the little maid asked in confusion.

"Wh-why?" Xiahou Yan sneezed, looking slightly nervous.

"Nothing... I just feel like she’s acting a bit strange today, almost as if she’s avoiding us." Anjie shook her head. "She was never like this before..."

"She might just be excited about leaving the Infected Zone..." Xiahou Yan sneezed again.

"Oh my, you should wear more clothes!" Anjie picked up a coat from the side and carefully draped it over the Lord. "It’s almost winter. What will we do if you catch a cold? All five hundred of us are counting on you..."

"It’s fine, I just caught a little chill in the night..." Xiahou Yan pulled at the collar of his coat, offering a "chilly" smile.

To Xiahou Yan’s relief, Anjie Rendall didn’t dwell on the topic. Instead, she reached for the kettle, heated it briefly over the flame of the Lion Lantern, and then poured the Lord a steaming cup of tea.

The Lord took the cup and downed the light-red tea in one gulp. As the liquid entered his mouth, a brief wave of spiciness was quickly followed by a sweet aftertaste that filled his mouth, reminding Xiahou Yan of the ginger tea with sugar water back on Earth.

"This is tea brewed with Purple-leafed Ginger!" The little maid tilted her chin up, seemingly fishing for praise. "I had only heard Master Van Louis mention this before. I just happened to see a piece in the carriage, so I sliced some to brew tea to warm you up! Well, my Lord? Is it good?"

Hmm... Xiahou Yan smacked his lips. That piece of Purple-leafed Ginger was likely one of the Magic Materials left behind by Adrian, highly useful for brewing Magic Potions. To think it had been carelessly steeped in water by the naive and ignorant Anjie... But to be fair, tea brewed with an eight-hundred-year-old ginger slice tasted quite good.

"How much Purple-leafed Ginger is left?" Xiahou Yan handed the teacup back to Anjie. "It tastes good. Slice some and brew a pot for me every day from now on."

"Yes, sir!" Anjie agreed gleefully. As she poured more tea, she continued, "Lord Eliot, the past few days have truly felt like a dream..."

"Indeed... a grand dream." Xiahou Yan offered a helpless smile.

Who could have imagined that just a few days ago, he had been vacationing by the Seine River in Paris, only to be transmigrated to the Otherworld in the blink of an eye, turning into a noble Lord?

Anjie Rendall, of course, had no idea what the Lord was thinking. She sighed to herself, "When we tell Miss Caterina about our experience this time, she definitely won’t believe it! The Infected Zone, the tide of corpses, and your Undead Magic..."

"Speaking of which..." Xiahou Yan pinched his chin in confusion. "I remember the convoy’s planned route was to bypass the Infected Zone from the west and then head south, right? So how exactly did our convoy mistakenly stumble into the Infected Zone?"

According to his fragmented memories, when the convoy strayed into the Infected Zone, Eliot Igor had already fallen into a coma and thus knew nothing of the situation. Because he had been so overwhelmingly busy, Xiahou Yan hadn’t found the time to ponder this crucial question. But no matter how you looked at it, for such a massive convoy to take the wrong path and wander into the Infected Zone was simply too absurd!

"It was all because of that gray fog!" Anjie sighed.

Gray fog?

This somewhat sensitive term forced Mr. Xiahou to suppress the urge to pray to the Blessed Profound Yellow Immortal Venerable as he pressed on, "What was that about?"

"I’m not entirely sure either..." Anjie’s expression twisted in conflict. "You had suddenly fallen into a coma, and for those few days, Mayor Joel and Master Laurie were busy diagnosing your condition. As a result, the convoy kept moving, and somehow, we entered a patch of thick gray fog where we couldn’t even see the road!"

The maid bit her finger, frowning as she recalled the scene. "The fog lasted for about two or three days. During that time, we kept following the compass, but something must have gone wrong. By the time the fog dispersed, we had already trespassed into the Infected Zone—that was right when you woke up, right?"

"Right..." Xiahou Yan pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded.

His memories from when he first transmigrated were extremely chaotic, and the memories he inherited from Eliot Igor had massive gaps. Thinking back on it now, it was a total mess. It wasn’t until two days after his transmigration that his mind gradually returned to normal, only to immediately face the disaster of a corpse tide attack. Xiahou Yan felt that this entire sequence of events exuded an eerie aura!

There was nothing particularly special about the Infected Zone or the tide of corpses. After all, this godforsaken place had been in this shitty state for eight hundred years. But what was the deal with that gray fog that obscured their vision and led the convoy astray? Although it was currently late autumn and early winter—a time indeed prone to fog—the location of the convoy at that time was right in the middle of a plain. There were no large-scale water sources, the air wasn’t humid, and there certainly wasn’t any London-style air pollution! High school geography had long taught that there were three indispensable conditions for fog: first, cooling; second, humidity; and third, the presence of condensation nuclei in the air. But the geographical and climatic conditions back then didn’t look conducive to fog at all!

In other words, that thick fog seemed far more like the product of some sort of Magic than a normal natural phenomenon! Speaking of which, it seemed he had read something about fog somewhere recently...

Xiahou Yan reached over and grabbed his copy of the Ancient Ritual Atlas. He quickly flipped through a few pages and soon found the following statement in the Divine Descent Technique Chapter: "When summoning an Outer God to descend, a gray fog often arises and does not disperse for three days. As it may attract the attention of others, one must not be careless."

Summoning... an Outer God? Could it be that someone had been holding some kind of Summoning Ceremony nearby at the time, which produced that damn gray fog? But who was the summoner? And where was the summoned Outer God?

Staring at his own reflection on the surface of the Lion Oil Lamp, Xiahou Yan couldn’t help but fall deep into thought.