Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 113 Old God Plantation

The two ventured deep into the underground cave.

After leading Rebecca through countless forks in the road, Milo finally saw the stone steps that stretched down the cliff face.

When he came here "last time," it was pitch black below the stone steps, and he could hardly see anything without torches. But now, there were some strange candlelight deep in the underground cave.

The scattered, faint lights, scattered in various corners at the bottom, did not serve any effective lighting purpose; instead, they made the environment appear even more eerie.

"I heard crying."

Rebecca glanced down into the dim underground.

She could clearly hear the girl sobbing; the sound was somewhat intermittent, but she could still tell it was Kai crying.

"Don't talk yet."

Milo only said this one sentence.

Then, without saying a word, he quickly descended the stone steps to the bottom.

……

Upon reaching the bottom of the cave, Milo and Rebecca began to hear a dense buzzing sound, the sound of flies flapping their wings.

Milo wasn't surprised by this, because this was the birthplace of flies.

The decaying fungi caused a fly infestation, and the underground caves were the most densely populated fly areas in Galid.

But that's not the point. Milo had expected to be besieged by the worshippers after entering the underground cave, but that wasn't the case at all.

His boots thudded clearly on the rocky ground, but no worshippers rushed out from the darkness ahead.

From Karl's perspective as an undead, Milo saw the worshippers dragging away the nutrient man and feeding him.

However, it seems that the pilgrims' appetite is only directed towards the nutrients infected by the mycelium, and they seem to have no interest in normal people.

These pilgrims are all native residents of the town of Iqm.

In the past, the victims of the disappearances have actually fallen into two categories. One category consists of indigenous people who, like Kai and others, were called from underground and came here to become believers of the Old Gods. They changed their habits and began to feed on fungi that grow on human bodies.

Another group of victims were abducted and used as food.

The last inhabitants of the town of Iqum left ten years ago, meaning that the pilgrims hiding in the underground caves have been living there for ten years.

No one knows how much nourishment they consumed during this time...

……

The girl's sobs and the buzzing of flies mingled together.

Further on, one could hear low murmurs coming from the bottom of hoarse throats, like many people making some kind of conflicting prayer at the same time. The sounds lingered in the depths of the cave, more eerie than the buzzing of flies.

With each step Milo took forward, some of the prayers would stop, but would soon resume.

Clearly, the worshippers deep within the caves had already noticed the outsiders, Milo and Rebecca.

However, they did not react aggressively; instead, they remained prostrate and kneeling deep underground, surrounding the god in their hearts.

This was actually the first time Milo had personally set foot in this underground cave.

All his knowledge of this place came from Karl.

But by then, Karl had become nourishment for the mycelium; he was no longer a normal human being...

……

The two continued walking slowly forward.

They were only able to glimpse the tip of the iceberg of the scenes deepest in the cave.

Even a single glance was enough to send shivers down Rebecca's spine. A massive stone altar stood before it, before which lay a grotesque, emaciated figure, like a dried corpse. Their clothes were tattered, yet their bodies still twitched rhythmically with their breathing…

On both sides are endless lush fungi and crystal orchids.

Beneath the mushrooms were neither soil nor rotten wood, but a dense mass of people...

Or rather, nutrients...

This differs from Milo's previous understanding of nutrients.

These bodies piled together all appear to be alive.

The human bodies covered by dense fungi were stacked in various bizarre positions. They were not completely dead yet, and the mycelium had completely infected their bodies, blooming countless fungal caps on top.

As the nutrients breathed, the entire sea of ​​mushrooms undulated at the foot of the mountain, like ripples spreading across a lake.

……

Milo suddenly remembered the Delaman family's plan in the story that Mogot recounted: because the consumable nutrients could not satisfy the family's "appetite," they began to try to "cultivate" humans as nutrients.

At first, Milo just thought it was an impossible, crazy idea in the minds of bewitched worshippers, but he never imagined that a few years later, someone would actually use humans as a tool to cultivate fungi, creating this creepy plantation...

Most of the people piled together were mining workers from mining companies, and their tattered work clothes were still clearly recognizable.

Throughout the long history of the town of Ikham, pilgrims have used humans infected with mycelium as disposable food. They devoured the flesh and blood along with the immature fungi, leaving only human skeletons without flesh and blood abandoned in the wilderness, such as the skinned head that Mogot found.

But three years after Karl's death, now, these worshippers of the Old Gods have found a more sustainable way of life.

They took control of the captured miners and stacked them one by one to create a plantation.

This has formed a racial survival model with a social division of labor.

And there are "people" managing this, not just pure bestiality as the ravens claim.

So who is leading this group of lost pilgrims now?
Who has the ability and the right to control them?

……

Milo turned and glanced at Rebecca, whose face was deathly pale.

She was terrified.

The scene at the mushroom farm was no different from Rebecca's imagined purgatory; the fertile soil composed of living people made her stomach churn violently.

This was something outside Rebecca's comprehension of the world. Her breathing became very rapid, and her face showed not only horror but also fear and helplessness.

But Milo had no time to comfort her, because when he looked back at Rebecca, he also saw a white shadow moving quickly on the cliff behind them.

He now knows who created this plantation.

...

The newborn among the pilgrims is an evil being born from the union of an infected human body and the blood of the Iqm natives.

A completely new species with intelligence.

Its limbs gripped the stone steps on the cliff face, its massive, twisted body whipping up a whirlwind as it raced toward Milo's location deep within the cave.

……

"Kai is right below the altar. Find her and take her out!"

Milo pushed Rebecca aside, who was blocking his way, and emptied the six bullets in the magazine of his revolver in an instant, pointing it toward the cliff steps.

"Remember! Never touch those mushrooms!"

(End of this chapter)