Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1100 - 213: The Corpse

Chapter 1100: Chapter 213: The Corpse

"Digged it up," Pannis held the skull between himself and Catherine, blocking Catherine’s eerie gaze, and said innocently, "It’s right there in that pit, there are other bones as well, do you want to see them? If you do, I can bring them to you."

"Hey, come back here," Catherine said irritably, "You’re messing around on purpose, aren’t you? You know what I’m asking. Is there anything special about this skull that made you go through such trouble to dig it out?"

"Well, nothing special, just I thought Little Deer has been quite lonely recently, so I wanted to find her a friend. Ouch, don’t pinch, don’t pinch." Pannis quickly dodged Catherine’s pinching fingers, carrying the skull to the other side of the girls and using it to shield himself, "Stop glaring at me, I’ll talk, I’ll talk. Actually, this skull, no, I should say this corpse is quite strange."

"A complete corpse?" Catherine frowned and said, "What’s strange about it, and you couldn’t have seen the corpse before, could you? How could you feel it was strange in advance? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone digging."

"Uh, that’s exactly why I said it’s strange," Pannis retorted, "Since entering the Forbidden Land of Living Souls, have you seen a single corpse? From large magical beasts to small insects, any corpse will do, including skeletons. Have you seen any along the way?"

"I..." Catherine paused, reflecting for a moment, then shook her head in confusion, "It seems I really haven’t seen any, of course, I might not have noticed if they were too small. But now that you mention it, it is indeed a bit strange. Not encountering living creatures can be explained by this being the Forbidden Land of Living Souls, but no corpses... Isn’t it said that magical beasts that wander in here often get hit by Soul Assaults and turn into Twisted Souls? Could I really have missed something?"

"No, it’s not something you’ve missed, but rather, the Forbidden Land of Living Souls essentially has no corpses," Pannis said as he placed the skull on the ground beside him and, removing his thin gloves and washing his hands, he shook his head, "Any creature that enters the Forbidden Land of Living Souls, when it’s attacked by the Soul Assault, and the soul becomes distorted, the powerful forces of the Twisted Souls cause the body to disintegrate, no matter how tough the body is. Of course, there’s another theory that the body gets distorted along with the soul, turning into a spiritual form. In any case, there are basically no corpses in the Forbidden Land of Living Souls."

"Wait, that’s not right," Lina asked curiously, "The Forbidden Land of Living Souls is surrounded by forests on both sides, oh, no, except for the Wandering Woodlands, with Bone Burying Grounds and Lake of Termination. It’s all surrounded by the forest, right? If a magical beast from the forest chased prey into here and then, after eating the prey..."

"Then it would die inside," Pannis shook his head, "Magical beasts are different from sentient beings; sentient beings can last a few hours or even over a dozen hours in the Forbidden Land of Living Souls. But if it’s a magical beast, it can’t last even a few minutes. This phenomenon might be related to the strength of the soul; the soul strength of sentient beings is much greater than that of magical beasts, even for ordinary sentient beings. As for this traffic...ow, damn, you bit me."

"Idiot," Dillie released his teeth from biting Pannis’ calf, spat a few times as if he had bitten something dirty, and wiped his mouth with the back of his paw, disapprovingly saying, "Damn Kyle, can’t you go a day without getting punched? To hell with it, I can barely stand you anymore."

"If what you’re saying is correct, then there really shouldn’t be any corpses here," Catherine, ignoring Pannis’ pitiful look, stared at the skull on the ground, thoughtfully saying, "However, if someone entered the Forbidden Land of Living Souls, but died from some other causes before they could be twisted by the Twisted Souls, just like Emperor Flare mentioned about Rordelansor."

"That would be the only exception," Pannis stopped pretending to be pitiful and seriously answered, "Only in that case would there be remains found in the Forbidden Land of Living Souls. I examined the body carefully just now; two of his ribs were broken, with deep gashes on the surface of the fractured bones, and the internal cavities near the break had a purple color."

"Only two ribs are broken, and there are cuts on the bone surface; this indicates it’s not caused by a blunt force trauma but something that penetrated the body, leaving behind cuts as it passed through the ribs, and due to the excessive force, the ribs also broke," Catherine said pensively, "As for the purple color in the marrow cavity... it must be poison."

"Yes, only a very potent poison could cause the inside of the marrow cavity to discolor," Lina also put on gloves, held the skull in her hands, and looked at it from different angles, even opening the jaw to inspect the teeth and the connection with the jaw. After a while, she nodded and said, "That’s right, although we can’t determine the exact composition, we can be sure that this was a powerful poison. Even I would have a hard time removing such poison with Divine Spells; those clergymen without spellbooks would probably struggle even more. Vivian, Freya, you mages know more about varieties of poison than we priests do. Can you tell what kind of poison it is?"

"You don’t need to bring it over," Vivian shook her head, "If the marrow cavity is already empty, that means death occurred a long time ago; it’s impossible to tell anything from it now. However, if it made the surface of the cavity turn purple, it probably belonged to a type of instant-acting poison with a very short onset time, like many snake venoms," she said.

"I also think it’s a fast-acting poison," Pannis confirmed Vivian’s guess. "However, if that’s the case, there’s another question involved regarding the location of the remains. He should have died long ago, so how could he appear here?"

"If he had enough antidote on him, even against a fast-acting poison, it could be suppressed for a while," Lina said. "Moreover, our priestly Divine Spell for driving out poison may not be able to remove it completely if one’s power is insufficient, but it can certainly delay the onset of the poison to some extent."

"If you were him, would you venture deep into the forest with severe injuries and plagued by deadly poison?" Pannis asked in return. "Not to mention whether you could make it this far, would you push into a region covered by dense fog, plagued by multiple injuries?"

"Uh, I definitely wouldn’t," Lina hesitated for a moment and shook her head. "But what if he was chased in here by a magical beast outside? No, that’s not right; I would withstand a Soul Assault and sit down near the edge to rest for a while, waiting for the magical beast to leave before departing. Still not right, that way, he couldn’t possibly die at this location unless..."

"Unless he had companions with him," Catherine picked up where she left off. "They had other missions, or for some other reason, they couldn’t go back to treat him, so they brought him along as they ventured deeper, not expecting him to die on the way."

"So they carried him all the way here?" Pannis asked again. "Don’t forget where this is. This is the Forbidden Land of Living Souls, one of the three most dangerous areas for living beings. They kept moving deeper into the Forbidden Land, in an organized and prepared manner, even with an injured person, which means they almost ignored the effect of a Soul Assault. By estimating the degree of decay on the body, the time of death is about forty or fifty years ago. Does this bring anything to mind?"

"Wait a minute, are you saying..." Catherine suddenly widened her eyes, incredulously saying, "Could this be... could this be... a member of my grandfather and the former chairman’s expedition team?"

"Apart from that expedition team, I haven’t heard of anyone else who has organically entered the Forbidden Land of Living Souls," Pannis shrugged. "Aside from them, I can’t think of anyone else, and the timeline matches up perfectly."

"But isn’t that too much of a coincidence?" Catherine hesitated. "The Forest of Death is so large, and the Core Area is also extensive, how is it possible that we just happened to come across their traces?"

"This can hardly be considered a coincidence," Pannis shook his head. "Think about it, Flare also mentioned that the route they originally chose is very close to ours. And haven’t we speculated that they possibly agreed to that task because the Undead Mages provided an effective way to travel through the Forbidden Land of Living Souls? Therefore, choosing the Forest of Death as their entry point is not strange at all. Thus, if they really left something behind, it’s not at all surprising for us to encounter it. On the contrary, it would be strange if we didn’t come across any traces, which would likely mean our speculation is incorrect."

"Alright, your point makes sense," Catherine lowered her head, thought for a moment, and nodded with a wry smile. "It’s just that I was too shocked. The Forest of Death is only a few kilometers wide, and we deliberately chose the middle position, so if they left traces, indeed we have a high likelihood of encountering them."

"So you also think it’s possible that this corpse belongs to one of your grandfather’s teammates?" Freya asked. "That certainly is the former chairman’s style, I’ve heard my father say, the former chairman held the mission in high regard. If it was you, Sister, you would probably prefer to abandon the mission and first take your injured teammate to get treatment, right?"

"It’s not a matter of prioritizing the mission more," Catherine shook her head. "There was nowhere to treat anyone in the forest anyway. Having come this far, instead of spending days or more to return the same way, it’s better to move forward and see if there’s any other turn of events. Even I would continue deeper."

"And indeed," Catherine continued, "even now, I only acknowledge the high probability. Even if it really was them, it can’t be confirmed whether they were entering or leaving, so the issue you mentioned is not valid."

"This indeed was Old Field’s team, and they were on their way in," Pannis said. "I can be certain of it."

"Why?" Catherine hadn’t finished when she saw an additional small notebook in Pannis’s hand and couldn’t help but ask, "Did you find this as well?"

"This was found together with the body; it seems to be a personal diary kept close by the deceased," Pannis answered. "Fortunately, it’s made of sheepskin, so it hasn’t completely rotted away, and some parts can still be read."