Chapter 431: Undead Speed
When the skeleton ship docked, the only people who could get the news first and pack up and run away without delay were those closest to the power center of Lars City.
Those on the periphery of the power circle are not so lucky.
For example…Sam Atwood.
That morning, Sam got up as usual after hearing the newsboy's call on the street, washed up, put on a wrinkled shirt, faded vest and trousers, stepped on his dusty and sweaty leather shoes, put on a coat with frayed cuffs, and went out with his briefcase.
"Good day, Sam."
"Good day, Mrs. Sally."
The lady next door was drying her quilts. Her plump figure blocked the already narrow corridor, making the space very small. Sam had to turn sideways to squeeze through.
As he walked down the thin floor, Sam heard the disturbing crying of children, the complaints of housewives, and the shrill screams of a dead child from somewhere early in the morning coming from the rooms of residents on various floors of the apartment building.
Sam had a smile on his face and greeted the neighbors he met along the way in a gentle and friendly manner.
Once they walked out of the neighborhood where they lived, the fake smile on Sam's face disappeared from his skin.
When an investigator or detective investigates someone, he will definitely visit the neighbors. The neighbors' testimony can greatly influence the investigator's judgment... No matter how much Sam hates dealing with these vulgar and shallow people, he will carefully maintain his image in the eyes of his neighbors.
This is also the reason why Sam did not move to a more upscale neighborhood and continued to live in this shabby apartment building - compared to those pretending to be middle-class , these poor guys are much easier to please; as long as you show some superficial enthusiasm and friendliness and occasionally give them some small favors, they will really treat you as a good person and say good things about you.
There was no need to go to the deserted Night Watch branch, so Sam left his neighborhood and walked into the inner city.
The outer city area has not changed much compared to the past, but the situation in the inner city area is quite unusual.
At this time of day in the past, restaurants, clothing stores, and department stores on the roadsides of the inner city should have been open for business, and clubs, salons, and tea parties that only entertained specific guests should have begun making preparations for opening. From time to time, you could see shopping carriages with aristocratic family crests coming and going on the streets, and there should also be ladies who had breakfast walking by the roadside, escorted by their maids.
Today, on the inner city streets, the doors of shops are closed and there are few pedestrians on the road.
Sam walked a short distance hesitantly, then instinctively turned around and walked away.
Something happened.
Sam was nervous and confused.
What could change the inner city overnight?
With this doubt in mind, Sam trotted all the way to Wheel Lane, the junction of the inner and outer city, and knocked on the back door of a middle-class family.
As soon as the maid saw Sam, she nervously pulled him into the house and locked the door.
"In the second half of the night, the city lord and his family left the city!"
Before Sam could speak, the maid said anxiously, "Not only did the mayor run away, but the mayor, the sheriff, the tax collector...all ran away! The convoy out of the city lasted from late night until morning!"
"The carriage from the Baron's house in the next street just left half an hour ago!"
"What on earth happened?!" Sam was stunned.
"I don't know. My master found something wrong when he woke up in the morning. He went to investigate without even having breakfast and hasn't come back yet." The maid said nervously.
Sam didn't get any information from the maid's church friend, so he left in a hurry and rushed to the next house.
The next church member who ran a bar was more informed. When Sam arrived, he was shouting in fear and asking the waiter and the assistant to pack up the property.
"The Tarantan Undead are coming! The Tarantan Undead!" The church member who ran the bar pulled Sam, who came to ask about the situation, behind the stairs and whispered anxiously, "Four skeleton ships are parked in the port area, you should run away as well!"
Sam was struck by lightning.
The Tarantan Undead's record of hunting down vampires and exterminating the followers of the "Eternal Sleeper" was reported in the newspapers, not to mention that these crazy undead who couldn't get along with the dark creatures were keen on exorcism in every city they came to - these guys who didn't look like dark creatures at all actually came to Lars? !
Sam stumbled out of the bar and walked onto the street, where he found some middle-class families who worked in City Hall or had "too close" ties with the city's upper class, also nervously packing their belongings and loading them onto their carriages.
Sam couldn't stay there any longer, and he ran desperately to the place where he hid his property.
In addition to the shabby apartment he showed others, Sam had another residence where he hid all the wealth he had accumulated over the years.
After packing all the gold coins, jewelry, expensive watch straps, and clothes made of fine fabrics into a suitcase, Sam hurried to rent a car.
The result...I didn’t rent it.
There were too many families who fled in a hurry, and most of them were wealthy, so the carriages in the rental company had been rented out long ago.
Sam had no choice but to run to his church friends to borrow a car.
The church members who had cars had either already fled with their families or were preparing to flee, so it was obviously impossible for them to lend their cars to Sam...
Desperate Sam, with the last glimmer of hope, ran to the City Lord's Mansion, which he would never approach easily, to try his luck, hoping that if everyone in the City Lord's Mansion had not fled, there might still be one or two housekeepers or servants who knew him and could help him think of a solution .
Unfortunately, the City Lord's Mansion, which received the news first, was the most deserted, with even the servants fleeing in all directions.
Time was passing by little by little as he ran around the city like a headless fly, looking for a way to escape.
After all his efforts in vain, Sam had to accept a cruel reality...the strong connections he thought he had, and his indispensable importance and uniqueness, were all fake.
He is not that important at all, so important that after he has given everything and worked hard for others, others will think of him when a crisis comes.
"They are all bastards, they are all scumbags - they are all bastards and scumbags!"
It was unrealistic to run away on foot, not to mention whether he would be caught up by the undead who were famous for their speed. Sam knew very well that if he left the city and his identity as the "Administrative Affairs Officer of the Night's Watch Branch", and traveled far away with a large amount of wealth, he would only become a prey that attracted hunters.
How bad is the security situation in Taqiya Territory? It is even worse than the situation in Dutata City during the reign of the Ezekiel family...
However, due to Sam's special status, his superiors only allowed him to get to know reliable church members in the city. He didn't know any of the church members who had great influence in the towns and villages!
If he rashly ran to the countryside, the chances of him being kidnapped as a lone passerby would be higher than the chances of him being protected...
In desperation, Sam could only choose to hide in the familiar city of Lars with his fellow church members who had no time to escape.
Sam had just been hiding for a short while when his fellow church members brought back the news that "the people on the skeleton ship had come down and the city hall had been taken over."
More than an hour later, a fellow church member whose identity was not as sensitive as Sam's brought back even worse news - the night watchman from Adler, together with an agent from Dutata City, was asking about Sam's news in the apartment building where Sam lived openly.
Sam was so shocked to learn that his identity was exposed so quickly that his face turned pale.
This was not the end. More than an hour later, a fellow believer who risked his life to go out again to get information brought back worse news than the previous two times.
"The City Hall... the undead have come out!"
The church member who was frightened pale trembled and said tremblingly: "A lot of undead have come out! The streets in the inner city are full of undead now, everywhere! I, I can't go out anymore. Just now when I passed by Wheel Alley, several undead were looking at me - do they have a special way to recognize me?!"
"Don't scare yourself. Your identity is different from mine. You've never been exposed." Sam was afraid that his fellow church member would collapse under the pressure, so he tried to comfort him. "There are no clues in my apartment Investigators will never find any relationship between you and me. Just stay calm and don't let anyone notice anything unusual."
"We don't have to worry too long... The Tarantan Undead will know that so many people have escaped from the city, and they will definitely chase them out. When these undead leave the city to chase others, I will find a way to sneak into the port and take a boat away. Then you will be absolutely safe - except for me and the city lord who escaped first, no one knows you exist."
The church member who had calmed down nodded and let Sam continue to hide in the cellar. He returned to the ground and continued to play the role of "ordinary citizen".
This church member, who had no flaws in her identity and was a native of the area, had just been calmly doing some sewing work in her home when a group of undead spirits stepped into the alley where she lived.
Just like when players searched Everlook for human traffickers, players never understood what "respecting NPC privacy" meant when doing quests - any place that was allowed to enter and would not pop up a reputation warning after breaking in would have to be searched from beginning to end inside and out and pass an identification technique before they would be satisfied.
This group of players who had searched along the road from the city hall entered the residential area where ordinary citizens lived and "forcibly visited" every house. Their big feet rudely stepped on the floor that the housewife had worked so hard to mop clean, and they had to break into the dormitory and toilet to take a look...
A woman who made a living by doing sewing business at home heard noisy cursing coming from outside. She walked out of the house and her face suddenly changed.
Hundreds of ghosts "forcibly visited" every house along the alley. The protesting male owners and the cursing female owners were ignored by these reckless ghosts. They pushed people away and broke into other people's homes.
The only thing to be thankful for is that these undead searched houses very quickly. A few undead rushed into a house, walked around twice, and then came out and continued to the next house...
The woman doing sewing found it difficult to breathe, the color on her face quickly faded, and she had to hold on to the door frame hard to stand firmly.
There were many women like her who were frightened by the large group of undead, but she did not attract much attention.
After discovering that these undead spirits had searched very "carelessly", the sewing woman, who was almost unable to hold on, could not help but feel a glimmer of hope in her heart... The cellar of her house was very hidden, and there was no trace of it visible from the outside. Maybe - she could fool them!
Relying on this glimmer of hope, when the undead came to her doorstep, the woman who made a living by sewing forced herself to remain calm and did not collapse to the ground.
Then... the ghosts that poured into her house suddenly made a strange excited "KABAKABA" sound.
The woman turned around in astonishment and found that the undead, who had just entered her house no more than ten seconds ago, had already surrounded the cellar entrance next to the kitchen.
Before the woman could have a mental breakdown on the spot, dozens of undead waiting at the door made a "heart" gesture to her in unison.
After a player's identification technique detected "The Betrayer Sam Atwood" four meters underground, the name above the woman's head, which was in the player's eyes a featureless yellow letter "Lars Citizen", was synchronously changed to "Hidden Cultist" in red letters...
After sending a telegram to the Holy Land using the transmitter in Lars City Hall, Captain Mace, who was waiting for news in the mayor's office, had not yet finished his cup of tea when he saw Yang, who was sitting at the other end of the desk, raise his head and said calmly, "We found Sam Atwood."
Captain Metz's hand shook and some tea spilled.
"The undead are really fast. I thought it would be good to get results before dark, but I didn't expect it would only take more than half an hour." Agent Stanford said in great admiration.
Captain Mace, feeling mixed emotions, silently put down his teacup and stood up with difficulty.
If the person who was caught by the undead at lightning speed was not a traitor of the church, Captain Mace's admiration and appreciation for the "speed of the undead" would be even greater than that of Agent Stanford.
