Chapter 59: Dimensionality reduction strike at the civilization level
The convoy of tricycles suddenly stopped, causing the priests following on horseback to look up in surprise.
These undead would stop to clean up the monsters every once in a while, but this time, the priests did not detect any monster breath.
The reactions of the undead were also different from before. Some of them stayed where they were, while others ran to a tricycle at the back of the convoy, chattering. They gestured for a while, then hurriedly dispersed, spread a tent cloth on the open ground, and carried down a civilian sitting in the truck bed.
"Something happened?" Andre's expression changed and he subconsciously turned his horse and took a few steps forward.
The cavalry was not too close to the undead convoy, keeping a distance of thirty to forty meters between them. Andre, who was riding on horseback, could clearly see from this distance that the civilians who were carried off the car by the undead did not seem to be in a good condition... their eyes were closed, their limbs were limp, and they remained motionless after being laid flat on the tent cloth by the undead.
Andre vaguely understood something and couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
This paladin who has lived for more than a hundred years would not be so foolish as to think that this was caused by the plague spread by the undead... He knew very well that the bodies of civilians were very fragile. Leaving the familiar settlement environment and entering the wilderness, let alone encountering wild beasts and monsters, even just traveling would be a dangerous thing for civilians.
The temperature change between day and night, the bite of an inconspicuous mosquito, or even a light rain or a gust of wind may take the life of a civilian.
Therefore, civilians are afraid of words like "migration" and "emigration", and few people are willing to leave their homeland unless they can no longer survive.
This was the reason why Andre sighed... He knew very well that these civilians had left Camor and had been deep in Tarantan for a week. The fact that they had managed to hold out until now without any casualties was because the black magician was generous enough to provide these old and weak civilians with plenty of food.
Even on the plantations, it was only during the cotton picking season that the housekeepers were willing to generously prepare oily food for the cotton farmers... Andre actually .
He also knew that many cotton farmers would try to bring their families into the plantations to help in order to have a good meal during the cotton picking season...
No matter from which perspective, he had no right to blame the black magician Yang for treating these civilians harshly.
Andre, who was feeling mixed emotions and couldn't tell what was going on in his heart, saw two undead kneeling beside a civilian whose life or death was unknown, and they lay down attentively, as if they were checking the condition of the civilian.
When Andre was wondering what these undead were doing, he found that... one of the undead untied the civilian's tight belt, loosened the clothes wrapped tightly around her body, raised the civilian's feet with something like stones, and put his palms on the civilian's chest and pressed hard.
Andre: “???”
The other undead opened its mouth with a "click", as if it was taking a deep breath (??), then it lay down, used its claws to pry open the civilian's jaw, and blew air into the civilian's mouth.
Andre: “???”
Lowell also saw this scene and turned to look at Yang Qiu in astonishment.
"It's just heat stroke shock." Yang Qiu said calmly.
Rowell: “???”
Andre in front also turned his head, his face full of question marks.
"Don't worry, the undead can handle it." Yang Qiu was still as steady as an old dog. "I said before, the undead of Tarantan are different. They understand the value of life better than the living. As long as there is a glimmer of hope, they will not give up these civilians."
Lowell, Andre, and the other priests had no idea what expressions they should make...
"Everyone is resting."
Lowell said this harshly, ignoring Yang Qiu who was accompanying him, and quickly led the cavalry team back and put a sufficient distance between them.
Then let everyone dismount and talk to them one by one to ensure that all team members are mentally stable.
Yang Qiu pretended not to notice what Lowell was nervous about.
He said that on purpose; he just wanted to make these guys question their lives.
In fact, it is impossible for these apologists to care about the life or death of a civilian woman, especially an old and blind woman who is not worthy of any sympathy.
He wanted to deliberately distort the meaning of these people and make them realize the fact that "the undead care more about the life and death of a blind woman than the holy priests ."
The concept of "civilization" is not reflected in superficial aspects such as who dresses more decently, who has more perfect etiquette, or who speaks more politely.
Respect for fellow life is the most indispensable cornerstone of civilization for any intelligent creature or race.
In this regard, even for Chinese players who have a gaming mentality, it is a dimensionality reduction attack for the indigenous "civilized people" of this world.
Of course... Yang Qiu himself was not as calm as he appeared. When he was explaining the situation to the priests, he was quietly putting the first aid alchemy potion back into the space ring.
There was a medical student who went online to play for a while before class. He and Ji Tang, who knew some first aid, checked the condition of the unconscious civilian and confirmed that it was neurological shock. They performed first aid expertly, so there was no need for him to appear...
A few minutes later, the civilian who was dizzy and unable to circulate independently coughed twice with the help of CPR, and his chest rose and fell and he was able to breathe independently. The medical student player who had just come online immediately asked the female player to come up and help take off the heavy clothes of the civilian who was wrapped tightly, leaving only a single piece of warm clothes.
Ji Tang asked the players to help clear out two tricycles, and he tied a roof on the spot with branches, ropes and tent cloth. He asked the players to lift the civilian onto the tricycle with the roof, raise his legs, keep him lying on his side, and cover his abdomen with a blanket.
Yang Qiu issued a task to prepare lunch at the right time to give the civilian more time to rest...
"Is everything alright? Huh? Is this NPC alright?"
Several online players who were assigned to the civilian team gathered around and nervously watched the entire rescue process.
"His breathing is more stable, he should be fine." The medical student player who was helping with the rescue wiped his hands and said, "He's probably wearing too many clothes and was exposed to the sun, so he got heatstroke and went into shock. Now is the time to rest. Go find some cool water and use some cloth to help this civilian cool down."
"I'll do it, I'll do it." The female player in the team raised her hand.
"Damn, NPCs can actually get heatstroke? The NPCs in our Exile Town are all wearing thick clothes and standing in the sun every day, so why hasn't this happened?" a player asked in surprise.
"Those are high-level NPCs, and these are civilian NPCs, of course they are different." The player next to him said as a matter of course.
Ji Tang, who had secretly become nervous, breathed a sigh of relief...
"Wait a minute, if that's the case, these civilian NPCs are wearing a lot of clothes." The team player, who was frightened by the NPC suffering from heat stroke, said anxiously, "Can we ask them to wear less and take off their outer clothes?"
"There's a language barrier. The NPCs don't understand what we're saying, and they won't talk to us."
"How about this, put up a sunshade awning for the tricycles with NPCs on board. We have tent cloth on our vehicles anyway. Female players who are confident in their communication skills can also try to convince these NPCs not to wear too thick clothes." Ji Tang said, "I see that the male players are more wary of the voices of these female civilians talking to us, so men should not get too close to them."
"Damn, NPCs have gender awareness!" Many male players were annoyed.
Female players said they felt pain even without balls: "Why didn't the male NPC show mercy when they attacked us? I was attacked to death several times by that idiot Hal!"
Complaints aside, these civilian NPCs are directly related to how much territory reputation the players can earn from this mission. After all, they are living "data" people, and the players can't bear to watch these NPCs die, so they all get busy...
The convoy was moving along a relatively flat road, and the team was not straight. Mia, who was in the front row of the convoy, could see the situation behind by standing up.
When Mia saw Martina from the next street being carried out of the car by the undead, her face suddenly changed and she shuddered as if she saw her own future .
People in the town interact with each other. Martina, who is ten years older than Mia, also came to her house to play when Mia was still a little girl.
Mia, who couldn't get married, suffered a lot of bullying at home, but at least she only had to weave to give to her family for living expenses, and she could occasionally have a chance to breathe.
Martina got married at the age of eighteen and gave birth to a child early. In her early twenties, she had to work on the loom from morning to night to support herself and her child, as well as her husband who refused to go to the plantation because he was unwilling to endure the hardship... When she was only thirty-five or thirty-six, her body was weakened like her peers, and her eyesight was so poor that she could not even see the shadows of people one meter away.
"Mia, what happened ?" The woman in the car with Mia couldn't see clearly what was happening that far away, so she whispered to Mia, the youngest among them.
"It's Martina. She seemed...sick and was carried out of the car." Mia said in a trembling voice.
The four women in the car were not feeling well themselves, and after hearing this, their faces turned paler.
"Goddess bless you." The woman who asked the question lowered her head, clasped her hands in front of her chest, and prayed softly for her poor fellow villager.
The lower-class people who are struggling to make ends meet have no concept of seeking medical treatment or medicine. Sick people can only endure the hardship. If they survive, they are considered to have a life, but if they cannot, they forget it.
In their view, Martina's illness at this time was tantamount to being sentenced to death by hanging.
But what happened next was beyond Mia's expectations. She could still see clearly in the distance, and was shocked to find that the undead did not carry Martina away and throw her away, but surrounded her and did things she could not understand.
Although she had no idea what these undead were doing, just by looking at the body movements of the undead surrounding her, she could instinctively feel with her delicate female psychology that these undead seemed to care about Martina and had no intention of abandoning her!
But... Mia didn't dare to trust her intuition, she even wondered if something was wrong with her.
She bit her lips tightly, and didn't dare to tell the others in the car what she saw and felt. She was worried that she might have gone crazy because she was thinking too much about unrealistic things, as the old people said...
A few minutes later, Martina, who was lying on the ground motionless, coughed slightly.
Mia, who had been staring at her, opened her mouth wide.
The undead were shouting something, and even if I couldn't understand their language or see their skull faces, I could still feel their joy.
"Mia? What's wrong? What happened again?" The women in the car asked anxiously with their eyes wide open, unable to see anything.
"They saved Martina... They didn't abandon Martina." Mia couldn't help shedding tears, her frail body trembling slightly, "Goddess——"
Mia saw the undead lady with a female voice take off Martina's coat and carefully move her to a tricycle with a sunshade.
"Is Martina okay? Is she really okay?" The women in the car couldn't help but stand up and confirm with Mia again and again.
"I don't know, but I saw the undead moved Martina back to the car. They didn't abandon Martina, that's true." Mia said in a trembling voice, "They... seemed to think it was not good to let Martina be exposed to the sun, so they added a roof to the car Martina was sitting in."
The sun was very strong today and there were almost no clouds in the sky. Being exposed to the sun all morning really made everyone feel uncomfortable.
The women in the car stared at Mia in disbelief, then looked blankly into the distance which was blurry in their eyes.
Several ghosts whose voices were already familiar to them walked towards them. Some were folding the tent cloth on the tricycle next to them, and some walked to the front of the tricycle they were sitting in, speaking in an incomprehensible language and gesticulating to them.
The four women in the car with Mia subconsciously shrank inward and huddled together, unable to hide the fear in their eyes.
At such a close distance, they could vaguely see the skeletons of the undead. Skeletons that could move and talk were still very scary for ordinary people.
Mia didn't know why, but she wasn't too scared.
She discovered that the voice of the undead lady standing in front of the car and gesticulating was actually very gentle and pleasant.
After carefully watching the gestures of the undead lady for a while, Mia thought for a moment and tried to unbutton her coat.
The undead lady immediately gave a thumbs up and nodded vigorously, then turned half sideways to point at the tricycle where Martina was lying, pointed her arms at the scorching sun in the sky, tilted her head, and exaggeratedly pretended to be unconscious from the sun.
Mia couldn't help but smile.
She understood that the undead lady was telling her that if she wore too much clothing she would get hot and sick like Martina.
She stripped down to the thin layers of clothing she wore at home, and the undead lady was delighted to have communicated with her successfully, and she began gesticulating toward the woman in the car with Mia.
"They told us not to wear too much, otherwise we would get sick from the heat like Martina." Mia mustered up her courage and took the initiative to help. "They saved Martina, and they don't want us to get sick like her."
Along the way, whether it was day or night, female civilians basically wrapped themselves in all the clothes they could wear.
It’s not that these women are not afraid of the heat, but more than half of their team are men.
Even old, frail or disabled men are threatening to them because they are also frail and most of them have vision problems.
They are the real lower class, and they do not fantasize about how pure and kind the poor people are like those decent people who have enough food to eat and do nothing all day.
The women looked at each other for a while, but without objection, they took the initiative to take off their thick clothes that made them feel very uncomfortable.
At this moment, there are only a few men in their team, and these men are concentrated by the undead in the car at the end of the convoy... There is no need for them to cover themselves so tightly.
"Ha!" Tang Jia proudly put her hands on her waist and turned to her friends, "Well, I am quite gifted in languages, right? I convinced these NPCs in no time!"
"Yes, yes, you are so talented." Yang Ying came over holding the tent cloth and said with a smile, "Ask the NPC to get off the car and move around, genius."
Behind the convoy, more than 200 meters away.
After confirming that the team members were in a stable mood, Lowell breathed a sigh of relief, told everyone to stay where they were, and went over to the convoy to check the situation.
The tricycle team was also resting. Some of the souls were boiling water on the makeshift stoves, while others were putting up simple awnings on some of the tricycles.
Most civilians took off their thick clothing and moved cautiously in a small area.
Many people helped each other to walk to the tricycle where the patient was lying, visited their fellow villagers, and whispered a few words to each other.
There were also some brave women with barely usable eyesight who looked at the undead with caution and curiosity, and some even... took the initiative to approach the undead who were setting up tents, communicating with them clumsily using gestures, trying to help.
Rowell: “…”
