The strange fog that remains in the wilderness is like the shallow water exposed by the receding tide. They usually only appear in the early morning and gradually dissipate as time goes by.
The key is that there are no weird things in the fog, it is safe enough, and the only danger is that it is easy to lose your way.
The mist is scattered like fragments in the low-lying areas of the wilderness. They are like isolated islands. Lu Li and Catalina, who are sailing on the sea, are moving forward along the isolated islands.
"Have you always been like this?"
As they walked into the fog again, the whispers in the wilderness were blocked out, and Qin Xu, who was tense at Catalina, relaxed.
Catalina once said that she rarely communicated with people, and she wasn't lying. Most of the time, she kept a distance from strangers and didn't trust anyone but herself. Lu Li was slightly different, because of his legendary origins and pure human beings.
"Always what."
The fog is slowly dissipating, and visibility is about ten meters.
"You should try to change yourself and speak more." Catalina hopes to know the story before the weird era.
After thinking for a while, Lu Li adopted Catalina's suggestion: "Tell me about the current prices."
Catalina was about to say something when an illusory figure vaguely appeared in the fog ahead.
A vaguely silhouetted woman held a little boy in her arms and sang softly to him to sleep.
"It's a shadow of the old times..."
Catalina couldn't help lowering her voice, with a longing for that time: "It's like a mirage recreating the scene that happened before the weird era."
What appeared before them was a woman coaxing her child to sleep.
The sound of singing drifted from her mouth.
"When you hear the song, close your eyes; when you see the shadow claw reaching for the light, step on it; when there are three knocks on the door, say to the being outside the door, please come in; when the stupid big meatball approaches, ignore it; the beautiful song
Come, close your eyes and listen; quietly listen to the nursery rhymes, and the child will fall asleep..."
The drowsy little boy, with joy on his face, drifted off to sleep in the sweet lullaby.
Lu Li and Catalina passed by the woman who was a projection of the old era, and she ignored them.
“How did subsequent babies escape the ritual of the Silent Hour?”
Lu Li walked further and further away with questions.
The woman's doting eyes left the sleeping little boy, and she gently raised her head, looking at the figure that was about to disappear into the depths of the mist.
"...that ballad, it can put children to sleep."
Catalina said, singing softly along with the emotions in her mind: "When you hear the singing, close your eyes; when you see the shadow claw reaching for the light, step on it; there are three knocks on the door..."
The singing voice that was not in tune was given emotion and became somewhat pleasant to listen to.
"Who wrote the ballad?" Lu Li asked, stripped of his sensibility and surrounded by rationality.
He felt a strange power from the songs - it made people relax.
For children, it can make them fall asleep.
Catalina stopped singing and reminiscing: "I don't know."
Regardless, people did find ways to continue their offspring during the quiet times.
The fog was only the size of a square, and they had already reached the edge while talking.
Silence once again enveloped the desolate land. Accompanied by giant claws stretching toward the sky, the two small people walked on the dangerous wilderness.
After some distance, they hid in another mist.
Walking in the much thinner mist, Catalina resumed the topic she had talked about before, and now prices.
Prices in the Weird Era tended to stabilize and were no longer as inflationary as in the early Weird Era: they returned to their original value.
But earning shillings has become more difficult, and the only sustainable source of income is in the wilderness, at the cost of lives.
"Accept the commission, search for minerals and hunt, patrol the safe zone...in exchange for survival." Catalina said.
She thought it would continue to be this bad until the pollution was so bad that she sold herself, used the money to live a luxurious life, and then threw herself into death.
Lu Li's arrival changed these things and gave her a little hope. Maybe she could exchange for a large amount of money... or even become a resident.
As time went by, the fog that protected them in the wilderness gradually dissipated, exposing Lu Li and Catalina to the dark wilderness.
Katarina is an excellent hunter.
It was obvious: she was alive, and the infection was not serious.
In the wilderness, excellence does not correspond to strength but survivability. Survivability is related to many things, such as luck.
Katarina's luck is usually not very good, but not too bad either. Such people are more likely to survive - they will not die suddenly like the unlucky ones, nor will they be as inexperienced as the lucky ones.
Near noon, the Lightstealer climbed high enough to fully reveal its pitch-black monster claws, which were taller than the World Back Mountains to the north.
Twenty miles away from the safe zone of Leviathan Town.
Lu Li and Catalina hid behind a rock and peeked ahead.
Everything in the flat wilderness was unobstructed. A few hundred meters ahead, a rustling queue crossed the wilderness.
"Trouble...they're ghouls." Catalina lowered her voice and identified what they were from their outlines.
"Ghoul?"
"A kind of undead weirdness... more hateful than all alien species. They prey on us, they come in groups, and they are intelligent... Damn it, we should have bypassed the ghoul lair!" Katarina cursed in a low voice.
"Give me the map."
Catalina handed the map to Lu Li and kept an eye on Lu Li while observing the group of ghouls in the distance.
Mole said that the road map would help them avoid the ghoul lair, but they still encountered a group of ghouls...
Have they strayed off course, have the moles deceived them, or are the ghouls hunting?
"They seem to be migrating." Lu Li said calmly.
"Migrate?"
"Look carefully, they are carrying things." Lu Li looked towards the horizontal extension, and there was also a queue of strong ghouls urging him. "Do ghouls have the habit of migrating?"
Catalina thought for a while, and her body suddenly trembled slightly.
"What's wrong?"
Catalina suppressed her excitement: "We are going to get rich... This ghoul lair is being upgraded into a ghoul town, and they are migrating to find a new home!"
This news was enough to attract the attention of Leviathan Town, enough to exchange for a large sum of shillings.
"Let's go quickly and take the news to Leviathan Town." Catalina whispered, then pulled Lu Li and began to retreat in the opposite direction.
The meaning of Katarina's actions soon emerged: there were more and more strong ghouls in the ghoul group, and among them were even more difficult-to-recognize, huge silhouettes as bloated as houses.
The scattered scouts did not leave the surroundings alone, including the rocks where they had temporarily hid.
Hundreds of ghouls traveled across the wilderness, and when the migrating team disappeared from sight, no lone ghoul appeared again.
At the same time, the rising claws got closer to the sky.
