After sleeping and dining under the sky for several days, Angor decided to rest in this small hut for the night and to use this chance to wake the “coffin man” up so that he could figure out who he was carrying. He also hoped that he could learn something about any places of interest in this area.
The night had come. He lit an oil lamp and partially brighten up the narrow space.
Then he took out the coffin from his space bracelet.
When he opened the coffin lid, the man submerged in blood immediately opened his maddened eyes.
“Stay still, and be quiet!” Angor ordered.
The man listened to his words and slowly relaxed.
Angor inspected the individual curiously.
According to what he learned before, the parasites would absorb energy from the nightmare mist, which in turn would benefit their hosts. However, once they left the mist, they would begin to absorb energy from their hosts until the said hosts were sucked dry.
It was obvious that the coffin man left Pocratee a long time ago, which meant a parasite should have already killed him. But Akeso’s blood managed to keep him alive. Or rather, the blood provided enough energy to sustain the parasite in his body.
Even though Akeso was feeding the parasite using its blood, there should be another reason as to why the man’s body stayed fine for a thousand years.
“A thousand years? And…” Angor looked at the man’s blood-tainted face. “He looks pretty young too.”
He couldn’t pursue an answer to all these questions yet. He had to save the man first.
But he had another task before he expelled the parasite.
He checked the blood inside the coffin next and revealed a desiring grin. “Man… The blood of a wizard-level monster just spilled everywhere. Such a waste!”
Apart from several alchemy applications, the blood could also be brewed into a special blood ink.
Back at Twilight Auction, he saw a bottle of Rosegold Gargoyle Blood Ink, which was considered a high-class material. Such an assumption was made when comparing inks of similar types. The blood ink made from a wizard-level monster would easily surpass them all.
The blood inside the coffin had lost a portion of its properties, but it didn’t make it any less valuable. It was still as costly as the snakeskin and fang.
Naturally, Angor wasn’t going to discard such prized material. Also, to avoid unnecessary questions, he planned to sweep the blood clean before waking up the coffin man.
To prevent the parasite from sucking the man dry, Angor unleashed his Nightmare Domain in advance so that the parasite could absorb energy from it.
He untied the man and took him out of the coffin. Any fabrics that were on the man previously had already decayed to dust over the long period of time, and when the man came out from the blood pool, he was naked.
A mortal body that sat still for such a long time should have been unable to function. To Angor’s surprise, the man only looked weak; his limbs were mostly fine. When he pinched the man’s arm, it felt healthily sturdy.
“Has the parasite been sustaining his body? Or…”
He left the man to wander inside the Nightmare Domain while he took everything related to the coffin back into his bracelet. He didn’t have a suitable container for now, and so, he had to leave the coffin as it was. The oil wood was also a low-tier material which could reduce the speed at which the blood would start to spoil.
When this was done, Angor looked at the man beside him again. There was still blood on the coffin man’s face, but it did nothing to hinder the man’s good look. Angor estimated that this man had the looks of a 17 or 18-year-old, and he had a wiry figure.
Nothing on the first look seemed particularly wrong.
Angor raised an eyebrow when he saw the man holding something in his left hand. He couldn’t really see the details with all the blood that was in the way.
He used Purify and gave the man a bath from head to toe. With no blood or bad smells, Angor carefully checked the object.
It was… a bowl.
The bowl was crafted using some unknown metal, which showed a silvery-white color. The inner side of the bowl was decorated with the “black serpent twisting on rod” mark, and there wasn’t anything else worthing noticing.
He checked again and again, but he couldn’t find any information from the ordinary silver bowl.
But he somehow felt something strange coming off the object.
He couldn’t tell what or why. Every time he tried to think about it, the strange feeling would immediately vanish, and the bowl would return to being a “completely ordinary container”.
He recalled the feeling again and couldn’t remember or sense any dark or evil from it. On the contrary, it felt indescribably holy.
But… a water bowl? Holy?
Still, he didn’t plan to take the bowl. The coffin man didn’t need Akeso’s blood anymore, so Angor took the blood away. However, the bowl could be something dear to the man since he never let go of it. Maybe a family heritage or some kind of spiritual memento.
Angor proceeded to observe the man for some time. With the blood washed away, he noticed a small “bump” just above the man’s butt area, near the coccyx bone. It was as big as his little finger.
When he pressed it, he felt an extra length of bone, which seemed to consist of multiple interlocked sections. He managed to sense three parts, which felt similar to the bones of human fingers.
“Atavism?” Angor thought about cases in which humans resembled their ancestors.
But whether the primal ancestor of mankind had a tail was still pending debate.
“Is he a humanoid then?”
Without Expel Deceit, Angor couldn’t tell the man’s race. If it wasn’t mutation or atavism, this man probably didn’t come from Pocratee. During his previous examinations, he didn’t find extra tail bone on the skeletons of villagers.
The coffin man’s race wasn’t the problem though. He had to wake him up first, by which he could simply ask the man anything he wanted.
The parasite had been inside the Nightmare Domain for a while now. Angor could manipulate every element in his domain, including the energy absorbed by the parasite.
With an order of Angor’s mind, the parasite found its way out of the coffin man’s body.
For a brief moment, the man’s eyes regained sanity. He mumbled a single word “Dodoro” before he fainted.
…
The arrival of sunlight was accompanied by beast howls outside the hut.
While traveling among the trees, Angor was used to hearing all the howls. He climbed down from the small bed and saw the coffin man still snoring on the floor.
He walked to the door without waking the man up.
After being cleaned by Purification Field, the wooden hut appeared more habitable when the warm sunlight traveled in.
Angor looked toward the outside and saw Toby cruising the sky in his colorful skirt while an eight-eared Cloud Leopard dashed below the bird.
Toby would occasionally provoke the beast and quickly flutter away when the leopard attacked. After “rough playing” for a while, their little show ended at the death of the poor beast.
Toby joined Angor and pointed a wing at the leopard corpse—Hey I got us breakfast!
“You went hunting for too long,” Angor joked. “And we’re having a barbecue in the morning? Isn’t this a little… greasy for our diet?”
He still went to process the animal corpse even though he wasn’t very good at this. The beautiful Cloud Leopard hide was broken into several slices, and the meat also came out in big and small chunks.
While he cooked their breakfast, the door of the hunter hut was pushed open, and the coffin man walked outside while rubbing his eyes.
“Good morning,” Angor said as he glanced his way.
“Good morning…” The man slowly walked to Angor.
“I guess your stomach isn’t fit to consume meat right now. Should I tell Toby to pick some fruit?” Angor pointed to several stone bumps nearby which should be the original hunter’s chairs. He then said, “Take some rest. I have some questions for you later.”
The coffin man didn’t respond. He had been standing still in a trance.
Angor looked up and saw the bright sunlight casting a faint aura around the man’s bare skin. The man had his hair dragged all the way to his knees while his yellow eyes were spinning terribly.
The man replied after quite a while, “I… guess your stomach… meat. Hmmmffffruit… questions for you later.”
His words were broken at the beginning, which grew better in the end.
After those words, the man looked at Angor proudly as if he were waiting for a compliment.
Angor, however, wasn’t in the mood to praise him now.
A flock of birds suddenly left for the sky when they were startled by someone bellowing among the woods—”Don’t you DARE TELL ME you lost your fuc*ing memory! This plot is getting old!”