Global Fog Survival

An almost intact letter was found.

It was old and yellowed with a touch of gray, covered in dust, and placed on a fairly well-preserved table.

The person who wrote it had become a pile of bones scattered around, with some remains still in the clothes on a chair, clearly dead for a long time.

Since the paper was extremely fragile due to the erosion of time, Colin had no intention of touching it.

After having Li Chou help collect the bodies, Colin held the lantern above the paper, leaning forward slightly to read its contents.

The writing was in an unfamiliar script similar to cuneiform.

With the help of system “machine translation” and hint, Colin roughly understood the meaning:

The plague has erupted again, and the church has abandoned us. Not only do they forbid us from contacting the priests, but they also refuse to send a knight…

They told us that if we are devout followers of the “Mother of Suffering and Thorns,” miracles will descend in the midst of pain and despair…

These self-righteous bastards have completely twisted the church’s teachings and distorted the truth of the First Miracle, “The Twisted Father”…

Damn these…

Damn these…

…

The subsequent handwriting became messy and hasty, with the paper even being torn. It was filled with negative emotions and a great deal of despair…

“The First Miracle ‘The Twisted Father’…”

Colin’s attention was drawn to this term, and almost instantly, he remembered the statue in the church outside.

The statue depicted a man with disheveled hair and a gaunt body, bound in an extremely tortured and exaggerated manner to a thorny tree.

【You speculate that “The Twisted Father” might be the name represented by that statue. During the Age of Suffering, he was known as the First Miracle, the first sufferer, and the beginning of all “suffering,” marking the start of this era.】

“Does this First Miracle imply a sequence, or does it refer to strength? Of course, if he were alive, he probably wouldn’t be weak…”

Colin made a quick judgment; after all, the description from the prompt was very high-flown.

The beginning of the Age of Suffering, the first sufferer, the first miracle, the beginning of all suffering…

It all sounded impressive…

Then, having thought of something, Colin took out the scroll.

In the quest list, his personal progress as a “Civilization Investigator” had jumped from about 0.00002% to about 0.1%.

It moved forward by two decimal points.

However, the overall progress still did not meet the recording standards, indicating that the global survey progress was still less than 1%.

“It’s a pity that there’s only a name and no more details. If I could learn more about ‘The Twisted Father,’ the progress might have skyrocketed.”

Colin felt a bit regretful.

Just a name could advance the progress by three decimal points. Imagine if all the details and scandals were unearthed…

No, why do I feel like I’ve become a tabloid reporter…

Colin grumbled and shook his head, not dwelling on it further. He then focused on the contents of the letter.

“Plague…”

He recalled the appearance of these skeletons, all of whom seemed to have been gnawed to death by rats, which didn’t seem related to the plague…

Some remains lay on the ground, hands stretched forward, as if pleading for help in their final moments.

Then they were completely gnawed clean by rodents, leaving only skeletons. It appeared none had died from disease.

What does this have to do with the plague?

“Broken machine translation, it should be a rat disaster.”

Colin muttered, then felt puzzled, “If it’s a rat disaster, where are the rats?”

There weren’t any rats, not even a rat hair or footprint. Besides the gnawing marks on the bones, there was no sign of rats or anything related to them.

He carefully turned to the next page of the extremely fragile paper, only to find it completely blank.

“But speaking of which, with such a number of rats, even if they were still alive, they should have starved to death, right?”

Colin imagined a rat plague ravaging the entire town. Theoretically, without food, they would surely starve to death.

But then he thought of something else and dismissed his idea.

There’s a “Olive Maiden” next door who can make hundreds of thousands of olive trees live just by crying every day.

It wouldn’t be surprising if there was a “Miracle Boy” or “Girl” here who could keep millions of rats alive just by crying.

After all, these two places are quite close…

“Hmm, if it weren’t for the white fog, these areas might not be as close as they seem… This fogseems to be layering the space…”

Colin’s mind was swirling with thoughts, but the problem remained unresolved…

Where did the rats go?

【You realize that these rats are not ordinary; they seem to have used some mysterious means to kill everyone.】

“Mysterious means…”

Colin had to abandon further thought. There were no more breakthroughs to be gained in this area. He could only collect more information and see if the prompts provided new content.

“But it looks like one thing can be basically confirmed…”

“The church is deliberately creating suffering to trigger ‘miracles’ and then… collect them?”

Otherwise, it’s really hard for Colin to explain why they were so inhumane.

Or perhaps, for the upper class, ordinary people’s lives are worthless. As long as a “miracle” is produced, all the sacrifices have value.

That’s why Colin saw them as so inhumane.

The church’s refusal to provide aid this time was probably driven by the same purpose…

Just like with Kimino.

But he didn’t know if this city had experienced a “miracle.”

Then, Colin shook his head. Such behavior… No matter how you understand it, it’s just idiotic…

As the investigation continued, Colin gathered more historical information…

But he was still completely baffled by what happened to the rats.

There were quite a few letters in the town, but most were of no value, mostly prayers for miracles, and wishes for what they wanted to eat or see before dying…

Some even pleaded for some encounter with a neighbor’s wife before dying.

They were all kinds of strange—some were open-minded, some were desperate, and some were hysterical.

The only certainty was that they all understood what they were about to face, and the disaster was very sudden, so sudden that everyone died without having time to prepare further.

“Now, a simple judgment, the town must have gathered about ten to twenty thousand people at that time…”

Not a small number, but definitely not insignificant.

…

The investigation continued, and as Colin saw more and more leftover information, he began to piece together some clues about the source of the rats.

“‘The noise from inside the walls is getting louder. They are coming! They are coming!’… Inside the walls…”

Colin pondered. At that moment, he stood in a collapsed building, looking at the “letters” on the table that seemed to have been scratched out with someone’s nails…

Were the rats coming out from holes dug in the walls?