Chapter 90 90

Chapter 90 90

Honestly, although Clayton did not believe in religion, he had his own plans to have his body sent to a church cemetery after his death. Because that was the choice of most decent people. But the management style of the Wandering Soul Street Church made it impossible for him to trust them any longer. If the manager of the cemetery allowed his dog to pee on tombstones, there was nothing left in the world to trust.

"How could such a thing happen?! We never knew William did this; it seems it has always been an evil creature." The attendant was embarrassed, but fortunately, no one was there to argue with him, and he could shift part of the responsibility onto the dog. His excuses came too late; Clayton's attitude toward them could no longer go back.

"Tracking by scent is no longer useful. I want to know what abnormalities this dog has come into contact with before."

"Abnormalities..." The attendant pondered. "Perhaps we should check the corpses again. William has always been very picky; it was like that before." They turned back, returning to the open graves. For the sake of efficiency, the corpses dug up and bitten by William had not been put back by the clergy. They had work to do and could not keep watching the place, and the dog could dig up the buried corpses at any time; temporary correction was useless. Compared to fighting with a dog, directly closing the cemetery was more effortless and convenient.

The corpses in the southern part of the cemetery were newly buried, so they were more popular with William in terms of food selection. Of course, it was precisely because they were fresh that they looked so unsightly now. With the scent failing, Clayton had to put more of his attention on the condition of the corpses. Some were destroyed, their bellies and intestines hollowed out; others remained largely intact, with only the clothing suffering slight damage.

The attendant explained on the side: "It dug up many corpses, but it didn't bite them all. It's as if it dug up a corpse and then felt it didn't suit its taste, so it didn't touch it again. Now that I think about it, there might be some underlying rule that we haven't discovered yet. If we can master this rule, we can sprinkle cocoa powder on the corpses it likes in advance." He didn't want to use cold words for poisoning; this way, it left a little human warmth. Anyway, the corpses here were coated with balm and holy salt before burial, so adding a little spice was not excessive.

"Then I'll thank you on behalf of the deceased first," Clayton said, unable to tell if it was sarcastic or not. His gaze swept over the exposed corpses, but he found no consistency. Although it was about to enter winter, the bodies would still rot continuously. Their scents were almost mixed, with only a few remaining attributes showing themselves. Male, female, old, young. Everything other than these four attributes had flowed away; they seemed to have become purer as the flesh decayed. The smell of a man and the smell of a woman were as easy to distinguish as fish and chicken, and even if an old man died, his bones were soaked in the thick smell of an old house. The teenagers who died unexpectedly still retained a bit of the greenness of growing buds.

"No children; it doesn't eat children," Clayton concluded. It wasn't that there were no children here. Although it wasn't winter yet, the number of teenagers who died of various accidents in each parish each year exceeded three digits. There were six tombstones commemorating these children right here, but none of them had been excavated.

"William can't read; it's just a dog. Even if the date of birth and death is engraved on the tombstone, it doesn't know how old the person buried here is." Speaking of this, the attendant suddenly found that there were indeed no signs of the graves of young deceased being excavated; Clayton's conclusion was correct. He couldn't help but frown and hesitate for a while, then opened his mouth: "It's really like this. Strange, we all know that the meat of children is more tender than that of adults. If I were William, I would definitely prioritize..."

"Wait!" Clayton interrupted him; the lieutenant couldn't stand this guy anymore. This kind of speech was more like a werewolf than he was. "We can talk about these things later. You come over and help me flip these tombstones. I want to see the information of the deceased, or if you have any death registers, you can bring them over." The attendant stopped talking and came over to work.

About twenty minutes later, they finished this step. Those heavy stone tombstones were collectively flipped to the side with words facing up. Many of the gnawed corpses had been dragged away from their original positions and needed to be re-identified. Clayton returned the nearby corpses that met the attributes to their original positions according to the names and ages recorded on the tombstones. It might not be very accurate, but it was enough. He pulled his legs, which were stuck in the dirt from overexertion, out, patted the dirt, and felt a joy of labor.

"You read the information of the 'victims' on your side, and I'll sort it out," he said to the attendant. The latter looked at the tombstone under his feet and adjusted to a serious tone. "Elizabeth, aged 52, works as a tailor; that’s all." "Jackson, 37, painter, passed away last month, cause of death was falling from the roof and breaking his head."

After reading the recent tombstones, the attendant left his place and moved to another tombstone: "Anderson, 31, job unknown, cause of death unknown, but it was sent by the Parish Council." "Oberon, only a name, and half his head is missing. It is rumored that he was curious about how the factory machine worked and put his head into the power room, but that’s just a rumor." "Gray, 23, textile factory worker, was rolled into the air by the machine due to a mechanical failure, skin and flesh torn, and died of massive hemorrhage. Her father came here once, hoping to take the body back to hold a funeral in the hometown church, but later the plan was shelved due to a lack of money."

Just as the attendant was introducing these dead people to Clayton, Clayton was also paying attention to the tombstones around him. He noticed that the information on these tombstones was minimal, and none of them left epitaphs on the tombstones. This was clearly related to the economic strength of the deceased. Their family members could not afford the money to carve these words, or the deceased's family members were not around at all and could not handle their funeral, so the city government had to fund the placement of their remains.

To say that he could distinguish the physical condition of the dead by smell, Clayton could still understand. But how could a dog understand the difference between the poverty and wealth of human beings? Clayton told the attendant his conclusion and was naturally questioned. The attendant's face looked bad: "Are you asking me to understand William as a dog that snobs the poor and loves the rich? It probably doesn't have such high intelligence to distinguish between human beings." He put his hands on his hips and suddenly changed his expression. "Maybe you're right. I remember the commonality of these people."

"What is it?"

"They are all outsiders who came to look for work locally, and most of them died in accidents."

The reason why it is mostly is because when some of the deceased were sent here, the people responsible for transporting the bodies didn't want to stay and tell their cause of death at all, so the blank of the cause of death could not be filled. However, the clergy knew from the looks of the corpses that it was definitely not a natural death. However, the attendant overthrew this conclusion in the next moment. He shook his head and denied himself: "No, no, no, that's not right either. There are exceptions."

"Who is the exception?"

"A woman, she passed away last month, but she is not buried here." The attendant recalled: "In fact, she should have been the first unfortunate person whose corpse was gnawed, but it was just a small bite. We thought William was just starving to death at the time..."

"You still indulge the dog in eating corpses?!" Clayton's wolf eyes widened, his pupils shrunk into a point, staring sharply at the attendant. The young cleric swung his hands, dealing with this power unnaturally: "That was just an accident. We didn't indulge it in eating corpses. At that time, the body fell off the stretcher, and William was helping us drag it, so it took a bite... But as of now, it's really hard to say what that beast is thinking."

Clayton didn't want to talk nonsense with him anymore. "Take me there."