That night, the northernmost watchtower detected a disturbance.
The snowfall had ceased, and the silvery blanket of snow illuminated the night as brightly as dawn. Before the moon reached its zenith, a deafening roar shattered the silence near the northern outpost, followed by a succession of thunderous explosions. Snowdrifts and roadblocks shattered and whipped up by the blast, like waves crashing against rocks, sending white powder surging dozens of meters. Shouts were drowned out by the continuous rumble of shattering debris. Before the swirling snowflakes could settle, towering steeds burst through the snow curtain.
Two, three... six horses in total, galloping side by side like the wind, their reins taut as they pulled a massive carriage behind them. It burst through the snow and debris as if descending from the heavens, reminiscent of a pumpkin carriage fully transformed mid-air in a fairy tale. Were it not for the coachman frantically cracking his whip and the tense expression on the face peering out from the carriage, this bizarrely eclectic scene might have seemed almost comical.
The roadblock had exploded. The deafening roar and shattering impact could only be described as an explosion—or perhaps a magical blast from a fantasy realm. The towering roadblocks were flattened, the trench ahead filled with debris, and a makeshift bridge was hastily erected—wide enough for a multi-wheeled carriage to speed across. Planks collapsed beneath the rear wheels as the horses, neighing wildly, dragged the sinking carriage upward. The scene was thrilling enough for an explosive chase movie, yet its protagonist—the carriage itself—exuded a distinctly fairy-tale quality.
It was as large as a cottage, adorned with numerous curved, upward-pointing horns—not menacing spikes, but rounded, decorative elements resembling cream puffs. The entire carriage was painted in vivid colors—red and white stripes accented with yellow and green—evoking strawberry milk candy. Even the most colorblind strategist wouldn't choose such hues for camouflage. Bells hung from each corner, jingling with every jolt of the ride. This flamboyant carriage glided through the snow, shining like a beacon in the night.
Unsurprisingly, pursuers closed in.
Shortly after the carriage broke free, the chaotic sentry posts reacted. Cavalry charged out of the barriers, warhorses leaping over the trenches ahead. Six sturdy horses and massive wheels propelled the carriage swiftly, yet its pace couldn't match the horsemen's. The distance gained by the time difference slowly closed, and the troops Tashan had mobilized hadn't arrived yet. Just as she considered taking matters into her own hands, the riders surrounding the carriage voluntarily slowed down.
The carriage drawn by six horses wasn't the only member that had charged through the gap. Besides the carriage itself, scattered riders surrounded it, though they were less conspicuous compared to the carriage. Suddenly, one rider turned his horse around and charged directly at the pursuing enemy.
The closest pursuing cavalryman suddenly tumbled from his mount.
A long stretch of isolation zone near the checkpoint had all vegetation burned away, making it impossible to secretly establish watchtowers. The northernmost watchtower was also quite a distance from the scene. From a distance, Tashan couldn't immediately discern what weapon the rider had used. Only when the Ghost, who had been waiting nearby, finally arrived, did she realize the rider wasn't wielding a ranged weapon, but a rope.
To be precise, a lasso.
The rider wore a dusty, wide-brimmed hat, yet his attire was strikingly bright and eye-catching, perfectly matching the style of the carriage. He held a rope in his hand, one end secured to the front of the saddle, just above his thigh; the other end formed a loop. The rope spun in his hands, tracing a perfect circle in the air. The rider dug his heels into the horse's flanks, lowered his body, drew close to the next pursuer, and suddenly flung the lasso.
The loop swiftly encircled the pursuer, like those prize-catching games at street stalls. Large enough to encircle the man's waist, it was a live noose that tightened abruptly upon catching him, instantly yanking the cavalryman from his horse and dragging him along the ground for some distance. "Douglas scores two points," the rider called, whistling as he gave the rope a flick, causing the noose to slide off the pursuer. He retrieved the lasso, deftly adjusted it in his hands, and restored the loop at one end to its original size.
"Three points," he declared as the third pursuer tumbled from his horse.
The pursuit had been hastily organized, with the cavalry scattered and advancing in disarray. Their piecemeal tactics seemed to deliver riders one by one to the lasso. By the time they realized this and began regrouping to advance in formation, the captain, having received Tashan's signal, had already arrived with reinforcements.
The cavalry who had pursued to the south retreated at the first contact—perhaps even more dramatically. Upon seeing the approaching reinforcements, they immediately turned their horses around. They seemed utterly unwilling to engage with these men, as if avoiding some plague.
Perhaps they truly were avoiding an imagined plague—these men had maintained the quarantine zone for nearly half a year.
The captain's forces arrived, cavalry leading, infantry following, encircling the unexpected visitors from the north. The surrounded rider offered no resistance, cooperatively reining in his horse and raising his hands.
"Hey, no need to get so tense!" he flashed a bright smile, tipping his hat. "I'm Douglas. You've heard of me, right?"
No one acknowledged him.
"'Dragon Rider Douglas'?" the rider persisted, scanning the soldiers' expressionless faces before sighing regretfully. "Looks like you haven't. Your loss."
The coachman stopped cracking his whip. The large carriage coasted forward on momentum before coming to a gradual halt. Unlike the talkative rider, the coachman was straightforward and to the point, his words devoid of playful banter.
The coachman explained they had rammed the checkpoint with the traveling circus wagon to reach their trapped loved ones.
The massive wagon was halted beside the military camp outside town. Soldiers ordered everyone and everything off the wagon. It was packed with provisions and water, crammed with over a dozen people—twenty in total including those on horseback. Most were young men and women, though some elders and young women were among them. When the captain questioned them separately, their stories were strikingly similar.
"I met my brother's comrades up north. They said he'd been separated from us and was trapped down south. I have some connections and knew Frank's Circus was heading south too, so I joined them," one man explained.
"I was born in Red Gum County. Even though I left long ago, this is still home. So we hijacked the touring circus wagon..." The restless one-eyed man cut in impatiently, "Huh? Oh, hitching a ride. The circus director volunteered, right?"
"Wherever the boss tells me to go, I go. It's all the same to me," the tall, thin man with a scar on his face said indifferently. "Anyway, I'm just an orphan and a bachelor scraping by with the circus."
"Good evening, officer! I am Frank, the circus ringmaster." The man with the mustache held his velvet top hat and said politely, "Though I've achieved some success, my true love left me. She wrote that she now lives in seclusion in a village southeast of Tasmanlin State. Even though we're no longer lovers, I couldn't bear to see her trapped here. So I disbanded the circus, gathered like-minded companions, packed emergency provisions, and seized the chance during our nearby tour to make one last push. Sir, how are things here now?"
"Find my son," the imposing old man said curtly.
"..." The petite girl remained silent. She appeared barely over ten years old and seemed quite nervous as the soldier approached. She clutched a harp as if it were a teddy bear.
"Name? Douglas the Dragon Rider! I was the star attraction of the circus! Never heard of me? Ah, perhaps you should ask the local ladies and gentlemen. The rider slumped ungracefully on a stool. "Purpose? Helping out, that's why. There's a young lady in the carriage—the one clutching the harp—and her father, whom she's never met, is here. Honestly, if it weren't for this dire situation, she'd never have mustered the courage to come down. How could any decent soul refuse such a poor girl heading into the lion's den? Don't go asking her—she's terribly shy and won't speak to anyone except when singing. If any of you have seen Frank's Circus on tour, you'd recognize her voice in the background of the magic act. She always sings... Never been? Well, too bad for your busy schedules."
"Do you believe them?" Victor asked.
"Hard to say," Tash replied.
Many had heard of Frank's Circus, a moderately famous troupe touring Erian. They weren't the kind you'd rush to see in the next town over, but you wouldn't want to miss them when they came to your city. Those who'd seen the show confirmed the mustachioed man was the ringmaster himself, while more recognized Douglas, a skilled and rather flamboyant equestrian star. He rode not only thoroughbreds but also wild buffalo and goats. Douglas boasted without modesty that he could even tame a dragon—if you brought it to him. This rider, whose personality was as dramatic as his skills, was featured on the circus posters plastered throughout every city on the tour.
By comparison, the others were far less recognizable. Not a single audience member could say whether the coachman also drove carriages elsewhere. When your gaze was entirely captured by the circus wagon—resembling a moving candy house—who would notice the man steering it? The carriage was real enough, but its occupants were another matter. The circus strongman and magician were nowhere to be seen, and Jacqueline, the harpist said to sing only behind the scenes, never met the audience. But this hardly counted as suspicious, since the ringmaster Frank claimed he'd dismissed those who didn't want to come and recruited a new batch.
"Dissolving the circus for some phantom ex-lover, antagonizing Erian, charging into a zone rumored to be rife with plague and corpses—and still getting this many followers?" Victor sneered. "Highly credible."
Tasha's doubts centered not on motive.
Beyond Douglas, who helped out of kindness, and a few hired by Frank, all the others claimed relatives trapped here. The circus leader wandered the village, growing somber before an empty house—remote and abandoned for years, with no one recalling if a woman had ever lived there. No soldiers came to claim their fathers, but several men who'd had flings elsewhere arrived flustered to see the little girl. The girl, seemingly traumatized beyond words, held a token—some kind of dried flower symbolizing love, a cliché so commonplace that men buying into flings often gave it to their lovers. This did little to narrow down the list of potential fathers. The vast majority of these family reunions ended in disappointment—either the person sought had vanished without a trace, or they lay buried in a cemetery, beyond recognition.
Only one man found his kin. The skinny man embraced his uncle with wild emotion, while the woodcutter remained stiffly composed, even slightly awkward.
"I never expected you to come," he mumbled, stiffly patting his nephew's back. "I mean, it's been over a decade since you left..."
"Blood is thicker than water!" the nephew declared earnestly. "Even though we had our disagreements back then, I never truly held a grudge. You're my only family left!"
The cumulative suspicion from these clues would be enough to secure a conviction in any detective drama.
But this wasn't a detective drama. A meticulous author wouldn't provide excessive redundant information or an absurd conclusion. Yet sometimes, the real world truly presents coincidences so improbable they make readers gasp—more outrageous than any fiction. If one assumed these visitors harbored ill intent, another point of doubt emerged.
Consider how they breached the checkpoint.
Circus director Frank admitted acquiring a disposable weapon from the black market—an artifact capable of piercing steel plates. "I did some testing," Frank said vaguely. "It works. Just like what the military still uses. Ah, I might know more than you, Captain. Don't be surprised—I have my sources."
That secret weapon, deployed at the "right moment," obliterated the entire checkpoint.
To put it simply, that secret weapon was, at best, a detonator. Not long before, a new shipment of weapons had arrived at the checkpoint. Frank's men successfully triggered their secret weapon to ignite the military's arsenal, setting off a chain reaction—just like the series of explosions Tashan had heard.
The secret weapon he described sounded like a bomb—an antique bomb from the ruins? That was odd. The initial blast was relatively small, but the subsequent chain reaction was astonishing, tearing a gaping hole in the outpost that had taken so long to build. If this was a setup by the northerners and the Circus, why didn't they use such advanced weaponry directly for an assault?
In the battles so far, Tasha had encountered several suspected technological artifacts: the red hounds that ghosts couldn't approach, the magic cannons powered by the dungeon core, and the Withered Covenant's cursed gas, which resembled a biochemical weapon. All were extremely useful yet precious and rare. As the captain had said, even graduates of the Erian Military Academy had never truly used them. If they possessed something like a magic bomb, why waste it on a charade? Just to lure an ordinary circus troupe into the south like sheep into a tiger's den?
It was all down to the inadequate surveillance system. If the surface were as thoroughly mapped as the dungeon, Tasha wouldn't have to speculate like this.
The surveillance range of watchtowers was tied to their height. Towers under two meters were like antennas too short to function—basically useless (except for the grass-mimicking tower, which could only spread curses under special circumstances). Towers several meters tall were too conspicuous to suddenly appear in enemy territory. The farther from the dungeon's core, the more magic the specters consumed. Beyond a certain distance, even if the dungeon could extend that far, the spectral bodies would be unable to move an inch. Beyond that, there was a quantity limit. The two specters Tashan could currently deploy had limited surveillance range. Staying stationary consumed too much energy and was too slow, making timely redeployment impossible.
—Not that this puts Tashan at a significant disadvantage, but it does level the playing field somewhat, limiting the cheat code's effectiveness.
The food in the circus wagon was ordinary fare. The search party had only brought these supplies after hearing the area was sealed off. "Things here are far better than we expected," someone remarked. Everyone underwent a brief search. Nothing particularly noteworthy was found on them, especially considering many had come expecting to fight zombies. Some carried knives, arrows, or daggers for self-defense. An old man had a heavy, thick wooden staff. A little girl clung to her harp. Douglas called his leather strap "my beauty." That was all.
There was one more issue.
When everyone had been checked and found temporarily unremarkable, they were temporarily lodged in Red Gum County's inn. All the lodgers, including the nephew staying with the woodcutter uncle, pulled from their luggage a sort of knot-like amulet. They nailed them to the inside of their doors. The objects, previously dismissed as souvenirs during the inspection, hummed softly and emitted a faint glow.
The ghosts could no longer enter their rooms.
"What are these?" Tasha asked. "You never mentioned they were problematic."
"It's been centuries!" Victor resorted to his old excuse again. "Probably just some spirit-warding charm—nothing worth mentioning... Ghosts aren't exactly formidable foes! You could bag a dozen on any battlefield! Back then, even long-distance travelers knew to carry spirit wards, let alone those who dealt with dungeons. Your ghosts remain undefeated only because your enemies are ignorant!"
Tasha wanted to rub her temples with her fingers, but all she could feel was bone.
"It looks a bit like... a certain style," Victor said futilely. "A tribal artifact? Descendants of some kingdom? Damn it, I can't recall."
This proves nothing, Victor said. This proves nothing. When the soldier inquired about the spirit-warding amulet, he was told only that it was a "talisman." The circus had carried it since time immemorial, one of its long-standing traditions. The specter couldn't approach, and Tasha didn't want to send men to forcibly remove it and alert the enemy. The space within the room remained a secret for now, but that was fine.
Those with ulterior motives would reveal themselves eventually.
Douglas walked the streets of Red Gum County, still clad in his garishly colorful outfit. Whenever someone's gaze fell upon him, he'd tip his hat and return a dazzling smile.
Passersby found it hard not to look, whether they recognized this circus star or not. Douglas wore a large red square scarf around his neck, a yellow-and-green striped shirt dotted with five-pointed stars, and pants whose color scheme was barely less terrifying—blue canvas worn white, covered in scratches and indelible stains. Were it not for his rather handsome face framed by a short goatee, no one would have been able to bear looking at him for more than two seconds.
The rider still wore his riding boots, spurs attached to the heels, clinking with every step. He resembled a noisy, garish, walking traffic sign. On the day he settled into the inn, he strolled through Red Gum County with unabashed confidence, like a tourist utterly untroubled by his surroundings.
"Yes, I'm Douglas the Dragon Rider! Want my autograph?"
Laughter mingled with genuine requests for signatures.
"That's right, the north is still sealed off. They say everyone here is dead. But we don't believe that!"
Angry boos.
"Others? No idea. I'm here to protect a young lady. I barely packed—look, they're still cleaning the room. So I was the first to wander out! Folks! Give it up for Douglas, the modern-day knight-errant!"
Lively applause.
Douglas claimed he came to protect the little girl, yet once there, he never stayed by her side. He drew a small crowd, turning the scene into a mini-press conference. People gathered for a while, then dispersed before dusk fell.
When the circus troupe first arrived, the search for missing relatives had indeed stirred up excitement here. But the military released updates daily, making the whole affair so transparent it lost its mystique. By the time they settled into the inn, people had grown accustomed to it. The residents possessed remarkable resilience; gossip was just that—gossip. Once the chatter died down, they went back to their routines.
Then it was Douglas's turn to ask questions.
"Aren't you running low on food?" I heard most of your grain comes from the north, and with the roads cut off, that must be causing some trouble." he said.
"You bet!" the resident he was chatting with complained. "Not only are the northern roads blocked, but the southern fields are having problems too. Grain prices were sky-high just the other day!"
"Oh dear! That must be awful," Douglas sympathized.
"You bet!" the resident replied. "For us county folk with little money and no stored grain, what choice do we have but to buy from others? Money doesn't even feel like money anymore!"
"Exactly, exactly. It's dreadful for law-abiding citizens like us," Douglas shook his head. "What happened next? I see things have improved considerably now."
"Later, thanks to the captain's cleverness and..." The resident trailed off, shooting Douglas a wary glance. "You're not a spy, are you?"
"Good heavens, madam, look at me!" Douglas burst out laughing, spinning around like a barber shop sign. "What spy could be as charming as me? Besides, where else could I go? Brave knight Douglas broke through the soldiers' lines for the lily in his heart. I have no place left to hide. From now on, I can only rely on kind souls like you, a beautiful and generous lady, to help me get back on my feet and earn my keep! Once my patrons tire of me, I'll have no choice but to become a stablehand."
His pitiful act made the middle-aged woman in her forties or fifties giggle. Over the next ten minutes, he learned about the foreigners and the exchange.
Douglas gathered enough information about the foreigners here. He saw the exchange with his own eyes during dinner time, though it was actually locals working inside. He scoured every corner of Red Gum County—mostly openly, occasionally quite discreetly. That colorful coat could be worn inside out, its inner layer offering stealth. The leather belt with spurs could be tightened one notch to silence its jingling. When you're usually so conspicuous, you're surprised how inconspicuous you can be when you're not.
He learned much about the alien races temporarily hidden by the snow. But upon returning to the inn that day, Douglas received a notice detailing the rules for living here: free food was available only today; starting tomorrow, work was required. It also explained the alien employers and alien currency with far greater clarity than anything Douglas had managed to uncover.
The rider shrugged and ate his dinner.
At midnight, Douglas slipped out of his room again, evading all patrols, and made his way out of the county town. Once beyond the town limits, he began humming a tune, loosening his spurs to let the metal teeth sing freely on the ground.
When another set of footsteps echoed across the wilderness, the smile on Douglas's face grew even brighter.