You're Not Allowed to Take It Even If It's Dead

Jiang Luo's bone spurs pierced through the gap under the stretcher first.

Four steel pipes were firmly erected, and a corner of the white cloth was slid aside, revealing a face covered in ash and a wound on the neck that had stopped bleeding.

Behind the stretcher, a thin, grayish-white limb was lifted up from the ground.

It has no claws, but its end is divided into many wet, sticky tendrils that cling to the steel pipe and refuse to let go. As it is pulled, the steel pipe bends inward little by little.

The sickle slices it off from below, cutting it clean at the base.

Jiang Luo pushed the stretcher behind her. When Elizabeth caught it, the severed tendrils of flesh were still crawling along the tube. When they touched the iron pliers in her hand, they suddenly turned out two rows of fine teeth.

The clamps closed, and the mortar fell into an empty iron bucket.

"Don't drive any further, Song An. Go back to the gate to get the wounded. Those with this stuff on them, leave them outside and let the people in protective suits come over."

After Jiang Luo finished speaking, she stepped on another slender limb that had escaped along the sleeper. The dark red power pressed down, and the thing shattered on the sole of her shoe, leaving a bubbling stain.

Short, sharp knocking sounds came from inside the shed.

Two strokes, pause for a moment, then two more strokes.

She looked up at the gap between the cargo compartments. Bone spikes pushed open the rolled-up sheet metal, revealing a corner of a reflective vest. A hand was holding broken bricks and tapping them against the bottom of the compartment.

The owner of that hand was pinned down in the shed; his lower body was obscured, but a constantly undulating gray membrane hung above his head.

Jiang Luo didn't let the car lights shine on his face. He lowered his left hand and gestured for Elizabeth to turn the lights towards the roof.

When the light swept across it, the entire ceiling seemed to move.

Several bulging sacs were squeezed between the stretchers, with fleshy tendrils hanging down and threading through the cloth bundles piled on the ground. Some were wrapped around the stretchers, while others only covered half of the body. The sound of dragging could be heard coming from under these things.

She lifted the chip, allowing Nyarlathotep, who remained in the garden, to see the patterns on the outside of the pouch.

"Is it the same as in the video?"

"The capsule looks similar, but I've never seen it grow in this place before. First, find the people who can still move, and don't touch those thin, swollen skins."

Jiang Luo put away the chip, and a tentacle reached out towards the person who was breaking bricks.

The tentacles went around his armpits and pulled him out a little, but the thin skin of the roof quickly tightened, and several cloth bags on the ground were lifted up at the same time, along with the gray tendons wrapped around his waist.

The man cried out, and the brick in his hand fell to the ground.

Jiang Luo immediately stopped, inserted the bone spikes into the sleepers on both sides of the gray tendon, pressed that section firmly down, and then used the tip of his sickle to cut into his clothes.

A layer of cloth was lifted, but what was revealed was not the ground.

The gray fleshy membrane had covered the bottom of the car, clinging tightly to his calves, with tiny shadows creeping towards his ankles.

"Crow, don't step inside the shed. Lift up the sheet metal next to him, and Lolo will cut from below."

The crow held up its small bronze shield to block the thin limbs that sprang out from the gap in the cargo compartment, and with its other hand, it lashed out with a long whip, wrapping it around the edge of the iron sheet and pulling it outwards.

The rusty leather was torn away, and Jiang Luo finally saw the shoes that had been wrapped up.

She didn't drag the shoes along with the soles; instead, she used the sickle blade flat against the sleeper to first sever the connected layers of flesh underneath, then used two thin bone spikes to pry open the trouser legs and peel away the grime clinging to her ankles piece by piece.

The man had stopped hammering bricks, and breath was seeping out from between his clenched teeth.

Elizabeth knelt beside him, supporting his back, and only after the last piece of flesh was cut open did she drag him out of the shed through the gap in the sheet metal.

Jiang Luo reached out to grab the other hand that was hanging by her side.

She raised her arm, and the white cloth underneath was also flipped open, revealing her hollowed-out chest and abdomen. Her movements stopped, and then she retracted her tentacles and covered the cloth back up.

A muffled cough suddenly came from the back of the cargo compartment. She turned her head in the direction of the sound and saw a bloodstained hand further inside, hooking onto the rim of the flatbed truck. The fingertips trembled slightly and then slid down.

The footsteps outside the shed grew closer.

Moen walked over from beside the bone wagon, the blue flames under his cloak illuminating the side of the cargo compartment. Herman lay on the wagon, two pieces of live armor bound together with straps pressed against his chest, blood still seeping from the seams.

"Shura has taken over over there. The doctor who will treat the wounded is outside Gate 4. I'll seal off the entrance for you first."

Jiang Luo raised her hand to stop him from sending the fire inside.

"Don't burn the top yet. There's still someone behind the cargo compartment. His hand just moved."

The blue flames split at the entrance of the shed, then lay close to the ground, extending to both sides along the bone spikes left by Jiang Luo, burning through the fleshy tendrils that were trying to circle around the bone cart.

Someone was pushing a folding stretcher over from outside Gate 4. As the rescue team member at the front bent down, Moen pulled his cloak to his side, making room for him to get closer to the injured person.

The man glanced at the blue flame, paused his outstretched hand, and then laid the stretcher flat at Elizabeth's feet.

"Don't lift his leg yet, let me pass underneath. There needs to be someone on the other side to support his head."

A bone cart carrier approached, his fingernails still stained with the black oil from the axle, then stepped back, replaced by another companion wrapped in a clean cloth.

The rescue team moved its hand to the side of the injured person's neck, and the two tried to lift it to make sure the stretcher wouldn't tilt before walking back together.

Jiang Luo waited until they left the gap in the carriage before loosening the bone spike that was propping it up and withdrawing his strength from the sickle.

She stepped onto the uncovered sheet metal and went around to the side of the shed.

The last wounded soldier lay beside an overturned flatbed cart, a stretcher strap around his neck, one end of which was swallowed by a fleshy membrane and was getting tighter and tighter.

Jiang Luo held his chin, and with a swift stroke of the sickle, the taut strap snapped.

The man's chest heaved, followed by a violent cough. She propped herself up with her bone plate to shield herself from the dripping ash from above and pushed the man toward Elizabeth's outstretched hand.

A tearing sound suddenly rang out overhead.

A sac hung down from the hanger, with several teeth-like mouths squeezed out from under the thin skin, pressing against each other, the foremost one already biting through the outer membrane.

Jiang Luo released the wounded soldier, and the Blood Moon Scythe swept across the bottom of the pouch.

The blade didn't strike the bulging belly, but instead severed the thick ribs connecting it to the roof. The heavy sac fell completely and was sent into the empty cargo compartment by the tentacles she flung out.

The side door slammed shut.

A series of scratching sounds immediately followed from inside the metal sheet.

"Moen, burn this carriage! Don't let anything inside crawl out!"

Blue flames seeped in from under the wheels, rose along the gap in the closed door, and bulged out of the side panel of the carriage from the impact of the contents. As soon as a crack appeared, the fire poured in.

Jiang Luo turned around, and the remaining pouches were shrinking to both sides.

She followed the thick tendons upwards and found the connected fleshy growth on the back of the frame. Dark red tentacles wrapped around the load-bearing iron beam, pried it outwards, and completely exposed the gray flesh attached to the back.

Embedded inside is a vertically open eye.

The eye suddenly turned to her, and the fleshy whiskers beneath it rose up as it lunged toward the stretcher that was being removed from the shed.

The bone wall rose from the middle of the track, blocking their fall.

Jiang Luo stepped forward, gripped the sickle handle tightly with his left hand, plunged the blade into the open eye, and then cut along the thick sinew connecting the pouch.

A series of sharp, jagged whistles emanated from deep within the membrane.

The drooping sacs deflated one after another, and two of them burst open on the spot. The grayish-white limbs that fell out had not yet straightened up when they were caught by the fire that Moen pushed from below.

She removed the tumor from the overhead frame and pressed it into another empty carriage. Bone spikes pierced through the side panels, crisscrossing and sealing the doorway.

The flames then spread upwards.

Jiang Luo retreated outside the shed. A red line had appeared along the edge of the bandage on her right hand. She lowered her head and pressed it, not touching the gray flesh that had fallen onto the tip of her shoe.

Elizabeth was removing the soiled clothing from the two people she had rescued, while a raven stood guard beside her with its shield. A young bird that had escaped the fire pounced on the shield, only to be pierced through the abdomen by her dagger.

The injured man, whose neck was being strangled, grabbed the rescue team member's clothes and coughed so hard he couldn't speak properly. It took a while before anyone could understand him. Behind the tent, there was an overturned transport vehicle; they were originally going to carry the people out of the vehicle.

The fleshy creatures first dragged away the stretcher covered with a white sheet, and then crawled out from under the wheels of the cart.

Jiang Luo went around to the back of the shed and saw half of a car door with an emergency sign. After confirming that no one was inside, he asked the arriving team members to continue searching for the driver's seat nearby.

Jiang Luo walked over and picked up the stretcher that had failed to save its owner.

The remaining fleshy tendrils tried to burrow into the white cloth, but she picked them out one by one with bone spikes and threw them into the burning carriage until nothing else wriggled on the cloth.

"The people who died here aren't even fit for you to feed your babies."

She tucked the white cloth away and had the team members in protective suits move the stretcher to a separate, enclosed area outside the cargo yard. The body and the cloth, which had been covered in dust, could not be mixed into the rescue area. She then walked around the shed and personally cut open each of the still bulging membranes.

Moen didn't rush to put out the fire. She waited until she dragged the last piece of the connected tendon into the carriage before turning the blue flames toward the warped carriage door.

The truck behind us honked its horn.

The driver stood outside the cab, holding the newly delivered bandages, and asked her across the still-smoking tracks if the following train could come through now.

Jiang Luo looked towards Gate 4, where two car headlights were already on.

She carried her sickle to the middle of the road and first pulled out the bone splinter stuck in front of the wheel.