Chapter 349: 183. Spreading Plague -1 (Part One)

Translated by A Passing Wanderer

Edited by RED

It wasn’t all that hard to infiltrate the capital of the Chaves fiefdom. I used the same method that Gril and his group had used.

However, there was one problem here, and that would be me needing to wade through the underground sewer, which resulted in all sorts of literal crap thoroughly bathing me from top to bottom.

I passed through the sewer and quietly climbed up to the surface level. It was late at night. I entered a deserted alleyway and frowned heavily while staring at my clothes, now stained deeply with sh*t.

“I’m supposed to be the Holy Emperor, yet I have to be in this crappy situation…”

I sniffed the air only to be punched in the gut with the disgusting stench. I hurriedly took my clothes off and chucked them away, then changed into new duds.

Just as I took my mask off and began washing my face with the holy water…

“S-someone, anyone! Please help me!”

I heard a person’s desperate cry. I nimbly jumped up to a nearby building’s roof. After lowering myself to the tiles below, I scanned the street up ahead.

That’s when I spotted a man breathlessly running along the street, some kind of an object wrapped in cloth held in his embrace.

“It’s some prey!”

“Who knew there would be a dumbass willing to wander around in the middle of the night!”

Half-man, half beast monsters dashed out from the darkness.

They all boasted physiques well over two metres in height, their waists slightly bent, and their limbs were long and sharp.

Lycans.

This man continued to run through the streets covered in the veil of darkness, crying out to anyone who could hear him, “Anyone! Please, help me!”

I scanned all those windows on the houses by the street. I could sense gazes of people coming from there, but not a single one tried to help the man out. No, they pulled the curtains shut or boarded their windows even tighter than before.

“I, I have children back home! These medicines are for them, I must…!” the man cried out, pleading and begging in desperation. The chasing lycans sneered derisively at him.

I hurriedly climbed down from the root and entered an alleyway, then called out to where that man was running. “Oiii! Over here!”

The man looked over to me, and I urgently waved my hand at him. The man’s despairing expression gained just a hint of colour.

Here I was, hidden under a bird-beak mask and a nondescript robe and hood. Yup, I looked really suspicious. Even then, the man seemed to be a little bit more hopeful that someone was willing to help him out.

“T-thank you!”

When he came close enough, I reached out and grabbed his hand before sprinting away from there. We ran even deeper into the alleyway.

While running, I glanced up at the rooftops near us. Lycans could be seen rapidly dashing along on the rooftops on either side of the alleyway. They glanced down at us as slimy grins floated up on their faces.

They were clearly enjoying this.

But that wasn’t so surprising, considering that to them, chasing around such helpless prey that couldn’t even fight back would be akin to an amusing game hunt or some such.

The man’s complexion paled as we entered another alleyway. “N-no, wait! If we stay on this path, then…!”

My feet pounding on the pavement came to a stuttering halt. We had run into a dead end.

That prompted the lycans running on the rooftops to leap down to the ground and block the only exit out of here.

“Huh, that one’s got a strange looking get-up, doesn’t he?”

“Hey you punk, what are you supposed to be?”

These two lycans stepped forward nonchalantly. Not a shred of wariness could be seen on them.

They had been hunting powerless prey that couldn’t put up any decent resistance until now, so I figured that they were overflowing with confidence at the moment. At the very least, they knew that no one would come to our rescue in this blocked-off back alley.

Of course, that tale applied to the lycans in this case.

“Oh, you are asking me what I’m supposed to be?”

While replying, I extracted my shovel from the item window. For the first time in a long, long while, I felt its familiar grip once more.

Gee whiz, just how long had it been since I last used a shovel?

Lycans faltered visibly when they saw the shovel.

“That’s… a strange magic trick.”

“Is he a Magician, then?”

They looked quite surprised by the fact that I had pulled a shovel out of thin air.

They began growling at me, so I replied to them, “No, I’m a Priest. You can call me Mister Extra.”

The glaring light in the eyes of the lycans sharpened considerably when they heard the word ‘Priest’.

“A damn Priest!”

“To think that there was one still alive!”

The bodies of the undead beasts began ballooning up. Their claws also grew longer and sharper. Their fangs jutted out while hideous veins bulged on their hides.

Their fur stood on end as they stomped on the ground, and they were about to pounce on me, but then…

I dug into their unguarded fronts first.

“…?!”

The lycans couldn’t react in time. All they could do was slowly roll their eyes lower and stare at me crouching below their waists.

Just as the confusion began taking over them…

I swung the shovel upwards against the lower torso of one of the lycans. The edge of the tool began slicing up the creature’s abdomen, chest, and even its head as if it was a block of tofu.

“…Heeeeiiiick?!”

Only after the lycan was split clean in half did the other one next to it display a reaction. It jumped up in shock and tried to howl loudly, but I shoved the shovel into the fool’s mouth first.

My right hand wielded the shovel while my left grabbed the creature by its throat, then I slammed it against a nearby wall.

“Keo-uuuuhk! W-what kind of strength is…?!”

I didn’t even use divinity to enhance my physical strength here. Thanks to my superhuman physique, I could suppress a lycan quite easily now.

I glared at the undead beast and asked, “Okay, so. Where is the one called Duke Agares?”

**

It was rather easy to find all the info I needed.

There were still about three thousand or so survivors remaining in the city, and they were all hiding within their houses at the moment. Every night, vampires would hunt a small portion of them as a source of entertainment and sustenance.

The reason for all these survivors being largely left alone was as expected: to be used as meat shields to stop the Theocratic Empire’s advance. Also, the news of the Heavenly Army led by yours truly travelling from the Kingdom of Frants had reached the ears of the vampires in charge of this place, putting them on high alert.

{His Lordship the Duke has issued a decree that says humans need to be used as hostages, so we must hold back on hunting them.}

That was the order handed down by Duke Agares.

Hmm. Thanks to him, three thousand people got to keep their lives. Who knew that vampires could be helpful in a situation like this one?

I mulled on the whereabouts of Duke Agares and Marcus, as revealed by the lycan.

{His Lordship is still on his way here.}

That was probably because I sent the communique to that sucker saying that the hostage trade would take place in the city of Chaves.

“Thank you, thank you! I didn’t know that Sir Priest would still be alive even now!”

The dude I saved guided me to a half-destroyed church nearby. It turned out that several survivors were holed up in there.

There were quite a few elderly women and young children. The man began distributing the medicines wrapped under the cloth to the kids, then spoke to me again, “You saved my life, but I don’t even know how to repay you, sir.”

I took in the sight of the messed-up state of the church, then looked back at the man. “Your name?”

“Ah, my name is Rover, sir. I offer you, Sir Priest, my gratitude and…” The man named Rover sighed in relief, then drew the holy sign in the air. “I pray that the grace of Goddess Gaia be with you. Are they any other Priests besides you, sir?”

“No. I actually came from the outside.”

“F-from outside, sir?” Rover made a shocked face.

But that lasted only for a brief moment as he hurriedly scanned behind the curtains covering the windows. He confirmed that no one was outside and sighed in relief again.

He looked back at me and warned me in no uncertain terms, “Sir Priest, the truth about your presence must never be known, even within this place.”

“Why not?” I asked back in slight puzzlement. Truth be told, though, I could kind of guess as to why.

“…Because, there might be a vampire in the guise of a normal person hiding in here, sir.”

I knew it. Vampires were hiding among the potential hostages. It would make monitoring and controlling the humans that much easier.

However, that wouldn’t be much of an issue for me since I could sniff out vampires easily, anyway. The real problem was something else.

That would be the normal people, not vampires, who were willing to cooperate with the undead. You know, the kind that would sell out their fellow humans just to guarantee their own survival.

Those types existed pretty much everywhere, and were the reason why I chose to infiltrate while wearing this bird-beak mask.

I needed to avoid the possibility of my real face being seen, which could unnecessarily agitate the vampires and prompt them to kill the hostages.

“I’ll keep that in mind, then.”

Rover nodded silently, then asked again, “But, when you say you’re from the outside…?”

I checked out Rover’s attributes. His stat window said that he was earnest, trustworthy, and very caring, plus a few other similar characteristics.

This man was a commendable person in terms of his humanity. That meant he was well qualified to be my helper here.

So, I decided to be honest. “I’m from the Theocratic Empire. I’m here for the purpose of reclaiming this fiefdom of Chaves from the undead.”

“Oh my goodness! Is that true?! Oh, ohh! Thank you, dear Gaia! Thank you, His Majesty the Holy Emperor!”

The hope of survival had Rover genuinely rejoicing.

I studied him for a bit before addressing him, “By the way, there’s something I want to ask you.”

“Yes, please ask away, sir. I’ll do my best to help you in any way I can.”

“By any chance, are there two men named Gril and Adolf, plus a young woman named Yuria in this place?”

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