Chapter 350: 183. Spreading Plague -1 (Part Two)

Translated by A Passing Wanderer

Edited by RED

Rover thought about it deeply for a bit before shaking his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t recognise those names.”

“I see.”

I figured that those three must be working their butts off somewhere. Also, Gril said that he knew an acquaintance in this place, so they should be fine.

I was pretty certain that they were collecting intel in their own way. We should just get in touch at a later stage.

“Cough, cough!”

I heard someone coughing helplessly and turned my head in that direction.

The elderly women and the children had been grouped together to a side of the church. Their skins had turned purplish in hue.

It was the plague at work. A heavy amount of contagions wafted around in the surrounding air and unclaimed corpses were discarded everywhere, so it was not surprising to see diseases flare up like this.

Rover had somehow managed to procure some medicine at great difficulty, but I could tell that that wasn’t going to be enough.

I walked up to them. “How are you all feeling?”

“I’m alright,” a kid replied with a bright, carefree grin. However, it looked like he was forcibly suppressing the pain he was in.

I stared at him, but then spotted a pile of small bones belonging to an animal discarded in the corner. That made me pause for a bit. Those bones and bits of fur belong to mice, indicating that the survivors here had been subsisting on rats to survive. Next to the pile was a cage with some rats trapped inside.

“…Are you guys facing a shortage of provisions?” I asked Rover.

He grimly nodded. “Yes, sir. We don’t have anything to eat. The best we can do is catching and eating rodents found nearby.”

“It’s good that they aren’t zombified rats, at least.”

Still, that would be more than enough to spread around various diseases. I was pretty sure that the vampires were aiming for this, as well. It would only be possible to control the hostages completely when they were literally powerless to resist, after all.

“Cough, cough…” The kid began coughing again. He couldn’t withstand the high fever and plopped down on the floor.

I addressed Rover again. “I’m going to inspect this child for a bit.”

“Y-yes, of course.”

I extended my hand to the kid.

“N-now that I think about it, Sir Priest, I haven’t even asked you for your name yet.” Rover asked cautiously.

While patting the kid on his head, I replied, “What, my name?”

I gently injected divinity into the child. The particles of light quickly filled up his body.

“I’m Allen Olfolse.”

The eyes of Rover, the child, and an elderly lady tending to the boy grew wider and wider.

The light spread around rapidly. The purplish skin on the child’s body gradually disappeared. His fever went down and his sickly-pale complexion began regaining its vitality in no time at all.

The child stared at me with a shocked face. “Magic…? Uncle, are you a Magician?”

I ended up chuckling at that.

**

“A m-miracle…” Rover muttered.

The elderly lady flinched in shock and hurriedly kowtowed before me.

“Y-Your Majesty the Holy Emperor!”

Even Rover was about to roar out at the top of his lungs, so I quickly shook my head at him. “Didn’t you tell me to be more cautious just now?”

He froze up, looking as if he didn’t know what to do here.

I stared at the elderly lady and she stood back up awkwardly. “M-my apologies.”

“W-what should we refer to you as, s-sir?”

“Just use my alias of Extra.”

If I used that name, Adolf should definitely latch onto it, and realise that I was here in the city.

“…Understood, sir!” Rover nodded quickly.

I shifted my attention to the cage and the rats trapped within. They were definitely diseased by the looks of things.

I recalled the event that had happened all those years ago in the villages by the northern frontier. More specifically, the incident of the plague spread around by the zombie rats.

And then the blessing I had granted Gril and everyone, too.

Now was the time to test ‘that’ out.

“Rover.”

“Y-yes, Your Ma… I-I mean, Sir Extra.”

I turned to look at him and grinned brightly, “Would you like to find out what the plague of a Priest looks like?”

**

The lycans standing on top of the outer walls surrounding the city of Chaves were currently feeling quite anxious, tense.

They raised their heads and scanned the vicinity of the mountain range over yonder.

There it was, a huge procession of refugees, and Paladins kitted out in the Rune armour setting up a camp in front of them.

‘Holy cow, that’s the Theocratic Empire!’

Those damn humans had arrived at the fiefdom of Chaves far too quickly. Outwardly at least, they looked to be setting up a camp to take a break, but even then, they continued to ooze this dangerous, threatening atmosphere of getting ready to attack Chaves at any given moment.

The tense expressions of the lycans suddenly brightened just then.

“Look! It’s his lordship, Duke Agares!”

In the far-off distance, up over the hill, a group of vampires was marching towards the city. The party consisted of Duke Agares, whose lower half looked like a crocodile, his upper torso resembling an old man, while various vampire knights followed along behind him.

A mobile prison, modified from a regular carriage, could be seen transporting the imprisoned Marcus Ariana from the Kingdom of Frants.

Lycans saw their confident, proud appearances and began howling out loudly. They believed that as long as they held a valuable hostage, the Theocratic Empire would not dare to attack them.

Agares entered the city limits through the open gateway, but also didn’t forget to glance at the camp of the Theocratic Empire’s Heavenly Army by the foot of the mountain range. Cold drops of sweat trickled down the vampire’s face.

‘Stinking bastards.’

Just knowing that the Holy Emperor was somewhere within that camp sent deathly shivers down the Vampire Duke’s spine.

What might happen if the empire’s forces decided to sacrifice the hostage, and simply summoned that otherworldly archangel to sweep everything away?

It would be total and complete annihilation for the vampires and the other undead!

‘However, it should still be fine. It’s not just one or two humans, after all. We have his sibling and three thousand living hostages in our grasp.’

That meant that not even the Holy Emperor would dare to make a rash move.

Duke Agares stepped inside Chaves, and immediately felt relieved as a familiar smell wafted into his nose. It was the stench of decomposing corpses and iron in spilt blood soaking the ground below.

Aaah, what a delectable aroma this was!

Agares felt his anxiety and tension come undone, and his heart calmed down.

Sniff, sniff…

“Mm?”

Agares looked down. He discovered a rodent trying to bite into his leg, but the rodent’s fangs couldn’t break through the thick crocodile hide.

“Huh. This is why these brainless vermin can never…”

The rats of this world didn’t seem to have the word ‘fear’ in their vocabulary. It didn’t matter what the size of their target was, these vermin had a tendency to start gnawing at stuff as long as they saw it as edible.

Agares stomped his foot and crushed the rat to death, then started walking again.

Now that he was more relaxed, he began feeling hunger gnawing at his belly. He didn’t have much of an opportunity to hunt living livestock for the past few days, so he thought that he might as well enjoy a veritable feast in this city.

“P-please, spare me! I beg of you!”

Agares was heading to the city’s fortress only to hear someone’s pleading voice, and turned his attention to an alleyway nearby. Vampires were driving some human survivors to a corner there.

The vampire duke grinned in satisfaction at that sight.

‘Now, behold! This was what ‘normal’ should look like.’

Vampires were meant to hunt humans down. The destiny of all humans was to not put up any resistance and be obediently devoured.

‘This here is the correct order of the world, indeed! The world of vampires, that is!’

Agares quietly closed his eyes. His hearing caught the despairing cries of the humans.

Aaah, what a pleasant sound that was.

That desperate cry was…

“Kkyaaaaaahk-!”

… the scream of a vampire?!

Agares flinched in surprise and hurriedly opened his eyes so that he could look at that alleyway once more.

“B-but, how come…?!”

A vampire who had sunk his fangs into a human victim suddenly began stumbling back, clearly in torment. This undead desperately clutched at his throat as veins visibly bulged on his face. Then, a flood of blood gushed out from his eyes, nose, mouth, and even ears.

This vampire entered a full-on panicked state. While watching this scene, Agares could only stand still, utterly frozen to his spot.

It didn’t take long before…

Splat-!

… the vampire’s body exploded.

“…!” Agares clamped his mouth shut in shock.

That vampire, its upper torso blown to gory bits, soon caught on bluish flame and went down on its knees.

The undead corpse was burning down to ashes, and at the same time, Agares picked up a truly detestable aura from it.

It was none other than divinity!

The Vampire Duke’s dazed eyes shifted over to the other parts of the street. His brows gradually rose, and his expression was filled with sheer terror next.

-Uwaaaaahk!-

Lycans were howling out loudly in pain and suffering, while vampires were falling to their knees as blood poured out from their orifices, ultimately collapsing to the ground, never to move again.

The desperate, deathly cries of vampires rose from seemingly every corner of the city.

“H-help me, Lord Duke…!”

One of the vampires stumbled closer to Agares. However, the undead’s body was gradually ballooning up. Before he could reach the Vampire Duke, he exploded right in front of Agares.

Bits of torn flesh and blood splattered all over Agares’s stunned face.

He felt his mind blanking out. He just couldn’t figure out what was going on in this chaos.

‘J-just what is going on here…? What the hell is happening here right now?!’

Just as the inside of his head turned completely blank, a single thought abruptly brushed past his consciousness.

‘The Theocratic Empire…!’

And the sole existence capable of unleashing this type of power… was the Holy Emperor, Allen Olfolse!

The image of that man’s mocking, cackling face floated up in Agares’s mind.

‘This… this has to be the Holy Emperor’s handiwork!’

“Holy Emperor, you baaaastard-!” Agares howled out as if he was trying to scream.

And so, a holy plague began spreading through the city of Chaves.

< 183. Spreading Plague -1 (Part One and Two) > Fin.

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