Chapter 351: 184. Spreading Plague -2

Translated by A Passing Wanderer

Edited by RED

Agares headed to the Chaves fortress in the city urgently.

His mind was falling deeper into chaos as he kept hearing tragic screams coming from several places in the city.

‘Just what the hell?! What am I even dealing with here?!’

Once he arrived at the fortress, the Vampire Duke personally shoved Marcus Ariana into a prison cell before roaring out, “You better tell me what the hell is going on out there!”

He was shouting at the top of his lungs, and veins bulged visibly on his forehead from the sheer rage he felt.

He grabbed Marcus’s throat as if he was ready to kill the human prince right there and then, but…

Marcus Ariana glared back at the vampire with a sneering face, “I’m sure it’s as you’ve already guessed.”

Agares flinched in surprise and clamped his mouth shut.

“Without a doubt, His Majesty the Holy Emperor has done something. He shall start hunting you bastards down very soon-!”

“You insane fool of a Priest!” Agares slapped Marcus’s face. The man flew away and slammed into the wall of the prison cell before collapsing in a heap on the floor.

“Shackle him, now!”

Lycans hurriedly entered the cell and began placing shackles on Marcus’s limbs.

“And someone report to me this instant. Tell me the current situation of this bloody city, now…!”

Under Agares’s commands, the vampires began their investigation of the unfolding situation within the fiefdom of Chaves. That led them to uncovering a shocking truth.

“…A plague, you say?”

“Y-yes, Your Lordship. It’s true.” This report was being made after two days of intense investigation. His subordinate vampire continued on. “The plague is spreading among our kin, Your Lordship. We estimate that the outbreak began from the ones who devoured humans.”

The more Agares heard this report, the more creeped out he became, and he had to hug himself from all the goosebumps breaking out on his skin.

“In the cases of blood-creations, it means instant death. Even Progenitors will grow progressively weaker until their lives are left hanging in the balance, Your Lordship.”

Agares angrily rubbed his forehead.

“Also, killing humans presents a serious problem now, sir. That’s because we’ve detected divinity coming from their blood. We face the danger of a new outbreak if we try to hunt humans now, sir.”

“And you honestly expect me to believe all this?!” Agares roared angrily.

Even the vampire making the report looked flustered by what he was saying.

Just what was a plague? Wasn’t it a type of disease that spread among only the frail living humans and beasts?

Plagues were diseases that greatly weakened their victims, and when they got too serious, they would kill their carriers outright. Such a disease was now circulating within the ranks of vampires?

‘Oh my gods…’

It seemed that the end of the world was really here. To think that a day would come where the vampires were no longer allowed to drink human blood and had to cower from some kind of a plague that only affected them…

Just what kind of atrocious thing did the Imperial Family even…?!

The world had gone absolutely mad, that was for certain!

Agares bellowed, “Those cruel, insane bastards!”

“Sir, it’s too dangerous to leave the hostages be. How about we dig a mass grave and bury all of them alive…?”

“N-no, never-! We must definitely not do that!” Duke Agares hurriedly shook his head.

What was happening here was obviously a warning sent by the Theocratic Empire. They seemed to be saying that no more hostages would die from this moment on.

So it didn’t take a genius to figure out that, were the vampires to massacre all hostages in such a fashion, the Theocratic Empire would start marching into the city to utterly annihilate the undead!

‘Or… maybe they are scheming something else?’

It was also possible that they were trying to coax the vampires into killing all the hostages here, because that would make it so much easier for them to act.

When Agares thought about it some more, he remembered that the Imperial Family bastards were basically a group of insane mass murderers.

How did he even forget about what happened back in Aslan?! The empire actually went in and utterly destroyed several Aslan cities just because a couple of Imperial Princes were ‘held hostage’ by the Aslan royal court.

Hell, the Imperial bastards even declared that Aslan would be wiped from existence if the Imperial Princes were not released immediately, or they were found to be injured in some way.

Only now did Agares realise that it was rather… abnormal to expect to see a regular hostage drama play out against opponents like that.

“…We shall stop the spread of this plague first.”

“But sir, we don’t know how…”

“A plague of this scale surely couldn’t have come from the outside, but originated from inside.” Agares issued a new order to his subordinate vampires. “There must be saboteurs at play! Go and find them, now!”

**

(TL: In 1st person POV.)

It was oh-so-easy to spread a kind of plague that would work perfectly against the vampires. By utilising the survivors and the overflowing packs of vermin, as well as the well-constructed sewage system, it was shockingly easy to circulate a fast-acting plague.

It didn’t matter whether it was in the middle of day or late at night, the desperate cries of vampires could be heard. Lycans grew sick one by one, while zombies began disappearing from our view.

The process to purify this city had begun in earnest before anyone had noticed it.

“Over here, sir. This person is Carreira, who can be trusted, sir. He’s an excellent follower of Goddess Gaia’s teachings!”

Rover brought many trustworthy survivors to me during the day while doing his best to evade the eyes of the vampires and lycans. What I did to them was to heal their diseases, and at the same time I cast my Blessing on them.

The people receiving my Blessing became uber-healthy and filled with overflowing vitality. As a bonus, their blood was temporarily imbued with my divinity, which caused much pain and torment, or even outright death, to those foolish vampires trying to prey on them.

“Uncle, I caught some, too!”

Kids caught many vermin and brought them over to me. I Blessed the rats as well.

After releasing them, they would go out to bite and gnaw at the undead, thereby infecting the vampires with divinity.

The rats that were supposed to bring about a calamity to the people through various diseases were now granting Blessings to humans while gifting the vampires with plagues that made the undead vomit out blood and die miserably.

At most, a week. That’s how long my Blessings would remain active for. That should be enough to sow much confusion and chaos, though.

I stared at the interior of the church. Before long, lots more people had shown up here to offer their ardent prayers, their hands tightly locked together in praying gestures.

[Your Majesty.]

As I continued to gift the survivors with my Blessing, Charlotte’s faint voice entered my ears. Due to the adverse effect of the abnormal weather, it was a lot harder than expected to hear her words.

We couldn’t get in touch too frequently. Still, she had managed to get in contact with Gril’s team and was able to provide me with some updates.

[I’ve heard about the current situation in there through Gril’s report, sire. He said that there is a plague spreading around through… granting Blessings?]

I kinda sensed that Charlotte was getting flustered while talking to me. But then again, she must’ve found it rather odd that a Blessing could spread around like a deadly plague.

The thing was, a holy Necromancer itself was a contradictory and common sense-breaking existence to begin with.

I replied to her, [Where are they?]

[They have just got in contact with the acquaintance in question and are about to find out the situation and the layout of the feudal lord’s castle, sire. Also, Duke Agares has apparently entered the castle recently.]

It was rather nice to communicate through the Aztal Rune like this, but there were some limitations to consider. For instance, the weather played a big factor, and I could connect to only a finite number of people.

Right now, I could only connect to Charlotte. If I wanted to chat to a lot of people at once, we had to be in a very close proximity to one another.

[Okay, got it. What about my brother, Marcus?]

[It seems that Duke Agares has brought him to the city, as well, sire.]

With that, we had more or less figured out the situation of this place.

‘Marcus is in the city’s fortress, huh?’

In that case, all that was left to do was to infiltrate the fortress, extract Marcus, take command of the survivors, and evacuate them to somewhere safe.

The biggest issue I could foresee with that plan was with the vampire bastards staying quiet and not doing anything crazy. That meant that I needed to start an incident so big that they would be paralysed by confusion and chaos.

…Meaning, I better create the ‘chaos’ itself.

[Also, Your Majesty, Marquis Hans Jerurami has arrived in the near vicinity of the fiefdom of Chaves, sire. I believe it will be possible to contact him now.]

[I see. Thanks. I’ll try to call him up on my own.]

[Understood, sire.]

The connection to Charlotte cut off.

While keeping my fingers crossed, I sent out a call to Hans. [Hey, Hans.]

There was no response.

[Hans?]

[…It seems that Your Majesty has taken it upon yourself to murder this little old me. I’m merely a lowly Alchemist, yet you wish me to face a Vampire Duke, sire?]

That dissatisfied voice I hadn’t heard in a long while finally came through the magic communication line.

I ended up chuckling out loud, causing the people in the church to stare at me while tilting their heads.

I addressed him again, [I guess we can communicate normally now.]

[That’s because I’m near the city of Chaves, sire. However, the weather is really, really hot here. There’s a serious danger of the communication cutting off abruptly.]

[Actually, I wanted to ask you about something.]

[Regarding what, sire?]

I finally asked Hans about this thing I had been curious about for a long while. [I want to know more about Purgatory, Hans.]

[Purgatory, Your Majesty?]

[Yeah. That Purgatory.]

While chatting to Hans, I continued to keep myself occupied by Blessing the survivors. I even revived the dead vermin as zombies, making them snoop around the surroundings for me in order to figure out a way to infiltrate the city’s fortress.

It shouldn’t have been that hard to figure that out, but then, the vampires had grown deathly wary of the plague and made it near impossible for a zombie rat to sneak into the castle.

Man, it’d been so much nicer to learn the interior layout of the fortress…

While I was thinking about that, the eyes of a zombie rat caught something interesting, and transmitted the scene to me.

It was about a group of people cautiously walking into the underground sewage tunnel, currently filled with holy water. The group consisted of Gril, Adolf, and Yuria, plus one other person acting like a guide.

‘Oho? That must be that acquaintance Gril was talking about.’

They must’ve heard about the current situation from Charlotte and were currently sussing out a suitable infiltration route right now.

I began pondering something after seeing them. And then, I directed the zombie rat to chase after Adolf. Although it was dangerous, there was something they needed to do for me.

That was to infiltrate the fortress itself. Right now.

**

(TL: In 3rd person POV.)

Gril, Adolf and Yuria were walking in the sewer tunnel. The person guiding them through the waterworks was the acquaintance of Gril, a man named Paelon.

“Thank, Paelon. I appreciate that you’re helping us out like this, even though it’s really dangerous!” Gril spoke up, but Paelon could only smile awkwardly.

He then scanned the underground waterways with a stunned face. Not a speck of light could enter here, so this whole sewer system should be covered in pitch-black darkness, but instead it was glowing brightly.

All thanks to the flowing holy water, of course.

“W-well, I’m doing my best to survive out here, after all. However, I have to say, you guys are really incredible Priests. To think that you can even spread plagues that only affect the vampires!” Paelon replied, causing troubled expressions to float up on Yuria and Gril’s faces.

Honestly speaking, they had no idea how a plague of this kind came to circulate within this city. They did hear something from Charlotte through the communication, but…

{Someone else has infiltrated the city as well. I pray that you don’t unduly trouble that person during your mission.}

Since Charlotte, who was a Marquis, sounded quite respectful when talking about that mystery person, he or she must’ve been someone of a very high station. Both Yuria and Gril were puzzled by the revelation, but Adolf could more or less guess who that person might be.

“If you keep going this way, you’ll reach the tunnel that directly connects to the fortress, everyone.” Paelon pointed to a tunnel up ahead and spoke to the group.

“Thanks, man! I really appreciate it.” Gril hugged his acquaintance tightly, then spoke to Adolf next. “Adolf, you should report to Charlotte right away!”

He then tilted his head in puzzlement.

That was because he could see Adolf squatting on the floor, intently staring at a little mouse in front of him.

“…I had no idea that Uncle Adolf could speak to rats,” said Yuria.

“Y-yeah, you’re right. Me neither.”

Adolf stood back up after picking up the mouse. He then looked back at Gril and Yuria. “We have a new mission.”

“Eh? Really?”

Did he chat to Charlotte, even though he looked like he was playing with a mouse?

“This time, the command has been issued directly by His Majesty the Holy Emperor.”

The expressions of both Yuria and Gril hardened.

“We are to get captured by the vampires in order to infiltrate the castle.” Adolf continued on, then stared at Paelon next. “And you, sir, are to inform the vampires of our presence.”

Paelon was absolutely stupefied at Adolf’s words.

**

Solid shackles were placed on the arms of Adolf, Gril and Yuria. They were then dragged to the underground prison of the Chaves fortress.

Gril began pouring out all sorts of insults at his friend through the prison bars. “You stinking traitor bastard! I swear, I’m gonna bury you in the slime sh*t pit later!”

“You did well, livestock,” a lycan sneered and addressed Paelon.

He rubbed his hands subserviently. And while trying to gauge the lycan’s mood, he replied, “T-thank you, sir.”

“As your reward, we’ll let you live for a bit longer.”

“…”

Paelon continued to bow and kowtow while cold sweat caked his face. He then snuck a glance at Gril, looking rather worried as he did so.

“…Well, we somehow got inside, and without too much trouble either,” said Yuria after Paelon and the lycan left. She smacked her lips. “But there’s not a lot we can do here.”

The infiltration part of the mission was rather easy. Paelon prattled about the group to the lycans, and the undead swiftly showed up to arrest them.

Adolf, Gril, and Yuria obediently put their weapons down, then surrendered without any resistance. They had managed to enter the prison, but now…

The problem came after that. All of their equipment had been confiscated. Even if they had received intense training, there was still very little they could do in this place without any proper equipment.

“I guess all that’s waiting for us now is getting tortured. Now that I think about it, I really hated going through those anti-torture training sessions back then…” Yuria muttered out.

Gril groaned at that. “Even then, we gotta do something.”

“No. This is enough,” Adolf replied positively for some reason.

Yuria shrugged her shoulders, then asked him, “What are you going to do?”

Adolf pulled out a rat from inside his clothing and placed it on the floor.

Gril and Yuria stared at this little critter and tilted their heads in confusion, before shifting their gazes back to Adolf, their expressions clearly asking, ‘Have you finally lost your mind?’

“…What’s up with this little guy?” Yuria finally asked.

“What were you planning to do by releasing a rat?” Gril followed with a question of his own.

“This is no ordinary mouse,” said Adolf with a meaningful smile. “It’s actually His Majesty’s mouse.”

The zombie rat escaped through the prison bars and quickly scampered around the prison’s corridors. This creature’s vision was currently being shared with Allen, and it began scanning each and every cell through the bars.

One contained a cold corpse, another held an emaciated prisoner. They weren’t what he was looking for.

Not here?

In that case, somewhere deeper in the prison, then!

The rat continued to scurry down the corridor, eventually reaching a certain location right at the end of the prison: a steel door.

The zombie rat climbed up this steel door and peeked its head through the hole meant to observe the situation inside the cell.

Allen, still sharing the vision with the zombie rat, grinned deeply. ‘Found him!’

There he was, a young man collapsed on the floor, his limbs bound in steel shackles.

Marcus Ariana. He was in this cell!

< 184. Spreading Plague -2 > Fin.

(TL: Only one chapter today… 19-March-2021)

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