Chapter 135
Chapter 135
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 135
Chapter Title: Parasite (4)
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A small, compact castle lay steeped in death.
The first thing visible was the flock of crows.
They had gorged themselves so thoroughly that their bellies looked swollen to bursting.
Beneath them lay piles of mangled corpses, some reduced to ash amid scattered remnants of half-burned firewood.
It seemed they had tried to gather and burn the bodies but run out of fuel.
The collapsed wooden buildings nearby suggested that in the end, they had torn down their own homes for firewood.
Beyond those heaps, corpses littered the castle grounds everywhere.
The summer heat had set in, and corruption spread swiftly—pus oozed from the bodies, where fat maggots writhed like they were animating the flesh itself.
The faint stench wafting from beyond the walls now assaulted the ramparts, stabbing at their noses.
It felt like pressing month-old food waste right up against your face.
“Urk... bleeech...”
Arsen stuffed Barklan, who was retching and wailing uncontrollably, straight into his backpack.
For someone who had likely never encountered blood and death—probably sharing a modern sensibility—this scene was too much to bear.
Even Bazkal and Marun, who were relatively accustomed to such sights, looked visibly repulsed.
Eloise, arriving last, endured it with surprising composure.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Somehow. I handled a lot of rot while learning magic...”
Arsen nodded at her matter-of-fact reply, then spurred his black lion to leap down from the ramparts.
With a heavy thud, the black lion landed amid the buildings.
Now plunged into the heart of the corpse stench, his sense of smell had gone numb.
An illusion, perhaps, but even his eyes stung from the tainted air.
“Shit, stepped in it...”
Bazkal grimaced, lifting Jin's forepaw after accidentally landing on a body.
Arsen barely suppressed his rising nausea at the sight of the corpse's half-melted lower half oozing out.
“You could catch something—don't touch it. We'll ask a mage to burn it clean later.”
At Arsen's order, Bazkal nodded in agreement.
Just then, the sound of someone vomiting their guts out echoed nearby. It was Marun.
Unable to hold back any longer, he had yanked off his mask and was emptying his stomach spectacularly.
Bazkal, unable to watch, approached to check on him.
“Urgh... Sir Marun. You alright?”
Marun couldn't even answer amid his heaving.
It seemed less the sight and more his weak stomach succumbing to the stench.
Warriors of this world grew numb to foul odors from battlefield toxins, but this reek was on another level entirely.
Even Arsen wanted to hack off his own nose right then.
Breathing through his mouth consciously helped a bit now that they were inside, but it was no place anyone would ever want to revisit—not even as a joke.
“Follow when you've settled. Bazkal, look after Sir Marun.”
“Got it.”
Bazkal patted Marun's back, his armor clanging hollowly.
Doubting if that would help, Arsen turned to Eloise.
“Ellie, let's go ahead.”
“Okay.”
After instructing Bazkal to handle Marun, Arsen rode alongside Eloise on Jin toward the castle's center.
The sights along the way were anything but pleasant—truly, utterly grim.
Eloise glanced around and grimaced faintly.
“...It's horrific.”
“No doubt.”
“Horrible” felt too meager a word, but he had no desire to embellish this tragedy with flowery language.
Nearby lay the corpse of a woman clutching a small child's body.
Was she a mother who died holding her dead child? Or had the child perished in her dead mother's arms?
The deaths here were filthy, ugly, and heartbreaking.
“Any survivors?”
“We'll see. Maybe one or two hung on...”
The castle seemed fairly populated—nearly a hundred bodies so far.
If the other sides matched, the total might approach four hundred.
In a place that size, it wouldn't be odd for one soul to cling to life.
Arsen circled the grounds slowly, straining his ears.
He caught the thud of Jin's steps, Eloise's breathing right beside him, the crows tearing at flesh, even the maggots squirming.
But no sign of a living human.
Then, something popped nearby.
“Ugh...”
Eloise let out a short groan, as if glimpsing something awful.
Moments before, ruptured intestines had released built-up decay gases in a burst.
The body, bowels splayed by the explosive pressure, was far from pleasant.
“Gonna skip meals today for real.”
“...Yeah.”
After completing their circuit of the castle, they headed last to the lord's residence.
Corpses huddled against its outer walls were in somewhat better shape—decaying, but only a few days dead.
“Looks like the survivors gathered here...”
“Shh, hold on.”
Arsen raised a hand, cutting Eloise off.
His ears picked up a rhythmic scraping sound, eerie yet steady.
Focusing, he realized it was ragged breathing—from someone whose throat was raw from violent coughing.
“Let's go in. Someone's alive.”
“Really?”
Eloise yelped in surprise, perhaps having assumed no one had made it.
Leaving Jin at the entrance, they stepped inside the lord's residence.
It held what looked like an makeshift infirmary.
Tattered sleeping bags or beds, topped with bodies.
Passing through, they finally encountered a living person.
“Hungry...”
“Are you this castle's lord?”
He had half-expected the survivor in the lord's residence to be the castle lord himself, but it was a knight—likely the lord.
His two-meter frame, ravaged by the parasite's effects, had withered to skin and bones; arms and legs that should have been muscled now resembled frail twigs.
Dressed only in a shirt and shorts, the dying knight rasped in reply.
“You've finally come?”
The lord spoke in a listless voice, posing an incomprehensible question.
His face, resigned to death, held a calm, despairing blankness, sunk in gloom.
Arsen didn't answer but countered.
“How long have you been infected?”
A flicker of contemplation crossed the man's blank expression.
After a few seconds, he began to respond.
“Why did it end up like this when I always hoped otherwise? No good, but how? What's wrong?”
Muttering nonsense, the lord devolved into mad ramblings, grammar shattered into incoherence.
Arsen focused, sifting meaning from the delirium.
Had to kill them... plague's source... failed... everyone dead but me...
“Do you know why this plague started?”
“Why? I know. I definitely know. Upstream on the Eldarin River, end of the great river, magic beasts, egg-layers, source of corruption—had to kill them, but couldn't. Too weak...”
Slumping as if drained, the lord trailed off.
Arsen turned to Eloise.
“Can you check his condition first?”
“Yeah. I'll try.”
Eloise extended her staff, pressing its tip to the lord's bony arm.
Blue light flared first, then purple—lingering for a good thirty seconds.
After examining him, Eloise sighed.
“Most of his organs have shut down. He's a knight, so he's lasted this long—anyone else would've been dead already.”
“No way to save him?”
“Nope. None. And those little worm things inside? All dead too. Can't sense a thing.”
The parasites had run their course and perished, leaving him a living corpse from the aftermath. No use to them now.
Shaking his head briefly in regret, Arsen tapped the lord's shoulder with his axe haft.
Trying to rouse him for more details.
Soon, the lord groaned and opened his eyes—sharper now, focused unlike before.
“...Who are you?”
“Travelers. You mentioned failing to kill the plague's source earlier. Do you know where it is?”
At Arsen's question, the lord grimaced as if struck by severe pain.
“Yes... They're upstream on the Eldarin River, half a day's ride. Long snouts sucking water, vomiting white eggs. Tried to slaughter them all, but failed. Too strong.”
‘Them—plural, multiple beasts.’
“How did you figure they were the cause?”
“Old tales passed down orally: magic beasts that release eggs into water, infecting bellies. Sliced open the dead and there they were. Went upstream, killed a few, but too many... couldn't get them all.”
Evidently, lore here revealed the parasites' origin—folklore knew of the egg-laying hosts, distinguishing it from mere disease. Whoever discovered it first, unknown.
Barklan had called them “cryosalt parasites,” akin to malaria from tiny insects, but this seemed twisted by magic beast mutation.
At least now they had a lead.
Head upstream, find the egg-layers tainting the water, capture one for a cure.
Exterminate them if possible.
Then, with the antidote, check nearby castles, test on the afflicted, return to Baltar and trade or distribute to pave their way.
‘Hope the cure works.’
The catch: these parasites killed via toxins released as they died inside the host.
What if this primitive dewormer triggered a mass toxin dump on death?
Praying it wouldn't, Arsen asked a few more details on the beasts' appearance and habits before standing.
Before leaving, he asked one last thing.
“We can't save you. Want me to help you pass peacefully?”
His life hung by the knightly tenacity keeping him alive this long.
Better a swift end than hours or days of agony.
The lord closed his eyes, pondering.
Seconds stretched to tens—Arsen waited patiently.
Finally, the lord nodded.
Arsen turned to Eloise.
“Wait outside first?”
“Huh? Oh... yeah. I'll be out front.”
Confirming she had left, Arsen hefted his axe with both hands.
The cramped quarters left no room for a full swing, but against an unarmed, dying knight, none was needed.
“Thanks for the advice. This place is done, but we'll save the other castles and estates.”
“Please...”
The lord rasped back, a faint smile softening his face.
Tears trickled from his eyes.
“Ria, Tiel... Daddy's coming, right now...”
Arsen brought the axe down as the faint murmur faded.
Emerging from the lord's residence, Eloise asked cautiously of the waiting Arsen.
“He's gone?”
“Yeah. Clean this for me.”
Arsen offered his axe; Eloise extended a hand, blasting it with fire.
Scorching heat vaporized the blood in seconds, leaving the blade gleaming like new.
“It's over. Let's go.”
Arsen and Eloise rode Jin back, rejoining Marun—who had barely settled his stomach—and Bazkal tending him.
From there, they returned beyond the ramparts.
For good measure, they scorched the area with magic fire to sterilize any germs before Anun approached.
“How'd it go? Any leads?”
“Yes. Upstream further, then east at the conical rock— that's where the disease-spreaders nest. Kill them, find the source, and we're set.”
His words ignited cheers from those waiting outside, their resolve blazing.
In that moment, Arsen realized those who had entered weren't sharing the fervor.
The grim scenes inside still gripped their hearts.
Arsen felt much the same.