Wind of the Plague (12)
"I am sorry. I have no other answer to give."
"Good heavens... This young man is stubborn as a mule..."
No matter how they tried to coax him, Cain stood like a stone Buddha, unyielding and clinging to the exact same reply—even when Senia offered to personally deliver medicine capable of curing Lumia.
"Our sirens are hardly in a forgiving predicament either," the Elder urged. "There is a reason we must ask this of you."
"I am sorry."
"This is so that both the sirens and Lumia may live. Surely you understand that clearly, so why do you insist on closing your ears?"
"...I am sorry. No matter the reason, I cannot disclose Lumia's whereabouts."
Indifferent to almost everyone else, Cain would not concede an inch if Lumia was involved. It was his own rigid way of protecting her.
Yet it was painfully obstinate.
To seal his lips completely for the sake of one woman—a branded criminal for whom no reward would ever come—such singular devotion was admirable in its own right. But could he not see that their entangled fates and delicate circumstances were spiraling toward disaster? To plug his ears and act as though he hadn't heard a single word was enough to scorch the nerves of anyone trying to reason with him.
"You have to look at reality, Cain. We..."
Even when Senia stepped in, nothing changed. No matter how much the two pressed him, Cain was not about to breathe a single word of Lumia's location here.
Then, without warning, the earth began to rumble.
"What now?! An earthquake out of nowhere...?!"
"Are you all right, Senior?"
"I'm fine! More importantly, Elder, get under the table right now!"
"..."
Even as the tremors swayed his frail frame, the Elder stubbornly shuffled toward the doorway.
"Elder...? What are you doing?!"
"It's dangerous! If the ceiling caves in—!"
Senia thought the old siren was acting recklessly, wondering what on earth could possibly compel someone to step outside amidst an earthquake. But the expression on the old man's face wasn't mere eccentricity; it was sheer, unadulterated shock. It was the exact same terror that had gripped the two sirens who had brought Cain here earlier.
Just what had he seen out there?
"Oh, gods..."
"Elder!"
The Elder's head jerked left and right before he finally forced the door open, his voice hollow as he collapsed to his knees. The tremor was slowly subsiding, but that only meant whatever had caused it was already here.
The moment they stepped over the threshold—
"Eeeeeeek!"
"Aaaargh!"
Screams from both men and women began to flood the entire lakeside.
"Is it truly... over for us...?"
"What is it, Elder? What did you see?!"
"Senia..."
The Elder's eyes had gone completely vacant. Looking through eyes that had lost everything, one could glean nothing.
Yet it wasn't hard to guess.
I knew something felt off...
That was precisely why she had wanted to ask why the sirens seemed so shaken and their unity so frayed compared to before. The shadow hanging over them was undeniable terror.
"Hey, Cain!"
"Right behind you! Let's move!"
Left unchecked, this terror would spread like a pestilence through the entire settlement. Right now, she and Cain were the only ones who could grasp what was happening and do something about it.
As the sudden tremors reverberated, every siren instantly knew what was coming.
To them, that beast was a living catastrophe.
"It's the rats! Run for your lives!!"
Voices cried out in panic as everyone scrambled for their own survival, yet among them was not a single trained combatant. In this critical moment, the glaring vulnerability of a people who had always relied solely on Hyplisia was laid bare.
"How... how could this happen...? The barrier..."
"It's never breached like this before! No matter how much they shook the cleared earth, it never collapsed this badly...!"
"You fool... that thing isn't the same as before...!"
"What...?"
"Look at its size! The damn thing has kept growing bigger and bigger!"
Its ever-swelling bulk was now vast enough to shatter thirty percent of the Hyplisia barrier in a single heave.
Shanberesh, the mother of the Devourers, hell-bent on feasting upon the sirens, was no longer thwarted by the barrier's repelling ward. The Hyplisia boundary raised by the sirens shattered like brittle glass.
Without the mother even needing to step forward, hordes of Devourers burst from the gaping cavern as if lying in wait, smacking their jaws in anticipation of fresh prey.
"It's over... We're finished..."
They lacked the strength to mend the breach. Having never cultivated a warrior class, those wielding makeshift weapons could buy a few scant minutes at best.
One by one, the villagers succumbed to despair. Overwhelmed by the sheer swarm, the Devourers breached the heart of the village.
"Th-This can't be...!"
"Dammit! One slipped through!"
"Ma'am, get out of the way!!"
Despite the shout, her legs froze stiff, refusing to budge.
"Mama...?"
"Nella? Run and don't look back, understand?!"
Squeeeek!
The mother squeezed her eyes shut. Resigning herself to becoming fodder for the beasts, she prayed only for her child's safety.
Yet instead of the crazed squeals of Devourers closing in on their meal, two unfamiliar voices reached her ears.
"S-Senia..."
"Get up quickly, ma'am!"
"Senior, we need to step in!"
The man who had suddenly appeared and rescued Nella's mother possessed neither webbed fin-ears nor visible scales. The one accompanying Senia was unequivocally human.
"A human? Did he escape from the cellar?!"
"He's with me!" Senia barked. "We need to stop the Devourers first! Is this really the time for suspicion?!"
"R-Right. The demonic beasts come first."
"Exactly! More importantly, we have to rebuild the barrier right now!"
Only then did the villagers snap out of their daze and scramble to work. Trusting a human or not didn't matter when cooperation was the only route to survival.
Still... what do we do?
Suspicion toward Cain was put on hold to repel the beasts, but too vast an expanse of Hyplisia had been uprooted. A shattered barrier was inherently compromised, and their meager numbers could only hold out for so long.
They had to turn the tide of battle.
"Wait, isn't anyone going to save the one in the forest?"
"We can't get to him, you fool!"
"In the forest...? Did someone else go in there?"
It was possible a villager had ventured into the woods and gotten trapped.
"You know, that guy who looks just like you, Senia!"
"...Pardon?"
"───, ───!"
She didn't need to hear anything else; every other sound faded into background noise.
Someone just like me? Where in the world could there be someone like her here?
Calling someone human was far too broad to point out an individual. What kind of person could share such a specific resemblance with her?
A sudden pang of dread tightened in her chest. Come to think of it, from the moment they had bolted from the Elder's dwelling to the lakeside, she hadn't seen his face once.
Could it be?
What if the common thread was that he was a Calyx?
"Senia!"
"Senia-sunbae!"
Snatching a spare potion vial from her robes, Senia dumped its contents over her head and plunged headlong into the pitch-black forest.
"Not twice... Never again...!"
Please don't let it be...
I can't leave you saddled with another debt to the sirens in this life, too!!
It was impossible.
Unlike back then, I had nothing.
No comrades to fight beside me, no terrain advantage, not even the Mistellis I had prepared before.
I possessed none of it. And yet.
"Kuh...! You went through the trouble of biting me, but what a shame. I don't taste very good, do I?"
Squeeeek!
"Think I'll get infected and keel over? Bite me a hundred times if you want. It won't work on me anyway."
Even so, I had to hold my ground.
I knew full well that holding this line alone was reckless, but paradoxically, this was the only way I could ensure survival.
The small fry targeting me could inflict surface wounds at best, given my immunity to the Lemterte Plague.
Which meant there was only one target I needed to mark.
Thud—! Thud—!
"Where do you think you're going, you bastard...? Did you think I'd just let you pass?"
Shanberesh of the Plague.
As long as I pinned down that monstrous brood mother, we could whittle down the Devourers' numbers and attempt a proper raid.
Our combat power was overwhelmingly weaker compared to the past, but with Senia and Cain present, it was well within the realm of possibility.
Kweeeeeeek—!!
"Ugh...! Getting frustrated, are we? Shrieking so loud my ears are ringing."
I kept deploying my Mana Shield like an unbroken rampart, actively blocking the beast from carving out fresh tunnels. Cut off from the path leading toward the lakeside through the brood mother's tunnels, Shanberesh and her brood grew utterly rabid.
"Then deal with me, damn it! Not over there!"
Baaang—!
"Good. Keep playing with me."
Unlike her nimble spawn, the mother's immense bulk was heavy and sluggish. So long as I dedicated myself entirely to evasion, I could stall for time.
Moreover, because the expedition force's vanguard had swept through a massive chunk of their swarm earlier, their numbers weren't nearly as overwhelming as they once were.
Of course, it was a precarious gamble... but I hoped the humans and sirens at the lakeside would unite and push their way here.
Everything would be settled on this ground.
To eradicate the Lemterte Plague, the newly inherited brood mother had to draw her final breath. While I held the line, they just needed to arrive and finish the raid.
Or so I had thought.
"...?!"
Shanberesh's movements shifted erratically.
What was that?
These creatures were demonic beasts, driven purely by instinct to seek prey. Recognizing that I wasn't viable food, the smaller Devourers had already dispersed toward the lakeside, leaving me completely alone here.
Only Shanberesh, against whom my deterrent held no sway, should have been locking horns with me. So why had her attack pattern suddenly changed?
Had they already banded together, driven back the swarm, and pushed this far?
No. Those footsteps...
They were too light to belong to a group. It was just one person.
Emerging through the trees was a figure drenched in luminescent blue liquid—Senia.
This was a nightmare.
"Junon!"
"You idiot...! Turn back right now!!"
"What? What do you mean—"
Rumbleeeeee—!
Before Senia could even finish her sentence, the ground violently buckled. Having scented fresh prey, Shanberesh no longer had eyes for me.
As if calculating the strike, the cavern beneath her gave way. Losing her footing, Senia plunged straight into the deathly crevasse opening below.
Not on my watch!
Grab.
"Kgh...!"
"Ju-Junon..."
There was no time for words.
Sprinting with everything I had and catching Senia's falling wrist was the absolute limit of what my body could do.
Because she was bathed in Hyplisia sap, the lesser Devourers kept their distance. But just as I feared, the repellant had zero effect on Shanberesh. The brood mother fixated her blood-red eyes upward, waiting hungrily for Senia to drop.
Thud—! Slam!
Fuck.
Shanberesh intended to batter the subterranean walls until Senia fell from my grip. If I lost my footing and tumbled down with her, it would truly be the end.
"...Let go and run, Junon."
"What?"
"It's my mistake. I'll deal with that thing somehow. If you use your mana to break the barrier in the cellar, everyone can make it out alive."
Out of nowhere, Senia was babbling nonsense.