8. Curse Plague (11)
8. Curse Plague (11)
The healing ritual inside Dvalchev Cathedral unfolded in a rather peculiar fashion.
Men and women in monastic robes kept glancing sidelong at each other's treatments as if locked in a race, and every time one of them healed a patient, they would shout out their own tally.
"Fifty-sixth!"
Several Stakes of Light materialized in the air and plunged into the infected areas of a plague patient.
The patient's eyes flew open with a shriek, acrid fumes rising from the wound.
Agony seared through their body like a hot iron being pressed into flesh.
The nun's treatment worked fast and left no aftereffects, but it hurt enough to bring tears.
"Fifty-seventh."
By contrast, the mage's treatment took longer and left marks even after the plague agents sloughed away—but there was no pain whatsoever.
A patient would watch him touch the mutated area, blink and wonder when the treatment was going to start, and then suddenly the mutation would simply fall off.
"Fifty-eighth!"
Valentina shoved a weeping, writhing patient aside with her foot and hurriedly summoned the next.
A patient whose entire upper body was encrusted with mutations stood before her.
After glimpsing the people who had stood ahead of him now flopping on the floor, he instantly regretted his choice of line.
But his hesitation lasted only a moment.
Valentina unleashed a volley of stakes at him, and he promptly joined the ranks of the floor-swimmers.
That made fifty-nine.
Valentina wiggled her hips and called for the next.
"Step right up, please!"
One more patient and the wager would be hers.
A glance to the side showed Wonderstein just finishing his fifty-ninth...
"Sixtieth."
Valentina went rigid at Wonderstein's declaration.
Sixty? She was still on fifty-nine.
"Ooh, this is absurd! I'm at fifty-nine! When did you... when did you overtake me? Fifty-eight? Fifty-nine?"
She sifted through her memory with a bewildered expression, then let out a yelp of realization.
"Aah! Troupe Leader, did you just skip a patient?!"
Wonderstein answered her accusation with a playful smile and a nod.
"Heh heh. Caught me."
"Th-that's underhanded! Did you think I'd fall for such a cheap trick?"
"Of course not. But while you were busy noticing, I'd already moved on to the next person. ...There. This time I've genuinely reached sixty! Ha-ha, the wager is mine."
Valentina's jaw dropped.
"You—Troupe Leader, you are a de-deceitful man!"
"Aaaagh!"
Valentina's sixtieth patient screamed.
She'd been so worked up that she forgot to adjust the size of her Sacred Stake.
A single massive spear of light transfixed the patient's chest.
He tasted the agony of being burned alive, collapsed backward with foam bubbling at his lips.
"Whoa! I-I'm so sorry! Are you all right?!"
She caught the patient just before the back of his head hit the floor.
At that moment, a notification window flickered before Wonderstein's eyes.
[2wnd34$@ &qus#@1*& dan!#5!kung!]
The system was under such heavy load that the text displayed as scrambled gibberish, but he could guess what it said.
There had been a quest that triggered right before the healing began.
*Sub Quest — Two Proud Rivals
: A pride-fueled contest between two destined future rivals.
Clear Condition
: Heal 60 plague patients before Valentina does.
Success Reward
: Immediately complete subjugation of 600 Devoluts.
Failure Penalty
: Immediately dissolve all currently held subjugated Devoluts.
It had been alarmingly close.
Without the early lead he'd built up and that final trick, he would never have won.
The effect of subjugating six hundred Devoluts was immediate.
His body, which had felt impossibly heavy, lightened considerably, and the Status Window—previously a broken mess like a malfunctioning television screen—recovered partial legibility.
Even so, absorbing sixty patients' worth of Devoluts had been an enormously reckless undertaking.
His internal structures twisted and snarled until his flesh screamed in protest.
Yet outwardly, he betrayed not the slightest hint of strain and kept smiling.
"Heh heh. Shall we enjoy a cup of tea as my prize for winning the bet, then?"
When he had accelerated the pace of healing, the Saintess had instinctively sped up in turn.
That was how he'd wound up wagering tea against her, separate from the quest itself.
The victory condition was identical.
Valentina, ever spirited in any situation, now looked at him with an oddly hesitant air—plainly still smarting from the loss.
"I'll rest a little behind the chapel. Heh heh. Take your time with the tea."
Wonderstein stepped into the room.
The moment the door shut behind him, his knees buckled and he pitched forward.
"Damn..."
Handling sixty people's worth of plague Devoluts all at once with only a single-tier boost to his basic stats had been too much after all. The patients treated at the church were far more advanced than the ones at the assembly hall—so it was only to be expected.
Had the quest reward not canceled out six hundred of them, he would have blacked out before he could even rise.
Wonderstein barely hauled himself upright and looked around.
This was the space where the priest prepared for services.
In a corner hung a clean vestment and a worn, grimy bible.
He braced himself against the wall and moved toward the table.
A pitcher of water sat there.
Waiting until Valentina brought the tea seemed unlikely.
He poured a cup of water and was about to drink when someone seized his arm.
"That's a holy water vessel for baptisms! What do you think you're doing, a Madosa drinking from that?"
Wonderstein looked at the person gripping his arm.
A nun with pink hair adorned with flowers stared at him with worried eyes.
"Weren't you making tea?"
"I had an orderly prepare it. I... was worried about you, Troupe Leader."
Valentina looked at his neck, drenched in cold sweat.
"You knew about my condition?"
"I may not look it, but I am an exorcist... I noticed some time ago that you've been taking Devolut into your body..."
She let out a faint sigh.
"What I was late to realize was just how bad your condition had become. I only grasped it when the little white-haired girl walked out."
Valentina had been cheerfully competing with Wonderstein, deep into the betting mood.
Since he was surging ahead, she had been chasing him with everything she had.
What had it been, around the twentieth patient?
Maya had suddenly shot up from her seat and left the room.
On her way out, she had cast a worried glance at Wonderstein, then thrown a reproachful look toward Valentina.
Valentina was no fool.
She had been acting foolishly, but she was not stupid.
She had plenty of perception.
It was only then that she realized Wonderstein was driving his body into the ground.
The reason for his urgency wasn't hard to guess.
He was trying to save as many patients as his stamina would allow before the condition of those still waiting turned critical.
And she, oblivious, had been bouncing along beside him giddily making wagers.
A wave of shame made Valentina consider slowing down for a moment.
But that would have been mocking his resolve.
He was burning up his own body to save even one more person—how dare she grow lazy?
So she had respected his determination and competed with everything she had to the very end.
Thanks to that, the two of them had managed to treat one hundred and twenty patients in imminent danger in under an hour.
"I was thoughtless! I'm sorry, Troupe Leader!"
Valentina ducked her head.
Wonderstein gave an awkward smile and waved a hand.
"No, no, it's fine. Heh heh. And please stop calling me Troupe Leader. You're not a member of my troupe, nor are you in the circus business, are you?"
At his words, Valentina smiled sheepishly, then recovered her usual spirited attitude and declared,
"Yes! Then I'll call you Mr. Wonderstein! And you mustn't call me 'Sister' either—please use my name!"
"Understood, Miss Valentina."
Just then, a knock sounded at the door and an orderly entered carrying steaming tea.
He nodded when the two of them said they'd rest for about thirty minutes before resuming treatment, then left the room.
"Ah, did you send a messenger to my troupe members?"
Midway through the healing, thoughts of his troupe had struck him.
They'd still be waiting in the forest, relying on him alone.
He could have used a reward he'd received upon reaching 150 fame to deliver word, but that milestone had come around the thirty-patient mark, when his Status Window was unusable.
"Don't worry. I sent one of the residents to the location you described."
Wonderstein and Valentina walked through the cathedral together, sipping tea.
"You're remarkable, Mr. Wonderstein! I've never seen anyone absorb Devolut before! Many Madosa have mysterious powers, after all! Now that I think of it, our captain can probably do something similar!"
The captain of the pursuit squad.
The one they called the Apostle of the Demon God Kairal—was that it?
A certain Madosa from TT3 who had appeared as an enemy sprang to mind.
He too was a Madosa who served the Demon God Kairal, and he'd tormented players by flitting in and out of mirrors.
Similar to what I can do?
Could he be cramming Devolut into a mirror?
Chatting as they strolled, they soon found themselves in a gallery filled with paintings.
Most were religious works depicting biblical scenes.
Valentina, thanks to twenty years of convent life, possessed solid theological knowledge.
She gave Wonderstein a brief explanation of each painting's subject matter.
"That's unexpected."
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite...?"
"I'd taken you for a battle-nun with more muscle than learning."
"Aah! Retract that remark! I'll have you know I received formal nun's training!"
Still exchanging words, the two of them came to a halt before one particular painting.
Wonderstein read the title plate beneath it.
<The Battle Between Saint Victor and the Plague Lord>
Valentina, who had been studying the painting, suddenly spoke up as if remembering something.
"The elders once told us a story. It concerns Devolut."
At the word "Devolut," Wonderstein sharpened his attention.
This was a prime opportunity to learn more about the Curse Plague.
"What is it?"
She kept her gaze on the painting.
"Have you heard the tale of Saint Victor and the Plague Lord?"
"Of course."
Saint Victor, renowned for eradicating the Black Death.
In his later years, he was also said to have defeated a demon known as the Plague Lord.
"According to legend, when Saint Victor drove the holy stakes into the Plague Lord's body, his form split apart and Devoluts scattered across the world."
"That does sound plausible, given the name 'Curse Plague.'"
The information was less revelatory than he'd hoped.
Just an old story about the origin of Devolut, nothing more.
The orderly's voice rang out in the distance, calling for them.
The rest period was over.
"Let's go resume the treatment."
"Are you truly all right, Mr. Wonderstein?"
"Yes. I'll have to take it slower now, though. About half Miss Valentina's pace?"
"Hehe, that's a relief."
Before he turned away, Wonderstein looked toward the window.
The sounds of shouts and raised voices drifted up from the village below.
The noise had grown louder than before, the pitch sharper.
Almost like screams were threaded through it.