It Is a Nightmare (2)
When plague swept the Empire and people groaned under a mysterious epidemic, the true cause of the pestilence lay in a place no human hand had ever reached—deep, dark, and forgotten.
Far below, in the depths of an underground waterway so stagnant it had long since rotted, a place whose very existence had faded from every living memory.
Squeak—skritch—
The sharp clash of teeth and the splash of creatures thrashing through foul pools echoed through the dark. Countless forms crawled and skittered, their eyes gleaming with an ominous light.
Skritch—!
A stench fouler than the putrid sewer water itself filled the air—the reek of rotting corpses, of filth and wastewater festering together into the very perfume of plague.
Their existence itself was the plague.
Sharp claws seethed with germs and pus; their fangs dripped with saliva as lethal as any poison.
They were the Empire’s pestilence made flesh.
Squeak—skritch!!
A countless swarm of plague rats, dragging their rotting bodies, began to surge as one. Like a great wave crashing upon a shore, they poured toward a single point—and then started climbing toward the surface.
The seed of the curse—
was beginning to bloom.
“This is…”
Demonic swallowed a deep, heavy breath. The Emperor had collapsed without warning the moment they began speaking of the Demon Plague. Thanks to Priest Ruel’s swift application of holy power, there had been no lasting harm—yet the reason for the Emperor’s collapse was the true problem.
“Is it truly so? That His Highness Julius has contracted this… Demon Plague?”
“Yes. Right now, a seed of the Demon Plague is inside the Crown Prince’s body.”
“That—that can’t be…! It simply can’t! How—how could this happen…!!”
The Chancellor, who had come running the instant he heard the Emperor had fallen, clung to the far smaller Priest Ruel as if begging her to take the words back—to tell him it was not true.
Ruel’s eyes turned to the young boy sleeping as if dead upon the bed. A faint flush colored his cheeks as he lay in quiet slumber. Who could believe that such a small body held a seed of such terrible curse?
“…I’m certain. There is a seed of the curse inside the Crown Prince right now. And… it’s rather large.”
Large enough that germination could begin at any moment—
Ruel’s trembling voice forced the truth upon the Chancellor. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if trying to order the sudden chaos in his mind, and remained that way for a long while.
At last the Chancellor opened his eyes. The confusion had settled into a somewhat calmer gaze, yet his voice was deep, rough, and cracked.
“Sir Demonic. What must the Empire do?”
“First, we will need temporary containment facilities. And I would ask that you assign a number of soldiers to myself and Kenis.”
“Temporary containment… You mean to isolate the patients separately?”
“Precisely. Those afflicted by the curse, once the seed germinates, possess a nature that draws them toward one another to merge. To prevent that, they must be kept far apart. Yet that makes management impossible… so the cells must be as sturdy and as small as possible—large enough for only a single person.”
“It will be an inhumane facility.”
“But a necessary one. Priest Ruel, will you remain here and tend to the Crown Prince?”
Demonic looked at Ruel. Her small shoulders trembled faintly, yet she gripped the Morning Star Staff tightly and did not let go.
“Ah, well—if I use the staff’s power, I think I can slow the germination a little. But… I can’t cure it. The seed has burrowed too deep.”
“Then does that mean treatment is possible if the seed is smaller?”
The Chancellor seized Ruel’s shoulders and cried out. His eyes were those of a man hanging from a cliff who has just spotted a rope before him. His heart could not have been far different.
“Eek! Ow—ow!! That hurts, it hurts!!”
“Ah—forgive me… Forgive me, Priest Ruel. In my haste I—”
“Haaauu—”
The Chancellor hastily released her, but clear red handprints remained on her delicate shoulders. Ruel’s eyes welled with tears. Yet she bravely gave a little sniff and looked up at him once more.
“I can’t… Even if the seed is small, I still can’t cure it. Whatever method was used, the seed sticks so tightly inside a person’s body that it won’t come free. The only reason I can even slow it is because I have the Morning Star Staff.”
The Chancellor covered his eyes with one hand.
Stultus… Stultus…
Just what manner of plague have you brought upon the Empire?
His fist trembled roughly with a grinding sound. At last he looked to Demonic and spoke.
“For now… Sir Demonic, temporary containment facilities cannot be built at once. As an emergency measure, we will empty the prisons.”
“Understood. Then, as every moment is critical, I will move immediately.”
Demonic left the room at a swift pace. Even the number of confirmed patients already stood at roughly one hundred. The problem was that most of them belonged to the high nobility.
The Empire will be shaken to its core.
Assuming, of course, that they weathered this crisis at all. That was precisely why they had come.
Demonic rapidly ordered his thoughts.
Kenis will help me gather the patients, and Friga… I should send her as a messenger to the Holy City. There is no longer any point in moving quietly.
Time was far tighter than they had anticipated. If a child’s seed had already grown this large… for an adult, three days at most might remain.
There is no time… no time at all…
Even four days would demand the tightest possible movement. First, they had to begin by gathering the patients at once—
KWAANG—!
“Kh!”
A massive explosion shook the imperial palace itself. Demonic staggered once, then reflexively bolted outside.
He had to rejoin the others.
“Kenis! Friga! Number Five! Everyone, out!”
—Bang!
“Here!”
Hearing Demonic’s shout, Kenis kicked the door open and rushed out. Even in the sudden crisis, her eyes remained calm and steady.
“Where is Friga?!”
“She went out the window! And Number Five wasn’t here to begin with!”
“Damn… They’re people who can handle themselves. We move on our own!”
“Yes!”
Demonic and Kenis raced down the corridor. Running side by side with Kenis, Demonic found himself sinking into a strangely mismatched reminiscence.
…This reminds me of the days we purged the heretics together.
Was it the red waves of hair swaying beside him? Or the sight of an emperor—another father—confronted with such a terrible plight?
Demonic shook the stray thoughts from his mind. This was no time to drown in old memories.
—Skree!! Squeak!! Skritch!!
- “Aaaagh!! Monsters!! Monsters!!”
- “Ugh… It hurts… It hurts, Mama…”
- “Die, die!! You mad monster bastards!!”
The main avenue was a scene of utter pandemonium. A swarm of rats the size of grown men swept through the streets in a black tide.
“Insane…”
The pitch-black rats were rotting from head to toe; their skin had peeled away, leaving holes through the raw crimson muscle that exposed bone. Their glistening red eyes burned with nothing but madness, and they whipped their tails like lashes as they hunted humans.
Clack—clack—clack—!
From the heart of the chaos came the sound of measured footsteps. The pride and shield of the Empire—the steel legion that guarded the Empire’s very heart—appeared with swift precision.
“All of you—! Raise your shields! Raise your weapons against those foul monsters!”
““Hah!!””
With a thunderous shout they raised shields and spears as one. A wall of shields filled the broad avenue, and between them the cold gleam of spearheads thrust forward.
Behind the soldiers stood the citizens. Before the raised shields, the great wave of rats came surging.
“All of you—!”
And then—
“Hold the line—!”
The massive wave crashed against the shields.
—KWAANG!
Flesh met steel with a sound like a great ocean wave. Veins stood out on the faces of the soldiers holding the shields as they were gradually forced backward.
“Thrust!!”
The mechanical thrusts of the spears ran dark with black-red blood.
“Just a little longer—! Hold just a little longer!! The knights will take the field!!”
The commander’s desperate roar. The soldiers held on with every ounce of strength. They could feel the rats’ claws madly raking their shields. The panting screeches of the beasts rang right in their faces.
It felt as though a mountain were crushing them. An eternity of a single moment passed.
And then—
“All forces—!! Break through!!”
The knights’ charge began, cleaving through the great wave of rats. The Empire’s knights vaulted over the wall of shields and burst outward.
The soldiers became the wall that held back the black tide; the knights became the spear that split the wave.
“Charge! Charge!! Never stop!!”
The valiant commander’s voice rang out as they ran without pause, crushing rats underfoot. Like a wave parting, they cut straight through the heart of the swarm.
Skree! Squeak— skree!!
A single sword stroke carved four or five rats to pieces; a single kick burst another apart.
These knights, who had tempered their bodies to the absolute limit through pure human strength without the aid of holy power, were living weapons in their own right.
“Hoo— hoo—”
And so the knights continued their one-sided slaughter. How much time passed?
By the time those superhuman knights were drawing ragged breaths, only a fraction of the rat swarm that had filled the avenue remained.
“…Did we get them?”
Someone among the soldiers murmured in a low voice. Was it over? Had they wiped them all out?
—KWAANG!! KWAANG!! BOOM!!!
As if to shatter that fragile hope, sporadic explosions erupted across the capital. From the earth itself, black waves burst skyward.
Waves of plague rats—the most horrific tides in the world—surged upward. Even at a rough glance, their numbers were double what had come before… perhaps more.
“Merciful heavens…”
“Six Gods, watch over the Empire…”
Someone among the knights whispered.
May the gods protect the Empire.
“…How far is this guy planning to run?”
The beer that had started as a single can was already on its third. On the other side of the screen, Iscal was still riding hard, galloping without pause.
Day and night had even switched places in the meantime… yet nothing much had changed.
He just kept riding. I was starting to get bored.
“Guess I’ll just quit.”
I’d never seen an NPC travel by horse before, so I’d watched for a bit out of curiosity—but the scenery just kept changing and no city ever appeared. Time to close it.
Ping-pong—!
Just as I was about to quit the game, a message window blocked the screen. Some kind of alert had popped up.
“What’s this?”
Beast Subjugation Stage 3 Boss Raid conditions met!!
Do you wish to challenge now?
“What? Stage 3 had raid conditions?”
After the random encounter that kicked off the Stage 2 boss raid, I’d gotten thoroughly sick of raids. I hadn’t even looked at them for a while—but apparently Stage 3 had its own separate requirements.
“Hmm…”
I fell into brief thought. I already had a tank up front, and skills… well, I’d bought some last time.
But still…
“I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Tomorrow was payday, and I might need to buy new skills just in case.
No rush, right?
I closed the game just like that.