The East (1)
We came down from Mount Hofmos, home to the C-rank dungeon Hell's Gate, borrowed a carriage from a nearby village, and made our way back to Littleberry.
"Huh? Something feels off today."
"Yeah. People's faces look pretty grim. What's going on?"
Canisia and I scanned the street, taking the temperature of the place. Littleberry felt nothing like its usual self. A cloud hung over every face, and people muttered among themselves with grave expressions.
Then a man who looked like he had a bone to pick with the entire world slammed down the newspaper he'd been reading and bellowed.
"What the hell are the kings and queens even doing?! They can't even handle something like this properly!"
"Hey! Watch your mouth. Talk like that and you might disappear without a trace."
"...So what? Am I talking about our Dizzy King? I'm talking about those idiots in the East! If our Dizzy King were over there, the East would've been stable a long time ago!"
The man flinched at the mention of disappearing without a trace and hurriedly tacked that last part on.
For the record, the Dizzy King he was talking about was Samael Prisico, the ruler of Littleberry — an incompetent king who didn't even know his own city sat in Montblanc's palm.
Anyway, the Dizzy King wasn't what mattered.
"Something happen in the East?"
"Right? What on earth went down for people to be like this?"
Canisia and I exchanged bewildered looks. This wasn't even a neighboring city. Whatever had happened, it was in the East — a region far, far from here in the South. In other words, it was someone else's problem. A distant country's affair. And yet people were this furious. Something serious must have gone down.
The East around this time...
Just in case, I racked my brain for the Fairy Masters storyline. But I had nothing useful on the eastern region. The plot of Fairy Masters had revolved around the protagonist, and the East was little more than a brief stopover — a bridge you crossed and forgot.
"Excuse me. Could I ask you something?"
"What is it?"
Since my past-life memories weren't helping, I grabbed someone nearby and asked.
"What happened in the East that's got that guy so worked up?"
"Huh? The place is in complete chaos and you still don't know? What, have you been locked up somewhere?"
"Something like that. So what happened?"
"They say a plague's broken out in the East."
"...A plague?"
I couldn't hide my disbelief. And for good reason — this world was a bizarre mashup of medieval and modern, a hodgepodge fantasy setting. Fairy Masters had grafted modern conveniences onto a medieval aesthetic for the player's comfort, and this world had inherited that design wholesale. The plumbing was impeccably maintained. The fact that every house had a bathroom said it all.
Hygiene was rigorously managed, and more importantly, this world had skills. Purification, Cleanse, Pure Vitality — skills that prevented disease, and even if you did get sick, could deal with it on the spot. This was a world where a plague simply could not break out, no matter how hard it tried. And yet they were saying one had swept through the East. I was dumbfounded.
"How does a plague even break out? Don't they have temples in the East?"
Temples, which raised the ranks of Masters and Fairies, also served as this world's hospitals. The downside was that you had to pay a hefty "donation" as a treatment fee, but the monks at the temples were mostly Masters who hadn't managed to summon a Fairy, and they all held the Healer class. If the situation were dire enough for a plague to spread, they would have stepped in. And yet they still hadn't stopped it. Did that mean the East had no temples?
The man shook his head.
"Of course they have temples. Why wouldn't they?"
"And a plague still broke out?"
"That's what I'm saying. Word is, the moment the plague started showing signs, the monks jumped on it. But they couldn't wipe it out, and that's why everything's gone to hell."
"Hmm... I see. Thanks for letting me know."
I expressed my gratitude, and the man nodded and went on his way. I returned to the party and relayed what I'd heard.
"What the hell is going on?"
The others reacted the same way I had. They were baffled that a plague could spread even with monks around.
"Anyway, let's just go home and rest. I'm dead tired."
I took the party back to the mansion. Plague in the East or not, shaking off the fatigue of a long journey was more important right now.
I spent two hours with Canisia, then shook my hips all night against Aquaril, Oralisa, and Sonic, working the travel fatigue right out of my system.
"Haaah... Yeah, fuck. This is rest. This is living. I finally feel human again."
Sinking into a bathtub of warm water, I finally felt the journey's weariness melt away. I hadn't slept a single minute, but draining every last drop of the semen that had been packed into my balls was as good as a full night's sleep. The fatigue piled up in my body just... vanished.
It wasn't like I hadn't had sex at the campsite at all, but I'd kept it light for the sake of managing my condition. Really light. About two loads per person? For a guy who could fuck all day if he felt like it, two ejaculations was genuinely taking it easy.
Squish~ squish~
I reached forward and kneaded the breasts of Aquaril, who was sleeping soundly. I liked them all — big or small — but when it came to how they felt in my hands, Aquaril's ample chest won by a mile. That was why I hadn't brought Oralisa or Sonic. Just Aquaril, soaking with me in the tub.
"Still, I'd love to have Canisia join in too. Weird how she keeps turning it down."
Canisia used to enjoy threesomes with Aquaril, but lately she'd been refusing to share a bed with the Fairies. It was probably because our relationship had been redefined. Back when we'd had those threesomes with Aquaril, Canisia and I had been trusted comrades and sex partners. Now she was my girlfriend — someone I'd promised a future with. That was probably why she didn't want to sleep with the Fairies anymore.
How to put it... the feelings of a proper wife who didn't want to share the bed with a concubine?
I understood where Canisia was coming from, but from my perspective it was just a shame. I wanted to hold both that filthy-pink Canisia and the Fairies at the same time. Still, unlike the Fairies who obeyed my every word, Canisia was a person with free will. That meant I had to respect her wishes.
"Damn~ I came that much and I'm still hard."
Kneading Aquaril's breasts while thinking about Canisia, my cock — which had gone soft — started swelling again. But I didn't slide it into Aquaril's pussy. She'd been at my mercy from after dinner right up until a moment ago.
Anyway, what the hell actually happened in the East?
Without accurate information, there was no way to figure out how a plague had broken out in the eastern region. Montblanc would know exactly what was going on out there... but going to Montblanc and asking about the East was out of the question.
A subordinate walking up to the boss and demanding information? That was the kind of thing that could get you stabbed on the spot, and nobody would blink.
But I couldn't help being curious. For one thing, Fairy Masters never had a plague-outbreak event in the East.
So this is this world's original story, then...
This was a world where plagues couldn't break out. The plumbing was as advanced as the modern world's, and every house had a bathroom. People were meticulous about hygiene. A plague had almost no room to take hold. And even if one did break out, the temple monks could wipe it out immediately. It wasn't like they were hoarding their skills to trade for penny candy.
If a plague had still managed to spread, that meant someone had spread the disease deliberately.
If they can spread something at plague scale... the first things that come to mind are Curse Mage, Black Mage, and Plague Mage.
All three were advanced Mage classes. They held the Dark attribute, and you could obtain them if you had the related traits and skills. Their physical stats were trash, but their AoE skills were seriously threatening.
The Curse Mage could place individual or area curses that tanked physical stats or crippled combat performance. The Black Mage commanded undead monsters like zombies and skeletons — they could spread disease too. And the Plague Mage? No explanation needed. The name alone told you they could spread plagues.
Ah, wait. They said a plague broke out, so a Rare-grade class probably couldn't pull this off.
Which meant something even higher-tier had done this.
But a person pulling this off would be pretty hard, wouldn't it?
Even if there were classes that could spread plague, the monks at the temples were no joke. Every last one of them held the Healer class or an advanced Healer class. If a plague had still spread... you'd need at least 9-Star. And to blanket the entire vast East with plague, you'd need 10-Star.
If there's a 10-Star powerhouse out there... I should stay the hell away from the East.
I wasn't even 5-Star yet. Going to the East would just get me killed. Even a powerhouse like Montblanc was still only 9-Star.
Looking at it purely by rank, the smart play was to do what I'd always done — run dungeons in the South and keep accumulating power.
But as always, the world refused to go the way I wanted.
The next day, I answered Montblanc's summons and heard something I hadn't expected.
"...You want me to go to the East?"
"That's right."
"....."
What the fuck did this crazy bitch just say? Go to the East?
"What? Don't want to go?"
Montblanc looked at my stiff face and asked, smiling like she was enjoying herself.
Don't want to go? Of course I don't want to go. It was a place where a plague the monks themselves couldn't handle had broken out. Sending me there was no different from telling me to go die.
Fucking certified meat toilet... what a pain in the ass.
Someday Montblanc would be a meat toilet beneath even a human being, but right now she was my boss — a powerhouse who could kill me in the blink of an eye. I couldn't let the irritation show.
"Uh... but hasn't a plague broken out in the East right now?"
"It has. Though I have to say, I'm surprised. I thought Alan only cared about dungeon raids, but you actually keep up with current events."
"....."
She's taking a shot at me right now, isn't she?
"Going to the East right now is definitely dangerous."
"....."
So why the hell are you sending me to that dangerous place.
"But it's also an opportunity."
"An... opportunity?"
"You know this too, Alan. Palos's Bird is spread across the entire Gaiarium continent."
"Yes, I know."
"Naturally, Palos's Bird exists in the East as well. That's Falcon's jurisdiction."
"Falcon..."
The moment I heard the word Falcon, a name surfaced automatically in my mind.
Quattro Benzene.
Like Montblanc, he was one of Palos's Bird's executives, and the administrator of the East. In Fairy Masters, he was also the first executive to die when the player started fighting Palos's Bird in earnest.
"Falcon is in complete chaos right now. A plague doesn't distinguish between friend and foe."
The East was in an uproar because of the plague. Which meant Palos's Bird, which nested in the East, was in an uproar too.
"And I intend to use this opportunity to shrink Falcon's power... and take what he has for myself."
"....."
Montblanc smiled at me — a beautiful smile, and a merciless one.