The Newly Appointed Heresy Inquisitor (5)

The feline beast was larger even than Dorothy in her wolf form, and it lunged at her again and again.

And again and again, her blade sent it flying.

With the Curse of the Lycanthrope altered, Dorothy could freely wield the overwhelming physical power of a werewolf. Even when the Curse of the Puppet had been controlling her, she had fought Baron Manfred as an equal. A mere beast, no matter how large or strong, was never going to be a match for her.

Even so, something about it felt wrong.

"This is strange."

"Y-yes?"

Alexander, clinging to my arm, answered in a shaky voice. He was using the power of the Curse of the Hermit to thin our presence, which was why the beast was throwing itself at Dorothy alone.

"That thing's vitality is abnormally high. After taking that much damage, it should already be dead."

— Kyaaaaaaagh!

The beast howled through a body that was little more than tatters. Its guts spilled from its belly, and its legs were hanging on by threads. Still, it refused to go down.

Beasts were hardy by nature, but thrashing around in that condition should have been impossible — not unless it were a thrall of the Undead King. And yet this felt different from any curse of undeath. What seeped from its wounds was not blood, but a yellow, pus-like fluid.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

It charged Dorothy again. She cut it down again. Yellow fluid splattered across her body.

The Curse of Mutation?

I had never heard of that curse even in Luke's Biography.

67%… 68%… It kept climbing.

"Dorothy! Get away from that thing and wipe off whatever got on you!"

She must have already felt something wrong with her body, because she rolled across the ground and scrubbed the fluid away. The curse's progress stalled at 73%, then began to drop, slowly.

Dorothy shifted back into human form and came toward me with a miserable look on her face.

"Master… it's hot, and it itches…"

I could feel an incomplete magic formula trying to form across her skin. Catching a curse just from something getting on your body — I couldn't make sense of the principle behind it. And those symptoms, the heat and the itching…

"Yellow Blood Disease?"

It was a plague that had swept through the United Kingdom of Humania-Peophir before the events of Luke's Biography. The blood turned yellow, and mere contact was enough to spread it. The infected burned with fever and itch until they lost their minds and went berserk. The disease had gutted the United Kingdom's population, and when the Demon King's army invaded, the kingdom had collapsed without putting up a fight.

The symptoms matched. There was a connection, too — the farming couple had said they were from the United Kingdom. But I had never heard any lore claiming that Yellow Blood Disease was actually a curse.

"Dorothy. Whatever's wrong with your body should settle down soon."

"Okay…"

"Can you tell if the Captain and Agnes are heading this way?"

"They're… getting closer…"

"Good. Alexander. Take Dorothy and link up with the Captain. Tell them absolutely not to come any closer to this place."

"You can't… Master… it's dangerous…"

"Don't worry about me. Go."

I shaped an illusory creation into being. Black energy took the form of a centipede blanketed in countless eyes and hands — a fragment of the shapes the Lumenic Church called demons. I had thought I was free of a demon worshipper's fate, but using this power, I might have made a fine one after all.

Alexander recoiled at the sight of the creation, but he followed my orders and retreated with Dorothy in tow.

— Grrrrrk!

— Kyaaaaaaagh!

The beast was still thrashing with stubborn life. The black centipede, its body stretching well over several dozen meters, crushed the creature flat. Fluid sprayed everywhere, but no disease or plague could touch a creation that already stood outside reality. I let the centipede rampage until nothing resembling a beast remained.

"Uuuuugh…"

A human voice groaned behind me. I turned and found someone lunging to tackle me — I had poured so much of my focus into the centipede that I hadn't noticed in time. I thought I was too late to dodge when Veronica stepped between me and the attacker.

"Captain?"

"…I have no intention of following a subordinate's orders."

The attacker struck at Veronica without pause, but the altered Curse of Severance left her unharmed. She shoved him back. Looking properly now, I could see the man was covered in wounds, yellow fluid seeping from them in place of blood. The same condition as the beast.

The moment I wondered whether she had been cursed, a status window appeared. I could view my allies' status screens, but I had never understood what counted as an "ally," so I had never thought to try. It seemed Veronica had been recognized as one, the same way Dorothy had.

The Curse of Severance appeared to block other curses as well. The line about the Curse of Mutation vanished a moment later.

"…His blood is yellow. …Could he be a Yellow Blood patient?"

"That's right. You seem fine touching him, Captain, but no one else should."

"…Then what was in the cellar… …That man. …I believe he's the farmer we've been looking for."

"Uuuuugh…"

The way he moved, groaning in agony, was almost like one of the Undead King's thralls. But he was far more dangerous than any thrall. No matter how badly he was wounded, he kept moving — and with that yellow blood spilling everywhere, Yellow Blood Disease would start spreading from nothing more than a touch.

"…Baron. …All I can do is push him away."

"I know."

She took no damage, and in exchange she could deal none. I shaped a second illusory creation — smaller and weaker than the black centipede, little more than a mass. By embedding the formula of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Curse of Worship into its design, I could control several at once, even if the craftsmanship suffered for it.

The mass, covered in countless eyes, opened a maw lined with teeth and lunged at the farmer. In an instant it tore his head free. The body toppled, spraying yellow blood, and still tried to keep moving, so I set the creation on it the way I had the beast and crushed it to pulp. The beast, too, had been reduced to minced meat and finally gone still.

I dissolved the creations back into residual thought and reclaimed them.

"…It's all right now. …A fully dead organism can't transmit Yellow Blood Disease."

"Because it's a curse?"

Once the host was dead, the formula could no longer function properly.

"…Baron. …How did you…"

"Yellow blood splashed on Dorothy earlier. I saw a strange formula starting to etch itself into her body. It vanished before it could finish."

"…That's a relief. …A body already under a curse has resistance to Yellow Blood Disease. …The fact that Yellow Blood is a curse is an absolute secret known only to the upper ranks. …You must never speak of it to anyone else."

Why go to such lengths to hide it? What changed so fundamentally if it was a curse rather than a disease? I was curious, but there was no need to press the point now. Secrets belonging to the upper ranks were the kind of thing you only touched in the game once you were thoroughly prepared.

"…I should have realized when we found United Kingdom script on the paper marked with the Curse of Weakness. …It wasn't the Curse of Weakness at all. …The Curse of Mutation. …It's nearly identical to the Curse of Weakness, which makes them hard to tell apart."

Veronica drew a bone from the shadows. She held it for a moment, then passed it to me.

"…This was the catalyst for the curse on that beast."

Just as she said, I could feel the link between the beast and the catalyst. We were close enough for it to register.

"Come to think of it, Dorothy said the beast smelled like a cat."

"…A cat?"

"The one the farmers kept at their house."

"…"

Any beast that took a curse, regardless of the curse's intended effect, transformed into a monster. The cat had contracted the Curse of Mutation, become a beast, and attacked the farmer when he entered the forest. That was how the farmer had caught it too.

"Aah!"

A scream rang out. Veronica and I ran toward it and found Agnes pinning a woman to the ground with her arm wrenched behind her back. The farmer's wife. Alexander was hopping from foot to foot, muttering that she was going to break something. Dorothy, for some reason, was holding a thrashing chicken. Father Daniel was there as well.

"Aaagh! That hurts! Let go of me!"

"Captain! This woman was about to cast a hex!"

"She was carrying these off."

Father Daniel held out the items — the bones that had formed the altar, and the paper marked with a magic formula. The things from the cellar. I had asked the priest to keep an eye on the wife precisely for a situation like this.

"…We suspected you from the start. …Just because the husband practiced dark magic doesn't mean the wife didn't."

"Uuuaaagh! It hurts! What is this?!"

The moment Veronica spoke to her, the farmer's wife convulsed under the Curse of Severance.

"…I suppose killing your husband left you under too much strain. …Or perhaps you assumed you wouldn't catch it yourself. …To spend days making no effort to clean up the traces of what you'd done, and then try to handle the aftermath like this…"

"S-stop it! Aaagh!"

"What ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on earth is going on?"

"The wife is the one who killed the farmer. She waited until she confirmed he'd gone into the forest, released the cat into the woods, and then cast the curse to turn it into a beast."

"W-why would she do that to her own husband…"

"What do I care if that bastard lives or dies?! Do you have any idea how much I've suffered because of him?!"

I had already known the marriage was a bad one. While I was talking with the wife, Agnes and Alexander had asked around among the villagers. Plenty of people had mentioned that the couple's house was loud every night.

"…And so you meant to kill us as well? …Afraid we might find something out?"

She had been about to use the bone as a catalyst to turn the chicken in Dorothy's arms into a beast. We had nearly walked into an ambush from the cat, the chicken, and the farmer all at once.

"…It's a mercy things didn't get worse. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠…If the beast you'd made had gone back to the village, everyone would have died."

"Kh… Over one little beast… making such a fuss…!"

Those were her last words before she fainted. Between Agnes wrenching her arm and Veronica speaking to her, the pain must have been unbearable.

"…Agnes. …Lend the Father your ring."

"Sure. Here, Father. Put this on."

"Yes…"

Agnes released the unconscious wife and handed the silver ring from her own finger to Father Daniel. Once he had it on, Veronica faced him and spoke.

"…I said it was a mercy things didn't get worse. …But the truth is, they already have. …Neither the farmer nor his wife seems to have known what curse they were actually using."

She had said the Curse of Weakness and the Curse of Mutation were nearly impossible to tell apart by their formulas. Just as we had mistaken one for the other, they may well have believed they were using nothing more than a basic curse.

"…Listen carefully, Father. …If you report exactly what we saw here, the Enforcement Division of the Heresy Inquisition will come. …And they will burn this place to the ground. …You, and every soul in your parish."

At Veronica's warning, the color drained from Father Daniel's face.