The Black Death (10)
The Black Death (10)
I was born human, and lived like a machine.
No matter what I wanted, I acted like a robot during the process of achieving it. I could never shake the feeling that I was being consumed as a part of society, day after day.
I thought everyone else was the same. And because I didn't trust myself, I didn't trust other people either. To be honest, even giving someone a gentle smile was difficult for me.
And yet the reason I was able to show consideration for others and survive in this harsh world was money.
Money. Credit. The word credit also carries the meaning of trust.
Not the devout faith that religion speaks of, nor the trust that only grows between those as close as family.
The word credit only exerted its power when reason, logic, business, and needs aligned perfectly.
There was no need to overcomplicate it. I simply hoped that others would do for me as much as I did for them. And I wished that, in doing so, we could each accumulate a bit of hollow virtue.
Give-and-take, in other words. Unfortunately, I learned that iron rule from my family.
"I should pay you first."
A single gold coin was placed in my hand.
I shoved the money the possessor had given me deep into my pocket. Vermel's gold coin clinked brightly against Rote's silver coin.
"Half is the fee for allowing licensed production of the Pulse Scroll. The other half is payment for accompanying me."
Vermel's voice trembled strangely as he said that. He maintained his composure, but he couldn't entirely hide his youthful agitation.
I was certain this elf was from the same hometown as me. On the other hand, he seemed only half-convinced that I had come from the same world as him. It was obvious who held the upper hand in this information war, even without speaking a word.
And the means to bridge that information gap was credit.
I still didn't trust him enough, so I'd bind that gap with currency. That was the social contract Vermel and I had just concluded.
"From now on, I'm taking you down here to catch a magic beast. Any particular complaints?"
A vague alliance without trust was out of the question. I shook my head and lifted the manhole cover.
The interior of the sewage treatment plant. Without a light, darkness so thick you couldn't see an inch ahead filled the space.
"Sorry, this is the worst possible date course."
"Don't ever escort anyone anywhere."
We traded silly jokes as we moved forward. It was an attempt to open up a little and purify this eerie atmosphere.
"How much further?"
"About twenty minutes."
As befitting a sewage treatment plant, the atmosphere alone made the unsanitary conditions clear.
Contaminated water flowed along the channels. Cast-iron masses in human shapes occasionally drifted past my vision. Apparently, there hadn't been enough bags to hold the bodies, so they'd just sent them down the stream whole.
At least they'd dumped them without dismembering the limbs. Ah, that one only had hands.
[...The Imperial Disaster Response Headquarters announces. The Black Death, the subject of this infectious disease emergency, has been determined to have a meaningless incubation period to measure.]
[Therefore, citizens of the Empire are urged to practice more thorough personal quarantine, and never overlook the fact that onset can occur without any warning sign—]
"The radio doesn't even work from here on."
The deeper we went, the worse the sanitation became. A foul sewer stench stabbed at my lungs. It was lucky I had thick cloth wrapped around my face; without a filter, I might have fainted on the spot.
The prolonged silence grew boring. I was the one who spoke first.
"Is the bastard who spread the Black Death really here?"
My reason for accompanying the possessor was simple: to catch the one who spread the disease and make them pay.
Apparently, if the original spreader were removed, this crisis would stop. If someone who knew the future said so, the information probably wasn't wrong.
"Teacher Sepia said it was suspicious. There are a lot of flying insects in the sewage treatment plant, so it's not a complete shot in the dark."
"Anyway, you said it's extinction-class."
"...Yeah."
"So can the two of us handle it?"
When I thought about it, this was the kind of thing only idiots who didn't know their place would do.
Two undergraduates had packed a few scrolls and sneaked down into the underground waterway behind the adults' backs to catch a possible extinction-class? No one would be surprised if they were found the next day, hand in hand as corpses.
Vermel, perhaps thinking there was no excuse, cleared his throat and changed the subject.
"...Anyway, it's been a while since we've been able to go to school."
"The capital is a mess too."
Although only three weeks had passed since the Black Death spread, the capital had already half-lost its function. Out of a population of several million, nearly a hundred thousand had contracted the Black Death, and about a tenth of them had succumbed to ironblight and passed away.
The only places that were relatively less damaged were the Imperial Palace and the academy.
The Imperial Palace went without saying, and the academy had yet to see a single death. The possessor was probably running around, doing what he could. Yet even so, he likely couldn't do anything about the people dying outside the school.
It was bleak. Truly, damned bleak.
If the Demon King were to resurrect here, wouldn't the human world simply end? That would be a little dangerous if it happened before I left.
"In the end, is the only answer a nuke?"
"...What?"
A remark I'd tossed out. At those carelessly muttered words, Vermel stopped in his tracks.
"No, just, that sort of thing exists."
"What's the problem?"
"A single extinction-class beast does this much damage. If two of them gathered, wouldn't a country fall?"
If someone asked me what genre this world was, I'd answer dark fantasy. The situation of a weak nation on the verge of colonization probably wasn't even this grim.
A long sigh escaped from ahead of me. It was a longer sigh than the one my parents had let out when I told them I was giving up on med school.
"It probably won't come to that."
"Really?"
Surprising. I'd thought they'd just smash through everything if things went wrong.
"What they're after isn't humans or elves. Probably—"
Shrrrk!
"What...?"
The ground shook violently. The water's surface rippled, tracing a wave that had already passed.
"Something's coming from that direction."
Something was approaching, cutting through the water. Its speed was anything but ordinary.
A rumbling sound echoed from beyond the sewer ceiling. A metallic clatter, like a cat scrambling up and down a vent.
I reflexively raised my staff.
Vermel shone his hand light to the side. Then, at last, we faced the source of the noise.
"This is...."
"...Fuck."
It had six legs.
Two were pressed against the ceiling, another two against the wall, and the remaining two against the water's surface.
At the center of the six radially spread legs squatted a thick torso like a cocoon. In overall shape, it resembled a crane fly, but there were three pairs of wings on its back.
Furthermore, the head that should have been above its abdomen faced forward. In human terms, it was as if its head were attached to its ribcage.
The number of heads was six—exactly the same as the number of legs. But the skulls closely resembled human ones. No, they were human.
The dentition was uneven; some had mutated into shapes like the beaks of finches evolved to sip cactus juice.
Above all, the thing was made of iron. It couldn't be considered a living being.
Perhaps it had a cadmium sulfide sensor built in, because the creature slowed down the moment light hit it. Still, it showed no sign of retreating or backing away.
Having adjusted to the light, it began to accelerate again.
"Run!"
Vermel shouted.
I tried to swing my staff up at its lower jaw, but the attempt failed spectacularly.
A clean miss. The bastard seized my forearm and yanked me backward.
"Wha—?"
"Are you insane?"
Vermel grabbed my wrist and sprinted at full speed.
Thud, thud, thud. The sound of footsteps parting the water chilled my back. Without a corner to turn, we'd be caught soon even at top speed. Every time I looked back, I spat curses.
"We talked about this earlier, right? Just get to that point up ahead and turn!"
Water gates to prevent sewage overflow were installed throughout the underground waterway. If we could just pull the lever to lower this gate, we'd buy some time.
Panting, we reached the lever near the corner. The creature, sensing what we were trying to do, let out a mechanical roar and charged. Human speech was mixed into its voice.
Damn it. Had that extinction-class magic beast built this thing out of dead people?
The lever, caked with moss and stone dust, wasn't easy to pull. Even with the weight of two adult men—no, one man and one woman—thrown behind it, the lever didn't budge.
"Move."
Humans are, after all, tool-using animals. I gripped the staff to maximize the moment of inertia.
Without magical assistance, I accelerated it and struck the far end of the lever with precision, maximizing the torque applied to the lower section.
The lever, subjected to enormous instantaneous torque, slid all the way down, and simultaneously, the iron chain whirred upward.
Boom! We threw ourselves into a side passage just before the floodgate slammed down. It was close. A little later would have meant disaster.
Three iron walls descended from a single lever. By luck, the monster was trapped precisely in the center of the three-forked path. Desperate cries of "help me" and the like continued to echo from behind.
The floodgate was designed stoutly enough to withstand enormous water pressure, so a creature of its size couldn't break through. We grabbed our knees and caught our breath for a moment.
"Will this do it?"
"Not sure yet."
Our rear was now blocked. If an enemy appeared from ahead, we'd have to meet it head-on.
I pulled out a Flare Scroll in case of emergency. Vermel also produced his staff, grafted with a World Tree branch, and began storing a spell.
Tap, tap, tap.
"...Who is it that cannot accept our purification and rampages like this?"
Ominous predictions always came true.
Pushing aside the darkness, the silhouette of an eight-foot-tall figure loomed along with a dim flame.
Right before our eyes, a man wearing a bird-beaked mask was walking toward us.