Chapter – 06
On the narrow, winding stone path, faint traces of carriage wheel marks remained from long ago. It was impossible to tell whether they were left by residents fleeing the plague or by the priests who had visited this place.
Even though it was the middle of a bright day, the village was eerily devoid of people. There wasn’t the faintest sound of human conversation, nor even the crying of livestock.
“Setting the streets aside, I can definitely feel signs of presence inside the houses…”
Sir Arden muttered, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword as his brow furrowed. He lightly knocked on a door, causing a small vibration to echo inside, but there was no answer. The presence within went completely still.
“It seems certain that there are patients in this village, at the very least.”
I pointed toward a window. Through a slightly parted curtain, a face observing us could be dimly seen.
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Hollow cheeks
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A dark, bruised complexion
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Emaciated shoulders
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Eyes filled with terror, wide open and deeply bloodshot
It was a face that anyone could recognize as that of a patient.
The Silent Reluctance
As we took a lap around the village, we felt signs of life in every single house. Yet, absolutely no one came out, nor did anyone respond to our knocks. Since the progression of the disease would vary from person to person, we needed to meet the villagers face-to-face to cure the plague. For them to be this uncooperative was highly problematic.
Usually, when a priest arrives to cure a plague that could grant someone a one-way ticket to the deity’s embrace, aren’t they welcomed with open arms?
‘Did the temple take a bribe or something?’
But if that were the case, the ten priests who had died either here or after returning from this village weighed heavily on my mind. The temple couldn’t have known in advance that I would receive a divine revelation at my coming-of-age ceremony, so there was no reason for them to sacrifice ten talented individuals just to keep this village as a hotbed for the plague.
Had all hope vanished after they watched people from the temple fail to cure the disease ten times over, only to die themselves or return afflicted?
Thinking about those ten preceding priests brought up another nagging doubt.
“Sir Arden.”
When I called his name, he turned to look at me, breaking away from his sharp scrutiny of the village. I asked him directly.
“By any chance, do you know the level of divine power possessed by the priests who were deployed to this village?”
As if recalling past information, Sir Arden knit his brows slightly and replied after a brief pause.
“Initially, they sent low-ranking priests. But once they realized the situation was severe, I understand they began deploying higher-ranking priests.”
Looking at the current state of the temple, I couldn’t be entirely sure that high-ranking priests necessarily possessed strong divine power. However, even without innate divine power, it wasn’t impossible to wield it.
“Then what about the holy relics they brought with them?”
At my continued questioning, a flicker of intrigue and suspicion gleamed in Sir Arden’s eyes as he stared intently at me.
“Ordinary people shouldn’t know much about the existence of holy relics… Just how much do you know?”
My goodness, he really is suspicious. Is he looking at me like I’m some sort of spy sent by a cult?
“Did I mention that I come from the orphanage attached to the main temple, where I was mobilized to clean the temple four times a week and took charge of all kinds of menial chores? It’s an environment where you pick up a lot of things even if you don’t want to hear them.”
It was a well-known fact that those from temple-affiliated orphanages, who had lived lives inseparable from the temple since childhood, had a fairly high rate of making lifelong vows once they reached adulthood. Of course, because orphanage graduates lacked backing, climbing to high-ranking positions was like passing through the eye of a needle.
For the record, the reason I knew about the existence and use of holy relics wasn’t because I was from the orphanage. It was because, in the first place, I was the one who had practicalized using them that way.
I used to hand over holy relics—which were previously just displayed to make a shabby temple look somewhat presentable—to priests who lacked divine power, thereby expanding the administrative reach of the temple. Thanks to that, ten people could finish in five days what would have taken five people ten days to do, allowing the temple’s influence to grow much faster.
Perhaps mollified by my flawless excuse, Sir Arden ran a hand over the back of his head and answered honestly, looking a bit abashed.
“It is true that they brought holy relics. It is standard protocol to deploy priests with innate divine power only around the capital, and to send holy relics to other regions.”
An Unnatural Reaction
There is no disease that cannot be cured by divine power. Even if the priest themselves does not possess divine power, as long as they have a healing relic suited to the grade of the illness, it is more than enough to cure it.
There was no way they wouldn’t have sent a high-grade relic to a village where nearly ten priests had died. If they truly hadn’t, there would certainly be a reason for it. Furthermore, if the disease was severe enough to require a high-grade relic, the villagers wouldn’t have been able to endure the ravages of the illness until now.
“Which holy relic did they bring?”
“I don’t know that much. The information accessible to the Holy Knights is limited…”
There is always a reason why information is power. With the puzzle pieces so woefully lacking, it was impossible to assemble the picture immediately.
“Please help me…!”
At a young voice that sounded utterly desperate, I reflexively turned my head.
It was a young child.
A thin body that looked to be about seven years old. Tears welled up in bloodshot eyes. Trembling lips quivered as the child reached a shaking hand out toward me.
“Our village is strange…! Everyone has gone strange…! Please listen to me, please…!”
Suddenly, a woman rushed out from the open door. Her hair was disheveled, and her eyes, like her daughter’s, were heavily bloodshot. Without a single word, she grabbed the child’s arm and dragged her back mercilessly.
“Mom, no, wait…! Those people might, mph!”
The woman muffled the struggling child’s mouth with her hand and dragged her straight back into the house. It was a cold, harsh attitude that made one doubt if she was the biological parent.
The child’s coughs were stifled by the woman’s hand, but it couldn’t stop the dark red blood dripping between her fingers and down her palm.
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Vomiting blood
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Bloodshot eyes
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A blackened complexion
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An emaciated body
The symptoms the child displayed right now were the textbook signs of the plague I had just observed earlier.
I ran to the house before the door could fully close and pounded on it.
“We have been sent by the temple! Please open the door! I can cure your daughter’s illness!”
I struck the door hard enough to make my fingertips go numb, but inside, there was only silence.
Click.
The sound of the latch sliding down served as their answer.
Slowly pulling my fist away from the door, I muttered in a low voice.
“…How strange.”
A profound sense of dissonance crept insidiously over my body, like a twisted puzzle piece throwing off the entire picture.
“What do you mean?”
At Sir Arden’s question, I let out a deep sigh and explained the reason for the unease I felt.
“Usually, when a child is sick, parents will cling to even the faintest glimmer of hope. Whether they cry out for treatment or risk their lives to beg for help. But that woman’s attitude just now…”
“Was certainly not the attitude of a normal parent with a sick child.”
Sir Arden naturally picked up my train of thought, tapping the door lightly.
“It seems we felt the same dissonance. If you want to know for sure, there is always the option of forcing the door open.”
I immediately stopped Sir Arden, who looked ready to grip the handle and break inside by force.
“Forcing our way in might only increase the villagers’ hostility. There must be a reason why they are avoiding us even though they know we were sent by the temple.”
The temple had a track record of deploying priests to this village ten times before. And the wariness in that woman’s eyes just now wasn’t mere abstract hostility toward outsiders. It looked much closer to terror.
Was it fear of ‘outsiders’ as individuals, or fear of the situation where ‘outsiders have entered the village’?
To find out, we first needed to know what the ten preceding priests had done here, and why the plague hadn’t been suppressed despite ten waves of intervention.
“Let’s look for a villager who might be friendly to us first. Hearing what exactly happened before we were sent here should be our priority.”
When I gestured for him to follow, Sir Arden turned around without regret and walked behind me.
Right then—
“Get the hell out!”
Along with a harsh, crude shout, a rough stone flew toward us from the deeper part of the village. The sound of the stone bouncing off the carriage tracks echoed sharply.
“God has abandoned our village!”
The one who threw the stone was an old man with a hunched back and white hair. He possessed the exact same sickly complexion as the other villagers. Tears of blood streamed continuously from his bloodshot eyes as he pointed a trembling hand at us.
“Caritas has abandoned us…!”
