Episode 19. Plague God (1)
‘They’ve got excellent timing.’
Listening to the Nameless Chaos’s message, Isaac hoisted the Inquisitor over his shoulder. If he was to hurry back to the monastery with her, Gebel had to finish the fight quickly.
Isaac carefully circled around to approach the rear of the battlefield where Gebel was fighting.
Thud. THUD!
Even before he got close, the ground-shaking noise was tremendous. The giant bear looked far larger up close than from afar. It was massive enough to send someone to the next world with just a brush, like a dump truck.
‘Thankfully, it’s not fast.’
Whether due to injury or size, the beast was spinning in place, engaging Gebel. Gebel pressed the attack rapidly, gradually increasing the bear’s wounds one by one. Isaac set the Inquisitor down and carefully approached the giant bear from behind.
“Isaac?!”
Gebel’s eyes widened in surprise as he saw Isaac approaching. But Isaac quickly raised his sword and charged. It was the thrust he had repeated tens of thousands of times over the past two years.
Grrrr! The giant bear belatedly noticed Isaac and tried to turn its body. But Gebel did not miss the small opening Isaac had created.
Gebel quickly rushed in, targeting the giant bear’s neck. The giant bear, already fiercely fighting Gebel, knew intellectually that Gebel was the greater threat than Isaac.
But its instincts were screaming.
That it must not lose sight of Isaac.
However, Isaac was aiming for its less fatal lower body. Caught between two instincts, the giant bear ultimately failed to choose one properly.
It simply thrashed its body about wildly.
Ksh-ksh-ksh!
Sparks flew from the giant bear’s claws as they blocked Gebel’s sword. However, from that attack, the bear’s paw was shredded and fell away in tatters. Without stopping there, Gebel slashed deeply at the giant bear’s neck.
At the same time, Isaac’s sword also pierced through the giant bear’s hindquarters.
The wind itself seemed to die at the lightning-like thrust. The belated gusting wind bristled the giant bear’s fur.
Something was going wrong.
‘Stupid beast.’
Isaac plunged his sword in deep, then immediately pushed a tentacle into the wound. The tentacle, penetrating through the thick hide, naturally stirred through the bear’s entrails and pushed its way up to the heart in an instant. Through the tentacle, Isaac felt the giant bear’s heart beating madly.
Isaac instantly crushed and sucked dry the head-sized heart with his tentacle.
Gwoaaaaah... The giant bear floundered, letting out a bizarre groan.
Gebel was bewildered by the bear’s strange reaction, but he did not miss the opening. He immediately swung his sword and slashed the giant bear’s throat in one strike. Though he couldn’t completely sever the thick neck, shredding it was enough.
By then, the tentacle had already swiftly devoured the giant bear’s heart. The giant bear gushed blood from its slashed throat before letting out a massive roar and collapsing.
[You have devoured the ‘Plague Giant Bear’.]
[The special trait ‘Dead God’s Entrails’ increases absorption efficiency.]
[You have acquired the special trait ‘Monstrous Strength (Temporary)’.]
[Your resistance to disease increases significantly.]
[The blessing is maintained until digestion is complete.]
‘Monstrous Strength?’
Isaac was puzzled at having only a single trait, but he had no time to check. As the dust cloud settled, Gebel hurriedly approached.
“Isaac! You alright?”
“Yes. I believe I landed a proper cheap shot.”
Gebel looked down at the giant bear with a disgusted expression.
“I’ve lived in this monastery for years, but this is the first time I’ve seen such a mad monster. It’s the kind of thing you’d only find on the frontier... I’ve no idea where it came from.”
“Shall we butcher it?”
“No, it seems diseased, so we can’t eat it, and we’ve no way to take it with us. Let’s leave it. I’ll have to ask the abbot to purify the ground. Ha, and to think we never needed to break a sweat like this because of that inquisitor bastard.”
“It’s not a bastard, but a wench.”
Whether bastard or wench, it was ironic that the two people who had been most displeased by the Inquisitor’s arrival were the ones who saved her.
Gebel seemed surprised to hear the Inquisitor was a woman, but he didn’t appear to care much.
He looked down at the Inquisitor collapsed on the ground with an irked expression.
“Let’s save this dead weight first.”
***
It was decided that Isaac would carry the Inquisitor. Perhaps because of the trait he’d gained from devouring the giant bear, he could barely feel her weight. Thanks to that, his breathing was hardly taxed.
His HP, which had been consumed from using the high-rank sword skill ‘Jeonjo’, seemed to have recovered already; his body felt comfortable.
Gebel was dumbfounded to see Isaac, who would pant after swinging his sword just a few times, climb the mountain as if flying while carrying an armored Inquisitor, but he didn’t find it strange.
Gebel had already grown accustomed to Isaac’s bizarre stamina drops and spikes.
He merely muttered, “Youth is truly unfair.”
Even so, Isaac had enough leisure to check the Nameless Chaos’s reward.
[The Nameless Chaos is satisfied with the newly devoured prey.]
[A reward of chaos is granted.]
[Choose one of the following three rewards.]
[Janitor of the Otherworld / You may now summon tentacles from both hands.]
[Caller from the Abyss / Traps the target in hallucinations, binding and slowing them.]
[Scion of Chaos / Requires the ability ‘Parasite from the Other Side’. The parasite immediately devours its host and explosively grows, metamorphosing into a ‘Scion of Chaos’.]
‘It’s been a while since I’ve had a choice reward.’
Isaac smiled in satisfaction.
Up until now, the tentacle abilities Isaac had acquired were only ‘Flesh Storehouse’, ‘Parasite from the Other Side’, and ‘Rat in the Wall’. The Nameless Chaos had issued him quests several times, but he had refused them because they were either impossible to complete within the monastery or outright absurd.
This wasn’t a game; he had only one life. He had judged that raising his own stamina was more important than growing dangerous tentacle abilities.
‘Thankfully, none of them are conspicuous abilities this time.’
He also felt that ‘Janitor of the Otherworld’ wasn’t as bad as before. After four years, he knew he could hide tentacles well enough. But the ones coming from his left hand and chest were already sufficient. He didn’t feel the need for additional tentacles.
‘Caller from the Abyss’ was a fairly useful debuff curse skill. If he weakened enemies with this skill and fought them, he could take down most opponents without having to pull out his tentacles. In that sense, it was good for disguise.
‘Scion of Chaos’ was one of the most lethal monster skills. If not removed immediately upon infliction, it rapidly drained stamina, killed the target instantly, and made a monster burst out. It was infamous among players for its grotesqueness and ease of breaking battle lines. But it was definitely a conspicuous skill.
‘It is a powerful skill, but the fact that it depends on the host’s abilities and draws attention bothers me…’
Moreover, it required the parasite to be implanted beforehand, which meant the tentacle had already burrowed beneath the skin. It was practically a state where the fight was already won.
Still, after some deliberation, Isaac decided to choose ‘Scion of Chaos’.
‘The jackdaw was quite useful.’
If he had a creature that could overlook a chaotic battlefield like a jackdaw, it would be tremendously useful. In the end, rather than a rampaging tentacle monster, it was time he needed a minion he could secretly command like a henchman.
‘I also have to keep an eye on the Inquisitor.’
He hoped such a situation wouldn’t arise, but it could be used for intimidation if necessary. After all, Isaac had no choice but to value his own life above all else.
In the end, Isaac chose Scion of Chaos.
He felt the tentacle nestled in his left hand squirm as it absorbed the new power. Intuitively, Isaac could sense that the parasite currently inside the jackdaw’s body could tear apart its host and assume a new form at any moment.
‘No, not yet.’
If the Inquisitor woke up, she might look for the jackdaw. He didn’t want to take unnecessary risks with a pointless experiment. In any case, the monastery was crawling with excellent test subjects: rats.
***
When Isaac and Gebel arrived at the monastery, the monks hurriedly opened the gates. The monastery had lit every torch and lamp it had, making it abundantly clear that this was a place that served the Codex of Light. They seemed to have prepared themselves to some extent for the Inquisitor’s arrival.
Unfortunately, the Inquisitor in question had fainted and could not witness this spectacle.
“This way.”
Yebhar led them to the infirmary he had prepared in advance. The monks were glancing at the scene furtively.
Isaac could see the monks who had realized she was a woman looked bewildered. The monastery wasn’t exactly a women’s forbidden zone, but the entry of the opposite sex was rarely permitted to avoid scandal.
As Yebhar removed her armor to lay the Inquisitor down comfortably, he looked closely at her face.
And he was shocked.
“Isolde Brant?”
Hearing those words, Gebel couldn’t hide his surprise either.
“The daughter of Duke Brant?”
“Yes. I remember because I attended her coming-of-age ceremony.”
“Is she a person of high standing?”
Isaac asked.
House Brant was a renowned family, famous enough that even Isaac had heard of it. It was said that the emperor of the Gertonia Empire, where the Baekje Kingdom Isaac currently resided in was located, had been created with the backing of House Brant. If the abbot had attended his daughter’s coming-of-age ceremony, they certainly wielded tremendous power.
“Though there is no high or low beneath the Codex of Light, House Brant is famous for its deep piety. But I never imagined their only daughter was working as a harsh inquisitor.”
Inquisitors had as many enemies as their absolute authority.
As Isaac had secretly felt, there must be many people who thought killing an Inquisitor would raise no suspicions.
In the end, only one conclusion remained in their heads.
If Isolde died now, it wouldn’t just be one or two people who were troubled by it.
‘It would have been better to let her become wolf food than die here.’
Isaac regretted it inwardly but showed no sign of it.
“Let’s keep her alive for now. Whether this person is a Brant or a Barbarian, I’d rather not do the pointless work of saving her only to kill her later.”
Gebel tore Isolde’s clothes to check her wound. The three of them fell silent at the foul stench wafting from the injury. In particular, Gebel and Isaac unconsciously stepped back at the familiar smell. Yebhar examined Isolde’s wound, which looked like a wolf bite.
“Blisters, discoloration, signs of decay...”
“It’s the plague.”
Isaac muttered.
At those words, Yebhar also stepped back.
Come to think of it, the wolves, the boars, and the bear had all been afflicted with the plague. To that extent, some plague was spreading widely across this entire mountain. But there had never been a case of a human being infected.
Isaac felt a chilling premonition.
‘Could it be they deliberately didn’t kill her?’
The fact that the giant bear and wolf pack had spent hours chasing the Inquisitor without killing her weighed on his mind.
But what if that had been someone’s intention?
Isaac recalled that the wolf pack’s attitude had changed when the smell of the plague wafted over.
Someone had orchestrated this to get the plague-infected Inquisitor inside the monastery.
Yebhar remained silent for a moment before speaking.
“Let us begin treatment first. Mr. Gebel, please scatter garlic and salt around the room. Isaac, bring leeches from the cellar. I will prepare a prayer meeting with the monks.”
“Leeches?”
Isaac looked at him with a puzzled expression at the bizarre order.
“We must perform bloodletting. Unless we draw out the bad blood, how will the plague leave the body?”
‘What kind of bullshit is this? Draw blood from the patient?’
The words rose to Isaac’s throat, but he barely swallowed them back down.
This world was a medieval era lacking basic medical knowledge.
Come to think of it, it made sense.
In a world where most diseases and injuries were healed by the monks’ miracles, it would be stranger if medicine had developed.
‘But this is a plague deliberately spread to target the monastery.’
If it was an attack aimed at the monastery, there was no way they hadn’t prepared countermeasures against miracles. Isaac concluded that the monks would be unable to properly handle this plague. Even Gebel was agreeing with Yebhar’s opinion.
‘This... I’ll have to do something myself.’
If this young lady Inquisitor was such a precious person, keeping her alive would benefit him greatly in the long run.