Lord of Disease (JP-GL) 294

294: The Burned Future

As summer ended, the prospects for the autumn harvest began to solidify.

The loss of production from the villages destroyed by the Lord of Disease, and those abandoned by their fearful inhabitants, was significant. And yet, there were many untouched farmlands, primarily within the city walls and near the large cities, and there were also newly cleared fields and stockpiles.

While distribution was a challenge, this year was a bountiful one. If it were distributed equally, no one would starve.

And above all, the number of reported incidents had decreased recently. A mood of optimism was spreading, that the wisdom and unity of humanity had surpassed that of the heartless monster. As long as they were within the city walls, the Lord of Disease could not touch them. The city walls had never been breached.

—Except for the oasis city of Wessphia, which had been burned to the ground by a massive fire, a city whose fall was a mystery, a city that may or may not have been the work of the Lord of Disease.

In the darkness of a moonless night, a black, four-legged shadow ran, as if flying, as if gliding, across the open plains.

“Hey, what’s that?”

“A beast? …A dog?”

The sentry hesitated, wondering if he should report immediately, and in the brief moment he took to try to identify the creature, the black, four-legged shadow had reached the foot of the city wall and, with a running start, had begun to climb.

And the sentry realized his fatal mistake.

It was not an ordinary beast.

It fought against the gravity that tried to pull it down, and in a few seconds, it had climbed the wall, its claws digging into the stone. And in the light of the torches on the ramparts, it was revealed to be a black dog.

As the black dog’s eyes lit up with a crimson glow, like smoldering coals, one of the sentries, forgetting to shout a warning, called its name in a daze.

“Black Hound Barghest…?”

It was a name as dreaded as the Grim Reaper. The Barghests instantly lunged at their throats, and with a single bite, they crushed their cervical vertebrae, and the sentries were neutralized.

A mere ten Barghests, and the sentries on the wall, and the night watchmen in the fields that had been cleared at the foot of the wall, dozens of them, were killed in an instant, without a single warning cry.

But they couldn’t completely silence them, and one of them, driven by fear, screamed, and the alarm was raised. But it was the middle of the night. A single scream, with no emergency bell, no messenger to report the details.

A soldier who had been on standby inside came out to investigate, but he heard nothing unusual. He went out on patrol, but it was too late. The attackers were so swift that it was doubtful they could have been stopped, even with a full alert.

Using the time they had bought, the wraiths in their purple robes began to climb the wall. While they couldn’t pass through the wall, their bodies were as light as a feather compared to their living selves. If there had been any sentries left on the wall, they would have been easy targets during their defenseless climb, but the sentries were gone.

They lowered ropes and then jumped down without using them. They quickly poured oil from the bags they were carrying, and one of them chanted a spell.

“[Tinder].”

The same spell was chanted in succession, and the flames spread in an instant.

The wraiths climbed back up the ropes, quickly retrieved them, and then jumped back down. The Barghests followed.

They could have inflicted more damage in the chaos, but that was the order.

To kill only the minimum necessary.

And they, who had been given the order, knew better than anyone that it was not an order given with mercy. The order had been given with a blank expression. And when they had hesitantly asked for a reason, their master had answered, not with a special tone, but with a casual one.

That it was better for there to be more humans who wanted food. The field operative units had been ordered to go into hiding after this one strike and to temporarily suspend their offensive operations.

To make the humans produce their own ‘accurate numbers.’

To let them relax, to think that this might have been the last attack.

And for us to preserve our strength and prepare for our next move.

And their master had smiled, a truly gentle smile, and had said, “I am proud of all of you who fight for this country,” and had praised them.

It was terrifying.

Their master, she who called herself the Lord of Disease, could say such kind words to her subordinates. They had never thought her orders were unreasonable. They felt that she was considerate of their pay and their leave.

And that ‘sensible’ person had declared the extermination of her own race.

It was not a matter that could be dismissed with a lukewarm word like ‘misanthropy.’ If she could do such a thing without a bottomless hatred, without a boundless rage, then she was mad.

And if she had it, and did not show it—to even imagine what was in her heart was terrifying.

So, there was only one thing to think. That it was a good thing that the Lord of Disease was their superior, and not their enemy.

The fire began to spread, and those who had noticed it tried desperately to extinguish it, but the oil-fueled flames, which had been seared, and the dried leaves, became the next fuel. It was as bright as if dawn had come early.

A brilliant raid, in less than ten minutes.

And at the same time, many of the other fields inside the city walls, and the warehouses where the harvested crops were stored, were also attacked.

They had been on alert, but it had been a normal alert. Since this number had been sufficient until now, they had assumed it would be sufficient in the future, a complacent trust in their high, sturdy city walls.

The symbol of human wisdom and unity, protected by high, sturdy city walls, had all, equally, been burned to the ground.