CG Chapter 114: Black Death and Ugly Smiles
As Fredric witnessed the death of his squad mates, his friends, and his family, he was left with a hollow feeling.
He heard their screams, their desperate voices, and the unimaginable pain they were going through.
He stayed at the sewage gate for a while after their screams had gone, and the foul smell coming from it no longer affected him.
Fredric breathed, trying to regain any sort of calmness before facing what might be his inevitable end.
He murmured to himself, “May the gods… anyone… please accompany them on their journey.”
The return journey to the main army felt extremely long for the anguished Fredric.
Once he reached the Duke’s side, he was bombarded with questions.
Duke Helmut furrowed his eyebrows.
“Where are your other squad members?” he asked in a shaken tone that he tried to hide.
Helmut had already guessed the answer to his question, but part of him didn’t want to believe it.
When Fredric heard the Duke’s question, it felt like the weight of a thousand mountains fell on his shoulders, as he knelt and repeatedly struck the ground with his head.
“It was this… lowly one’s fault, I… didn’t have the strength to rescue them.”
Seeing that Fredric wasn’t answering him, Helmut commanded, “Speak clearly. What happened to your group? And what did you do with the rats?”
“My lord, we have fulfilled our mission, but… the cost was the lives of our people. Those horrific creatures devoured them whole.”
Fredric trembled. He wanted to avoid the bloodthirsty gaze of the Duke but couldn’t handle the pressure as he described everything that happened in detail.
As Helmut heard everything, he stayed silent for a few moments.
He breathed heavily while closing his eyes.
As he let out a final heavy sigh, his mouth twitched for a couple of seconds before settling into an ugly smile, one that was even more grotesque than the twisted grin of a corpse.
“It doesn’t matter as long as the mission is completed. As for my son, it was his weakness that led him to that end; him not surviving is simply his misfortune.”
Fredric listened to him without daring to breathe. After all, no one would believe what he said after seeing that ugly smile.
But that wasn’t all, because as he told Helmut about Cedric’s death, Fredric noticed that Helmut’s hand hovered over his sword for a brief moment.
He understood that his head might have fallen off if the Duke hadn’t restrained his anger.
The ironic death of Cedric was only the beginning, and Helmut wasn’t the only parent who would lose a child to the rats that day.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
…
Within the capital city of Dasos, most of the people stayed inside their homes, sipping hot cocoa to warm themselves on this rainy day.
The sound of music played by the traveling bards mingled with the patter of falling rain.
This filled the lonely souls who had no one to accompany them on this gloomy day with a bittersweet sense of emptiness.
Just when you thought that time had stopped in Dasos, everything flipped on its head.
Squeak! Scrabble!
Thousands of tiny black vermin with crimson, glowing eyes erupted from every shadowy corner of the capital.
The sudden synchronized bursting noise of all the rats combined created a sound that caused an ear-aching sensation.
“What is going on?”
“Run!”
“I want my mommy!”
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
The rats didn’t see gender, age, or beauty. To them, the city simply represented an enormous feast to satisfy their endless hunger.
They devoured everything and anyone that came across their path.
…
Call it a twist of fate, or the misfortune of their lives, but the first people to be devoured were the singing bards that were walking the streets.
The sounds of the music drew droves of rats to their sides.
One of these bards was Eryndor, who was singing joyously in the street.
“Drink to your past,
Then walk toward tomorrow, victorious and strong.
Oh, my friend, listen to my song,
Oh, my friend, join in my song.
Walk beyond all that is sad,
And sing your melody once again.”
Just as Eryndor was about to continue his song, he heard a loud scream coming from his back.
When he turned around to take a quick look, he was stunned, unable to believe his eyes at what he saw.
A massive, flood-like wave of creatures was moving in one large, indistinguishable mass, making it impossible for him to identify them.
This torrent surged across the street at rapid speeds, leaving nothing in its path.
Eryndor’s pupils widened in disbelief, and his mouth hung open.
The only sound this bard, who sang for a living, could make was a scream that sounded more like a squeal.
“Aheeek…”
Eryndor turned around to run, but as he desperately fled in the opposite direction of the wave, he realized he couldn’t outrun them.
That wasn’t the truly terrifying part, though, because, after only a few seconds, he was horrified to find himself trapped between two tides.
Looking to his side, he spotted a hallway between two houses.
Desperately, he sprinted toward it, hoping to hide there, but his hope vanished when he saw that the rats had already infiltrated even the narrow hallways.
Trapped on all sides, the bard’s end was inevitable.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
He let out a final scream before becoming part of the wave.
The tragic death of Eryndor was but one of many.
In a sense, he was fortunate to have died first, spared from witnessing the complete downfall of the City of Flowers.
…
Inside one of Dasos’ beautiful houses, there was a family of two, a grandmother and her grandchild.
The grandmother looked at her grandchild with a warm smile.
Seeing his grandmother’s smile, the six-year-old boy tilted his head and smiled back with a silly laugh before he returned to drinking his hot cocoa by the fireplace.”
At this, the grandmother sighed, holding a napkin to wipe the cocoa left on her grandchild’s upper lip.
“How many times do I have to remind you to be careful? You’ve become a man now; you must pay attention to how you look,” she said gently.
She wanted to reprimand him out of love. She had once hoped for him to have a happy childhood but had made peace with the fact that he couldn’t afford such a luxury.
In this world, it was only the two of them. Her son and daughter-in-law had died young, leaving her to raise the boy as her everything since he was just a newborn.
Because of this, she wanted to ensure he had the skills to take care of himself once she was gone.
Crackle!
Suddenly, just as the grandmother was about to tuck her grandchild into bed, she heard the sound of something breaking near the fireplace.
Moving closer to check, she was startled to see something fall into the fire and begin to burn.
Before she could discern what it was, a swarm of rats started to fall rapidly.
The first few burned in the flames, but their deaths caused the fire to go out.
Realizing what had burned, the grandmother screamed with all her might.
“Run away, Rufus, go!”
Rufus froze, still holding his hot cocoa.
He didn’t even notice that the hot liquid had spilled on him, which would have made him cry in pain if he hadn’t been standing there, watching in horror.
In front of him, his grandmother--his mother, his everything--was being devoured alive by the black, bloody rats.
Yet, instead of screaming from the unbearable pain that would have made any grown man cry, she pressed her lips together, refusing to make her grandchild suffer because of her.
It might have been the rush of youth, an overestimation of his strength, or something else altogether.
But the boy refused to flee. He was trembling in fear, and tears were pouring non-stop from his eyes, but despite all of this, he rushed toward his grandmother, gripping nothing but the fireplace poker in his small hands.
Seeing this, the grandmother shouted, “Please, Rufus, run…”
She didn’t know that their fate was already sealed and that there was nowhere to run. A demon had targeted them in his grand plan.
In the next instant, more rats burst through the doors and windows.
They leaped onto the young boy, devouring him just the same.
They left only his tiny skeleton as a grim reminder of their existence before being distracted by their next prey.
What was most horrifying about these rats wasn’t their uncontrollable bloodthirst or their higher-than-normal intelligence.
It was their unimaginable reproduction and growth rates. As long as the Black Death had enough food, it could reproduce without limit in just a matter of hours.
Fortunately, their creator kept a hidden back gate to destroy his product once they had fulfilled their roles.
…
On the outskirts of Dasos, Duke Helmut listened to the terrified cries of the people without any visible reaction.
If someone looked at him closely, they might have thought that he and his family were the ones being attacked inside Dasos.
He was so lost in thought that even this grand victory failed to stir any emotion inside him.
Fortunately, none of the soldiers dared to approach him at this moment.
After some time had passed, and he felt the moment was right, he uttered a single command:
“Tu le paysatery, n lais aun. – Kill the peasants, leave none remaining.”