'Killed a witch married to a guy called Vlad Dracula Tepes, moving castle, hordes of demons running amok… yeah this is definitely the world of Castlevania the animated series.' Hearing the whole story of the past few years from the bishop who she learned is called Andrei, surname matters not to the moth, it was easy enough for Juniper to realize where she had ended up landing.
'Vampires, legendary castle, inter-dimensional pathway, incarnation of death, powerful and unique magics as well as useful artifacts. Hehehehe, so much stuff to get my hands on.' Getting giddy at the many goodies that, in her opinion, are just lying around waiting to be picked up, the moth almost forgot about the priests kneeling around her and had to stop her twitchy mandibles from clacking together.
'Right, there's this to deal with first…hmm, I do need to sign a demonic contract if I want to stay in this world for an extended period of time. From the strength of the world's repulsion force acting against me, I should be able to stay around for two and a half days without one, if I don't burn through my magic reserves to resist that is.' Mind racing for a moment, Juniper pieces together a plan of action.
"You are in luck~. This Dracula guy seems interesting enough, so I will take care of him for you." She says in a way that practically demanded the priests to praise and thank her.
Raising a clawed finger while keeping her other three arms crossed, Juniper shushes the low murmuring that had spread through the basement at her words.
"But of course, my service is not free." Letting the menacing grin split her face once again, she spread out all four of her arms to add a dramatic flair to her performance.
"Each and every one of you will have to pledge themselves to me. You all will pay the price for the salvation of your country by sacrificing your souls and freedom~.' The declaration caused everyone in the room to shake for a moment as her words sank in.
Then, one of the clergymen raised his head and looked directly at Juniper, he flinched a bit as her glowing gaze snaps onto him but recovers quickly enough.
"I, Radu Aron accept this offer, may my sacrifice protect the innocent from any further suffering." He declares with determination while keeping eye contact with the demoness.
His words cause a goatskin parchment filled with demonic characters to appears in front of him.
Blinking at it in confusion for a moment, he looks past it to the moth for an explanation.
"That is the contract by which I and all of you will be bound. Once everyone has signed it in blood, we will be bound to fulfill our sides of the deal." She explains offhandedly while chuckling at the wording of the poor priest's declaration.
'Protect the innocent? heh, too bad that the only thing I am obliged to do in this contract is kill Dracula, there is nothing about protecting the innocent or even stopping the horde of night-creatures that are ravaging the lands.' The moth thinks to herself, amused by the logic jump of the poor bastard about to sign away his life.
Not knowing about the demon's inner monologue, or even suspecting something amiss because of how unfamiliar and fast everything was that is happening, Radu nods in understanding and pulls out a knife from his robes, gaining an amused scoff from the moth as he cuts his finger before writing his name on the parchment filled with letters that he cannot even read.
Following his lead, everyone signed what is essentially a slave contract that will force them to follow Juniper's orders no matter what, in exchange the demon moth will EVENTUALLY, kill Dracula, yes, no specific time frame was set.
Appearing in front of her once all were done signing, she scans the demonic letters on the contract before writing the last part of her true demon name on the paper to finalize it.
With a burst of flames, the contract disappears.
'That should do, with this contract I will have plenty of time to get all the things that catch my fancy in this world. I now also have a bunch of minions that I can order around.' Happy with these arrangements, Juniper pulls up her system and spends a few souls on a syringe with additional definition so that her subdermal armour won't be a problem.
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'I already have an idea what these guys can do while I make my rounds, it would be a waste not to use them after all.' Taking the syringe out, she pierces it into her neck and fills it up with purple demon blood under the confused and questioning stares of her new subordinates.
Throwing the filled syringe into her inventory, she selects it and begins adding modifications.
[Soul stealing T-Virus(dormant)]
Sucking up a good 510 souls for all the additions she added to customize it until it fit her purpose, she takes it out again and grabs the bishop before her.
"Stay still." The moth mutters before jabbing the needle into his neck.
Not able to struggle meaningful against the moth demon because of both the strength difference and the contracts influence that forced him to obey her every command, Andrei's neck gets pierced by the syringe and the virus enters his bloodstream.
Waiting a few seconds, she feels a connection forming between her and the bishop.
The feeling quickly becomes stronger in the span of a single second and Juniper now could identify that the connection originates from the virus coursing through her own body and the dormant off-shoot that quickly settled into the poor sod in front of her.
'Neat, this connection should be the thing that allows me to awaken the virus and set it all off.' Filling the syringe again, she throws it into the inventory to get a look at its description.
[Infected blood: A syringe filled with blood infected by the dormant "Soul stealing T-Virus".]
Nodding to herself, she lets go of the poor man and turns to the rest of the priests with an evil grin on her face.
"Okay, listen up! I just injected a very dangerous plague into your dear bishop here! But don't worry, it is dormant, for now." She states and chuckles at the horror in everyone's eyes.
"What I want all of you lot to do while I'm off to kill Dracula, is to drink at least half a cup of his blood so that everyone here also gets infected. Afterwards it is your mission to spread the plague throughout the city by polluting the water sources with the infected blood. Once that is done you shall travel to different cities, towns and villages and do the same." As Juniper relays her orders to the horrified priests, one of them, it's actually the guy who signed the contract first and said something about protecting the innocent from suffering, can't help but jump up and shout at her in outrage.
"H-HOW COULD YOU!!! THAT WASN'T WHAT WE AGREED UPON!!!" He says, followed by fearful and disagreeing muttering from the others.
"Hehehe, indeed, that isn't part of the contract. But what is in it is that you all will follow all my orders until the day you die, which is when your souls will belong to me. So~ shut up~." All the muttering abruptly stops as the priest's find their mouth forcefully sealed.
Nodding in satisfaction at the power of the contract, the moth continues.
"As I was saying. You will be spreading the plague far and wide, don't bother trying to infect everyone, just a small percentage per place should be enough. Also, none of you are allowed to talk to outsiders about what happened here today and prevent each other or yourself from fulfilling the mission." Getting things prepared for later down the line, Juniper wraps up with the priest's and soon leaves the basement with a map and all the information she needed to get to the city of Gresit additionally to the black book they had used to summon her.
Flying up into the sky, she looks down at the wrecked houses and blood everywhere on the streets of the probably once thriving city that now suffered under attacks of the night-creature hordes created by Dracula's Forgemaster's.
Grin creeping onto her face, she watches how the priests also abandon the hideout and disappear into the city under the influence of the contract to fulfill her orders.
"What a beautiful world to be summoned in as a demon. "She whispers.
Turning away from the city, she takes out the map before flying off, leaving the priests behind to lay the foundation for an event even worse than the advent of Dracula's wrath.
The [Soul stealing T-Virus(dormant)] Juniper had injected into the bishop and was then shared with the others, and soon will be spread across the entire city, is pretty much just an even more infectious version of the base T-Virus with a twist.
Once she awakens the virus through the connection established with all those housing the dormant version of it, it will take 5-hours till effects begin appearing in the form of light coughing and sweating.
That's the spreading stage.
With the coughing the virus gets airborne, and the sweat causes people get infected through mere skin contact.
A measure necessary to guarantee the most benefit for when things really get rolling.
After 10-hours, the victim will start to get a fever that causes them to become dazed and very thirsty, making them search out water sources and infect them too because of their cough and sweat.
Lastly, when they hit the 15-hour mark, the transformation will be complete, and they turn into brainless beasts of incredible tenacity and endless desire to hunt down all creatures not already infected.
As the virus spreads, it will soon reach the stage where mutations begin appearing and turn the regular zombies into variants like the Lickers, becoming more and more dangerous and monstrous, all the while keeping or even increasing their potency to infect others.
The twist and reason for the given name is that as soon as a being is infected by the virus, their souls are pretty much doomed to end up in Juniper's system.
Be it because they drank from an infected water source, were in the same room as someone infected who is coughing or came into contact with the skin of an infected.
As long as the virus is within your body, your soul will end up in system storage one way or another.
The moment you turn, your soul will be forced out of your body and be claimed.
If you die before turning?
Eh, too bad, the soul still ends up in Juniper's hands.
You got killed by an infected? Well, you touched it, you gained it.
The virus will have spread through your body before it hits the floor, and as such claim your soul.
That simple.
With that, the moth won't miss out on the souls of those that perished before they could turn and maximize her harvest.
[Soul stealing T-Virus(dormant) (510 souls): A variant of the basic T-Virus. Remains hidden for the first 5-hours after infection before causing symptoms in the form of light but continues coughing and sweating. After the 10-hour mark, the victims will start to get a fever that cause them to become dazed and very thirsty. 15-hours after infection, the transformation will be complete, and the victim turns into a brainless beast with incredible tenacity and endless desire to hunt down anything not infected. Extremely contagious. Instantaneous infection. Affects animals and insects too. Captures the soul of anything infected upon its death or after 15-hours.]