I ducked into an alley. A dozen or so screeching people ran past the entrance a few moments later. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to be as smart as they were in the past. I let out a breath. I didn’t know what their intent was as they ran at me screeching with black eyes, but it couldn’t be good. They actually reminded me of zombies, not the kind I fought in Mina’s dungeon, but the rage virus kind. I had already had a hint of this when I encountered that crazed man, but it looked like the entire town was infected with a miasmic curse.

As I was catching my breath, I heard a crashing sound behind me. A cold chill ran up my spine as I turned around. Slowly, crawling out of a trash heap, was a little girl. She had her hair over her eyes, and she looked filthy. Has she been surviving here this whole time in this city? I felt sympathy, taking a step toward her and holding out my hand.

“Little Miss, are you alright?”

The girl lifted her head, revealing black eyes.

“Screeee!” She let out a cry.

“Nope!”

I jumped up kicking off the walls until I was on the roof. I then began to run as I heard more screeches off in the distance as her call sent others coming. I jumped from rooftop to rooftop, but this was impossible to do without being noticed. More and more screeches occurred and I could hear villagers racing around on the streets below as they scrambled in my direction. If I kept this up, I was going to get the entire town into a frenzy.

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I stopped for a moment, glancing around worriedly.

“Master?” Alysia asked.

“I need to get to the dungeon entrance. I was trying to get in the mansion so I could skip straight down to the boss level, but I’m starting to realize that is impossible.”

As I looked out toward my mansion, the vast majority of infected were huddled in a horde right at the entrance. Getting past them would be near impossible, even for me. They were like the perfect alarm. However, on the outskirts of town opposite where I was, the true entrance sat unprotected. I didn’t think these villagers would follow me into the dungeon, so all I had to do was cross the entrance, and then I’d be in the normal territory. On the other hand, if I entered the mansion, a horde of them could end up following me and trampling through it.

These were still people, so even if I could outrun them through the mansion, that many close together were bound to trample some of them and potentially kill them. There were even children in those crowds, so getting them riled up wasn’t an option.

Making my decision, I turned to the outer entrance. However, I barely made it a step before one of the zombified residents leaped up from the street and onto the roof. It was an extremely impressive jump. This man wasn’t even an animalkin, which made the feat even more impressive. However, this happened to be a person I recognized. My face turned pale.

“Guild Master?”

The Guild Master of Chalm looked at me with his solid black eyes, and then let out a screech.