Kujonin

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Kujonin
Author: Hanabokuro
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"It"s a ghoul!"

When I looked in the direction of a voice, there was a human-shaped monster that moved on all fours like a beast.
So that"s a ghoul.
Making a leap from that no ordinary person could, the white-robed ghoul jumped up from the ground and landed on the church"s roof.
Did the ghoul realize I was looking? It looked over its shoulder in my direction.
Its white hair was disheveled, and something like a human foot was dangling from its mouth.
I knew that face.
The ghoul has Sister Clarence"s face.
The ghoul made a strange cry, like,"Gyeah-!"and threatened the villagers running along the ground, bounding in the direction that would lead upstream.

"Seth! It"s heading your way!"
["I see it!"]

There was a scream coming from the church. A victim, huh?
"Velsa! The church!"
I pointed my finger towards Velsa, who had come running up from out of the dining hall.
"Rightyo! Naoki, recovery potion!"
I immediately plunged my hand into the item bag, threw two bottles of recovery potion to Velsa, and ran off.
Velsa also s.n.a.t.c.hed the recovery potions out of the air and ran off in the direction of the bridge.

I ran at the river, then leapt towards the opposite bank.
Sister Clarence, who had turned into the ghoul running along the rooftops, was bounding in the upstream-direction with a speed that you wouldn"t believe was coming from an old woman.
The villagers had also been chasing the ghoul, but they couldn"t keep up with her speed and had stopped.
"Good grief, this old woman is much to energetic."
I can see a person with an absolutely amazing speed running from the downstream-direction with Search Skill.
It"s probably the Hero Garcia.
But the pincer attack from Seth and me is faster.
Seth is already on the roof of a house that was upstream.
"Yo-!"
I also leapt and seized the roof with one hand, and just like that I pulled my body up onto the roof.
When I had raised my head, the ghoul was just leaping towards Seth.
Without any danger, Seth caught the ghoul"s hand with his knife and sent it flying back.
I leapt high above the ghoul, with a clenched fist.

"Outsiders should pull back!!"

I stopped my hand at the angry voice.
At that moment, the ghoul tumbled off the roof and fell towards the ground.
With an unbelievable speed, Garcia launched an thrust towards the ghoul that landed on all fours like a beast.
In his hand was a thin saber that didn"t seem suitable to the Earth Hero.
Red blood danced through the air, along with a sound like something was breaking.
The saber was thrust into the ghouls chest, and the tip of the saber was sticking out its back.
It was a quick ending.

Seth and I looked down at the ghoul and Garcia, and Garcia looked up at us on the roof.
Without his straw hat, Garcia"s balding combover was revealed.
The voice that stopped me was Garcia"s, no doubt.

"Garcia!"
"Sir Hero!"
" s.h.i.t! It was Sister Clarence!"
The villagers gathered.

"I"m sorry. Naoki-kun. It"s just, this is our village"s problem."
I could sense what Garcia meant with his eyes.
If I had killed Sister Clarence, I might be resented by the church"s people. There"s also the idea that having a closer person deal the blow was better.
And also, subjugating it with a fist isn"t like an exterminator. It"s better to have the suitable person do it.
I descended to the ground.
"No, it"s my apologies. I"ve done something unnecessary."
So saying, I headed to the church.
Seth followed along behind me.
As I pa.s.sed by Garcia"s side, Garcia was staring at the blood on the saber.

"The victims?"
I called out to Velsa, who was in the church"s cemetery. There was no one else in the cemetery other than Velsa.
When I looked with Search Skill, there were a lot of people inside the church, moving around busily.
"The victim is dead already. It was a dead person who was the victim, see. I"ve already handed the injured the recovery potions."
In front of Velsa was the ravaged cemetery and a corpse missing a foot.
"Take a look, Naoki. The magic stone in its chest is split. Seth boy, hand me the knife for a bit."
There was a large wound in the corpse"s chest, and you can see the fist-sized magic stone split cleanly in half.
The ghoul that Garcia had just stabbed probably had a magic stone in its chest as well.
When Seth handed Velsa his knife, Velsa inserted the knife and the wound, as if she was flipping the flesh aside, and peeked in. The corpse was dried out, so it was only gory in form.
Velsa"s other hand held up a magic light lamp over it, and I could see something reflecting the light within the flesh.
"It"s a magic stone. It was breathed in, and a magic stone was formed within the longs."
"So this the reason for turning into a ghoul?"
"Well, that would be the normal order of things."
Velsa replied to my question.
"But why?"
Seth asked.
Velsa and I have some understanding of the matter.
The soil in the plantation has tiny magic stones mixed in.
The wind blows it up into the air and it"s breathed in.
There"s a forest acting as a windblock, but the plantation extends to the hills.
The wind might not be able to blow near the forest, but I saw the children weeding among the cotton plants blowing in the wind.
If the people living near the plantation don"t take any sort of precautions, it wouldn"t be strange if all the villagers become ghouls.
"Looks like it"s necessary for us to move fast."

"Oi! What are you doing? You there!"
Pastor Romeo came out of the pa.s.sage.
"My apologies. I was thinking it would be better to hurry and restore it, but we don"t know how to properly consecrate the grave so we were just staring blankly at it."
Velsa, while causing the magic light lamp"s light to fall over us, gave a lie with no hesitation. As expected of Velsa.
"Aa, the woman just now. The recovery potion saved us. You were Naoki-san"s companion?"
"Yes, a colleague."
"So that"s how it was. Please leave this here to me."
"I"m sorry; we"re outsiders, so we aren"t able to help much."
"Oh no, the recovery potions were extremely helpful."
"If you need us to cooperate with anything else, please let us know. We"ll be in the inn."
"Thank you."
We made to head back to the inn.
When I looked over my shoulder, I saw Pastor Romeo staring intently at the one-legged corpse.
After he drives us away, he might be able to do the dissection.
The church is busy and chaotic. Sister Clarence"s corpse was surely just brought in.
There probably won"t be anyone entering the cemetery.
I took all of the 10 some masks I had left over out of the item back and returned to Pastor Romeo.
"Pastor Romeo. Here."
I handed him the masks.
"These are?"
"These are masks that cover your mouth, and the strings go around your ears. Look. If your hypothesis is correct, these might be necessary."
I explained as I put one on to show him.
"Naoki-san, do you know what is going on?"
Pastor Romeo had a surprised look on his face.
"No, it"s just a whim. This is also a whim, but I think it"s better not to go outside on the days the wind is especially strong. And with that, excuse me."
"Wai…"
Without listening to Pastor Romeo"s words, I chased after Velsa and Seth.
"What did you hand him?"
Velsa, who walked next to me, asked.
"It"s temporary peace of mind."
Rather than having faith, I wanted to bet on a person"s inquisitiveness.

No on was around when we returned to the inn.
Other than the innkeeper.
Everyone was gathered at the church.
It"s a small village, so everyone probably knows everyone else.
The merchants are probably curious onlookers?
For now we took food from the dining hall with no one in it and carried it to our room.
"I can"t think if I don"t eat, after all."
Seth made a face at Velsa"s words.
It was a face that was saying, we were just staring at a corpse and you can eat already?
"Vesla is correct. We don"t know what will happen from now on. It"s better to eat when it"s time to eat."
"… Yes sir!"
When I said that to Seth, Velsa had a look on her face like, "Eh? What? Was there a problem?"

The three of us sat in a circle and ate dinner.
While we ate, we talked.
"So what are we going to do?"
"We have to crush the plantation, na."
I responded frankly to Velsa"s question.
"What about the Ghoul Disease?"
It would be nice if we could summarize all the information and make a counter plan.
"So basically, that"s when magic stone sand collects and hardens inside the lungs. When that happens, why does it cause magic power insufficiency?"
"I was thinking. Isn"t it because it uses magic power in order to bind the magic stone sand together? It steadily acc.u.mulates and hardens, and when it finally becomes the size of a fist, you turn into a monster."
Velsa explained.
When I had met Sister Clarence at noon and it seemed like there was nothing going on … is because there wasn"t any magic stone sand that was being bound to each other? And then when she went outside and breathed in magic stone sand, the magic stone became larger, to the size where she was turned into a monster. The theory pa.s.ses.
"It requires a considerable precise timing, but that feels like it"s right-ish. As for a counterplan, currently it"s just the masks, huh?"
"I wonder, can we make a cure from the mana drain plant?"
At Velsa"s words, I remembered that the locust hoppers would die when they breathed in the mana drain plant.
I"m pretty sure that the magic stone inside their bodies was broken, and mana smoke came billowing out of their mouths like ectoplasm.
If it"s like that, we might be able to remove the magic stone from the body.
"But, that might leave a hole in the lungs, right?"
"That"s true."
While Velsa and I were agonizing over it, we carried food to our mouths.
"If there"s a hole in the lungs, then won"t it be fine if they just breath in recovery potion…"
And Seth said that "nice idea".
"That"s it. Let"s go with that. It probably can"t be helped that they"ll spit out a bit of blood."
The plan to combat Ghoul Disease was more or less decided.
"Huh? But if it"s like that, then it"s no good to have them recover their magic power, right?"
If the time they have magic power insufficiency is when the magic stone in their lungs is being formed, then if you recover their magic power…
Not good! There"s the possibility that Cynthia will become a ghoul.
"Is there something bad about it?"
"Aah, there"s a slave that has Ghoul Disease in Floura. I gave that girl magic recovery syrup."
I had also given some to Pastor Romeo, but if he dissects that ghoul then he probably won"t use it.
Velsa and Seth made fun of me with, "What are you doing, you"re so dumb."

"And so, how much magic drain plant"s magic drain pesticide do we have left?"
When we had finished eating and stood up to return our plates, Velsa asked.
Huh? Didn"t we basically use it all up during the locust hopper extermination?
I searched the item bag, but there was nothing left but a can of the smoke pesticide.
I did think, with this we can gather all the villagers and do it in one go, but I can imagine everyone spitting out blood and dying at once. That"s no good.
"c.r.a.p. There"s not enough. What do we do!?"
I held my head in my hands.
"Do I have to go pick them in the desert again? The flash floods washed the mana drain plants away quite thoroughly, so finding them will be a pain!"
Aa… it looks like I"m going to have to be running around all over this time, too.

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