Chapter 27 - Abnormal People
Souta finally noticed that the rewards were higher than before. It only means that the difficulty was higher.
2 skill points were one of the rewards of the quest to rescue the boy"s big sister. It means that this quest was harder than conquering a low-level dungeon. Conquering a low-level dungeon only gave him 1 skill point.
"It seems that getting back that sword is not that easy, huh?" Souta said in a low voice.
Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak!
A sound of footsteps echoed in the dark alley. No other sound can be heard except the sounds of footsteps.
Souta turned his head and saw a figure of a man approaching him and the boy. The man has deep red eyes that gleamed in the dark.
He frowned and observed the man. The man was walking in unsteady steps. It feels like he would fall any second and white liquid was flowing down from his mouth.
"What"s this? This is not an undead..."
Blood vessels pop out in the forehead of the man. The man gritted his teeth before pouncing towards Souta.
"Yuko!!"
Souta shouted and a huge bear appeared in the corner. Yuko stood up and pinned down the man on the ground.
"Argh!! It hurts!! It hurts!!" The man groaned in pain as a huge bear was pinning him down.
"Don"t move," Souta said to the boy before he approached the man.
He squatted down and observed him. He was sure that it was not undead. The man has berserk energy around his body. This energy drives him wild and insane. This led him to attack Souta.
Souta suddenly recalled what Mark said before.
"I"ll warn you don"t wander in the night. They only attack the outsiders." was what he said.
There"s no scenario like this in the game. Also, the boy saw a demon behind his sister before she disappeared.
Souta knocked the man unconscious using his fist. He looked at Yuko and said, "You can let him go now, you did a good job today."
Yuko then turned around and growled angrily. Souta also turned his head and saw a dozen figures in the shadows.
"This is bad, there is something wrong in this town."
Souta raised his hand and the shadows beneath the figures burst out of the ground. It moved quickly and restrained everyone.
[Shadow Bind]
"Let"s go Yuko!" Souta turned around and he carried the little boy on his shoulder before he left.
"W-what"s happening, brother?" The boy was fl.u.s.tered.
"I don"t know." Souta shook his head and made a turn in the alley.
There were people there waiting for him. Souta clenched his fist and restrained those people using [Shadow Bind].
Souta ran over those people while Yuko smashed them on the walls with her thick arms causing them to fell unconscious.
"If I"m alone I could just jump over the roofs but Yuko is here with me." Souta thought while glancing at his back.
Yuko was following him. Every step that she made caused a loud sound attracting other people.
Souta smiled wryly at this. He then ran at the direction of the carriage of the dwarf, the plaza.
...
Just like what he expected, the carriage was also under attack by those abnormal people. The three adventurers who left with him were also here.
Jack was knocking unconscious those people with the help of the other adventurers.
"d.a.m.n! What is wrong with these people?"
Jack cursed loudly as he delivered a blow to the stomach of a crazed man.
Bang!
The man was knocked back to the other people before falling unconscious.
"They keep coming!"
"There"s no way end!"
Then, they saw a huge bear behind the crowds. They were familiar with this bear.
Souta circulated his mana around his body. With a "boom" he rushed towards those abnormal people.
"Smash them, Yuko!"
Yuko roared and followed him. She smashed those people that tried to stop him. She kept waving her hands while following behind Souta.
"Help them!" Jack shouted as he rushed towards the abnormal people to make a way for Souta and Yuko.
"Hoo!!" The other adventurers followed Jack.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Souta waved his arm and smashed the abnormal people in front of him. Those people flew away knocking the other abnormal people.
He speed up and broke through the group of abnormal people.
"Hoo~" Glancing back at the abnormal people, Souta went directly to Jack.
"I have a plan," Souta said to Jack.
"Tell me," Jack replied.
"I will stop all of them, I will need you and the others to knock as many as you can before they break free from the restraint." Souta explained his plan to Jack.
"Can you really do that?" Jack asked with a doubtful expression. There were more than a hundred abnormal people here and Souta told him that he could stop all these abnormal people.
"Why would I lie in this situation?" Souta replied as he shrugged his shoulder.
"Hahaha, good, as long as you stop them! I can knock them out easily!" Jack laughed loudly. He then looked at the boy on Souta"s shoulder. "By the way, did you kidnap that child?"
"No, I just met him and the abnormal people attack us all of a sudden." Souta shook his head. His expression turned serious and said, "I will start now..."
He placed the boy on the ground telling him to wait. He then focused his attention on the abnormal people. Jack, Yuko, and the rest of the adventurers were defending the carriage. The abnormal people kept coming in all directions.
His magical energy flared up and reached the peak. With a waved of his hand, he casted [Shadow Bind] consecutively. He felt that he consumed more than half of his mana.
Casting [Shadow Bind] consumed 10 mana. Using it consecutively drained half of his mana.
Swoos.h.!.+
Hundreds of shadows burst out of the ground.
Seeing this, Jack and the rest stopped moving. They watched as the shadows bind every person in the whole area.
"Go!"
They regained their senses when they heard Souta"s voice.
"Hahaha, let"s finish this!" Jack laughed and he charged at the group of abnormal people.
Souta didn"t sit idly as he rushed towards those people. He looked at Jack who was knocking unconscious those people left and right.
He asked, "I thought you would kill them. Why did you let them live?"
"Someone came and warn us before but we didn"t heed his warning," Jack said while punching the abnormal people. He added, "He came and request us not to kill them. We didn"t kill them as we also didn"t heed his warning before. We all treat his warning like a joke but... look now."
"Who"s that man?" Souta asked.
"The village chief came to us after you left," Jack said. "I"ll tell you more later after we finish this."
Souta nodded at his words. He rushed towards the abnormal and chopped the back of their neck knocking them out.
...
It took them half an hour before they knocked all those people out.
It was tiring to hold back while fighting against many people at once. So Jack and the rest were gasping as beads of sweat formed in their forehead.
"Thank you for your effort, everyone!" The dwarf came out of the carriage and thanked them for their effort.
A green man was following the dwarf. This man gathered everyone"s attention.
"Village chief!" One of the adventurers called out.
"So that"s village chief." Souta thought as he observed the man.
The man has a green colored skin. Some part of his body has green scales and a green long tail was moving on his back.
The village chief noticed Souta and exclaimed, "Oh! A brethren!"
"Eh...!" Souta was surprised that the village chief called him his brethren. Well, it"s not that surprising as both of them have green color skin.
"You"re a halfling, huh?" The village chief said after he observed Souta. He noticed that Souta doesn"t have a tail and scales so he thought that he was only a half-reptilian and half-human.
"Uh... Yes..." Souta smiled wryly. It"s fine for them that they misunderstood his race.
A High End Goblin was a rare species of a goblin and only a few people have seen it. They were almost extinct because of the constant killing that humans and demis did in the past. Those rare species can only be found in those forbidden areas.
"Thank you for helping these people!" The village chief thanked him.
"I"m also an adventurer also, can you please tell why is this happening?" Souta said. Even though he formed a speculation in his head, he still wanted to hear it from the village chief"s mouth.
"Yeah, can you tell us what happened to them that made them like that?" Jack asked while glancing at the unconscious people.
The village chief looked at their face before he started to narrate them what happened.
All of this started two months ago. Back then, the residence of this village started to disappear. Day by day received many reports about the disappearance of their husband, child, neighbor, etc. Every day one or two people would vanish. It happens every night. It was strange that no one found them.
About a month ago, he received a report about people going crazy attacking other people. It was like a disease that slowly spread out in the village. But they didn"t attack the people living here in this village they only attack the outsider.
When he looked at those abnormal people it feels like those people wanted to attack them but they were holding back. It feels like someone was telling them to attack people but they resist it against the people here in this village. They let it all out when outsiders came here.
Many people got infected by this strange disease. They attack and killed every outsider that came here. He sent a report to Hebrei Kingdom to help them fight this strange incident. But no one came, up until now the Hebrei Kingdom didn"t even bother to investigate this incident.
Those people went wild during night and they would forget everything that happened the next morning. It was really weird. Right now, half of the village folk have that kind of disease.
"Half? The population of this village is five thousand and half of that is..." Jack said with widely open eyes. If that"s really the case then they would have to fight more than a thousand people and what happened this time was just the first wave.
"Come to me, to my house. They wouldn"t go there." The village chief said. He led the group to his house.
They should not expect the help of Hebrei Kingdom. A village like this wasn"t even drawn in the map of the continent. For huge countries and kingdoms, this kind of village could disappear at any time. It was either by the monster tide or strange disease like this one.
Souta looked back and saw that Yuko and the boy were following him quietly.
He was sure of one thing. This incident happened because of the [Vajra Sword Saya]. The difficulty of the quest was many times harder than in the game.
This world was going into the future that he doesn"t know. There were no players to investigate and complete the incidents like this one. There were no adventurous players that would discover weird things left and right.
He even wondered what"s happening in the other village right now.
It seemed that his sword, the [Vajra Sword Saya], was taking the route of "hard to get".