Chapter 28 - Underground
Souta, Jack, and the rest arrived in the village chief"s house. The house was quite wide so it could hold all of them including Yuko.
The group listened to the story of the village chief. The story about the mysterious possession or what they called disease spreading in this village.
"Based on what you said it started two months ago... and from my a.n.a.lysis, it will take another month before all of you become like those people," Jack said to the village chief.
"I also thought about that but what can we do about it... There is no point as we could only wait for the people of Hebrei Kingdom to arrive." The village chief said with a sad expression.
"I don"t think I"ve heard this kind of disease at all nor I"ve seen something like this." Jack shook his head. He wouldn"t be able to help if he knew nothing about it. He was an adventurer expert in fighting, not a doctor.
"It"s hard to dispatch a knight. The kingdom only uses them in war or other big situations. If this situation got worse to the point that it could harm the kingdom, only then they would dispatch a force to eliminate the threat. First of all, this village wasn"t a part of Hebrei Kingdom. That"s the reason why they wouldn"t send a force to help." The dwarf said. As a merchant, he knew a thing or two about the affairs of the kingdom.
"Boy, tell them what you know!" Souta said as he patted the little boy"s back.
His words gathered everyone"s attention. All of them turned their heads and looked at Souta.
"What do you mean?"
"Did this boy know something?"
Souta shook his head and said, "It"s better if you hear it directly from him. Come on boy tell them what you told me before."
The boy lifted up his head and looked at Souta. Souta nodded when he saw the look of the boy. The boy didn"t hesitate anymore and he began to tell them what he told Souta before.
"There"s something like that?!"
"A demon? A monster from legend!"
"I"ve heard that there"s no demon right now. The ancient civilization destroyed them all."
Various exclamation sounded after they heard the boy"s story.
Even Souta, the owner of the [Vajra Sword Saya], doesn"t know the origin of the sword. He only knew that it was a piece of Dark grade equipment.
Suddenly, the village chief bowed before them and said, "Please help us solve this case. I"ll give you anything that you want."
The village chief begged them to find the boy"s sister. After listening to the story of the boy, he was now sure that the sister of the boy and the demon the boy saw that day was the culprit in this incident.
The culprit why all these people were going insane was because of the demon.
"We don"t know the strength of the demon so it"s better to check it first before we promise you," Jack said and the rest of the adventurers nodded.
They wouldn"t accept a quest that easily. They couldn"t determine the difficulty of this quest so they couldn"t accept it easily. There"s a reason why the Adventurers Guild divided the quest into different ranks.
The village chief looked at Souta with hopeful eyes. Souta was still the one who hasn"t decline him.
But Souta wasn"t looking at him. He was looking at the prompt that received.
[Quest Triggered!]
[Elimination]: Find and eliminate the cause of this incident. Rewards: 15,000 exp, 5 free attribute points, 2 skill point
[Savior]: Don"t kill anyone and help them regain their senses. Rewards: ???
Looking at the quest, Souta felt that he really was quite lucky today. He didn"t expect that he would receive more quests and the rewards for these quests were as high as the previous quest.
But the difficulty was also high. He doubted that he could finish this quest with this current strength. He also had to hold back as once he killed one of those people he will fail the quest.
Souta accepted these quests without hesitation. He then looked at the village chief and said.
"I"ll do what I can to help..."
"As expected of my brethren, a really good heart." The village chief felt like he was about to cry from Souta"s reply.
"Oi oi! Souta, do you know what kind of danger lies in this quest?" Jack said to him.
"I have a vague idea," Souta replied.
"No, you don"t have any idea what a demon is..." Jack said.
"If a demon is really here then they would be long dead," Souta said seriously.
He received a lot of feats in the game and one of these was the "Demon Annihilator". He received this feat from annihilating an army of demons. So his knowledge about demons far surpa.s.ses the people present in this place. Also, he knew that there"s really no demon here. That was just the [Vajra Sword Saya].
"Don"t worry I know what I"m doing..." Souta said.
Jack nodded when he saw how serious he was.
"Anyway, let"s rest for now. Let"s continue this later." Souta shook his head and said.
"Yeah, I will prepare your room for now." The village chief said.
"No need, I will sleep with Yuko," Souta said before he walked towards Yuko. He preferred to sleep in her fluffy fur.
Just like what the village chief said before, the abnormal people didn"t enter his house.
The group fell asleep quickly as they were quite tired from what happened this night.
...
Souta woke up before the sunrise. He felt a heavy feeling pressing on his chest. He looked down and saw that Yuko was hugging him tightly.
He removed her hands and stood up. He looked outside and found that everything went back to normal. Only the traces of fight can be seen outside. The abnormal people were already gone.
"Oh? You"re up..." A voice sounded behind him.
Souta turned around and saw Jack. He nodded at him before turning back to look outside.
"Are you really planning to help them? You don"t know what danger lies here." Jack said as he walked beside Souta.
"I just want to eliminate the cause of this incident," Souta said. Then, he turned around and walked toward the bathroom.
Jack looked at Souta"s back without saying anything.
...
Souta washed his face and thanked the village chief for letting them in. He ate the breakfast that the village chief made before he left the house with Yuko.
He went to the shop of Mark. Mark was a herbalist and he made some medicine using his knowledge. That"s why he needed the Evening Gra.s.s.
He found that the shop was still closed. Nevertheless, he knocked on the door before he entered the shop.
"Oh? You"re here. It seems that you"ve heeded my warning yesterday." A man with white hair greeted him.
"Nn." Souta sat down in a chair and said, "Let"s talk about the quest. I want to complete it quickly."
"How about some tea?" Mark said to him.
"No, I want to go there right now," Souta shook his head as he declined the tea that Mark offer.
"Okay, wait here for a few minutes," Mark said before he went inside the room.
"Good." Souta closed his eyes while waiting for Mark.
After a few moments, Mark came out with a small bag. He looked at Souta and said, "Let"s go!"
Souta nodded and walked behind Mark.
...
Mark led him to an abandoned church in the village.
Souta looked around the church. Moss already covered the entire walls and ceiling of the church. It seems that no one was maintaining this church for almost ten years.
At the back of the church, Mark opened a secret compartment that will lead someone under the ground.
"There are other paths but this is the safest among all the paths," Mark explained to Souta. He then gave the small bag to Souta.
"Just put the Evening Gra.s.s inside the bottle there in the bag," Mark said while Souta opened the bag and saw a transparent bottle.
"I just need to put the gra.s.s here," Souta muttered as he closed the bag and hung it on his waist.
"Be careful there, although it"s the safest this place there are still dangers lurking in the dark," Mark warned him. Of course, there"s a danger downstairs, if not Mark would go down personally and he wouldn"t place a quest in the Adventurers Guild.
"Yeah, I know." Souta nodded at Mark. Just looking at the rewards, he could vaguely guess the difficulty of a quest.
"I"ll go now," Souta said and he turned to Yuko. He asked her to stay here with Mark. She was too big to fit inside the narrow path. She wouldn"t be able to move comfortably and she would only become a burden if she followed him downstairs.
...
The underground was an abandoned place and it became a dungeon. A place where Vajra Sword Saya stayed. He doesn"t know the lore of this village but he could guess that this was a prosperous city before it became the Bullmar village.
He raised his hand and tapped the walls made of bricks. The bricks were still st.u.r.dy despite its looks. The floor was wet and sticky.
"Graaa!!"
A pair of deep red eyes appeared in the darkness.
"Just like what I expected, some of them are here..." Souta said with a laugh.
It seemed that there was a type of abnormal people that live here underground. They didn"t return back to normal even though it"s morning.
"Come, It"s getting exciting this way, the power of the Vajra Sword exceeds my expectations!"
Back in the game, the only person that [Vajra Sword Saya] possessed was the sister of the little boy before. The existence of abnormal people wasn"t present in the game.