My dear witch, please turn evil according to the script!

Chapter 17: Divine Plague and the Pendant

Roland and Kalia continued walking in the dim sewer. All they could see along the way were flowing sewage and swarms of rats.

Although the number is not as exaggerated as what I saw when I first came down, it is still an astronomical figure.

Fortunately, the two did not encounter any other people in the sewer along the way, thus avoiding a possible fight.

After investigation, they confirmed that in addition to the huge number of rats in the sewer, some of which had undergone serious mutations, the two did not find any other abnormalities.

Although that part alone is serious enough.

"Okay, Kalia, it's time to go. You can say goodbye to your nasty sewer."

"Humph!"

"Okay, stop being so stubborn. I just asked you to use your innate spell to collect a few rat corpses. You didn't even come into direct contact with them."

Upon hearing this, Kalia lowered her head and quickly walked over to Roland. Then she hit him hard on the calf: "Listen carefully, Mr. Roland."

"The so-called witch's innate magic is just like limbs, an extension of the body..."

"If it was just an ordinary rat corpse, it would be fine. But this rat corpse that looked so strange, I just swallowed it with my shadow, and it made me feel dirty!"

As she spoke, Kalia shuddered violently, clasped her arms over her chest, leaned forward slightly, and had an expression on her face that said, "I can't coax her anymore."

"Sorry, sorry, there's nothing we can do about it. After all, we have to take these dead rats for inspection."

Roland smiled apologetically and changed the subject: "Want to go get some dessert? I know a good place. Even though I'm not interested in desserts, I still go there sometimes."

"Oh, really?"

Although the tone still sounded a little cold and angry, Roland could tell at a glance that the other party was pretending.

This woman is so easy to understand.

It’s much easier to understand than the one I encountered in the college assessment.

"Of course. How about I treat you to a big meal as an apology?"

"Forget it. Let's go back and take a shower first. It's not good to eat dessert with a stinky body." Kalia regretted wearing a white sweater today.

If she hadn't also brought the invisibility cloak Roland gave her, she wouldn't have been able to keep the sweater she loved so much.

But even so, some cleaning is still necessary afterwards.

When Roland used his flash trick again and brought Kalia back to the road, the sun was still high in the sky, bringing some warmth to Riskan, which was already in winter.

After returning to the ground, Kalia looked at Roland and asked, "What are you going to do next?"

"I was thinking that too," Roland said calmly. "We could go to the Vatican branch to report the situation in the sewers and make a big fuss about it to request support."

"But from what I know about Colonel Odermeyer, he's not the type to conceal something just for the sake of his own future."

"He must be worried about something, or he's still unsure of the cause of the rat infestation."

"Of course, it's also possible that I misjudged him before... Anyway, the most urgent thing is to see how this rat has mutated."

"Elbow, let's find a reliable place to study this."

"Hey~~~ It's not over yet!?" "Everything else is fine, but this is the most important thing!"

"Oh, what's so hard to study about this! Isn't this something you can tell at a glance?"

Kalia glanced at Roland with some disdain. "Don't tell me you collected these rat corpses just to study their mutations, right?"

"What else do you think I'm going to do with their bodies?" Roland looked at Kalia with a strange expression. He felt that Kalia might have some strange misunderstandings about him.

"I thought you were going to use the pus from these rat sores as a dirty bomb, you know, poison gas or something."

Roland was speechless for a moment: "...Why did you think of this? And you said you could tell what was going on at a glance?"

"Hey, don't you know? Isn't this common sense? A creature that mutates like this is, of course, under the influence of the Demon King's blood!"

"You also know that the Demon King seized the authority and power of the evil deity known as Our Lady of Ulcers. The Demon King's blood is the manifestation of the power he gained after seizing that authority."

"It's a strange toxin that's like blood. It can't be detected by any means until it fully takes effect."

"But once the infection breaks out, there's no way to reverse the process of mutation and death. Once the mutation is complete, the infected body becomes a walking source of infection. Its most notable features are pus-filled sores all over its body and enormous size."

"Afterwards, everything on their body, including their hair, blood, even their breathing and magical reactions, will become a pathway for infection to spread outward, and conventional methods will be unable to prevent its spread."

"It was called the 'Divine Plague' by the Holy See and caused considerable trouble to the human coalition forces during the Demon King War."

"In the end, the Church sought a blessing from the Goddess of Earth and Fertility, and only then was they able to obtain a method to resist the infection. However, this only prevented the spread of the divine plague. Beings infected by the Demon King's blood would also gain a significant increase in strength, becoming difficult to deal with."

Roland listened to Kalia's story and slowly asked, "Is this really common sense?"

"Doesn't it count? This is the bedtime story the old woman told me!"

Damn immortals! Is telling bedtime stories to children so hardcore?

After silently criticizing Kalia's elf teacher, Roland continued, "So, according to you, those rats are infected with the blood of the Demon King? Doesn't that mean we're also very likely infected?"

"Don't worry, the real blood of the Demon King will never appear. When the Demon King is killed, the authority he stole from the many evil gods will also disappear." Kalia waved her hand, indicating that Roland should not worry.

"Although it meets the infection characteristics of the Demon King's blood, the historical divine plague cannot occur. Unless these inferior products are given divinity again."

"But even if it's a degraded virus, we still need to take precautions. Although its infectiousness has been greatly reduced, its toxicity itself cannot be underestimated. If we accidentally get infected, the consequences will be disastrous."

"Also, these rats need to be cleaned up thoroughly. With so many virus carriers, I guess we'll have to have the Holy See conduct a large-scale dispersal ceremony."

Kalia's explanation did not let Roland down.

He remembered how the system introduced Riskan ten years later.

The plague capital of Reskan, where an unknown plague spread from its source, turned the entire southern coast of the empire into a restricted area.

This wasn't as insignificant as Kalia said.

Roland thought of the pendant, the fundamental reason why Kalia was being hunted. Why did the madman from the Chaos Brotherhood care so much about this pendant?
What exactly does that pendant in the shape of the Cross of Truth represent? Does Kalia really know nothing about it?

"Kalia, can you tell me the truth? Do you really not know the purpose of this pendant?" Roland said seriously, "Please answer me seriously."

(End of this chapter)