Chapter 347: 182. Spies -2 (Part One)

Translated by A Passing Wanderer

Edited by RED

**

Inside a forest near the fiefdom of Chaves…

Gril, Adolf and Yuria, their faces hidden under robes and hoods, continued to forge ahead. They trudged and shuffled past the thickets blocking their path.

After they left the Kingdom of Frants and entered Lome’s territory, the falling snow transformed into rain, showing that the influence of the Frost Giant on the weather no longer applied here.

It now felt too warm and humid. There was very little they could do about their level of discomfort and unhappiness gradually building up.

“Geez, I didn’t think that the weather could get this hot,” Gril groaned while looking up at the outer walls of the city of Chaves, hot sunlight seeping through the rainy forest.

Armed zombies could be seen staggering around on top of the outer walls. They were probably soldiers employed by the fiefdom once upon a time. After the vampires took over, they were most likely murdered and turned into undead.

They could also see several lycans in charge of commanding the zombies, although there weren’t that many of them

“Urgh, seriously?! Those are lycans!” Yuria muttered in displeasure.

The reason for her unhappiness was understandable, though: lycans were great at picking up human scents, after all.

“Let’s coat ourselves in excrement,” said Adolf.

He pulled out a pouch filled with crap and began coating his body with its contents.

“Urgh, that stinks. My constitution isn’t cut out for this…” Gril complained while staring at the pouch of excrement in a slight daze. But then, liquefied sh*t dribbled down from the top of his head without warning.

Yuria was emptying a bag of crap above Gril’s head. With a cold and critical eye, she sneered at him, “Stop complaining, uncle. If you’re not feeling up to it, why did you even volunteer in the first place?”

“Suuure thing. I won’t complain anymore.” Gril threw the pouch of sh*t on Yuria’s face. “It’s pretty simple why I volunteered; it’s because I haven’t done anything for Charlotte so far.”

Back when they were in the village up north, he never got to protect his daughter. No, it was Charlotte who protected him.

Other than accepting her as his adopted daughter, what else had he done for her?

Charlotte continued to achieve one feat after another, then even sent money to him back in the northern region. He had done nothing of note for her, yet she paid so much attention to his welfare, as if to say she really, really cared about him.

“That’s why I just want to be some kind of help to her. Even if it’s only by a little bit.” Gril continued to explain himself while not forgetting to empty the pouch of sh*t all over Yuria.

“…I see. I think I understand you now.” Yuria replied with a nod, then began throwing a handful of sh*t at Gril’s face.

The two began bickering once more. Thanks to that, Adolf felt all of his built-up tension fly out the window and could sigh a little in relief. He wasn’t sure about other people, but at least with his friends, the mission itself shouldn’t be too frightening to pull off.

“Alright, both of you. Get ready. From this moment on,” the trio’s gazes locked on the outer walls surrounding the city of Chaves up ahead. “…We infiltrate the enemy lines.”

They tightened their backpacks. The Rune armour sets inside the bags clanged noisily.

Adolf spoke up again, “Circulate your divinity.”

The trio began activating their divinity.

“Since His Majesty the Holy Emperor isn’t near us, we can’t rely on the Aztal Rune, the Rune armour, or the muskets to save our hides. Do not forget that.”

“Ah, y-you are right. I’ll remember that,” Gril muttered back.

Yuria immediately facepalmed at his stuttering reply, a deep frown spreading on her face. “Aaand I’m really worried now.”

Adolf could only chuckle hollowly at that. “Alright, let’s get going.”

They rapidly moved out of their hiding spot. They used only the absolute minimum amount of divinity required and quickly sprinted towards their target. Their footsteps didn’t make any discernible noises as they ran.

They successfully evaded the eyes of the zombies and lycans up on the outer walls, and pressed themselves tightly against the wall’s surface.

Adolf shifted his gaze lower, to the entrance of the underground sewer that led into the city beyond the walls.

The sewage floating out from there was mixed in with plenty of blood; the disgusting stench was wafting out heavily from the flowing filth. They still silently entered the sewer’s stream.

Adolf pulled out a sword, closed his eyes, and began offering a prayer. “Oh, dear Gaia…”

Divinity seeped into the blade. He very slowly pressed the weapon against the steel bars blocking the sewer entrance connected to the city.

The bars slowly melted down and were quietly severed. Adolf passed through, followed right after by Gril and Yuria next.

They continued to wade through the sewer as all sorts of excrement and blood, plus many corpses, floated by on the surface.

As the trio continued to trudge through the sewer, Gril’s complexion grew progressively paler and paler, while even Adolf ended up blocking his nose. However, Yuria remained unperturbed, as if this was nothing new to her.

Gril, wanting to lessen the tension he was currently under, asked Yuria in a provocative voice, “Oh hey, you sure have a strong stomach for this, don’t you?”

Yuria replied with some pride in her voice, “I’m really experienced with sewers, you see.”

“…Experienced with what now?”

“Back then, this really cool Mister Paladin went ‘Ta-da!’ and made his entrance to rescue me, you see. He was like, the brave hero from a fairy tale or something.”

“I have no idea what you’re on about.” Gril stared at her with a face that silently asked, ‘Hey, aren’t you omitting too much from your explanation?’

Just before Yuria could say something else, though, Adolf shushed them by placing a finger on his lips. “Shh. We’re going above ground now. Get ready.”

They shifted their gazes ahead and spotted a stairwell leading up to the surface. They silently walked up it, and cautiously lifted up the plank blocking the access to the street.

Adolf, Gril and Yuria were able to see the situation on the street of Chaves.

“…Oh my gods!” Gril’s jaw fell nearly to the floor.

The situation on the street reminded them of pure hell.

Decomposing corpses were strewn about everywhere, with lots of rats freely gnawing on them. Among all the carnage were plenty of zombies staggering around aimlessly.

“Huff, pant…!”

A person who looked to be a survivor could be seen breathlessly running away. His complexion was purplish, indicating that he was suffering from some kind of disease.

He was barely dodging and weaving past the zombies while carrying some food in his hands.

“Ahahat! That livestock sure knows how to run, doesn’t he!”

“Should we just devour him?”

“Nah, he’s clearly diseased. Devouring someone like that will only sour our delicate palettes. However…”

Some vampires could be seen nearby. They were still using the facade of regular humans, but even then, they were also pointing at the fleeing survivor while sneering insidiously.

“He’s perfectly adequate for pet food, don’t you think?”

Lycans suddenly leapt out from the narrow alleyway and pounced on the survivor.

“Uwaaaahk!”

This poor person’s limbs were bitten by the fangs of the undead beasts and he was dragged away. The sharp claws began ripping him apart, his torso slamming hard into the ground.

Vampires continued to cackle away in great amusement.

Adolf was deeply shocked by this sight and couldn’t say a single word.

“Sons of b*tches…” Yuria quietly cursed under her breath next to him.

And so, the trio quietly infiltrated the hellish city of Chaves.

**

(TL: In 1st person POV.)

The refugees were currently trudging towards the fiefdom of Chaves. They were obviously in some distress as they tried to tread through the mountain range.

Dark, gloomy clouds hung above our heads. Thick rain drops pelted us, while various dangers continued to rear their ugly heads as we braved the sharp, jagged path of the mountain range.

People lost their footing on the slippery mud. The ground itself became weakened from so many people walking on it, causing various small to large accidents.

I observed the lengthy procession of refugees while riding on my skeleton horse. “There are more people here now.”

They must’ve heard the stories and came here seeking refuge, because the procession had grown in scale. That was bad. A procession of such a scale would invariably be more dangerous than it was safe.

Charlotte approached me and whispered in my ear, “Your Majesty, they won’t be able to endure much longer at the current rate.”

She was right. Even if we fed them holy water, there was still a limit to how much they could endure both physically and mentally.

It had already been three weeks since we started braving this mountain range. Things were inevitably getting delayed by how large the procession had become.

There were close to ten thousand refugees here. If it was at all possible, I would have liked them to remain behind in the Kingdom of Frants, because that would’ve been safer for these people.

Unfortunately, fear and anxiety had this tendency to make you rely on other people.

But then again… even the King of Frants and Seran had joined up with the refugees and were all heading back to the Theocratic Empire right now. The king of a nation had abandoned their home and was fleeing as well, so how would their subjects feel in that case?