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Chapter 187: 100. The Blackened Village -2 (Part One)

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The day after Third Imperial Prince Ruppel gave me the hints I needed, Charlotte and I set off towards the village of Rost.

Since the kingdom of Lome was a direct neighbour to the empire, the distance we needed to cover wasn’t all that much, and the village itself was located north of the kingdom’s territory, which meant that reaching there didn’t take all that long for us.

We rode on the skeleton horses, and after travelling non-stop with no breaks in between, we were able to reach our destination in ten days.

The village was fairly large and famous for being a tourist attraction with gorgeous scenery, so my initial plan was to find out the dragon slayer’s current whereabouts and then leisurely wait for the arrival of the First Prince. But now...

“Well, what a great stroke of luck this is.”

Who could’ve guessed in their right minds that as soon as I arrived in the village, Prince Barus would run straight into us?

Not only that...

“Stop them!”

Barus’s escorting knights hurriedly picked up the inn’s tables and began blocking the building’s exit. The windows shattered and the zombies’ flailing arms invaded the interior. The knights urgently thrust and swung their swords to keep the undead from entering.

...Who would’ve guessed that the whole village had ended up as a den of zombies?

Yup, this seemed like a pretty serious situation.

The knights were roaring out while swinging and stabbing with their swords. Some used their body weight to prop up the door, while some continued to defend near the windows.

Their lives were on the line here, but the thing troubling them didn’t concern me in the slightest since I was capable of hunting down Vampires.

“I was searching for you,” I addressed Barus while pouring the liquor in the cup. “Please settle down and have a drink with me.”

I extracted another cup from my item window and placed it on the table. With a refreshing grin on my face, I stared at his face.

“You... how do you know me?”

Barus stepped back while clearly on edge, his hand resting on the hilt of the sword mounted on his hips.

Unlike his meticulous self, though, the other knights were beginning to buckle under the pressure.

“You bastard! Just what or who are you?!” A knight cried out while yanking his sword out and pointing it at me.

Huh. That’s a big mistake, you know?

Charlotte’s expression turned incredibly cold in an instant.

She easily sliced apart the pointing sword of the knight, then her left hand rapidly moved to grab his throat before lifting him up cleanly off the floor.

“...!”

Barus’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

She must’ve looked like a girl yet to enter adulthood to him. So it wasn’t that surprising to see him failing to hide his shock when her frail-looking hand lifted up an adult man by the throat without any problem.

“I didn’t seek you out to fight, dear prince.”

While saying that, I stared deeply at Barus.

[Name: Barus Victoria.

Attributes: Outstanding swordsmanship, a pampered flower in the greenhouse, lacks decisiveness, believes that he is in the right.

+ I am not the criminal who murdered my father! I’m being wrongly accused!]

I confirmed his status through Mind’s Eye.

Barus was supposed to be a traitor, a rebel, someone who took the life of his king. But his attributes were saying otherwise.

I recommended the alcohol to him one more time, “For now, let’s enjoy this drink, shall we?”

Honestly, though, I didn’t really care whether he murdered the king or not, or that the charges against him were false.

After all, I only had one business to take care of in this place – to apprehend the Second Crown Princess Consort, Rose Darina. That’s it.

Barus shifted his gaze over to the knight currently gripped in Charlotte’s hand.

“It’s alright now.”

Charlotte let go of the poor man after I reassured her.

The knight fell on his butt and wheezed in pain.

“Your highness, we must make our escape now!”

One of the knights fighting off the zombies cried out.

It was understandable, considering the great numbers of zombies had shown up outside.

From the look of things, I figured that not just the villagers but even the unfortunate travellers had become victims as well.

Barus shed thick, cold sweat drops as he alternated his gaze between his knights fighting off the zombies and me on the opposite side of the table.

I held his gaze and addressed him in a relaxed manner, “As they say, there isn’t much time left, it seems.”

“...What is it that you want from me?”

Barus sat back on the chair. He received the cup I had pushed towards him and dazedly stared at its contents.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t put any poison in it.”

“How can I trust you?”

“If I wanted to kill you, or kidnap you even, then I’d have done so already.”

Barus sneaked a glance at Charlotte and her resolute silence.

Since he had already witnessed her monstrous strength and skill, he should be able to figure out that she was overwhelmingly stronger than any of his escorting knights.

“Alright, fine. What is it that you want? Did the rebels send you?”

“Rebels?”

I tilted my head this way and that. But a short while later, a thought popped up in my head and I clapped my hands with an “Aha!”

The ‘rebel’ in Barus’s view was probably Derian Victoria, the Second Prince of Lome who currently held the ruling authority in the kingdom.

The two of them had been calling themselves the rightful heir to the throne until now, after all.

I replied back to him, “Nah, I’m not related to them. I only wanted to ask you a question, that’s all.”

“A question, is it?”

I rested my chin on my hands and asked Barus directly, “The Second Crown Princess Consort, Rose Darina. Do you know her?”

Barus’s expression hardened at the mention of Rose Darina’s name.

He alternated his sharp gaze between me and Charlotte. It seemed that he finally realised who we were. Maybe he thought we were ‘Paladins’ dispatched from the Theocratic Empire or some such.

More cold sweat trickled down Barus’s face. “How did you find me?”

“Actually, I just got lucky. And I believe it’ll be better for you to answer my question.”

I pointed at the entrance of the inn.

Bang-! Bang-! Crunch-!

The doorway that was blocked off by a table was gradually breaking down.

Barus sounded quite anxious as he addressed me, “Even if you are Paladins from the Theocratic Empire, just the two of you cannot possibly stop all those zombies. We must combine our forces to...”

“We don’t have time for this. Do you know who Rose Darina is?”

“That’s not important rig...!”

“Charlotte.”

Charlotte rapidly grabbed the back of Barus’s head and slammed him down to the floor. His expression distorted from the pain.

“I’ll ask again. Do you know who Rose Darina is?”

“Your highness!”

The escorting knights tried to rush in, but when Charlotte placed her sword on Barus’s throat, they froze up in their tracks.

It was right at that moment that the door finally broke down. Zombies began crawling inside.

“These measly zombies dare to!”

The knights quickly wielded their swords and slashed down on the undead. They seemed to have some experience in dealing with zombies, seeing how they accurately aimed only for the heads.

Unfortunately...

Slam-!

The sword was stopped by a thick layer of rotting flesh.

The knights stiffened up and raised their heads.

A gigantic zombie around two and half metres tall was grabbing onto the knight’s sword in its left hand, while an axe in its right hand was rising up in the air.

“A zombie warrior...?!”

-Ku-ohhhh...

The zombie warrior slammed its axe down. Another knight urgently blocked the attack with his weapon and stumbled back.

I stared at the knights and tilted my head in confusion.

These guys were weaker than I thought. How could the strength of the knights tasked with escorting and protecting a royal prince be this bad?

Or could it be that the Paladins of the Theocratic Empire were abnormally strong?

Even though I felt puzzled, I still shifted my gaze back to Barus. “Are you just going to watch your subordinates get killed off?”

Barus’s eyes shook powerfully just then. He squeezed his eyes shut and cried out, “Of course I know who Rose Darina is! She’s the Second Crown Princess Consort of the Theocratic Empire! She came to visit the kingdom in the past for diplomatic purposes!”

“Can you tell me where I can find her?”

“I do not know! Of course I wouldn’t know where she is. She only came to see me briefly three years ago. I haven’t run into her ever since then!”

“I heard that you, as the leader of the rebellion, were providing her with a place to hide.”

“And I heard that she’s accused of plotting high treason! It’s already too taxing for me to deal with the Second Prince, so you tell me this, what will I possibly gain by attracting the Theocratic Empire’s ire?!”

Barus cried out urgently.

His complexion paled after spotting the zombies creeping gradually closer.

He was right about that. The First Prince of Lome, Barus Victoria, was on a losing streak right now. It’d be quite unwise for him to help the Second Crown Princess Consort in his current circumstances, that’s for sure.

However, Rose Darina still had her status, which meant that there would be plenty of uses left for her. For instance, she could seek asylum in another country and grow her forces there. She could even stake a claim in the right to inherit the throne of the Theocratic Empire, too.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the forces wanting to take advantage of such points would be tripping over themselves to get to her.

So, there was no guarantee that Barus wouldn’t do something like that either.

“Uwaaaahk!”

We looked over to the inn’s entrance.

One of the knights had been surrounded by the zombies, and the axe swung by the zombie warrior had chopped down into his shoulder, spraying a lot of blood in the air.

I guess this should be enough.

“Alright, fine. We shall discuss the rest later. For now...”

It was time to hunt these undead down.

Charlotte and her expression-less face tilted this way and that. “Should I deal with them?”

“Nah, let me do it.”

I couldn’t sense any Vampires nearby. If it’s just some measly zombies like these, then it should be a cakewalk.

I summoned a musket and let out a breath into its loading chamber.

“Oh, Gaia...”

It sure had been a while since I last prayed like this.

Without a doubt, we got really lucky with finding Barus as soon as arriving here. Maybe the dear goddess had a hand in it, silently helping us out and all that. Like how some people might say.

Although I wasn’t exactly a fan of the gods of this world...

“I express my gratitude for your love once more, and...”

...It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to say thanks at least this one time, right?

“Please grant this servant your grace to pierce through the walking dead.”

The corners of my lips curled up as I began snickering.

[Divine Aura has been used.]

[Your equipment will temporarily be upgraded.]

[Your upgraded equipment has been granted ‘Burst Fire’ skill.]

Divinity rapidly swirled within the musket’s muzzle.

I took aim at my front. My targets? The undead creatures right in front of my eyes.

Didn’t big sis Hilda say it sometime ago? That nothing was...

“Amen.”

...As entertaining as ‘hunting’ out there.