Swoosh!
The boat we were in slid into the sewage water, gliding into the sewers.
Staggering on the boat, I looked around the bottom village.
"Aaaah!"
"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts...!"
"Protect the gold, protect the gold...!"
The sight of the village swept by Raven's plague was horrific.
The residents scratched their plague-ridden skin, and at the same time, due to their contaminated minds, they smashed their heads on the ground. Both body and mind were collapsing.
Even worse, it was contagious.
Residents not yet infected tried to save others, only to be infected through unknown means, their bodies and minds similarly collapsing.
"Cough..."
It was literally a living hell.
But I had no time to worry about them.
"I'll chase you to the ends of hell, Ash-!"
Because Raven was hot on our heels.
The Plague Master followed us closely, transformed into a mist.
Just being swept up in his path caused the sewer water to boil with a foul stench, and the sewer pipes corroded and crumbled.
"We're done for if he catches us, love!"
"Don't worry! No matter how powerful a Nightmare Legion Commander is..."
Despite the critical situation, Sword Demon and Spear Demon calmly rowed the boat, advancing it. Sword Demon steered the boat with a fierce gaze at Raven.
"He can't navigate these bottom tunnels faster than me!"
Swoosh!
Aligned with the time of the flood, the black rainwater already filled and swirled in the sewers.
The boat was pushed into the giant sewer, swirling like a black whirlpool.
Like a leaf on a stormy sea, the boat rocked precariously.
But Sword Demon and Spear Demon expertly navigated the boat, maintaining their balance.
The speed of the swirling rainwater was terrifying. Riding its current, the boat sped forward at an incredible pace.
"I won't let you go! I won't let you go! Come to me! Your body, your mind, your soul-!"
Raven, transformed into a mist, shrieked eerily, stretching out his hand towards us.
But the boat narrowly avoided his hand, and Mason countered his close-reaching hand with a giant claw strike.
"Are you okay?!"
"Barely... I'm fine."
Mason's nails corroded and fell off, but with another effort, new ones grew back. Such is the convenience of beast transformation.
Swoosh-!
The giant sewer twisted and turned, splitting into several paths, then merging again, like a maze.
The boat continued to twist and turn, escaping the labyrinth. Raven, less agile, started to lag behind us.
"Ashhhhh-!"
As we continued to ride the boat deep into the sewer, Raven's voice grew more distant until it could no longer be heard.
"...Did we lose him?"
Sword Demon and Spear Demon kept the boat moving fast without letting their guard down, but having tangled with Nightmare Legion commanders for a long time, I felt it instinctively.
We had shaken off Raven's pursuit.
"Phew..."
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I finally checked the condition of my party members.
Thankfully, or perhaps miraculously, Salome, Mason, Sword Demon, and Spear Demon seemed relatively unscathed from the plague.
Thanks to my mental defense passive skill, [Unyielding Commander], and its wide-ranging effect against all diseases, they were able to protect themselves from Raven's plague.
But, just as my [Unyielding Commander] was breached earlier and I fell victim to his mental plague.
They too could have their minds infiltrated and be subjected to horrific hallucinations.
Thankfully, my 'All-Disease Immunity' still held up due to its high defense score, but the situation was still precarious.
'What the hell is this! He's not some kind of Pokémon evolution...'
I gritted my teeth thinking about Raven who had entered his own hidden phase alone.
At that moment, Sword Demon and Spear Demon, who had been silently rowing, spoke up.
"It seems we've shaken off the pursuit. Now we just need to make it to the surface."
"Just sit tight. We'll be out in no time."
Looking at their backs at the prow, I hesitantly asked.
"What will happen to the people in the village?"
Before escaping the bottom village, I saw it clearly.
The people of the village suffering from Raven's plague baptism.
What will happen to them?
"..."
The two silent robbers reluctantly answered.
"All our villagers have received the curse of immortality. We cannot die."
"So, if the plague doesn't heal, we will suffer until the end of the world..."
I was horrified by their matter-of-fact tone.
"How can you say that so calmly?!"
"What's the difference?"
Sword Demon looked back at me with a smirk.
"Do you think life searching for gold in these depths for five hundred years is enjoyable and happy?"
"..."
"Either way, it's the same as living a life worse than death. Just one more plague added to the mix."
Spear Demon took over the conversation.
"You might not know, guest, but we have experienced things far worse than this plague."
"Worse things...?"
"Five hundred years ago, when the Lake Kingdom suddenly sank beneath the lake. What do you think happened to the people?"
Spear Demon stared intently at the black water filling and flowing through the sewer.
"They drowned in the sunken city."
"..."
"But since everyone was under the curse of immortality, no one could die. Unable to breathe, clutching their painful lungs filled with water, endlessly suffering in the water."
I thought about the scale of the Lake Kingdom I had seen from above.
A city-state nearly the size of the Imperial Capital, New Terra.
If such a large city had completely sunk beneath the lake, how many...
"The Demon King made us an offer as we fell into that living hell."
Sword Demon continued.
"He said he'd let us escape this painful reality. That he'd let us sleep peacefully. In exchange, the nightmares we dream would be his."
"..."
"The vast majority of the Lake Kingdom's residents surrendered to the Demon King then. And... wrapped in black cocoons, they fell, dreaming nightmares for the Demon King."
The human-shaped black cocoons I had seen continuously since entering the depths of the Lake Kingdom.
They were all... once people living in the Lake Kingdom.
"Then, what about the survivors who didn't turn into black cocoons...?"
"We endured. For a hundred years, until the water drained from the Lake Kingdom."
A hundred years.
Enduring the agony of drowning, for a hundred years?
"We who have endured a hundred years of drowning will not succumb to this mere plague."
"..."
"We immortals have our own way of living. So, don't worry about us. After you safely get out of here... just bring loads of gold."
Sword Demon and Spear Demon refocused on steering the boat.
"..."
I clenched my fist, looking at their backs, and then, gathering my resolve... I spoke.
"Let's go back."
"...?"
"What?"
Everyone seated in the small boat looked at me. I said more forcefully.
"Let's go back. Let's go back and defeat this plague... defeat Raven."
The one who reacted with a stunned face was Salome.
"What nonsense are you spouting, Ash! That guy broke through your mental barrier! Even I, a Succubus Queen, couldn't overcome that barrier, but he did!"
"..."
"If it were only a mental barrier, I wouldn't say a word! But the essence of that monster is a plague that decays the flesh! You might have been lucky to eat that fruit and gain resistance to the plague, but if by some chance it breaks through, you'll taste the true torment of hell!"
Mason also vehemently opposed with a hoarse voice.
"I know you are usually reckless, but this time, I just can't understand it."
"..."
"Even if we go back... How do you plan to defeat the plague legion commander with just five of us, when it would be a tough fight even with an army?"
I lifted my tired eyes to look at the people on the raft.
I'm not saying I don't want to run away right this instant. The illusion I had just experienced at the hands of that thing was truly horrifying.
The last thing I wanted to see, the deaths of the comrades I had lost. If I saw something like that again, my mental fortitude might not hold.
But I am someone who aims for the true ending. A player who has to plan out until the end of this game.
"We have to defeat it here."
Raven's plague has evolved in a grotesque direction.
Already a damn nuisance for potentially causing permanent injuries to our allies and spreading decay and contamination throughout the entire city if it invaded Crossroad, it has now become an even more terrifying entity that damages the mind.
If that plague were to leak out of the Lake Kingdom.
Crossroad, no, the entire world... might fall into ruin in an instant.
While it is still here in the Lake Kingdom.
We must eradicate it before it seriously increases its followers.
"...I have a strategy to defeat it."
Even though it consumed a strange evolution stone and caused a mutation on its own.
If its essence is still the plague legion commander Raven, I have a way to defeat it. A method of extermination I established during the game.
"It's actually harder if we have more people. A small, elite group is ideal."
The plague legion's damage exponentially increases with the number of people on our side.
As few as possible... honestly speaking.
"...It's ideal to form a party with those who can be sacrificed, who won't mind being infected by the plague."
I spoke frankly as I looked around at the party members.
Immortals who cannot die, the Sword Demon and Spear Demon.
Mason, a half-human, half-beast on the brink of death.
Salome, who I would have to defeat eventually anyway... she'll probably run away using [Escape Reality] if things go south.
With this party composition, I can deploy them in the operation to defeat Raven without any guilt.
I was blunt about it - I'm dragging you all into a suicide mission.
Salome, who had been quietly listening to the story, looked at me with trembling eyes.
"We might be okay with it. But Ash... what about you?"
"..."
I sighed and nodded.
"Raven's plague, once he is defeated, will disappear entirely."
While the damage already inflicted cannot be healed, the plague itself will disappear. No matter how widely it has spread, it will lose its source and power and vanish.
"That's because the basis of the plague is Raven's malice."
"..."
"So, I just need to kill him before I die."
Salome seemed astounded and tried to say more, but I turned away.
The Sword Demon and Spear Demon, who had stopped the boat, were glaring at me with fierce eyes.
"Quite the funny guest we have here."
"Why do you think we would follow your orders?"
I silently took out a piece of paper from my pocket and showed it to them.
The oath we had written and shared with each other back then.
- The Desperation Homeward Band will assist Ash until he escapes the dungeon. Once the dungeon escape is successful, Ash will pay half of his wealth to the Desperation Homeward Band.
That's right.
It's not about 'helping to escape.' It's about 'until the escape.'
Whatever I ask them to do. Whatever happens. They have to help me.
"You see the seal here? You two, you must cooperate with me until I escape."
"What the hell?!"
"This damn thing...!"
The Sword Demon and Spear Demon hastily checked their own copies of the oath and clutched their heads as if they had been struck.
I gazed at them and began to speak.
"When the Lake Kingdom was submerged, the other survivors gave up on reality. They chose to escape into nightmares rather than suffer eternal torment in life."
"..."
"But you people from the bottom town chose a reality even more terrible than nightmares. Why?"
The Sword Demon and Spear Demon exchanged glances, hesitating, then spoke,
"...To exist."
"To become human."
They crumpled the oath and tucked it away again, continuing,
"That's why we spent our whole lives gathering gold."
"Spinning nightmares in a cocoon for a demon lord wasn't our dream."
"I feel the same."
I nodded.
"I still want to remain human."
A little while ago. When I last looked back at the bottom town.
I locked eyes with the little guy I shared the fruit with.
He quietly waved at me.
His body stained red, being consumed by the plague, yet... he waved like he was bidding farewell to a departing friend. With a peaceful face.
...If I fail to deal with Raven in time.
The villagers, and that kid, might writhe in agony for hundreds of years, their minds and bodies eaten away by the plague.
"Sigh."
I exhaled and slowly rose to my feet.
I am scared.
Of the nightmare Raven showed me.
Of all the people I've caused to die. This guilt weighing down on my shoulders.
But, however - I know something even scarier.
- Bro!
I could have saved him.
I could have reached out.
The small life I turned away from and ignored.
I know painfully well that the regret of missing an opportunity without even trying to fight is greater than the regret after fighting and losing.
'I want to save them.'
The people within my reach.
Still, I want to save them.
So, no matter how arduous, horrific, and painful this battle is -
I will not back down.
"Let's go."
Standing upright, straightening my back.
Gathering all the courage I might have left.
I declared,
"...To kill the monster and protect the people."
Hoping that the flag I once abandoned is still within me.