"...you. Who the hell are you?""
Dolores asked in an uncertain tone.
The being who had suddenly appeared one day and warned him of the misfortune of the Quavadis family.
A lonely man, dressed in strange clothes, but with a clear and pure spirit.
"Who are you, and how do you know all these things?"
Dolores's voice began to tremble.
Normally, among the guests who come to the House to feed themselves, there are always those who are well versed in the ways of the world.
But few of them could predict the future with such accuracy.
Even more so, they have the distinction of being early warners of an epidemic that hasn't even been reported yet.
Naturally, Dolores and Mozgus couldn't help but wonder about the identity of this strange visitor to the Quavadis family.
"… … Ooh, great! Doesn't the saintess ask? Who are you?"
Mozgus also asks, dangerously fiddling with a small teapot that looks like it will be crumpled at any moment.
It's like he's pressuring me to respect the saintess's authority, but he's really just curious.
Dolores and Mozgus both look at Vikir's face, their eyes shining.
In response, Vikir answered briefly.
"Hound of the Night."
At that, both priests' expressions become slightly subtle.
"…Night hound. That's a rather ominous name."
"Even when you give yourself a nickname, you wear it as if it were a piece of clothing. How very blasphemous."
Dolores and Mozgus snorted.
Vikir remained silent after that, saying nothing else.
Naturally, Mozgus hurried things along.
"…Whatever is going on… ...everything he said is possible, Night Hound. We need to investigate the plague as soon as possible, report back to our patriarch, and take measures at the clan level."
There was a sense of urgency in the chapel.
Dolores formally asked Archbishop Mozgus to organize a crusade to relieve the plague.
She also formally reported to her biological father, Cardinal Humbert, whose monastery was not far away.
Today, Dolores' decision would reach the ears of Lord Nabokov I, patriarch of the Quavadis and Pope of the Church of Runes.
It was a big deal.
Mozgus scurried off to tell the saint's will.
Meanwhile, Dolores was staring at Vikir with wide-eyed wonder.
Vikir, in turn, met Dolores's gaze calmly.
Vikir did not bother to tell the holy woman the story of House Baskerville and House Morg.
To do so would reveal that the Red Death was first released in the waters of the Red and Black Mountains.
In fact, the Baskervilles and Morg have the most to gain if the Red Death is released into the waters of the Red and Black Mountains.
The barbarian tribes play a crucial role in the Red and Black Mountain ecosystem, and the loss of these largely predatory creatures would cause subordinate demons to overpopulate, leading to monster waves and a spike in civilian casualties.
Vikir recalled the past.
Before the regression, over 40% of the barbarians had been exterminated as the Red Death gradually spread.
This caused the demon population to skyrocket, and the political influence of the Morg and Baskervilles on the border grew.
Hugo used this political influence to grow his family's power even further, and once again, many hounds were lost.
Vikir was one of them.
Well, whatever.
Keeping the Balak alive is all about getting revenge on Leviathan the Extremist and Bourgeois the Tycoon, which in turn is about getting revenge on your comrades who died in Baskerville the Ironblade.
It's a chain of events, by design.
Vikir closed his eyes in silence, contemplating what was to come.
Meanwhile. Saint Dolores stared at Vikir as he did so.
"...A lost puppy, exhausted and lonely."
Why do these thoughts come to mind for a man who calls himself a hound?
Why did the man who had brought down the mighty Mozgus and the paladins under his control look so small and pitiful?
He smelled of blood, of the wailing of a broken soul, and the sound of blood.
Sorrow, hatred, and loneliness. And a man walking a thorny ascetic path, carrying all these burdens alone.
He had the aura of a prophet or a seeker.
Suddenly, I remembered the words he had muttered in his deep throat.
"Theology is essentially a process of understanding human beings, so this is inevitable."
There is no doubt that the person who knows this passage of the old scripture, which even the theology experts do not know well, is not a Rune follower.
He must be a follower of the runes, practicing the doctrine on the front lines of suffering, in the lowest, most intense places.
'There's no way he could remember and recite those words otherwise.'
At least that's what Dolores thought.
She is a young, immature sixteen-year-old girl with the qualities of a saintess who can read the souls of others.
Is that why? Her misconceptions about Vikir were gaining weight.
But whether she does or not, Vikir is merely waiting for the appearance of the holy water that can extinguish the Red Death.
"...."
"...."
A man and a woman look into each other's faces with different thoughts.
The tea that hadn't even been touched was quietly cooling down.
* * *
Later.
Vikir hurried to the slums of St. Mecca.
Saint Dolores, Inquisitor Mozgus, and dozens of paladins and priests followed.
"Is there really a plague in this place?"
Dolores said, out of breath as she climbed the steep stairs.
The paladins escorting her seemed to be in disbelief as well.
But there was no hesitation in Vikir's gait as he ran forward like a scout at the head of the pack.
Finally, landing on a high roof high above the city of Dahl, Vikir glanced from chimney to chimney.
Despite the fact that the weather wasn't too cold, the chimneys of several houses were wreathed in smoke from wood-burning stoves.
Vikir looked for houses with smoke rising from their chimneys.
As it turned out, some of the houses with smoke rising from their chimneys were already experiencing an outbreak of the Red Death.
The first symptoms of the Red Death are usually chills and fever.
This is followed by intense pain throughout the body, followed by vomiting and diarrhea.
Patients shudder at the sight of red spots that slowly appear on their skin.
The chills naturally lead them to shove firewood into the chimney.
But just because there was no smoke rising from the chimney didn't mean there were no patients.
In the slums, many families didn't have enough firewood, and most of them were wrapped in dirty blankets to keep the chills at bay.
Dolores wept at the sight of their suffering.
"Alas, poor people, do not worry. Rune's great love will heal you."
Without hesitation, she touched the bodies of the plague victims, saying prayers and blessings.
Vikir stood still behind her, assessing their condition.
"Thank goodness there are no children."
It was worth it to scare the children at the well. There were no children among the patients.
Because Vikir had come in such a hurry, they were all early cases with only mild pain.
They were all primary cases, infected by drinking water, and secondary cases, infected by the saliva or feces of primary cases.
The disease had to be stopped early, while there were no deaths.
Saint Dolores gathered the patients in the central square and prayed to God.
[Light of my life, flame of my life, my sins, my soul, look down upon the young and poor gathered here...]
The saint recited the prayer in a clear voice.
And then.
A single tear fell from Dolores's eye and rolled down her cheek.
She looked so vulnerable, so holy, so somehow sublime.
It was the look of a beautiful girl, but without the slightest hint of lust or lustfulness.
Soon, a single tear, broken by contact with the floor, began to work miracles.
…Pow!
It emitted a white, holy light and instantly wiped away the red stains from the bodies of the patients in front of her.
With a single drop of her tears and a single line of prayer, five or six patients were freed from the red death.
"Oooh! Thank you, saint! Thank you!"
"You are my savior."
"I'm healed, I'm cured, my God, it's a miracle!"
The villagers, who had been shivering with chills and gagging just before, jump up and jump as if they hadn't suffered from a plague.
Dolores smiles as wide as she's ever cried when she sees her patients regain their strength.
And there was a man behind her who stared at her smile.
"That's it. That's what I need.
It was Vikir, hoping for a miracle from the holy water.