Er Mu - Release that Witch

In the face of such power, no one will be able to stop us. Wealthy businessmen? High-ranking nobles? When facing death, they will all be equally willing to abandon everything in exchange for the opportunity to live.

Returning to the rest area in the back hall, a clergyman hurriedly came up to him and whispered in his ear: “Your Reverence, a street rat came in and reported that he had discovered an important matter.”

“Regarding what?”

“Something about the refugees of the Eastern Region, the concrete news he only wants to say when meeting you face to face.” The clergyman immediately answered.

According to the Church’s instructions given beforehand, Ferry should make full use of the demonic plague and its antidote, and gather as many new followers for Hermes as possible. Therefore, winning over the refugees was also a part of his plan, but compared to the citizens of King’s City their importance wasn’t as high. He had intended to wait another two or three days, and let half of the homeless refugees die before coming out to treat and cure the rest, which would make them feel as if their King had abandoned them. As a result, within the whole of King’s City, 90 % of its population would become the Church’s followers. With this kind of merit and the previous order for the Battle for the Throne, would perhaps be sufficient to take another step down the road to the rank of Bishop.

At least in regards to rewarding the people for their merits, the Church has always been very fair, never considering someone’s blood relationship or former identity. As long as someone showed outstanding performance, they would be promoted.

What kind of severe problem could have arisen within the refugees?

Suppressing his doubts to the bottom of his heart, he quietly said, “Alright, just take him to the secret room, I will join him soon.”

“Yes, Your Reverence.”

Taking off the ceremony priest robe, Ferry grasped a flexible plate armor out of the closet and put it on, and then covered it over with a loose coat. Afterward, he stepped in front of a silver mirror for a little reorganization before he left for the secret room.

Stepping into the chamber and analyzing the situation, the priest saw that the “informant’s” hair was disorderly, and his complexion was sallow and skinny, allowing him to see his bones in his arms. However, what was strange was that on his whole body there was not a trace of the black spots or any other symptoms.

The moment the opposite party saw the priest enter, he immediately went on his knees and announced, “Your Reverence, my name is Needle, and I have important information to tell you.”

“You may speak.”

“But…” He looked up, drifted with his eyes to the other two people accompanying them in the secret room, indicating that he was hesitant to speak in front of outsiders.

“They don’t matter, they are Priest Shattrath, my right-hand,” Ferry said. “And the other one is Grandma Hera, who is responsible for safeguarding and taking care of this secret room, almost never leaving this place.”

“Then I will speak but regarding the promised…”

“The Holy Elixir is here,” Ferry said, impatiently pulling out the blue vial. “As long as your information is valuable, I will, of course, heal you from the evil spirits.”

“Your Reverence, I assure you that this information is absolutely astonishing,” Needle proclaimed and raised his head. “Some people are continuously transporting the fugitives away, and they have empty ships everywhere on the canal, all this I have personally seen with my own eyes. I fear that within a few days they will be able to bring away all the refugees.”

“They are taking away those patients infected with the black spots?” Ferry frowned. “Are you sure you haven’t misread the situation?”

Previously he had already received the message that a fleet was transporting the refugees of the Eastern Region away, but something like this was quite normal. Those nobles always love it when the territory of another noble is stricken by natural disaster, this time it will allow them to plunder some workers for a very low price. Anyway, now that the demonic disease is running amuck those idiots will naturally be punished by God. However, now… after they know that the plague has infected the people, how can they still shelter the refugees?

“No, they are in possession of a cure for the demonic disease! After those mercenaries gave the patients a bag with some strange water to drink, the dark spots on their body quickly disappeared. Furthermore, they also claimed that they are coming from the Western Region, and as long as the refugees are willing to come along with the fleet, they would receive food, shelter, and remuneration for the work they have done.” Needle’s eyes paused on Ferry’s, “But the most astonishingly is that these people are working together with a witch!”

“What did you just say?”

“What I said is absolutely correct, Your Reverence!” Needle shouted, “I mixed in with the ranks of the fugitives and embarked on a ship. In the beginning, I hadn’t seen anything, but then somebody jumped from the ship, and the mercenaries on shore began the pursue him. Before long I noticed that there was a shadow circling in the sky, but it wasn’t a bird, it was a witch flying in the air. I was so scared that I did not dare to move. I waited until the ship had sailed several kilometers and I couldn’t detect a trace of the witch, before I took the next opportunity and dived into the water to escape. I almost needed a day to come back. “Needle rubbed his hands,” Your Reverence, do you believe now that this information is worth a bottle of Holy Elixir in exchange?

“Wait a minute, you said that they have a way to cure the demonic plague and that you also have drunk it, in other words, does that mean you were previously sick?” Ferry asked.

“Uh… That’s right, but didn’t you say, as long as I have valuable information to offer, I can…” Needle grinned awkwardly, revealing a mouth of uneven yellow teeth.

So that’s the reason, he doesn’t want to use it but instead wants to take this bottle of Holy Elixir to the black market to sell it, after pondering for a moment Ferry asked again, “How many people does the other side have? Are you sure they were mercenaries from a caravan? “

“They assuredly were, they have no armor, no horses, and their weapons were a kind of wooden spear. As for their numbers…” Needle went with his hand through his hair, “Not more than a hundred people, at most!”

“To whom did belonged the ships?”

“This… I cannot tell, most of the ships haven’t hung any flag, and even in case they had hung one up, I wouldn’t be able to recognize them. But the mercenaries personally said that the fleet was leaving for the Western Region… ah… yes, he also mentioned that the recruitment was for the Lord of Border Town.” Needle racked his brain to recall his words, “he was currently in the process of reclaiming the land, and thus the Lord needs a large workforce. That’s all I can remember.”

“Well, this was indeed a crucial news you had to offer,” the priest took a deep breath and pulled a bottle of blue liquid from his pocket and threw it towards Needle, “Take it with you, it is yours.”

“Th-thank you, Your Reverence!” Flustered the latter caught the bottle, but suddenly his whole body began to tremble, and his eyes became huge. Only seeing a slender dagger sticking out of his neck, sending out a faint coldness, with the old and senile room manager suddenly standing behind him.

The grannie retrieved her dagger, and let him fall to the ground. She then picked up the medicine bottle, rubbed it on her body to clean it and handed it back to the priest.

“Well done,” Ferry nodded, “Now drag him out and dispose his corpse.”

“Yes,” she answered with a husky voice, dragging the corpse without any effort, much unlike an old woman.

“Your Reverence, do you believe that he was telling the truth?” After the manager had left, Priest Shattrath asked, “That the caravan and the witches are working together, and if I remember correctly wasn’t it the 4th Prince, Roland Wimbledon who got assigned to Border Town?

“Whether it is true or not we will only know after we send someone to examine it,” Ferry said with a serious expression. “But I think the possibility that he lied to us isn’t likely. As long as we send some eyes on top of the city walls to take a look, we should be able to notice the situation of the refugees. So if he wanted to fabricate a lie in exchange for the Holy Elixir, at least he would have taken one which would have been harder to verify.”

“I’ll send someone to review the situation right away,” the priest bowed.

“Go ahead and investigate the information, promptly come back afterwards and report to me.”

Ferry slowly walked to the table, sat down, and started playing with the Elixir in his hands. These refugees had already been in the bag. After all, to control their movements and prevent them from fleeing from the demonic plague by themselves, he had dispatched the street rats from the Dreamland organization, and made them mix in with the refugees. There they should spread the news that the Church would soon come to save them. As long as they could endure for a few more days not only would they receive God’s redemption, there was also the possibility that they would be accepted by the Church, and become a citizen of King’s City. As for those rats, they were mostly already infected themselves, and because of this, they wouldn’t spare any effort to exchange for the Holy Elixir.

In case the information given by the rat was correct, it meant that this group of people had at least started transport the refugees away since yesterday. Moreover, according to their posture, it doesn’t like they would abandon the transportation, which was equivalent to severely hindering his own plans. Even more grave, it appeared that they were working together with a witch since Ferry was convinced that only a witch would be capable of curing the demonic plague.

“Your Reverence, the body has been taken care of.” The old woman walked back into the secret room and cautiously closed the door without making any noise, “Also, have some fallen really shown themselves?”

“Most likely,” Ferry lowered his voice, “and there are maybe more than one.” For a moment he paused, “Furthermore, since no stranger is here, there is no need for you to pretend to be ugly, There is no stranger here, seeing you like this is detestable.”

“Yes.”

She bent down into a crab stance, followed by her whole body began to issue a crackling and rattling sound as if all the bones in her body began to rub in general. Followed by a rapid grows of her stature, in the blink of an eye her gray hair turned black, and her skin that was full of wrinkles and loose gradually began to tightening again. Becoming stretched taut but flexible once again, as if her body’s time had flowed backward. When she finally straighten her body, she had turned into a beautiful and enchanting woman.

“That’s much better,” Ferry smiled with satisfaction, “If I remember correctly, this fellow… had been hanged at the gate, right?”

“Yes, my Lord,” she nodded, “Of the four she is the one you spent the most time with.”

“You really… know how to please me,” the priest smacked his lips, “But I expect that Shattrath will be back soon, there isn’t enough time.” He suppressed his desire, “Furthermore, you still have to deal with the fallen ones.”

“Give them to me, my Lord,” she vowed while bowing. “I won’t let any of the fallen go.”

A quarter of an hour later, Shattrath returned to the secret room. He first looked at the witch, and then turned to the Ferry to report: “Your Reverence, outside of the western city many shadow are indeed missing. But within the dark I was unable to see it clearly, so I sent some subordinates carrying torches out to circle the area, only to discover that many tents were absolutely empty. However, there was no trace of flames to see from the dock area, so I cannot tell if the caravan is still stationed there, as for the witch… ”

“No need to investigate,” Ferry interrupted him, “Since the other side dares to transport the fugitives away, the intelligence provided by the rat shouldn’t be wrong. This way, we know that their group has at least two witches with them, one that can fly and one who can eliminate the epidemic. Especially the latter, is a great threat to my plan, so we certainly must stop them. For now, they are still only treating the people outside the city, but if that witch were to come into the city and openly treat those who are infected, our own propaganda, claiming the Holy Elixir as their only solution will have become a joke!”