Black Death

The performance ended, and the girl received her reward.

The warmth of the nitrogen box from the hot coffee rose, and the wheat aroma of the bread lingered at the tip of her nose as Sevia picked up the bread wrapped in oil paper, taking a small bite and looking moved enough to cry.

The woman sat in front of her, watching the girl's mouth fill up and her cheeks flush with a healthy rosiness amidst the misty warmth of the coffee, chuckling softly.

"Truly strange. Did you come from another village, Sevia? I don't recall hearing that name before. Are you really from around here?"

Hearing this, Sevia shrunk her shoulders, thought for a moment, and then buried her face behind the bread, saying, "I don't remember anything. I just appeared here when I woke up....."

The woman shook her head. "Poor child. Things haven't been peaceful lately. Seeing how beautiful you are, if you aren't a lord's daughter, you must be the child of a city merchant."

"Sigh, half a month ago, the merchants who returned from the city also fell ill, making the whole village a mess. Quite a few young people in their prime caught the sickness. What a waste."

"If it weren't for the lord managing things properly, I'm afraid we wouldn't see a soul in this village right now."

Sevia didn't respond, focusing only on finishing the food in front of her.

Suddenly, a massive black rat scurried across the floor right before her eyes and leaped into Jolf's embrace.

The lord's laugh was hearty as he slapped his thigh with his large hands, showing no concern for his magnificent robes being dirtied, allowing the black rat to curl up in his arms while he gently stroked its stiff black fur.

Sevia hesitated for a long time before asking the question in her heart, "Why these rats...."

The old woman made a shushing gesture, glancing toward the lord not far away, who was still playing with the giant rat.

Several retainers were at his side, and no one noticed the movement over here.

Sevia fell silent.

"It seems you really don't remember anything, girl. These aren't ordinary rats. They are our guardian gods. Without them, we wouldn't be living this good life today," the old woman said.

"Is there some necessary connection between the two?" Sevia's eyes flickered as she continued to ask.

"Girl, you really don't know? Well, I'll have to tell you the story then."

The old woman seemed to have hit upon a favorite topic, crossing her arms as many memories of the past flashed through her eyes.

"That's a story from a long, long time ago, passed down from my grandmother's grandmother."

"They say that a long time ago, this country had nothing. It was plagued by wild beasts from the surroundings, and crops wouldn't grow in the soil. A single natural disaster could take the lives of half the kingdom."

"Then one day, the king invited a group of wizards to the palace. Those wizards were all in black robes and wore crow masks. After making preparations in the palace, they began a ritual and performed powerful magic."

"People at the time said a great wind blew through the kingdom, the entire sky turned dark, and the city shook violently. The mountains that rose up pushed the entire palace into the sky."

"Wizards?" Sevia murmured.

This was the badlands, millions of kilometers away from the nearest pan-human hive city. Aside from the surrounding primitive civilizations, how could so-called wizards have come to this country a hundred years ago?

With doubt in her heart, she continued to listen to the old woman's description, unable to tell if the other was exaggerating the scene and unable to verify it today.

What caught Sevia's attention was a casual comment: "Everyone felt their bodies suddenly become much lighter."

"After the king hosted a banquet for those wizards, he sent them away. The next day, the king issued an order forbidding the killing of rats in the city and encouraged the citizens to keep one or two in their homes, saying these rats could ensure favorable weather and a peaceful realm," the old woman said with a smile.

"From then on, would you believe it? As the rats in the city multiplied, the country truly grew stronger little by little. Those wild beasts didn't dare to invade, the crops in the fields grew taller than a man, and natural disasters haven't appeared for a hundred years."

"So you see, these rats are our guardian gods....."

After hearing this, Sevia was certain.

This was the power of a miracle.

Those wizards had brought a miracle to this country for unknown reasons, and the power of this miracle was far stronger than the miracles commonly found across the badlands.

These rats were the activation condition for the miracle, and every miracle has two sides. When the rats were fewer than a certain number, the kingdom flourished under the power of the miracle.

But now, Sevia's pupils lit up with an imperceptible deep blue glow, expanding her perception to several kilometers around her.

Whether in the mountains, the rivers, or the homes of the villagers—from the beds to the rice jars to the basements—millions of black rats were crawling and scurrying.

This miracle seemed to be on the verge of erupting.

She didn't dare imagine what kind of catastrophe would follow once a miracle that covered such a vast area, involved hundreds of thousands of people, and had grown strong over a century finally exploded.

This plague that silently took countless lives was perhaps the precursor to the miracle's eruption.

"Recently, has anything major happened in the kingdom?" Sevia suddenly spoke, interrupting the old woman's rambling.

"A major event?" The old woman frowned as if thinking of something, her expression suddenly becoming solemn. "It's General Belisa."

"General Belisa?"

"Yes, that madwoman led the army into the palace, held His Majesty hostage, and ordered the mass slaughter of rats in the city."

"To prevent her scandals from spreading, she ordered the soldiers to close the city gates, forbidding anyone from leaving."

"It must be because of her that so many people caught this strange sickness. She even specifically drove the sick into the prison, leaving them to fend for themselves."

"And she dug a giant pit outside the city said to be large enough to hold seventy thousand people. It was that madwoman who killed those patients. The people she killed are too many to burn, and the piled-up corpses are about to fill the pit."

"It's because of General Belisa's rebellion and her harming these guardian gods that the kingdom's people are suffering like this....."

These words struck Sevia's thoughts directly, and a strong sense of crisis rapidly sprouted in her heart.

No.....

That wasn't it.

That General Belisa must have noticed something, which was why she launched a coup to control the entire kingdom with an iron fist.

Whether it was closing the city gates, driving the patients into prison to isolate the source of infection, or disposing of the bodies and mass-slaughtering rats to cut off the transmission route—all of it was to control the plague ravaging the kingdom and suppress the imminent eruption of the miracle.

Sevia couldn't help but link this to everything she had seen and heard—the black spots on the corpses, the festering cheeks and swellings in the armpits of the titan race female warrior, and this plague brought by the infestation of black rats.

A term filled with the scent of death quietly surfaced in her mind.

The Black Death.