Aurivy knew just how bad this situation was. The disease that the Plague Doctor specialized in was one that had, at one point, wiped out several cities in a row, bringing a nation to its knees. And this was back when the average total level of civilians was only two hundred! With this disease growing more deadly the higher the level of its host, and the current average level more than twice what it used to be, she could only guess at how horrible it would be now.
However, at the same time, this was a tricky opponent to fight. Aside from killing every innocent civilian that read his story, was there another way to cancel the effects of the life story?
“What if I used my domains?” Lena asked with a firm expression. “If I create a new divine ability, I should be able to erase or alter a single memory on a large scale.”
Aurivy shook her head at that. “Absolutely not! The only way that you’d know the exact memory to target is if you read the story yourself. And, if you did, you wouldn’t be able to erase it from your own mind, because you would need to keep it as the targeting variable.”
Lena gave a small smile at that. “There are two of me. You can afford to lose one if the enemy is–” She began, before being cut off and stumbling back with wide eyes, a red handprint suddenly appearing on her cheek.
“We already had to deal with that kind of talk from Tsubaki in the past!” Aurivy narrowed her eyes at Lena. “I don’t care if there’s one of you, two of you, or a hundred of you. Don’t even think about just sacrificing your life because we can ‘afford’ it. If we have to get to that point, we’ve already lost.”
Lena’s eyes went wide at that, and she nodded dumbly. She wasn’t used to people valuing her life like that. As a ninja, her goal was to complete the mission as efficiently as possible. She simply had to weigh the value of the current mission against the value of other missions that she would take in the future. As such, given that there was still another Lena to accept future missions, that had effectively made one of them expendable.
She lowered her head, though couldn’t help as a small smile crept over her lips. This only reminded her why she chose to serve the Keeper, with no desire to return to her old life. “Got it… sorry.”
“As long as you understand that.” She huffed, before looking around. “Does anyone else have any less self-destructive ideas?”
Lifre raised a hand, quickly waving it. “Oh, me! What if we used a memetic script? The writer would need to read the story, but the script would wipe the story from their mind. After that, we just need to make the others that have read the story read the script, and boom! No more plaguebearer!”
Aurivy’s eyes sparkled for a moment, before thinking it over. “That… might have worked before. However, the internet is being automatically censored of memetic scripts now. Since it’s a device that we obtained from another Keeper, we still haven’t managed to completely figure out how it works yet. Even if we post the script online to target those same individuals, it would automatically be removed.”
Lifre’s body seemed to deflate at that. “Oh… thought I did a smart, there.”
Aurrivy offered her a consoling smile, before Lena spoke up again. “I might have an idea.” She said, but Aurivy quickly turned to glare at her.
“If you suggest that you are expendable again…”
“N-No, no.” Lena quickly shook her head, waving her hands in front of herself. “No, it’s something different this time. I promise.”
Sirens rang through the streets of Gandor as a man with shaggy black hair chuckled in an alleyway. This new world is just perfect. He thought to himself with a giddy tone. He had no idea how long he had been imprisoned in that eternally dark void, left with nothing but his own thoughts. However, given the state of the world, he could tell that it was a very long time. Centuries, maybe even more.
Now, he was acutely aware that he was as frail as a child in the current age, but that suited him fine. The stronger the people of this world were, the better it would be for him.
The man, Castor Drake, looked at the exit of the alley, where a black puddle lingered, bubbling with acrid smoke. Next to the puddle was a set of clothes, the mark of Castor’s latest victim. According to the speed of decay, the average person of this age should be between level four and five hundred. Additionally, there are a large number of people who seem to no longer possess physical bodies.
Castor had found this out when he infected a young elven woman after first being freed. Rather than dissolving into a puddle like those with flesh bodies, her body turned black and seemed to break apart into ashes that dissolved in midair. This disease targets the system, so it appears that energy beings are still affected properly.
However, there were those that he needed to be wary of, specifically gods related to either disease or healing. These individuals would be able to counter his disease rather easily.
The method that Castor used to infect people was actually quite mundane. He himself was a carrier of the level plague, among many other diseases. Ever since his birth, Castor had never once suffered from any disease, though he had no idea as to why at first. It was only after he entered the field of medicine that he realized that the diseases targeted him like everyone else.
It wasn’t that his immune system was so strong as to combat the diseases without symptoms. Rather, there was something strange about the diseases that entered his body. They would immediately fall dormant, incapable of affecting him in the slightest. As soon as the disease left his body, it would immediately become active again.
Fascinated by this discovery, Castor had devised a special energy after much research. This energy was one that many would term as moronic or self-destructive, as it enhanced the diseases within his body while also causing them to reproduce while still dormant.
Thus, he became a walking biological weapon. Of course, that wasn’t his original goal. Originally, he wanted to do this in order to create a large amount of the most dangerous diseases in a safe environment. He believed that doing this would give him the chance to study the diseases and find cures.
However, anyone that came close to him would die within a week, their bodies rotting from the inside. The public labeled him as a menace, and many even tried to kill him from afar.
That was when a seed of hatred began to form in him. The ignorant fools did not understand the value of his research. Had they left him alone, nobody would have been hurt. It was their fault for treading where they should not have.
As the hatred grew, Castor began to actively spread his plagues. The world had condemned him, so he would overturn the world. That thought inevitably led to him remembering the Keeper, the almighty being that governed creation. The twisted researcher within him couldn’t help but question… what would happen if such a powerful being were to be exposed to the level plague?
The urge to experiment swelled up within him, and he began to look for ways to find the Keeper in person. It was difficult to get into the Sky Citadel without being chosen as a representative of a race, and there were only a few moments when the Keeper would leave its protection. Perhaps he could have infected the kitsune maid that served him, and allowed her to take the disease back to her lord?
Tsubaki’s travel patterns were a bit easier to predict, though she still didn’t leave very frequently. He was in the midst of planning to intercept her one day when Terra had found him. Her expression had been one of cold fury, her divinity rampaging in the air around her. She explained that she couldn’t descend for long, but there was more than enough time to deal with someone like him.
Although he tried every disease in his arsenal, nothing worked on her. It was as if she wasn’t part of the world’s system. He could only assume that that was because she was a member of the Greater Pantheon, or maybe something special about Terra herself.
Either way, she calmly created a leatherbound book, and began to write in it. As she did, Castor felt his soul tremble. After she had finished the first page, characters began to appear on his skin as black markings, and his body was sucked into the book.
That was the last that Castor knew of the world, before being trapped in an endless void of nothing. He was left to seethe in his hatred, his mind unable to find rest.
Now that he was free, he was going to make sure that nothing got in his way again. He had already learned that he couldn’t die when one of the guards decapitated him after he first awoke and infected those nearby. His body simply flashed, emerging from the book once again.
I was reborn because they read the book, and I am reborn from the book when I die. He thought to himself. There were a few things that this could mean. Most likely, he would never die, so long as people kept reading his book. He didn’t know if they suffered his deaths or not, so he had found the ‘internet’ where the contents of the book had been uploaded, and began to look for other areas where he could post it.
Although the internet was a new and unusual thing for him, he was a man of science. It had only taken him a few minutes to understand enough to post the file on multiple forums. After that, he took the book and left.
“Castor Drake?” A voice called out to him from the other end of the alley. He turned, seeing a young kitsune with short blonde hair that ended in purple tips. She smiled sweetly at him, beginning to approach. Was this the descendant of Tsubaki? His eyes narrowed, increasing the spread of the diseases around himself.
Yet, she continued to walk closer, as if the diseases meant nothing to her. Even the strongest plague of the current age, that which could decimate gods, did not phase her in the slightest. This caused Castor to retreat back a step, stepping in the viscous puddle of his last victim.
“Heheh~! I was right, you’re Castor!” She said, hopping closer. There was no way that she hadn’t been infected with his diseases at this range. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to lock you up for a little while~.”
“How… how are you not dead!?” Castor exclaimed in shock, seeing the girl retrieving a golden box with one hand, and a pale crystal sphere in the other. “Even an avatar of a god would die in the face of these diseases!”
Lena tilted her head with a smile. “The only disease I really have to worry about is the level plague, right? Right now, I don’t have a level at all! Neither do you!” She said, and Castor couldn’t understand what she was talking about. “I’ve cut off the system in this area, so that disease won’t work for now~.”
As she said that, the golden box in her hand began to expand, opening to wrap around Castor’s body. This was the plan that she had come up with. She would nullify the level plague with a system null sphere, and then trap Castor. As long as he was carrying the book with him, that would be enough to deal with him while they dealt with clearing the memories of his story from those who read it.
Of course, Lena was still infected with the level plague, and would immediately die as soon as the null zone was removed. However, she could cleanse the disease by transforming into Udona, so she wasn’t concerned.
Alright! My part is done! It’s up to you now, Aurivy! Are there any other bad guys that had their stories spread?
Hearing Lena’s report, Aurivy let out a mental sigh of relief. There are a few. The Plague Doctor was the most dangerous, though. There’s one other group that we’re having problems deciding how to handle, though… they’re not really strong, given the time period they came from, but they figured out the mechanic behind the books too quickly, and found a dangerous loophole.
Oh? What happened? Lena asked curiously.
Seven of them were released together, and once they understood how the books worked, they immediately began reading each other’s stories. Terra thinks that might have formed a chain between them. Unless they all die at the exact same time, they’ll all always have at least one person to anchor them to the world.
That’s cheating! Lena shouted in her mind.
Yeah… after that, they immediately split up, and shuffled their books amongst each other. So, it has suddenly become a lot harder to kill them all at once. Aurivy replied with a sigh. It would be great if Dale could just smite them while time was frozen and be done with it, but they weren’t technically living creatures. They were only embodiments of Terra’s divine power, imitating the lives they once had. That would be like wanting to smite a mountain or a lake.
