rune hunter

Chapter 2 Queensland's Sorrow

The situation in the city was ten times worse than El had expected. The suffocating breath of death permeated the city, and the streets and alleys were filled with hopeless coldness.

This is Queensland City in the north of White County, No. 15 days of the outbreak.

On the second night after the Water Prayer Festival, countless rats suddenly poured out from the sewers and dark corners, covered in blood, screaming and falling dead in the streets and alleys.Their carcasses are too numerous to clean up completely.No one imagined that there would be such a huge number of rats in such a small city.

The Church of Xuenes issued a warning through divine detection: this is most likely a sign of the coming of the epidemic!

However, the Lord Viscount of Queensland City did not take it seriously. He regarded these rats as a good sign of a good harvest in his territory.It seems that the people in their territory still have enough food, otherwise how could they raise so many rats?So he also specially ordered his tax officer to increase the tax rate for this year by [-]%.

Before the dead rats had been cleared from the streets, human corpses appeared.

The initial patients were street beggars, who usually picked food from the leftovers dumped by the nobles, and of course they didn't mind the fat meat delivered to their door.The corpses of the rats were dressed up and roasted to feast on them. These guys who had hardly seen meat dregs ate their bellies to pieces one by one.

When their bodies were found the next day, their bodies were swollen and festered, almost in the same way as those rats.

The priests visited the city and found that there were more and more sick people, and almost all of them had the same symptoms of cough and fever, but because most of them were civilians, they couldn't afford the high cost of magical treatment, so they had to hide in the The family is resigned to fate.

Many people were walking on the road, coughing while working or rushing, and suddenly fell to the ground in the dark before their eyes, and couldn't get up again.The corpses were carried out of the city one after another, and because there were too many corpses to hold the funeral, they had to be covered with white cloth and piled up in random.

When Lord Viscount, the lord, finally realized the seriousness of the situation, he ordered martial law throughout the city and mobilized the army to cooperate with the church, the epidemic was out of control.

No.15 days, here has been reduced to a dead city.

El, wearing a sackcloth mask, carefully stepped over the dead bodies under his feet.Lord Viscount once ordered the bodies of the dead to be burned. The soldiers dragged the bodies out of the city and piled them up on two hills. The billowing smoke from the burning could be clearly seen hundreds of miles away.

But when the number of dead people reached a certain number, they had to abandon this initiative, because even soldiers began to show symptoms of infection under high-intensity labor.The gate of the city had been abandoned, and the corpses thrown from here covered the entire street, and there was almost no feasible place.

Queensland is a commercial city. Its west is adjacent to virgin forests, which produce high-quality furs and timber. Caravans coming and going from the northern counties will stop here.In the past, the city was bustling with people.But now the doors of the shops on the street are half open, and the goods are piled up like a mountain but no one takes care of them. The owner of the shop may have died of illness.

In fact, the city has fallen into dead silence since a few days ago.

In the early spring, the weather has gradually warmed up. The corpses on the street began to rot, emitting an indescribable stench.El narrowed his eyes, emitting a faint blue light, and walked quickly through the streets shrouded in black mist.

There are still some survivors in the city struggling to survive, and the churches of the two churches are still shrouded in divine splendor, able to withstand the erosion of the plague.During the initial period of the outbreak, many pastors went out to treat patients, but were exhausted because of the heavy workload.Now there are less than ten pastors in the church, and most of them are cowards with little ability. It is not easy to ensure that the brilliance of the church will not dim.

After realizing that the situation was out of control, the Viscount panicked. He hid in the church with his family members, servants and soldiers, occupied all the priests, and expelled all the civilians who came to seek medical treatment.

On the street close to the church, the corpses of the patients had been cleaned up, and now all the corpses lying on the street were human cannibalism.The civilians who were caught in fear and anger once assembled to attack a church, and the result was nothing more than a different way of death.

The church of Xue Ensi, the god of agriculture, has always followed the path of natural neutrality. The church was peaceful and peaceful in the past, but now the steps are stained red by the blood of believers.In the face of the great fear between life and death, human beings always inevitably expose their ugliest and darkest side.

El smiled wryly and closed his eyes. He had seen too many deaths these days. Compared with those lingering patients, these civilians who were killed were at least happy.He is neither a saint nor a hero. It is a luxury to protect his own village. He has no thought to consider the concept of good and evil.

"Stop! Don't come over!"

In the haphazardly built fortifications at the entrance of the church, a soldier raised his spear.It's actually not safe here. He was wearing a thick mask, and his voice seemed dull and weak.

"It's me, El the Herb Deliverer!"

El picked up his waist pocket and waved it around, signaling to the soldiers on guard.

"It's you, did you bring herbs again? Come in!" Seeing the herbs in his pocket, the soldier's tone immediately became friendly.They are not allowed to live in the church like Lord Viscount, and they can easily get infected if they are not careful outside. These herbs are life-saving treasures for them.

"I won't go in. Where is the pastor that the Lord promised to send to our village last time?" El stood cautiously on the spot without moving.He also came here two days ago with herbs, hoping to invite a priest to the village.

Herbal medicine can only alleviate the disease. To control the spread of the plague, the priest must go to the small church in the village to pray to the gods and light up the gods.

The viscount accepted the herbs happily, but said that the amount of herbs was too small, and if he wanted a priest, he had to send them over every day.

Al is a kind man, but that doesn't mean he's a coward.He brought all the hunters of the village to the mountain to exchange for these herbs. Only a small half of them were left in the village, so there was no room for them to be exploited?
So he also picked up the ax that he carried with him, looked at the table, pointed at the viscount's nose and said, "You can take these if you want, don't let me take them away."If you are capable, you send someone to follow me out of the city to gather medicine, and whatever you pick is yours.You can kill me if you don't have the ability, but you have no medicine and I have no priest, let's wait for death together!

Lord Viscount immediately gave up. There are only a dozen soldiers left around him. What if they are sent out to infect the plague?This is the last hole card in his hand, and it cannot be consumed no matter what.

In the end, both sides took a step back, and the viscount asked for a certain amount of herbs before he could send the priest.But looking at the face of the guard soldier, El knew that this time it might be a waste of time.

"Where is the priest that Lord Viscount promised to send to our village?"

El stopped ten meters away from the church gate, his eyes flashing blue.Through the wooden boards of the simple fortification, several figures with weapons could be seen sneaking behind.

"You come in first, we want to check your herbs." The soldier said with a cold face.

"Check? You don't even know the name of this herb. I taught you how to identify it." El shook his head and retracted the bag he was holding. "Let's be honest, has the Viscount changed his mind again?"

The soldier blushed and was about to say something when the door of the church opened suddenly, and a petite figure in a black cloak rushed out like the wind.

"Close the door quickly! Close the door quickly! Damn it, don't let the outside air in!" The Viscount's howling sounded like killing a pig, which sounded full of energy and seemed to be very tough.

Through the gap in the door, El took a look from afar.The lord of Queensland City, who used to be majestic and shiny, was hiding behind the statue, revealing a round and bald head.Lord Viscount pays the most attention to taking care of his appearance on weekdays, but now he has a yellow face with drooping eye bags, unshaven beard and panic, like a dying pig badger.

Ignoring the pig-killing howls and the panicked soldiers behind him, the figure in a black cloak walked straight up to El, nodding slightly in salute.

"Are you the hunter who brought the herbs? I want all those calming herbs."

A girl's sweet voice came from under the hood. El was stunned for a moment, then looked back at the uninvited guest. She was petite and seemed to be only fourteen or fifteen years old. She was dressed in black. The cloak was of fine worsted cotton, which seemed to have come from a respectable family.

But at this time, any status is a joke, and everyone is equal before death.

"I'm sorry, but there are still many people in my village waiting for the priest's treatment. I must exchange these herbs for a priest." El said in a deep voice.

"You get nothing here."

The girl snorted coldly, and seemed to have suffered from Lord Viscount as well.

"Please come with me. If it's just a matter of treatment, I still have some solutions."

El looked at the church with the door closed again, and nodded involuntarily.In fact, he also knew that it would be better to believe that pigs can climb trees than to count on Lord Viscount's mercy.

Regardless of whether the girl really has a solution, he can only try it with the idea of ​​a dead horse as a living horse doctor.

"Wait! Keep the herbs!" The soldier on guard shouted. He still remembered the Viscount's order, and he must get the herbs no matter what.

El didn't look back, and didn't stop in his footsteps, turning a deaf ear to the threats coming from behind him.He is a very assertive person, and he will not waver after making a decision.

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(End of this chapter)