Bear School Astartes

Cassandra needed to focus on dealing with the One-eyed People, while Phoebe’s task regarding the plague was taken over by Lann.

Lann accepted the task allocation very quickly.

Having just arrived in this strange world, doing something to save people was definitely better than starting to kill without knowing why.

Once he had a target, Lann immediately took action.

Kefalonia Island wasn’t particularly large, although Lann didn’t yet have enough local currency, namely Drachma circulated from Athens, to buy a mount.

But with the daily activity efficiency using the [Light Body Skill], he quickly reached Kausos.

”Tsk tsk tsk...”

Upon arriving at the edge of this village, Lann couldn’t help but click his tongue.

”Their actions are really significant.”

In contrast to the typical Aegean Sea environment of Kefalonia Island.

Bright wildflowers, wild olive wood, and lemon trees were nowhere to be seen.

Low shrubs and lichens had also disappeared, revealing bare soil and blackened ash marks.

It seemed that the black smoke produced was from burning too many things, covering the sky above Kausos, even making the bright sunlight of the Aegean Sea appear dim and gloomy here.

After hearing Phoebe’s brief description, Lann had anticipated the situations he might encounter upon arriving at this small village.

The worst scenario was seeing a group of bewildered and desperate patients, kneeling and praying to the statues of the gods or directly to the heavens, without any medical knowledge or means, and running around in despair as the fear of the plague spread.

But what lay before him now, although dilapidated and dark, was not the worst he had imagined.

——This village had been ’cleaned’ by some people who had at least a bit of medical knowledge.

In ancient Greece, where knowledge wasn’t clear and developed, such ’cleaning’ was by no means gentle or merciful.

But this was the way human settlements fought the plague.

Isolating the infected to ensure the safety of the broader population and regions outside.

”It seems that in Ancient Greece... at least on Kefalonia Island, they indeed have some people with medical knowledge.”

Lann muttered to himself.

Mentos chimed in his agreement.

”Yes, sir, at least the hygiene conditions in the human settlements on this island are better than in many cities of the Magic World. At least we aren’t stepping on anything other than animal dung on the roads.”

Lann silently shook his head; Mentos’s words sparked his imagination, leading to some rather unpleasant mental images.

Kausos wasn’t large either; amidst the blackened land, about several rows of houses were burned dark.

In Ancient Greece, civilian houses were mostly clay smeared on stones, and the small wooden structures in them were often the most valuable part of a house.

Due to the fragmented land and lack of fertility in the archipelago’s geography, these pieces of wood grown to a certain size were high-value commodities.

Even at the brink of fleeing or relocating, most homeowners would choose to dismantle their wooden doors and run with this most valuable possession.

But in the aftermath of the fire in Kausos, these valuable pieces of wood were also reduced to ashes.

It was as if the arsonists did not care, or dared not care about these things, only wishing the flames to quickly consume everything on this land.

In the village, there was a small Divine Hall, now a ruin after the fire.

Dozens to nearly a hundred bodies charred to ash were piled in the Divine Hall. Segmented marble columns scattered into sections of cylindrical shapes, turned pitch black by the heat.

Lann silently walked into the Divine Hall, squatted down, and examined the teeth and finger shapes of these charred bodies.

”No signs of struggle or pain... at least whoever burned them gave them a quick end before lighting the fire.”

Being burned alive was one of the most painful ways to die.

The young man stood up and quietly walked out of the Divine Hall.

His cat-like eyes constricted and dilated in the black smoke, activating the extraordinary senses of the Demon Hunter.

Suddenly, he caught the last few sounds in this small village, and Lann made his way towards them.

In front of a two-storied small building blackened by flames, there was a family of four and three armed personnel.

The family of four, two men and two women, were mostly dressed in rough linen long skirts exposing one shoulder. They were kneeling on the ground, pleading to the three armed personnel.

The three armed personnel, with two holding long spears, bronze short swords at their waists, and wearing metal helmets on their heads.

The leader was dressed in a black robe with a hood, carrying a spear and a set of bows and arrows.

The armed personnel, facing the kneeling pleas of the family of four, didn’t show any sign of arrogance or cruel brutality.

On the contrary, they looked very dejected.

”If the gods don’t save you, we must eliminate the illness ourselves! We have no other choice!”

The leader in the black robe painfully explained the situation to the family of four.

And then the two children saw Lann walking straight over, they began calling for help towards the Demon Hunter.

The man in the black robe just turned to glance at Lann before turning back, with no sign of aggression or an attempt to stop the family from speaking.

The man in the family of four seemed to find hope amidst despair.

He cried out loud: ”Save us! Kind sir! Save us!”

”They’ve killed my neighbors! My friends! They’ve killed everyone here! And then piled the bodies in the Divine Hall and burned them!”

The man’s wife added tremblingly: ”We escaped the massacre! But now they want to execute us!”

Lann furrowed his brows and nodded to show he heard them, then turned to ask the man in the black robe.

”Who are you? What happened here?”

The question didn’t surprise the man in the black robe. He didn’t intend to hide anything, just spoke in a deep voice about what this small village had undergone.

”I am the priest of the local Divine Hall, they are the guards of the hall, all of us are worshipers of the gods.”

”Kausos has been plagued by the plague for some time... people kept dying, and the plague kept spreading. In the end, we had no choice but to intervene!”

”The gods have abandoned us, if we want to save the living, then the infected must die!”

”So these...” Lann calmly pointed to the ashes behind him, ”were you local priests who did this?”

The priest looked at Lann with slight surprise.

”You’re calmer than I expected, Mercenary.”

”Yes, we burned the entire village, and killed all the infected before setting the fire. We had no other choice.”

The priest’s voice was filled with pain.

”We’ve spent several days and nights trying to please the gods, praying, offering... we did everything! But it was useless, so we had to use fire to drive away the blood-fever disease.”

”I can see, you have a heart wanting to help, otherwise you wouldn’t have stopped in front of this scene. But Mercenary...”

The priest painfully wiped his face with both hands hard and sighed deeply.

”It’s useless, compassion is useless in the face of plague! You are powerless, Mercenary! It’s the decision of the gods!”

”And if you wish to stop us, we will defend the gods’ decree with our lives!”

After the priest finished speaking, the two guards behind him simultaneously gripped their spears tightly, staring intently at the tall and robust Lann.

On one side stood the desperate plague survivors, and on the other stood the local priest desperate to contain the plague even at the cost of his life; it seemed that choosing either side would mean the death of the other.

Standing in the midst of the scene, Lann calmly nodded.

”Understood, the will of the gods, is it?”

”[Igni]!”

With a muffled ’boom,’ a small flame quietly burned on Lann’s outstretched left hand.

Instantly, everyone present involuntarily widened their mouths, watching the flame suspended in the air on that palm.

”Now, let’s revisit what ’the will of the gods’ really means, Priest.”