Lord of Rot

”AARGH!!” The man closest to the beast was sent flying by a swipe of its paw. He landed in a heap, spitting blood. He wasn’t dead, but his body twitched violently; it was clear he wouldn’t last long.

”Fall back!” Leech shouted. ”Use your torches to drive it off!”

As he spoke, he threw his own torch toward the beast. For the moment, the creature’s fear of fire held it back.

”Back away slowly, but don’t lead it toward the village.” Leech drew his longsword. At that moment, he dearly missed the greatest inheritance his father had left him: those eighty fully armed soldiers.

As he retreated, he split his focus. Miles away, hidden in the Baron’s own bedroom, the corpse of Jamie suddenly snapped its head up.

「Inside Porcupine Castle.」

The servants were gathered together, praying for their Baron.

They liked their current lives, and when disaster loomed, they feared even more that this life would be destroyed.

”Mr. Duke?” Sparrow spotted Jamie Duke, whom she hadn’t seen for the past few days. He was clad in iron armor, a heavy greatsword slung over his shoulder as he headed out.

Upon hearing Lady Sparrow’s voice, Jamie turned to glance at her. His lifeless, dead-man’s gaze made her heart tremble, but then he simply nodded and ran out, sword in hand.

”Don’t you worry,” Lady Sparrow said, suppressing her own terror. ’Perhaps I just saw it wrong.’

She comforted the others, especially a tall maid who had already started to sob. Lady Sparrow could only console her, saying, ”You jumpy little thing, don’t worry. Mr. Duke has gone to help. The Baron will be fine!”

”That’s right!” another, more talkative maid piped up. ”He has such a huge sword! He’ll definitely be able to protect the Baron!”

As the conversation turned to Jamie’s greatsword, the others nodded one by one. The fearsome weapon gave them a powerful surge of confidence.

The crimson bear roared at the crowd, held at bay by the growing number of lit torches.

The two sides were locked in a stalemate.

But this stalemate was doomed to be short-lived.

”ROAR!”

Perhaps the scent of blood on its own body agitated the beast, or perhaps it simply ran out of patience. Realizing the flames were only keeping their distance and not harming it, the bear charged toward Leech and his men.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

The ground trembled violently. Faced with the charging bear, the men instinctively turned to flee. Leech didn’t want to sacrifice lives to stop it, but if he let this bear rampage through his territory, he would probably go down in history as the first lord to be run off by a single bear.

Just as the crowd scattered, a figure shot past them. In the flickering torchlight, he looked like a dragon-slaying hero from a minstrel’s tale. Leaping into the air with a greatsword weighing dozens of pounds, he brought it down on the giant bear’s head with a sound like the whistling of the wind.

CRACK!

The blow split a gash in the giant bear’s skull, the force of the impact even knocking its head down. Blood showered down like a torrential rain, but the bear’s forward momentum didn’t stop. Its body now out of control, it crashed into the swordsman, and the two of them went tumbling into the distance.

”It’s my master, the Warg Slayer!” Leech yelled. ”He’s a powerful swordsman! He’s gravely wounded the monster!”

The giant bear collapsing uncontrollably to the ground seemed to prove Leech’s words. The men’s confidence returned.

The crowd gathered once more, their grips on their pitchforks tightening with renewed strength.

The torches hemmed the giant bear in, the flames agitating the grievously wounded beast.

”ROAR!” The bear let out a howl of agony and rage, but it didn’t attack again.

Compared to the trembling ants surrounding it, the giant bear was more focused on dealing with the undying monster beneath it. Pinned under the crimson beast, Jamie’s iron armor was crushed and his sternum was caved in. Yet he was relentless. Gripping his greatsword with both hands, he smashed it against the bear’s head again and again with undiminished, earth-shattering force.

He continued until the bear’s skull was smashed in and its upper body collapsed to the ground, able only to let out a heavy, gurgling wheeze.

With a CLANG, Leech drew his longsword.

”The bear is dying! Attack! Help Mr. Duke! Let’s defeat this beast together! Defend our territory! Protect our farmland!” Leech shouted, but he himself did not advance.

The men, who had long since realized the bear was at the end of its strength, took up their pitchforks, weed hooks, and clubs, raining a chaotic flurry of blows down on the beast and riddling its body with wounds.

”ROAR!” The bear laboriously lifted a paw and swatted away a farmer standing before it.

The assault paused for a beat. Even grievously wounded, the giant bear still had the strength to kill.

”Keep going!” Leech yelled again.

This time, the crimson bear finally ran out of strength. Its breathing grew weaker and weaker until, at last, it fell completely still.

The crowd worked together to push aside the crimson bear’s carcass and pull Jamie Duke out from under its belly.

”Mr. Duke isn’t breathing!” someone cried out.

They had won, but several people had died, and it had cost the life of the Baron’s master.

A corner of Leech’s mouth twitched. ’Jamie hasn’t been breathing for a long time.’ However, just because Jamie couldn’t move on his own didn’t mean he was useless. He could still provide more value.

”Carry Master Jamie back,” Leech ordered. ”Once he’s back, don’t let anyone touch him. I will give his body a lavish burial.”

Wheels arranged for a few strong farmers to carry Jamie’s body back to the castle. The greatsword was taken back as well.

Leech, meanwhile, remained behind to deal with the aftermath.

Besides handling the dead and the compensation for their families, the massive bear carcass also needed to be dealt with.

After circling the crimson bear’s carcass once, Leech came to a conclusion. To reanimate this corpse with gold, it would require at least several dozen pounds of it. Owning a controllable, invincible bear zombie was clearly impossible.

”Haul the bear back to the castle,” Leech said.

After handling everything, he returned to the castle.

The castle servants stood at a distance, staring at the corpse of the terrifying beast.

Leech found the cook, Barrel, and instructed him, ”Butcher this bear. And while you’re at it, see if there’s any kind of stone or gem inside its body.”

”A gem?” Barrel asked, confused. He puffed out his perfectly round, creaseless belly.

’What if it has a Magic Crystal or a Demon Core? A bear growing this large isn’t normal.’

”Basically, any strange object you find inside the bear’s body,” Leech said. ”I want to know why it was so strong.”

Aside from the busy cook, Barrel, Leech summoned everyone else to pray together to the Four Gods.

Leech bowed his head before the portraits of the Four Gods, leaving a sliver of consciousness in his own body while the vast majority of it traveled to another.

In a room nearby, the breathless body of Jamie Duke, its chest caved in, suddenly opened its eyes.

The skeleton was twisted, the ribs all broken. As Leech tried to make the corpse walk, the sensation was incredibly awkward. The good news was that every part could still function independently, meaning its strength was not diminished.

He shouldered the greatsword, pushed open the window, and jumped out. Under the cover of darkness, he headed in the direction the giant bear had come from.

A terrifying beast had appeared in Porcupine Territory. He had to quickly determine if there was a second, or even a third. If there were, he would have to consider calling for reinforcements—hiring mercenaries or letting another noble extort him. Either option would be a massive expense.

The crimson giant bear had made a huge commotion as it ran, and by following the massive, muddy footprints it left behind, its origin could be easily traced.

The corpse of Jamie, controlled by Leech, broke from a walk into a run. A corpse does not tire. It could run forever, or at least until its tendons snapped.

It moved swiftly through the woods, moonlight filtering through the leaves to illuminate the path ahead.

Finally, it reached the source: a pitch-black cave in a dense forest bordering Pig Spine Valley. The footprints led out from here.

Leech had the corpse search inside the cave. It found many animal bones. After investigating the tracks, he breathed a sigh of relief. There was only one crimson giant bear.

Deeper in the cave, there was a single crimson herb, its color as jarring as the fur of the bear.

’I think I know why a terrifying red-furred bear suddenly appeared in Porcupine Territory,’ Leech thought as he opened his eyes back in the castle. He had already directed Jamie’s corpse to dig up the red herb, scooping it up, soil and all, to carry back.

If he wasn’t mistaken, that red herb was the greatest prize of this whole venture.

Beyond that, Leech noticed a red dot had appeared in his vision. Unlike the yellow and green dots, this red dot didn’t move with his line of sight as he turned his neck. Instead, it remained fixed in a specific direction.

When he turned his back to the dot’s position, it would vanish from his sight, only to reappear when he turned back around.

And that direction, it seemed, was the bear’s cave that Jamie had just visited.

’This time, what does the red dot mean?’