Chapter 91: Ch91 Red Rain
Rolls upon rolls of beds covered the entire tent, each one occupied by a half-alive person. The heavy scent of herbs, prescriptions, and decay hung heavy on the air like a nasty stench. Coughing, choking, and rasping gasps for air cluttered the room. It was not a ward—it was a field of dying people struggling to breathe.
Alina stood stock still at the door. Her gaze flashed from one patient to another before her trembling hand rose to clamp over her mouth. "By the heavens." she whispered, trembling voice.
Luther did not move, though—face a mask, but his eyebrows twisted of their own accord. He had seen sick people before, even dead ones. But this. this was not right. Too wrong.
All of them, young or old, man or woman, even the infants curled against their dozing mothers—each had an strange black patch on their brow. Their skin was dry, cracked, and darkened as if it were charred weeds. And worse still—right at the center of their chests, a wide cave yawned open, raw and red, as if their hearts had been ripped out but left hanging half-way.
Luther took a slow breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. ".Well," he growled. "That’s new."
The devilish sword, silently hanging at his hip, gave out a low whine but was otherwise quiet. It was the first time since morning that it hadn’t had something clever to say. That silence, somehow, bothered Luther worse.
The old elder who was guiding them wrung his hands in distress. He had a twisted back, his gray locks shaking with each movement. "It—it began two weeks ago, my lord," he stuttered. "We did not know at first. We thought it was merely the changing of the seasons."
Luther crossed his arms, stepping closer to one of the patients, eyes narrowing as he observed the strange pulsation under the skin near the heart. "And yet, I’m guessing it wasn’t pollen making your people look like dried fruit," he said, tone dry as sand.
Alina shot him a glare. "Luther, please," she whispered.
"What?" he replied, shrugging. "I’m not wrong."
The old man hesitated before continuing, voice shaking as he recounted to them how the plague started.
And as he spoke, the world about them faded away—his words drawing them into memory of the town it had been.
In the flashback, Noia Town was vibrant and full of life. Children were laughing as they played in the cobblestone roads, merchants yelled to promote their products, and the aroma of baked bread and spice filled the air. The voice of the elder spoke over the scene, shaking with remorse.
"It was all routine... until the sky transformed. The sun should have been shining brightly one morning, but the clouds became red—as if blood had been poured all over them. We initially assumed some mage had unleashed a strong spell somewhere nearby. Since we live in a world where magic is the norm, we believed it couldn’t be anything serious. Just the residue of some conflict or ceremony."
During the flashback, villagers nodded toward the red-hued sky with careless curiosity. Children laughed and called it pretty.
"Beyond that," the elder went on, "there were mercenaries from the capital here in town the same week. They’d just defeated a wyvern, and the commander used some enormous spell to calm it down. We figured the color was from that."
The flashback faded out again. Days passed. The red coloration didn’t fade—it deepened.
The voice of the old man grew deeper. "It began to spread... until it covered the entire sky. When our merchants returned from nearby villages, they said that red sky was only seen here in Noia. That was when we knew—something was terribly wrong."
The flashback disappeared. In the tent, Luther’s eyes flashed into focus. "You knew it was concentrated here," he said flatly. "And you didn’t call up the officials or the temple?
Before the elder could get a word in, the merchant with whom they had come from the market broke in, defensively. "We did! We reported it to the capital, to the temple priests, even to the palace guard. But all those old men just told us the same thing!" His voice grew bitter. "’It’s a normal phenomenon,’ they said. ’It’ll pass. Stop panicking.’"
Luther’s jaw flexed. "Of course they did." He snorted. "Those freeloading old buzzards don’t move unless it’s the summons to a gala affair."
"Luther!" Alina hissed again, though even she could not argue with his words.
The older man nodded his head with regret. "At first... we thought them. But then it began. The sickness."
The world grew dark once more—a flashback. A darker one. Once-crowded streets now with the cacophony of coughing and crying. People fell halfway through a step, clutching their chest. Babies wailed, their mothers crying as the fever ravaged them.
"Fever struck first," the old one spoke, her eyes shining with unreleased tears. "It started with the infants, then the young children, then the young adults... until it took the elders. Our healers tried everything—herbs, potions, even prayer circles—but nothing could halt it."
Luther’s hands clenched into their usual fist shape.
"And when we begged them once more," the old man’s voice broke, "they told us the same thing. ’It’s just the flu,’ they told us. ’Mind your own business, old man. It will go away.’"
One by one, fleeting visions of faces crossed their minds—the self-satisfied faces of priests and city clerks shooing them off.
Luther snapped his knuckles as he snarled, "How dare they call themselves human beings.".
The tent fell silent except for the gasps of the sick.
The old man stood before them and bowed low, tears forming pools on the ground. "When I learned the so-called Saint would be visiting our town, I—I wept with joy. I thought maybe the gods had not abandoned us completely."
Luther blinked, then frowned. "’These ones,’" he repeated slowly. "Why did you say these ones would be safe? What happened to the others?"
The elder’s body stiffened. His lips trembled.
Before he could react, the merchant murmured something about "checking the storage" and slipped away from the tent in silence.
The elder swallowed hard, his old hands folding together. "Those... others," he whispered low, "they have already... gone beyond saving."
Alina breathed in a faint gasp. "Then—then at least let us pay respect to their bodies. Where are they stored?
But the older man shook his head rapidly, his eyes darting to the tent flap as if something could burst through at any moment. His voice quavered. "Their bodies... cannot be gathered."
Luther’s eyes turned cold and menacing. "Can’t be gathered?" he repeated, his voice dead. "You mean wouldn’t, then?"
The old man didn’t respond. He gestured with his shaking hand instead and nodded in the direction of the outside. His eyes—those which had once brimmed with despair—now appeared. empty.
The coughing stopped. All noise inside the tent silenced as if a curtain had been drawn across the world.
Luther and Alina both stood frozen. Even the sword in Luther’s belt was silent, which was enough to get him tense.
"Shit." Luther panted.
The old man turned stiffly toward the door and began walking out, mechanical and slow, his feet rasping on the floor like dry wood rasping on rock. His voice creaked as he spoke to his companions over his shoulder.
"The reason we cannot gather their bodies," he said, "is because..."
He stopped in mid-sentence and stepped outside.
Alina followed after him.
Luther’s brow wrinkled. "Hey, old man—!" he bellowed, chasing after him. He flung open the tent flap—and stood still.
Outside, all the villagers and puppets vanished. From the very old to the sick to the nearly comatose, they had somehow crawled out of bed. They stood in flawless ranks, faces tilted upwards, eyes wide and unblinking.
Above them, the sky turned completely red. Not tinted—bleeding. The hue pulsed, curling like living tissue.
A huge crack of thunder blasted through the air, and then—
The first drop fell.
It hit the ground with a hiss.
Then another. And another.
Until it rained.
Red-rain poured from the heavens, splattering onto the tents and ground. The scent was biting and metallic, scorching through the nostrils.
Luther’s instincts kicked in—he raised his hand to shield Alina as the drops hissed against the impenetrable wall he created. One wandering drop splashed onto his skin before he could pull back—
—and winced, his hand jerking back in pain. The spot where the rain had hit was smoldering lightly, as if it had charred him.
"The hell..." He stared at his hand, his knuckles reddening into welts.
He curled his fingers, and golden light began to dance lightly under his skin—his divine regeneration already active—but the pain didn’t fade away right away. It lingered.
He turned to the old man with a sharp snap. "What in the world is this rain?!"
Gradually, the old man turned around. His movements were stiff and forced, and his lips twisting into a trembling smile.
"You... don’t like it?" he whispered, voice shaking with eagerness. "But Saints... do you not find it beautiful?"
Luther’s stomach dropped. His eyes widened in incredulity as he looked at it.
The old man’s face was melting.
The flesh oozed like melted wax, bone glinting beneath as his eyes fell out of their sockets. The grin didn’t fade—it expanded.
Alina screamed.
Luther reached for his sword, but the sword at his hip laughed in his head with fresh excitement,
"Oh, now this is interesting."
The elder’s jaw hanging wide abnormally as his voice cracked up—wrenched and wild.
"Do you like the rain, Saint?"