Night Ranger
chapter-53

Chapter 53: Black Worm

Chini regained consciousness. Seeing the vicious Marvin, a look of despair appeared on her face.

“No, I can’t say…”

“They will kill me.”

“That wasn’t my idea. They forced me to do something like that. Or else they would kill me, they would force those insects down my throat…” Chini said, weeping.

Marvin remained indifferent.

She might have her fair share of troubles, but her poisoning her own best friend with [Dark Sweet Poison] was an incontestable fact.

Marvin had never been one to show mercy. The only reason she was still alive was because he wanted to follow the lead.

Originally, Marvin only wanted to quickly cure Lyle’s plague and then recruit Gru to White River Valley.

But an unexpected piece of news made him change his plan.

A quest had quietly appeared in his quest menu.

[Plague Purge]: You found traces of dark sweet poison in River Shore City, and successfully helped a small girl get rid of it. Perhaps you should try to help more people; of course, you can choose to eradicate the source before the upcoming storm.

The quest reward was 3000 general exp and at least 1 point of regional myth.

Marvin’s experience requirements were extremely high. Even if he had many ways to level up quickly, many of those methods were extremely risky.

But clearing this quest seemed quite worthwhile.

‘The quest had two options. Being a healer would mean that I have to keep treating people infected by the dark sweet poison like I did for Lyle until I reach the fixed number of people. Then the mission would be completed.’

‘Or simply get rid of the plague envoy spreading the dark sweet poison in River Shore City. This was the quickest method. The only risk was the plague envoy’s rank.’

‘From Lyle condition, that plague envoy’s strength should be quite average, at most 2nd rank. But plague god’s followers have always been relatively weak. Even if I don’t get involved, River Shore City would also be able to deal with those brainless guys.’

Therefore, if he got information about the plague envoy’s location, Marvin wouldn’t mind taking care of it.

After all, he was already quite used to things like killing. Not to mention an evil follower, killing those wouldn’t be a psychological burden at all.

He was short on time so he would definitely not go with the first option.

…

Marvin actually didn’t do anything bad to Lyle that night.

After tearing her clothes, Marvin used the kingfisher jade dagger to open up a small hole in her abdomen.

This hole was neither too big nor too small, roughly three centimeters.

The clueless Lyle naturally shouted very loudly because she was scared of Marvin’s grim action.

As for the later shouts, it was because she saw something terrible!

Because soon after Marvin opened up the small hole, something crawled out of her abdomen, a maggot. It actually looked like a black worm.

She nearly passed out from the scare!

There were actually so many horrifying worms crawling in her body!

But Marvin quickly caught those worms, throwing them into a jar.

Under the amethyst sprout smoke, more and more black worms were lured out before filling three jars.

After the last black worm was caught by Marvin, he told her that she was fine.

Marvin simply helped her sew her wound shut and then gave her a sip of red wine to help her sleep. The excessively frightened young girl fell fast asleep.

That’s right, the dark sweet poison plague was in fact a parasitic disease.

This kind of parasite was known as the black worm.

They first entered the body during a meal. Black worm eggs were put in the food and these worms started to grow inside her body, plundering her vitality.

Usually, most of the worms would gather around the neck, forming disgusting black spots.

Black worms were a kind of god-made lifeform, completely designed according to the preferences of the plague god. Once a person’s body had a certain amount of worms, all the black worms would explode!

This explosion would also make the host’s body burst open. Blood would splatter everywhere, creating a very frightening scene.

The most horrifying part was that black worm eggs would spread through the host’s blood. If the blood was splashed on someone else’s skin, they would also catch the same illness.

In this era of relatively underdeveloped medical science, this kind of plague was definitely very frightening.

But Marvin was an exception, as he knew the way to treat dark sweet poison.

The smoke from burning the amethyst sprout was extremely enticing to those worms.

They would crawl out of the body of the host, and were then caught by Marvin who was wearing gloves.

All the jars were half filled with vinegars.

The black worms were most afraid of vinegars. They would thoroughly die from being soaked in it for an hour.

And these liquids would turn into a nerve paralysis venom!

For Marvin, this was like killing two birds with one stone. He had always been lacking poison. He had always wanted to dip his curved daggers, straight daggers and other weapons in poison but couldn’t do anything about it.

Those three jars were in fact a good substitute.

He originally wanted to leave then, but then that quest appeared, forcing him to change his plans.

…

“I don’t know what they did to you.”

“But you only have two options now. Speak and I’ll let you keep your life, but you’ll stay away from Gru’s family. Don’t speak and I’ll kill you now.”

An ice-cold curved dagger was lightly pressed against Chini’s neck.

The masked Marvin looked especially frightening.

His emotionless voice was totally in line with ordinary people’s image of crazy murderers.

Chini opened her eyes wide. She shrieked, close to falling apart, “I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”

“Don’t kill me. I’ll talk.”

“It’s a church in the commoner’s district, it originally belonged to the Silver Church, but they rented it from a silver church priest…”

Marvin smiled.

‘Silver Church priests are indeed too greedy. He rented his own church without being clear about the other party’s background.’

‘Would the Silver God be angry? Someone spread the Plague God teachings in his church, tsk tsk…’

This god and his priest were considered famous.

After getting his answers, Marvin didn’t immediately release Chini. Rather, he knocked her out again.

He had to check the situation first.

…

The commoner’s district was made of a group of people who had certain amounts of family property, but weren’t overly rich.

These people for the most part were ranked adventurers, merchants, craftsmen, and so on. The security here wasn’t the best, but wasn’t lacking either.

In the northwest of the commoner district was a small church. It was originally a church with a silver church priest preaching, but later, the silver church priest turned his back on this area’s people with their impure faith and their lack of generous contributions. He simply rented it out and left.

A ceremony was underway in the basement of the church late at night.

More than ten youths were kneeling on the ground, crazily chanting the plague god’s teachings!

A man with a black gown was standing on stage, coldly looking down at them.

Their faces was filled with fanaticism!

But their belief might not necessarily be pure!

He had to pick the purest ones to instate as his own subordinates. That way he would curry favor with the plague god.

After all, among the plague god’s envoys, he was just an average existence.

But even so, he still mastered the most basic cleric magic.

[Distinguish Faith]!

A black halo was emitted from his hand;

Light surrounded the ten youths, coiling around their bodies several times.

A few of them had their sight flicker, while some others remained unconcerned, as if they didn’t notice that ring of light!

Threads immediately appeared in front of the man dressed in black.

These threads were coming out of the youths bodies and were tied to their bodies.

The threads were thin, representing whether or not their beliefs was firm.

The black clothed man was very satisfied. In this group of people, there were actually two firm believers!

They would supply the plague god with a good amount of faith power and have a quite a great future.

But he wasn’t totally happy!

Because there was one youth who actually had no line!

“There is actually someone among you that pretended to be a follower and mixed in!”

“Do you think you can cheat the great god’s eyes?”

He fiercely smiled and pointed at one of the youths showing a terrified expression. “I’ll let the others see how non-believers end!”

Saying that, numerous dark colored fabrics appeared in his hands!

“Don’t! Don’t…”

The youth struggled, frightened, but it was no use!

The other youths were rushing to push him down, trying to prove themselves.

The black clothed man coldly laughed, and slowly walked past.

At that time, a blurry shadow hidden in the darkness was quietly approaching.