Records of the Weakest Emperor

Chapter 179: The Secret of the Village of Tulog(2)

"She had died from hanging, but when the young men of the village went over with the elders to take her body down the platform. They discovered that the dead person's face was soaked until it was all wrinkly and white. Her eyes were bulging and her face filled with black varicose veins..."

"With guilt flooding the hearts of the men, none of them had the courage to take her body down the platform."

"But they couldn't just leave a corpse hanging over in the open air. Setting aside the fact that it would lessen the morale of everyone in the village, a rotting corpse could also be the start of an epidemic. Eventually, they had to take down the body and then bury her in accordance with the Dvalin Clan's culture..."

"We carried her body to the riverside and after making sure that her belongings were with her and that she wouldn't accidentally drift over to the river's side of that village on the base of the mountain. We started the burial as her body drifted down the river atop a mattress made out of sandalwood. Her burial sure was lavish for her death exacerbated the guilt of the villagers as well as the Village Chief's remorse."

"But the next day, one of our hunters discovered her body stuck in between a slippery rock upstream."

"The person who saw this reported the matter to the Village Chief. But there is no smoke without fire, so to prevent panic. The Village Chief informed everyone that there was nothing amiss. The body might've only been carried by wild game hunting for food in the middle of the night and it was left carelessly by those animals at the riverside when they went over to fetch a drink..."

"Of course, no one bought this excuse... The Village Chief proceeded to throw the body downstream by himself, but the next day! The body was upstream once again!"

"What's more, the hunter who had stumbled upon this body realized that the Village Chief was indeed talking bullshit. There were no traces of bite marks from animals or beasts that wanted to feast on the corpse. In fact, even though the body had been dead for two days now. There still wasn't any trace of decomposition at all!"

"Furious, the Village Chief decided to burn the body before letting it go down the river. The next day, the body hadn't returned and it was nowhere to be found. Even the wood used to carry the body down the river in accordance with the culture of the Dvalin Clan had disappeared along with the body."

"Everyone was relieved. Finally, everything was over and done with. But then weird things started to happen. The water from the one and only riverside where the villagers fetch water for their daily consumption seemed to have this strange astringent and metallic taste. The water looked normal and there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary..."

"But when this water is used for cooking, the villagers would discover that the water had this oily sheen that turned the taste of food pungent and disgusting. What's more, someone even discovered several strands of a woman's long hair from the water that they used to cook their chicken stew. A few weeks later, some villagers reported that they could seem to hear a voice calling their name from the village center."

"That voice came from a woman."

"She was crying and her voice sounded incredibly familiar."

"One night when everyone in the village heard the woman's crying voice, the Village Chief gathered everyone in the village center before they headed for the riverside to see what was going on. But the moment they neared the river, the crying voice abruptly disappeared. When the voice appeared again, she was now crying from the village center!"

"The crowd dispersed in horror and even Iwasn't able to suppress my fear. I gave a suggestion that the Village Chief should seek help from the village at the base of the mountain and confess everything that had happened, but I was ostracized. They said that I was someone who didn't care about the well-being of the village. Well, they were right."

"If the King discovered what we had done, then we would be executed on the spot."

"But which death was better?"

"Dying in the hands of a vengeful spirit? Or dying under the blade?"

"I was a warrior before I became a criminal because of my bloodline, I was more than willing to die under the blade but these elders weren't!"

"The following day, we discovered that the Village Chief and the elders seemed to have gone a change overnight. Their cheeks were hollow, and their eyes were sunken. They were also listless and they would only respond after you call their names several times. At first, the villagers thought that the elders and the Village Chief were just sleepless due to the guilt that they felt for the young lass's death."

"But in the next few weeks, they finally discovered that everyone in the village couldn't sleep..."

"Those that couldn't sleep eventually killed themselves, while some with strong willpower persisted for eleven days before they mysteriously died with blood dripping out of all their orifices. Strangely enough, the elders and the Village Chief himself were still alive and they suggested calling a doctor from the outside world to take a look at what was happening in the village..."

"But when one of the villagers unaffected by the curse walked out of the village, he never returned..."

"More messengers were sent to call over a doctor, but those messengers also never returned."

"The village was in an uproar by this time thinking that the messengers decided to abandon the village to die. Some families also followed suit and left the village. However, the scariest thing was that when the Village Chief followed these deserters out of anger. He discovered that all of them were lying dead at the valley just in front of the village with various causes of death..."

"By this time, the villagers discovered that a plague must be spreading throughout the village. Some smarter ones deduced that the plague must be caused by drinking that tainted water contaminated by the corpse of that young lady. With the number of deaths rising day by day, there wasn't enough time nor materials to bury the dead..."

"But since the Dvalin Clan emphasizes the proper burial of the dead to prevent misfortune. The elders had no choice but to abandon dozens of houses and use their materials to create wooden planks in order to send the dead off to the afterlife in accordance with the tradition of the Dvalin Clan..."

"This was why most of the houses at the southern entrance of the village are abandoned and scrapped."

"There was no way to go around the woman's resentment... Escaping the village and staying meant certain death. The elders, the villagers, and the Village Chief did everything that they could, but the woman's anger and hatred were so strong that they were helpless. Furthermore, the man whom they thought could rid them of this curse had also mysteriously disappeared when the curse was at its peak..."

"A mere month later and most of us have succumbed to the curse of sleeplessness. The elders were dead and only the Village Chief remained. There were still several hundreds of villagers, but most of us could do nothing other than to fight against the effects of the curse of sleeplessness."

"But it was at this moment that the Village Chief gained a revelation."

The deformed man stared at Calvin as if checking if he was still listening.

Of course, Calvin was listening intently.

"The Village Chief said that the key to getting rid of the curse was to create the shrine of the Our Lady of Holy Death. The villagers were tired and exhausted to listen to the Village Chief's bullshit, but since they had nothing left to lose. They followed the Village Chief and created the shrine of the Our Lady of Holy Death..."

"The first sacrifice was soon held, the Village Chief sacrificed the life of a live chicken to the Our Lady of Holy Death and he reported the next day that he wasn't suffering under the effects of the curse anymore!"

"Rejoiced after having finally discovered a cure, the villagers sacrificed all of the livestock in the village to the Our Lady of Holy Death in exchange for the disappearance of the curse. And it worked!"

"The curse of sleeplessness was no more, although its effects were still visible on everyone's faces."

"The village celebrated, one of us went down to visit the village at the base of the mountain. In fact, the Village Chief even wanted to convert those people to our religion, but they vehemently refused. The Village Chief branded them as ungrateful before he ordered that they would not seek anymore help from those heretics."

"A huge banquet was held at the village center."

"But this was the moment when everyone discovered the ugly and horrifying truth."

"The reason why they weren't suffering under the curse anymore..."

"Wasn't because they managed to get rid of the curse."

"It was because they were already dead."

"They died the moment the Our Lady of Holy Death laid 'Her' eyes on them."

"But why would I say that they were dead when they were still walking?"

"It was because they had turned into the living dead."

"This was discovered when the Village Chief found out that the food he made for the banquet didn't taste right.

"The chicken meat, boar meat, and even the vegetables tasted fishy, pungent, and astringent."

"No matter how much seasoning the Village Chief added... even dumping an entire jar of salt onto the food. It tasted the same."

"Fishy and disgusting."

"Then, hunger came over the Village Chief."

"His eyes turned bloodshot and he rushed at one of the villagers who hadn't praised the Our Lady of Holy Death yet and took a bite of his neck."

"Delicious... He said."

"When the other villagers who had become the followers of the Our Lady of Holy Death saw and smelled the fresh blood that spurted out of that villager's neck. They went crazy... just like the Village Chief."

"They became monsters... and I am not an exception."

The deformed man stared right at Calvin causing the latter to take a step backwards out of instinct.

"Are you like them?" Calvin explicitly asked. His eyes wandered at the wound on the man's arm.

The deformed man replied, "I am like them, but at the same time I am not... I haven't consumed the flesh of another human being. To survive, I used myself as sustenance. I sealed myself up in my own house. Years have passed since then and the village had only grown worse. This is the first time that I came out of the village since that fateful night."

"You've been in that house for more than half a decade?" Calvin couldn't believe what he was hearing.

The deformed man simply nodded his head.

'What a man of focus, commitment, and sheer fucking will...' Calvin inwardly praised.

Then, he turned to look at the man and said, "I still have some friends outside. Can I fetch them before we listen to your plan?"

"Ah? You have friends outside?" The deformed man asked in doubt. He could only see Calvin in the entire street.

And what did he mean outside?

Calvin lightly chuckled, "What's there for me to lie?"

"All right..." The deformed man nodded, "I'm convinced but I want you to return as fast as possible. I think we only have about eight hours until daybreak."

"I understand." Calvin nodded and then turned around to walk towards the direction where he came from.

When Calvin walked away, the deformed man also returned to his house.

'This is the worst... If what the man said was true, then we would be fighting against the Saintess of Death. Fortunately, the man said that the religion, 'Our Lady of Holy Death' was only made after the young lass's death. Could it be that there's a possibility that this Saintess of Death is that young lass? If that's true, then I might be able to do something else other than fighting...' Calvin's eyes gleamed.

'But I need to confirm the identity of that so-called crying voice first and see if she's really the Saintess of Death. If she is, then I need to find out what kind of a monster she is so I can ascertain if there's a possibility for negotiations or only a battle to death can save this village from hell...'

'Speaking of saving, if everyone in this village had already turned into monsters... How am I supposed to save them when they're already impossible to save given that they are dead?'

'Fucking hell, Grace... just what do you want me to do?' Calvin glanced at the skies above and he couldn't help but inwardly curse.

In the end, he could only shake his head and continue his jog towards the boundary of the veil where a fierce fight between Heisenberg, Ricardo, and the Sabbath was ongoing.

'Please be safe, you two...' Calvin silently prayed.