Over the next two days, Tasa kept traveling back and forth between the Maggie Merchant Guild and the outskirts of the Royal Capital.
The ships that took the fleeing people away were provided by Maggie, while the First Army would act as mercenaries at the agreed-upon time and go to the canal wharf to arrange for the fleeing people to board the ships.
As for spreading the news and luring people in, Black Hammer and the others were already skilled at it, so Tasa wasn't worried about that. Rats were much more convenient than outsiders when it came to doing this kind of thing, although the scope was only in the Northern District, the fleeing people would definitely spread the word among themselves. Besides, he couldn't take everyone away at once. His Highness had instructed that this matter could be done slowly, sending away one boatload at a time.
On the day the fleet arrived, nearly a thousand displaced refugees came to the wharf, which was more than Tasa had expected. If they had only relied on the First Army to promote it, it would have been good if a hundred or so people had believed them.
According to Prince Roland's screening requirements, he first let the children board the ships, followed by families with children, and finally adults. As for the elderly... he found that there were hardly any gray-haired old people in the crowd. Perhaps they were unwilling to risk going to a remote place again, or perhaps they simply couldn't afford to escape from the Eastern Territory to the Royal Capital.
The first fleet of ten single-masted sailboats departed with more than five hundred people on board, and the remaining people were driven back to the camp. However, they also took back the message that "the fleet will come again."
He originally thought that the first task entrusted by His Highness could be completed smoothly, but not long after the merchant fleet transported the second batch of people, Tasa encountered a tricky problem.
A strange disease suddenly appeared in the Royal City.
The first dead person to be discovered was lying on the side of the road. Black spots appeared on his body, his teeth fell out, and his skin cracked, and the blood that flowed out changed color—as terrifying as when a witch was devoured by demonic power. But the dead person was not a woman, but a male commoner living in the Northern District.
After that, several more corpses with the same symptoms were discovered one after another, and some people who had come into contact with the corpses began to grow black spots on their bodies. Neither herbs nor ice packs could make them disappear. Even when bloodletting was used for treatment, the blood was red and black, as if a large amount of ink had been added.
Fear quickly spread among the crowd, and the number of people going to the church to pray also increased, but everything was useless. More and more people developed black spots on their bodies, and even the fleeing people outside the city showed the same symptoms.
The High Priest of the Church stood up and declared that this was a conspiracy of the witches. They had released the power of demons to infect other innocent people. Currently, no treatment method could resist the power of the devil, and those who were invaded would die in extreme pain. However, the Church would never sit idly by and ignore this. They had developed a holy medicine that could curb the evil power of this hellish demon.
This speech gave the infected a glimmer of hope, and they sat around the church entrance every day, waiting for the holy medicine to be distributed.
Although Tasa was deeply skeptical of the Church's claims, he temporarily suspended the transportation of the fleeing people as a precaution.
"Why stop?" Black Hammer expressed extreme incomprehension. "Now those guys are also being eroded by demonic power. If we don't send them away quickly, do you want to leave them outside the city to be seeds for the witches?"
"This is the meaning of the above," he said impatiently. "It's fine if they are just ordinary fleeing people, but if the Western Territory is also infected by this evil power, what will become of the kingdom?"
"Uh—" Black Hammer choked slightly. "But what the Western Territory becomes is none of our business. Master Tasa, why don't you just pretend you didn't hear the meaning of the above and drag them all away. Think about it, you might be infected by this kind of ghost thing just by touching it. I don't want to be with a bunch of hellish demons, even if there's a wall in between."
"Pretend I didn't hear it? I only have one head," Tasa said coldly. "You only have one too. Do as I say!"
After he left the tavern, he found a shop marked with the Maggie Merchant Guild's emblem and showed his token.
"I want to see your boss, as soon as possible."
Before long, he saw the female merchant again in the secret room of the shop.
"This disease definitely has nothing to do with witches," Maggie said. "If the demonic power released can't even be resisted by the God's Stone of Retribution,
then they would have turned Hermes into a dead place long ago."
"I think so too, but the most urgent thing is to report this matter to Prince Roland. Although the two batches of people who boarded the ship didn't show any black spots, this disease doesn't seem to be an immediate onset. If someone on the ship is infected with demonic power, Border Town must respond immediately." Tasa took out a folded letter from his arms. "I need your help to send the letter back to His Highness as soon as possible."
"Of course," she nodded. "The transmission of information between merchants is always the fastest."
……
Several days of sailing made Lucia feel a little nauseous.
For the past month, she seemed to have been constantly fleeing, from the Eastern Territory to the Royal Capital, and then from the Royal Capital to the Western Territory. However, the former was being driven out of her home, while the latter was her last hope.
"Sister... water, I'm thirsty..."
Ling let out a painful groan and reached out to grab her arm.
"Okay, I'll get you some water."
Lucia grabbed the cloth bag next to her and staggered out of the cabin, leaned against the lowest part of the ship's side, and reached out to immerse the bag in the river water. The acid in her stomach surged up again, and she couldn't hold it back, finally vomiting it all out in one go. The few spoonfuls of oatmeal in her stomach were completely vomited out, and acid flowed out of her nostrils. She resisted the urge to cry out loud, clenched her teeth, wiped her face indiscriminately with the back of her hand, and continued to soak the bag. Only when the bag was full of water did she hold it in her arms and quickly ran back to the cabin.
"The water's here, open your mouth."
But Ling's face was worse than before. Her cheeks were flushed abnormally, and her forehead was terribly hot. She closed her lips tightly and made intermittent groans.
Lucia had no choice but to force her mouth open, wring the bag tightly, and let the water drip into her sister's mouth.
"Don't get too close to her. The black spots have spread to her neck. She won't last long," said a weak middle-aged man in the cabin. "We're all going to die here. You should take care of yourself."
Not long after leaving the Royal Capital, someone on the ship contracted the terrible disease. First, they had a fever all over their body, and then black spots appeared on their skin. The disease would rapidly worsen after three or four days, not only causing them to fall into a coma, but also infecting those who came into contact with them with the same disease. Therefore, on the fifth day, the fleet specially cleared out a sailboat to carry the sick. Lucia guessed that the reason why they didn't throw all the sick refugees into the river was that there were also infected people among their own people.
After black spots appeared on Ling's body, she ignored other people's advice and resolutely came to this ship full of patients with her sister.
In order to take care of the young Ling, she had hardly slept for two days.
Lucia still didn't give up. She believed that everything would get better after arriving in the Western Territory.
If the rumors were true... the Mutual Aid Society was her last hope.