Don’t Run Away My Lord

25 – Salt Delivery Commotion (12)

“Why? What’s wrong?”

Liana couldn’t say anything more and turned her body away.

I, too, looked through the crack in the door, wondering what was going on, and frowned.

“What is that?”

Inside the room, there were several men and women who appeared to be servants of the castle.

They were all barefoot and engaged in intense copulation.

It didn’t seem like they were paired up, but rather doing it randomly, however they pleased.

Their eyes were dilated and they drooled like madmen.

“They must be under the influence of drugs.”

Mera explained upon seeing their state.

“Drugs enhance sensations and impair rational judgment. That’s why they’re behaving like that.”

Suddenly, I recalled the actions Liana had done in the sleeping bag last night.

She had begged me to touch her while sweating profusely.

So that’s what it was.

“Let’s go. It’s not a pleasant sight.”

Mera urged us.

* * * * *

The guards guarding the basement door were taken aback when they saw us, who had appeared for the Count.

“Your Grace…? Who are these people?”

When I lightly tapped the Count’s back, he hastily said,

“Y-You… Open it… They’re… customers…!”

The soldiers obeyed the command of the lord and opened the heavy iron door.

They received a torch from them and entered inside.

The underground chamber of the lord’s castle was enormous.

It seemed to have been deliberately built to store drugs.

Well-made iron shelves were neatly filled with wooden boxes, and in the middle of the underground space, gunpowder was piled up like a mountain.

“Wow… They have so much of it…?”

Mera exclaimed, her mouth half open.

“With this much production, it must have been discovered a long time ago… No… Even if they turned the entire territory into a poppy field, it wouldn’t be enough, what is this…?”

Mera muttered as she brushed her hand against the wooden boxes on the shelf.

“Now, let us go… I can’t breathe!”

Since there was nowhere to escape in the underground chamber anyway, Tussenne let go of her grip on the back of Mera, and she collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

Her hand, which had been stamped several times, was now swollen.

“The air here is strange, Lord Erga…”

Liana complained, covering her nose and mouth with her hand.

It was definitely unpleasant to see the hazy dust floating in the air.

“Tussenne, what happened here? Where did all this drugs come from?”

When Tussenne didn’t answer Mera’s question, she lightly nudged his side.

“Groan! I’ll tell you! Just stop hitting me, damn it!!”

Tussenne, staggering, stood up and entered the space filled with drugs.

There were spacious desks and various peculiar apparatuses scattered around.

On one side, there was a large pot with the fire extinguished.

“It must be a drug manufacturing room.”

“It’s probably the largest in the kingdom. If we knew how much money was invested here, we would be amazed.”

Even though the situation was serious, the lord looked around the room with a proud expression.

“Alright, where do they get their supplies? They’re not growing drug plants underground, are they?”

“Come this way… Come this way…”

He walked further into the room.

Why is this underground room so big?

Even roughly estimated, it seemed to be much larger than the lord’s mansion above ground, probably extending beneath the castle walls.

The even walls gradually crumbled, forming a natural cave-like structure.

As they continued walking through a tunnel that could accommodate several humans at once, sturdy iron bars soon appeared.

“What’s that smell…? Eruga, don’t you smell something weird?”

Liana wrinkled her nose and furrowed her brow.

“Hmm… It smells like something rotten. Maybe it’s because there’s no ventilation?”

“Wait here for a moment… I have to open the door…”

The lord walked cautiously and inserted the key into the lock of the iron bars.

With a loud noise, the bars opened, and the lord stepped back quietly.

“Where are you going?”

“hehehe!”

The lord, who had grabbed me by the collar, made a strange sound and tried to sit down.

We continued inward, dragging the nobleman with us.

“Wow, it’s really deep. Where does it lead?”

Mera’s voice echoed through the cave walls.

Our shadows moved chaotically, as if dancing, due to the flickering torch.

How far did we go?

As the putrid smell grew stronger, strange noises reached our ears.

“Ugh…”

Mera and Liana covered their noses in agony, and the nobleman’s face turned pale as if he were about to faint.

“There’s something over there.”

Within the precarious range of the torchlight, we could see something large.

As we approached, it turned out to be a hazy and opaque shell of some kind.

“What is this?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it…”

Mera and Liana had no idea, but I immediately recognized what it was.

“Have you seen these crazy humans?”

“Ergha, do you know what it is?”

“This is the husk of a Gabrikagas.”

“Gabri… what…?”

“Gabrikagas. A demon.”

As I spoke, silence descended upon us like a cold water.

The first one to open their mouth was Mera.

“A demon…? Why are there demons here…?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but it seems like they’re raising them to obtain this husk.”

“What…?!”

As soon as they touched the husk, it turned into white powder and vanished.

“Gabricas is a demon that excretes a toxin from its shell, causing hallucinations. This husk is also infused with the poison.”

He shook the Lord, still gripping his collar.

“Tell me, Jajak. Are they refining this husk to make drugs through some process?”

“H-How do you know that…?!”

“My guess was right.”

I turned to Mera, who couldn’t speak due to surprise.

“Investigator. The toxin of Gabricas is so powerful that it can even poison large-scale demons. If a human inhales this, they could die.”

“So they neutralize it and make it into a suitable pleasure…”

“This crazy human!? They were producing and distributing that kind of thing?!”

Mera swiftly slapped Jajak’s throat like lightning.

“Ugh! Stop it! Please, stop hitting me!”

The noise reverberated through the cave walls, reaching deep into its depths.

In response, a strange sound echoed back.

It was a sound I knew well.

“We’ve gathered enough evidence at this point, so let’s go back. It seems like there’s Gabricas nearby.”

Liana and Mera looked nervously across the cave.

Their faces were already glistening with sweat.

“Hurry, Lord Erga…”

As soon as Liana spoke with a trembling voice, they heard a strange sound.

Tadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada-!

“They’re coming! The Giant Genie is coming!”

Tusenne, splattering saliva, shouted like a maniac.

“Erga! What should we do?”

As they threw the torch forward, a part of a colossal monster was revealed.

Resembling a genie, Gabrikagas opened its pincers and its thousands of legs clattered, quickly approaching from the cave ceiling.

“aaah!”

Liana screamed, stretching her hands forward.

A golden beam shot straight towards Gabrikagas from her hands.

The inside of the cave became brighter than daylight with an immense golden light.

A large hole appeared in Gabrikagas’s jaw, which was directly hit by the divine beam.

“Grrr…”

As it spewed green sticky fluid, Gabrikagas fell to the ground with a thud.

“Ugh… Ugh…”

Liana, who had exerted too much divine power, gasped for breath and sank down.

“Holy Lady! Are you alright?”

“Yes… Detective… I’m fine… Just a bit overwhelmed… Sigh…”

She approached Gabriel Cass, who had fallen to his knees, leaving the other women behind.

He wasn’t fully formed, but he was still much larger than what could be considered intentionally bred by humans.

“Jajak. If it’s this size, it must have hatched. Isn’t that right?”

“I… I don’t know! I’ve never been inside!”

“Perhaps the hatchlings…”

Thud, thud, thud, thud!

The cave walls and floor were filled with swarming baby Gabriel Casses.

There are too many of them…?

The human body has its limits in blocking them.

Some will pass me and if they touch the poison, Rihanna and Mera will die instantly.

“Eruga, sir!” “Eruga, run away!”

Ignoring the painful screams, she blocked the path and stood her ground.

Judging by the fact that Jajak, who had been grabbing my collar since earlier, was now quiet, he seemed to have fainted.

The jaw of a baby Gabriel Cass was about to reach me.

“Stop.”

The dragon’s roar erupted through the human form.

Naturally, the Gabriel Casses froze as if they were frozen in place.

They could only twitch their horribly deformed heads and couldn’t move forward anymore.

The dragon’s roar.

The unique ability of dragons to make all creatures submit under their feet.

Although it failed to suppress the female wyvern that was trying to protect its eggs, it is an absolute devourer for creatures like Gabrikas, who are practically devoid of intelligence.

For now, they have stopped, but how am I going to deal with all these creatures?

Hmm… In that case…

“Liana, Mera, run to the exit. I’ll follow soon.”

“Erga-nim! What are you planning to do?”

When Liana shouted, she turned back to look at her.

“Do you think I’m going to die here?”

“Well, that’s true, but…”

“Then quickly take the investigator and leave.”

Liana hesitated for a moment, then grabbed Mera’s wrist and started running.

The Lord who is holding onto my hand… should be fine.

I kicked towards the baby Gabrikas, who were piled up black on the walls and floor.

“Kill each other from now on.”