The Wrong Hero

Chapter 41 - Helping Out

"Lord Shield?"

"W-What?" Dante quickly swiveled his head around, looking for the source of the voice.

"We're here." Nisha said, pointing to the village beyond the treeline.

"Oh."

Dante slid off of Donavan's back and stretched out. The older vampire had flown them to the outskirts of Mirso village in a matter of hours, compared to the near-day of travel it would have taken. With everyone else out of range, Dante had sent a few pings to Fohl's slave seal before leaving the capital, a sign that he was fine but would be a while.

"You slept the whole way here..." Donavan shifted back to his demi-human form. His therianthrope form mostly resembled that of a large bat, with his fur being mostly black. He was easily bigger than Dio and JoJo in their royal filolial forms

"My body is 7 and I had very little sleep last night." Dante finished his stretching. "I needed a nap."

It was a bit of a deflection. Dante was admittedly a little embarrassed to have fallen asleep while riding Donavan. Of course, he wasn't about to admit that out loud.

"Let's see what the damage is." Dante said, leading the pair into the village.

Mirso was far gloomier than when he first arrived, even more than he imagined it would be. He didn't see anyone walking around outside. A light haze filled the air as he looked for someone, be it a random villager or someone treating them.

"Will you two be okay with disease here?" Dante asked his followers.

"For a short while, yes." Nisha answered. "But, if you plan on going up the mountain, we'll need to cover up."

"Got it." Dante had plenty of spare cloth in his shield to use as masks.

Most of the buildings they passed were empty, or had so little activity that they appeared so. The cemetery looked to have a number of fresh graves added to it. The only place that seemed to have any life in it was the small church. The door to it was ajar, so Dante pulled it open.

Inside the church was a makeshift treatment area. Cots sat where pews would be. They were filled with sick villagers, with only a couple being empty. A woman, likely a nurse, was checking over a villager when she took notice of Dante's group.

"Are you here for...no, you don't look to be from the village." She had bags under her eyes and her expression was grim. If she wasn't sick, she looked like she might contract it soon.

"We're here to help with the contagion." Donavan said after getting nudged by Dante. He didn't want to appear in charge just yet.

"You are?" The nurse looked between them. "Wait here just a moment." She turned around and went through one of the doors.

"Things seem rather dire here." Nisha whispered.

"Yeah..." Dante had double-checked the patients he could see. Not one of them was a child. That didn't bode well.

After a minute of waiting, the nurse came back with a man. He looked like he might be a doctor, though his condition was at least as bad as the nurse's.

"Are you here from the capital?" The doctor asked. His voice was raspy and quiet. "Did you accept the request for aid?"

"What happened here?" Donavan ignored the man's question and asked his own.

"A disease from the mountain." The doctor answered.

He told them how the Sword Hero had slain a dragon living there about a month ago. After that, adventurers had picked apart the dragon while the village basically made it a tourist attraction. Then, of course, the rotting meat from the dragon polluted the air and caused the current problem.