Chapter 457 - 421: Strange Tales of the Royal Capital

Chapter 457: Chapter 421: Strange Tales of the Royal Capital

Night draped itself over Zelheim’s Lower City District like a moldy shroud, smothering it. The fog, damp and cold, was a foul mix of gutter rot and cheap coal smoke that seeped right into your bones.

Huck trudged down the muddy flagstone path, clutching a half-empty bottle of cheap, watered-down rum. He was a longshoreman from the docks, and right now, the only things on his mind were a slight, alcohol-induced dizziness and a deep-seated fear of his nagging wife at home.

"Fuck the church... and fuck their Holy Water..."

Huck let out a boozy belch, the sour stench so foul it made even him wrinkle his nose. Bracing himself against the wall, he undid his belt and took a piss on a pile of trash at the alley’s entrance.

The sound of trickling liquid was jarring in the dead of night.

After a final shake, Huck fastened his pants. As he turned, a dark figure standing at the mouth of the alley caught the corner of his eye.

It was a person—or something else—in a long, hooded robe. It just stood there silently in the shadows of the corner, motionless as a rotten post.

"Hey! You blind?" Huck slurred, waving his bottle. "Get out of the way! I’m in a foul mood today!"

The dark figure didn’t make a sound.

It didn’t even seem to be breathing.

Huck squinted his drunken eyes, trying to make out the figure’s face in the pale moonlight, but its hood was pulled so low that all he could see was a void of absolute black.

"What, are you mute?"

Huck spat on the ground and staggered onward. As he passed the dark figure, he gave it a wide berth, not wanting to be tainted by its ill fortune.

They brushed past one another.

A sudden, cold gust of wind swept out of the alley. Huck shivered for no apparent reason; it felt like a damp slab of raw meat had just been pressed against the back of his neck.

He instinctively stopped and glanced back.

The dark figure was still there, its posture unchanged.

"Weirdo," Huck muttered, turning to head home.

CLACK.

CLACK.

The footsteps echoed down the empty street.

Huck wasn’t walking fast, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the echoes were wrong tonight. After the crisp clack of his boot on the flagstones, another sound always followed—an extremely faint, viscous noise.

It was like... the sound of a bare foot stepping in sludge.

SQUELCH.

Huck froze.

The sound behind him ceased just as abruptly.

He was now at a crossroads. Above him, an old gas lamp hissed as it burned, casting his long shadow onto the grey wall to his side.

Huck swallowed hard. The horrifying feeling of being stared down by a predator sobered him up instantly. He stiffly craned his neck, trying to look back and confirm what was there.

There was no one behind him.

Only the roiling banks of fog that had yet to disperse.

’Just scaring myself...’ Huck breathed a sigh of relief. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and lifted his foot to move on.

Just then, his gaze swept over the wall.

In that instant, his heart felt as if it had been seized in a cold fist, and it stopped beating.

His shadow was on the wall. That was right. Its stooped back and the bottle clutched in its hand were all clearly visible.

But overlapping his own, there was a second shadow.

This shadow was much taller than his own, its outline blurred, like a voluminous robe. And at its hem, where the legs should have been, there was no shape of legs at all.

Instead, there were seven or eight long, thin, twisting shadows, dancing manically.

They writhed on the wall like living things, slithering and convulsing. The shadow of the thickest "tentacle" was slowly, slowly, coiling toward the shadow of Huck’s neck.

HSSSS—

It was a low hum, like the scraping of insect carapaces, seeming to come from right beside his ear.

CRASH.

The liquor bottle hit the ground, shattering completely.

"Ghost... A GHOST!!!"

A bloodcurdling scream shattered the silence of the Lower City District. Huck scrambled away like a madman, fleeing toward the end of the street. He’d pissed himself in terror and didn’t even notice when one of his worn-out boots fell off.

...

「Meanwhile, in Copper Hammer Lane of the blacksmith district.」

This area was mostly home to artisans, so the nights were relatively quiet, save for the occasional bark of a dog.

Thomas, a mold maker who had just gotten off a late shift, was dragging his exhausted body home. He carried a storm lantern that was nearly out of oil, its dim, yellow light no bigger than a pea, illuminating only a small patch of the road beneath his feet.

He had walked this road for twenty years. He could find his way home with his eyes closed.

Up ahead was a T-junction, usually cluttered with abandoned wooden crates.

But tonight, something was standing there.

Thomas raised his lantern higher.

It was a statue.

It looked like one of the common stone Angel statues from the Holy Radiance Church, but this one had clearly been dug out of some ruin. Half of its face had crumbled away, exposing the rough stone beneath, and its one remaining eye stared lifelessly at the road. One of its wings was broken off, while the other drooped at a twisted angle. It wasn’t holding a Holy Scripture, but an empty, broken bowl.

’What kind of asshole leaves something so ominous at a crossroads?’

Thomas thought to himself. According to church doctrine, a damaged holy icon like this was an ill omen; it was supposed to be smashed to pieces and buried deep.

He skirted around the statue and walked past quickly.

The feeling of being watched made his skin crawl. He didn’t dare look back, merely quickening his pace.

After passing through a short alley, he came to another intersection.

The moment Thomas turned the corner, he froze, rooted to the spot.