Глава 6

第四关（后）

Everything's gone to hell out there.

Word is Mephisto's used his Arts to whip up some monsters that even attack us. They'll eat Infected same as anyone.

Hah. It's over. We lost.

Somebody found one of Mephisto's teams in some basement room in the slums.

They said the corpses were covered in plants, still growing, to the point they were unrecognizable. Any ideas?

I'm not sure.

It's so weird. Why is everything so weird?

We took down Chernobog, but we haven't been able to break Lungmen. It must be because Talulah hasn't shown.

We made the right choice by not going with Crownslayer's crew. No one's been able to find them on the comms.

We're the only ones left here. Sigh.

What about you, Lungmen's infected?

Sigh. You know, Lungmenite, you might end up better off than us just for not joining Reunion.

We won't be better off for not joining.

Was it Talulah's speech that inspired you to join?

No. Fancy talking doesn't do much for me.

To ask me something like that... I guess you don't care much for Infected identity politics.

Oh. Sounds like you don't really believe in that stuff.

So why do you stay with Reunion?

Because I have nowhere else to go. But if we never came here, would you still be able to live normal lives?

The Infected purge was always coming. Reunion just sped up the timeline.

You're pretty clear on that.

And you're right. My hometown was a little place, far from any of the big cities. They weren't too bad to the Infected either.

The noble family who ran the show had an Infected daughter. They let us live pretty normal lives in the ghetto. Mine work wasn't too hard.

And the uninfected treated us okay. At least they'd trade with us a bit, sometimes even squat by the wall and share a drink.

Then, a few years later, the duke lost a battle or something and got taken away. They sent us a new mayor.

'The Great Rebellion'?

Nobles were getting stripped of their titles left and right.

Maybe. I never understood politics. We'd only get whispers every once in a while.

Supposedly there are Infected Messengers out there somewhere, but Ursus never had them. We didn't know anything.

At first, everyone lived pretty much like they did before. But there was a sense of something heavier in the air. And every day the food stores ran a little lower.

Slowly but surely, things turned bad. When supplies really started to run low, the uninfected began throwing rocks at us. Then we started disappearing.

And after a few dozen speeches in the town square, nobody brought up the mayor's embezzlement, or the way he was renovating the town center for himself.

I mean, we Infected could see it. The ordinary townsfolk had to know.

From the other side of the ghetto wall, we could hear them chanting things like 'purify the town' and 'exterminate the Infected.'

You were his scapegoat.

When life gives you lemons, right? But weren't we always scapegoats? I know I said the town treated us pretty well, but that's just for the last few decades.

The rest of the story is pretty simple. They came in and killed most of the Infected. The rest of us fled into the wilderness, where about half of us starved to death.

Now here in Lungmen, more of us died. Everyone from my hometown is already dead.

So yeah, you're right. This is the way it goes. There's no place in this world for the Infected. The only cause for hope is that we didn't see it go down ourselves.

Why are you telling me this?

I got the feeling I don't have much time left. You don't happen to have a nice, painless way to kill somebody, do you?

What are you saying...?

Huh?

Oh...

Sorry? I may have misread this.

Lungmenites still hate you. You attacked our city.

Sure. But where's the Infected city?

Huh? Fire?

Hey, let's not fly off the handle here... All you had to say was you wanted the window seat. There's no need for violence.

The fire spreads so quickly. Strange. This is no natural flame.

Why?

It doesn't spread like a 'true flame.'

Then let's get out of here. Who knew this place would go to hell too.

And where do we go?

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Come with us. You Lungmenites don't like leaving home, right? Might as well leave it with us.

Go with you?

Sure, why not? You don't have to if you don't want it.

...I'll think about it.

But, home...

Where is home?