Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 953 - 953: Slipping Through

Griar, armed with a machete, a kitchen knife, and magic that was greatly limited, did his best to move from tree to tree without being noticed, escaping the vigilance of the villagers working and moving around was easy enough as they paid next to no attention to anything besides what they were doing, but the young man in the chair was something else entirely, he was vigilant, and reacted to every suspicious movement, fortunately, so far, all things he had noticed had nothing to do with Griar.

This allowed the youth to sneak around undetected until he managed to place a farm in between himself and the young man, but just because the one standing guard could no longer spot him, it did not mean that Griar had solved the situation, his target was the modest manor, but it was surrounded by a tall fence with a rather spiky top, he could probably use a spell to leap over the fence without much problem, but upon taking a closer look, the manor's yard was being guard by rather tough-looking fellow.

Garbed in a faded blue shirt with only the top button undone, with broad shoulders and holding a double-edged axe, Griar felt like getting in trouble with this guy without any access to magic whatsoever after jumping the fence would be a terrible idea, that man wasn't as big as the tall woman, but he looked to be at least as tall as Griar himself, and considering the situation, he was undoubtedly infested with the black substance, and to serve as a guard to the manor, one would have to assume that he was not as dazed as the villagers.

In fact, he walked around with firm steps, and for some reason, his head was covered by a burlap bag, which had been cut in a way that made it seem like he sported a saddened expression, this made the youth feel odd.

The 'Sad-Faced Man' was a scary story his mother would often speak of when he and his sisters were younger, so seeing something that perfectly matched the story rekindled the fear that the story had aroused in him as a young child.

He did not let himself be troubled by a mere coincidence however, and continued to move forward, creeping up to the edge of a farm, where it seemed like no villager was anywhere near to at the moment, the farm animals looked suspiciously normal, unlike the shepherd dog from earlier, they were not foaming at the mouth and displaying any signs of being affected by the dark substance, but he did not trust those pigs and cows, choosing to avoid showing himself to them as well, moving between covers and hiding spots, a young girl with sunken eyes heard one of his footsteps and went to investigate, but simply returned to what she had been doing after finding nothing weird, Griar having been hiding just a single meter away from her.

He waited a few dozen seconds before beginning to breathe again.

'That was close…'

He pressed on, although the number of villagers, at least of those likely to see him, was far lesser compared to the townspeople who had swarmed him earlier, they were far more spread out and moved comparatively more as well, and considering that most of the village was a lot of empty space and farms or barns that were all left wide open, he couldn't really pick them off one by one without risking to get caught in the act.

Griar could only do his best to move around stealthily, until he managed to sneak by and arrive close to the gates of the manner, none of the villagers paid close attention to that area, and furthermore, the gates weren't even shut, so as long as he was swift and didn't cause a commotion, he should be able to slip inside undetected, he only needed to wait until the man with the burlap sack atop his head passed by during his patrol.

Though, once the occasion presented itself, he did not rush to take it, remembering that the guard seemed more aware than most of the others, waiting until he walked a fair distance from the gates before moving in, not hearing anyone yelling 'Herejak!' in the distance, he approached the front door of the manor, and tried to open it, finding it unlocked.

Clearly, the owner of this manor was not too big on security, the neighbourhood was probably safe enough for them to not bother with locking anything, despite having a guard for some reason.

Griar snuck inside and closed the door behind him, this one not creaking like a devil in agony, and took in the interior, the decoration felt… Odd, not strange as in bizarre or absurd, but simply not looking much like anything the young man was used to, the way the furniture looked, the paintings on the wall that looked old and battered, yet seemed incredibly realistic, the people depicted looked exactly like real folks rather than representations of them.

There were things placed on tables and the walls that Griar was simply unable to identify, and he had gone to watch Liebeln do his architectural projects plenty of times, and that man had a most bizarre sense of aesthetics that seemed to change with every new project, but nothing had appeared like this.

He was somewhat mesmerised by the surroundings, until the sound of heavy footsteps rang out from above, he had not concrete evidence, but he felt certain that this was the tall woman, her steps were heavy and certain, like nothing could possibly stop her advance, but he did not hear any voices, or even another set of footsteps for that matter.

This worried Griar, prompting him to sneak further into the manor, which inside was much more cramped than he would have expected, the sounds stopped, and using that as a reference, Griar began to ascend the stairs once he found them, from what he had heard, the woman had stopped moving a fair distance away from the stairs, and if he was not mistaken, she was in a room which door was currently shut, he could see it once he arrived at the top, and even if wrong, the general direction could not have been confused, so he went to the opposite.

No rooms whatsoever were locked, but most were just mundane rooms without anything special about them, at least until he reached the door at the very end, it was most certainly the tall woman's bedroom.

Griar suddenly felt very guilty about intruding on a girl's privacy, feeling like what he was doing could easily be misunderstood as far more nasty than his noble goal of finding his beloved.

He shook his head and began inspecting the place…