The Demon’s Menu

The sound of the blade tearing through the air reached Jason’s ears!

It wasn’t aimed at him.

But rather at…

Behind the carriage, near the city gates.

Jason instinctively looked back and immediately saw a figure cloaked in a grey-black cloak leap down from above the city gate and thrust the blade in their hand into the body of a patrol soldier.

Thump!

“Ahh!”

The patrol soldier’s abrupt, short scream came to a sudden halt, and the figure holding the blade picked up the corpse, lifting it over their head as if displaying a trophy, and shouted out loud,

“Revival Society!”

After shouting these words, the figure threw down the body of the patrol soldier and ran towards the outskirts of Taor City.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye.

Just as the figure was about to run out of the city gates, the remaining soldiers finally reacted.

“Fire! Fire!”

A soldier in a guardhouse next to the city gate charged out, shouting loudly.

All the soldiers lifted their flintlock rifles, proficiently bit open the paper cartridges, poured part of the gunpowder into the pan, and stuffed the remaining gunpowder and the bullets down the barrel with a ramrod.

In about 20 seconds, all the soldiers had completed this action.

Then, they aimed at the fleeing figure and pulled the triggers.

Bang, bang, bang!

A hail of bullets engulfed the figure like raindrops.

Perhaps the accuracy of a flintlock rifle at a certain range makes a direct hit on a targeted subject impossible, but when ten, twenty flintlock rifles fire at the same time, the area saturation drastically increases the ‘hit rate’.

Just like this time.

The figure, already around two hundred meters out, was directly struck down to the ground.

The soldiers, with bayonets fixed on their rifles, quickly surrounded the fallen person.

The person on the ground did not die immediately. When the soldiers closed in, the figure rolled up but the limp in their step sealed their fate.

However, it seemed as if they didn’t care at all.

“Revival Society!”

“Indestructible!”

Shouting this slogan, the man swung his long sword and charged at the soldiers.

Bang, bang, bang!

Another round of intense shooting.

This time, the power of the bullets was not decreased by the distance like before.

The short distance of less than 10 meters allowed the flintlock rifles to unleash their maximum power.

The man fell straight to the ground.

His body was covered in bullet wounds.

Even in death, he never let go of the long sword in his hand.

Jason’s vision, three times that of an ordinary person, allowed him to see this scene clearly.

Similarly, unlike the surrounding crowd that pushed in, merely to witness the ‘accident’, Jason was constantly aware of his surroundings.

That’s why he was able to see the fleeting sorrow on Coachman Peters’ face.

Then came the bewildered and helpless expression.

The people around, however, excitedly discussed the Revival Society.

“Another madman from the Revival Society!”

“A bunch of fools who only know about swords!”

“How can a sword compare to a flintlock gun?”

“I heard they even reject steam engines, thinking horses are the best!”

“A group of ignorant fools!”

The discussions allowed Jason to quickly understand the nature of this organization known as the ‘Revival Society’.

They idealized everything from before the advent of gunpowder weapons.

They rejected any organizations associated with steam engines and such things.

They acted radically and bloodily.

And the members were… Proficient!

Just like the assassin who just created a bloodbath, whether it was their leap from a height for the assassination or the speed of their escape, they had reached the limit of a normal person.

Such feats would be impossible without years of effective training.

But faced with a group of equally trained gunmen, even if their training was less than one-tenth of his own, he was still no match.

Alas!

A low sigh emanated from the mouth of Coachman Peters.

Then, the coachman began to quickly compose himself.

He hadn’t noticed that Jason had been watching him all along.

“Sir, we need to speed up now.”

Peters, reverting to his usual coachman demeanor, said.

“Alright.”

Jason said as he settled back into the carriage.

Crack!

With the sound of the whip, the carriage made its way through the streets of Taor.

The cobblestone pavement had been worn smooth long ago, apart from some minor gaps outlining its edges, it was unrecognizable from its original form. The carriage rode over it with not the slightest jolt.

When turning onto the main street of Taor, the stone pavement became even more even, but the buildings on both sides appeared increasingly ‘cramped.’

The one and two-story structures were the brick and stone buildings Jason was accustomed to, but from the third story upward, they were wooden constructions, and it seemed, in order to enlarge ‘rooms,’ the ‘walls’ of these wooden buildings almost jutted out past the brick ones, giving an impression of being top-heavy. Furthermore, in some spots, there were wooden planks no more than 30 centimeters wide forming makeshift ‘sky bridges.’

This was something Jason hadn’t seen in ‘Lorde.’

‘Lorde’ was crowded too, but it was remarkably well-planned.

In contrast, Taor gave Jason a sense of disorder.

Nevertheless, it was still brimming with life.

Looking up at people traversing the ‘sky bridges,’ aside from worrying about someone falling and hitting him, he didn’t have to worry about much else.

The carriage finally stopped at the end of the main street, in front of a shop named ‘Char’s Coach House.’

A sign similar to that of ‘Delin’s Coach House’ signified the ‘Alliance’ between the two.

As soon as Peters handed over the proof from ‘Delin’s Coach House’ to Char’s establishment’s proprietor, Jason was immediately greeted warmly by the somewhat portly owner.

“In the afternoon, one naturally requires afternoon tea.”

The portly proprietor brought over a tray filled with pastries and fruit as he spoke.

Unlike the two-tiered trays Jason had seen in Jidanlen, the tray from Taor not only had three levels, but the topmost layer also had a bowl-like container holding a single pudding.

The caramel sauce was poured over the pudding, and two silver spoons were placed on either side.

The middle and bottom tiers did not differ from what Jason had seen before, holding biscuits and fruit.

“How much sugar and milk would you like?”

The portly proprietor asked Jason while carrying the sugar bowl and teapot.

“Thank you.”

“Just plain tea will be fine.”

Jason replied to the proprietor.

The portly proprietor promptly poured Jason a cup of plain tea and then sat opposite him, eating and chatting.

The proprietor was undoubtedly a talkative and genial man.

Even without input from Jason, he could go on animatedly.

“You came from Jidanlen, did you hear about Morson’s Circus?”

“They’ve really had some bad luck, not only did a lion suddenly go berserk and kill someone, but that same lion disappeared afterward.”

“The man in charge of Morson’s Circus had to leave a considerable deposit before he could leave Jidanlen.”

“However, their performance in Taor was quite successful.”

“Though Morson is a bastard, precisely because he’s a bastard, he always finds a way out of a crisis.”

As Jason listened to the proprietor’s recounting, he subconsciously thought of his own lion skin rug.

Very comfortable, very warm, it was an excellent companion for reading.

At this moment, the proprietor suddenly glanced around, leaned in closer, and lowered his voice, saying:

“I heard that bastard Morson has started worshipping the Evil God in secret to make a fortune!”

“That poor girl who was bitten to death was a sacrifice!”

“And… ”

“He plans to sacrifice even more!”

The proprietor’s voice grew increasingly somber.

And even took on an oddly hoarse quality.

But the proprietor himself hadn’t noticed this oddity.

Similarly, he hadn’t noticed that something was beginning to appear gradually on his own face…

Livor mortis!