"My deepest thanks to you, nameless Master Omen..."
"My name is Morgott. You may address me as such," Morgott replied, glancing at Liana before slowly rising from the ground.
However, the moment of gratitude was shattered by a discordant, venomous outburst.
"Why... why bother healing me?! Wouldn't it be better to just let me die?! Or is this your game? Do you just want to watch me suffer more, watching my skin rot away in this godforsaken hole until I die a mangled wretch?!"
"I see it now! You damned Omens—it was you lot who spread this plague to me, wasn't it?! You want us to suffer forever, never knowing the peace of death!"
The speaker wasn't the man who had previously lashed out at Liana, but a different man with golden hair. His attire set him apart from the others; though tattered, his clothes bore intricate embroidery and sigils that only those of a certain social standing were permitted to wear.
The man from before, ironically, now looked on with a gaze of genuine gratitude. It seemed he was truly afraid of death and wanted to live; his earlier outburst had merely been the result of suppressed emotions and a lack of hope.
But in Mohg's eyes, despair was no excuse for these people to bark at them—especially after Morgott had just shown them mercy.
"Hmm?"
The blond man froze as a shadow fell over him, blotting out the dim light. He blinked and looked up.
Mohg was standing directly in front of him, staring down into his bloodshot eyes. Even in this pitiful state, the man's gaze was thick with revulsion and... arrogance.
"I'm giving you a chance," Mohg said coldly. "If possible, I'd rather not lay a hand on your kind."
"Ha! A chance? Are you joking? Just because you've learned to speak and mimic our incantations, do you truly believe you're a subject of the Golden Order? You're nothing but—"
CRUNCH!
"Tsk. I knew I shouldn't have expected anything from your sort, let alone shown you kindness."
Mohg slammed the man's head into the stone floor with a sickening thud. He stood back and shook his hand with an expression of pure disgust, as if he had just touched a particularly repulsive piece of trash.
Seeing this, the other patients—whose conditions had noticeably improved thanks to Morgott's prayers—scrambled away in terror. Even though the twins were technically their saviors, the raw violence reminded them exactly what they were dealing with.
"What an unpleasant look in their eyes..." Mohg muttered.
Suddenly, he felt a soft touch on his hand.
He looked down to find Liana holding out a relatively clean piece of cloth.
"Master... Master Mohg... please, wipe the blood from your hand. If you catch what we have... it would be terrible..."
Mohg's eyes flickered with a brief moment of shock. He let out a long, slow sigh and took the cloth to wipe away the gore.
"Liana, hold on to life. I will find a way to cure what ails you."
Liana hesitated, then a small, fragile smile touched her lips. "Yes... I will try my best to live."
Mohg looked at her, knowing she didn't truly believe him. He didn't bother explaining further; in a place like this, a lack of expectations was often a mercy.
However...
Are the people above truly that ignorant? Mohg thought, his eyes narrowing. Cramming a mass of despairing people together in one place... do they not fear the spark of the Frenzied Flame?
Perhaps they simply didn't care. The Golden Dynasty was at the height of its power; even if a few sparks of madness ignited in the sewers, they likely believed they could snuff them out before any real damage was done.
"Morgott, did you find anything over there?"
"Nothing special. But there's a path leading out to a large chamber filled with intersecting pipes. It looks like it branches off into many different directions."
Mohg immediately thought of the "Subterranean Shunning-Grounds" from his memory—the place where the blood-soaked history of the Golden Dynasty was buried.
"Is that so? Let's go have a look."
Morgott had no objections, and the two began to walk away.
Once the Omens had departed, the area returned to a deathly, heavy silence. One or two of the patients looked at the corpse on the floor with a hint of envy in their eyes, before the primal fear of death forced them to lie back down and wait. They didn't care about Liana's interaction with the "monsters." It wasn't their business. They preferred to rest, hoping to dull their constant pain.
"Well, this is the place."
"It looks remarkably like the area we just left... though it has a few more 'local specialties,'" Mohg said, a smirk playing on his lips.
"Specialties?" Morgott asked, confused. He didn't see anything he would consider a specialty.
Besides, what could the sewers possibly offer? Slimy slugs, big-eyed Basilisks, massive lobsters, and rats...
"Look closer. Those stone statues clinging to the pipes, perched on the walls, standing at the corners, and hiding in the shadows... those are Fanged Imps."
"Imps... those magical constructs?" Morgott rubbed his chin, intrigued. "I've only read about them in books. I didn't expect to find the real things down here."
"It proves that the Leyndell Catacombs are indeed nearby. They wouldn't waste this many Imps on a section of sewer unless they were guarding something significant."
As Mohg spoke, he peered down into the dizzying drop beneath the pipes. He spotted several protrusions that looked suspiciously like Giant Crawfish, and sections of walls that hadn't yet been broken through.
From the look of it, the Leyndell Catacombs had indeed been visited by grave robbers, likely coming up from the lower levels.
If that's the case... the strength of those grave robbers is hard to gauge. Or perhaps they just threw enough bodies at the problem until they broke through.
"What is it? Are you thinking of heading down there?" Morgott asked, noticing Mohg staring into the abyss.
"Not yet... but I have some thoughts about these pipes. They're basically being used as a prison. Let's head down and see."
"...I have no objection, but how do you plan to handle the Imps along the way?"
"That is a problem. Let me go and test the waters first."
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Elden Ring: As the Consort, I Reject Miquella (174 Chapters – Ongoing)
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