Sister, I Hit You Because There Was a Ghost Behind You - Chapter 30

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 30. Where There’s the Scent of Money, Even Zombies Come Crawling
Morning sunlight filtered through the window, tickling my eyelids awake.
“Mmm….”
I opened my heavy eyes. I could have sworn I’d fallen asleep sitting in a chair on watch, yet when consciousness returned, I found myself sprawled across a plush bed. Worse still, I couldn’t move a muscle.
A weighty presence pressed against me from both sides.
On my left, Kairik von Herzen slept soundly with my waist as his pillow, while on my right, Demian crouched with my hand clasped firmly in his grip.
The body heat radiating from both men turned the space beneath the blankets into a sauna.
I stared at the ceiling in exasperation, muttering under my breath.
“…Are these men actually patients?”
Patients, my foot. They were beasts. Pretending to be ill, they’d used me as a human cushion all night long.
The moment I shifted, Kairik’s eyes fluttered open, his crimson irises still glazed with drowsiness.
“…You awake? Sleep more.”
Kairik von Herzen nuzzled his face against my stomach, mumbling softly.
I pushed his head away and spoke.
“Your Majesty, you’re heavy. And please don’t drool on me. This is an expensive nightgown.”
At my words, Demian jolted awake on the opposite side. Realizing his predicament, his face flushed crimson as a beet.
“I, why am I on the bed…! I’m terribly sorry. I must have…in my sleep.”
Demian yelped in mortification and tumbled from the bed. At the commotion, Kairik von Herzen burst into laughter.
“So much for the Holy Knights Order Commander’s dignity. Such shameful sleeping habits.”
“You’re hardly one to talk, using someone’s stomach as a pillow.”
Another morning sparring match had begun. I shouted, herding both men out of bed.
“Out, both of you! I need to wash and change!”
After a light breakfast, I prepared for my outing. Today’s destination was the slums of the Capital—the Back Alley.
Kairik von Herzen bit into an apple and asked.
“Where are you going all dressed up like that? Off to hunt monsters again?”
I grabbed my document case and shook my head.
“No. Shopping.”
“Shopping? To Aveline Street?”
“No. The Back Alley.”
Demian interjected with a worried expression.
“The Back Alley? That’s dangerous. The atmosphere was unsettling the last time I visited.”
I grinned wickedly and tapped my case.
“That’s precisely why I’m going. The more dangerous the place, the cheaper the land.”
My ambitions were grand. Over one hundred billion gold—an astronomical sum. Leaving it to languish in a bank was something only amateurs did. True wealth meant investing in real estate.
“I’m going to demolish the Back Alley entirely and construct a massive commercial district in its place. I’m calling it ‘Violetta Land’. What do you think?”
Kairik von Herzen stared at me blankly for a moment, then broke into applause.
“Ha, that’s my woman. Delightfully greedy. I like it.”
Demian shook his head in disapproval, though a smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“Allow us to accompany you. You’ll need security.”
We arrived at the entrance of the Back Alley by carriage. But the moment we stepped out, I sensed something was amiss.
The street, which should have been noisy as usual, was silent as a graveyard. There were no drunken shouts, no merchants hawking their wares—only the stench of decay hanging thick in the air.
“The smell is… absolutely putrid.”
Demian Lyart pinched his nose and furrowed his brow. Kairik von Herzen sniffed the air as well, his expression hardening.
“Blood. Old blood, at that.”
I activated my spirit vision. Crimson mist clung to every corner of the street. It wasn’t mere fog—it was the harbinger of corruption and malice, the prelude to ‘plague’.
“Be careful. Something’s wrong here.”
We assumed a defensive stance and ventured deeper into the alley. That’s when I heard rustling from a shadowed corner.
A man was rummaging through a trash bin—a vagrant in tattered clothes. But something was terribly wrong with him. His skin had taken on a sickly blue pallor, and his body convulsed in grotesque spasms.
“Excuse me? Are you alright?”
I called out cautiously. The man turned his head slowly.
“…!”
His eyes had rolled back completely white, and his mouth was smeared with blood and foam. Most disturbingly, black veins spread across his neck like a spider’s web.
[Grrrrr… Flesh….]
The man let out a bestial cry and lunged toward me.
“Violetta!”
Kairik von Herzen instantly positioned himself between us and kicked the man away.
Thud!
The man crashed into the wall but rose immediately, seemingly oblivious to pain. With limbs bent at unnatural angles, he began crawling toward us grotesquely.
“Don’t tell me… is that a zombie?”
At my exclamation, Demian Lyart drew his sword.
“No. This is no mere undead. I sense life force—they’re still alive, but their minds have been enslaved.”
Living zombies. The infected.
Then, similar sounds began echoing from all around the alley.
[Krraaaagh!]
[Flesh! Flesh!]
Dozens of infected poured out from building shadows and behind garbage heaps. All exhibited identical symptoms: white eyes, black veins, and an insatiable hunger for flesh.
“We’re surrounded.”
Kairik von Herzen clicked his tongue.
“Came to buy land and ended up buying a grave instead.”
I drew my hammer and calmly analyzed the situation. This wasn’t a natural plague—someone had deliberately spread this curse.
“Rasputin escaped yesterday. And today, this happens?”
The timing was too perfect. Then a memory flashed through my mind—something Kairik von Herzen had said at the Campsite yesterday.
‘The scent of blood leads northward.’
North, then.
Now that I thought about it, when Rasputin’s formation collapsed, I’d seen small black tails scurrying through wall cracks with particular urgency. In that instant, a brilliant intuition struck me like lightning.
Could those rats gnawing at the Imperial Palace have been literal rats all along, not a metaphor?
“Sir Demian! Can you purify these people?”
Demian Lyart shook his head.
“There are too many. And the curse has already spread through their bloodstream to their brains. For now… we can only subdue them.”
“Don’t kill them! They’re still living citizens! They’re my prospective tenants!”
I shouted for them to stop. We couldn’t kill it—there might be a cure. And more than anything, my property values would plummet.
“Your Majesty! My lord! Just break their legs! Immobilize them!”
“Ugh, the spell work is tedious.”
Kairik von Herzen grumbled, but his fists struck with surgical precision at the infected creatures’ joints.
Crack!
“Sorry, this is going to hurt a bit.”
Kairik von Herzen swept the legs out from under an onrushing infected creature and wrenched its arm into submission. Demian Lyart was methodically striking the infected creatures unconscious with the flat of his blade.
“May divine mercy be with you.”
Thud! Thud!
I gently tapped the crowns of their heads with my hammer, rendering them unconscious. Within moments, the alley was filled with groaning infected creatures.
“Phew… at least we’ve contained the immediate crisis.”
I examined one of the fallen infected creatures closely. Small bite marks covered his arm—the unmistakable punctures of rat teeth.
“Just as I thought.”
I was certain now. Rasputin’s avatar, or perhaps a curse he had left behind, was using rats as vectors to spread this plague. If this continued unchecked, the entire Capital would become a wasteland of the undead.
Then, from a second-floor building deeper in the alley, someone began to applaud.
Clap, clap, clap.
“Impressive. So you really are heroes, after all.”
We all looked up simultaneously. A man sat perched on the railing, swinging his legs casually. Black hood, wine bottle in hand. It was Shadow, according to our intelligence.
“Why don’t you stop watching and actually help?”
Shadow chuckled at my sharp retort.
“I’m not a combat operative. But I’ll give you some valuable information instead.”
Shadow pointed his finger deep into the alley, toward the underground Sewers.
“That’s where it is. The Queen Rat—the source of all this chaos, hiding down there.”
The Queen Rat. That creature was the original infection vector, the factory producing these curses.
“And if you capture that thing… you’ll be able to obtain the ‘serum’ needed to create an antidote.”
Shadow added with a wink.
“Of course, I’ll be charging you for this information. This one’s going to be expensive.”
I sighed deeply. I’d come here to invest in real estate, and now I was about to clean sewers. But I had no choice. If I left this unchecked, my property values would become worthless.
I adjusted my grip on the hammer and spoke to the two men.
“Let’s go. Time to catch some rats.”
Kairik von Herzen asked with obvious distaste.
“The Sewers? Seriously? I’m throwing away this entire outfit.”
Demian Lyart calmly wiped his blade and spoke with measured resolve.
“Filth can be washed away. Let us proceed.”
We moved toward the Sewers entrance, where darkness yawned open like a hungry mouth. The squeaking sounds echoing up from below seemed to mock us.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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