Records of the Weakest Emperor

"That woman is probably in the ancestral home along with the newly-converted monsters. What we can do at this moment is to wait. When she comes out, she will hang herself again over the wooden platform and that is when we make our move..."

The deformed man handed over a piece of crumpled paper to Heisenberg.

"If you must leave, use this map."

Heisenberg received the map without saying anything else.

Calvin turned to look at the deformed man and asked, "Are you going to accompany us?"

"Yes, I'll be with you... That's the only way that the woman won't kill you at first sight."

"How can you be so sure that she wouldn't kill us if she sees us with you?"

Calvin smirked, "Could it be that you are related to the young woman, one way or another?"

"Speaking of this, I can see that despite your wretched appearance. If we arrange the symmetry of your facial features, I can make out a very handsome man that would surely be the target of ladies..."

"Are you perhaps... a lover of the young woman before she died?"

The deformed man's pupils constricted. He grew agitated as his eyes went bloodshot, sending alarm signals to Heisenberg and Ricardo who quickly took a fighting stance. They were ready to react if the situation escalated to the worst.

"Calm down..." Calvin flagged them down and said to the deformed man, "You don't really have to answer if you are not willing to..."

"I was just curious..." A chuckle came out of his mouth when he finished his sentence, "Let's go... we have a job to do."

Before leaving the dark alleyway, Calvin borrowed the map from Heisenberg and took a quick glance at it. It was just a simple map for the Village of Tulog, but there were multiple spots marked with the 'X' sign colored in red.

"Have you taken a look at it? What do you think?"

For some reason, Heisenberg was now relying on Calvin's opinion even though he was the oldest one in the group.

"Hahaha..." Calvin lightly chuckled, "It seems genuine, but do you really think that I have a way to check? It's my first time coming here to this village, how can I possibly be more knowledgeable about this village than him?"

"Makes sense..." Heisenberg sighed, "So in the end we have no other choice but to trust this guy? To be honest, he feels off to me. It's as if he is hiding something..." He whispered the second part of his sentence to Calvin.

Ricardo and the deformed man hadn't noticed them whispering since the two of them were busy scouting the streets.

Calvin stared at Heisenberg for a moment before he shook his head and laughed, "Come on now, old man..."

"Do you really think that a man like him would betray our trust? He has been waiting for us for more than five years now! I bet his desire to leave this village is even stronger than yours!"

Heisenberg seemed to have been convinced by Calvin's words as he nodded and didn't say anything anymore.

The group walked out of the dark alleyway and positioned themselves in an area where they could see the ancestral hall right behind the wooden platform.

The doors of the ancestral hall were closed, but the sinister aura coming from behind the doors sent shivers down the spines of everyone in the group.

The ceremony of conversion had finished, but to think that there was still a second part to it!

"This second part of the ceremony is only known to the few since it's customary for us villagers to lock ourselves in our houses once the ceremony of conversion had ended. This is why only a handful of people knows what happens to the converted devotees after the formal conversion ceremony."

"This is where takes a turn for the worst... not only those people are converted into monsters. They are also going to be given the curse of sleeplessness... I have no idea why these monsters are given the curse of sleeplessness, but all I know for sure is that woman is gathering hundreds of monsters underneath the ancestral hall..."

"H-H-Hundreds of monsters?!" Heisenberg was unable to retain his composure anymore.

"Yes... I have no idea why, but I accidentally stumbled upon that underground storage of monsters when I was holding an old lady deliver a letter to the Village Chief. It was an accident since it was never my intention to open that door. My curiosity got over me and when I pushed that door opened, the horrors that I saw beyond that door would be something that I would never forget."

"Those monsters... Hahaha..." The deformed man's facial features distorted into something sinister as he let out a vile cackle, "If those monsters... If those monsters got out of this village into the outside world... I can only imagine what will happen. It would be absolute chaos!"

"Perhaps that is the goal of the monster behind the facade of that woman... Gather enough monsters to take the cities of Joselian in one fell swoop! Indeed, it's a brilliant plan! Hahaha!" The deformed man continued to laugh as Heisenberg, Ricardo, and Calvin frowned.

The deformed man didn't seem to be lying.

Heisenberg scoffed, "You sure are underestimating the churches of the three Orthodox Gods as well as the Judiciaries. Do you really think that a few hundred monsters would be enough to defeat us and take over our cities? What a joke! But well, I should thank you for giving us this information. Once we're out of here, I will report everything without glossing over any detail."

"I'll be sure to eradicate those so-called monsters that you are talking about."

"Sure, sure, sure... But don't get too excited yet... We still don't know if we'll be able to get out of here." The deformed man was amused by Heisenberg's declaration as he chuckled and repeatedly nodded his head like a chicken pecking rice.

"Shut your trap... Remember that we can leave whenever we want to." Heisenberg wasn't afraid of the deformed man at all.

"Oh, so you're reneging on your promise?" The deformed man raised his burned eyebrows as a chilling air radiated out of his body.

'W-W-What's wrong with this guy?' Heisenberg was intimidated to the point that he had to take a step backward.

"They are not reneging on their promise if they left. Did you already forget what I said? I told you that I promise to rid this village of the curse."

"I did not say, 'We'..." Calvin smirked.

"Hahaha..." The deformed man coldly laughed before he proceeded to ignore the two and turned to stare at the gates of the ancestral hall.

Heisenberg and Ricardo were annoyed, 'What's up with this guy?'

A serious look suffused on Calvin's face.

There were some changes happening to the ancestral gates.

"Is that blood?" Ricardo's eyes shone in an orangey-hue as his Predator Senses activated. With his Vision, he was able to see something dripping out of the doors of the ancestral hall. It was a crimson fluid that looked similar to blood.

"Did she kill the corpses that she transformed?" Heisenberg asked.

Calvin also had a frown on his face.

If the woman was supposedly gathering monsters in preparation for taking over the major cities of Joselian. Why would she kill those monsters that she was supposed to turn into her soldiers? It didn't make sense.

"Nope, she's shedding them..."

"Shedding?"

Calvin, Heisenberg, and Ricardo turned to look at the deformed man.

"Yes, as you have seen earlier... Those monsters do not possess the features of humans anymore. However, through the process of shedding. They would temporarily possess a human body that they could use to infiltrate the ranks of the Joselian Kingdom. Their intelligence would also be raised until they are able to function as human beings."

"But since they aren't really humans... I'd like to call them 'Pseudo-humans.'..."

"However, the drawback of this transformation is the curse of sleeplessness. Despite having the capability to sleep like other humans. They would be unable to do so since their brains would be fully engaged in keeping their disguises around the clock..."

The deformed man explained.

"So that's the reason why despite being monsters, the villagers here still look human?"

"What about you?" Calvin asked the deformed man.

"Hahaha..." The deformed man bitterly laughed, "I don't even know if I am still human or not."

Calvin smiled, "You seem to know a lot about this so-called woman and the curse of sleeplessness."

The deformed man shrugged, "I can guess you can say that I haven't spent all these years in this damned village in vain."

Suddenly, the ancestral gates shook.

Even the ground itself had been affected as a mini-earthquake started.

"They're about to come out!" The deformed man signaled to the others.

As soon as his words fell, the doors of the ancestral halls were slammed open.

Then, the figures of the corpses that had been turned into monsters came out of the ancestral hall.

They didn't look like monsters anymore. In fact, they looked like humans apart from the fact that their cheeks were hollow, eyes were sunken, and their movements seemed to be mechanical like puppets.

Calvin counted the number of individuals that came out of the ancestral hall and noticed that about a quarter of them was missing!

'So this man wasn't lying? The woman has been selectively choosing monsters and keeping them underground?'

Calvin's expression turned serious.

He turned to look at Ricardo and Heisenberg before noticing that the two didn't seem to have noticed the discrepancy between the number of corpses that were converted into monsters to the number of monsters that came out of the ancestral hall.

'It seems that in the end, I can only rely on myself. But for now, I should first check out what this man meant about lifting the curse from the village... If there's indeed a way for us to lift the curse without fighting, then that would be for the better. But if not, it's not like I don't have a few cards up my sleeve...'

Calvin contemplated before he made a decision to follow the deformed man who had already walked ahead.

The sinister woman had come out of the ancestral hall and was now heading to the wooden platform to hang herself once more. The rope around her neck tightened and the darkness that covered her body seemed to be going away as it was being replaced by an ethereal glow.

Unfortunately, the vessel that contained the ethereal glow was eventually suppressed by the suffocation that its body was undergoing.

But just as she was about to lose her consciousness, she saw a few figures rushing towards her as well as an arrow that accurately struck the rope wrapped around her neck, sending her plummeting onto the ground where she was caught by Calvin who had reacted quick enough.

"Who..."

"Who are you people?"