Rat City—Pestis
When William heard the name of the city, he could not help recalling the first formidable enemy he had encountered after becoming a gentleman—the Fallen Gentleman, Mr. Lee, beneath the Twilight Clinic.
William himself was also curious about what a city named after the plague would look like.
The journey was just past its halfway point when the attendant in charge of the voyage came to William again, apparently with something important to notify him of at short notice.
"Mr. William, we just received a shortwave transmission from the headquarters. It informed us that Rat City has also been designated a Forbidden Zone. How about we change our destination and take you to another nearby city instead?"
"They only just changed it?"
"That's right."
"Keep the itinerary unchanged. Get me as close to Rat City as possible. I was planning to make contact with the Abyss on this trip anyway. Familiarizing myself with the situation around the edge of the Abyss ahead of time will be useful."
"Understood."
The Living Train stopped more than ten kilometers from Rat City.
Even from that distance, William could still make out the general outline of Rat City. Its towering walls reached several hundred meters high, crooked and twisted, seemingly not made from conventionally rough-hewn stone.
Large amounts of Green Gas, representing the plague, continuously surged from above the city, dyeing the clouds overhead green. Some clouds even dripped green rainwater, as though the sky were vomiting from the effect.
Fungi covered the dilapidated roads, and "rats" could crawl across the surface at any moment.
The forms of these rats had already exceeded William's understanding. Only a small number of them still looked relatively normal.
Most of them retained only their heads, while their bodies either crawled like children or had multiple