Pan Long had slain the Necromancer's Apprentice, who raised rats to spread plague. Their goal for this expedition was complete.
The man had always appeared and vanished like a ghost. Using rats as his eyes and ears, he avoided large groups of adventurers and struck smaller parties while they rested. He had even sent rats up to Hamlet Town to spread disease.
His actions posed a grave threat to Hamlet Town. If Doctor Turk and the other physicians had not worked so hard to treat the sick, the plague alone might have left nine out of every ten homes empty.
Things like this had happened more than once, and they would happen again.
As the adventurers explored, the bosses lurking near Hamlet Town would gradually surface. They would attack the town that served as the adventurers' base, bringing threat after threat to its people.
The Old Count, the mastermind behind the scenes, controlled it all.
It was ironic. Most of these bosses had suffered at the Old Count's hands years ago; many had even died because of his schemes. Yet after becoming monsters, they had not sought revenge. Instead, the Old Count had used them again and made them his accomplices.
Alive or dead, that lot was a flock of fools. No wonder the Old Count had played them like pieces in the palm of his hand, capable though each of them was.
Being weak was not frightening. Being stupid was. What good was strength without a brain?
While Pan Long rested, the adventurers searched the battlefield. The Necromancer's Apprentice had left little loot, chiefly some fragments imbued with mysterious power. Like relics, they could be used in a mystical ritual to expand the purified area around town, giving its residents and the adventurers more room to move about safely.