Chapter 67: The Ghost of Saint Quanti

At dusk.

At the intersection of Maple Jade Street in the West District of Winster.

A small shop that looked like a cafe on the surface.

A man staggered out of it, pushing the door open, reeking of alcohol.

As luck would have it, he bumped into an acquaintance.

The acquaintance steadied his shoulders, gave him a pat, and said, "Danny, drinking so much this early?"

"Can't help it, my wife just had a baby, need to get back early. By the way, the 'coffee' here today is great, seems like new stock, really has a kick. You should try it. Gotta go."

The man muttered, stumbling away.

The acquaintance waved with a smile, "Take it easy, let's grab a drink together next time."

As it turned out, the man called Danny had only walked a few steps when he suddenly let out an extremely agonizing shriek. Immediately afterward, he collapsed to the ground, his entire body twisting and convulsing.

Finally, his whole body rapidly turned black, freezing up as if encased in ice, stiffening right there with wisps of chilling mist rising from him.

His miserable screams quickly attracted a large crowd of onlookers.

The acquaintance also hurried over, and seeing his wide-open, unblinking eyes, couldn't resist checking his pulse.

"He... he's dead."

As soon as those words were spoken, the surrounding crowd scattered like birds and beasts.

Not far away, camera flashes lit up as someone captured the scene with photographs.

The exact same thing, at around the same time, kept happening in every corner of Winster.

The next day, all major newspapers in Winster front-paged the incident.

Yet, aside from describing the bizarre and horrifying nature of these events, without exception, they all pointed their fingers at—

Moonshine.

Because almost all of these people had died right outside the doors of underground speakeasies.

Or simply, they had died directly inside the speakeasies themselves.

Some people even reported to newspaper offices that they had been drinking with the victim just moments before the terrifying ordeal struck, causing the person to die right before their eyes.

So terrified was he that he immediately spat out the alcohol in his mouth, rushed home to induce vomiting, and remained deeply traumatized to this day.

For days following, major newspapers ran lengthy columns detailing the hazards of moonshine, and how bootleggers, driven by exorbitant profits, illicitly manufactured alcohol laced with various toxic substances.

Ordinarily, reports like these alone would have been useless.

Because in the early days of Prohibition, there had been similar coverage, yet it failed to stem people's thirst for alcohol.

Even if some drank until they went blind or ruined their brains, people would only say they got what they deserved.

But things were different now. With those startling photographs, witnessing such horrifying and eerie deaths sent a chill down the spine of even the most devoted drinkers.

Compounding this, the Prohibition Bureau constantly patrolled the streets, publicizing how many people had been transformed into this state by drinking bootleg liquor.

Even the Church of the Sun, usually exceptionally low-profile, stepped forward to proclaim that drinking alcohol was a vile sin and a punishment from God, warning that if people kept drinking, Winster would be turned into a city of sin and consumed by heavenly fire.

For a time, major underground speakeasies were practically deserted.

Moonshine, which had previously been in desperately short supply, instantly became unsellable.

Ethan and his associates' business suffered a massive blow.

Even the legal sales of grape bricks he had just begun negotiating were shelved as a result.

The situation had escalated to a critical degree.

Sandro had no choice but to call another meeting.

"What on earth is going on?!"

John Holt spoke up first. After all, he was merely a white glove, representing the interests of *that* person.

If business suffered sustained damage, he would be the first to suffer the consequences.

Consequently, the other agents grew anxious along with him.

"This is premeditated. The Prohibition Bureau, the newspaper offices, and even the Church are striking together, yet we can't even get our hands on a single corpse."

George's face was livid.

Aside from the agents themselves, he was the most anxious of all.

Because he had just paid Ethan three months' worth of deposits, expecting to quickly recoup his investment once he got the grape bricks.

Now... things were in jeopardy.

Not only could they no longer sell the goods in Winster, but even external cities had caught wind of the issue, learning that Winster's moonshine was tainted, and several clients who had placed orders canceled them.

He could not accept this.

"Corpses... well, we'll have one shortly."

Sandro spoke up at that moment, raising the glass in his hand as he said,

"Everyone, let's finish this drink first, and then come with me."

To be honest, given how tense the atmosphere outside was right then, even the people sitting in this conference room hesitated, and a few actually didn't dare lift their glasses.

Ethan was the first to drain his glass.

Urged on by Sandro's gaze, the others reluctantly drank as well.

Afterward, Sandro stood up, leading the way slowly with a limp.

The group followed him to a concealed elevator.

Riding the elevator, they descended deep underground.

The elevator stopped at some subterranean level, and Sandro's promised corpse was soon brought to their attention.

For now, he was still a living man, bound tightly to a chair while a guard stood watch over him with a gun.

The moment he saw Sandro, the man began to beg loudly for mercy: "Sandro, please, let me go! I honestly didn't know that barrel of wine was tainted, please! Ple—"

Before he could finish, he suddenly froze mid-sentence. Following that came a shrill shriek as he wriggled in agony, startling even the armed guard standing watch into retreating several steps.

Finally, he collapsed to the floor, his entire body turning pitch-black and rigid, dying right there on the spot.

Seeing this unfold, everyone felt a chill creep into their hearts.

Reading about it in the newspaper was one thing, but witnessing the entire process with one's own eyes was entirely another.

Especially since they had just consumed alcohol moments ago.

Only Sandro seemed utterly unfazed. He walked over slowly, gently poking the corpse with his walnut wood cane, and remarked, "This should be meme contamination. The medium is most likely liquid. Everyone can take a look at this first."

As he spoke, someone distributed a stack of thin documents to Ethan and the others.

Most of them looked completely bewildered by the phrase "meme contamination."

Ethan was equally clueless; only George and Danny seemed lost in deep thought.

The documents provided by Sandro pertained to Saint-Cointre. They revealed that starting in July of this year, bizarre cases of death had begun cropping up in Saint-Cointre.

The victims were all found dead in twisted, frozen postures.

However, because Saint-Cointre was inherently bitterly cold and people froze to death every year, the matter had been swept under the rug.

Later on, the phenomenon worsened, and the symptoms of freezing intensified.

Until it culminated in conditions resembling the corpse currently before them.

And by now, Saint-Cointre appeared to have fallen completely, because Sandro's contacts in Saint-Cointre had failed to report back for days, and all communications seemed to have collapsed.

Saint-Cointre...

Ethan recalled the gathering of True Namers where someone had indeed mentioned that Saint-Cointre was suspected of harboring ancient artifacts or True Name items causing havoc.

He had not expected the situation to deteriorate to this extent.