There Was a Mana Stone Mine in the Mountains Behind the Territory (4)
"Kraaaaaagh!"
"N-no…! Th-that's not a person…!"
The desperate screams that had erupted outside the cave came echoing back through the darkness within, bouncing off the stone walls until they seemed to come from everywhere at once.
The final cries of the people who, only moments before, had rushed out swollen with hope.
Those sounds drove into the hearts of the survivors like ice picks.
Terror spread like a plague. Some bit down on their sobs and wept in silence. Others stared into empty air with the vacant eyes of the broken. Still others clawed madly at their own scalps, tearing at their hair.
"I-it's your fault! You… you were the one who goaded them into going out!"
The first to recover his wits was a man who, only a short while ago, had fallen for Serin's smooth talk and watched his companions walk away. He lunged at her, jabbing a finger as if he meant to seize her by the collar, and howled. As if infected by his fury, the others began one by one to turn looks of blame and resentment toward Serin.
"W-what did I do?! All I said was that it was a chance! You people made the choice yourselves!"
Serin could not quite hide her fluster, but she recovered her characteristic shamelessness soon enough and fired back. Raising her voice even higher, she seemed determined to turn the crowd's anger to her own advantage.
"So? Was I wrong? Better to try something than starve to death in here or end up like those wrecks over there, losing your minds—wasn't that the point?!"
A flicker of wavering calculation settled into the people's eyes. Serin did not miss the opening.
"And I told you clearly, didn't I?! Somewhere in this forest there's a massive mana stone mine hidden away! If we just take a little risk and find it, we can get out of here and make enough money to live on for the rest of our lives! You can't even stomach this much sacrifice? That's exactly why you'll be begging forever!"
I narrowed my eyes and watched her work.
No matter how I looked at it, the mana stone mine story reeked of a wild fabrication. But her talent for agitation was something I had to acknowledge. She was reading the psychology of terrified people with surgical precision, planting false hope even in the depths of despair.
Almost as if… she had been professionally trained for it somewhere.
That practiced ease, that brazen nerve—it was nearly on the level of a cult leader. Wait. A cult?
…The Church of Apocalyptic Salvation?
The most infamous cult organization in the lore of Tales of Legend. They claimed that only by following their doctrine could people be saved, and they expanded their influence at terrifying speed amid chaos. The appearance of Aberrations, in particular, had been the perfect opportunity for recruitment.
A group that spouted the insane claim that Aberrations would lead humanity to true salvation.
Serin's pattern of behavior bore an uncanny resemblance to theirs.
Once she had the crowd more or less settled, Serin ordered them once again to remain inside the cave. A reasonable call. After hearing those horrific sounds from outside, no one in their right mind would be eager to step out.
My thinking, however, was different.
Dangerous. There's a high chance this cave's location has already been compromised.
That voice from outside earlier—"Anyone lost out there?"—had not been simple luring. It was a clear search pattern, as if they were actively hunting for us.
And I had figured out the pattern. They only moved when the fog lay thick. Now that the fog had lifted, this was the window to go outside.
I quietly gathered my pack and began preparing to leave.
No one would follow me, most likely. The terror from moments ago would still be clinging to them.
More people would be better, of course. Well. Nothing for it. I would go alone if I had to.
And yet.
"Um… Ian, what are you doing right now?"
It was Aurora. She still wore a face pale with fear, but she approached me carefully, as if my actions had raised questions she could not ignore. Hector, too, was watching me with sharp eyes.
"I'm going outside."
"W-what?!"
Aurora recoiled in shock. Hector looked equally unable to believe what he had heard.
"This place is likely no longer safe. Look at that."
I pointed to the damp water marks on the cave floor—traces left as the fog had seeped inward.
"When we heard that searching voice earlier, those water marks were farther down the cave. And now? They've come much deeper, right up near us. Those things know where we are, and they're closing in."
At my explanation, the color drained from Aurora's and Hector's faces.
If they came with me, it would be a tremendous help. Hector's combat experience, and Aurora's… well, she would be useful for something, surely.
But in a crisis like this, the last thing you wanted to show was desperation clinging to others. What mattered was projecting absolute conviction in your own choice.
"Well then. I'll go on ahead."
I turned without further hesitation. Now that I had stepped into this ghost story, nothing mattered more than my own life. Above all, I still had not even identified what this ghost story truly was.
I've got a few hunches… but I'll have to collide with it head-on to find out for sure.
"Ah. And one more thing."
I paused mid-step and offered Aurora and Hector a grave warning.
"Do not, under any circumstances, drink the water pooled on that cave floor. If you carelessly consume something that belongs to this ghost story, you may never leave this place again."
I glanced toward the corner of the cave, at the vacant-eyed missing persons who had been here for who knew how long. They were blankly drinking the water from the floor. Their hollow gazes were chilling.
Without the slightest reluctance, I turned and walked toward the cave mouth.
And just as I was about to take that first step out into the damp forest beyond—
"W-wait, Ian!"
"Hold on! We… we'll come with you as well!"
Aurora and Hector, along with several of the people who followed him, scrambled after me in a rush.
Got them.
I allowed myself a small, private smile of triumph.
Striding boldly out of the cave had gone well enough.
The problem was that I had absolutely no idea where to go either.
I simply walked toward wherever the fog looked thinner, wherever my gut whispered this might be safe, with no plan beyond that.
By the time we had been wandering the fog for what felt like a good twelve hours—
"Hahh… hahh… L-Lord Ian. I truly cannot go any farther! The people… the people are collapsing from exhaustion! Just a moment… let us rest even a moment before we continue!"
Hector managed the words between ragged breaths. He was right—the party's condition was wretched. They had neither eaten nor slept properly, and they had been wracked by terror and anxiety the entire time. The result was inevitable. I myself was nearing the limits of my endurance.
This won't do. I have to find food and water somehow.
Things that did not belong to the ghost story. Natural features that would have existed in this place from the beginning—those, at least, were likely safe to consume. I scoured the surroundings, dredging up faint memories from my days playing Tales of Legend.
"There… those mushrooms should be edible. And that tree… the sap from that tree will help with the thirst."
Just as despair was deepening, I recalled from the old game that a certain mushroom native to these woods eased hallucinatory symptoms, and that the sap of a particular tree, while nontoxic, provided a modest amount of nutrients and moisture. I used that knowledge to help the others.
I could not be a hundred percent certain, of course—but at this point we were grasping at straws.
"Haaaah."
"I-I think I might live after all."
Fortunately, my memory had not failed me. The mushrooms and the sap restored a sliver of the people's strength.
My composure and my inexplicable knowledge began to earn a measure of trust from some of the survivors, and a fragile but genuine sense of community started to take shape among us.
Any moment now… the fog will start thickening again.
The air was growing noticeably more humid. It was time for those things to resume their activity. We needed to find a place to hide—somewhere dry, as dry as possible.
Before long we discovered a hollow where dry branches lay heaped thick upon the ground, crackling underfoot, a space that looked as though it had been scooped out to make room for a grave.
"Go in slowly."
"…Is this not a grave?"
"No. It's the only safe shelter we've got."
There was nowhere else nearby that was dry. I gathered the largest, driest leaves I could find as I spoke.
"The fog will roll in soon. I think everyone already knows what happens after that."
The people filed into the grave—no, the safe place—of their own accord. I herded them in and ordered them to keep low and smother every trace of their presence.
"We wait here until the fog lifts. No sound. No movement. Under any circumstances."
I covered the top of the hollow with the leaves I had prepared.
No sooner had the words left my mouth than the surroundings were swallowed once more by a dense, smothering fog—so thick you could not see an inch ahead. And then—
"Kyaaaaaah!"
From far off in the fog came a sharp, piercing scream. Unmistakably human.
"…That would be the survivors who stayed with that woman Serin."
Hector spoke in a low voice, his expression heavy. Pity and guilt warred across his face.
"We can't save them."
"I know that well enough. If they meant to stay, they should have remained quietly in the cave. I never trusted that woman, in any case."
Hector seemed genuinely worried for the survivors who had sided with Serin. For all his rough exterior, he had a soft heart.
So Serin's group had left the cave as well and moved in roughly the same direction as us. Amid the murmur of voices, hurried footsteps—as if something were chasing them—drew steadily closer.
Hector flinched and half-rose from his place. A knight's sense of duty, no doubt—the conviction that anyone who could still be saved ought to be saved.
But I shook my head firmly and stopped him.
The space where we were hiding already held a full twenty people. There was simply no room for anyone else. We had no capacity left to take more in.
"Any…one… lost… out… there…?"
"We… came from… the territory… nearby…! Come… this way… and you'll… be safe…!"
That same grotesquely drawn-out voice we had heard yesterday in the cave began to drift toward us.
"Hic!"
The tension of the people pressed against my skin like a physical weight. I felt myself going half-mad along with them.
Those things had nearly caught up to us. Our hiding place sat right beside the path.
Thud… thud…
Heavy footsteps sounded directly in front of our noses. The tension was unbearable. Even breathing felt dangerous. Through a tiny gap between the branches, I saw their feet.
Human legs thick with moss, hardened like ancient tree bark. The toes were twisted and crushed, and every step produced a grotesque scraping sound.
The instant I saw them, a memory flashed through my mind like lightning—one of the countless ghost stories from Tales of Legend.
Nature for the Lost!
The deranged tale of an Aberration so taken with the natural world of the Tales of Legend setting that it sought to make lost humans into part of itself and return them forever to "nature."
If you were caught… your body would slowly transform into wood or stone, or you would become part of the forest itself and wander this place for eternity. A fate more terrible than death.
If they find us… we die! No—something far worse than dying will happen!
I smothered every scrap of presence and held my breath. Please, please just pass us by—I begged it silently, over and over.
Thud… thud…
Their footsteps came right up to where we lay and stopped. My heart felt ready to burst.
And then—
"Over here! Please help us! This way!"
From far off in the fog came someone's frantic cry. Likely one of the survivors still with Serin's group.
The footsteps began to move, slowly, toward the direction of that voice.
Krrrk…
Crrrack…
Snap…
And a moment later, a sound no human body should ever make—bones and flesh crushing, twisting, warping—rolled out through the fog.
How much time passed after that, I could not say.
As if it had all been a lie, the fog began to thin. Sunlight filtered once more through the leaves, and the forest resumed a peaceful face, as though nothing had ever happened.
We carefully climbed out of our shelter.
And before long, we ran into Serin. She was with a handful of her caravan members, all of them in utter disarray. She herself, however—having apparently used the others as bait to slip free of the crisis with practiced cunning—looked relatively unscathed.
She spotted us, startled, and then fixed me with a glare burning with fury.
"You…! If you were hiding there, why didn't you help us when you saw us earlier?! How could you do that to fellow human beings?!"
"Do you have any proof we even saw you, Serin? And as I recall, we were never on the same side to begin with. If anything, you were the one who abandoned us and stayed behind in the cave."
My cold rebuttal left Serin briefly speechless; her mouth clamped shut. Her eyes trembled.
"Because you strutted out of there so full of yourself! I couldn't keep the others under control!"
"Is that all? You felt it too, didn't you. That fog. Something was clearly wrong with it."
I glanced at the torch she was clutching like a lifeline.
"…!"
She flinched and tried to hide it. A shrewd woman, just as I thought.
She flicked a look past my shoulder. Then, as if reaching some decision, she opened her mouth.
"I knew it—you're in league with this twisted place…!"
"Serin."
So that was her play—paint me as a thrall of the Aberrations and peel the people on my side away. Agitating again, even now.
I cut her off and spoke in a careful whisper.
"Your guess is about half right. I know how to get out of this place."
Her shoulders gave a sharp little shudder.
"…What?"
She asked it blankly. I smiled and made my offer.
"Will you come with me?"