Chapter 460: People with Good Instincts, People with Bad Instincts (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 460: People with Good Instincts, People with Bad Instincts (4)
They tied the boat to a reef and climbed onto the island.
“Looks like sentries were posted here until just a moment ago. Hmm… judging by the stride, I smell those bastards from the Special Task Force,” Rata said, examining the footprints pressed into the ground.
“The Special Task Force? You can tell that just by looking at footprints?”
“It’s a mix of instinct and experience, my lord. Given my line of work, I’ve had to tangle with them often. They have a strange, subtle pattern to their movements that’s hard to put into words.”
“If my brother says so, it’s definitely the Special Task Force,” Fey added.
“These two are like animals, picking up on the weirdest things. Don’t you think, kid?” Murakan remarked.
Jin found it fascinating. The Prochi siblings could be so certain just by glancing at footprints—a skill he didn’t possess. That was, of course, assuming the Special Task Force was actually here.
Looking closer, it became clear that the fighting wasn’t limited to the center of the island. Smoke and flames billowed from various spots across the archipelago.
Local skirmishes were breaking out everywhere.
The islands were close enough that one could easily move between them by swimming or leaping. They decided to move through the chain of islands to assess the situation.
Aaaagh…! Ugh!
With every island they crossed, the sound of blood-curdling screams reached their ears.
The sunny weather, the beautiful islands with their pristine nature, and the warm breeze all stood in stark contrast to the growing horror, only intensifying the group’s sense of unease.
“Hey, kid.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t those screams sound a bit off to you?”
Jin nodded. “They sound like the screams of untrained civilians caught in a state of pure terror.”
“I hear it too, my lord,” Rata agreed.
The screams were too raw to belong to mere island residents or ordinary civilians. They carried the distinct resonance of warriors who had achieved at least the 6-star rank.
Of course, being a well-trained soldier accustomed to war didn’t mean one couldn’t scream in terror.
However, the people currently in the Gaifa Archipelago were the forces of the four great powers—personnel brought here with the full knowledge that they might clash with one another. At the very least, every group should have been composed of elites.
It was hard to understand why such men would be screaming in such abject fear.
The next island they reached was shaped like a low hill. Thanks to the relatively high elevation, they could see the neighboring island clearly from the summit.
There, the group witnessed a shocking scene they could never have imagined.
“Eek, hiieee!”
“Gah!”
A group of soldiers was running around in a panic, screaming like terrified animals.
“Huh? What the… what’s going on over there?”
“It’s the Imperial… Guard, Lord Murakan,” Rata identified them.
The men running for their lives were from the Viment Imperial Guard.
Flags symbolizing the Viment Imperial Family lay torn and scattered across the ground, and the Guard members were trampling over them as they fled.
What could have possibly broken men of the Imperial Guard’s caliber to this extent? At first glance, nothing was there to explain it.
But within seconds, they realized what was driving them mad.
“My lord, it looks like…”
“They aren’t fighting an enemy.”
The Imperial Guard members were fighting each other. Their swordsmanship and movements were so clumsy it was impossible to believe they were elite soldiers. As if possessed, or perhaps blinded, they swung their weapons without pause, screaming all the while.
Thwack! Slash! Argh…!
For a while, the group remained crouched behind the rocks, watching the carnage unfold. They fell into deep thought. What on earth was happening in this archipelago?
“There’s no scent of hallucinogens. If it were a drug strong enough to make people lose their minds like this, the smell would be overpowering,” Rata noted.
“It’s not narcotics either,” Fey added.
While the Prochi siblings analyzed the scents, Jin checked for traces of mana. He considered the possibility of some dark magic or mental interference spell he wasn’t familiar with. After all, Zipple was here.
However, not a single trace of mana could be felt on the small island where the Imperial Guard was tearing itself apart.
It wasn’t drugs, and it wasn’t magic. If so, what kind of trickery could possibly reduce the Imperial Guard to this state?
Jin turned his gaze toward the other islands, where he could see explosions, flames, and black smoke.
‘The footprints Sir Rata mentioned belonged to the Special Task Force, not the Imperial Guard. And those footprints had a consistent stride, unlike these men. That means the Special Task Force was standing guard, realized something was wrong with the Imperial Guard, and began to move.’
A hypothesis quickly formed in his mind.
Whatever was driving people mad, it didn’t work on individuals above a certain level of power.
“Let’s move.”
It wasn’t a difficult hypothesis to test. They just had to check the other islands where combat was taking place.
On the very next island, they saw Zipple mages fighting among themselves.
“Uuugh!”
“Gah!”
They, too, were attacking each other in a mad frenzy like the Imperial Guard, but their situation was incomparably worse.
“Tsk, that’s a bit nauseating,” Murakan grimaced.
The Zipple mages weren’t using magic; they were fighting with their staves and bare hands. While the maddened Imperial Guard members still possessed the physical strength of warriors and usually killed each other with a single blow, the mages, stripped of their magic, were engaged in a gruesome, protracted slaughter.
“Well, that confirms this isn’t Zipple’s doing. Let’s check the next island. Those Kinzelo bastards should be here too.”
Finding the island where Kinzelo was stationed was particularly easy.
From the island directly ahead, they could hear what sounded like howling beasts. They were the cries of Kinzelo’s beastmen.
They confirmed that even members of the Red Tiger Tribe were clawing and biting each other with bloodshot eyes. Kinzelo was not the culprit behind this incident either.
“When was it… about fifteen hundred years ago? Or maybe earlier. It felt like this when Heluram spread that strange plague. Everyone’s completely lost their minds.”
“Is there a chance that witch is involved?”
“I don’t think so. Heluram’s plague started from a curse, and if that were the case, our snake-eyed friends here should have been affected too. If Heluram were here, the only ones completely free from that curse would be you and me, kid.”
They scouted a few more islands where signs of battle were visible. Every single one presented a similar scene. The only difference was that on some islands, the various factions were entangled in a chaotic free-for-all. There were places where the Imperial Guard and the Red Tiger Tribe fought in a shared madness, and islands where the Red Tigers, Zipple, or even all three groups were gathered and slaughtering one another.
The maddened soldiers attacked anything that entered their line of sight.
The reason the first three islands only showed allies fighting each other was simply because those were the spots where each faction had been stationed.
The hypothesis was correct.
Jin was now almost certain.
“It looks like the threshold is 7-star. There’s a high probability this is Amela’s doing.”
As Jin spoke, the group’s attention snapped to him.
“Kid, what do you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly what’s driving them mad, but the cutoff is 7-star. From 7-star onward, you’re either unaffected or able to resist it.”
The Viment Imperial Guard was an elite force selected from the best soldiers, not knights. Therefore, excluding their commanders, they were all 6-star or below. The same went for the mages killing each other. They weren’t the top mages from White Night, the Wraith Squad, or the 1st-class units of the Magic Towers; they were all 6-star or below. The Red Tiger Tribe members were also all 6-star or below, with no commanders in sight.
“On all the islands where the three factions were fighting, there were no corpses of high-ranking commanders. It means that after the problem started, the commanders evacuated. The Special Task Force Sir Rata mentioned likely did the same.”
The reason he concluded the threshold was 7-star wasn’t just because everyone affected was presumed to be 6-star or below.
The biggest reason was simple: he didn’t see any mad Runcandels.
Runcandel did not send 6-star guardian knights on missions outside of Huphester. In other words, every guardian knight who came here was at least a 7-star.
Since the other three factions had taken up positions nearby, Runcandel would have set up a camp in the vicinity as well. The fact that not a single one was visible meant they had all evacuated safely.
First, they needed to find the island where the Runcandels were and locate the commanders of the other factions.
“Murakan.”
[Yeah.]
“I think it’s better if we just fly.”
The reason they had used a cumbersome boat to get this far was simple. The Gaifa Archipelago was Amela’s home, and they had come to recruit her. They had judged that flying over someone else’s territory without warning would be an incredibly grave insult. It was also a way to differentiate themselves from the great powers, who had likely brought their forces to flaunt their might.
Vroooom—!
Murakan transformed into his true form and flapped his wings. As they climbed into the sky on his back, the group could look down upon the Gaifa Archipelago in its entirety.
The largest island, located right in the center, immediately stood out. The entire island was dyed a pitch-black color, as if it had been consumed by mold. At a glance, it looked similar to spirit energy, but it felt much murkier and heavier.
It was instinctually obvious that this energy was the source of the madness.
And on all sides of that massive black energy, the ‘sane’ members of each faction had taken up positions. They were sweating profusely as they tried to stop the black energy from spreading.
Soon, the group watched as the shape of the energy began to shift, as if being molded like clay.
Wriggle, wriggle—!
What is that? A person?
The black energy covering the island formed the shape of a giant human. It was smaller than Zephyrin, but still far larger than even Murakan.
And that form was disturbingly reminiscent of someone Jin loathed intensely.
Bubar… Gaston!?
The moment Jin thought the name, the newly molded black figure opened its mouth.
[You all… have been such a nuisance.]
Immediately after, the black figure drew in a deep breath, as if preparing to unleash a dragon’s breath attack.