Chapter 465: Insect Chirping
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 465: Insect Chirping
The chirping of insects could not have come from the surrounding countryside. It was early spring, and Leopold was even colder than the Holy City; in some places, the snow had not even begun to melt. There was no way insects would be out making such a racket at a time like this.
That left only one possibility...
Muen and Anna turned their gaze toward the dense crowd of hundreds of villagers. Their eyes filled with horror, quickly followed by a surge of anger and pity.
The insects... were likely all inside these people's heads.
Someone had placed these strange, brain-eating parasites into the minds of these innocent residents, using them to exert control.
Furthermore, it wasn't just the harp music from before; even this chirping possessed the power to manipulate cognition. Otherwise, Muen and Anna would never have waited until now to realize the source of the sound!
"So, is this why they aren't allowed to light fires?"
Muen’s expression was grim as he surveyed the area. Beyond the crowd closing in on them, the nearby town was shrouded in darkness, without a single flicker of light to be seen.
The prohibition of open flames wasn't some local custom. It was because... these insects hated fire.
"That seems to be the case."
Anna nodded slightly. She raised her hand, and a spark of fire leaped from her fingertip, landing on the woodpile in the center of the clearing.
In an instant, a roaring bonfire erupted, bathing the entire clearing in brilliant light.
"Fire... can't have fire... damn it... no fire..."
As the light flared, the already restless crowd grew even more frenzied. Their faces became masks of mingled agony and ecstasy; their limbs began to spasm and twitch uncontrollably as they instinctively scrambled away from the heat.
"Oh? Why are you two flying?"
Just then, a familiar voice spoke. Muen and Anna turned their heads in surprise, their expressions darkening.
It was the sturdy woman who served as the town mayor.
Perhaps due to the effect of the fire, she seemed slightly more lucid. She stood with her head tilted back, staring in astonishment at Muen and Anna as they hovered in the air.
"Oh, right, did you eat the food from earlier? It’s delicious. Those are our eggs... Huh? Eggs? What eggs? What am I saying?"
The mayor frowned, seemingly unable to comprehend her own words.
She looked down and suddenly saw the blood-soaked man with the twisted posture standing nearby. She also saw...
"Insects... Insects! Insects!"
By the light of the fire, she clearly saw the bizarre little creatures burrowing through the man's brain.
"Why... why are there insects in his head?"
The mayor stumbled back a few steps in terror, clutching her chest as her entire body trembled.
My god, how terrifying. Having such large bugs burrowing around in your brain must hurt so much.
And that brain matter... it looks so fresh and succulent. It must taste delicious... Huh?
What am I thinking?
The mayor’s eyes widened. Something felt horribly wrong.
Logic dictated that the sight of those hideous little insects squirming through red-and-white brain matter should make her sick to her stomach. Yet, she didn't feel disgusted. On the contrary, she thought it looked...
Tasty?
"Huh? Insects? Insects? Is he the only one with insects in his head?"
As if only just realizing her own abnormality, the mayor raised her trembling hands to her face. She was laughing and crying at the same time, her expressions completely beyond her control.
"Huh? My face? Why? What am I doing? Do I have them in my head too? No, impossible! It’s impossible! I can't have insects in my brain... But then, what is this sound? What is it?"
"My head hurts... No, I'm hungry... No, that's not it either. I want to eat... eat..."
"No, no, no!"
"No! Get out of my head! Get out!"
The mayor suddenly went mad, slamming her head violently against a stone on the ground.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Blood splattered everywhere.
Finally, with a crisp crack of bone, red and white matter burst forth. Several strange black insects finally crawled out of her brain, landing on the ground. Their sharp legs twitched as they let out shrill hisses.
The mayor wore a smile that was both relieved... and hideously distorted.
"Ah... ah... finally. You're finally out, you damned bugs."
But even more insects remained in her skull, feasting on her brain. Cracking her head open had brought no salvation. Just like the man from before, her limbs began to move with stiff, jerky motions.
Even though half her head was crushed, she was still "alive."
Her thick limbs convulsed, twitched, and writhed like those of a living corpse.
This woman, who had been so warm and cheerful just moments ago, was now weeping from the pain, yet a bizarre smile hung on her lips as she stood up in a grotesque posture.
She looked up at Muen and Anna, her lips quivering.
"Eat... why don't you eat... eat that meat... eat... our eggs!"
As this horrific scene unfolded, the surrounding crowd finally seemed to snap out of their cognitive delusion.
But for them, this clarity was merely the beginning of hell.
"No... no... I don't want to be eaten by bugs!"
"Get out! Get out of me!"
"Save me! Merciful Goddess, please save us..."
The bloody, horrific spectacle began to spread. The pungent stench was almost suffocating. People wailed as they smashed their own heads open, only to stand back up with eerie grins and look toward the sky.
The cacophony of insect chirping sounded like the mocking laughter of demons.
More and more people with shattered skulls staggered to their feet, looking up in unison at Muen and Anna.
At this moment, even Muen, who considered himself desensitized to gore, felt a surge of nausea rise in his throat. He couldn't bear to look any longer and closed his eyes.
He couldn't stop it. The infestation of their brains was already an established fact.
"Don't bother running," he heard Anna say softly beside him. "Give them peace."
"...Alright."
Pitch-black flames began to flicker. Muen had no intention of dragging this out; he wanted to end this nightmare as quickly as possible.
But Anna suddenly caught his arm.
"Let me do it."
"Hmm? Senior?"
"Don't forget who I am."
Anna turned her head, her hair fluttering slightly. Muen saw her eyes, devoid of emotion, and knew she was truly angry.
"I smell the scent of corruption on these insects."
"An Evil God?"
"Perhaps. I'm not certain yet, but this falls within my jurisdiction. Let me handle it. Besides, your flames cause too much of a commotion; we might alert the enemy."
"...Alright then."
Muen thought it over and yielded the task to Anna.
Without hesitation, Anna took a step forward.
She had already put away her whip. She simply extended a hand and pressed down lightly toward the ground.
In an instant, the world fell silent.
All the frantic wailing and the grating chirps vanished in that heartbeat.
It was as if the entire world had sunk into a deep, profound dream.
A bright, cold moon rose within her eyes. The Authority of a former Evil God manifested here, granting all things an equal... dead silence.
Screech—!
In the midst of that silence, a frantic chirping suddenly erupted.
The hideous insects, buried within the boundless night, let out angry hisses. They writhed incessantly, seemingly on the verge of breaking free from this infinite stillness.
"If I let you continue to grow, you might actually become a nuisance."
The moon in Anna's eyes remained high, but the shadows beneath her feet grew deeper and denser. Dark figures, far more grotesque and terrifying than the insects, prowled within the night, whispering and coveting the real world.
"But for now... you are still just bugs."
Anna remained expressionless. Her slender hand swept down, and the boundless darkness swallowed everything whole.
Muen closed his eyes again, waiting in the silence of death.
*
"This is strange."
Muen knelt down and closed the eyes of a young woman who had died with them wide open. Her belly was swollen; she had been pregnant, but there was no longer a spark of life left in her.
Even the infant inside her had been devoured by the insects long ago.
"This doesn't look like a calculated attack. The intensity is too low."
Muen shook his head. "It feels more like it was designed specifically to disgust us."
"Do you think the mastermind is after you, Junior?"
Anna stood quietly, looking at her hands—hands that had just killed hundreds of people. She let the chilly night wind mess up her hair, a rare trace of vulnerability appearing on her pale, beautiful face.
Muen took her small hand in his, sharing his warmth with her.
"Either me, the son of a Duke, or you, the Acting Sword Bearer. Either way, this is too coincidental to be a random encounter."
"True. But I didn't receive any warnings. Logically, the Silence Bureau should have observers in this town. An incident of this scale shouldn't have happened without any prior signs."
Anna knit her brows, suppressing her fury.
Hundreds of people parasitized by strange insects and slaughtered—this was a major incident, enough to draw the attention of the Empire's highest authorities.
Yet now, as the representative of the Silence Bureau, she couldn't even determine the nature of the event, let alone drag the mastermind into the light.
"Anyway... let's gather what information we can first."
Muen offered a word of comfort before crouching down beside the town mayor.
She lay on the ground, half her head still shattered, but her eyes remained slightly open, retaining a flicker of spirit.
The insects had all been eradicated. She should have died instantly, but Anna had used the Authority of the Silent Moon to forcibly freeze her physical state at the moment before death.
Muen didn't know how long this state would last; he only hoped she could answer a few questions.
"Madam Mayor, as a witness to all this, I think you understand the situation. I won't waste time with pleasantries."
Muen looked into the mayor's eyes and asked, "Have any suspicious characters come to town recently?"
"..."
The mayor's lips moved.
"What was that?"
Muen leaned down, bringing his ear close to her lips. Only then did he hear the words squeezed painfully from her nearly breathless throat:
"Wandering... poet."
"A wandering poet?"
Muen’s eyes sharpened. He suddenly remembered the mayor mentioning that a wandering poet would be performing at the festival.
The sound of the harp from earlier...
"Em... Emily."
As Muen continued to listen, the mayor found a sudden burst of strength from somewhere. She grabbed Muen’s wrist, pleading, "It was Emily... she was the first... to meet that poet... Please... you must... save her."