Night fell, and a thick blanket of white fog spread across the distant plains and the dense woods along the border.
Beneath the night sky, at the fork in the road leading from Lifauss Boulevard toward the edge of Hastur's territory, a strange man stood with his head tilted and his back bent. He was thin, with short, neatly cut dark-green hair and a small round hat. His eyes brimmed with a grotesque, comical madness. A few followers stood with him, dressed in dark-red robes and white gloves, wearing strange pointed hats. Only their blood-red eyes and the odd symbols drawn on their foreheads were visible. They had come to the fork and were curiously looking at a small wooden sign planted beside the road that led into the former Roswaal territory.
"Oh?"
"Let's have a look..."
The strange man's eyes were grotesquely comical and eerie. Head tilted, back bent, he grinned as he approached the sign. Then, with exaggerated affectation, he nearly pressed his face against its magically glowing letters and began reading them word by word.
"Queen Annie?"
"Burned..."
"No warning given??"
"How funny!"
"This is so very, very, very interesting. The head is swaying..."
"Really, really, really..."
Bang!!
After reading the sign, the grotesquely comical man suddenly gave it a light kick, knocking it to the ground. Then he clutched his green-haired head and shrieked hysterically, even chewing on his own fingers. He looked rather deranged.
"Honestly..."
"How utterly lazy. A lousy wooden sign..."
"And you expect us to give up this great and holy trial?"
"Ke ke ke ke ke..."
"Go!"
"Carry on with the original plan. Kill everyone in this territory!"
"Let that lazy person burn us, then."
After venting for no apparent reason, the strange man—with his grotesquely comical, eerie gaze, tilted head, and