Chapter 101
Seemingly realizing that the guy in front of him really didn't think this had anything to do with him, the Little Cat, prompted by its father, added:
"Your men's actions are the most direct obstacle they pose to us; you should at least have some self-awareness."
"... Perhaps... but I think the main reason for the southward migration of manpower from the Northwest Snowfield is Ursus itself... Leaving aside those...'refugees'... their own displacement was due to that absurd Oripathy Act... No matter how much my people provoke them, they can't just stand there and scare the Infected out of the depths of the Ursus Snowfield... The Kazdel Military Council does not accept this accusation, Rhodes Island warlocks."
As he spoke, Manfred shook his head and took out the compass needle again. This time, it was still pointing straight at Feline in front of him... Two weeks had passed, and the Witchcraft indications on the other party showed no sign of fading... This made Manfred frown. This meant that they had been chasing a fake from the very beginning.
Having completely confirmed that the other party's Dead Soul was unrelated to the Court, Manfred had no choice but to eliminate its signal in order to continue the mission... Although this meant that his equipment could no longer track Feline and the Dead Soul on him, at least the mission could continue.
Or... to give myself a reason to continue investigating this current Exploration Vehicle?
Because his men hadn't found any clues about the traitors during their search of the surrounding area, Manfred believed that the Exploration Vehicle, which was constantly being jammed by the compass, was the most suspicious.
However, the two-and-a-half-week-long inspection yielded nothing. Even though the Exploration Vehicle was a small Landship, the fact that such a thorough search of the entire construction area while it was stationary meant that, despite his reluctance to admit his mistake, Manfred had no choice but to let it pass.
Of course, all of this is based on the premise that, ignoring the Little Cat's Witchcraft reaction, no other Witchcraft reactions occur inside the Exploration Vehicle.
After this explanation, and following the Little Cat's disapproving look, the two shook hands. Through this most basic ritual of expressing 'friendship,' Manfred recalibrated the tracking compass.
"Your Highness Theresis, please guide me..."
As the compass needle spun rapidly, to Manfred's puzzled gaze, the needle, which had been firmly pointing at Rhodes Island operator 'Rosemary,' began to slowly shift its direction.
It moved the pointer away from the Rosemary, then swept over 'Medic,' then past Huang, drifted past Su Sulo, and swept across Folinic's direction... The compass pointer seemed to malfunction and began to spin in place.
"... It's broken?"
Seeing the other person's questioning look, Rosemary instinctively grabbed her tail with one hand and hid it behind her back, while raising the other hand to her chest in a defensive stance.:)
"We didn't break this!"
"... I know... this reaction is... when there are more than three different Witchcraft reactions around, it's identifying the strongest one..."
"... Wasn't it pointing at me the whole time?"
"That's because your spells were the least restrained, with the most wasted and overflowing reactions from the mix of Witchcraft Originium Arts... I've excluded your signal, and now it's re-evaluating the Witchcraft markers, so this circling pattern indicates that there are multiple Witchcraft reactions from third parties besides us... surrounding us?"
Third party?
What intensity and distance would be enough to cause the compass to become confused again?
As Manfred placed his hand on the weapon, a strange metallic clanging sound, accompanied by the scraping of the weapon against the bushes, arose in everyone's minds.
The compass needle in the Court slowly stopped spinning, the cat ears on the Little Cat's head suddenly stood up, and the petite Angel with steel wings raised its head, blue arcs of electricity transforming back into wings... In the distance, the ship's cannons, which had only been used for intimidation, spun rapidly, their muzzles pointing in the same direction as the compass needle.
Thump--thump--
The heavy footsteps were synchronized.
This was not the sound of the rabble that had come to raid this Landship over the past two and a half weeks, only able to tremble and gasp for breath.
Manfred had heard this voice before; as a general of Kazdel, how could he not know the name of Ursus's strongest heavy infantry? However, he never imagined that he would see the target that the Court had been searching for in this state.
Thump--thump--
A towering figure emerged from the forest along with the mist, a massive Witchcraft reaction manifesting collectively on all those clad in heavy armor... Looking at the enormous black shadow leading the group, even the usually serious Manfred revealed a slight wry smile:
"This situation... is truly beyond my expectations..."
Thump--thump--clang (the sound of steel clashing).
The unified march came to an abrupt halt, accompanied by the sound of massive shields embedding themselves in the ground. It was impossible to tell whether it was a deer-headed monster wearing a bone helmet or a deer-headed monster with its human face and flesh peeled away, wielding a giant shield and a halberd and continuing forward.
The outer armor was worn and damaged in many places, and the once sharp halberd was rusted and corroded... Red eyes in dark eye sockets sized up the wary Feline and the 'junior' who bowed to him... His gaze lingered on the 'shield' fused with the spirit of the Dead Soul for a long time:
"... No need for caution, I'm here... to inquire... in my own capacity."
Seemingly sensing something, the skeletal Ancients of Elafia finally turned their inhuman gaze toward Manfred, and behind that figure, the officer of the Sarkaz Royal Court seemed to see his subordinate.
That was... a young man who, because I was away, acted recklessly and ended up being surrounded by local armed forces...
Before Manfred could even sigh, the antlered monster asked:
"What was the outcome of that protracted... battle... in our homeland?"
"Is she fucking insane?! She says she won't fight other the Infected... but then she launches a sneak attack? This isn't the first or second time... Is there anything wrong with Talulah's theory?!"
Watching W's posture, seemingly stomping or searching for loot with his feet, Nana remained silent, observing the scene before her as another attempt to forcibly block the convoy only to be utterly crushed by the Sarkaz Mercenaries who disembarked.
"... Are all these people Infected Guerrilla Force?"
"Don't look at me, how the hell would I know? The Infected Guerrilla Force's focus has always been on the Infected. As for the Guerrillas... as long as they can run away after being attacked, they're the Guerrillas..."
"You said that the main members of the Reunion Movement liberated the mines and later joined as organized resistance fighters... Who are these people?"
"I don't know... I don't have much money on me, and I don't have anything to prove my identity... I can only say that my luggage doesn't look like I came from the mine. The people over there don't even have a second Eve's... Maybe they're just ordinary the Infected who can't survive?"
Seeing W reach this conclusion, Nana watched the Mercenaries quickly clean up the battlefield, and then W sat back in the front passenger seat of the jeep.
Currently, Nana is sitting in the back of the car with Mary and Frostleaf, two girls who are easily ostracized, while the two little ones who are causing concern are temporarily being looked after by Eileen in the truck in the middle of the group.
"... The Reunion Movement should have been aware of the large number of the Infected fleeing south, right? Did that person named Talulah stop taking them in?"
"I'm not sure about that, since we Mercenaries don't have a public recruitment system... Ordinary people wouldn't want to associate with us demons... But the sheltering of the Infected should have been ongoing... The Reunion Movement has a sizable the Infected, and even if these people don't have the heart of warriors, they shouldn't be thrown around like trash like this..."
Seeing W's agitated expression, Nana glanced curiously at the Sarkaz who were gradually boarding the vehicles around her.
"No survivors? At least ask them where they came from..."
"It's a pity that no one came to inform us, which means there were no survivors... That's what I find strange... Those willing to fight are basically all in the Reunion Movement, and these people aren't good at fighting, yet when they fight, they neither surrender nor give in, and they fight incredibly hard... It's like..."
After a moment of silence, W racked his brains and came up with a description:
"It was as if they had been terrified by something."
Hearing W's description, Nana thought for a moment and opened the car door, followed quickly by Mary and Frostleaf... Seeing this, W, who had just enjoyed the car's air conditioning for a while, also got out of the car helplessly:
"So... you want to take advantage of the situation while it's still hot, doctor?"
"... It was just a routine autopsy... after all, these crazy symptoms... remind me of something bad."
As she spoke, Nana randomly picked up a corpse and gave it a routine check... Because the Mercenaries had taken away the outer garments of these dead people in order to collect loot, only their thin underwear remained on their bodies... Although it was barbaric, considering that it was to recover valuable warm supplies and that they were very efficient, Nana did not dwell on this loot-collecting process.
The bodies were quickly examined, the first thing to check was whether the Mercenaries had committed indiscriminate killing... for example, most of them had single-hit fatal wounds... After examining several bodies, Nana did not find anything like that.
Just like the Mercenaries who initially tried to drive them away and shove them with their greatswords, these people had many wounds, but most of them were deflections. There were very few direct attacks on vital areas. It would be more accurate to say that these people died from excessive blood loss rather than being hacked to death.
But... this raises a new question... don't these people feel pain?
Can't you hear the Mercenaries' shouts?
Because Nana didn't feel an immediate urgency to go to the front lines after the Mercenaries joined, Nana didn't know how the group behaved when they attacked directly... But W found the scouts of vehicle Number One, and they recalled how these people robbed the convoy.
"... he's breathing heavily, his pupils are visibly constricted... he's not responding to human speech... is there anything else?"
"If I had to ask... it would be that they're not afraid of pain... They don't flinch at any blows, whether it's a blunt force attack or a non-lethal, demonstrative slash."
"... Hmm... I understand... W, are all these people's spoils in that pile of items?"
Hearing Nana's question, the white-haired Sarkaz raised an eyebrow and walked towards the roadside first:
"Yes, clothing, valuables, and supplies will be handled separately... Take the warm cotton-padded coats back, store the food separately to prevent mixing and Pollution, as for valuables, the combat personnel might still have some small items hidden... I usually don't handle these things... Is there a problem?"
"Let's take everything out first... um, gather it all together, it might need to be destroyed..."
"... They really got the results from the autopsy? Are they really sick?!"
Nana didn't say anything about W's overreaction; in fact, she hadn't found anything during the autopsy... Most of these seemingly insane people died from massive bleeding, which was nothing to write home about...
However, Nana noticed that the bloodstains on these corpses were all a repulsive black, which was rather strange.
The Rhodes Island Medical Department staff's first reaction was that these people had been poisoned, which was why they were acting manic and extremely aggressive... But when taking samples of the black blood, Nana realized that it wasn't black 'blood' at all, but black 'snow'... This made the assassin's heart skip a beat.
Blood from a living person, even the blood of a madman, should be piping hot... Even if it's hypothermia caused by medication, it's too strange that it can't even melt snow.
The Black Snow crystals even maintained their natural hexagonal crystal structure, as if they had never touched the liquid at all.
To confirm the comparison, Nana collected some other normal red bloodstains... This is normal; blood is blood, water is water, and ice is ice.
As time slowly passed, seeing the black parts of the snowflakes on the ground where the corpses were piled up gradually extend beyond the shadows, Nana no longer cared about continuing to collect samples to confirm her conjecture. The Blood Demon Sorcery immediately spread out... as if sinking these corpses into an alien world, the pitch-black blood constructed a 'sea surface,' and the Black Snow turned the clear blood into a tar-like substance the moment they came into contact with the spell.
Fortunately, Nana's magic successfully devoured these obviously problematic corpses, but that wasn't enough.
"We can't keep their things, so we should get rid of them..."
"Um... was it also included in your spell just now?"
"No, the 'that' left on inorganic matter won't be as concentrated as on living things... Just burn it to make it lose its 'form'! W, this is an order for the sake of all lives... You don't want your people to become madmen who attack anything, do you?"
Hearing Nana's seemingly convincing explanation, and with W waving his hand to give the order, the other Mercenaries exchanged glances for a moment. Although conflicted, they all pulled out the coins and valuables they had collected from their pockets... and then burned them to ashes.
As the convoy continued on its journey, after a stretch of travel shrouded in a tense atmosphere, W turned to look at Nana, who had been constantly checking her watch:
"So... what are those things?"
"... I'm not sure yet... but I have a guess... I can't say the result of the guess... but I can tell you what caused this situation."
"... Why is it so complicated? Can't you just say whatever you want?"
Although W was an illiterate who grew up in Mercenaries group, he was still a member of the Babel and knew how many deadly things were involved in various bizarre rituals. But when he heard Nana utter that word, W still felt a chill run down his spine:
"Ursus... the Emperor's Blades?"
P. S.: I've already written about the Inner Guards... and there's still so little information on the Northern Demons? Do I really have to make it all up myself? (Frustrated)
PS2: Meow Meow Cat
4th Crimson Warm Winter: 106 Stop fighting! Everyone will die!
"The Emperor's Blades... to put it simply, they're Ursus's special forces, right? Similar to the Confessors in Kazdel? This black... poison... is it from the Inner Guards?"
"... I haven't met Confessors, so I can't say for sure... but this thing... wasn't placed here by the Inner Guards... or rather, under normal circumstances, the Inner Guards should be the ones most worried about this thing being leaked..."
Watching Nana speak so evasively, W suddenly thought of a certain green-haired old woman from Rhodes Island... It's no wonder they're both members of the Medical Department; just the similarity in their speaking styles was enough to give W a headache.
"Stop, stop, stop... get me to the point..."
"... This is the key point... Based on the assumption that this was spread by an Inner Guards, firstly, there are elite Ursus troops active in this Snowfield... Secondly, in places we don't know, that Inner Guards might not be in good condition... And theoretically, besides the Infected Guerrilla Force, are there any other warriors like the 'Patriot' active in this Snowfield?"
"No."
A decisive rejection followed. After discussing the operation, W's mind, which usually revolved around explosions and Theresa, finally started to work:
"So, to summarize, that Black Snow was something like the blood of the 'Inner Guards'... They were strong and were injured within the Guerrillas' operational area... I see... 'It's best if the Patriot did it,' you mean?"
"... Or it could be someone else... The important thing is, this thing should ideally have spread because Inner Guards was injured... Otherwise... I suggest you move... find a different place..."
Nana pondered as she played with the Black Snow sample she had collected.
"The Unnameable," is how the ICA describes it... It can attach itself to organic and even inorganic matter, and can spread through consciousness and even cognition... It seems to exist in a higher, unknown realm, and the part of it that has been tamed by the Ursus Inner Guards is called the "The Dominion."
Nana didn't know if the Black Snow in her hands had an owner.
If so, what is his current situation, and is the person responsible for the Pollution leak in his the Dominion the subject of his investigation?
If not, does that mean the true form of the 'The Unnameable' is located in this Snowfield that serves as the border between multiple countries...? And should I still approach this extremely dangerous Pollution...?
Nana needs more information to help her think about these things...
The former is manageable; the Inner Guards aren't invulnerable inanimate objects. This Snowfield is inhabited by the Court monsters called Patriot. The Inner Guards are, after all, just fellow soldiers of Nana. Facing elite heavy infantry on the front lines, it's perfectly normal for them to be defeated or even injured...
The problem is the latter... If things really involve Demons, then what Nana needs to do now is not to continue the mission, but to think about how to make Rhodes Island withdraw gracefully from the work given to it by the emperor.
"... First, let's find out if the Guerrillas have encountered anything similar... I don't have more detailed information about 'that thing,' all I can say is that it originated in the polar regions further north..."
"However, I've seen 'Black Snow' before... You can think of it as... a kind of alternative, similar to activated Originium. You've all seen the people affected by it..."
"... Will it cause secondary infection?"
Unlike Nana, who had many concerns, W's question was straightforward, and Nana's answer was enough to raise one's blood pressure: g
"Yes, and the effects are quite noticeable... We were already affected when we saw the Black Snow, but it's 'Pollution' after all, not some kind of 'disease'... It mainly affects your mental state... At the current dosage, some people might experience a loss of appetite..."
"Huh? You make it sound like it's serious, but the result is just a loss of appetite?"
"... After all, we're already in a state of secondary Pollution, far from the Pollution... Don't underestimate this; it might not even seem like a physiological effect, but if left unchecked, it can lead to neurasthenia, insomnia, headaches, irritability... Reaching the first stage of complete Pollution, you'll become cynical and plagued by nightmares... That's practically the level requiring involuntary treatment in a mental hospital." Qi
Seeing Nana's serious expression, W rested her chin on the passenger seat's headrest and tilted her head slightly.
"... It doesn't sound too serious... So what about the second stage?" Si
"The second stage is what you've seen: they lose the ability to feel pain, like zombies... Most importantly, they begin to spread Pollution outwards, becoming small-scale Pollution..."
"Uh... this looks really bad..."