The fire was catching

I climbed the tower on Castle Morne's eastern wall and found only a middle-aged man in white-and-gold armor, with unkempt hair and a scruffy beard. He was Edgar, the castellan. There was no one else in sight.

Could Irina's killer have already gone around the back of Castle Morne and beaten me to the treasure?

Still speculating, I approached and greeted him. "Excuse me, you're Edgar, the castellan of Castle Morne, aren't you?"

Only then did the man raise his head, a trace of puzzlement showing through his sorrow. "That's right, but I don't believe we've met... Hmm? You're a Tarnished, aren't you?"

I immediately put my guard up.

After all, the game had explained that Edgar had come to govern Castle Morne on the orders of Godrick the Grafted. And right now, Godrick was scouring the Lands Between for Tarnished, cutting off their arms for an evil ritual to strengthen himself.

He might follow Godrick's orders and turn against me.

But Edgar sighed and continued, "Still, you've seen the sorry state Castle Morne is in... The servants have all rebelled. Just when I thought they'd settled down to work, it turned out to be nothing but a ruse."

He looked out over the chaos in Castle Morne, his fist tightening. "Defilers in every sense of the word. Their hearts are just as foul... I must apologize to you. Whatever favor you might ask, Castle Morne can no longer grant it."

Hmm? This part hadn't deviated from the game's story.

Could Edgar still not know that Godrick was hunting Tarnished?

And another thing-

"I'm sorry for what's happened to you as well." I bowed slightly to convey my sympathy. "But may I ask when the uprising in Castle Morne began?"

"Well, I believe it was around midnight the day before yesterday."

The day before yesterday? That recently!

But the old merchant outside Castle Morne's walls had said that the other Tarnished, the one who remembered Elden Ring's story, had appeared seven or eight days ago. Could he have orchestrated the uprising himself?

I hurriedly asked, "Then, over the past seven or eight days, has anyone suspicious come to Castle Morne? Or has anything strange happened?"

"Anyone? No, not really..." Edgar searched his memory. "But something strange did happen."

"What was it?"

Edgar extended a hand and pointed beyond the castle. "Some time ago, a strange illness broke out in a mountain village north of Castle Morne. According to the investigation, their eyes became unbearably painful, as though they were burning from within."

...The frenzied flame sickness!

The words burst into my mind, making my eyes widen.

There was no mistaking it!

Fire dwelling within the eyes-the diseased village Edgar had mentioned had contracted the frenzied flame sickness.

In Elden Ring, fire took many forms:

The fire of the Crucible of Life-fire had brought civilization to humanity, creating the flourishing future of today. The boiling magma in the Earth's core could also be considered a form of fire. And the Crucible of Life, from whose golden flames all things were born, was the most primordial foundation of the Lands Between.

The Mountaintop Giants' Flame-a raging fire capable of setting the Erdtree alight. To me, it was a fire that closed the cycle, the opposite of the crucible's fire. The crucible's fire forged all things, allowing the Erdtree, the symbol of the Lands Between, to flourish. The giants' fire burned the Erdtree down, truly turning the scattered whole into one immense unity.

Destined Death-fire could bring death, and these black-and-red flames were the true means of permanently stripping away life in the Lands Between, preventing anyone from rising again.

Black flame-black-and-white fire. Legend held that a goddess with gloam-colored eyes had once governed Destined Death, but she had lost her confrontation with Marika the Eternal Queen. The black-and-red flames had been taken from her, leaving only black and white.

And the most dangerous, most terrifying of all was the frenzied flame-a towering inferno that burned everything, capable of burning even the entire world. It was a cursed fire upon the Lands Between! It would burn everything down to nothing.

The frenzied flame sickness was the spread of that curse.

I suddenly remembered what the old merchant outside the walls had said-he had sensed something familiar about that person.

Perhaps I'd been wrong.

It wasn't simply that someone had been reincarnated as a member of the nomadic people. That person had already been afflicted by the frenzied flame.

His goal might well have been to follow the frenzied flame questline and reach its ending!

That was why he had deliberately murdered Irina-he needed to turn her into Hyetta, the frenzied flame's "Finger Maiden"!

Was that bastard trying to destroy the world?

Why?

If the world was destroyed, wouldn't he die too?

It was one thing in the game. After all, I'd become the Lord of Frenzied Flame myself to collect the different endings and get the platinum trophy.

But someone who still wanted destruction in the real world-was he a psychopath? Or did he simply not care? Because... he'd already lost all hope in the entire world?

-No, don't! I haven't lost hope yet! I still want to find a way to live happily with Ranni, Melina, and everyone else!

A piercing chill swept through my whole body, as though I had fallen into an ice cellar.

Meanwhile, Edgar was still speaking. "...I sent men to investigate, but some of them contracted the strange illness too. Then, before we could deal with it, the Misbegotten rebelled inside the castle. It really was... Ah!"

Little did the castellan know that, at that very moment, the thought of killing him had already taken root in my mind.

In the frenzied flame questline, Hyetta had to be fed two things before she could truly become its Finger Maiden-Shabriri's Grapes and a Fingerprint Grape.

They were actually the eyes of people afflicted by the frenzied flame sickness.

And one of those eyes came from the very man before me: Edgar, the castellan of Castle Morne.

If I killed him, the frenzied flame questline would be cut off... Wait, would it?

To keep Little Wood from burning the tree, I would often deliberately take on the frenzied flame in the game, then find a way to seal it away afterward.

With all the information other players had shared online, a player could actually reach the Three Fingers of the Frenzied Flame and become the Lord of Frenzied Flame without a Finger Maiden's guidance.

No wonder there was no sign that he'd ever entered Castle Morne.

He hadn't cared about Castellan Edgar's fate in the first place. Perhaps deliberately leaving the handkerchief behind had simply been a little insurance for progressing the questline later.

Ah, I'd fallen for it.

I sighed, deeply ashamed of the murderous impulse I'd felt moments earlier.

-If you want to follow the frenzied flame route, I won't go out of my way to stop you!

-What I should do is stick to my original plan and save as many NPCs friendly to Tarnished as I can.

-As for the Lord of Frenzied Flame, all I have to do is reach Marika before him and bring about an ending!

Bring it on. I'll beat you fair and square!

Perhaps noticing the shifting expressions on my face, Castellan Edgar asked with a little concern and confusion, "Tarnished, what's wrong?"

"Hmm? N-nothing." I scratched my head and changed the subject. "By the way, Castellan Edgar, this suggestion might offend you, but Castle Morne has already fallen. Why haven't you left? Are you going to take your soldiers down with the castle? I think your..."

I had meant to say that his daughter Irina wouldn't want that either.

But remembering that Irina was already dead, I hastily stopped myself.

Edgar sighed again. "You have a point. But even if the castle has fallen, as its ruler, I still have a duty to fulfill... That sword, Morne's priceless treasure, must never fall into the defilers' hands."

"Then hurry up and get it!" I urged.

"But..." Edgar looked troubled. "Unfortunately, the castle fell far too suddenly. I heard someone had already taken the sword, and I have no idea where they went."

Right. So I'd still have to fight the boss, wouldn't I?

I shook my head helplessly, then said, "I know where that sword is. The Grafted Blade Greatsword, right?"