Ch.283Incompetent One

This is a hidden settlement of a different race, untouched by the eyes of pioneers.

Around a gently burning bonfire sit about a hundred masked men and women, maintaining silence.

Though their masks differ in expressions and decorations, they all share the same form—covering the face while leaving the area around the mouth exposed.

At the center of this suspicious gathering sits a tattooed man wearing a similar mask, so close to the bonfire that flames might catch his body at any moment. With eyes closed and arms spread wide, he wrestles with the heat, sweating profusely.

Suddenly, he opens his eyes wide and shouts in a hoarse voice:

“I have seen the future! The prophecy begins!”

“Ohhh-!”

As the crowd stirs, the man clenches his fist to quiet them, then slowly turns around to expound the content of his “prophecy.”

“The first Svart did not fall, and the second Svart cannot be baptized. ‘He’ will fail and never return again.”

“Ahhh…”

The crowd sighs at the negative prophecy flowing from the prophet’s lips.

Soon, complaints begin to circulate among those unable to suppress their disappointment.

“Another failure…”

“We shouldn’t have given another chance to the ‘incompetent one’ who already failed once.”

“The incompetent one!”

“The mask-breaker!”

“Ul=Ga=Han!”

“Ul=Ga=Han!”

As the spreading disappointment turns into criticism of someone not present, the prophet once again clenches his fist to silence the crowd.

It takes longer for quiet to return this time, but the prophet patiently waits before continuing his unfinished tale.

“The mask-breaker, the incompetent Ul=Ga=Han. Once again, he breaks a mask.”

“What…?”

“A mask… two of them?”

“Is such a terrible thing really going to happen?”

This time, shock and fear spread among the people.

They begin to make a fuss about someone breaking a second mask—an event that ordinary people would consider trivial—as if it were the unsealing of a great demon.

Yet no one here mocks or criticizes this reaction.

For these hundred masked men and women—the Third Eye tribe—breaking a mask is considered a grave sin.

But the prophet had yet more to say.

“A calamity approaches from a distant land. A terrible calamity that could destroy our entire tribe…”

“Th-then! What happens next!?”

“Kin=Ra=Dol!”

“Kin=Ra=Dol! What comes next in the prophecy!?”

“It will come leading humans, commanding beasts, and bringing Lios, Svart, and Dverg! When thunder sounds and starlight falls, our fate! All our faaaate-!!!”

The audience falls silent again amid the prophet’s throat-tearing cries.

Five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen seconds… in what feels like an eternal wait, some lean in to listen while others cover their ears and crouch down.

But shortly after, the prophet’s small voice clearly reaches everyone present.

“…I cannot see.”

“What?”

“I cannot see how the terrible calamity ends. Is there no determined future beyond that point, or is something so tremendous about to happen that even glimpsing the future is not permitted…”

The people’s reactions to the prophet’s helpless collapse were varied.

Some clenched their fists while sweating coldly, others looked around in great confusion, some held hands with blood relatives to calm themselves, and some stroked the prophet’s back to support him.

And there was also someone watching all this from afar, smiling.

~ ~ ~ Near the Dungeon Overflow Site ~ ~ ~

Contrary to his hometown prophet’s prediction of his defeat, the Gentleman was trying to calm his pounding heart, excited by the victory within his grasp.

His plan to lure away combat-capable adventurers using shadow beasts with “division” abilities had succeeded brilliantly.

The beasts that had initially attacked from all directions began to retreat and hesitate as the battle dragged on, and the foolish adventurers, riding their momentum, started advancing to find the “beast commander.”

Meanwhile, the Gentleman himself—whom they were actually looking for—approached the carriage wearing an invisibility-enchanted cloak, now just about ten meters away.

That wasn’t all.

When he first saw the blonde elf driving the carriage, the Gentleman couldn’t hide his irritation at getting entangled with these troublesome adventurers again.

But when the battle broke out and he saw who emerged from the carriage, he unconsciously clenched his fist thinking, “I’ve won!”

The unpleasant black-haired man must have died, as a young boy who appeared to be his son was traveling with them, and the red-haired sorceress who had created the biggest variable in his previous plan was nowhere to be seen.

Currently fighting the shadow beasts were only four people: the kid clutching his father’s heirloom, the cat-folk girl who had grown much furrier since he last saw her, a dwarf with strange horn decorations on his forehead, and the blonde elf.

If there were any other fighters, they would surely have jumped out of the carriage in such a crisis.

‘There must be only the Svart (Dark Elf) alone in the carriage, or perhaps one or two non-combatants!’

The adventurers engaged in battle were already more than 100 meters away from the carriage, while he was just a few steps away from reaching the back door.

There would never be a better opportunity. With that thought, the Gentleman threw off his disguise cloak and darted forward.

‘Tap-tap!’

If the Gentleman had more knowledge about pioneer culture, he would have known that such luxury carriages could be locked from the inside.

But as it happened, this carriage door wasn’t locked, so his lack of knowledge wasn’t an issue.

‘Slam!’

With a bizarrely long-barreled gun in his right hand, he flung open the carriage door with his left and burst into the cabin.

All that remained was to aim at the surprised dark elf’s chest and pull the trigger.

Or so he thought—

“Huh!?”

Inside the surprisingly spacious carriage was a scene completely different from what the Gentleman had expected.

There was no sign of the dark elf anywhere, only the red-haired sorceress sitting on a box opposite him, looking at him.

And from beneath her skirt, thick vines extended outward, covering the entire interior of the carriage like ivy.

‘Swoosh!’

“Waaagh!?”

The Gentleman paused for just a moment, but it was more than enough time for the plants spread throughout the carriage to seize his body.

“Wh-what is this…!”

“Welcome, Gentleman of the Third Eye tribe. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Y-you were a monster!? Demon Rose? Or Alraune? Why is there a plant monster in the carriage!!”

“My, is that what you’re curious about? Don’t you have something else you’re looking for?”

Only then did the Gentleman realize he had fallen into a trap.

Not just in the sense that he had walked right into a carriage prepared for counterattack, but in a more fundamental way.

What he couldn’t understand was when, why, and how they had been able to trap him.

“When exactly did you notice me?”

“Hmm~ Pretty much from the beginning? I saw you starting to follow the carriage during the day.”

“That’s impossible!? I kept hiding behind rocks and ridges to make sure I wouldn’t be noticed!”

“Well, surprise. Nothing is absolute, it seems?”

Jessica spoke as if the Gentleman had made a mistake, but in truth, his every move had been detected by Will’s group thanks to Aquila’s presence.

The eagle had observed everything: him following the carriage with beasts, monitoring their movements without approaching until sunset, and launching the full-scale attack under cover of darkness.

Even as the other members fought the black beasts, Aquila’s vision had captured something crawling toward them, creating a mirage-like phenomenon.

In other words, the Gentleman’s plan had been doomed from the moment he failed to notice Aquila, and the other four members’ apparent falling for the shadow beasts’ lure was actually a trap to force the Gentleman into action.

As long as Iris, the dark elf, didn’t show herself outside the carriage, the Gentleman’s only tactical option was to invade the carriage directly to target her.

“I’ll give you two choices. Surrender now and lift the curse you placed on Calliope, and we won’t take your life. But if that’s impossible, we’ll have no choice but to kill you to break the curse.”

“Before that, I want to ask one thing. Why would pioneers fight for a Svart? Svarts are your enemies.”

“If you want to talk, why don’t you put down that gun first and make your pets behave? If my companions return injured, I might lose my desire for conversation.”

Facing Jessica’s cold expression as she aimed a derringer pistol at his forehead, the Gentleman resignedly relaxed his gun hand.

Truly, these adventurers were nothing but a plague to him.

The Gentleman found himself reflecting on this fact once again.