Chapter 124: Four Idiots (5)

[124] 19. Four Idiots (5)

While a single person’s tragedy can be an object of pity, a group’s tragedy is the beginning of unity.

When a community experiences a disaster, its members form a special bond. Simply put, people who have been through hardship stick together.

And the bond formed this way is usually very strong. Strong enough to make all its members consider each other family.

It’s a social instinct of humans, to unite and overcome a crisis.

However, unity is another expression for exclusion.

A community with too strong of a bond transforms into something like a porcupine. It raises its quills at all outsiders, and in severe cases, even brands them as demons.

Just like this.

“They gave me so much shit for being an outsider. If it wasn’t for work, I would have put an arrow in each of their necks…”

“They wouldn’t even talk to me at all. And it was the same with the Church people too.”

“When I said I was a merchant, they threw stones at me. Those lunatics, if I was still active, I’d brand them all as heretics and…”

It would be a lie to say I didn’t expect this.

This wasn’t my first time visiting an impoverished region, after all.

“So what now? Should we grab one of the residents and threaten them a little?”

“No, there’s no need for that.”

In other words,

“I’ve already gotten the information.”

It meant that I had already prepared countermeasures for this.

“You did?”

Clevens and Shafiq wore expressions of obvious wounded pride. I nodded and continued speaking.

“For beggars, there is no distinction between outsider or not.”

I’d lived a total of eight years as a beggar. Two years as a magic tool merchant, almost five years as a mercenary, and seven years at the orphanage. In fact, my identity was closer to a beggar than anything else.

For someone like me, persuading beggars was a piece of cake.

All I needed were a few loaves of bread, a couple of bottles of wine, and some obvious hints.

In less than two hours, I was able to hear the story of even this city’s founding.

“…Then there was no need for us to even disguise ourselves, was there?”

“You never know, there might have been someone who was nice to outsiders.”

As I replied to Clevens’s grumbling, Marianne followed up with a question.

“So? What did you find out?”

However, instead of answering, I stood up from my spot. While wiping the soot from my face, I said.

“Let’s talk on the way. We have some walking to do.”

“Walk where?”

I turned my head toward the western side of the city. There was a gentle hill rising there. A single tree growing at its peak seemed to overlook the city.

And beyond that tree was a mansion.

The place where Irene’s story began.

“The Ailleyde Mansion.”

To get straight to the point, it was just as written in the diary.

Originally, the Ailleyde territory had been an impoverished region since ancient times. Plus, the former Count Ailleyde had been a man of simple tastes, uninterested in development or prosperity.

It was the epitome of a rural countryside far from the capital, that was Ailleyde.

However, the seemingly immutable poverty of the city was broken with the appearance of a single girl.

The Count Ailleyde’s third daughter, Irene Ailleyde.

Exactly what the ten-year-old girl did was unknown.

Some believed that she cultivated rare medicinal herbs, while others claimed she was a witch.

However, none of these theories had solid evidence. In truth, people did not even know what she was doing.

There were only two things they could know for certain.

That a massive amount of capital had flowed into the city.

And that the city was changing.

Fancy restaurants, schools, theaters, even a gilded statue.

The city was soaring toward the heavens.

‘The Blessed City.’

That was what people called Ailleyde at the time.

However, its fall was as rapid as its ascent.

A plague.

It was a disease with only one recorded outbreak in the continent’s history. A ghost that had wiped out 102 island inhabitants in an instant and then vanished without a trace.

In a day, hives would appear all over the body,

In a week, the extremities would begin to rot.

And in a month, no one survived.

Every day, corpses that had turned into lumps of rotten meat were carried out of the city.

What was even more terrifying was that the disease spread only within Ailleyde. There wasn’t a single death in the village just 100 meters away.

As if God had decided to punish Ailleyde alone.

It took only a moment for the blessed city to become the cursed city.

A year later, the plague disappeared as suddenly as it arrived,

but by then, the entire Count’s family and a third of the city’s population had already been buried.

A brief tragedy with a meaningless ending.

Of course, we knew that there was a hidden story here.

Actually, there were two survivors in the Count’s family.

The infamous third daughter, Irene Ailleyde,

And her servant, Betty Ailleyde.

And those two were diligently fucking with our lives.

“So?”

Clevens frowned after hearing my story.

“What does that story have to do with us going to the Ailleyde Mansion?”

“There’s a ghost story.”

“A ghost story?”

I continued while wiping sweat from my face.

“They say the ghosts of the Count’s family still haunt the Ailleyde Mansion. And whoever approaches it dies from a mysterious illness…”

“Hold on, what?”

Marianne suddenly stopped and turned to face me with a frown.

“Are you saying we climbed this hill because of a ghost story? Rem, don’t you know that this body has arthritis?”

I shook my head.

“We know Irene did not die.”

“Ah.”

As if realizing the meaning of my words, Marianne let out a small noise. I nodded and added.

“Someone must have seen lights on in the mansion, or people coming and going. And mistook them for ghosts.”

Surprisingly, ghost stories are often based on facts. The older the ghost story, the more likely it is to be based on some truth.

“So that woman, Irene, has been living there all along.”

“Right, which is why there must be something left there.”

Her diary, her habits, her mannerisms, anything. I added, chewing on the words.

That was when it happened.

“Vice-Captain!!”

Shafiq’s voice called out from ahead. There was urgency in his tone.

Feeling a sense of foreboding, I hurried up the hill. Grabbing onto the tree at the summit, I looked down at the mansion.

No, I looked at where the mansion used to be.

“Damn…”

At the location of the mansion the beggars had told me about,

All that remained there was a pile of burned rubble.

***

I brushed aside a lump of charcoal that might have once been an expensive painting. But all that was hidden beneath were more rubble.

“Rem! Did you find anything?”

“Nothing. What about you?!”

“Nothing but damned charcoal here!”

“Same here! Looks like they deliberately burned everything?!”

“I concur!”

I sighed and stood up.

The edge of the sky was gradually turning red with the setting sun. When we first started searching, it had been a clear blue.

I knew she would have destroyed any evidence.

Because the her I knew was a thorough woman.

However, I hadn’t expected her to go this far.

This mansion couldn’t possibly be insignificant to her.

Her childhood memories, her glorious days, her family memories, everything was tied to this place.

And if I had to guess, this place would have been the only place she could return to.

And yet, she had turned it to ashes.

What could she want so much that…

“Vice-captain, I think we should head back now.”

Clevens’s worried face snapped me out of my thoughts.

“The sun is setting. And… we have an audience.”

I glanced past Clevens’s shoulder.

Residents prowling about on the hilltop.

They watched us from the corner of their eyes, it reminded me of a pack of wolves.

Suddenly, I felt a tightness in my chest.

This is the end of the road?

I have to go back to the beginning and start the investigation all over again?

Amy, Clara, Parsley, Rose, Feya.

Even at this very moment, they are walking into danger. Falling for Irene’s schemes and moving further away from me.

I don’t have the time to…

“Huh?”

“Rem? Why did your complexion suddenly…”

Everything went white.

“Ugh… Uuegh…!”

The tightness in my chest suddenly turned into nausea.

I collapsed to the ground, overwhelmed by the urge to vomit.

“Rem? Rem! What, what’s wrong! What happened?! Are you sick?”

“Hey, pointy ears! Bring all the potions from the carriage right now!”

“Ah, understood!”

“Hey! Hey! Kid! Get it together! Why are you suddenly like this!”

Their panicked voices made me feel even more nauseous. I could almost feel the vomit rising in my throat.

No, this was too slimy to be vomit…

Ah.

“Bleeeuurgh-!”

What had been in my stomach spilled out.

A startled voice reached my ears.

“…What the hell did you eat?”

What flowed from my mouth wasn’t half-digested food.

A slimy, slightly luminescent mucus.

Grotesquely, it didn’t spread across the ground. Rather, it started to gather together into one mass as if alive.

By the time I managed to close my mouth, it had already grown to the size of a newborn.

“Re-Rem, sh-should I shoot it? A Disintegration spell should take care of that, right?”

“I understand it looks gross, but calm down, Miss.”

“Right now, d-do I look c-calm to you?! Some kind of grotesque creature just came out of Rem’s mouth…”

*Squirm-*

“Eeeek…!!”

Suddenly, the grotesque creature started moving, making Marianne jump back.

But regardless of that.

It shook its body once, then suddenly began squirming toward one spot.

More precisely, toward where the mansion’s remains were piled.

“Let’s follow it.”

It was a thought I blurted out unknowingly. Strangely, after saying it, I felt like I had to do so even more.

“Wait, Rem, I am not sure if that’s really a good idea…?”

“Well, what can you do, miss.”

“What do you mean ‘what can you do’…”

Marianne looked at Clevens in disbelief. But he merely shrugged.

“It’s not like there’s anything else we can do anyway, right?”

“…”

As if unable to find words to refute, Marianne closes her mouth. Eventually, sighing and says grumpily.

“In that case, I will take the lead.”

Can’t say no to that.

The creature moved faster than expected. By the time we gave chase, it had already reached the center of the remains.

“Is it… looking for something?”

As Clevens said.

The creature looked around as if it were human. It poked around here and there, occasionally shuddering.

Then suddenly.

*Hop-!*

…it stopped at one spot and hopped up and down.

“…It seems to be telling us to come over there?”

“Most likely.”

I swallowed my anxiety and approached the spot where the creature had stopped.

At first, it just looked like another pile of charcoal. I almost thought the creature had deceived us.

“Hmm…?”

“Marianne?”

However, Marianne seemed to have sensed something.

“Uh, um…”

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“No, it’s just…”

Marianne rubbed her nape. It was a habit she had when she couldn’t find the right words.

“It feels familiar somehow, but not familiar to *me* personally, more like this body itself feels familiar…”

Suddenly, an idea struck me.

“Marianne, wait a second.”

I hastily cleared away all the piled debris. This revealed the bare ground covered in soot.

An ordinary looking floor, nothing special.

But the creature, hopping up and down as if to confirm my guess, supported my speculation.

“Marianne, touch the floor.”

“…Okay.”

Marianne, seeming to have caught onto something as well,

placed her hand on the floor with a tense expression.

*Rumble-!*

Then, the floor rippled and opened,

revealing stone steps leading underground.

“This… Could it be that Sage, the former Tower Master, was also involved in this matter…?”

“Let’s save that story for later.”

Information is like waves, if you try to face each one as it comes, you will tire yourself out. There would be time to talk about this later.

I stepped towards the stone steps.

“Then, I’ll go first…”

“No, I said I would take the lead.”

Marianne’s hand blocked my path.

My gaze and Marianne’s collide.

“Rem, just let me lead. This clearly looks dangerous.”

“Marianne, don’t be like this. It would be better if…”

“Hey, what are you two doing standing around like that?”

Our gazes turn to Clevens. He had already descended five or six steps and was looking at us with an exasperated expression.

“Stop messing around and follow me. I’ll take be vanguard.”

Then Clevens began descending the steps without hesitation, all while grumbling like an old man.

We stared blankly at him for a moment, then looked at each other before bursting into laughter. We obediently began following behind Clevens.

The staircase descended much deeper underground than we had expected.

By my estimation, we had descended over 20 meters underground before we finally encountered the end of the stairs.

And at the bottom of the stairs, we were all speechless.

“Oh my god…”

At first, the sight reminded me of a swarm of insects.

White papers were stuck closely together to the walls, the ceiling, and even the floor without missing a spot. The information written on those papers were countless.

Someone’s portrait,

The sales report of some merchant group,

Strange rumors circulating in the village,

The Western Knights’ weapon procurement contract…

Thousands of pieces of information were gathered here like insects hibernating for winter.

However, I soon realized that there was more to it.

There were red threads.

Those thin threads were weaving between the pieces of information, connecting them. Stringing them together to derive new information, and weaving that again to reach new information…

Like weaving a single piece of cloth.

And I know the name of this cloth.

“The future.”

We had reached the room where Irene had woven the future.

***

Meanwhile, outside the mansion.

“Ba-Baldy…! I brought the potions…!! We need to give them to the Vice-Captain right aw… Huh?”

Shafiq, who had hurried over, looked around with a dumb expression. But all he could see were the ruins of the mansion.

His companions were nowhere in sight.

Shafiq called out their names in confusion.

“Vice-Captain! Baldy!! Mage!!” … But no answer came.

Shafiq looked down at the potions cradled in his arms. Then he looked around at the world, gradually darkening with twilight.

“Tch.”

Just like that, Shafiq was left alone in the night.