Chapter 86: There Is a Third Method

I collected all the corpses of monsters and adventurers scattered in the central district and put them into my spatial pocket.

All that’s left is managing the surviving adventurers and planting the vine beans Raphanel gave me.

“21 of them survived, huh.”

Raphael looked at the adventurers while chewing on jerky.

The 21 survivors were currently undergoing a thorough examination by Recorder Paramel to check if they had been subjected to mental domination or seduction through the heretics’ orgy rituals.

It was better to be thorough before proceeding. The heretics’ tricks were notorious for being dirty, so if we were even a little careless or dealt with it sloppily, we didn’t know what kind of crazy terrorism they might carry out.

Fortunately, perhaps because the Saint was right in front of them, they obediently followed the inquisitors’ orders.

They already knew that if they made one wrong move, they could be branded as heretics and have their skulls cracked right there.

“By the way, many more survived than I expected.”

With 21 people, it meant that about half of the adventurers who had attacked us while controlled by Skin Walkers had survived.

Moreover, since most of those who died had died of brain death, it meant that almost everyone had survived except for those who died when the Skin Walkers left their bodies.

In other words, those who died were almost all people whose brains had been more than half eaten by Skin Walkers.

Since Skin Walkers eat the target’s brain and replace the empty space with their own body, when the Skin Walkers leave, the brain disappears.

In that case, unconscious breathing, which is our natural act of inhaling and exhaling, becomes impossible, leading to suffocation and death, or the muscles stiffen and death occurs gradually.

In short, they die because their brain suddenly disappears. All the unconscious biological activities that were naturally occurring stop.

‘And the time it takes for such a Skin Walker to eat more than half of a person’s brain and make them dependent on the Skin Walker is about 1 to 2 weeks.’

At the earliest, the brain would be more than half eaten by the 7th day, making recovery impossible, and at the latest, it would be completely eaten within 14 days.

According to the Monster Dissection Manual I had just taken out of my inventory and read, that’s how it happens.

I don’t know exactly how they experimented with this, but since the Monster Dissection Manual itself is like a monster strategy guide in this world with over 90% accuracy, it was trustworthy.

Based on my experience so far, most of the information had been accurate.

‘In the end, this means that the period during which the heretics have been able to handle Skin Walkers isn’t that long.’

Since there were people who died as soon as we used the blessing of insect repellent because their brains had been completely eaten, I could guess that the heretics have been able to handle Skin Walkers for a maximum of about a week.

Then here’s the problem.

How did their monster training skills develop so much in just a week?

According to Recorder Paramel’s view, their greatest weapons, curse techniques and black magic, have hardly developed from 30 years ago.

‘They are systematically taming the monsters that appeared after the great cataclysm. The large-scale monster wave in the central district too. It’s probably thanks to the development of monster taming techniques.’

It must have become possible to do such terrible things as they became able to control variant leader individuals like High Orc Lords or Hop Goblin Shamans.

But these monsters didn’t exist in the underground city 30 years ago.

How were they able to accurately understand and control these creatures?

While other techniques remain the same as 30 years ago, how did only their monster taming techniques develop so excessively in just a few weeks? That’s impossible even if they read the Monster Dissection Manual.

‘Moreover, now that the control of the underground city’s native species has fallen into their hands, we should consider the underground city as the heretics’ playground. This is an unprecedented situation.’

The biggest threat to the underground city is none other than the native species.

Native species refer to somewhat intelligent creatures that are like the masters of each district, with High Orcs dominating the plaza district, Hop Goblins the ruins district, and Werewolves the tower district.

In simple terms, they can be seen as sub-races living in the underground city. The heretics have used some means and methods to bring all of these under their control.

‘Let me recall once again, the methods of sorcery and black magic themselves are said to be similar to 30 years ago.’

It was said that the form of casting curses and the composition of curses were almost no different compared to 30 years ago.

While their specialty, curse techniques, remain the same as during the large-scale purge 30 years ago, only their skill in handling monsters has improved tremendously.

From this, we can make one guess… there must be a clear anomaly.

Clearly, there’s something.

We should assume that there’s something on the enemy side that specializes in handling monsters. And that might not be a heretic.

“Raphael.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“Are we really sure there are only heretics?”

“What do you mean?”

“I feel uneasy. I have a feeling there might be… something bigger than the heretics.”

“Is that so.”

Raphael made an expression as if he didn’t quite understand.

He’s likely unaware.

‘The news that transfer stones have appeared all over the continent is top secret.’

I had heard from the guild master and Yuria that a transfer stone connected to the 5th floor underground city had appeared in the forest of the Caslan Kingdom, but the inquisitors are likely unaware of this information.

‘Of course, the high-ranking members of the religious order probably know.’

People like the Pope or the Saint would already know.

‘I keep thinking this doesn’t seem to be just the work of heretics. It feels like something else is mixed in.’

Something specialized in handling monsters has taken over the underground city along with the heretics.

This could be seen as quite dangerous.

‘The most serious point is that in the central district… there’s no transfer stone.’

When you come down from the upper floors to the underground city, you all gather in the central district.

That’s why the heretics could prepare this huge mess called a monster wave in advance.

But to escape the underground city, we had to move beyond the central district to another district to find a transfer stone.

The central district only has an entrance.

And now we have 21 patients.

‘We’re critically short on necessities. What I prepared is barely enough food for 6 people to survive for a minimum of one month, or at most two months if we really stretch it.’

Naturally, it will start getting difficult after a week passes.

But can we take these 21 patients to where the transfer stone is?

‘I figured out where the transfer stone in the plaza district is when I came in as part of the corpse retrieval team last time. It’s recorded in my map-making.’

Finding the location of the transfer stone itself is a task. But I have a map that can definitively lead us to where the transfer stone is.

However, what worries me is that it’s in the plaza district, which is perfect for being surrounded and annihilated, and that the heretics might have already wrapped the area around the transfer stone with monsters.

No, they’ve certainly laid out lots of monsters around the transfer stone like traps.

They too would have obtained map-making abilities similar to mine by killing adventurers and stealing their abilities.

“This is maddening.”

As I was tearing at my hair, Rosie, who had returned from washing her hands, asked with a questioning expression.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen? If you’re in pain, I could cast a healing spell on you.”

“No. It’s not that… I think we might be trapped.”

“What? Trapped?”

“Can we… escape the underground city with these 21 patients?”

“Well…”

Rosie finally grasped the situation we’re facing now.

“There was no transfer stone in the central district.”

“Yes. I’m starting to think… maybe those heretic bastards deliberately put us to the test.”

They might have set up this situation thinking that a considerable number of adventurers infected by Skin Walkers would survive.

Thinking about it that way gave me chills. They had already figured out how to handle Skin Walkers long ago, and used this to throw survivors at us at the right timing.

“Let’s report this to the Saint first.”

“Yes. We should.”

I conveyed the information I had gathered and some of my deductions to the Saint.

The Saint, who had been staring blankly at the ceiling of the central district trying to stabilize her mind, frowned after hearing what I had to say.

“We have two choices. Or perhaps three.”

“Three choices?”

“Yes. As you said, there’s no way to escape directly from the central district. We must leave here and escape to one of the 5 other districts no matter what. Then we have 3 options.”

First option.

Lead the 21 patients while breaking through countless traps, monsters, and heretics’ schemes to find and move to a transfer stone.

This is an extremely dangerous task. There’s a high possibility of being annihilated during the move, and the 21 survivors are currently suffering from mental weakness as well as malnutrition, anemia, dizziness, vomiting, and seizures.

Then the second option.

Leave some of the 21 patients and a few inquisitors to protect them in the central district, while a few people search for a transfer stone, then go up and request support.

Leaving adventurers who are not in a normal state here is no different from throwing them as food to the heretics. Therefore, inquisitors are essential to protect them.

The problem here is that even the remaining inquisitors might go crazy from being harassed by the heretics. According to my guess, it’s not just heretics here. Unknown enemies will invade along with the heretics.

Moreover, my map-making is needed to find the way efficiently and quickly, but if I join the transfer stone search team, we’ll need more manpower to protect me.

It means the Saint must come along, and if the Saint follows me to start searching for the transfer stone, the remaining inquisitors would have to hold out until we bring down troops from above.

What’s even more serious is that the adventurers we need to bring down from above must be at least Gold Badge level forces.

It’s questionable whether we can mobilize that many Gold Badge level adventurers in the current Labyrinth City.

Among Gold Badge holders, quite a lot retired after the great cataclysm, and too many disappeared swept up in the cataclysm.

There was a shortage of manpower itself. That’s why we came down by ourselves for this heretic hunt too.

There’s no one to fight. It means we’d have to bring down even the guild master.

‘If we had been given information in advance that there were beings who could handle monsters better than the heretics…’

We might have been able to respond to this situation more easily, but we had no information that monsters would move like an army due to the intervention of a third party.

Even Olivia, who is no different from a labyrinth strategy guide, didn’t know about this. Where on earth did the transfer stone connect to for such beings with ridiculous powers to flow into the underground city?

For now, I felt that both the first and second methods were dangerous.

Then we should hear what the last remaining method is.

“Saint. What’s the third method?”

“The third method. This might be the most efficient one.”

The Saint answered with a smile.

“We kill all 21 of those adventurers over there. And carry them in the spatial pocket. This is the safest and most efficient method.”

“…”

I was at a loss for words.

Right, I had been vaguely thinking about it too.

Killing them and carrying them myself would be the most… efficient.

“We revive them when we go up?”

“Yes. With the goddess’s blessing. If we use the elixir of resurrection. We can restore them to their original state. They’ll actually be in a healthier state than now.”

In terms of efficiency, that’s the most efficient.

However, it was also the most inhumane method.

Because we have to kill them with our own hands.

“It’s fine if we revive them. The elixir of resurrection is perfect. Because it’s a method guaranteed by the goddess herself. They will be resurrected without any problems. Ah, of course, there will be some after-effects. But isn’t that better than all of us dying together?”

“No, you… are you really the Saint?”

“Hahaha. I hear that often. Well, what will you do? I think the third method is the most efficient. What do you think, Porter?”

The Saint made the decision as if it wasn’t a big deal.

She truly couldn’t be anything but a madwoman with clear eyes.