Chapter 8: Acedia

Riley

 

Yesterday…

After I teleported, I appeared in the middle of a dirt highway. There were trees on either side and plenty of grass. In the distance, I could see a massive town and a large castle, but the castle was half burned away, and smoke was climbing from all over the town. More than that, there were dark clouds spread all over the sky, making everything dark and grey.

This depressing sight confirmed that I was in Caera Kingdom, and that was the fallen castle town off in the distance, Crestfall.

“What a shame,” I said under my breath. But it was already too late to save the city. It was fortunate that I was able to save the survivors, but that was all I could do.

Still, it wasn’t good to dwell on such things. That was in the past. That in mind, I turned around and began making my trek to a nearby town. 

Relatively nearby at least. There was a town approximately two days away from Crestfall when travelled by foot. Not wanting to make the trip lengthy, I used a wind spell called Expulsion to propel myself through the air.

I ended up making an ordinarily two day trip in around four hours. On my way there, I didn’t see a single person along the roads. It clearly didn’t take long for people to figure out that the Capital fell.

Fortunately when I got to the town, it didn’t look like it was raided. The people looked nervous and afraid since the attack was only a short time ago, but at least they didn’t seem to be in much danger.

So, I walked around town and questioned the townsfolk. 

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

I walked towards a female stall owner. She didn’t seem as nervous as the rest of the town.

“Yes, sir? What may I get for you today?”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you wouldn’t mind.”

The woman appraised me, looking from head to toe and back.

“Well, that depends.”

She was suggestively pointing her head towards the food she was making. It looked like I would have to order something before she would answer any questions.

“As unfortunate as it may be, I don’t have a sense of taste, so I can’t buy any food for myself to enjoy.”

“A shame. I guess you won’t get any answers then.”

Though she acted disappointed, the smile on her face didn’t fade. It seemed like she knew I intended to do something else. A smart one.

“That’s too bad. However, I could pay for everyone else instead so that they might enjoy your food.”

“Uh…” I clearly caught her off guard with my suggestion, but she fixed her composure rather quickly. “Well, that sounds generous, but can you really do such a thing?”

She didn’t seem to believe me, her smirk returning. That was fine though. Using Pocket Dimension after putting my hand in my pocket, I pulled out some cash and handed it to the lady.

“A hun-!”

“Shh!”

What I pulled out was 100 Upper Vess. It was far more than any regular citizen would ordinarily earn. Any thief would immediately target the woman if they heard what I gave her, so I quickly silenced her before she could shout in surprise.

“Don’t want people to steal it now, would you?”

“U-Uhh, right!”

The girl quickly hid the money away and returned her gaze to mine. “So, what is it you’d like to know, sir?”

I asked her about the situation regarding the country and the town.

“Ever since the Capital was decimated, everyone has been worried about the state of the country. We’re all afraid that whoever destroyed the capital would pass through here and destroy us, too. But it’s been a week and no one has seen any sign of any armies or refugees heading this way. Yesterday, I decided that we might have gotten out of the fire and started working without worry again. Better to work positively than constantly worry.”

The refugees not passing through I could understand since I teleported all survivors and everyone who was fleeing the country to Atheden. But apparently, it didn’t look like the army moved on. Did they accomplish what they needed to do?

“Most of the people weren’t all too afraid of the army passing through since most countries have laws against unnecessary harm to people who aren’t soldiers or knights. Their fear came from the fact that not a single refugee passed through. Everyone assumed that there were no survivors.”

That would certainly be troubling. They were thinking that the army killed everyone. What I found the most troubling about this, though, was that the army was slaughtering everyone without regard to who they were, so their fears were definitely valid. It made me glad with the action I took that day.

“Does everyone know what country did this?” I inquired.

“Nobody knows for certain, but everyone has already guessed that it’s Edinburgh.”

“Why is that?”

“They have the most powerful military in the world. Even if Caera had powerful adventurers passing through more often than not, Edinburgh could easily go through them if necessary.”

That was definitely true. Their army was apparently responsible for the deaths of a few well-known adventurers who went and picked a fight. News about their defeat spread like wildfire. The only people they wouldn’t be able to take on would be the Ten Star Adventurers, and there were only as many of them as fingers on my hand.

“Even so, nobody thinks it’s maybe Alsphen?”

“I heard through the grapevine that Alsphen is tangled up in another war with one of the countries to its north. I doubt they’d want to get tangled up in a tussle with Caera. As for Evernast, they’re too isolationist, and nobody knows what they’re like. Maybe Keres has enough power to rival Edinburgh now, but they’re too far away from Caera. They’d have to pass through Alsphen and Evernast to attack Caera, and that would be both a National incident and plenty of warning for Caera to fight back.”

This woman knew her stuff. She’d been keeping up with the world around her quite a bit apparently. When I said as much, she merely replied with “That’s the duty of a merchant.” A line straight out of Maria’s book.

I ended up bidding farewell to the lady and moved on. It was fairly clear that the people knew Edinburgh attacked. They didn’t know how they moved past the border undetected, but nobody questioned it. Edinburgh wasn’t that far away from Caera. Even with some mountains in between them, someone could easily infiltrate undetected and use conjuring to teleport people.

It was definitely right for people to not give much thought to Keres. Considering the distance, even if they did have someone who could sneak in and use teleportation, they’d barely be able to use their ether for very long without running out.

There were of course rumors running about how a margrave in Keres could do it, but because he was a noble and not a soldier, he wouldn’t be able to move so freely or so recklessly. It made me glad that nobody recognized that that margrave was me.

From there, I continued on to Nearbran. From that village to Nearbran, it would take five days by foot. Naturally, I used Expulsion.

About six hours in, I decided to get some sleep. It was 10 PM, and I’d been going since noon. At this point, I was around two days from Nearbran, so I could make it in another four hours. Though even if I did, it was the middle of the night. It would be better to do this in the day when I could see. It wasn’t like I could be detected anyway.

I ended up sleeping until eight. When I woke up, a wolf was trying to bite off my hand, so I shot it once in the head and cooked its meat over a fire for breakfast. With that done, I continued on to Nearbran. 

“There it is…”

Three and a half hours later, the town was in my sights. Nearbran was a fort town, so as one would think, the town was rather large and had a large wall around it, around fifteen meters tall. In the center of it was a large manor. It wasn’t nearly as big as mine, but mine was also once meant to be closer to a second castle than anything, so it wasn’t right to compare.

Either way, this was an ideal place for royalty to hide when in danger. It should have even more defenses than the Capital according to some rumors I’d heard many years ago. The only problem with it was that it wasn’t all that far away from the border with Evernast, so they’d be in danger of a spy or assassin being sent.

Still, it was also likely that this place was built specifically to counter Evernast. As it was stated before, Evernast was an isolationist country, and not many people knew about what went on within its closed borders. That’s probably why this town was so heavily fortified when compared to the towns closer to Alsphen’s borders. After all, the only thing more dangerous than knowledge is the lack of knowledge.

“What?” As I approached, I suddenly found myself surrounded by a black fog. It wasn’t like a typical fog that coated over a large area. No. Curse resistance? This was what happened when I came into the range of someone’s curse. Rather, the area of effect of certain curses. The fog itself was attached to me in a similar manner to when Queen Isabelle’s tried to attack me before shortly dispersing.

Curious, I lowered myself to the ground. If there was a curse trying to affect me, that meant that my suspicions of someone heading towards Nearbran were correct. 

But what were the effects of this curse? Where was the person? Wherever it was coming from and whatever it could do, I decided I needed to investigate around the town.

For thirty minutes, I searched the area, but to no avail. I couldn’t find a single person. 

However, something else was bugging me. It was far too quiet. There was no wind, and the chirping of birds and bugs was absent. The rustle of animals in the grass and trees was completely gone. Where are all the animals? There should even be the random weak monsters.

It wasn’t uncommon for animals to be seen around the country, and sometimes, weak monsters would create nests for themselves around the cities. Yet I couldn’t find anything of the sort.

More than that, all of the plants around me were dead. Leaves had fallen from trees, the grass was withered, and there were trees tempted to fall.

This was definitely foreboding, but I couldn’t afford to linger around for too much longer. My priority was finding the Cursed.

I returned to the road and looked around for the moment. Whoever it is isn’t nearby. This curse is powerful and has quite the range then.

Coming to that conclusion, I activated my Pocket Dimension and pulled out my glasses before flinging myself up into the sky with Expulsion and using the Spatial spell Solid Step to stand in the air.

When I have my glasses on, I can see the strength of a curse on a person’s body. Usually, it only lets me see the curse when I’m within a certain range of the person. However, if the curse is strong enough or if it has an area of effect wide enough, it’s possible to track it back to the source.

Unbelievable! As I’d thought, when I looked through my glasses, I could see what looked like a thick sheet of gray fog cast over a massive area. Since that wasn’t there when I had them off, then this was clearly what the curse looked like.

It’s everywhere. I can’t even see the edge of the fog. I continued to look around until I noticed a thick black stream of smoke coming from somewhere deeper into the fog.

That’s a nasty curse. It’s far stronger than my own. I could see the direction it was coming from, so that was where the Cursed was. Still, thanks to the thick blanket of fog, I couldn’t see anything, so I couldn’t tell exactly where this person was.

So I kept my face pointed in the direction of the black smoke and removed my glasses. Now that I had them off, the fog and smoke were completely invisible to me. But that didn’t matter. I still knew where the curse was coming from.

It’s in the center of the city.

I returned my glasses to my Pocket Dimension and lowered myself to the ground. If they’re in town, they could see me coming if I went in through the sky. I’ll walk from here.

I began heading towards the town. Ordinarily from where I was to the town, it was approximately a three hours by foot to reach. So instead, I ran. With my Body Enhancement constantly active, it meant that my regular running speed was also enhanced. And thanks to my enhancement being abnormal, I was able to reach speeds most people couldn’t. I was running at about the speed I was flying with Expulsion. That’s why I would make it to the town in thirty minutes.

Or at least I should have.

“What the hell?”

Halfway there, I stumbled onto the first sign of life in the area. In the middle of the road was a single carriage with a pair of mounted horses and a number of guards.

“They’re all dead?”

But as I had noticed, every single person was laying on the ground, including the horses.

From what I could tell, this looked like it was a noble’s escort leaving Nearbran. I couldn’t tell how long they were laying here though. There wasn’t a single insect or animal nearby aside from the dead horses. At the very least, though, they looked like they were dead for a short while.

I walked closer to the bodies. First, I looked at the conditions of their bodies. Not a single open wound. There were those lying on the backs, fronts, and sides, but none of them were bleeding, and none of them looked injured in the slightest. That was when I noticed the eyes of some of the knights. They’re open?

The eyes of each knight were wide open, but it didn’t look like they were surprised or in shock. In fact, it was as if the group was walking and just fell over. Even the horses looked the same.

What about inside the carriage? I strolled around to the side of the carriage and opened the door. Inside was no different. There was an old woman and her butler, fallen over in their seats and their eyes still open as if staring into space.

Was this targeted? No, probably not. If anything, they were probably just in range of this curse. But still, what kind of curse is this? I’ve never seen nor heard of a curse with this kind of range or effect. Even compared to my curse, this one is abnormal.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to search for these people’s families or bury them, so I said a silent prayer and continued running to Nearbran. And after another fifteen minutes, I arrived at the gates of Nearbran.

“Hmm…”

Like there should have been, there were two knights stationed at the gates. However, just like with the escort, they were laying on the ground with their eyes open, uninjured, and their weapons to their side. It was unfortunate, but this ultimately confirmed that the escorts were just caught in range.

Still, there was something else that troubled me.

“The curse aside, this person is probably pretty powerful if they turned the entire gate into ash.”

The large gate that was supposed to be protecting the town, which was nearly as tall as the wall itself, was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a massive pile of ash that was half its height.

Whoever this was must not have had any resistance at all. “Wind Casting: Reverse Gale.”

I cast a spell that pulled the wind towards me, carrying with it anything light enough to be picked up. I used the Gale to pick up all of the ash and blow it towards the road and woods so I could walk through. It took all of but a minute for it all to disappear.

But what I saw next left me shellshocked.

“No survivors…”

Everyone and everything capable of holding life was dead. Men and women littered the streets. Children who looked like they were playing together were laying side by side. Dogs, cats, birds, lizards, and even insects. Even they weren’t spared.

I walked slowly through the town, glancing every which way. There were so many bodies. In the alleys, on the streets, hanging from windows, over stalls, leaned against buildings, falling out of carriages… I didn’t know how many people lived here, but it was safe to assume that everyone who lived here was dead.

I walked and walked, going straight to the center of town. Considering the size, it would take around a day to go from the front gate to the back gate. It was likely, however, that the one behind this mess was staying at the manor in the center. It would still be half a day going at this pace, so I stepped up and started running, taking care to avoid hitting anything.

Eventually, I managed to get to the center of the city, and the manor was directly in my sights. Figuring I might still be seen if I wasn’t careful, I hid around the corner of a nearby building and watched the manor.

I couldn’t help but start thinking of the curse that was spread over this town. Just what exactly was it? Everyone affected by it looked like they just died without reason. Like they were just going about doing their day to day business and simply collapsed. It was a terrifying curse, but who could possibly handle a curse of this level?

Rather, the greater question was who could cast a curse this strong in the first place? Aside from myself, I doubt anyone could have the strength to cast something as powerful as this. Actually, even I might not have been able to cat a curse this powerful. 

There were plenty of curses still stronger than mine, but this one was different. The strength of this curse was one of the most powerful in the world, hands down. Even after all the time I’d spent traveling over the past 5 years, I’d never seen a curse anywhere near this strong. 

The same thing could be said for the area of effect of the curse. It wasn’t unnatural for a person’s curse to affect an entire vicinity around them. I’d heard that particularly powerful ones could affect the radius of a small house and slightly beyond. But I’ve never heard of curses that not only affected an entire town, but also well beyond it. That fog I saw blanketed a huge area around Nearbran. That shouldn’t have been possible at all.

But if there’s nobody known to mankind who can perform a feat like this, then maybe…

My thoughts wandered about. My own curses were also strange. Most people don’t know this, but it’s impossible for two curses to be cast on the same person. If someone tried, then either only one of the curses would manifest, or both of them would cancel out. Yet somehow, my body existed with two curses that not only did not cancel each other out but also complemented each other.

I could never find the one who cursed me, but I had my ideas. And if I was right, then it was highly likely that whoever did that was also responsible for the curse in play here.

Grim…

I hope y’all enjoy this chapter. This is a chapter I put even more effort in than chapter 5. Since this chapter is meant to introduce something major to the story, I did my best to make this chapter impactful. I hope you enjoy the upcoming battle.

Next chapter will be Saturday, March 2nd.