Five days ago, when Miledi and the others were still in Dastia, the world came to an abrupt end.
In Uldea’s capital, Damdrak, two figures illuminated by the unnaturally crimson full moon walked down an alleyway.
“What’s with this strange atmosphere?”
“I know, right? It’s way too quiet.”
Chris and Kyaty sniffed at the air, their faces covered by deep hoods. After escaping from the capital, the pirate crew had fled to the Liberator village hidden in the mountains northwest of Damdrak. Supporters within the capital had been keeping them apprised of the situation within the city ever since, and a few days ago, they’d gotten a report simply stating, “Something in the city feels off.”
Everyone had seen the Liberators’ battle with the church via the Skynets, so the city had been quite noisy in the following days. People had been suspicious and afraid of the church, and more than a few had been moved by Miledi’s heartfelt speech. They were beginning to question their faith in Ehit, which was something that would have been unthinkable before. However, now there was open talk about whether or not Ehit was worthy of worship. Members of the clergy weren’t able to put a stop to such heretical talk, and were, in fact, holed up within Damdrak’s church for fear of retribution. And yet, now the tumult had died down and the streets were eerily quiet. Even the breeze, which blew almost constantly over from the lake, had vanished.
There was definitely something weird going on. To Chris, it almost seemed like the calm before the storm.
“For now, let’s just make sure everyone’s safe.”
“Yeah. Who knows, maybe they’ll have some new info for us.”
The reason Chris and Kyaty were here was because they hadn’t received their scheduled report from their supporters in the city.
The two of them tamped down on their growing unease, nodded to each other, and walked out of the alleyway. They chose as discreet a route as they could, though there was little need considering how deserted the streets were. The usual sounds of life one would expect from a bustling population center were nowhere to be found. It was almost as if the city itself was holding its breath.
They reached their destination, a building that provided ferry services around the city, with surprising ease. Circling around to the back, they gave the coded knock to let the people inside know Liberators were here. There was no response though, and Chris couldn’t sense any people inside. Plus, the windows and curtains were closed, making it impossible to see inside. The lights were off as well, and were this a normal day, Chris would have just assumed the owners were out.
“Did they...change bases, maybe?” Chris wondered aloud.
“Without contacting us first? Even if they had to leave in a hurry, they’d have at least left behind clues to their new location.”
“Good point,” Chris replied, then tried the door and discovered that it wasn’t locked. Alarm bells started ringing in his head. His gut told him to run, but he had to know what had happened to his comrades. He exchanged a worried glance with Kyaty, then steeled his resolve and pushed the door open.
Kyaty’s expression stiffened the moment the door opened.
“I smell blood,” she said, prompting Chris to click his tongue in frustration.
The two of them dashed in and found tragedy waiting for them. Everyone in the building had been slaughtered. Blood splattered the floor and walls, and the corpses had all been heaped into a pile in the center of the living room. None of the Liberators had managed to escape.
A crowd of flies buzzed around the corpses. These people had been dead for at least two days now. However, it was how they’d been killed that caught Chris’s attention first.
“They were all...beaten to death?”
It didn’t look like they’d been bludgeoned by the kinds of warhammers that knights occasionally used either. It looked more like they’d been smacked over and over by people who clearly had no martial skill. It was almost as if—
“They were ganged up on by amateurs?”
Their injuries resembled those of Andika’s residents after they’d gotten into a bar fight or a back alley scuffle. They’d been showered with blows from canes and crude cudgels, and whoever had been wielding those makeshift weapons had no experience in real fights.
The whole thing made no sense. Burglars wouldn’t have gone out of their way to kill everyone, but this whole assault looked too amateurish to be the work of knights.
“Chris! I don’t like this... Something’s coming!”
Kyaty’s warning broke Chris out of his musings, and he suddenly realized that they were surrounded. He could sense bloodlust from outside the windows.
“Oh man, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
The people staring into the building with bloodshot eyes were...just regular civilians.
Kyaty took an involuntary step backward, overwhelmed by the unnatural amount of hatred oozing from them.
“Kyaty, go up!”
Chris drew the sword on his back and sliced up at the ceiling. He created a small hole in the three-story building’s roof, and the two of them leaped up through the opening. But as they saw what was happening around them, they stiffened.
“What the...? What’s going on?” Kyaty asked in a trembling voice.
Chris had no answer for her. Cold sweat poured down his back and his throat tightened up. This had to be a nightmare. The streets were filled with people, as far as the eye could see. All of them, young and old, men and women, were holding makeshift weapons in their hands.
As the crowd advanced on the ferry building, a few people tripped and fell, but no one paid them any mind and the crowd just trampled over them. They all chanted, “Kill the mavericks!” in unison. Everyone in the capital had gone completely insane.
“Can you hear me, Chris-san, Kyaty-san?! Are you two okay?!”
The two of them heard a girl’s worried voice in their ears, knocking them out of their stupor.
“Diene, what’s wrong?!” Chris asked as the two of them jumped from roof to roof, avoiding the hordes of people that spilled out of balconies or tried to jump at them from the roofs of nearby buildings. Some people missed their jumps and fell, but no one seemed to care.
Diene breathed a sigh of relief upon getting a reply, then explained in a tense voice, “The dukedom’s armies have entered the mountains. They know where our hidden village is too. We’re evacuating, but there are far too many soldiers here. It’s only a matter of time before they hunt us down.”
“Even the army’s on the move? Shit, so that’s what you were scheming?!”
Chris immediately realized that this was Ehit’s final game.
“Keep running for now! If things get bad, execute the contingency escape plan!”
“What about you and Kyaty?”
“We’re going to check on the Skynet in the city. Our portable ones don’t have the range to contact the branches in other countries.”
Chris told Diene what was happening in the capital, and she was left momentarily speechless. Finally, she said in a trembling voice, “All right. We’re taking the village’s Dark Gate with us. Get out of there as soon as you can.”
“You bet we will. Take care of the rest of the pirate crew while we’re gone.”
With that, Chris ended the transmission.
Kyaty, who had been knocking down magic missiles and arrows as they leaped across the city rooftops, asked, “Hey, Chris, this is the only place this is happening, right?”
“Who knows? I really hope that’s the case, though.”
Not all hidden villages had Dark Keys, nor did every member of the combat division. Many of them were still recovering from their wounds, and most of them had lost the protection of their artifacts like the Metal Batlams.
Both regular civilians and professional soldiers had been doubting Ehit just a few days ago, but now they’d become crazed believers who appeared to want nothing more than the destruction of all heretics. Chris hadn’t seen this coming at all. If something like this was happening all over the world, then the Liberators really were doomed.
“Anyway, we need to contact the other branches. And if it turns out that’s impossible, then we need to get out of here!”
“Yeah, you’re right. We’ve gotta protect our little princess until our captain returns!”