Chapter 59: The Forsaken
"We don’t know which of our professors are in on what, but I have a feeling there is a lot at play here that we do not understand," Dante said casually after taking a sip of his tea. "The last thing you should do is go up to a professor, as you might simply be walking into the lion’s den. Also, there is no such thing as an anonymous tip in a place like this. If we are found out to be the ones spreading this information, then we might as well be dead."
After speaking, he lifted his eyes to study Gia. Then he noticed she had calmed down and was now looking pensive.
After a moment, she looked up and asked, "So... let me get this straight. On that day, there will be Red Blighted Creatures waiting for us at a coordinate we are definitely bound to cross?"
Dante nodded.
Gia frowned and began to piece things together. "For Blighted Creatures to work together in that manner, then... they are... Forsakens?"
Dante nodded again.
...The Forsaken.
They were not a particular species of beast, but a name given to a type of corrupted existence.
Not a lot could be explained about them because the nature of their powers was either unique or terrifyingly bizarre, and their physical mutations were completely random, which made these beings so unpredictable.
One of the only things everyone was certain of, however, was that all Forsaken were once human.
You see, according to the general knowledge in this world, once a person died and their corpse was exposed to the Night Fog, their body would begin to mutate as time went by.
Although the green fog that came out at night wasn’t particularly harmful to living humans, the case wasn’t the same for the dead.
In fact, the Church called it the Poison of the Damned.
The only way to stop a corpse from turning into a Forsaken was if the body was placed in a sealed casket before night fell, or if a high priest prayed over and blessed the body using holy items.
In the absence of a high priest, all Apostles could also perform the ritual because they had divine power flowing in them.
This was why Dante and others always prayed over any body that was inevitably bound to be exposed to the Night Fog.
If they did not, they would be leaving behind a corpse that would eventually rise as an horrifying monster to wreak havoc among the living.
And if that corpse had a deep grudge against its killer, it would hunt that killer relentlessly, and in most cases, it might even develop powers specifically tailored to aid it against its murderer.
"From what we know of the Forsaken, at least for the first few days after its transformation, it would be able to maintain its human memories," Gia mused. "If I were to guess, it seems that corpses will be taken in there sometime before the exam, probably at night to leave them exposed to the fog. It’s much denser in the Labyrinth, so the mutation would happen faster. Those corpses were probably people who had been given instructions on what to do before they died."
Dante arched a brow.
’That was one of my theories,’ he thought before saying aloud. "I suspected that might be the case. There will be a lot of us students, and many of us are not weak. We do not know the full plan of the group behind this, but let’s say it is to kill some of us. It would be hard for a group to bypass security, because permits into that Labyrinth aren’t given that easily. So it’s much easier for a person who already has a permit and a spatial artifact filled with corpses to visit the Labyrinth beforehand and leave the bodies inside to mutate later."
Gia turned toward her cup of tea, though she didn’t pick it up. Suddenly, she perked up as if recalling something even more critical, and her eyes widened as she blurted out, "You said that among the students who will be going on the expedition, there will be people who are already puppets of the... uh..."
"Parasitic Marionettes."
"Yes. Those." She paused to gather her thoughts before asking. "Could they be the ones responsible for placing the corpses inside the Labyrinth?"
"I don’t know," Dante said, giving a small shrug as he reached into his inner jacket pocket and withdrew a silver cigarette case along with a brass lighter. After popping the latch open, he held the case across the table. "You want one?"
Gia stared at the case for a brief moment before reaching forward to pluck a slender cigarette from the row. Meanwhile, Dante placed one between his lips, struck the spark wheel, and took a long drag. As he exhaled a thin stream of gray smoke, he set the brass lighter down on the wooden tabletop and pushed it across to her.
After she caught the lighter and lit hers, Dante leaned back into his upholstered chair, flicking the ash into a small tray.
"Once a person becomes a puppet, it is nearly impossible to tell them apart from a normal person unless you possess a detection artifact. Or, of course, unless you happen to be an Apostle of Dreams or Light.
"However, if a high priest comes across the puppeteer’s spider itself, they would be able to tell that it carries the divine signature of a god." He sighed, trailing off for a second. "Although I’m not sure what exactly the ultimate goal of the Black Silt Ring is, I do know that the students who have become puppets will carry several parasitic spiders with them, which they intend to attach onto some of us during the expedition."
Gia frowned, holding her cigarette between two fingers as her expression darkened. "If they want to attach spiders to us, then... it makes no sense that they’d place the Forsaken there to kill us." She paused before asking, "Could it be there is more than one group at play here?"
Dante smiled before nodding. "I think so. There might be two factions at play here. While one group intends to turn specific students into puppets, another group intends to use the Forsaken to wipe out the students. Maybe it is the same group with different objectives. We can’t be sure. For now, it’s all just a hypothesis."
Gia sighed. After a moment, she said, "The scale is indeed bigger than I thought. I can’t trust even our fellow students at this point." She leaned back and added. "I should find an artifact that would help me with detecting the puppets of that cult."
Dante exhaled a plume of smoke and said, "Discreetly find out whatever you can about the cult as well. However, remember that you are not to act on anything without informing me first."
Gia arched a brow, then slowly exhaled a thin stream of smoke of her own. She then nodded in agreement.
***
Upper District...
Fioravanti townhouse in the Grand Quarter.
——
Dressed in a floor-length dark night robe, Dante padded over to his desk, covering a jaw-cracking yawn with his left hand before bringing it down to rub his stomach lazily.
Tears of exhaustion welled in the corners of his eyes. In his right hand, he held a sealed cylindrical container called a Script. After dropping the cylinder onto the polished wood with a dull thud, he pulled out a blank sheet of parchment, dipped his fountain pen in dark ink, and began writing to his elder brother.
"Dear Arno,
I know you’re doing fine, so I won’t waste ink asking about your health. By the way, since you spend most of your money on questionable decisions in black market exchanges, I assume you know a lot. Give me a list of some that won’t try to rob me the moment I walk through the door.
Your loving little brother,
Dante."
He reread the note once, decided it was sufficiently affectionate, and folded it. Then he opened the Script and slipped the parchment inside.
At the top of the cylinder was a dial mechanism. After turning the dial a few times to input the registration number of his brother’s Script, the small crystal on the side, which had been glowing red since he inserted the paper, shifted to a milky white.
Dante stood up, walked over to his nightstand, and dropped the Script. He turned toward the bed and unceremoniously face-planted onto the mattress.
Not long after he drifted off, Edward materialized beside him. The little demon shrank down into a soft, oversized plush form. He then tucked himself into Dante’s arms, and comfortably served as a makeshift body pillow for the rest of the night.