The Insider System

Chapter 75: Forest Massacre Pt.2

Not far from where Lake was racing towards his next victim, a small group of cloaked figures had gathered around a slightly more impressive cloaked figure. "Domare, we have just passed the required number and can start whenever you wish." The figure the man called Domare didn't answer but instead lifted its hands from its robes.

Once its hands were in the air they stayed there, and the forest slowly lost its light like the sun was going down in fast forward. The only difference was the sun was still in the sky, and had a few hours before it actually started to set.

Once the forest was completely black, Domare and the group of cloaked figures took out daggers, and walked into the forest.

...

Lake was about to drop onto the person he had been watching for the last few seconds when he noticed the light in the forest start to dim. He didn't think much of it at first because he thought it was just a cloud passing in front of the sun but when it continued to get darker at such a fast rate Lake thought he should actually see what was going on.

Lake climbed to the top of the tree he was in to see the sun was completely unobstructed by any clouds and the forest had actually just been covered in a cloud of black smoke. Lake couldn't smell the smoke so he took off his helmet to see if he could get a whiff, but when that didn't work Lake realized he had seen something else that could cause what he was looking at.

Just like in the dungeon under the Alchemist guild there was now a massive amount of Dark mana in the area. Lake wasn't sure what had caused it, but Joy had once mentioned that Unholy mana piggybacked on Dark mana these days, so Lake could guess who was responsible.

After the battle between the Demon Lord and the Dark Goddess that resulted in the Dark Goddess disappearing The Demon Lord had somehow hijacked the Dark Element, and used it to spread his element like he would be able to if he was a god himself. These days wherever you found the Dark element the Unholy element would be there in equal amounts.

This made it possible for anyone with jobs that needed the Unholy element to work to gather Unholy mana like they would be able to do after the Demon Lord ascended to godhood. Lake wondered why the gods even bothered trying to stop the Demon Lord, he was already doing what they were, so him ascending wasn't really going to change anything.

It seemed like they were just being stubborn, like refusing him was making a point or something. It was really just giving all his followers something to work towards, and from what Lake knew about warfare you weren't supposed to give the enemy something they could see as a divine purpose.

Lake guessed they didn't really have to worry about that with the people on the Demon Lord's side, because he could just hypnotize anyone who wasn't already willing to fight for him. Lake realized he needed to cut the gods some slack, and he was really only complaining because he had gotten caught up in whatever was going on right now.

It was a normal reaction for someone to find anyway to blame the people who were responsible whenever their screw ups affected you, and the fact that people also liked to blame god whenever they had a hard time made it funny that Lake had just done both in one thought.

"It's still true that if they had done a better job at killing the Demon Lord this wouldn't be happening right now." Lake had turned off Mute just to say this, because he didn't think the amount of noise he made would matter with the volume of the screams that had just started to come from the darkness that had enveloped the forest.

Lake could tell it was all the peasant adventures screaming, and he could also tell it wasn't just them being scared that was making them scream like that. This made Lake want to not leave where he was standing at the top of the tree because it was keeping his head out of the darkness, but seeing as the darkness was slowly growing and was about to engulf him anyway, Lake ducked down to see just how blind he was about to be.

After seeing that he was completely blind inside the darkness, Lake lifted his head to enjoy the last glimpse of light he might ever get. Lake realized this situation was already pretty bad and he still didn't know why they were screaming, so he was preparing himself for a worst case scenario.

With the light fully gone now Lake realized it had been stupid to just enjoy it and not try to use it to get him out of here but it was too late now. The first thing Lake did was try and gather Light mana but when it didn't work Lake tried to think of a not as obvious plan. Having one Lake started to grasp around in his bag for what he had taken from the two bodies earlier.

Finding one of the small bags that held their junk, Lake pulled it out and opened it. Not being able to see, Lake started to use his hand to feel if there was anything in the bag that felt enchanted or magic in any way. His thinking behind this was if the two people he killed had been working with whoever had done this they should have a way to see.

Feeling something that gave Lake the same kind of sensation he got whenever he touched his enchanted knife Lake pulled it out. When just holding it didn't really seem to be doing anything, Lake tried to inspect it. Feeling a small fizzle on his eye, Lake realized this item was protected in some way, and he wasn't going to be able to see what it could do.

This still gave him some information though so he put this back in his bag and dug around for the other bundle he had stolen. Digging around in it, Lake could tell all these items were the same as the one that had been in the other bag. This confirmed all these people were working together, and as long as there didn't happen to be two different plans to kill these people these items could be his only way out of here.

Now that he had a possible way out Lake just needed to find out how to use it so he just went down the list of skills he had gotten from Appraiser until all he was left with was Decrypt. Right when he was about to use it, Lake heard something other than screaming coming towards him.

The fact that the footsteps owner wasn't screaming made Lake think they were probably part of the side doing the killing. With some quick thinking Lake took one of the cores he had just cut out of one of their guys and activated Impersonate. Lake didn't really have time to check his face before he was enveloped in a small bubble of light.

Lake took the thing out and held it in his hand like he knew what it did after he confirmed that the other person had one in their hand as well. "Why aren't you using your nullifier?" Lake didn't think there was an actual answer so he said. "It's broken." Hearing his new voice, Lake was pretty sure if this guy bought his lame excuse he was about to get another notification.

"How'd it break?" Lake could tell the guy was still not 100% sure about Lake and it made sense earlier when Lake had tried to mug the first guy he had thought Lake was one of them screwing around so they didn't all know each other. "I got attacked before we started and had to run away, but none of my stuff works now."

Lake also remembered the guy had told him to get to his area so Lake killed two birds with one stone and made an excuse for why he wasn't where he was supposed to be. "Let me see it."

[Quest complete: Reward Skill: Play The Part]

Lake looked at his new skill while the guy looked at the nullifier thing he had handed over.

Play The Part (U) Lv.1

Allows the stolen identity to take over and act like they would while they were alive.

Lake didn't activate it because he didn't think it would help right now. These two people didn't know each other so how he acted didn't really matter. "It seems just fine to me." The person was about to hand it back to Lake when he saw their face change. Lake didn't know exactly what it meant but he could tell the jig was up.