The Path of Ruin

The group's journey back to the capital was uneventful. The scouts identified potential problems in advance, eliminated them, and kept the group moving forward safely.

The cooks provided good food and kept the group full and strong.

Just like when they traveled to the Barony of Dolcan, they were returning without any problems.

This mission... although a secret and of great importance... went quite smoothly until now.

But on the tenth day... something unexpected happened.

It was not the scouts who first noticed the movement, but a random guard advancing with the carriages.

"The bushes are moving!"

Hearing his words, everyone immediately paused, ready to assume a battle stance.

And immediately after that, the group was surrounded by countless creatures and wild animals.

Apparently, they had somehow managed to escape the scouts' eyes.

It was very well possible.

Little mistakes happen every now and then.

No one in the world was perfect, after all.

And... they were of no great importance to this group. These animals and creatures were all simple, powerless hunters living in the forest.

And therefore just as easy to defeat.

The only problem that was noticed... was that these animals and creatures were not behaving normally.

Why were they specifically attacking the group as a whole instead of attacking each other?

Why were there so many of them?

Why... did they not seem to care much about their lives and only wanted to attack?

Who knows...

In the end, it didn't matter.

Because they had slaughtered every one of them.

Not a single animal or creature had survived. The Followers didn't even need to act, only the Bearers and normal humans were enough to fend off the attack.

The people who made up their group were too strong, after all.

The tiny attack had done nothing more than slow their journey to the capital by twenty minutes.

At least, that's what they thought.

About forty minutes after the attack... this time, they found themselves among random forest dwellers. Not just wild animals or simple, powerless creatures.

Birds, squirrels, rabbits...

A little army of animals that have no reason to attack humans.

They succeeded in surviving this attack too.

Success wasn't the right word, though... After all, this attack was never likely to be a threat to them in the first place.

But there were wounded compared to the previous attack.

Some of the smaller animals had narrowly dodged the attacks and made it to them.

So there were nine injured in the group of seventy-three people.

When they realized that the attacks were not simple 'attacks', they kept the injured under observation. And only half an hour after the second attack... what they expected happened.

The nine wounded men suddenly became aggressive, their eyes rolled back in their heads.

Now, they knew one thing for sure.

Their group was being specifically targeted by someone or something.

A woman, the only Pursuer of the group with short hair and gray eyes, who was also in charge of the group's progress, first slowed down their advance.

She increased the number of scouts to be ready for any situation. And the nine who became aggressive... she just killed them and left their bodies behind.

Who knows, maybe they didn't just need physical contact to spread their madness.

She couldn't risk such a thing.

At the same time, she could no longer trust the people in her group in the truest sense of the word.

So she took a head count. He made sure that there were no more or fewer of them. He also ordered everyone to observe each other and report any suspicious behavior.

That same day, a few hours later... she received a slightly different report than she had expected.

"L- lady... two of our scouts have disappeared."

This... was a significant loss.

Not only had their numbers been reduced to sixty-two, but they had lost two of the scouts who had been providing security for the group.

This meant they were more vulnerable to attack and possible danger.

Fortunately, none of the Bearers had died, so the gray-eyed woman tried to reassure herself.

There were two Bearers among the scouts. If they had lost one of them, it would have been much worse.

Still, when she noticed the tension that was beginning to spread through the group, she knew she could not remain silent.

Her orders were simple. Everyone was to stay close together. The scouts would now move in pairs and look out for each other. Likewise, a few people, who were not scouts, were to keep a distance from the main group and constantly observe the surroundings.

"Don't be afraid! Our enemies are hiding and moving silently, clearly expressing their fear. This means they are weaker than us!"

She had to keep the group's spirits high.

But even so... fifty minutes later, he received another piece of unexpected news.

One of the Bearers and a normal man who had been scouting with him had disappeared.

The gray-eyed Pursuer's brow furrowed at what she heard, a look appearing on her face that made it clear she was frustrated.

She did not know the true identity of the attackers. Nor could she see any trace of them.

She narrowed her eyes, thinking.

Even though she was a Pursuer, there was no sign of any unusual eon in the surroundings.

That meant there were no Bearers or Followers among the people causing trouble.

They were most probably normal people.

People with clear intentions.

But... they were acting quite professionally.

And yet...

'It will not be under my personal supervision.'

She was a Pursuer, a notoriously unpopular one who was feared even by the others in general.

Normal people might be able to hurt those in her group, but they could not make this mission fail under her watch.

And so, slowly, night fell.

The group stopped in a suitable place to rest, setting up a tiny camp.

There were almost three times as many people on guard duty as usual. The shifts were much tighter. Everyone was on alert.

But there were no attacks all night long. They were having a very normal night.

It was just... at some point, they felt that the air around them was a bit heavy. They attributed this to their nervousness, to the knowledge that they were being targeted. There was no strange smell, after all, and the food was normal. They couldn't have been poisoned, and they had four experts on the subject.

None of them had detected anything. Otherwise, with their keen senses, they would definitely have caught these poisons.

Nevertheless... the night did not continue as calmly as it started.

Because almost half of the group of sixty people couldn't sleep during the night.

They might have been nervous. They might have been scared, and they were, even if a little bit... There might be some other reasons too, who knows?

But almost thirty people having extreme difficulty sleeping on the same night?

No, this was not normal.

Even if they had no idea what was happening... there was definitely something going on.

And she couldn't let it go any further.

No matter what.

So, the gray-eyed woman approached one of the six Followers the group had in the middle of the night.

"Use your ability, leave a mark on as many people as you can and notify me immediately of the dead."

Then she went to another one, one whose only ability was to sense the flow of eon around her with an amazing clarity. Her ability sharpened and strengthened her sense of eon enormously.

"Report to me even the slightest change in the eon around us."

To another...

"You will taste each of the dishes yourself. Use your immunity and notify the entire group as soon as you detect a poison."

This person could tell if he was poisoned by the change of eon in his body, so he was a perfect poison detector.

"Go to those who cannot sleep, investigate what is wrong with their bodies. Report everything you find."

In this way, she gave the Bearers and Followers she had a lot of tasks according to their abilities.

Everything was perfect.

It was impossible for them to miss something, for something to be done by simple people in the background without them noticing.

Even if there were no simple people involved, they would notice it.

She thought there would be no more difficulties in their mission, even if she would never let her guard down.

After a short time, they realized why those who could not sleep could not sleep.

It was a poison, obviously. An extremely rare one, and the only way it could be administered was by inhalation.

They had no antidote with them, so the only thing they could do was to go all the way to the capital and make sure everyone was cured there.

They gained one new piece of information through this.

And that was that the 'heavy air' they felt last night was not from nervousness, but from a poison.

"They can administer poisons in disguise, as if they know all the ways we perceive them and are aware of how to respond to all of them..."

He looked at the poison experts in his group. They were all busy, doing their best.

And yet...

'Then most of our poison specialists are rendered useless, except for the one with the immune ability.'

Now, they had to approach everything more carefully. The slightest anomaly, no matter how small, no matter how 'natural' it seemed, was now a threat.

They could get through most things by approaching their environment in this way.

And when they arrived at noon of the next day and nothing had happened yet, the gray-eyed woman felt a little relieved.

It seemed that she had made the right decisions and had managed to disrupt the plans of whoever the attackers were.

But she had been so wrong.

"M- my lady!"

At the tense and worried voice, the gray-eyed woman suddenly turned her attention to the person running toward her.

It was... the Follower she had told to mark those in the group.

And seeing him approaching her like this could only mean one thing.

"Who's dead? Tell me quickly."

Follower was a young man, and his reactions were as frightened as one would expect from someone as young and inexperienced as he was.

"T- the cook and one other person who was helping him!"

The gray-eyed woman made her decision rather quickly.

"Throw out all the food, no one new will take the position of cook. From this point to the capital, we will proceed without eating."

Targeting the cook meant only one thing.

Something had been or would be done to the food.

And she, of course, was not going to allow it.

If they moved a little faster, they only had about three days. They could get through that time without eating.

'A little more... a little more...'