章 84: Skulking About

'So my opponent is a cloaked figure wearing a mask who just happens to possess the same characteristics as a Saighba'an...' noted Will, exiting the cellar and raising his right hand toward the ceiling, allowing the effects of Remembrance to deactivate. The ceiling came crashing down, but thanks to the barrier he had erected, the space around the cellar's entrance was free from debris.

Finished with his last act of kindness toward the Sidhe, Will leaped into the air, clearing the building and its debris by several meters and landing back in the square with the fountain. From there, he had two choices. The first was to travel nearer to the periphery, where most people would have fled after the outbreak. The other was to make his way to Bhiran's keep, a monolithic stone structure more than a hundred meters tall, framed by six towers, and encircled by curtain walls at least fifty meters in height.

Though there was a good chance he could use his power to deconstruct and undo the Curse of Savaging Madness, Will knew that doing so would garner attention he wasn't prepared to deal with. This ordinarily wouldn't have stopped him, but since he had his status and identity to consider, he deliberated for several seconds before choosing to head for the keep.

Having made his decision, Will leaped to the roof of the tallest building in the area, securing himself a better vantage point. He planned to avoid the chaos occurring at ground level by bounding from rooftop to rooftop, but it quickly became apparent he wasn't the only one as he noticed at least a few hundred people had retreated to the rooftops of nearly every building near the city's outer wall. They appeared to be being aided by those who could leap up to and between rooftops directly, so while the situation was certainly dire, Will couldn't help smiling at the sight.

'I guess I need to kick things into high gear...' thought Will, placing his top into storage, exposing his lean, swimmer-esque body. Then, spreading his arms, tilting his head back, and closing his eyes as if basking in the fading twilight of dusk, he repeated, "Feel, hear, sense...' in his mind.

As Will's senses spread through the area, each breath he drew caused the ambient Manacules in the environment to be drawn toward him. However, instead of being drawn toward his nose and permeating his body through his circulatory system, it was drawn to and absorbed through his exposed skin, kindling the Mana and Aura in his body like oxygen feeding the fire of a crucible.

'I love this feeling...' thought Will, unable to keep a smile from his face as he opened his eyes partway, the green in his amber irises glowing as his expression appeared faintly intoxicated. At the same time, his hands and forearms appeared to glow, a peculiar phenomenon that quickly spread to his chest, neck, and temples.

Not wanting his body to burst into flames or explode from the excessive kindling, Will forced himself to calm down before leaping into the air with such force he caused the section of roof he was standing on to collapse. Mana and Aura Enkindling was something all who walked the Martial Path were capable of, but what he was using, Aura Ignition, was the trademark of Fifth-Grade Champions. Will's consumed his lifeforce as a medium, but as he didn't expect to surpass thirty, he wasn't especially concerned with the sixty or so additional years he could have lived...

...

Reaching the roof of one of the buildings closest to the outer walls of the keep, Will was unsurprised to find a horde of zombie-like people pushing, shoving, and climbing atop one another as they endeavored to breach the main gate or scale the wall. Many had disconcerting wounds, such as torn throats or massive chunks of flesh torn from their bodies, but every single one of them had blood-red eyes with oversized black pupils, pointed ears, vicious, fang-like teeth, and reddening skin.

Making use of his Concealment, Will avoided detection and descended into the building he was perched atop, the residence of a fairly affluent merchant based on its size and furnishings. He could sense several people hiding in what he assumed was a panic room, but that wasn't his concern as he snuck out from a side entrance, scaled the wall encircling the property, and concealed himself in an alleyway to snatch one of the afflicted as they were attracted to the moans and screeches of their kin.

With Leshien's gauntlet protecting him, Will grabbed a bronze-skinned man who appeared to be a butcher based on his burly appearance and thick, bloody apron, flinging him deeper into the alleyway. When the man saw him, his already dilated pupils filled nearly his entire irises, but before he could unleash a feral scream and charge, Will closed the distance in an instance, his gauntleted hand covering the entirety of the man's forehead as he stated, "Sleep..." in a resonating tone.

Unable to resist the compulsion of Will's words, the man's body went limp, causing him to land heavily on his knees as his eyes rolled back.

"Now, let's see what we're working with..." muttered Will, grabbing both sides of the man's head with his thumbs near the center of his forehead before closing his eyes. From the perspective of his mind's eye, the man's Aura and Mana were bright red, with his brain, heart, and underdeveloped Dragon's Heart, in particular, resembling superheated metal.

'How malicious...' thought Will, frowning and straining his senses further to try and make sense of the Curse's structure. Most Curses had a certain logic to them, requiring the user to pay a certain price to force their effect

on a target, but the Curse of Savaging Madness was unique. It shifted the burden of repayment onto the target, causing them to endure intense pain and hunger. However, by spreading their affliction to others, they not only reduced their personal suffering but were promised power in proportion to the strength and number of people they infected...

Locking onto the thread of willpower fueling the Curse, the image of a bronze-skinned woman appeared in Will's mind, presumably the person who had infected the man. He was hoping to glean some insight into the identity of the person who had set things in motion, but unless he could track down the woman, the person who had infected her, and every other person in that particular chain, it was impossible.

Since the thread of willpower belonged to a relatively ordinary woman, Will had no problem isolating and extracting it from the man's body. He had hoped this would undo the Curse's effects, but since the man had presumably spread his personal strand to others, he had effectively just broken a single link in the chain.

"How annoying..." muttered Will, his frown deepening as he tried one last thing, carefully positioning the knuckles of his right fist against the man's chest, matching his timing to the rhythm of the man's heart before striking it with a weak but blindingly quick punch, sending a disruptive shockwave of Aura through his chest. The end result was the man's heart coming to a stop, his body going even limper than it already was. More importantly, as the heat and energy rapidly drained from his body, his complexion, eyes, ears, and teeth gradually returned to normal.

Counting to precisely thirty within his mind, Will took a knee and placed his hand against the man's chest, his voice causing tiny rocks littering the ground to shudder and vibrate as he said, "This doesn't need to be where your story ends. Wake up..."

Reacting like he had received a powerful shock, the man startled awake, clutching his chest and gasping for air. He still had a vicious bite mark on his left shoulder, and his complexion retained its red hue, but when his gaze met Will's, it was clear and devoid of the madness that had claimed it.

"Forget you ever saw me..." said Will, causing the man to enter a daze as he got up and leaped back onto the roof. He wasn't planning to undo the effects of the Curse for every person he came across, but since the man had helped him to better understand it, leaving him with his life and sanity was the least he could do...

...

Though he did his best not to worry about Will and focus on the task of getting people to safety, Ohta kept periodically checking on him to make sure he wasn't doing anything too stupid. Thus, not only had he witnessed Will's exchange with the Sidhe, but after seeing the blood-covered cat girl to safety, Ohta returned just in time to witness him removing the butcher's Curse.

'Just what the hell is this guy...?' Ohta asked himself, taking a moment to deposit the surprised butcher outside the city's walls before returning to observe Will, perched contemplatively atop a seven-story building. Ohta had always suspected there was something off about Will, but seeing him in action made it all the more apparent.

'It's okay...' said a faint, familiar, and reassuring voice, causing Ohta to feel muddleheaded as he instinctively reached up to caress the choker around his neck. When next the voice spoke, it was much clearer, emanating from his Ohta's own throat as it expressed, "Will might be an idealistic idiot, but he generally puts others first and works to make the world a fairer place. I personally don't like him, but he can be trusted..."

"And who the hell are you...?" asked Ohta, regaining control and frowning deeply.

Emanating from Ohta's mind, the voice responded, 'I can't explain the specifics right now, but I'm as much you as you are. If you want to learn the truth, become powerful enough to defeat a Brave and then travel East to the Demon Empire. But I can assure you this...some truths are best left unknown. And your fate is yours to decide...no one else's...'

Hearing the voice trail off, barely audible, Ohta's frown deepened as he pointedly remarked, "Saying that as you refuse to so much as tell me who you are is bullshit..."

'We are one...' responded the voice, sounding like it was coming from the end of a long corridor as it added, 'But if you need a name to call me...you can call me Sarah...'

"Sarah..." repeated Ohta, his face scrunching as the name filled him with a sense of incongruence. More importantly, it was one Will often brought up in reference to a friend of a friend of his. Now, with the words of the Sarah in his head, he was almost certain that Will knew at least something about his origins. At the very least, he and the Sarah within his mind were aware of each others' existence, and despite his affinity with shadows, he didn't like being kept in the dark...

...

As Will was considering what he hoped to accomplish within the city, the ripple of a large explosion drew his attention a crimson-tinged mushroom cloud, hundreds of meters across and rising into the clouds. Fortunately, most of the force of the blast was directly skyward, or else the entire city might have been wiped off the map.

'That looks like a promising lead...' thought Will, leaping from rooftop to rooftop as he made his way toward the explosion. He was reluctant to enter the fortress and make contact with the people who had barricaded themselves within, so while there was a good chance he would only find a crater near the explosion's base, ascertaining its cause could point him in the right direction. His penultimate objective was to find and question at least one of the presumably multiple individuals responsible for the attack as, depending on their motivation, he may need to change his plans rather drastically moving forward...

...