Chapter 68: Fate
’A brother? Bloody impossible!’ Kyle was utterly confounded.
How in hell could this lunatic claim to be related to him?
Perhaps they shared a few scraps of resemblance, ragged in appearance and all, but beyond that? Nothing.
The madness in this stranger far outstripped his own growing instability.
He was still a minor in that arc.
Besides... family ties were out of the question for him. Entirely impossible.
The four looked on, perplexed, while Orion kept flicking glances between Kyle and the man, straining to find some trace of kinship.
But there was none.
...Well, save perhaps the skin and the eyes.
The madman suddenly erupted into peals of laughter, springing several steps back from Na-Ri’s sword before materialising beside the Pallid Caraphract, his face drained of mirth and left flat.
"I’m only jesting. How could a walking corpse like me be kin to that one... though is he even all right? Regardless, I’m no brother of his," the man said, laughing as Kyle stared back at him, expression blank.
’Brilliant. A touch of self-awareness. Wait... what did he mean by... Forget it, Kyle.’
The young man gave his head a brief shake, then glanced aside to find the beautiful stranger already on her feet, her blade levelled straight at the madman and his beast.
All three of them knew perfectly well that Na-Ri could bring down both master and creature with ease, and her eyes carried every intention of doing so.
One leg drew back, the other pressed forward, and she raised her sword above her head, poised, her gaze darkened upon the pair.
’She’s planning to cut them both down in a single stroke...?’
Just then, she dashed forward and slashed sideways into the air beside the madman. He froze in astonishment, his head turning slowly towards what she had struck. Ashen blood spilled down, and a DanViper’s head thudded to the ground.
It was of the same rank as the Pallid Caraphract and had crawled in earlier through the hole above.
She alone had noticed it, and she had concentrated her strike upon it, deliberately allowing it to creep close to the stranger before cutting it down. Perhaps it was meant to induce fear, though the man appeared far too crazed to feel it.
"Now will you introduce your damned self, or feel free to join the little one," Na-Ri said flatly.
The man turned his head towards the DanViper’s severed remains, noting the bulk of its body, almost the size of his own beast. He chuckled and gestured at the carcass.
"Little? That is not little! Hahaha. You are amusing. I like you."
Orion and Adela exchanged a look before shaking their heads, both thinking the same: the man had not the faintest hope of regaining his senses any time soon.
***
"Fine, fine. I’m Orven, from nowhere but this cave. Been here for quite a while, let me see, one, two, three... yes, three months. Good enough for an introduction?" Orven introduced himself, sitting on the ground with his back resting on the wall while Na-Ri’s blade was poised at his neck.
She tilted her head to the side, then glanced at the three who were already walking up behind her with sceptical looks. At first, all of them associated the man with the zealots, but after careful thought they leaned towards a different conclusion, that he had probably been thrown out after going mad.
Even so, that did not seem to be the case.
Reading the eyes fixed on him, Orven raised his hands in the air playfully and said:
"Oh, you kids and those eyes. Do not associate me with those mad zealots. I am just a man who has no quarrel with them. Everyone there believes they were drawn to this island by false gods. What can I say, they are madmen!"
Kyle almost scoffed aloud at the ridiculousness of this man calling others mad.
The irony was almost unbearable, was it not?
Orion was next to take the interrogative spotlight, though of course Orven seemed only too pleased to feed their curiosity and distrust.
Because, obviously, they were bound to have a great many questions after waking from an induced, lucid dream in a strange cave with an unknown man sitting comfortably inside it.
"Then how the heck... no, why are we in here?" Orion asked.
’A foolish question, Orion. I am sure he only remembers what he ate last week... just kidding. Slap this madman, Kyle, you can do it!’
Ignoring the intrusive voice in his head, Kyle’s scowl deepened as the man broke into another fit of laughter.
After some time, Orven finally answered, his manner shifting with sudden focus, like a clown changing masks. It almost felt as if there were two fools in the cave now, though Orven was clearly the higher tier.
"You see, I found you guys a day before you slipped into that trance, and since then I have been following you from afar... knowing full well the Red Cult would come after you. So when they finally struck, I, Orven of some random cave, took your unconscious bodies with the help of Scabby here to save you from being captured and then offered up as sacrifice for whatever lies they are feeding those idiots in there."
He surveyed their faces before sighing and rising from the ground, the beautiful stranger’s blade following the movement, still poised for his neck.
"I know you cannot trust a word from some random fellow... but at least hear this little piece of lore out."
The beautiful stranger lowered her blade and regarded him blankly before replying, "You are quite right that we cannot trust you, even if you were to offer that pet of yours as a meal. But go on."
Adela frowned, nodding in tacit agreement as she glanced at the ungainly creature, which remained inert despite the suggestion of it being served as food.
The handsome youth cast a look towards his shadow, which returned a gaze... of... umm... perhaps scrutiny. It was not clear, at all.
Kyle scratched the back of his head, his eyes travelling up and down the man. At his bare feet lay a large scar, as though from the bite of a mutated beast.
Yet etched around the wound was a drawing, altering its appearance into some manner of body art.
’Isn’t that what’s called a tattoo?’
"There are two factions on this large island. One is the Red Cult after your head. Perhaps they see you lot as a threat. However, you are not the first. A few have fallen to their hands, and some escaped..." Orven explained, leaning back against the wall and tapping on a drawing, which made the beautiful stranger step closer to examine it properly.
It was an image of the island, divided into two parts by a line that Orven had scrawled. On one side was the letter ’R’, rough but still legible, while the other bore a large ’SOS’.
Orven then began to recount everything from the start. The first thing he struck them with was the claim that once one entered a Trial Zone, their fate belonged to it. In other words, the Zone itself held control over everything within. Kyle found that notion absurd at first, but the man pressed on, stating that all who arrive in the Zone are destined to be drawn to this island, where the true danger lies.
All of this had begun exactly four months ago. He had come with the first wave of people transmitted into the Zone — more than five hundred in total. How many perished during transmission remained unknown.
At first, the survivors arrived on this island as fated, with over fifty to sixty dying on the way. Once they set foot here, human greed soon took root. The survivors split into two factions, one grouping around two strange men who were the first to spark the division. Those became the Red Cult, devoting themselves to ritual, false gods, and eventually outright occultism.
Much about them remained a mystery. For instance, how they rose so swiftly to the apex of such corruption. The other faction, lacking the strength to confront the Red Cult, withdrew to another part of the island in search of safety. There, they discovered a vast citadel and began to forge their own civilisation. Realising they could neither leave the island nor escape the Zone itself, they found themselves trapped.
Since then, new people have continued to be transmitted into the Zone, and all of them drawn here, converging on this same island from every direction. Every single one of them. Given its sheer scale, most fell prey to the Red Cult, or else to beasts and environmental hazards. The fortunate few who survived long enough managed to stumble into the citadel.
Gradually, they began to understand that they lived suspended on the very thread of fate. The Trial Zone dictated everything within its grasp.
Yet that fate seemed only to draw them to the island. From that, Kyle began to glean something unspoken in the lore Orven had given.
Orven explained that he had once been part of the Citadel, but for reasons he refused to share, he left a month later. It was around then that he managed to tame his beast. That was all the knowledge he carried.
Taking on a dazed expression, Adela asked with a distant voice:
"...So we’re under the Strings of Fate in here?"
Orven gave only a slow nod in reply.
’What a load of nonsense... they always manage to work everything out as if someone had handed them the script.’ Kyle wondered how these people could claim to know so much.
That, however, was not the real issue. What mattered now was that they had uncovered who the zealots truly were, the nature of their origin, the role of fate, and the fact that another faction existed on this island. Probably the one responsible for the ’SOS.’
Still, something unsettled him.
Orven’s mention of fate brought his mind back to the temple, where the Red Cult carried out their rituals and placed the image of their false god.
And now there was talk of a Citadel standing on the very same island.
There was a larger game at play here...
...Fate?
Perhaps the first priority was to reach the Citadel. In all honesty, he wasn’t the only one with that in mind.
The beautiful stranger summoned her blade once more, held it poised before Orven, and asked in a low, heavy tone:
"Where is this Citadel?"
"No, no, no. I will only tell you if you do one little thing for me," Orven said, a mocking edge to his words.
"...And what would that be?"