Chapter 76: Guide of Fate, Corrupted By Knowledge
She stood up and turned toward the hallway.
The mission Alan was joining was a simple mission.
Given the mission details, it was highly possible the kidnapping was done by a human criminal, and not by a Cursed Spirit.
But there was always a small chance that it was the doing of a Cursed Spirit.
"I hope he’s the Monkey King’s disciple. Someone like him would improve the team’s safety by several times," she whispered.
If Alan had heard her at that moment, he would’ve understood two things instantly.
First, Chryseis had no idea about [Area 51] existence.
And second, she wanted to make sure that the team assigned to that mission came back alive, no matter what.
...
MC’s POV
I walked down the hallway, scanning each door until I found the one labeled Room Three.
The faint hum of the old ceiling lights followed me as I stopped in front of it.
I gave a light knock before pushing the door open.
Inside was a long rectangular room that looked like an old karaoke lounge.
A table stretched down the center, with cushioned benches running along both walls.
The lighting was soft and warm, giving the place a cozy feel despite the tension in the air.
Six people were already there.
The first person I noticed was a girl sitting at the far end of the table.
She looked around nineteen or twenty.
A staff leaned against her leg, and her black hoodie was pulled low over her head.
It didn’t hide much, though.
Her red eyes glowed faintly beneath the shadow.
Every few seconds, she tugged at the edge of her hoodie again, as if trying to disappear into it.
Her white hair peeked out from under the hood.
She was beautiful — the kind of beautiful that made people second-guess whether she was even human — but she looked nervous, like she wanted to be anywhere but here.
"White hair? She must be a healer," Yuna whispered beside me.
Next to the girl sat a man who looked to be in his late twenties.
He had short brown hair, a dark casual jacket, and a thin wand strapped to his thigh.
He leaned back with a relaxed smile, like someone who’d been through this kind of meeting many times before.
Across from them sat three people who looked identical.
Triplets.
Their golden-blonde hair, pale skin, and faintly visible fangs made them look like dhampirs or another vampire subspecies.
The last person was a round-faced boy with glasses, sitting closest to the door.
He clutched a small leather notebook.
Everyone looked up the moment I stepped in.
"Hello," the man with the easy smile said, standing up. "You must be Alan Veritus, the seventh member of the team. I’m Zephan, the team’s Guide."
I shook his hand. "Guide?"
"Yeah. I’m a Guide of Fate. Each team gets one, courtesy of the Underworld. We don’t want our precious Exorcists dying too easily if a powerful Cursed Spirit shows up, after all."
"So basically a bodyguard?" I asked.
"Pretty much. I’m a Rank 3 Mentalist, so I can hold my own. Though, if things go completely wrong, I might just run for my life like any sane person."
He laughed at his own joke.
No one laughed.
After a few seconds of awkward silence, he cleared his throat and moved on.
"Anyway, I’m guessing you already know what a Guide is."
"Those who made contracts with the Rank 5 Cursed Spirit, [Fate]?" I said.
"Correct."
Zephan glanced around at the rest of the team, his tone turning a bit more serious.
"I’ll explain it once for everyone’s benefit. Better to clear things up now than deal with confusion later."
He rolled up his left sleeve.
A black tattoo covered his forearm.
It looked burned into his skin.
The lines twisted together into a circular glyph that almost seemed to move if you stared at it too long.
"This mark shows I’ve formed a contract with [Fate], a Rank 5 Cursed Spirit.
"Because of it, when we’re near or in a Cursed Spirit’s domain, I can activate an ability called [Destiny]."
He let his sleeve fall back down.
"When [Destiny] is active, our chances of escaping a Cursed Spirit’s domain/influence go up.
"It’s basically how Exorcists survive when dealing with newly discovered Cursed Spirits.
"That’s why every team gets a Guide of Fate like me."
Zephan smiled faintly.
"But there’s a catch.
"The difficulty of escaping the Cursed Spirit’s domain and influence also rises.
"That means it will be possible to discover the normally hidden escape conditions, but the dangers we would encounter to find that condition increases.
"Of course, there is also a tiny chance we can find the exorcism method, but that rarely happens.
"For finding that, we would need to go through impossibly difficult scenarios.
"Exorcists normally escape the domain once they find the escape method, instead of risking their life going through scenarios that are more difficulty than what they faced to find the escape condition."
The others nodded, some more confidently than others.
The red-eyed girl tugged her hoodie down again, and I noticed her hands were trembling slightly.
The [Destiny] ability was one of the few things humanity had that could counter the unpredictability of Cursed Spirits.
But even then, the increased difficulty it caused made it near-impossible to escape the Cursed Spirits domain/influence.
’Destiny guides us towards the escape and exorcism condition.’
’But we can only know if the exorcism condition is true if we can exorcise the Cursed Spirit.’
Normally, everyone died before doing that.
Even with guidance of Destiny, they couldn’t know if the exorcism conditions they had found were correct, or if they had misread the situation and the exorcism condition was something else.
Zephan checked his watch and looked toward the door.
"Our eighth team member should be arriving soon. Once he’s here, we’ll all introduce ourselves and go over the mission details. Oh, one more thing. The mission is in England, so unless anyone has other plans, I suggest we all fly together."
"I’ll come on my own. I have something to take care of first," I spoke up.
The room went quiet again.
This time, it was the center triplet who frowned and leaned forward slightly.
"What? Do you think this is some kind of playground? Just shut up and come with us—"
Before she could finish, the triplet to her right pinched her side hard enough to make her wince.
"I’m sorry about her," she said quickly, turning to me with a calm smile. "Mira tends to speak before she thinks."
She looked toward Zephan, then back at me.
"We don’t mind if you come separately, but could you at least tell us why? Since this is a team mission, we’d feel better knowing everyone’s on the same page in case something happens before we start."
Her words were polite, but I could tell she didn’t like the idea of me going on my own either.
Zephan glanced between us but didn’t speak.
"I need to prepare my toolkit for the mission," I said simply.
When I didn’t elaborate, Mira glared at me again but stayed quiet this time.
Just then, the door swung open hard enough to rattle the hinges.
A young man with short cropped blue hair rushed in.
He was tall and muscular, but his face said he was in his late teens.
His clothes were slightly damp with sweat, and he was breathing heavily like he’d sprinted across the building.
"I... I’m sorry. I had a hard time finding the room," he said, pausing to catch his breath.
"Oh, it’s fine. Come inside. We’ll start the mission briefing," Zephan replied.
The young man remained at the doorway.
He stared at Zephan in confusion.
"Come inside," Zephan repeated, this time more clearly.
"Ah, I’m sorry, I can’t understand what you are trying to say. My English isn’t good. But do you mean I can enter the room?"
This time, he stepped in.
"You can’t understand us?" Zephan asked, noticing the young man’s actions.
"Did you say ’understand’? Yes, I can understand a bit of English. But I can’t speak it."
We could understand his words, even though they were spoken in Danish, but he could not understand our words.
I walked toward him, shifting my voice to match his language.
"Hello. I’m Alan Veritus," I said in Danish.
"You can speak Danish?"
Relief broke across his face.
"Hello! I’m Lars
He shook my hand with a firm grip and a warm smile.
"It took you a while to get here," I said in Danish as we sat down.
"Haha, I couldn’t understand the people in the lounge, and the room numbers were confusing. My English isn’t great. So it took me a while to find the room."
His tone was light, but it confirmed what I suspected.
I turned to Zephan, and spoke in my own language.
"Seems like he hasn’t been corrupted by [Knowledge], so he can’t understand our words."
"That’s surprising. To think there is a person in this day and age who hasn’t been corrupted by that Cursed Spirit..."
The Rank 5 Cursed Spirit [Knowledge] was everywhere now.
It spread through symbols, texts, newspapers, chat messages.
Once it touched a person, it would corrupt them.
The strange part was, there wasn’t any clear downside.
It was helpful instead.
Corrupted Exorcists had better memory, and they could understand any common language, and some esoteric languages.
"I’ll translate for him. I know Danish. We should go ahead with introductions," I said.
Zephan nodded. "Thanks."
I sat next to Lars while Zephan remained standing, facing the rest of the group.
"Alright, once again, I’m Zephan. I’ll be your Guide for this mission. Each team has one Guide. I’m also a Rank 3 Mentalist."
I relayed the explanation to Lars in Danish. His eyes lit up.