By Zephyria 
Andy Spooner.
That brown-haired knight was a girl, the top graduate of the Swordsmanship Department and a fellow student from the Academy, who had boldly declared she would ascend the Yuil Mountains while I was scouting Dunmel Canyon.
It had been five years, by count of years, since that child left me her dying words in front of Duke Widrow’s reception room. She had asked me to tell them that they had climbed the mountain of their own volition. Her face, so determined and spirited, had not changed one bit. The young knight’s face brought back vivid memories of her childhood visage.
I was so surprised that I couldn’t immediately reply, and simply stared. Her hair, roughly trimmed and sticking out in various directions, and her dark, sincerely shining eyes were just the same. She gave a shy smile and adjusted her cravat.
Behind Andy Spooner, two familiar figures waved with smiling faces. …Only two? There were more. I felt a pang of sadness. As I watched, Andy Spooner spoke again.
“Ahem. I don’t know if you remember me…”
“Lady Andy Spooner. I am relieved to hear you are safe.”
“…Yes. Thank you for saving me.”
This time, I offered my hand first.
She shook my hand a couple of times, then smiled broadly before composing her expression again. She didn’t seem like she had anything trivial to say, so I straightened up as well. Indeed, Andy Spooner’s face was stiff, and she spoke in a serious tone.
“I spied on the process of the Monster Variants forming legions and confirmed it with my own eyes. If you are amenable, I would like to tell you what I saw.”
On the second expedition five years ago, I headed west.
I discovered Black Magic in Dunmel Canyon and pursued it, visiting Owen. I met the apostle of the oasis called Nadi and went to meet the god. I exterminated zombies in the Shatun Desert and resolved the issues of Yulan and Biban. Immediately after, I headed to the Magic territory to gather fragments of the Ninth God.
Andy Spooner and her companions headed east to hunt Variants and ascended the Yuil Mountains.
They hunted the living Variants, driving them into a corner. The Knights of Widrow and the Knights of Grimsvein were with them. Their mission was to hunt monsters and bury the Source of the Waterproof Forest artifact on their corpses to purify them. It was to secure all the mountain ridges stretching from the end of Dunmel Canyon to Mount Eldos and Grimsvein.
It was precisely that Source of the Waterproof Forest that revealed a certain fact to them.
“…A certain, fact?”
“Young Master, or rather, Lord Ernhardt, you know this. The Source of the Waterproof Forest consumes a vast amount of Mana, so even when pouring potions during its creation, the required Mana is not fully met.”
“Hmm.”
I had been warned about this multiple times at the Academy. I learned the principle in detail during Magic class, and afterward, I was only cautioned that it was dangerous to hold the artifact for too long after removing the safety pin.
However, I had never held that artifact in my hands. If I had ascended the Yuil Mountains along with other knights, I would have been issued the Source of the Waterproof Forest, but I was assigned the mission to scout the vicinity of Dunmel Canyon.
When monsters were defeated high up in the Yuil Mountains, the artifact was used to erect trees. However, the standard procedure for monsters near Dunmel Canyon was to drop them into the canyon or dissect them and sell them to Owen and Widrow.
Andy Spooner continued her explanation.
“That’s why we use the Source of the Waterproof Forest by removing the safety pin, pushing it into the corpse of an already dead monster, and then running far away. The Mana remaining in the monster’s corpse serves as fertilizer for the tree to sprout and begin purifying the surroundings.”
“…Yes. And then?”
“The Source of the Waterproof Forest did not work on the corpses of Monster Variants.”
The monsters of this land were species capable of accumulating Contaminated Mana within their bodies. According to the gods, they were created to absorb the overflowing Mana like sponges. The idea that no Mana could be felt from them was preposterous.
Hugh Benson called over Kamael, who was standing at attention beside him, and asked if she had heard this story before. When Kamael nodded, Hugh Benson ordered her to gather all the other knights and begin preparations to depart. I let all those sounds drift past my ears and focused on Andy Spooner’s next words.
“We tested with various sample groups for comparison. At that point, all the normal monsters in the Yuil Mountains had either hidden or fled, so most of the monsters we could catch were Monster Variants. We could not detect any appropriate Mana reaction, whether they were alive or dead.”
“Even when alive?”
“Yes. They were clearly breathing and had biological reactions, yet it was as if they possessed no Mana from this land.”
“…”
“Ah, and they also seemed not to feel pain. All the monsters that had turned black.”
I had seen monsters that had turned black before. Not just me, but Benjamin, Hugh Benson, and Elvin all had memories of being chased by packs of black trolls. They had pursued us with clear intelligence, exhaling ragged breaths and spilling blue blood.
Did they not feel pain? I had certainly felt biological reactions. Come to think of it, even after slicing them up like that, not a single one of them had fled. The more I thought about it, the less certain I became. Pondering, I asked again.
“Someone before… said that Monster Variants seemed like living monsters that had been excessively infused with Contaminated Mana through Black Magic and brainwashed. Is that not the case?”
That was what Marianne had told me. Andy Spooner answered easily.
“It might be Black Magic. Mana that dark and murky can only be Contaminated Mana. But there’s something I really want to tell you about this. I can’t understand it no matter how much I think about it.”
A groan escaped from behind me. Carrying the sounds of two gods and a mage pondering, I opened and closed my mouth a few times. Andy Spooner, with an expression unchanged from the beginning, looked directly at me and continued.
“About a year and a half after I entered the mountains, the attack method of the Monster Variants changed. They captured knights who attacked them alive and dragged them somewhere.”
“That’s… an action taken by monsters with young, for hunting practice.”
Mage Boulder, unable to bear it, interjected into the conversation. Andy did not seem offended at all.
“That’s right. But… it’s impossible for such a diverse range of monster species to have given birth simultaneously. So, a few squads decided to infiltrate their lairs and find out why they were kidnapping humans. And there… I saw monsters sitting with their legs crossed strangely whenever a strange song played.”
“Sitting with their legs crossed?”
“Like this.”
Andy Spooner sat down right there. Uncaring that it was a sandy floor, she grunted and placed one foot on her other thigh, forming a lotus position.
Andy Spooner was my fellow student in the Swordsmanship Department. She had glimpsed me practicing Circulating Qi several times. She licked her lips once and, with a slightly nervous gaze, looked up at me.
“Like Young Master Ernhardt.”
Now I understood how the black Monster Variants were made. It was utterly astonishing.
The Demonic Cult had taught monsters Demonic Arts.
Thousand-Faced Devil and Soho Cheon-nyeo were both elder-level figures of the Demonic Cult. They would surely know plenty of Mind methods to distribute to their subordinates. Since they had learned how to converse with dragons, they must have selected suitable Mind methods that they could easily control and crammed them into their foolish minds.
Making their temper explosive and reducing their pain sensitivity to make them charge blindly was something used only when dealing with the lowest-tier martial artists in the Demonic Cult. Hearing the strange singing, Soho Cheon-nyeo must have led that endeavor.
I now understood why she hadn’t fought me with her full strength. If she had played at a higher pitch, all the monsters within earshot would have forgotten their inherent duties and rampaged.
As I couldn’t close my slackened jaw, Andy Spooner carefully examined my face. As she tried to read something from me, before I could say no, she smiled faintly and shrugged her shoulders.
“It just made me think of you, Young Master. That’s how it was then.”
“…”
“Not only monsters, but even knights who were usually timid or very fatigued got caught up in that song and suffered terrible fates. We tried to stop those who were walking, entranced, between large and small monsters sitting side-by-side, but we were caught. When I came to my senses, I was in Tunnel 15-1.”
“…Hah…”
“The last memory I have is from about 1 year and 7 months ago. It seems I was the last one among the knights here to be captured.”
Are they truly trying to establish the Demonic Cult on this land?
Hugh Benson, who had been listening calmly, tilted his head in confusion. Everyone, being martial artists, reacted sensitively to even small gestures. Drawing the attention of the room, Hugh Benson murmured in a low voice.
“…When we arrived at the Magic territory two years ago, there were no zombies or Variants. We only kept seeing monsters with fragments of the Ninth God buried in them, and normal monsters.”
“That… is correct.”
“They say those crazy bastards started kidnapping knights about 7 to 8 years ago, moved the knights gathered at the Training Grounds to Grimsvein 4 years ago, and since then, they’ve continuously kidnapped knights, implanted strange fragments into them, and buried them in tunnels.”
“…Is that so?”
“The Sun God declared that zombies and Variants seemed to have weakened recently, and that everyone was living reasonably well. While we were crossing the Yuil Mountains on foot, we only saw a few Chilopoda-Worms and packs of zombies. Specially enhanced Variants. No black ones.”
“…”
What was he trying to say? As I blinked and watched him silently, Hugh Benson ran his hand over his dry chin and furrowed his brow deeply.
“No. I’ll need to think about this more. For now… Lord Kamael.”
Kamael, who had been waiting at a distance for our conversation to end, strode forward. Before he could say anything more, a crisp reply came back.
“Are we leaving immediately?”
“How many injured are there?”
“There are a few, but they are minor injuries. They can be carried or supported by friends.”
“Please gather everyone for now.”
“Yes!”
Hugh Benson immediately nudged the elbow of the God of Records. The latter, who had been pondering while writing something, adjusted his slightly crooked glasses. Hugh Benson requested him in a tone as casual as asking about today’s snack.
“Take a look, and purify any remaining suspicious ones.”
“For free?”
“Do you not see who is making me run around like this right now?”
“…I was going to do it anyway. By the way, about what you were saying earlier…”
“Later.”
The God of Records quietly closed his mouth.
Andy Spooner, who had been sitting on the ground, also slowly got up. A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I asked.
“Do you happen to… have any of the Source of the Waterproof Forest left?”
“Yes?”