Dark Fantasy’s Extra Chapter 109

We entered Cheshire Village after Sephira’s cleanup.

Beast blood flowed like streams everywhere, and pieces of meat that looked neatly butchered were scattered all around.

Though the reddish mist that had been thick earlier had settled, it still lingered here and there, and the fishy smell entering our lungs simply wouldn’t disappear.

A normal person would become irreversibly cursed just by spending one day in such a place.

While Sephira, Dominic, and Oscar with his high curse resistance as a mage would be fine, it wasn’t good for a lower-ranked hunter like me to stay here long.

And Zepetia wore a bird-beak shaped mask like those medieval doctors used.

She said it was filled with various herbs and catalysts that neutralize curses.

She offered one to me too, but since I could handle being here for a day or two anyway, I declined.

Besides, there was only one to begin with.

“Do you sense anything? I don’t detect…”

Sephira asked.

“Same here. As Ms. Zepetia said, there are probably some hiding with their bodies transparent, but…”

Dominic also looked around sharply.

The Cheshire Beasts’ transparency wasn’t detectable like those appearing in the moonstone research lab at Vile’s old laboratory.

If I recall correctly, in the setting they only half-existed in reality.

In other words, they weren’t simply cursed meat puppets moving around, but their very existence was closer to an illusion.

I don’t know the exact principles, but most of Vile’s experimental subjects shared such characteristics.

Though in exchange, their direct combat abilities seemed slightly lower compared to normal Beasts.

“…Is that one over there?”

Of course, Oscar with his keen eye was the first to spot something.

What he pointed at was a tail lying on the ground.

While it could just be a severed tail, there wasn’t a single drop of blood around it, which seemed odd.

If it had been cut off during Sephira’s earlier battle, blood should have flowed from the cut and stained the surroundings red.

“Hmm.”

Dominic narrowed his eyes as if making an estimate and threw a dagger.

As expected of a judge, his dagger throw was much cleaner and more powerful than mine.

The dagger flew almost like a bullet and struck the ground slightly in front of the tail.

“Kihahaha!?”

Rather than hitting the ground, the dagger stopped mid-air.

At the same time, a Cheshire Beast with the dagger stuck in its back revealed itself while screaming.

The blade must have precisely severed its spine, as the Cheshire Beast could barely raise its upper body while thrashing before trying to crawl away in the opposite direction.

But Dominic threw another dagger that precisely embedded itself in the back of the Cheshire Beast’s head.

“I’m getting quite used to silver daggers now.”

Dominic said while twirling a dagger in his hand.

Originally, he probably used iron daggers more than silver ones.

After all, steel would be more effective than silver if the target was human rather than Beast.

“And next is… pouring holy oil and burning it, right?”

“Let’s do that later. It would take too long to do them one by one.”

Sephira shook her head.

“An investigation team might come later, so let’s leave the Beast corpses for now and continue searching.”

We continued through the Beast-massacred village, finding and dealing with stragglers hidden here and there.

Mainly Oscar, and Dominic found them well, while I also found quite a few based on knowledge from my past life.

But the more we found, the more unsettling it felt.

Were there originally this many?

No matter how I thought about it, the number of Cheshire Beasts packed into this village was too high.

Perhaps even more than the original village residents.

“…Mr. Eugene.”

Sephira said.

“Yes?”

“Don’t you think there are too many Beasts for such a small village?”

“Ah, yes! I was thinking the same thing.”

“This situation… though rare, it resembles the work of a high-tier Beast that fights by increasing its subordinates.”

“Ah…!”

Indeed.

I should have noticed earlier.

In the game from my past life, it wasn’t strange for Beasts to look identical.

After all, no game individually models every single mob.

Did Sephira notice quickly because she frequently encounters much stronger Beasts than me?

“That’s probably the most likely possibility. There must be something we could call a leader somewhere.”

…Wait, doesn’t the boss of this Cheshire Village not fight by increasing subordinates?

Initially, it appears with a cutscene after you enter the village somewhat, immediately turns invisible and wanders around, then ambushes the protagonist from blind spots when discovered – that was its main attack pattern.

So players had to move around the village carefully without being detected, find the curse core maintaining the curse over the entire village, and only then would the proper fight begin.

But now… there’s no sign of the boss appearing.

To begin with, in the game there weren’t Beasts swarming like this since you had to infiltrate without being detected by the boss.

They would hide here and there to ambush when players let their guard down or alert the boss of their location – that was their main pattern, and their numbers never exceeded roughly 20-30.

…Why is everything so different now?

“Then let’s look for somewhere that could serve as their base.”

For now, following what Sephira said is best.

If the Blue Paper Moon strategy doesn’t work, I can only trust my experience and knowledge as a hunter.

We explored Cheshire Village more actively.

Perhaps due to its shocking specialty of cat stew, cat drawings were scattered on buildings throughout Cheshire Village.

Though old and weathered, the cat drawings on the stone walls had paint peeling off in places, making parts transparent like the Cheshire Beasts.

Not only that, but blood sprayed during Sephira’s rampage had splattered on the drawings, making them look like they represented the Beasts of this village.

“…This feels awful.”

Oscar’s muttering sounded particularly loud because I felt the same way.

This village is disturbing.

The ingredients for their signature dish are unsettling, the Beast corpses swarming everywhere are unsettling, and how different it is from what I knew is unsettling.

But the true nature of this unsettling feeling wasn’t just because of those things.

“Can everyone feel it?”

Sephira asked.

Except for Zepetia who hadn’t received detection training, we all nodded.

“This feeling is… similar to that creepy laboratory.”

While I couldn’t detect that much, Oscar, the mage most sensitive to magical power among us, said so it must be true.

We’ve probably detected the curse core that turned all the village residents into Beasts.

Having come this far, it wouldn’t be strange for the boss to appear now, right?

But there’s still no sign of anything emerging.

After continuing forward with barely any resistance, we finally arrived at the ‘restaurant’ in the village center.

Though Cheshire Village’s specialty cat stew is made in each household, all the meat is produced and managed in one place.

The restaurant in the village center is literally a place that handles everything from raising cats to butchering them and cooking for visitors.

So while it’s the largest and most elaborately decorated place in the village….

“…That must be it.”

“How…”

The restaurant looked very different from what I remembered.

The rough shape was the same so I hadn’t noticed during our initial scouting before entering the village, but now seeing it up close there were clear differences.

“There’s a limit to how disturbing something should be….”

Oscar said.

I agree.

Originally, cat drawings representing the village specialty were scattered throughout Cheshire Village.

Especially the restaurant had its walls completely covered with cats.

Though there are still cat drawings now, they’re all bizarrely distorted.

Not only were they crying tears of blood or vomiting what looked like internal organs, but some looked like multiple masses crushed and merged together.

Though they were just drawings, they made me feel dizzy, as if someone had deliberately drawn them to evoke disgust.

At least they weren’t meant to be shown to customers.

Seeing such things in a restaurant would destroy any appetite.

“Is this also the power of curse… no, creation?”

Zepetia muttered.

“Creation? That?”

“You could say curse and creation are just a hair’s breadth apart…. Grandfather’s research aimed to use magical power to create reality anew. All the research materials in that Wonderland were about that. The moonstone and bloodstone were just byproducts for that purpose.”

As Zepetia said, Vile’s goal was to create a new world from the current one.

In some sense, you could say it aligned with the witches.

The fact that things appear grotesque, like the creepy experimental subjects in the old laboratory or these Cheshire Beasts, is simply because Vile hadn’t yet approached his ideal.

What Vile truly wanted was fairly fairy tale-like, like that Wonderland.

“So this restaurant probably wasn’t meant to look like this originally. The research was just imperfect.”

“That… I think I understand. But you.”

“What?”

“You’re quite talkative about this kind of thing?”

“Huh?”

“Pfft!”

Even in this situation, I couldn’t help laughing at their exchange.

It improved my mood a bit too.

“So in the end we have to go inside. I must enter myself to save face.”

Dominic said.

“That place is too dangerous. I should go in alone.”

Sephira shook her head.

“If-if it’s alright, I also… want to see directly.”

Zepetia raised her hand.

“I don’t mind either way… I’m starting to get used to how disturbing this place is anyway.”

Even Oscar quickly split into different opinions.

“Hmm….”

Finally, everyone’s gazes turned to me.

What to do…

If this were Blue Paper Moon, the second phase of the boss fight would have already started by now.

But forget second or first phase – despite Sephira’s rampage, the boss hasn’t shown itself at all.

Is it hiding somewhere?

“…How about collapsing the building from outside instead?”

“I’m sorry but that would be difficult. Considering the possibility of materials left behind by Vile, we’d like to obtain them intact somehow.”

“M-me too.”

Dominic and Zepetia objected.

“Then I guess we have no choice but to all go together.”

“Wait. I told you that place is too dangerous. I alone am enough.”

Sephira said.

“It’s not right to send a higher-ranked hunter alone into danger either. No, following Order rules, I should go in alone first.”

This is exactly when the Order’s protocols apply – the weak become bait or canaries to gather information, and strong hunters act based on that information.

Of course, being bait isn’t particularly pleasant, but it’s the most rational and hunter-like strategy.

“Absolutely not.”

Sephira said firmly.

“But….”

“Absolutely not.”

“…”

In the end, we decided to all go in together.

“Then I’m opening it.”

Sephira took the lead and opened the restaurant’s door.

For a moment, I couldn’t understand the scene that followed.

The restaurant was packed with customers.

But in this space, I was the only pure human.

Just me alone.

At some point my other companions had vanished and I was alone inside this bizarre restaurant.