Before any contesting words could be said by the fiery woman, the single sound of a footstep brought the group silent and alert. The arrival of anything else was cause for alarm; every creature that inhabited the land commanded that much fear.
They all sat, silent but ready for anything to arrive; whether it was a pounce from a beast or flame from another.
As something pierced through the air like a volley of arrows, they all jumped to their feet, but the fiery woman was the first to try and deflect one of the incoming projectiles.
"Try me—!" Veldalla roared.
Before the red-haired swordswoman's blade could deflect the mysterious projectile, it was stopped from another weapon.
"Huh?!" Veldalla angrily let out, looking at the figure right beside her.
The clown-faced man had spat out his unique sword from his stomach, using his saliva-coated blade to stop his companion's. Passing by, what landed against the ground was a sharp-ended, fleshy projectile that had emerald veins.
Roan had yet to make a move of his own, instead keeping a watchful eye on whatever creature may have unleashed the projectiles, yet stayed hidden itself.
"What's the big idea, clown?!" Veldalla growled.
Lawnrence pulled his sword away, pointing it at the object that had landed in the gravel near them, "Careful now. The slightest impact against one of those will cause it to explode."
"What?"
"It's a 'Rot Sac'—touch it, and it'll release gas capable of turning us into liquid—skin, bones, and all, I'm afraid," Lawrence informed her with a sly smile.
The warning from the clown-like man was heeded by the frustrated woman as she looked at the grotesque sac implanted in the gravel.
Roan kept crimson lightning coiled around his fingertips, "Looks like we're fighting a cowardly one, huh?"
"A 'Foul Skitterer'. As you've observed, cautious creatures that launch their rot sacs from afar, hoping to turn their prey into delectable goop to drink up after the hunt is complete," Lawrence informed.
"Sure know a lot about this place" Veldalla muttered, keeping her sword raised and her eyes peeled.
Without responding to the accusatory quip, the clown-faced man only smiled as he wielded his bendy sword, standing on guard as well in preparation of their encounter with the creature.
The terrain they chose to make their temporary camp had problems of its own; the continuous, cold rain created a veil of mist, and the cliffs around them were full of holes—easily to hide in.
"Anything else we should know about this one, Lawrence?" Roan asked, keeping a watchful eye.
"If you're going to kill it, either aim for the head or make sure you finish it from a safe distance," Lawrence licked his own blade, "—Unless you'd like to be caught in its post-mortem gassing."
Following that warning, a volley of putrid projectiles pierced through the mist, each targeting the three adventurers. As both Veldalla and Lawrence prepared to evade the projectiles, the air became electrified for a moment as crimson lightning swept through the mist.
"Huh–?" Veldalla let out.
"Hmm~" Lawrence watched.
In an instant, all of the trap projectiles were taken out of the air by the bright-red electricity that coiled through the mist, striking the Rot Sacs down without causing them to explode into their flesh-melting form.
Reappearing from his momentary shift into an elemental state, Roan appeared in the air, surrounded by mist and sparks of his own electricity as his eyes quickly darted around.
Through the fog, he found it; the silhouette of the ranged attacker, locking onto it as lightning coiled around his body again.
'Found you,' he thought.
It was an arachnid creature; colossal in size, with a studded, mossy exoskeleton. As soon as its many eyes located the lightning-wielding, veteran adventurer, it activated its hole-filled abdomen, releasing an onslaught of gaseous projectiles towards him.
Zig-zagging through the mist, the crimson bolt of lightning evaded the many projectiles, dashing through them before piercing straight through the creature in an instant.
"Phew," Roan reappeared in his physical form just as the grotesque monster exploded into a mess of blood and goo.
The swift feat of victory over the nefarious creature natural to the Godless Continent was a sight to behold as both Veldalla and Lawrence watched as Roan returned to the campsite, touching down as a bolt of lightning.
"Well done, Mr. Red-Hair," Lawrence clapped his hands together.
After clapping his hands, the smiling clown opened his mouth, slowly sliding his blade down his throat before it returned to the seemingly bottomless pit of his stomach.
"Eugh…Yuck, that never is not gross," Veldalla remarked in disgust.
Lawnrece wiped his mouth before chuckling, "Forgive me."
Brushing the sparks off of his gloves, Roan walked over, scratching his beard as he looked at the snow-skinned man, "Something is bothering me still–about your story, I mean."
"Yes?" Lawrence smiled.
"The Godless Continent is a place that completely rejects humans. It curses us, infects us, or straight up tears us to shreds–it's not an inhabitable place. So, why would the Children of Chaos choose this place as their home?" Roan asked, folding his arms over his chest.
The crimson-haired woman eyed the clown as well, adding in, "I was wondering that, too. The Children are crazy bastards, but even they wouldn't enjoy being wiped out daily, yeah?"
Walking over to one of the hedges with lifeless, gray leaves attached to it, the pale-skinned man fixed his bright-orange hair with a smile before glancing back at the other two.
"Is it not a perfect place to avoid prying eyes?" Lawrenc asked, "It's a land that nobody dares to enter–well, at least most. Besides–hff," the man coughed, "The curses of this land don't affect the Children."
"Seems like you're pretty affected to me," Veldalla remarked.
The clown wiped the blood from his mouth after coughing, still holding a smile, "A consequence of leaving the Children, I'm afraid. The Blessing has left me; I'm now loathed, even more than normal, by this land."
It was felt by all of them: the curses embedded in the very crust of the forsake continent. Roan kept watch of the condition these unseen curses brought carefully, looking as Lawrence continued coughing.
'We were warned before even stepping foot in this land that the curses were unavoidable. They're as natural as breathing air here. It's affecting Lawrence the hardest-the Director's words were right: the stronger one's mana reinforcement is, the more resistance to the curses they have,' Roan thought.
"Nngh…" Veldalla quietly winced to herself.
Looking over, the red-haired adventurer saw that Veldalla was holding her own head as if in pain, though tried to hide it.
'Veldalla is a tough gal, but she's starting to feel it too. I've noticed her getting those migraines lately. I'm still unaffected, but who knows for how long?' Roan thought.
Naturally, as the highest ranking adventurer of the squadron and as somebody with experience leading adventurers, Roan took charge.
"Alright, if they sent us here to scout out the Children of Chaos without telling us, they're expecting us to encounter them one way or another—Lawrence?" Roan looked over.
The pale-faced man had his hand against his chin, nodding a few times, "Oh, yes. It's certain that if we make enough noise, they'll come to crush us."
"They'll try," Veldalla corrected him.
"It'd be better if we found them first, then," Roan said.
'If I had to guess, the Foundation made this move in retaliation to what happened at the World-Class trial a couple years back. They confirmed it to be the Children of Chaos who set Dread loose—a head-on attack like that will earn the full wrath of the Foundation. Still, why did they trick us then? We would have agreed,' Roan thought.
As he questioned the circumstances of the hellish expedition, rain continued pelting down against the gravel.
"Something in your mind?" Lawrence asked suavely.
"Still not sure why they hid the true nature of this mission from us, is all," Roan scratched his neck.
"Ah, I can tell you why," Lawrence said.
"All ears," Veldalla listened with her arms folded.
The clown-faced man smiled, "The less people are aware of the mission, the better. I'm not the only one who knew about it. Only a select few were aware of the true course of this expedition–we were only permitted to speak about it once our numbers were thinned."
"Huh?!" Veldalla let out angrily, "That's bullshit! They fucking planned on us biting it?!"
Calming down the fiery woman, who seemed always about one second away from using her sword on the clown, the red-haired adventurer raised his hand to lessen the tension.
"I think I know why," Roan added in, "If everybody was aware of the true mission, there would be a risk of information being leaked, right?"
"Very perceptive," Lawrence smiled, "The Children of Chaos, above all else, are quite…scrappy, when it comes to obtaining information. It's how they always remain multiple steps ahead of their opposition."
"Then a smaller group should've been sent. It was suicide sending us out here–" Veldalla began to say.
The clown-faced man suddenly closed the space between himself and the woman, speaking with widened eyes, "Is that not the prerequisite given to us? At the very beginning of it all, before we came here, death was already all but assured. That was never a lie; in this rotten land, that's the only truth for us."
"I…Uegh," Veldalla turned away.
Roan added in, looking up at the murky skies with his arms folded over his chest, "A mission like this wouldn't be possible with a small number, unless the Foundation was willing to send out their precious Nihilum Core. We all know that wouldn't happen, though."
"Oh, yes. They worked within very limited parameters," Lawrence explained, intertwining his own fingers with a smile, "You see, the personnel chosen for this mission weren't solely chosen off of rank. Individual traits and talents were taken into consideration, along with their mindset and goals in mind. They needed people strong enough, but also willing enough. Being willing to enter this land takes a mind tainted by insanity, even if just a little bit."
Insanity felt to be putting it lightly. In the region they now stood in, perhaps the place they would all meet their end, just the idea of walking into it willingly now seemed like something spawned only from a complete deprivation of rationality.
"The Foundation likely wanted to guarantee at least one group would reach the hideout. They carefully crafted each squad, giving them just enough that through death, whittling down their numbers, some would reach the desired destination," Roan said, thinking it over audibly as he held his own chin, "But, why? By the time we reach the hideout, forget just our cleaved forces–everyone will be broken by this land–how are we expected to fight the Children of Chaos at their own home?"
"I do wonder, indeed," Lawrence said with a sly smile, "All that's left is the road ahead, no?"
Veldalla groaned, ruffling her own hair in frustration, "I hate to admit it, but the clown is fucking right. There's no turning back now, no matter how much I don't want to say that."
"Clearly," Roan agreed.
Once more, the three, hardly unified adventurers began moving onward through the unforgiving land. Past the campsite they temporarily used, what awaited ahead was a vast stretch of infertile land, yet not barren; tall, thin growths resembling trees populated the region plentifully, stretching high with dark-gray, metal-like skin.
["When you're an adventurer long enough, you'll eventually hear about them. Rarely is it ever that you hear the name of their organization, rarely is it ever connected–but, you'll encounter something done by them. Sometimes it's an unexplained murder, maybe a whole village is wiped off of the map. Though there's never a culprit found, it can always be chalked up to the same source–the "Children of Chaos." A force of evil that infects this world down to its core. Try as we might over the years, hunting down any members of the organization we could find, it always ended up the same way: they'd kill themselves by any means before giving up any information. It's a spider web so deeply interwoven with secrets that I doubt there's any way to really unravel it. Attacking the source is a desperate, almost stupid plan, but it might be the only chance."]
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