The Black Fog Strikes
The dining hall fell silent the moment the door burst open with a thunderous bang.
Everyone stopped eating and turned their heads.
“Sir Orsini?”
A man drenched in rainwater strode in, his heavy boots leaving wet trails across the floor. Droplets fell from his clothes with every step.
Without a word, he hurled something onto the table.
Crash! Plates, utensils, and food went flying. The grotesque object Orsini had thrown rolled across the surface and came to a stop right in front of Rachel.
“Kyaaaah!”
Rachel screamed. It was the severed head of a monster.
“What is the meaning of this, Sir Orsini!”
The High Priest, who had finally regained his senses, shouted in outrage. Orsini laughed — a crude, irreverent sound — and sneered.
“Can’t you tell just by looking? It’s a monster’s head.”
“This is an outrage! How dare you—”
“Something’s different.”
Orsini cut the High Priest off mid-sentence.
“I’ve severed thousands — tens of thousands — of monster heads in my time, but I’ve never seen anything like these.”
“What are you talking about!”
“The same goes for the Black Fog. It’s not like anything we’ve faced before. It’s far too erratic. Unpredictable.”
Orsini swept back his rain-soaked hair.
“Until now, the Black Fog would appear in one area, occupy it for a set period, then vanish. But here…”
His green eyes, twisted with barely contained fury, gleamed in the light.
“The Black Fog here strikes like lightning and disappears just as fast. It’s impossible to predict, which is why so many knights have already been infected.”
Orsini’s voice grew rougher as he continued. His anger was clearly directed at the High Priest.
“And yet here you sit, leisurely picking apart fish while all of this is happening, Your Holiness?”
“Watch your tongue! As you yourself said, I am the High Priest. I will not tolerate such insolent—”
Bang! Orsini slammed both palms down on the table and leaned forward, looming over the priest.
“You’re the one who needs to stop acting so damn frivolous.”
The High Priest hiccupped in shock.
“The Black Fog has appeared, and the best a man who possesses holy power — a High Priest, no less — can do is sit here comfortably tearing apart trout flesh?”
The High Priest’s cheeks trembled violently under the weight of Orsini’s oppressive aura.
“Is no one outside?! Drag Sir Orsini out of here at once!”
The door flew open again, and a group of knights rushed in.
“Seize Sir Orsini immediately—”
The High Priest’s command faltered. The knights who had entered were all from the Addis family.
“Ah, so you called the lord’s knights?”
Orsini let out a derisive snort.
“No matter how many you call, they won’t be coming. I made sure they couldn’t enter. Gave them a little… forced rest.”
At his mocking tone, the High Priest’s face drained of all color.
“You really do love to eat, don’t you?”
Orsini stared with open disgust at the mountain of plates piled beside the High Priest.
“So do I. Especially when it comes to alcohol. I’ve heard the rye whiskey from Pailon Island is exceptional, but unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to taste even a single drop. All because of this damned Black Fog.”
“You… you thug…!”
The sneer vanished from Orsini’s lips in an instant.
“Yes, even a thug like me knows what truly matters. But what about you?”
“……”
“If you had lifted your heavy ass off that chair, at least a few of the many knights who died today might still be alive.”
“How dare you speak to me like—”
“Who the hell are you, exactly?”
Orsini straightened up. He looked down at the High Priest, now cast in his shadow, and laughed coldly.
“You’re nothing but a pig hiding behind a trout because you’re terrified of the Black Fog.”
“You—!”
It was then that it happened.
The shadows of the knights stretched across the marble floor. Rachel saw one of them twitch.
“……!”
But in the next moment, she realized it wasn’t a shadow at all.
It was the Black Fog.
The pitch-black haze surged upward with terrifying speed, swallowing the knights whole in a single violent rush.
“It’s the Black Fog!”
“Run!”
But those who had been caught first could no longer respond.
“K-Kuaaagh!”
“Aaaah!”
Five. The bloodcurdling screams of five knights echoed from within the inky blackness.
Then, just as suddenly, the screams cut off.
“……”
The hall fell deathly silent.
The remaining knights pressed themselves against the walls, swords raised high. Even though the screams had stopped, their eyes were wide with the knowledge that the nightmare had only just begun.
The High Priest, shaking uncontrollably, barely managed to squeeze out a voice.
“W-what is this…”
At that moment, the Black Fog dissipated as quickly as it had appeared.
“……”
The knights who had been swallowed were still standing in the same spot.
They looked completely fine, as if nothing had happened.
They appeared so perfectly normal that it was hard to believe they had just been consumed by the Black Fog and had screamed in agony mere moments ago…
“Krr… krrrr…”
But the sounds leaking from their lips were grotesque. Slowly, jerkily, like broken dolls, they lifted their heads.
“……!”
Rachel nearly screamed.
Black.
The knights’ eyes had turned completely black.
Not only that — their hair was slowly turning black from the roots downward. Their eyes were bloodshot crimson, and thick, hungry drool dripped from their gaping mouths.
“Grr… grrrrr…”
Orsini stepped toward them.
The infected knights all turned to stare at him at once. Then they leapt forward like wild beasts. Their jumps were inhumanly powerful, but—
“Khak!”
Rachel, hiding beneath the table, couldn’t even see how Orsini swung his sword. She only witnessed the result — three of the knights’ bodies being sliced apart in a single stroke.
Thud. The moment an infected knight’s head hit the floor, silence once again blanketed the hall.
Orsini turned to the other knights and said,
“Collect the bodies. And…”
His eyes suddenly widened.
“Get back!”
In the next instant, the Black Fog erupted from every direction.
And it swallowed every last knight in the hall.
“It happened in the blink of an eye.”
Rachel spoke quietly.
“There was no time to dodge or react. Sir Orsini’s comparison was accurate. It really was like a lightning strike. The Black Fog spread instantly and consumed every single knight.”
That was the day the Addis family knights had been infected by the Black Fog, and Orsini had been forced to slaughter them all himself.
“Sir Orsini did what was necessary. A sacred duty.”
Anyone touched by the Black Fog became infected. Their minds shattered, transforming them into monsters driven by pure malice and murderous intent.
“In the end, they all found peace at Sir Orsini’s hand.”
Only now did Kanna understand why Orsini had seemed so drained lately.
The Addis knights had been his comrades and subordinates — men he had fought alongside for nearly his entire life. Just like Sir Claude, who was listening to this story from behind them.
“That incident caused a severe rift between him and the High Priest. Even then… the High Priest did nothing. He could have used his holy power to weaken the Black Fog’s influence.”
So that’s why he slapped him. For the first time, Kanna felt a flicker of understanding toward Orsini’s violence.
“The rain has stopped.”
At some point, the rain outside the window had eased.
“Shall we go?”
It didn’t take long after they began walking through the village for Kanna to witness something strange.
“I’m flying! I’m really flying! I’m in the sky!”
A middle-aged man cackled as he ran through the streets.
“Ahahaha! This is amazing! So exciting!”
A woman danced wildly in a rye field, clinging to a scarecrow.
“I’m a fish! I’m going to swim all the way to the end of the ocean!”
A young boy was doing the breaststroke in a muddy puddle.
The further they walked, the more of the village they saw, the more residents exhibiting bizarre behavior appeared everywhere.
This was the infamous madness of Pailon Island that she had only heard about in stories.
So it’s real. They all look completely insane.
Yet Rachel watched all of this with a serene smile.
“Are you surprised, Doctor?”
Seeing a girl who claimed to be a monkey now perched high in a tree, Rachel spoke softly.
“But to me, this is nothing new. This phenomenon has occurred on the island for a very long time.”
“……”
“During this season, the activity of evil spirits becomes especially intense.”
“This season… you mean the rainy season?”
“Yes. All the villagers take turns being possessed by demons at least once. Everyone except me, that is.”
Rachel carefully stepped over the rain-soaked mud as she continued.
“That’s how I realized it. That I am a very special existence on this island.”
Everyone had been possessed by a spirit at least once.
Even her father had suffered from a bout of madness in his childhood, he had once told her.
But she was different.
Only her.
Therefore, only she could save this island.
“It’s the Saintess!”
At that moment, the few villagers who still seemed sane spotted Rachel and came rushing toward her in a crowd.