The journey continued, the landscape shifting from the familiar plains around Whitepeak to rolling, forested hills. Iris's bubbly chatter returned, a stark contrast to the heavy silence growing within Kaito. Her words had planted a seed, and it was now taking root, feeding on every memory of corruption he had encountered.
The mutated wolves, their aggression and metallic fur. The corrupted Earth Elemental in the quarry, shot through with violent crystals. The Murkwood blight, a suffocating despair. The Heart of the Abyss, a factory for an endless plague.
He had viewed them as separate disasters, a checklist of sins to atone for. Now, he saw them as a pattern. A pattern of escalation.
[Sage, cross-reference all instances of encountered corruption. Analyze for design, intent, and potential external influence.]
[Processing...]
[Analysis: Anomaly detected. The corruption encountered at the Sunken City of Val exhibits a marked increase in complexity and strategic purpose compared to prior instances. The self-replication function of the 'Heart' entity represents a qualitative leap in threat-level design. Hypothesis: The corrupting influence is learning, or is being deliberately refined by an external intelligence.]
An external intelligence. A forger of weapons. A Half-Divine with a secret ability.
The pieces clicked into place with a cold, logical finality. He wasn't just cleaning up his own mess. He was being studied. His passive, monstrous aura was a raw, potent ingredient. Something-or someone-was harvesting it, taking samples from the environments he passed through, and using them to create more and more sophisticated biological weapons. The Heart of the Abyss was their masterpiece so far.
He was an unwitting catalyst in a lab he couldn't see, and the entire continent was their petri dish.
"Iris," he said, his voice cutting through her description of the perfect cherry tart.
She turned, mid-skip, her pink-red hair fanning out. "Hmm?"
"The King. Does he have maps? Maps that show where the... sickness has appeared?"
Iris's sunset eyes lit up with understanding. "Oh! You're looking for the pattern! Yes! He has a big, big war room with a huge map. It's got lots of little flags on it. Red for the Monster King's armies, black for the big battles..." Her expression grew slightly somber. "And lately, he's been adding other pins. Purple ones. For the 'sickness'."
Purple pins. Marking the trail of his journey. Marking the testing grounds of his unseen enemy.
"He thinks they're connected to the war, doesn't he?" Kaito asked, the truth becoming undeniable. "He thinks the Monster King is behind the corruption."
Iris shrugged, a fluid, graceful motion. "Maybe. Or maybe someone else is using the war as a cover. Making a big, loud noise so nobody hears the little clicks happening in the dark." She winked, tapping the side of her nose. "The King is very smart. He hears the clicks."
They crested a hill, and a small, walled trading town came into view, nestled in the valley below. It was their stop for the night. But Kaito barely saw it. His mind was elsewhere, trapped in a terrifying new reality.
He had believed his purpose was to atone, to fix the damage left in his wake. Now, he understood a more horrifying truth: every step he took, every "fix" he applied, was providing valuable data to an enemy. He was sharpening the very weapon being used against the world. His path of penance was a guided tour for a master poisoner.
He looked at his hands, the hands that could unmake reality. They didn't feel like tools of healing anymore. They felt like the source of an infection, and he was the carrier. To find the cure, he would have to find the scientist who was turning his blood into poison. And the only lead he had was a room in a distant capital, filled with maps and purple pins, and a tired king who heard the clicks in the dark.
The journey was no longer about answering a summons. It was a hunt. And he was both the hunter and the bait.
-------
CH75.5 The Carrier
The bustling noise of the trading town was a dull roar in Kaito's ears, a meaningless background hum to the storm in his mind. Following Iris's vibrant form as she weaved through the crowd with infectious energy, pointing out a trinket seller here, a street performer there.
He didn't see the town. He saw a map. He saw purple pins sprouting like poisonous flowers along the path he had walked. Whitepeak. The Northern Foothills. The Murkwood. The Coast. Each location, a data point. Each mutation, an experiment. The wolves were a preliminary test. The Heart of the Abyss was a successful field trial.
He was a carrier. A patient zero who didn't get sick himself, but whose very presence allowed the disease to flourish and evolve in others.
Iris led them to a modest inn, the "Wandering Drake," and secured two rooms. As she cheerfully debated the dinner menu with the innkeeper, Kaito stood by the doorway, his gaze distant.
"Hey," Iris's voice cut through his thoughts. She was suddenly in front of him, her head tilted, her expression uncharacteristically gentle. "You got really quiet. Your 'thinking' face is kinda scary, you know. All dark and stormy."
She poked him in the chest, right over where the Dryad's flower and the Coral-King's Tear rested. "Whatever big, heavy thought you're having, it can wait for stew and bread. You can't hunt on an empty stomach!"
Her choice of words-hunt-was like a spark on dry tinder. She knew. She might act the fool, but she understood the shift in him perfectly.
He followed her to a corner table in the inn's common room. A bowl of thick stew was placed in front of him, steam rising in the air. He stared at it, the simple, hearty meal feeling like an artifact from a life he could never have.
"Iris," he said, his voice low. "The corruption... it uses my energy. My presence makes it stronger."
Iris took a large bite of bread, chewing thoughtfully. She didn't seem surprised. "Yeah, probably."
The simple admission was a confirmation that shattered his remaining illusions.
"So, every time I 'fix' something," he continued, the words tasting like ash, "I'm just showing them how their weapon works. How to make a better one next time."
Iris swallowed and took a sip of water. "Maybe. Or," she said, pointing her bread at him, "you're showing us how the weapon works. You're the only one who can see the bullet, Kaito. The King can see the gunshots, the damage. Kaelen can hear the bang. But you... you can catch the bullet mid-air and tell us what it's made of." Her heterochromatic eyes held his. "Stop thinking of yourself as the problem. Start thinking of yourself as the only one who can read the enemy's blueprint."
She was reframing the entire conflict. He wasn't just the source of the raw material; he was the only quality control inspector in the factory. He could trace the impurity back to its source.
He looked down at his hands, then back at her. The weight was still there, the terrifying responsibility. But its nature had changed. It was no longer the crushing guilt of a penitent. It was the focused burden of a hunter who had finally caught the scent.
He picked up his spoon and took a bite of the stew. It was flavorless, but he ate it anyway. Fuel for the hunt. The journey to the capital was no longer about meeting a king. It was about acquiring a map. A map that would lead him not just to the sites of past attacks, but to the location of the next one. He would find the pattern, and at the end of it, he would find the forger.
And then, he would do what he did best. He would unmake them.