Chapter 135 — A Sense of Dissonance
Crash! Smash!
A street stall in Hopeborn shattered when a heavily armored man sprinting down the street crashed into it.
The owner wanted to complain, but when he saw the man's bloodshot eyes darting around in every direction, he couldn't bring himself to say a single word.
"Damn it! This is all because of the bastard in this picture!"
"Just what did he do to make the Indomitable Hero go this far?"
"Have you seen this guy?! We have to find him right now!"
Instead, the residents themselves were swept up by the madness pouring into Hopeborn.
Everyone was far too excited, as if an actual war had broken out.
And the one who gave structure to that overflowing madness was a small beastman covered in pitch-black fur, his purple eyes gleaming brightly.
"Fifteen people here! You're now a team led by the outsider, 'Tangerine-is-yummy'!"
"Who the hell are you?! Get lost!"
"If this team captures the target alive, every member receives ten million gold! If you cooperate with another team, additional rewards will be distributed according to contribution!"
"...Everyone, gather up! We're having a briefing!!!"
He offered them the sweet temptation of shared profit, turning their chaotic individual movements into organized groups and planting the importance of cooperation in their minds.
Cooperation created unity among them, making their movements far more efficient.
And soon, competition between the different groups began to sprout.
Already drunk on madness and unable to calm down, they accepted every part of it while allowing their frenzy to explode even further.
"...Amazing...!"
And there was one man here who trembled with excitement at the sight of that madness.
He had an utterly ordinary face and wore clothes whose colors blended naturally into the surroundings, making him difficult to distinguish from the background.
"So... this is Madness?"
"He is our god, after all."
Flower, who had secretly leaked information about Gardener to Ingwang, stood carefully beside Gardener, trembling faintly.
She had never expected things to go this far.
To think Ingwang would so casually make use of the people who adored him.
He was using those who praised him as a hero without hesitation.
If Flower had been on his side, she probably would have been trembling in excitement beside Gardener.
However, she knew that the person they were all hunting was Gardener himself.
That made her feel as though she had become an enemy of Madness.
Fear washed over the faint thrill inside her.
"Madness truly is incredible! To think he would mobilize this many people just to capture me!"
"This place is dangerous. You must leave as quickly as possible."
"No! Madness this dense... where else could I possibly experience something like this?! This is a blessing bestowed by one who leaves his Madness wherever he goes! How could I simply abandon it and leave?!"
Even among the Fanatics, a massive group whose true size was impossible to estimate, there were those who were especially obsessed with Madness.
This man, one of Chaos's direct subordinates, couldn't wipe the smile from his face as he watched the scene Ingwang had created.
People grabbed each other, fought, bled, doubted one another...
And even in the middle of all that, love somehow blossomed.
It was like a miniature version of the world Chaos desired.
"I almost want to jump in there myself... Yes. If I appeared among them right now, wouldn't that alone create an incredible amount of chaos?!"
Gardeners weren't comparable to Roots, but they were still considerably powerful.
The man was genuinely confident in his strength.
That was exactly why he was tempted.
The only reason he didn't jump in immediately was because Chaos had stopped him.
And Fanatics were people who always waited for the right moment.
"It can't be helped... What a shame, but I suppose retreating for now would be best..."
"Yes. Then, this way."
Boom!
Just as the man was about to leave, something appeared before him.
A gigantic monster with enormous hands and hard, pitch-black claws.
It looked like a beast that had failed halfway through turning into a beastman.
Several tentacle-like tongues flickered from its twisted mouth as it stared silently at the man.
"Found. You."
"That monster... I remember seeing it in the arena. Was it Fingernail?"
Its words came out broken and uneven.
Its eyes burned red, and an overwhelming killing intent poured from its body.
Fingernail charged straight toward the man.
In the narrow passageway, Fingernail swung one massive arm and tried to grab him.
Instead, the houses on either side shattered from the attack.
Screams burst out from inside the buildings.
The man, meanwhile, avoided Fingernail's attack with ease.
"Ahhh! What a creation of Madness! How beautiful!"
"Found him! He's over there!"
A group noticed the man because of the noise Fingernail had created.
They immediately began charging toward him.
And as though it had been waiting for this exact moment, the same message was sent to everyone searching the city for him.
[Someone has discovered the target!]
[From this moment onward, the target will be marked!]
[Time remaining until the target escapes: 10 minutes!]
Along with the message, an enormous arrow appeared over the man's head.
The man laughed in disbelief.
But the eyes of everyone watching became even more desperate.
And that desperation quickly transformed into excitement.
"Huh?! Didn't you say we had an hour?! You should've told us about hidden conditions like this!"
"No time! Attack!"
"Capture him alive! Alive! We get ten million gold if we catch him!!!"
The users who had appeared behind Fingernail charged at him all at once.
The man broke into a cold sweat as the heavy pressure rolled toward him.
And yet...
He also felt an oddly pleasant thrill.
Still, he had absolutely no intention of fighting them directly.
One at a time would have been manageable.
But with that many powerful people charging him at once, even he had no chance.
"I even swallowed every precious elixir I'd been saving just to catch you!"
These were people like Ingwang.
No, perhaps they had sacrificed even more of their lives to this game than Ingwang had.
They were the hardcore veterans Ingwang called the front-line players.
Their characters had already reached Hero-class power.
Even Aien, one of the two strongest damage dealers in Ingwang's party, would have struggled against some of them in a one-on-one fight.
No matter how strong the man was, facing so many people like that at once was unreasonable.
But the man wasn't particularly worried.
The moment the mark appeared over him, everyone learned his location.
And once that happened, naturally—
"It's true! He's over there! Steal him! Steal him!"
"Ten million...! Ten million!!!!"
"Hey! Keep your hands off him! We found him first!"
"First, my ass, idiot! Whoever catches him owns him!"
"You bastards! Charge!"
Countless blades surrounded the man.
He simply stepped slightly away from the center of those blades.
That was enough to make the people holding them face one another instead.
And then they began stabbing each other.
If everyone had been acting individually, they might have formed an alliance.
But now that they had been separated into teams...
Everyone was everyone's enemy.
Madness must have calculated all of this...!
"Hey! If I catch him, I'll give you two million! Just get lost for now!"
"Bullshit! Why should I trust you?! I saw your team stealing stuff while everyone was distracted!"
"And you think you're so damn clean?! Both your teams are the same! Huh?! Kill 'em all!"
Insults flew.
Blood sprayed everywhere.
It looked like a miniature war.
The man felt an overwhelming pleasure that was almost impossible to endure as he casually slipped away from the chaos.
Flower, who had come with him, remained behind.
But she wasn't someone who would die from something like this.
Besides, she wasn't designated as the target.
The man decided there shouldn't be any major problem and finally began running away in earnest.
"Hey! Where do you think you're going?!"
"Tsk. How troublesome."
He ran through streets packed with people as though a festival were taking place.
There were so many people that avoiding everyone was impossible.
So the man picked up a piece of cloth from the ground and wrapped it around his hand.
Then he took a stance like a martial arts master capable of turning even a towel into a deadly weapon.
"Huh?! Is that guy actually one of those... you know... those guys?!"
"Hahaha! 'Those guys'? You've already abandoned your humanity, haven't you?"
Smack!!
The user was so flustered that he couldn't even finish his sentence.
The man slammed his palm upward into the user's chin and knocked him unconscious.
Then he swiftly defeated the rest of the user's team one after another.
"Th-The cloth...!"
"I picked it up to wipe off the blood. Is there a problem?"
"!!!"
Crunch!
He stomped down the final team member.
Then, leisurely wiping the blood splattered across his face with the cloth, he tossed it aside.
He had never known how to use cloth as a weapon in the first place.
He had only wanted to create the smallest opening.
The trick had worked far better than expected.
Even he was surprised.
[All members of Team One-Bite have died!]
[The target's mark has grown larger!]
"Oh? So that's how the system works. Madness must have spent quite a lot of money."
For a user to issue a quest, they needed either a story significant enough to become a quest or sufficient authority.
And capital was what allowed them to determine the finer details.
The man had also lost a considerable amount of money at the arena before, so it wasn't strange for Ingwang to possess this much wealth.
What he couldn't understand was why Ingwang was spending so much on this.
Strange. Wasn't it because he discovered that I entered the mayor's office?
Flower had told him exactly that.
That was why he had admired Ingwang's abilities and tried to leave Hopeborn.
Something didn't add up.
Considering Ingwang's well-known personality, he wasn't someone who would spend this much money on somebody else's problem.
...Tsk. Did those Garden bastards interfere?
Avoiding ordinary information networks was hardly difficult for him.
With Ingwang's current information network, finding him should have been impossible.
Even now, one of Ingwang's Dark Rats was secretly watching him.
But the man had already noticed it.
If he wanted to lose the creature, he could easily do so.
But if the Garden—the place where Flowers and Fruits gathered—had become involved, that changed everything.
They were shadows among the Fanatics who lived inside the shadows.
They could even hide themselves from Roots.
Escaping them was almost impossible.
Like shadows that would follow endlessly, they would never stop chasing him.
Simply running away won't work.
I need to find the Flower involved in this.
It has to be that woman.
I should've suspected something when she so obediently told me everything about this situation.
Was I simply too excited because Madness was making a move?
He shook his head and ran deeper into the city.
The man moved at full speed while carefully trying to avoid running into any users.
But this time, he wasn't going to get caught as easily as before.
To them, his presence should have been fainter than a passing breeze.
"Found him!"
"Tsk. This mark is troublesome."
No matter how carefully he moved, the mark pointing directly at him continued growing larger.
It stood out so much that it was like a spotlight shining on him alone in the middle of a dark stage.
