Chapter 52

52. Fanatics

A huge underground cavern lay in darkness and dampness, illuminated by only a single faint light.

Cold wind blew constantly from a hole in the ceiling, while hot air rose from a hole in the floor, endlessly swirling together in the space.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

A blue-haired young man wearing an expensive-looking suit slowly stepped into the seemingly empty space, fiddling with the golden accessories decorating his suit.

“It's been a long time, everyone.”

Standing with his back to the faint flame burning in the darkness, the young man spoke to someone.

There was no reply.

But after mumbling to himself for quite a while, the young man nodded with a satisfied expression.

“Today's topic is about how I have finally found Madness.”

Only the sound of the wind swirling through the space followed his voice.

The young man put a finger to his lips as if asking everyone to be quiet and stopped speaking for a moment.

“Thank you. Everyone expected Madness to have a deep connection with the Witch of Corruption. There were even stories about a woman whose life had been ruined by Madness. Yes, yes, that's not it. That's not what happened. The Witch of Corruption was simply an enlightened woman who came to deeply love Madness!”

The young man made exaggerated gestures like an actor on a stage, seemingly trying to drown out the sound of the strong wind.

Then he laughed loudly.

He kept laughing like a madman until even the echo of his own laughter made him uncomfortable.

“This time, Madness is currently living in the capital of the Wiese Empire, Wiese de Meyne, and unbelievably, he has a powerless old man, a slime, and a woman who was practically expelled from the training center as his companions.”

“Yes, yes, that certainly sounds like Madness.”

“That's right.”

“At all times, in every era, their actions have always gone beyond understanding, destroyed common sense, and erased the boundaries between right and wrong.”

“That's right.”

The young man gently nodded his head and playfully clapped his hands, showing both admiration and ridicule toward Madness's actions.

“There is only one thing I don't like.”

“Yes, that.”

“He is playing around with the power of Indomitable.”

“Ridiculous!”

“Madness is playing with Indomitable!”

“Indomitable, which is practically already broken!”

“Ahahaha!”

The young man's laughter echoed again.

When the seemingly endless echo finally died away, three or four faint flames appeared in the darkness, similar to the flame the young man had been standing in front of.

The young man stopped speaking for a moment as he watched the flames.

Just as he had done, he waited for someone to conceal those flames.

When shadows appeared and covered them, he began speaking again.

“For Madness, which stubbornly spreads from person to person, Indomitable may actually be the most suitable power.”

“Though I don't particularly like that.”

The young man didn't laugh.

But laughter flowed out from the darkness, carried by the wind, filling the entire cavern.

Perhaps pleased by the laughter filling the space, the young man smiled faintly and was about to speak again.

Then a woman's voice came from the darkness.

“I heard that you have secured information about those who have already been infected by Madness.”

“Ah! Of course.”

The young man playfully bowed his waist.

His expression hidden in the shadows twisted.

This was supposed to be his time.

This time was supposed to belong completely to him.

Tears welled up in his eyes from the sadness that followed his anger.

He wiped them away, then straightened up as if nothing had happened and looked toward the silhouettes in the darkness with a gentle smile.

“It seems they are being kept separately at the training center, where various treatments are being attempted.”

“But as you all know!”

“Pfft!”

“Madness isn't a disease!”

“Hehe.”

“The fools don't even realize that they themselves are revealing Madness, yet they act as if they're performing some noble deed!”

The young man couldn't hold back his laughter.

The shadows behind him also seemed to find it hilarious, struggling to suppress their laughter as though they knew they shouldn't laugh.

Everything in their worldview had been derived from Madness.

That was why those who tried to deny their own roots seemed nothing but ridiculous to them.

“Those who have read history will be afraid.”

“They will fear that the traces of Madness have appeared again.”

“But those who know history will rejoice!”

“Because the root of the world has come back to life!”

The true identity of the people led by the young man was that of followers of the ancient demon known as the First Madness, the original Madness, Maidnit.

They were followers of Madness.

They worshiped chaos, pleasure, and destruction, seeking to spread Madness throughout the world.

Those who knew of them called them “Fanatics” with nothing but contempt.

The young man at their center distorted his smiling face completely.

He clenched his fist in the air and began pouring out his anger.

“There are far too many Great Heroes in this world!”

“This is a world where evolution should occur through chaos!”

“Culture should arise through pleasure!”

“Creation should emerge from destruction!”

“This beautiful world…”

“How long have those accursed beings called Great Heroes stopped the evolution of everything, erased culture, and made the world forget how to create?!”

“Aaaaaah!!!”

His clenched fist trembled violently.

His anger was so great that blood began leaking from it.

Once again, flames appeared in the darkness, and countless shadows filled the cavern.

Hearing the young man's anguished, tear-filled scream, the Fanatics who had remained silent one after another began to speak.

“Chaos to the nation!”

“That's right!”

“Twist it from within!”

“Spread Madness and take control!”

“Chaos!”

“The beautiful, twisted Madness that will bloom like a blazing flame within it!!!”

“Pleasure to humanity!”

“Excellent!”

“A blessing to the future believers who, intoxicated by Madness, forget their sins and become so consumed by their own actions that they surrender themselves completely to the pleasure of Madness without even realizing it!”

“Destruction to this broken world!”

“That's right…!”

“Destruction!”

“Let us destroy this world that has been thoroughly broken beyond repair and burn it until nothing remains but ashes!”

“And finally, with our Madness standing upon those ashes, let us create a new world!”

The enormous cavern gradually filled with flames.

Eventually, the cold wind from the hole in the ceiling could no longer easily enter because of the heat radiating from the flames.

The wind stopped.

And a peaceful world came to them.

Once the space became completely clear, the people there looked like ordinary individuals.

A homeless man beneath a bridge.

A beggar from some back alley.

An ordinary farmer somewhere.

An ordinary merchant somewhere else.

A woman who had been picking grain that very morning.

A young man who had yawned and greeted his neighbor.

Ordinary people who could be seen anywhere.

But they were also the people who made up most of the world.

“To the homeless who still have hope.”

“To the beggar who still looks toward the sky.”

“To the farmer who dreams of the future.”

“To the merchant who lives in reality.”

“To the young woman who thinks of her family.”

“To the friends who love peace and want to drink together!”

“Let the Madness slowly seep in from their very foundations!”

“Let the Madness that has melted into the world spread!”

The young man trembled as he gave his speech.

The people surrounding him cheered and applauded.

Some even shed tears.

Who could possibly think of these people as ordinary?

“Right now, we are few in number.”

“That is why we have always worn masks, lowered our heads, and spoken disgusting words with our mouths.”

“But!”

“Madness has finally appeared!”

“Madness that will lead us!”

“So little by little, little by little…”

“As much as we have been oppressed!”

“As much as we have endured!”

“As much as we have hoped!”

“Eventually, we will see a world of Madness.”

“The broken world that we have longed for more than anything!”

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

The young man applauded loudly, as if announcing the beginning of a historic era to the Fanatics who had been holding their breath and patiently waiting for their moment.

After a while, a single passage leading into the cavern became filled with light.

A red-haired boy entered through it, leading children whose eyes and mouths were covered.

The children walked toward the deep hole in the center of the cavern with sluggish, swaying steps, as if they were drugged.

The shadows around them watched with pleasure-filled smiles, seemingly unable to contain themselves.

“The remnants of a fallen world.”

“I offer pure Madness to the ashes that will become the beginning of a new world, once again coloring this world beautifully and allowing it to bloom anew.”

The red-haired boy who had brought the children forward was called Happy.

He pulled a dagger from his waist.

With a smile that looked like it might tear his face apart, he followed the young man's words.

He cut his own hand, letting blood flow, then scattered it over the children he had brought.

The boy had once been completely consumed by Madness and had become a demon of Madness.

His blood was quickly absorbed by the children, who were easily influenced.

And a new Madness was born within them.

“The remnants of the old world.”

“The end of this world.”

“To those who desire power, seek battle, and yearn for chaos…”

“From the pit of this destroyed world, let a new beginning be born…!”

As the young man recited the words like a prayer, the children with their eyes and mouths covered began screaming and laughing.

They cried tears of joy as they threw themselves into the endless hole.

Their laughter, screams, and cries disappeared as they fell.

Then a horrifying sound rang out from the hole, as if something was scraping deep inside their souls.

It echoed together with the maddened laughter of the shadows.

After the brief excitement passed, the shadows and flames began disappearing irregularly, just as they had when they arrived.

Eventually, every flame except the one the young man was covering went out.

Darkness once again filled the cavern.

Then the young man's quiet laughter rang out eerily.

“Oh Chaos.”

The red-haired boy, Happy, approached the young man.

He had once been a boy training at the Empire's training center.

Now, he knelt before the young man and lowered his head.

The young man whom Happy called Chaos smiled kindly.

He was pleased with the blessed result before him, the result called Happy, which had been created through one coincidence after another.

Then he answered.

“Yes, Happy.”

“How are things progressing within the Empire, young Madness?”

“Everything is proceeding smoothly according to your will.”

“Not only have they failed to discover our identity, but they are even trying to use this commotion to eliminate the master of Madness.”

“Ah! How foolish!”

“It seems the position of the Great Hero within the Empire is gradually weakening.”

“Perhaps it is because he became a Great Hero too late?”

If the Great Hero had completely captured the aristocracy, something like this could never have happened beneath him.

He was the Great Hero of Insight.

He possessed eyes capable of seeing through the essence of things.

In the young man's opinion, that made him more troublesome to deal with than the other Great Heroes.

Because of that, all that remained among the Imperial nobles who were acting on their own was despair.

“How absurd.”

“Even if the Great Hero is like a dam maintaining this collapsing world, someone who shines like a Great Hero should clearly be the person who opens the door to a new world.”

“And yet no one understands that?”

“The Empire's thousand-year history must have made them arrogant.”

The old minds of the Empire, which had remained the ruler of the continent for a thousand years even during the eras when there was no Great Hero within the Empire, could not bring themselves to trust the judgment of the Great Hero with the sharpest eyes.

They didn't trust the man who had devoted ten years to the Empire as a Great Hero and forty years as a knight.

His own subordinates didn't trust him.

But that was what Madness was.

A destructive existence that made everyone uneasy simply by existing and caused everyone to fall into distrust.

“I see…”

“Then, Happy, give him some help.”

“Let's give this still-weak Madness a small hint so that he doesn't get toyed with by the nobles and their political games.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don't think it's time for us to reveal our identities yet.”

The young man smiled.

At the moment, if they simply remained still, there was a high chance that Madness would be exposed to danger.

But for them, whose identities could absolutely not be discovered at present, whether they quietly revealed their existence to Madness sooner or later didn't really matter.

Even if their existence was discovered, Madness would carry all the infamy anyway.

Even if they boldly walked into the light, they would remain hidden beneath the deep shadow created by Madness.

Hadn't the eyes of countless people already become narrow and prejudiced because of Madness?

There was no problem.

“It's fine.”

“Madness eventually flows through everyone, after all.”

“Even if something goes wrong, we will not disappear.”

“If that's what you say, then I will follow your orders.”

Happy slowly rose and disappeared into the shadows.

The young man hummed cheerfully as he smiled in front of the faint flame.

Knowing that there was no way to stop the coming destruction, he remained more relaxed than anyone else.

He smiled as if he were already looking forward to the approaching end.