481 A Two Day Interval, The Food Search, Preparation, and the Growth of the Infected (1/2)

Day 123 - 2:21 PM - Outside Féth Fíada, Mountain Base, Mount Malabito, General Nakar, Quezon

Chaaya and Huo Long Yue appeared at the southern side of Féth Fíada in the fastest speed as they could. However, they could only click their tongue in frustration as they reached the place.

It had been the second day for this thing to happen, the third day, in fact, including the time they encountered the intelligent sword.

There was someone, or something had broken in and out of the Féth Fíada. And for a mysteriously annoying reason, they could not find the culprit. Not even a trace was left behind, making them unsure of what was happening.

Not only that, but the events were disturbing their plans, horribly, and also made them fear an unknown factor interfering with the things they prepared. Furthermore, the worst thing was that every time the Féth Fíada was disturbed in this manner, the ongoing ritual was being affected. In these past days, they already had quite a few of Tuath Dé fall because of the backfire. Although they should be able to recover in about a day or two, these missing members made the gathering of energy slower and more unstable.

If this continued, the Féth Fíada might get weakened. This event was one of the things they did not want to happen.

But what could they do aside from getting frustrated? The culprit was nowhere to be found at all.

It seemed like they needed to push other measures to guard the perimeters of Féth Fíada.

***

Unbeknownst to them, the culprit was overseeing them from above.

Mark flapped his wings silently above the two enemies that Ignis described to him. Concealed from their eyes using the [Photokinesis Mental Crystal].

He was playing with the enemies at the same time that he was hunting for animals. It was rather unfortunate that both Spera and Ignis had no idea about this mist. From the looks of it, it was some sort of measure from the Inner Circle of Auraboros.

That was why he investigated it a bit yesterday.

He managed to find the base of the enemy rather easily. It was because they did not bother to hide at all. The more or less two hundred members of Auraboros camped at the Elementary School of Daraitan.

Seeing the school made him remember the people that decided to dwell there. By the looks of it, they were all gone now as Mark could not detect other humans in distress. It was rather unfortunate. Since those people managed to get this far and live this long in this deadly apocalypse, their abilities should be above average. If some were still alive, they could be of use to the base after saving them.

The base camp was found. Unfortunately, he could only observe from afar. There was a barrier around the school, which Mark did not dare try to touch. He did not know what this thing would do, but most plausibly, it was put to detect intruders. Mark did not want to disturb the enemies as it would implicate his plans, either.

Nevertheless, he managed to find out what was happening every time he or Ignis was making a hole from the mist. Unfortunately, they could not do anything about it and ended up alerting the enemy every time they get out. They could tell Spera to open a portal for them, but since the number of times she could use the Portal in a short time was limited, they better use it for emergencies.

And of course, even though it might affect the plans a bit, Mark found annoying the enemies little by little quite fun. Their frustrated faces were rather comfortable to look at. After all, these same people caused some difficulties for his people. They should also feel the same.

The only thing that Mark was quite wary was the third party.

Every time these two appear, there was a mysterious entity tailing them. However, this entity had no intent to meddle. Mark could feel that this entity had already found him, and he found it too.

After he watched the two robed figures leave in frustration, Mark turned to another direction.

There, a white fox with three tails could be seen sitting on a branch of the tree while staring at his direction. It was even though he was still under the effect of [Optical Camouflage]. After a few seconds, the fox turned away and jumped off from the branch, following the two robed figures.

Mark wanted to know what it wanted, but it could wait for some time. Now, he went out to capture animals for a meal for the next days. These past two days, he only scoured around the mountain for animals. However, it seemed that the disturbance in the mountain scared away the animals leaving a few ones.

The worst thing, however, was that he found many mutated infected wandering in the mountains. It was not surprising. The Féth Fíada was like a vortex gathering magical energy.

And the infected found this kind of energy very attractive. With the amount of energy gathered, it could even attract the more sensitive infected from miles away.

Furthermore, after another month, the infected sure have mutated further.

Many of them already left their humanlike figures from before, turning into total monsters. There were still parts that told that they were previously human. However, without those parts, no one would be able to notice at all.

This time, Mark decided to fly rather far away, probably, near the east coast. Some seafood might be a good thing to eat, considering that they only had animal meat these past three days. The amount of fruit and vegetables they had in store was also dwindling. Unfortunately, Mark could not gather an amount that would be able to satisfy everyone. After all, he had other things to do.

As Mark neared the Markina-Infanta Highway, he had to stop. It was because he saw something rather interesting.

An infected was walking down the slope of the road. Like the other infected, Mark saw that were roaming on the mountains, this was highly disfigured. It was definitely a [Predator Type] infected.