Chapter 79: The Fog Island [19].

"Eh, Aldrus, don’t you think..."

"Yes. What if that’s where the wolves went?"

"I think you meant ’where they ended up,’" Aiden said.

"Ugh, you’re right."

Aldrus covered his mouth as he remembered the sickening sight.

"Um, excuse me, but what are you two talking about?" Alice suddenly interrupted them.

Ah, that’s right, she doesn’t know.

Aldrus sat back down and began telling her about what he and Aiden had found earlier that day. He described the state of the corpses that he presumed were the other wolves Alice had fought. However, he took care not to go into detail about the full experience; otherwise their new shelter would be at risk of getting dirty.

"Disgusting," Cedric said.

"I’m glad I wandered away for a full hour," Alice added.

Aldrus frowned.

"I know, but that’s not the point." He paused, then said, "I’ll ask you guys a question, and I’d like you to be honest with me."

Everyone grew serious and listened.

"Don’t you get the feeling that... somehow, nothing truly dangerous has happened?"

"What are you saying? Did you hit your head?" Cedric said bluntly.

"Look who’s talking," Alice jested.

"No. I’m serious," said Aldrus. "Think about it for a minute. This is the place where countless Second-Ranked Holders were slaughtered, and keep in mind they were able to use their powers; we can’t. Specters, Orange-Class monsters, and black wolves, Yellow-Class—it doesn’t matter. If we had our powers, then even if it wasn’t easy, none of these foes would have posed such a challenge to us, First-Ranks.

"But how? This is the Fog Island, right? The place even Third-Rank Holders aren’t allowed to go to because of how little is known about its dangers. How is it that we’re even alive? What happened to those wolves and the specter chasing Alice? There has to be something else, something deadly. At the very least, something stronger than an Orange-Class monster."

They all went silent and pondered over his words. Aldrus had a point; it was easy to forget the scale of the danger they faced when even weaker beasts had them on the brink of death. But if they thought about it objectively, it made no sense that the place they were in was the same one depicted so terrifyingly in every single book and report. Unless, of course, they had not crossed paths with its true horrors yet.

After some time, Cedric spoke first.

"I would like to say that it almost seems like you’re hoping for something worse to happen to us, Aldrus, but that’d be disingenuous of me. To tell the truth, I’ve also felt something was off. For example, blondie," he prompted her.

"What?"

"May I ask you why you didn’t use your necklace back there? You said you were sure you were going to die, didn’t you? To me it sounds like a damn good reason to use it. Besides, I doubt you failed to notice that the Perspective stored within it is unaffected by the island, so it was basically a free lifesaver. You won’t tell us you deemed it too valuable to waste one of its uses on saving your own ass, will you?"

"Eh..."

Aiden and Aldrus looked in her direction, asking themselves the same thing. They had forgotten about her artifact. While her boots did not work without her own Perspective to feed them, the necklace had already been charged with three uses of stored Perspective. It was intended as a last resort in case she found herself in mortal danger and her Perspective reserves ran out, but on the island, she did not have any to begin with. If she had been truly about to die, then why did she not use it?

"I... huh? Why didn’t I use it? Did I... not want to? Did I forget about it? I don’t know."

"I knew it; there’s something else going on. We’ve been forgetting some things too, and not trivial stuff," Cedric said.

"’We’?"

Cedric nodded.

"Can any of you tell me what it was that knocked us unconscious back there? Do you remember the last thing we said before it happened, or how we ended up in different locations even though we passed out together?" he asked.

None of them were able to answer; they could not remember. That question alone served as an answer—it was not that Alice did not want to use her artifact to save herself, nor that she had forgotten that she had it because of a distraction. Something had been actively messing with their minds and memories. And although it did not seem to be a permanent effect, it did make it easy to overlook things they could not afford to miss.

"Well, that makes things more complicated," Aiden said. "However, if I had to draw something good from it, it would be that we learned something valuable here."

"And what is it?" Aldrus asked.

The silver-haired boy pointed to Alice’s necklace.

"That right there is a First-Rank artifact, but as Cedric pointed out, it happens to work just fine. I doubt it is just because it holds Perspective inside the gems; it seems to me the reason is the passive perk. That necklace merely stores Perspective, and it doesn’t require Alice to use hers to activate it; it simply releases it at her command."

"So, just a hunch?" Aldrus said.

Aiden shook his head.

"Not really. We have another piece of gear whose enchantment is passive. Cedric." He looked at him. "You told us you gave yourself that wound so you could stay awake, didn’t you?"

"Ah, yes, I did."

"Knowing you, and no offense, I was surprised you came up with such a clever solution without putting yourself at greater risk. You do remember how recklessly you acted when that jailer broke your hand, don’t you?"

"Tsk, yeah..."

"Well, that onyx bracelet of yours was supposed to ease your mind in battle. It seems to me that it worked just fine earlier."

"Ah—that’s right! I had completely forgotten about this thing!" Cedric exclaimed, staring at his armor piece.

"So, we have two examples, huh... It doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me," Aldrus said.

"Even if it’s just a coincidence, we’ll have to act on the assumption that it’s not. The key here is that we at least now have something to rely on for the final stretch home. Alice, we’ll have to use that sensibly; we only have three chances," Aiden explained.

"Okay."