Determination

"You know, Assreal, I've noticed something," Kyle continued. "I've never considered myself a happy person, but everything changed with your arrival."

"I got into the depths of this damn forest, my fiancée looks at me like I'm trash, and now my parents... they turned into a pile of flesh!"

"It all started with your arrival! It's your fault!"

I took a few steps back from him. I realized it was really my fault, and therefore couldn't look him in the eye.

"Enough," Uncle Jack calmly intervened, addressing Kyle. "You're stressed, I get it, but you need to pull yourself together."

"First, you lost your family, then you renounced your true faith and became a drunkard. The only one who stressed here is you, so keep your advice to yourself!" Kyle yelled.

"You are a weak-willed and spineless fat man," Kyle lowered his tone, "the moment some bastard showed up, you immediately became his minion sidekick. You can only obey others and nothing else."

"That's enough!" Uncle Jack lost his temper. "I understand your pain, but that doesn't mean you can baselessly accuse and insult others, Kyle!"

Oh, how wrong you are, my friend... he has every right. He probably doesn't know about my ability, but he's right.

I watched the scene of the quarrel, unable to do anything. I just didn't have the desire to intervene. At some point, they both fell silent, their mutual animosity evident in their gazes.

"Where's Adele?" I asked hoarsely, hoping to leave this house as quickly as possible.

They both looked at me.

"Homewrecker," Kyle spat out angrily "She went to church before the Festival, maybe she's gone crazy too and turned into some monster. I hope this sight finally breaks you."

"Kyle!" Jack shouted.

I couldn't utter a word, even though anger consumed me. I wanted to hit him.

Instead, I turned around and headed downstairs to the exit. Uncle Jack followed me, and Kyle said something again, but I didn't listen.

...

As soon as I stepped out into the fog-filled courtyard and calmed down a bit, Uncle Jack decided to speak with me.

"Listen, he's not himself, don't take his words to heart," the man said, trying to reassure me.

"Yeah... yeah, maybe," I said.

I lacked the will to confess everything. I could have blamed the situation that had unfolded, but I knew deep down that even in normal circumstances, I would hardly be able to talk about my misfortune. After all, I'm a coward.

The rest of the way to the church was in silence, and only sometimes it was replaced by screams.

...

At some point, we reached the mayor's office.

The moats surrounding the mansion had water stained red. Bodies and parts of humans and animals were visible, but they were not dead.

As soon as I looked into this abyss, I saw how they floated towards each other, grabbing each other and merging into one entity.

From the rivers of blood came loud buzzing, sloshing, and occasional howls. It was emotionally difficult for me to watch this, so we didn't linger here for long.

At least, that was the plan. At some point, a creature began to emerge from the depths of the bloody river. It had human arms, three legs, a fox's body, and a shapeless head, as if sculpted from plasticine by a preschooler.

The head was bald, with many folds, devoid of a face.

This creature was very nimbly climbing up the roughness of the moat, but very soon, more and more creatures like this, consisting of different body parts and with shapeless heads, began to emerge. Dozens, hundreds of monsters began to climb up!

"Run!" I shouted, running as far away from the mayor's office as possible.

Uncle Jack ran after me, but lagged behind a little.

At that moment, more and more strange creatures appeared on our path.

People whose heads were replaced with tentacles; dogs merged with cats; even more zombies and passersby who seemed ordinary, but they were probably the most dangerous and terrifying. At least that's what my intuition tells me.

All these creatures, surprisingly, did not seem eager to chase us. Rather, they tried to, but not very actively. Very quickly, they gave up on the idea.

At some point, we ran into an uninhabited area, which gave us time to catch our breath. It felt like I had run a whole marathon, so I needed at least 10 minutes of rest, if not more.

The fog was getting thicker, even though we were moving away from the center and going further north. Apparently, the influence of the fog is intensifying over time. We need to hurry.

I noticed Uncle Jack. He was breathing heavily and sweating, clearly having a harder times than me.

"Assreal? Uncle Jack?" Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice.

It was Adele! Along with her was Jeanne.

"Adele! Jeanne!" for a moment, I was relieved, but then I frowned. "Is it really you? Don't get me wrong, it's just that in the current situation I can't be sure."

I decided to overdo rather than underdo it. I didn't want to fall into a monster trap, even if it was just a potential one.

"I understand," Jeanne replied seriously. "My name is Jeanne, I'm a Holy Paladin of the Order of Sun, I'm level 10..." Jeanne continued to list our known data so that we could verify. After her, Adele went through the same process.

Uncle Jack and I completed this chain of mutual verification.

"Are you both okay? How did you meet?" I asked the girls.

"Let's just say I didn't get any important information from the priest, and this fog really worried me, so I decided to stay for the Festival, especially considering the mayor's oddities."

"When midnight came and the Victory Festival began, everything was going fine. The mayor gave an opening speech, people were having fun, dancing, and singing, and then..." Jeanne paused for a moment.

"And then the mayor's guards brought hundreds of remaining living furries to the central square. There were females, children, and the elderly, all in chains. At that moment, the priest appeared and announced the final stage of the Festival – the sacrifice ritual."

"His prayer manifested in the real world, like a spell. I felt my insides trying to break free from me, how my skin stretched and contracted. At that moment, I realized that he was reciting the prayer not to the God in the Tower, but to a completely different entity, an evil god."

"The False God," Uncle Jack nodded.

"I was able to resist this horrible influence only thanks to the Paladin's Fortitude. When I came to my senses, I immediately ran away."

"But even so, I still felt something stirring inside me, trying to break free. It took me time to purify myself until I was completely corrupted."

"Time passed, and Adele found me. She herself went to the church before the start of the Festival. After that, she visited her parents, but they had already gone crazy. For a while, she wandered around the district until she stumbled upon me."

I looked at Adele sympathetically. She looked lost.

"I'm afraid those who heard the prayer and especially witnessed the ritual have lost their minds forever. Right now, they roam the city, they are corrupted, their madness only intensifies, they are subjected to mutations and turned into monsters under the influence of this False God."

"So, this fog is a projection of the influence of the False God?" I asked the question that interested me.

"Mm, I don't think so," Jeanne replied. "It's more of a projection of the influence of the God in the Tower. This can be considered an attempt to contain the spread of the influence of the False God, which is why the closer to the center, the denser the fog becomes."

"Unfortunately, the fog cannot cure the corrupted minds of people and the resurrected ones, so the only right way is to purify them all, and when dawn comes, it will all be over."

I swallowed.

"What do you mean by purifying?" I asked.

Jeanne fell silent, her lips trembling.

"Death," she replied, determination burning in her eyes.

Well, considering the current monstrous state of some of the townsfolk, this indeed seemed like the only option, but I still felt uneasy about it.

Failures really surround me.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale Assreal, it's all the fault of the system, you're not to blame that these people have turned into monsters and will soon die.

Surprisingly, such a procedure helped me calm down again, although my heart still raced like crazy.

My friends looked at me with a mixture of surprise and concern.

"What about those who are not corrupted?" I asked.

"I was just about to get to that," the paladin replied. "Many of those who didn't attend the Festival are still in their right minds. Some, I suppose, managed to escape, while others stayed in their homes, afraid to go out."

"I suggest we go up to the bell tower of the church and attract the attention of the corrupted ones from all over the city to give people a chance to escape."

It was a very good idea, but considering my catastrophic unluckiness, something was sure to happen to us. I looked at my team, then sighed heavily.

"Most likely, we'll encounter a boss at the church," I remarked.

"A boss?" Jeanne asked, as she had never heard this term before.

"The strongest enemy possible," I clarified. "This priest, and most likely, the mayor conducted this ritual, so they received something in return. They could be either in the town hall, where we didn't look, or in the church."

"So the chances of meeting them are quite high," nodded the paladin, finishing my thought.

"Exactly, and I'm more than sure that we'll encounter them in the church," I said, stepping forward.

Perhaps in my catastrophic unluckiness, the system is to blame, but that doesn't mean I won't try to fix the consequences of this failure.