Alibi

After passing over the mountain surrounding Apollo's base, Bacon quickly arrived at the Oni temporary camp.

Seeing the many corpses spread everywhere around the camp, Apollo ordered Bacon to stop for a bit so he could have a closer look around. No matter how much he wanted to hurry, he needed to know first what he was dealing with, after all he wanted to save people, not kill himself.

Apollo was no medic student, but seeing the clear signs of poison in the neck and chest of every Oni even a layman like him was able to figure out the cause of death was due to poisoning...

This poison acted soon after being ingested, causing inflammation wherever it touched, making the respiratory channels close, resulting in death by asphyxia.

(Ugh! Perfect! Everything I needed! This will add even more nightmares to my sleep!)

Apollo's timely lack of appetite worked on his favor, making him less prone to vomiting, but even if that's the case that didn't mean he felt fine seeing such a scene.

Having a clear picture of how they had died didn't make Apollo much happier. He knew now how risky it would be to deal with this poison. Without the antidote in hand, it would be impossible to survive past 5 minutes if it ever got to his lungs!

"This is bad! This is truly bad! I have no masks here! We also have no antidotes! This really makes me want to bunker up and wait until we have counter measures in hand! But doing so may compromise all servants in the Oni Master's base!"

Biting his lips, Apollo decided to proceed, but first he gave Rose some orders.

"Rose, go back to the camp and check our food supplies. Look for any sign of poison and get rid of it. Then organize the patrols again and ensure 2 teams are always checking the food and water supplies every hour until the poisoner is captured. Talk to the engineer team to see if they can make some cloth masks that can filter poisonous gas, if not, research how to do it, if you can, make them and ensure everybody wears their masks all the time! Also, bring one of those Oni copses with you and order the nurses and the research team to work together to find an antidote for the poison!"

(Master, we have already collected a sample of the poison and we are already researching it...)

Rose looked at Apollo's face, unsure if he had just forgot or if there was a deeper meaning to the last order.

"Understood!"

Feeling it was not the time to question his orders or his memory now, she decided to bow her head and comply to her new orders.

To be fair, Apollo had indeed forgot they were already working on this. The amount of new information delivered to him at once was so big that his brain couldn't process it all, making him ignore little details like this, resulting in this embarrassing mistake.

On the bright side, the Oni corpse would actually help the research proceed a bit faster, so, while this was an action made by mistake, luckily it was not a complete waste of time.

Back in Bacon's back, the group continued to proceed in a fast pace until the reached Negi's camp.

As they arrived, Apollo was surprised to find a newly made graveyard there.

"Bacon, go over there!"

Who could have done that? The answer was obviously Hayate. But if he did it... did he do it all alone? Even if he got superhuman strength, digging this many tombs and writing messages on each of them would surely take a lot of time!

[Master Negi]

"...Hayate, Negi is not dead..."

Shaking his head, Apollo commented upon seeing Negi's gravestone. He wondered what was buried inside, since it was by no means Negi's body.

(Maybe her personal objects?)

No matter what it was, it would stay there. Apollo was no grave robber and he knew it would be too disrespectful of him to dig somebody's grave just to satiate his own curiosity.

"But if he wasted so much time doing this..."

While he suspected Hayate, he indeed had no conclusive evidence. What if he was wrong!? What if the poisoner's next target was his camp!? If the poisoner found a method to transform this liquid poison into gas, a single gas bomb would be able to take dozens if not hundreds of lives at once!

"Yuu, Nyau."

""Yes!""

"Take a look inside the buildings! Look for any signs of poison! If Hayate created the poison here, there should be some equipment left!"

""Understood!""

Should he be wasting time here? Apollo was really not sure. Live was not a game where scripted events waited the protagonist get into the scene to happen. Every second mattered. But information was just as important as well.

If his guess was wrong and the enemy was not Hayate, there was some chance of the poisoner attacking his camp either now or later, so there was no such a thing as being too careful, but he couldn't waste too much time as his camp was not the only camp in the island.

(The cat girls!)

Apollo suddenly thought of another camp he had forgotten. The cat girls camp. While they only had a dozen or so cat girls left, it was still a possible target... No, that's improbable... That camp was eliminated by Apollo before it had contact with any other player, so unless the killer is someone blinded by his motivations he shouldn't target those girls...

(Even so, maybe I should tell them...)

Unfortunately Rose was already gone. His party still had Daisy, Yuu, Nyau and Bacon, but if he kept doing this, he would have to face the killer alone, which was not a nice idea.

(Sorry, I can't do it right now. It should be fine, but if it isn't, please forgive me!)

Yuu and Nyau came back minutes later, shaking their heads in denial. Understanding the unspoken message they wished to transmit, Apollo decided to continue his journey instead of going back.

This didn't completely clear Hayate, but at least he now had an alibi, so the chances were a lot lower, but this only rose more questions in Apollo's head.

"If it's not Hayate... who is it? Did they get Hayate as well?? If not, where is he??"

There were no signs of fight near the graveyard, but it could have happened anywhere. Apollo checked his bracer and the numbers were still the same, so, at least for now, he was still alive.

--//--

Hayate followed the trail of the poisoner through the forest. The task was not easy but he had enough experience doing similar jobs for Negi before so he could barely do it. Little by little he progressed away from Apollo's road, passing behind Negi's camp, arriving back at Jaylee's camp... or what was left of it.

Stealthily Hayate continued to follow the trail, arriving in a iron mining cave, a kilometer south of Jaylee's base.

As he got closer to the cave's entrance, he noticed there was light coming from inside the cave.

"It's here!"