Episode 29 – Karl Bastain
“Swept here by a torrential flood?”
“When I came to, this was where I found myself.”
“All the way from Nelitori to here? That’s some crazy luck. Surviving that distance…”
“Luck, huh…”
Yeah, luck has been a sick joke for me.
I woke up in this world inside the body of a newbie assassin, assigned to a suicide squad tasked with slitting the Mad Butcher’s throat. And as if that wasn’t enough, after enduring all sorts of misery and groveling before the Butcher to survive, I ended up getting swept by a flood... right into a lunatic’s experimental prison.
And before a day had even passed, the Chimera Legion attacked, and now I was face-to-face with Karl Bastain.
“Fucking hell.”
“……?”
I exhaled deeply, trying to calm myself.
Things could be worse.
At least I’ve fought tooth and nail to survive and earned a few useful rewards along the way.
The experimental prison had been hell, sure, but...
‘Meeting Karl Bastain before he sided with the Mad Butcher? That’s a stroke of luck.’
Whether this encounter will benefit me or backfire remains to be seen. But looking at it from a long-term perspective, forging a connection with Karl isn’t a bad move.
After all, taking him out of the Mad Butcher’s deck means removing one of the Butcher’s hidden cards.
I had already caused a significant disruption by eliminating Donecolint, the Shaman responsible for much of the Butcher’s early conquests. If I manage to sway or remove Karl as well?
The damage to the Butcher’s plans will be substantial.
Of course, the Butcher won’t realize any of this until it’s far too late.
Karl noticed my gaze and gave me a puzzled look.
“Why are you suddenly speaking so politely?”
“Because we’re allies now.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s just how I feel.”
“Heh, weird kid.”
Honestly, it just felt awkward to speak rudely to a grumpy forty-something man with a scarred face.
‘An alliance… for now.’
Karl had proposed that we work together until we found a way out of this forest. I accepted without much hesitation.
If things followed the original story, Karl’s group would eventually escape from this forest and join up with the Butcher.
In the meantime, staying close to them would guarantee my safety. I just needed to quietly ride along and bide my time.
For now, I followed Karl and his group as they moved through the forest.
They mentioned having a prepared hideout, and it was clear from the way they talked that they’d been here for quite some time.
“You wouldn’t know anything about this place if you only arrived yesterday, would you?”
“Do you know something useful?”
“This place is cursed. It’s surrounded by a magic circle barrier—getting in is easy, but getting out is impossible.”
“Were you captured and brought here?”
“No, I stumbled in while trying to evade pursuit. Been trapped for... what, two months and fifteen days?”
“...What?”
I stopped and stared at Karl.
If he’s been here that long, he must have encountered the Chimera Legion multiple times. And he survived each encounter?
There had to be some kind of trick to it.
“And those monsters...?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen them more times than I can count.”
“And you survived each time? With that many monsters around, running doesn’t seem like a viable strategy.”
“There’s a way.”
“What way?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
So there was a method to avoid the chimeras. But merely avoiding them wouldn’t be enough to escape this place—there had to be some kind of trigger event.
“Have you been with these men from the start?”
“Yeah. There were twenty-five of us when we began. Now, there are only about ten left.”
“Ah...”
“How much longer do you think we can hold out? Honestly, I’m getting tired of this.”
Karl let out a bitter laugh as he kept walking.
His tone was heavy, and I swallowed dryly.
Part of the reason Karl’s group had suffered so many casualties was likely due to the 5-star information I had spread earlier. That might have drawn attention to their location.
“By the way, how did you manage to take out your captain and those assassins?”
“I recognized they’d been using Paralyzing poison, so I pretended to be intoxicated. I caught them off guard and struck first.”
“What was your mission?”
“Well, about that...”
I slowly began telling my story, though I had to tweak a few details. Honestly, even I wouldn’t believe my own story if someone told it to me. And there was no way Karl would buy it, either.
So I gave him a version that was just plausible enough to avoid suspicion. Fortunately, he didn’t seem too concerned with the details.
“Taking them down alone... That’s impressive.”
“I have a... special ability.”
“A special ability, huh...”
Karl didn’t press me further. He simply nodded as if that was enough.
As we walked out of the dense forest, a familiar structure appeared in the distance.
“Not that way,” Karl said, shaking his head when I glanced toward a wooden building. He turned and headed in the opposite direction.
I recognized that building.
It was the bandit camp.
The same place that had hosted last night’s hellish party.
“Why aren’t you using that place? It seems like a good spot for a hideout.”
“It’s the worst place to be. The first spot you’ll die in.”
“There?”
Karl shrugged and continued.
“If a fisherman throws a net, where do you think he’ll cast it first?”
“...”
“If a bunch of people huddle together, the monsters will target them first. That camp? It’s nothing more than bait.”
“Bait? Do the people at the camp not know about the monsters?”
“Most of them don’t. No one tells them.”
“Why not?”
“Simple. When the net’s full, the fisherman goes home.”
“...”
“Do you think we’re the only ones who’ve survived here? There are more. But none of the survivors are dumb enough to warn the new arrivals. Telling them lowers everyone’s chances of survival.”
“So that camp...”
“It’s made to be comfortable on purpose. The more people stay there, the more bait we have.”
A cold chill ran down my spine.
Using newcomers as bait to ensure your own survival—this world was brutal.
“Feels inhumane?” Karl asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s not exactly moral.”
“Ah, another idealist, huh? You won’t last long with that attitude.”
Using others as bait for survival... That logic was disturbingly similar to the Mad Butcher’s way of thinking.
No wonder Karl had once gotten along with him.
But Karl wasn’t exactly the same as Kamel Blazer. They were similar in some ways, but very different in others.
“I’m not saying your method is wrong.”
I wasn’t about to criticize him.
In the end, survival mattered more than anything.
If I had been in the same situation, I wouldn’t have acted any differently.
I also understood why Karl’s luck seemed rotten. He must’ve visited the camp at just the wrong moment—right before the Chimera Legion attacked.
I thought back to the people who had tried to flee during the assault.
They weren’t like the bandits who had huddled together in fear. They were people like Karl—veterans who knew better.
“Most of them were probably caught this time,” Karl said with a click of his tongue. “Even we barely made it out alive.”
“Were there any strong fighters among them?”
“Yeah, a few. But we were the strongest.”
If even Karl’s group had lost half their members, that said a lot about how sudden and overwhelming the attack had been.
I followed Karl silently, keeping my thoughts to myself.
“Is this the hideout?” I asked.
“What, were you expecting something fancy?” Karl smirked.
I glanced around. The hideout was just a clearing in the forest, with a stream flowing nearby. It offered good visibility in case of an attack and easy access to water—but that was about it.
‘Well... I guess it’ll do.’
I approached the stream to wash off the slime residue. The stench was unbearable.
Karl sat nearby, washing his hair. It looked like he was struggling a bit—understandable, given his missing arm.
“Need a hand?” I asked.
“If I start relying on help just because I lost an arm, it never ends. Don’t bother.”
As Karl removed his shirt to rinse it, the scar where his arm had been severed came into view.
I stared at it for a moment. Now that I knew who he was, the scar looked different to me.
‘That’s where Boom detonated, isn’t it?’
Karl was the only person to survive a Boom explosion. He lost his arm, but more importantly—he kept his heart intact.
‘The first person to discover a way to remove the parasite.’
That’s why the organization had hunted him relentlessly. His knowledge was a direct threat to Crux.
Now I understood why Karl had ended up in Laup Forest, running from his pursuers.
And now... I have the chance to learn how to remove the parasite myself.
As I scrubbed my hair, my mind raced.
How should I approach this?
Meeting Karl Bastain had shifted the priorities in my plan.
Later, Karl’s group settled down to rest. Only Elton remained by Karl’s side, standing guard.
Karl shook the water from his hair and gestured toward a line of large trees beyond the stream.
“If you don’t want to get thrown to another location, don’t go past those trees.”
“A magic circle boundary?”
“You know about the boundary?”
“Yeah. I stepped on it and got swallowed by a slime. Talk about bad luck.”
“Bad luck for you. Lucky for me.”
Karl chuckled, pointing to the ground near the trees. I noticed thick lines scratched into the dirt, marking the boundary.
“If you hang around the boundary, you can pick up useful stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Humans or animals unlucky enough to wander in—just like us.”
“And what do you do with the humans?”
“Send them to the outside world, after we’ve gotten whatever information we need.”
“You just let them go?”
“It benefits us. Most of them end up at the bandit camp anyway.”
“...”
“We caught a boar yesterday, by the way. You’re in luck—we’ll eat well tonight.”
“You hunt, too?”
“The bastard who trapped us here doesn’t care if we eat or sleep. Everything has to be self-sufficient. In that sense, this place isn’t too bad.”
I sat down quietly, organizing my thoughts.
‘So there’s still news from the outside...’
Up until now, all I had thought about was avoiding Dominic.
But now I realized—if I wanted to survive, I needed to find out where Dominic was and what he was planning.
Avoiding trouble wasn’t an option. This time, trouble was unavoidable—and I needed to know exactly what I was up against.
“Can you tell me more about the news from the outside?” I asked.
“What kind of news are you looking for?”
“Do you know who created this magic circle? And who controls the monsters?”
Of course, I already knew the answer.
But I wasn’t stupid enough to reveal everything I knew to Karl—not yet.
Even though we were cooperating, that didn’t make us allies.
I needed to match the pace of the information he gave me, not give away too much.
Karl nodded thoughtfully.
“I have a pretty good idea who’s behind it.”
“Who?”
“Dominic Huarton. He’s a sorcerer.”
So he knows Dominic by name.
That was troubling. If Karl knew about Dominic, that meant information about him had already spread beyond the forest.
And that was not a good sign.
If Dominic was revealing himself to the outside world, it meant one thing—he was ready.
The Chimera Legion must be complete, and Dominic was confident enough to begin his next phase.
“Where did you hear this?”
“From someone I let go. About two days ago, I think.”
“Dominic showed himself?”
“Yeah. He appeared with a group of monsters and wiped out every bandit still active in the forest.”
For now, the outside world seemed unaware of how dangerous Dominic truly was—since only bandits had fallen victim so far.
But soon, all of Tobarren would be gripped with fear at the mere mention of his name.
‘This is worse than I thought.’
Dominic had begun to move, and things were escalating quickly.
I needed to act—and fast.
It wouldn’t be long before the entire Tobarren region was plunged into a full-scale war.