Chapter 715 - Nevermore: Karmic Plague

One had to skip back a few weeks to find out why Jake and company chose violence.

They had traveled with the Caravan Guard Captain and the caravan for around a week by then and had learned a lot more about the world. They had even entered the territories of two factions and traded with small local villages. The caravan they were on transported primarily people, but it also had foodstuff, herbs, and metals. All in all, everything seemed pretty normal. At least when they were on the road.

Sure, every other person than the Guard Captain didn’t ever say anything of substance and generally gave off powerful NPC energy. They just made small talk with each other, with the Guard Captain more than happy to only talk to the five of them, as clearly, he didn’t even view the people he traveled with as people worth interacting with.

One thing they did discover was that teleportation circles did not work on the planet. One Step worked as normal, and none of the others noticed anything either, but upon further inspection, Jake did find that the spatial mana in the environment felt slightly distorted. He reckoned it had something to do with the entire “isekai” thing.

Anyway, the truly odd things began to appear when they interacted with the Otherworlders.

Throughout this all, Jake thought things felt… off. He observed the natives quite a lot, and he did even question if they were slaves or something at one point, but the Guard Captain shot that down, saying there weren’t any slaves on the planet as far as he knew, and the nobles had strictly outlawed any kind of slavery.

Again, this just felt weird for a planet with a medieval style, but it wasn’t something Jake wanted to question. So he and the others just continued their travels.

In the first village they had arrived in, not a single person had gone to meet them. They just ignored the massive caravan with nearly a dozen C-grades and hundreds of D-grades on it. It was only when they had fully entered the village there was some recognition of their presence outside of a few random stares when the biggest building in the village had its doors open.

Out walked a large man together with a woman, both of them showing intelligent eyes beyond the natives, making Jake instantly recognize them as Otherworlders.

“Captain! Good to see you come by!” the large man said as he laughed.

“Oh my, I see you brought friends?” the woman at his side spoke, looking curiously at Jake and company.

“Yeah, Otherworlders I met on the way here. They just got isekai’d to Tri-World before I arrived,” the Caravan Guard Captain answered with a light smile.

“Pretty rare for five people to come together like this, but I guess it happens,” the man shrugged as he greeted Jake and the others. “We are the Village Chiefs of this little place. Welcome to Tri-World; I hope you all enjoy your stay, even if it does take a bit to adapt to the planet.”

Jake nodded as the Sword Saint took charge and responded with courtesies. Jake was too busy using Identify and trying to figure out where this odd feeling of wrongness came from.

[Village Chief – lvl 230]

[Village Chief – lvl 232]

Their levels were a bit higher, but they were still low. Far too low to be any threats, which made Jake question why the Wyrmgod found it a good idea to guide them to this place using the caravan. Sure, they could just start blasting, but for now, Jake kept calm.

He looked as the female Village Chief kept chatting with the Sword Saint as the man walked over to one of the barges.

“So, people on barge three. You should all get down and settle down here,” the male Village Chief said.

Jake looked on with a frown, thinking that was the worst sales pitch ever to make someone move the-

“Oh, that sounds like a wonderful idea,” the elderly man on the barge said with a nod as every single person there stood up and began jumping off. No one else spoke but just followed the elderly man down onto the ground as the Village Chief yelled for some of the villagers there to carry over large pieces of timber to load onto the barge.

Do they… just follow orders? And the Village Chief knew, considering he had already planned for that timber to take its place, Jake concluded.

Soon after, they bid farewell to the Village Chiefs and headed onward toward their next destination. The Sword Saint questioned the Caravan Captain on the way about the odd interaction there, but the Captain didn’t really answer but just said that was how things were on Tri-World.

The next village was the same, and by the time they made it to the third, Jake and company were honestly pretty freaked out. At this time, right as they all agreed something was seriously wrong on the planet, they all got a notification.

Bonus objective gained: Discover the true nature of Tri-World’s peculiarity.

It didn’t seem like much, but the fact it had given them an objective meant it was something worth looking into and not just the natural setting of the floor. The “people” in Minaga’s Labyrinth had also been one-hundred percent fake, but that was clearly done in a semi-jokingly manner, and it was so damn obvious and comical at times. This planet just felt weird. Different. Jake’s intuition told him something far more insidious was going on.

After two weeks and several more villages later, they split up with the Caravan Guard Captain when he told them that they would stay in a small village for a few days as a shipment of ores was delayed. They didn’t really complain as this was a good excuse to scout out the planet a bit by themselves and head towards one of the major cities marked on the map they had gotten.

Speaking of the map, it had given them an okay understanding of the planet’s geography. The three factions controlled roughly seventy percent of the landmass on the entire planet, with the rest remaining unclaimed. The unclaimed area were due to there being too many monsters to make it worth trying to control, or simply land with little to no value. Of these seventy percent, thirty-five percent was controlled by the Enlightened Republic, twenty-five by the Beastfolk, and the final ten percent by the Risen.

Only about five percent of the planet was covered in water, with nothing that could be called oceans. From what they gathered, the most powerful beings on the planet were also only mid-tier C-grades, which should be more than manageable. Of course, it was possible that the people they questioned didn’t know the true peak of power for the planet.

Their party of five continued their exploration for a while, and it was only when separated from the Caravan Guard Captain they could truly understand how fucked-up the natives were.

Jake and the Sword Saint had visited a small village by themselves and tried to talk to the people there, and while they had reacted, they only ever answered questions and never asked anything themselves. They also answered incredibly truthfully, as if lying wasn’t even a concept to them. Moreover, they discovered one extremely odd thing.

They didn’t seem capable of saying no.

Regrouping, Jake and company sat down to discuss what the hell was up with Tri-World.

“These people… they are practically not even alive. They are more like puppets than actual people. Calling them slaves wouldn’t even be accurate…” Dina said in a slightly horrified tone. “I… I don’t know what it is, but something is seriously wrong. Something magical in nature.”

“It is subtle, but I do feel a stark difference between the natives and Otherworlders. The natives have souls that seem almost incomplete. As if a part is taken out, or perhaps blacked out,” the Fallen King said. “Why or how that is, I cannot say, but I do estimate it to be from outside interference. Though it is odd that it affects everyone equally, including children. Perhaps it is a soul curse?”

“This interference seems to have almost conditioned them somewhat,” the Sword Saint muttered.

Jake sat deep in thought for a while, thinking until suddenly, a light bulb went off.

“I think I know…. No, I know, I know,” Jake said with a deep frown as he shared his thoughts.

It was something he had only read about briefly after chatting with Villy about Eversmile once and getting referred to a book. It was a book that the snake god described as “very much not common reading material,” even if a lot of what it said wasn’t exactly secret. It was a book about a special kind of karmic magic that was outlawed in the multiverse and that even Eversmile no longer used, despite being the original creator.

It was something called a Karmic Plague. Others also called it a Lineage Curse due to its effects. A Karmic Plague was – as the name implied – a type of karmic magic that spread like a plague once a person was “infected.”

The Lineage Curse name came due to the effect this ultimately ended up having. The biggest direct transfer of Records and karma came from parents to children, so if someone infected with a Karmic Plague ever reproduced, the child would inherit the Plague. In summary, it would spread from a source to something created.

In fact, it was possible to infect entire planets…

Most types of magic would expire once they ran out of energy, but if someone or something kept feeding the original power source of this magic? Moreover, each infected person became their own power source.

Jake was still explaining as they all got a notification.

Objective Completed: Discover the true nature of Tri-World’s peculiarity. 400 Nevermore Points Earned.

“I guess that confirms it,” the Sword Saint said, looking at the notifications. “But how was anyone supposed to figure this out?”

“Karmic Plagues and plague magic, in general, has not been used in any official capacity for many eras…” Dina muttered. “And if they are used, it will be hidden. I did know about them, but I never imagined we would encounter one.”

“Ree?” Sylphie also chipped in, usually not the most active in these kinds of discussions. She questioned why anyone would even make this kind of magic.

“I think this variant of a Karmic Plague was originally made in an attempt to create more loyal soldiers,” Dina answered, shaking her head. “But I am not entirely sure. A lot of these things aren’t made with an express purpose but just to see if the creator could. Also, I don’t think we needed to figure out it was a Karmic Plague, just that it was some kind of soul affliction or karmic affliction.”

“It’s also possible we would encounter some Otherworlder who knew,” the Sword Saint added.

On a side note, Jake did not share the part about Eversmile having originally made it. Nor that Villy had admitted to maybe being an advisor on the project.

Jake was about to talk again when another prompt came up.

Bonus objective gained: Locate the source of the Karmic Plague.

“Well, I guess we know what we are doing, then,” Jake said.

Luckily, they were pretty close to a major city. Not the capital of the Enlightened Republic, but a pretty major city that, according to the map, had around fifty-thousand living there. Yeah, populations in this world weren’t overly large, and even the capital only had around a million living there.

Soon after, they arrived at the city, and after only a bit of exploration…

Well…

This was where they would encounter the impetus for Jake ripping apart an entire city, with the others spreading out and annihilating surrounding villages and towns. On the way, they had already discussed that there likely only was one way to “cure” the natives of the Karmic Plague, but they were still not entirely sure.

That changed with one of their first encounters after entering the city.

From a distance, they had observed to try and find some more Otherworlders. They soon spotted two walking together, a man and a woman. They were walking down the street, chatting, when three natives walked toward them. It was a man, a woman, and a small kid. All five in the encounter were humans.

The parents and daughter walked down the street as the kid walked into the leg of the Otherworlder woman. It was obvious that the woman had, on purpose, walked into the kid, and Jake already thought she was an asshole for that… but what followed exceeded his expectations for horribleness.

“How dare you walk into me? Apologize right now,” the woman said with a smile, clearly enjoying the scenario she herself had created.

“We are sorry for any inconvenience we have caused the noble and will do anything to make up for it,” the father said promptly as he bowed, the woman Jake assumed to be his wife following suit.

The noblewoman still looked smug as the man leaned over and whispered something in her ear, making the woman grin even more.

“In that case, slap each other and the kid.”

Without any hesitation, the two natives slapped each other hard enough to spill blood before also hitting the kid, making her fall to the ground; the slap being so hard that the skin on her cheeks was ripped up, spewing out blood. Instantly, the girl started crying as the noblewoman rolled her eyes.

“Make her shut up right now,” she said in an annoyed tone.

What happened next nearly caused Dina to kill the noblewoman right then and there.

Once more, without even a second of hesitation, the father of the girl walked over and stomped on her head twice, killing her. He then turned to the noblewoman as if waiting for her to approve, with the mother just standing there with empty eyes.

“I… Wow, you didn’t have to kill her, just shut her up,” the noblewoman said, sounding surprised.

“I apologize. Is there anything we can-“

“No, it’s fine,” the noblewoman waved him off before suddenly giggling. “That sure was something.”

“I told you that you need to be more direct with your orders as they can still interpret your words somewhat, and the immediate nature of your order made him choose the most extreme, yet fastest, option,” the nobleman laughed before looking at the father, who stood with a bloody boot next to his daughter’s corpse. “Clean your spawn up and get out of here. Oh, and everyone around, stop staring and get a move on.”

The father nodded as he began cleaning up as ordered, the mother joining too, with the nobleman and noblewoman strolling away, all the native onlookers also continuing their day like nothing had happened. No one around had really reacted to the fucked-up thing that had just happened outside of stopping up and staring.

Seeing this left all of them just silently sitting there until the Fallen King spoke.

“There is no cure to this kind of soul mutation,” he said, Jake, nodding along. He already knew that.

The problem was that the people were fully one with the Plague by now. Fully infected. It wasn’t really something one could fix, at least not a bunch of C-grades. A plague could be cured, but no fucking way they or any other C-grade could do it, as Jake had never heard of anyone below A-grade ever creating a plague. Much less a Karmic Plague. The way the Karmic Plague worked was akin to Jake’s own soul mutation in the form of Anomalous Soul, but rather than give extra mana, theirs made them unable to reject carrying out anything asked of them or to truly ever question anything in general.

“I… why would the Wyrmgod even create a floor like this?” Dina questioned.

“I don’t know, but I have an idea,” Jake sighed. He did agree it was bloody weird, and he wondered if the Primordial wanted to teach them some lesson or something. Perhaps it was a fucked-up social experiment. At least for the usual party. The thing is, he and Dina knew a bit more about the multiverse than the average Joe.

They had initially discussed that this floor would turn into some political situation where they had to find a faction to support or maybe even start their own. That was likely still an option if they wanted to just complete the floor and move on… but… no. That would be the “wrong” choice.

This planet was fucked. Something had to seriously change, and if their party was to decide…

Well, Jake’s “idea” of a planetary sacrificial ritual was legitimately back on the menu.

Because while they had been unsure of what their objective was on this floor originally, they knew for sure now. Plagues were outlawed in the multiverse for a reason, but that didn’t mean some didn’t still create them. And the course of action, once one encountered a plague, was pretty damn clear.

The way to get rid of a plague was to remove the source. That wouldn’t help those already infected, as they would still be able to spread it, even if the plague would begin to slowly weaken with the source gone, being slightly weaker every time it spread.

Even if this floor seemed open-ended, Jake knew there was only one “right” decision, and he didn’t doubt it would be the one that gave the most points, seeing as the Wyrmgod had been one of the people involved in outlawing the creation of plagues. Ultimately, even if they removed the source of the Karmic Plague, for those already infected, there was only one reasonable cure:

Extermination.