Nightmare Mythos

Vin moved slightly backward before flipping over the board and revealing the set of leads, images, and information like a whole wide web of data had been put in a single panel.

"You might think this is progress but we absolutely have zero clues as to how the disappearance is working. Though there's a suspicion that this is being done by a Heretic,"

'Heretics…'

Cesar couldn't help but remember the word as if it was already etched at the back of his mind. After all, these are the kinds of people who had a perverse kind of thinking, to the point that they worshipped Nightmares as some sort of god.

Heretics are a nefarious group of believers who regard Nightmares as the saving figure who will save the world… from the same Nightmare. In a way, their thinking put people's lives at stake which made them enemies of humanity. In fact, they are hardly regarded as dangerous individuals, knowing they involved themselves with Nightmares.

There are no good Heretics, that's what everyone was being reminded of when they met one. Either they escape from their clutches or do the deed themselves because they will always and will be hurting normal civilians.

For whatever reason it was, one might not even know.

From the side, Chin raised his hands up and questioned, "May I know how are we going to take the investigation? Now that we're talking about the Heretic, will we focus on it?"

Vin stared at Chin, his eyes cold as usual before answering, "That's what we're going to discuss now, Corporal Chin. To start, we're going to do a strategy that heavily relies on tracking and searching. These people are going to work the hardest while searching every nook and end of the street."

Cesar and his squad, including Alms and Chin, observe Quentin with his face grimly watching the board, not wanting to glance at anyone in his group.

Vin added, "But if this strategy doesn't work, then we'll do a more risky approach. We're going to turn this place upside down. We'll search around the places we don't usually search. I know this sounds confusing since we could've already done the preliminary search but there are certain places that have already been plagued with Corruption,"

Cesar and the rest who was first time hearing such thing couldn't help but widened their eyes. Alms and Chin appeared less surprised, knowing some of their mission had exposure to Corruption.

On the other hand, this will be the first time the cohort will be experiencing real-time Corruption viewing. With careful handling of themselves, they will be able to see one of the types of how corruption works which will be vital to their learning and their future work.

'This is why deployment venture is good. I'll be able to learn a few things with this,' Cesar mused inwardly with mirth.

"Now then, we aren't done yet," Vin halted, "There's a third and final piece of this plan, something that can be described as an act of desperation if both the options available aren't working. This plan relies on something that we currently possess and do not have at the same time,"

He then revealed after a brief contemplation, "We will gamble that something will happen on the 30th day of the month when every missing person disappears. We'll then move… and see what happens,"

…

As of now, it is the middle of month six, June 15th, of the Nightmare Calendar which is basically just twelve months derived from the normal days and months of the past.

Hence, when the desperation plan was mentioned, Cesar knew he had over two weeks to gain a lead or clue that would help them in their investigation, possibly even rescuing the missing people.

Since judging the way Vin hinted at the third option earlier, it seems that something will likely happen on the thirtieth of June.

He didn't have any ounce of curiosity to wait and let it happen, obviously. The better the mission was finished, the earlier they would return to the academy and prepare for another set of deployments.

''Let's hope we don't come to that point,"

Cesar whispered which was perceived by the person walking beside him. Reyna who returned her gaze up front while they followed the person in charge towards the corrupted area, voiced out.

"Yeah, let's not really hope," Reyna sarcastically repeated before chuckling, "Are you nervous captain that you started talking to yourself?"

"I'm just talking. I didn't notice that I blurted it outwardly," Cesar replied evenly, "How are you holding up? Are the changes making you guys feel apprehensive?"

Hearing that the questions weren't exactly just pointed out to Reyna alone, some merely ignored it while giving him gestures that it wasn't really affecting them that much. The only ones who answered were Reyna and Joshua.

"I'm good. This kind of change suited me. If you're worried, be worried about yourself." Reyna chuckled, "Although I'm pretty nervous about the incoming sight-seeing. It is a corrupted area after all!"

Joshua, on the side, interjected while having the same opinions as Reyna, "I definitely feel the same thing. We only heard things about corruption in the books and the mouths of our teachers that we believed to be true, but it is still different when looking through the real deal. Speaking of being apprehensive, I'm actually good,"

"Okay, here we are,"

After finally roaming around through the guarded streets and obscured roads, the group landed on one of the very few corrupted areas in the City of Wheels.

Observing the surroundings where the area was heavily quarantined, their eyes set foot on the solid ground that was emitting black smoke. The very ground itself was covered with a deep, burnt-black floor that looked so fragile as if a mere step would break it.

The houses inside the corrupted area were decaying at a very slow rate but instead of disappearing into thin air, they were forming powdered grains of black sand that merely stayed in its place, forming mounds of them from a few distance away and ever staying.

That wasn't the only weird thing about the corrupted area.

The wind inside appeared to be howling… low whispers that were trying to escape and stretched onto them but never appeared to reach even a single hem of their clothes. Though they were indescribable voices on them that one shouldn't even peer through, less they get infected on whatever affecting the corrupted area is.

However, there's the weird attraction that captivated some of the men which their partners helped them snap back to reality.

"This is one of the four corrupted areas. There's no official name given yet to this area but the men here liked to call it Low Whispers. Even if you didn't enter the area, you'll get mesmerized by the indescribable words it speaks. Thankfully, its area of effect is quite small and whatever power it stored wasn't strong enough to put a great distance to avoid it."

Vin briefly informed them about what to know about Low Whispers but it all leads down to the question of never entering it no matter what the circumstances. Nobody dared or was challenged to do the darest thing in their lives just to test some stupid theory that might be exchanged for their lives.

And they wouldn't want to be the first ones to know.

"Let me show you the other three areas. While we do, memorize every corner in this city since it might help you overcome challenges that might happen later on. I don't have time to teach you nor someone will hence memorize it on your mind for a day. Because tomorrow, you'll get assigned to your tasks,"

Everyone respectfully saluted to the captain in charge to show some respect to his authority before they went sightseeing more of the corrupted area which Cesar and others learned a lot from them.

Even the newcomer figures, Alms, and Chin, were learning as well.