Remilia understood perfectly well that her companion was merely trying to soothe her worries, so she turned her gaze toward her. "Even so, I still harbor a distinct measure of regret for disrupting your quiet routine."
"There is absolutely nothing for you to feel apologetic about," Patchouli replied, shaking her head with a gentle, reassuring smile. "Furthermore, choosing to join this expedition was entirely my own independent decision from the very beginning. There is absolutely no valid reason for you to shoulder any lingering guilt over the matter."
She then glanced over at Flandre, who was currently watching their conversation with a completely clueless, wide-eyed expression. "Besides, I have found myself remarkably content to be out experiencing the world during this journey."
Upon hearing Patchouli explicitly declare that she was happy, Flandre's face instantly broke into a brilliant, radiant smile. "Flandre is incredibly happy too!"
"I am well aware of your excitement. Now, run along to sleep, and we will wake you the exact moment the enemy makes a definitive move," Remilia said affectionately, reaching out to gently poke Flandre right between her eyebrows.
Flandre clutched her forehead, giggling softly as she quickly ducked behind Patchouli's flowing robes to hide. "No, no, Flandre doesn't want to sleep at all! Flandre still wants to stay awake and play!" The child twisted her small body in a playful, coquettish display of resistance.
Remilia looked down at her sister, a small, knowing smile playing upon her lips as she remarked casually, "In that case, we will simply leave every single one of these incoming targets to Hong Meiling later tonight, and you can spend the evening resting."
Flandre knew instantly that such an arrangement wouldn't do; these upcoming toys had already been explicitly claimed as hers, so how could she possibly hand them over to anyone else? Without another word of protest, she obediently scrambled back into the interior of the tent and lay flat down upon her sleeping mat.
Remilia let out a quiet chuckle; her younger sister remained entirely too easy to manage.
During the first half of the night, although the subtle movements of the enemy were dimly visible within the distant shadows of the town, not a single entity made a practical move toward their camp. Those altered citizens stood in absolute, eerie silence within the perimeter of the central square—completely motionless, resembling a massive collection of stone statues. The sheer visual display was profoundly unsettling to behold.
However, during the second half of the night—right around three o'clock in the morning—the stagnant atmosphere suddenly shattered as the mass began to move.
The entities advanced with remarkable, terrifying speed. Moving with the rigid, hyper-disciplined synchronization of an army of ants, they rushed across the open flats, closing the distance toward the carriage where Flandre and the others were stationed.
At that exact microsecond, within the various tents pitched around the carriage, Flandre and the rest of the companions snapped awake simultaneously.
"They're finally here!"
Flandre rushed out from the fabric flap of her tent with absolute excitement, her gaze locking onto the approaching wave from the nearby town. After catching sight of the charging vanguard, her large eyes widened in pure awe. "Wow... look at all the werewolves!"
The strike force that had emerged from the dark ruins to attack their camp finally slammed into the firelight. This was a massive horde of humanoid figures whose bodies were covered in thick, coarse fur. They possessed elongated, snarling jaws filled with serrated fangs and long, razor-sharp claws, their entire facial structures having completely mutated into those of predatory wolves.
Yet to classify them as standard humans or even conventional infected felt entirely inaccurate. They resembled a massive pack of rabid, maddened hounds more than anything else. After all, normal sapient beings wouldn't possess entirely bloodshot eyes, open their jaws to reveal rows of dripping teeth, and sprint blindly toward a fortified position while salivating uncontrollably.
Beholding this chaotic display, Flandre let out a joyful, high-pitched shout and charged straight forward without a shred of hesitation.
With a swift wave of her small hand, a massive, three-to-four-meter-long greatsword composed of roaring, incandescent flames materialized firmly within her grasp. Without missing a beat, she swung the blazing construct in a wide, horizontal arc directly toward the vanguard of the pack.
FWOOSH!
Instantly, before the targets could even formulate a proper agonizing shriek, the leading row of monsters was transformed into roaring balls of pure fire, collapsing into charred, twisted lumps amidst desperate wails.
Yet the miserable, instantaneous demise of their companions failed to strike an ounce of timidity into the hearts of these modified beasts. Instead, the smell of burning flesh only served to further ignite their feral ferocity. Following a series of deep, guttural roars echoing from the center of the crowd, the remaining werewolves accelerated, lunging forward with even greater velocity.
"Flandre! If any of those creatures manage to breach the inner perimeter of the camp, do not blame the rest of us for stepping in to clear the field!" Remilia shouted loudly over the din of battle, watching the hundreds of mutated forms rapidly encircling their position.
"I know, I know!" Flandre called back over her shoulder.
In the next instant, her body seamlessly split into four identical, blonde figures. The four Flandres raised their blazing weapons in perfect unison, crying out the name "Laevateinn!" before plunging directly into the densest section of the charging horde.
Seeing that the tiny interloper not only refused to retreat but possessed the audacity to mount a direct counter-charge against their overwhelming numbers, the werewolves grew even more manic. Even when facing a colossal blade of conceptual fire that could incinerate their flesh upon the slightest contact, their broken minds felt not a single shred of self-preserving fear. They threw themselves toward Flandre one after another, attempting to thoroughly bury their opponent under the sheer, crushing weight of their collective mass.
Beholding their reckless strategy, Flandre wasn't remotely intimidated; instead, her face lit up with pure delight as she shouted, "Perfect! Come at me all at once!"
She swung the massive, flaming greatsword with escalating vigor, systematically cleaving through every single beast that dared to leap within her arc of destruction.
Ten minutes later, Flandre gently opened her palm, allowing the roaring flame greatsword to dissipate into thin air. Her pale cheeks were beautifully flushed, and she excitedly wiped a few beads of fine sweat from her forehead. It had been a remarkably long time since she had been permitted to slash through targets so satisfyingly, and the sheer exertion left her feeling as though she had just downed a cup of ice-cold soda—refreshing to the absolute core, her spirit soaring with adrenaline.
As for the horde of werewolves, every single one of them had been reduced to pitch-black, unrecognizable carbonized matter, scattered across the churned earth in permanent, peaceful slumber.
A short distance away, Clever stood frozen, her eyes wide with a mixture of profound shock and lingering terror. "What on earth... what exactly were those creatures?"
Once the field fell silent, Hong Meiling approached the nearest pile of debris with an expression of deep disgust, leaning down to inspect the remains in hopes of discovering some material clues. Unfortunately, because Flandre had deliberately avoided using her baseline spatial destruction arts to avoid accidentally vaporizing a potential captive, she had leaned entirely into the extreme heat of her flame greatsword to hack and detonate the targets.
Consequently, after flipping through several charred remains, the martial artist discovered that every single corpse had been thoroughly burned through. Aside from barely being able to deduce that the skeletal structures were vaguely humanoid, it was physically impossible to extract any meaningful data or identifying markers from the ash.
Clever cautiously walked over to join the inspection, peering down at the ruins before offering a suggestion. "Since the immediate battlefield has been entirely sanitized of evidence, perhaps our best course of action is to venture directly into the town to investigate. After all, there shouldn't be anyone left alive inside the walls."
This pragmatic proposal received immediate, unanimous support from the active members of the party. Flandre, having thoroughly exhausted her desire for entertainment, yawned loudly and declared that the hour was far too late and she wished to return to her tent to sleep. Thus, the investigative task force was officially comprised of Sakuya Izayoi, Hong Meiling, and Clever.
As for Remilia and Patchouli, they chose to remain by the hearth.
Patchouli felt there was very little practical mystery left to unravel; a single glance at the monsters' behavioral profiles was more than enough for her to deduce that these citizens had been subjected to horrific human experimentation. Furthermore, reflecting on the physical traits of the werewolves, she recalled that when their carriage had initially passed through the gates during the day, she had noted that the entire civilian population belonged to the Lupo race.
Geographically, this particular border region was situated in the far southeastern territory of Leithanien, with the sovereign lands of Siracusa resting just a short distance below the line. Given that Siracusa was overwhelmingly populated by the Lupo demographic—and possessing an accurate understanding of Terra's history, she knew the nation had originally fractured away from the Leithanien empire to claim independence—it was entirely logical to encounter a dense Lupo population in this border zone.
When she had witnessed the physical transformation of the horde during the ambush, she accurately matched their underlying anatomical markers to the townsfolk they had observed earlier. The entire scenario was glaringly obvious.
However, Patchouli harbored absolutely zero academic interest in such crude, forced biological modification technologies. Furthermore, she reasoned that if an organization possessed the capacity to alter an entire town into such a state, the mastermind behind the project would never be foolish enough to leave highly compromising operational logs sitting exposed in an abandoned border post. This was reality, after all, not a fictional game; no operative would intentionally leave critical data conveniently nearby to provide a perfect trail for outside investigators.
Sure enough, the trio that had entered the dark streets returned to the carriage roughly an hour later.
"We searched through every primary administrative building and residential structure," Sakuya Izayoi reported, stepping into the firelight as she extended a worn item toward her master. "Ultimately, we managed to salvage only this single, damaged notebook containing references to the mutated subjects."
Remilia took the document and immediately handed it over to Patchouli without offering it a single glance.
Patchouli flipped through the handwritten pages, scanning the formulas and notes before letting out a cold, dismissive laugh.
"Exactly as I anticipated," the magician murmured, closing the cover with a sharp snap. "This settlement was nothing more than a localized human experimentation site, operated under the authority of those arrogant Leithanien tower casters."