Chapter 425: Resurgence

On our way to the castle, we tried a few times to see if we could interact with the people, but beyond their greeting, there was no further interaction. I even tried forcing a conversation, holding one of the "people" in place by grabbing him by the shoulders, but the only response was an endless stream of apologies until I released my grip.

After that, he simply continued walking and going about his routine as if nothing had happened. It was super eerie, further diminishing what was otherwise a picturesque scenery of this magical town that had suddenly come to life.

"Let's not try that again…" Vee suggested.

I shrugged in awkward agreement. "I thought the last one was weird, but this is really a step above that. It doesn't even feel like a dungeon or labyrinth anymore… It makes me wonder what the purpose of this all is?"

"Well, the one you went to was a maze with something sealed deep within… Maybe instead of being a maze this time, it's more of a puzzle? That's sort of maze-adjacent. Or it could also be keeping something trapped inside?"

"I suppose that's better than my theory. The best I could think of was that this was some kind of experiment on dimensional-shrinking magic."

"It could be that too. Keeping something trapped in a shrunken world sounds like a pretty good idea, don't you think?"

We threw out other random, basically nonsensical ideas to each other, but none of them really resonated with the current situation. If it were just monsters, the trapped thing would've made sense, but the fact that they were replaced by people felt like the opposite of that. We just hoped that the castle held some answers, or at least a person who could do more than greet you and apologize.

As we approached the castle, there was a strange presence in the air, and we both found ourselves instinctively turning back toward the town, as if we had heard or felt something. What was once a bustling town of lively atmosphere had gone notably quiet… Suddenly, there were screams and cries.

"Monsters!"

"We're under attack!"

"Save us!"

And other yells could be heard echoing out, but that wasn't all; I could see that the town was suddenly infested with the monsters we had just defeated.

"The yetis and wendigo are back…" I told Vee.

"Shit, we'd better go save the people, right?" Vee asked, and I could sense her desire to rush right over.

"Yes, of course," I quickly agreed.

Vee vanished from the spot, no doubt using her [Veil Step] to get right into the action. With the extra burden on coordinate calculations, I fell back on [Thunder Step] to dart back onto the scene myself, as it was faster than casting [Blink]. I allowed all the energy to build up inside me, perfectly contained with zero drawback thanks to the uncapped [Voltaic Slime], and then expelled a large amount of said slime.

With [Slime Puppetry], I had them take the form of wolves once more, except this time they were lightning-powered. Being fully charged up, they seemed faster than my previous creations and exploded out onto the scene, striking and tearing into monsters as they bolted around.

The town was in a grim situation, and even with our prompt action, many residents of Moonscar had already been butchered. Now that the lightning had been discharged through minions, I created several more, going back to the [Necrotic Slime] versions for their ability to proliferate.

Where the heck did these monsters come from? It's like they sprang from the ground?

Unfortunately, it seemed there was no answer to my question, and despite throwing out numerous minions of my own to fight the horde of monsters, the situation only seemed to be getting worse. I was taking personal action against the wendigo creatures, which thankfully were still few in number, but despite how many monsters we slew, more seemed to take their place.

Eventually, it felt like the entire town had fallen again, as if all the people had vanished and we were back to when we first arrived. I momentarily regrouped with Vee, and she confirmed that she couldn't sense any of the people remaining, only monsters.

"Do you think they will come back if we clear the place out again?" I suddenly asked.

"No…? Why would you think that?" Vee asked.

"It just feels like we're back to the start for some reason."

"People don't normally come back once they're killed… But I guess it wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen since we've arrived. I suppose we will see once we clear out the place again."

I nodded and got back to work. The one silver lining, if you could even call it that, was that the monster numbers seemed to be no longer growing now that the town had fallen. It was as if the population itself was causing them to spawn more and more with increasing ferocity until their destructive task was complete.

I guess Vee is gaining more experience, though I'd better not mention it. I can feel she's not happy about seeing all those happy people no longer with us.

After personally defeating the last wendigo, the town was once again deadly still. I casually scanned the area, and it looked like we'd once again defeated all the monsters. Vee and I met up again, although with a notably different atmosphere than the first time we'd done this.

"I really don't understand this…" Vee murmured.

"I don't either. Our best bet is probably to head to the castle again."

Vee sighed. "I guess so."

I wanted to offer her a snack or something to cheer her up, but I knew it would be inappropriate. I would've tried to offer her a hug, head pats, or something, but with her spider body, she wasn't exactly open to physical comforting.

Actually… That's probably why she indulges in food so much.

I secretly examined Vee and saw that she had gained three levels in total from the previous two rounds of killing, slowly approaching her goal and hopefully a body that could bring her a bit more comfort in her new life.

<16 Skill Points are now available.>

Only one level for me, but I did allocate most of it to Vee. Although considering the number of monsters we killed, these don't seem to be very high in quality for us to only gain four levels combined…

We began heading to the castle again, and that was when we saw a startlingly familiar sight. Sparkling snow started to accumulate over the entire town, and before our very eyes, the lifeless town slowly came back to life once again.

"You were actually right…" Vee gasped.

"I just took a guess based on my gut, but I have absolutely no idea why they've come back," I admitted.

I could sense Vee's mood slowly improving, only for it to suddenly halt as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on her.

"Is none of this real? Does any of this even matter?" she suddenly asked.

"Sorry, I can't answer that."

"Do you think the monsters will come back again?" Vee asked instead

"Uh…"

"What does your gut tell you?"

"If the people came back, it would make sense for the monsters to come back…"

Vee sighed. "Yeah… That's what my gut says, too."

"Should we wait around then? Maybe we can stop it before it gets out of control?"

"Mm. That's what I was thinking too. There must have been a cause for the sudden monster outbreak. An invasion point, or something like that."

And so we waited. But after no sign of things changing, we started to relax and took a break for Vee to eat and cheer up a bit more. Yet despite waiting far longer than before, there was no sign of monsters, only the happy and bustling people of Moonscar.

"I guess both our guts were wrong," Vee joked halfheartedly.

"Looks like it… Unless it's something else?"

Seeing that there was no sign of the monster invasion, we continued to the castle, but as we approached, that sense of dread began to creep up on us once more.

"Do they only come out when we reach the castle?" Vee cried out.

"It's almost like they want to stop us from heading there."

"Maybe… Are we going to ignore them?" Vee asked.

I was tempted to say yes, but thanks to Vee's emotions leaking through the bond, I realized that she wanted to try to save the people this time. So, I discarded the idea of ignoring it and agreed to try helping out once again, as at the very least it would be more experience for us. Yet, try as we did, we ultimately failed, and the town once again fell to the monsters. We cleaned up the stragglers, and, just like last time, the citizens eventually returned.

"If it weren't for outside the globe still moving forward, I would think we were trapped in a timeloop or something," Vee said, pointing out the darkened skies. "That and we aren't losing the levels we gained."

The world inside the globe seemed to remain illuminated despite the night's approach, so it was a little hard to tell, but what Vee said was true. As the town repopulated, we tried to discuss our approach, but for now, it seemed impossible to move forward.

"Can you leave some slime behind so they can attack as soon as the monsters reappear?" Vee suggested. "Heading to the castle is clearly the trigger, but there has to be something we can or need to do to progress."

"You mean other than ignoring them?"

Vee nodded. "I want to try saving them a few times before we try that… Sorry if I'm being selfish."

"No, it's fine, I don't mind trying a few things. Although at this rate, we might only have a few tries before we need to sleep."

"Hopefully, things stay peaceful if we don't approach the castle, then we could just sleep in an inn."

"Sounds good to me. Let's give this a shot."

I began spawning plenty of slime minions and stationing them around the town, ready to intercept the invading monsters at the first sign of their outbreak. I also made sure to include some [Sub-Core] generals in this so they could fight alongside the wendigos.

I also ended up changing from wolves to ants, since I was using generals, it was the perfect opportunity to let the ant princess persona show her strength. With all the various traits to boost their kin, it would greatly increase the power of my forces, and hopefully be enough to save the citizens.

"You know it's kind of funny that despite the town being infested with slime-ants, the people don't seem to care at all," Vee said, admiring my work.

"It really makes me wonder what they are… I want to say they aren't real, but as I've mentioned before, dungeons aren't supposed to be capable of creating people."

"Their cries certainly sound real…" Vee shuddered.

And so we headed to the castle again, and just like before, the monsters attacked as if to prevent us. My slime-ant minions were ready and waiting and immediately swarmed at the first outbreak. Thanks to a [Sub-Core] being present, I got to witness one of the sources, and from what I could tell, a wendigo seemed to manifest from the fog and instantly began its slaughter. Then, whatever people the wendigo killed would turn into one of the yeti monsters, as if being corrupted by the cursed energy.

I had my suspicions up until this point about how the monsters only stopped appearing once the town was "defeated," but this confirmed it. Now, however, the problem was stopping them from spreading. My slime-ants contained the outbreak of the transfigured people by swiftly dealing with them, but the issue came from the wendigo, which seemed more focused on attacking the people than anything I threw at it.

The strategy we adopted was to eliminate the wendigos by any means necessary, as quickly as possible. Still, a new one always seemed to crop up out of nowhere, manifesting from the strange fog that had now blanketed the town. We continued fighting and fighting, but even with our best efforts, the uncaring and suicidal nature of the monsters caused cracks in our defense efforts.

Ultimately, we failed again as more and more of them kept cropping up. It almost felt like a condition was being triggered: if the yeti population dropped below a certain threshold, a new wendigo would spawn from the fog, and this would only stop once no citizens were remaining.

Vee was understandably disheartened, but now I was growing frustrated. It felt like we were being forced into losing, and I was willing to admit that I was a pretty sore loser.

"Okay, I think we need a change of plans," I told Vee, as I felt a burning desire to beat this challenge begin to kindle.