111. At the Foot of the Triple Paw Complex

111. At the Foot of the Triple Paw Complex

Stella was not the only blind one from the Triple Paw Complex. There were several other people there just like her, whether blind, deaf, or speechless. If they weren’t either of these, then they would be soon.

Apparently, she was born and raised in a place called the City of Vocals. Frost wondered how exactly large this city was. She couldn’t imagine it being anything larger than Divas Pass. Unfortunately, this girl couldn’t give her a rough estimate.

Frost, Stella, Ber and Res ventured into the barren fields, following the golden light. Ignis remained behind to act as the group’s radio. If anything happened to them then Frost would immediately know.

Stella was their guide, and the wolf sisters were a pair of extra hands. They had two current objectives to fulfil:

Scout out the Triple Paw Complex, and to secure as much food as possible. In the meantime, Frost wondered if Jury was anywhere closer than they were. She was currently somewhere within the Triple Paw Complex alongside Cer and Broker, following a long, labyrinth-like tunnel.

Has Snap made any progress? Frost asked, wondering if Carpalis knew about their circumstances.

“Zero progress. But Carpalis is aware of the dungeon’s mysterious disappearance. She should be able to put it together soon enough.” Nav promptly replied as they reached the corpses of the freshly slain Organized Escorts.

You can’t communicate with them directly? I remember you were able to talk with Magus. I think Carpalis as well?

She motioned the others to stop. Stella was put under the care of the two immediately as Frost dropped to her knees. Her ravenous hunger cared little for what these things consisted of anymore. It had been hours since she last ate, and the last thing on her mind was where the organs and flesh originated from.

It was technically not cannibalism since Frost was no longer a human, as much as she despised it. Although she’d be hard pressed to actually eat another person outright. The Impuritas masked this. And she had already eaten far worse.

“They are out of my range. They need to be within my proximity.”

Strange. Frost then wondered how Nav was even able to communicate with the Archivist in the first place. At first, she speculated that it may be due to her being within the Nexus, but if that was the case then the Arbiter would have already contacted them.

The only common link they had was their Advents. The Eternal Library was located somewhere within the Nexus. So if they found other Advents and introduced them into the Nexus, then it may be possible to communicate with the other Archetypes directly through Nav.

Frost then took the second body into her hands and asked Nav if it was possible to transform it into coins. Thankfully, she could. She quickly tested out her newfound ability to harvest coins from the ‘living’.

“… what’s all that snapping and crunches?” Stella remarked as Ber and Res watched on with intrigue.

The body contorted within her hands. It was as if a black hole had caused it to implode into itself. One could imagine a diver within a pressurized diving chamber having their entire body being sucked out by a finger-sized hole.

That was the only morbid imagery she could equate it with. Blood did not spurt to her surprise, and their golden apparel dropped before her feet with loud thuds. The mess was minimal.

“That’s the sound of a good massage.” Ber joked as an array of mangled snaps then followed.

“… it sounds like someone’s being folded in half.” Stella added.

“You know that sound too –!?”

“Shut up!” Res instantly silenced her sister.

A pile of coins then appeared in her palms. A total of 15 silver coins appeared, alongside a single golden coin that possessed a skill stolen from this monster.

Blood Festival

ACTIVE : Lesser Organ Snatch

EFFECT : Steal a low quality organ from anyone within a 5 meter radius

Greedy, grubby happiness! What’s theirs is ours!

A flavor text as well. Greed and happiness. That’s their motif, huh? Uncaring greed, and happiness that compromises others. I won’t lie Nav. I’m kind of scared of what we’ll find. I’ve seen plenty of fucked up things but think I’m about to see something that’ll top it off.

Frost sighed deeply and put the coins into her Dimensional Storage. She couldn’t haul too many coins; else she’d quickly break the 20kg weight limit.

“Question. What are those for?” Res asked, curious about the entire ordeal.

“It’s for my Corrupted Skills. You already know how I can manifest certain Corrupted. The Greed Counter uses coins instead of mana. As for this one.” She showed them the golden coin. “It’s etched with a skill stolen from that Impuritas.”

“Kind of like the coins our main target used.” Res said with a perplexed tone. “Weaponizing the spatial distortions doesn’t sound like a skill though.”

“Haaah. That’s where I’m totally stumped at as well. That isn’t a skill. It a byproduct of Caldera Industries’ technology.” Frost said, leading the pack forward again.

“Well, who is to say they can’t do the same to technologies?” Ber pointed out all the while Stella had imaginary question marks appearing all over her head. “Justica Arms had the Relay Sites and Repositories destroyyyyed. Caldera Industries has malfunctioning traiiiiins. There are counterfeit tickets of the Golden Indeeeex.”

Ber was surprisingly competent. If she was like this more then she’d give Res a run for her money at being the smartest wolf. Frost did suspect that there may be a connection between the Impuritas and these abnormal events.

Iscario was, after all, related to the destruction of the Relay Sites. With his dabbling with the Impuritas, it was not farfetched to believe that they may be responsible for the malfunctioning of the trains.

After all, every single train was missing its core in that train graveyard.

And not to mention that they also possessed counterfeit tickets.

“Ber, has anyone told you that you might be a savant? The picture is much clearer now. Great work Ber~ You put our thoughts clearly into words.” Frost praised her.

“Clearly not better than Cer~” As proud as Ber was, she held Cer to a ridiculously high degree.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that.” Frost mumbled.

“By the way, what’s a Sahvant? Are you calling me a servant because I’m a Demi-human?” Ber jokingly confronted her with this, casually punching Frost’s back.

“Please forget I said anything.” She chuckled.

* * *

The bright light was like the sole star in the cavern’s skies. No matter how much they walked that emphatic ball of light never appeared any closer.

In time, the blinding effects dwindled as more of the world revealed itself, and before long, they could finally see what appeared to be the insides of a monolithic circus tent.

A section of the enormous cavern housed this tent, which easily rivalled the size of a large town. Even monolithic failed to properly capture its sheer scale. They were already within the boundaries of the tent, and the light shone from somewhere further beyond like a sun shining behind a thin curtain.

They were eventually met with the golden wall Jury mentioned after around an hour. It was another towering spectacle, and it closely resembled the thick, frilly curtains of a stage rather than a castle wall.

There were no battlements present. Not even a walkway above, never mind a gate. An opening in the form of drawn curtains was the only entrance. A grotesque ticket booth sat beside it, playing its malevolent carnival tune.

It was a Fairground Organ. Except it was significantly less grotesque than the last iteration. Golden bones formed the basis of this disgusting construct. The bloody organs that were supposed to be sewn and pulsating appeared more mechanical this time. The lungs, for example, appeared closer to a bagpipe than an actual organ.

Nevertheless, Frost felt insects crawl along her sink as Stella noted that they were at the entrance of the Blind Paw; one of the three separated segments of the Triple Paw Complex.

It was vacant, and all was silent. Not a single soul could be seen around them, but through those curtains Frost felt the presence of hundreds within.

“U-um… p-please don’t tell them you can see, hear, and speak at o-once. They’ll get angry…” Stella begged.

“Why not all at once?” Frost had to ask as they approached the ticket booth.

“They say you can’t be happy if you can do all three. Being b-blind means that… that happiness is easier to achieve.” Stella said, causing Res’ face to sour as she asked her something.

“Who’s making these rules?”

“The Monkey Brothers. The Blind Paw oversees people like me a-and our home. U-Um… please don’t make any trouble!” She cried before quickly patting herself down in search for something. “Oh no… no, where is it?”

“You mean this?” Ber said, plunging her hand into an opening after the bony cabinet doors creaked outwards, revealing the internal, pneumatic instruments.

If Frost didn’t know any better, then she would not have guessed that they were made from organs. This Fairground Organ felt more complete and… ‘whole’ compared to the first one.

Ber pulled out a golden ticket and handed it over to the girl. At the same time, Frost casually walked over to the Fairground Organ and placed her hand into the socket.

“You’re going to eat it?” Res asked as Frost drained as many tickets as possible. There was a chance that she wouldn’t receive its ability. She also speculated also that it’d likely only give a single ticket back if she did manage to steal this ticket-making skill and turned it into a coin.

She wanted to maximize the loot she’d gain, so to speak.

And after gathering a couple dozen tickets, which were stacked like a bundle of paper cash; she tore the contraption apart, causing the music to abruptly stop. Her ravenous hunger was hardly sated by that one Impuritas, and so, she feasted on the Fairground Organ, enjoying the strange cotton-candy flavor all the while ignoring the iron taste of blood.

“… E… eat? Y-you ate the music box? A-Are you really an Angel?” Stella uttered as Frost took her hand again, causing the girl to shudder.

“She was joking. I just broke it since it was in the way. No abilities gained either.” Frost answered and at once, the group of four ventured into the world behind the curtains with tickets in hand.

She was expecting to enter a tunnel just like Jury.

But nothing could have prepared her to enter what was equivalent to a sprawling theme park. Black and golden brick roads paved as far as Frost could feasibly see. Sprinkled around them were golden amusement facilities, grouped compactly like the houses of a suburban town.

And alongside them were striking baroque structures, decorated with gold, bones and organs. As putrid as it was knowing that they at one point came from people, Frost would be lying if she said that it wasn’t beautiful.

It was essentially a town with a yellow and black brickwork castle situated in the center, directly beneath the towering tip of the circus tent.

Neither were they alone. It was not just the Organized and other Blood Festival entities that roamed these vast streets.

“… how… how many people are there…?” Frost uttered in total disbelief, unable to comprehend the sight of not ten, twenty or even a hundred.

But thousands of people, whether blind, deaf, or speechless. They roamed alongside the Impuritas like they shared some form of symbiosis. That could not be any further from the truth, however.

Because amid the ecstatic laughter of the Impuritas and the people present, there was despair so thick that she audibly choked.

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