The Traitor

“Shut the hell up!”

The withered figure, who could no longer stand his rambling, shouted in a breakdown. “The moonlight’s protection is limited! If you talk so loudly, what if someone hears you?!”

The huge roar echoed in the quiet corridor. For a moment, it made the lantern sway even more violently, as if it were about to fly out of his hand and shatter. The shadows they cast danced wildly, like mocking demons.

And so, they both fell silent, staring at each other.

After a moment, the scarred man was the one to break the silence. He lowered his voice and said with a look of grief and indignation, “You were the one who was shouting louder! It’s fine if you want to die, but can you not drag me down with you?”

“…You motherfu…”

The withered figure suddenly felt a lump in his chest, and he couldn’t help but want to strangle the scarred man right there. But no, the mission was more important. A cold, sharp look appeared on his gaunt, sunken-eyed face, but he quickly suppressed it.

“Less talk, more walking!”

“Oh, where are we going?”

“To the deepest part of the Well of Quicksilver, of course…”

The withered figure suddenly froze.

Because the voice that had just spoken, though also annoying, was a little different from the scarred man’s.

He turned his head, but he saw that the scarred man’s mouth was tightly shut, and he was frantically shaking his head at him.

Don’t tell me…

The withered figure’s pupils shrank. He no longer cared about hiding and shouted at the surrounding area, “Who’s hiding there? Come out!”

“Hiding? That’s an interesting choice of words. Aren’t you the rats who have been sneaking around in someone else’s house?”

With a lazy chuckle, from the shadows of the passage, a… pink bear suddenly walked out.

A pink bear?

The withered figure was stunned for a moment. What the hell? Is this a joke?

“Who are you?”

“Hoho, from the looks of it, your intelligence is a little out of date.”

The pink bear walked closer, step by step, its feet making a strange, squishy sound on the ground.

“Don’t you know? I am Pink Bear, the current acting headmaster of this academy.”

“The headmaster?”

The withered figure was shocked. He looked the pink bear up and down, but no matter how he looked at it, he just felt that this fellow was just a comic relief character.

But he quickly calmed down.

Even if there was no information about this pink bear, and it was only mentioned that Headmistress Hathaway had suddenly left, the fact that he could appear in this core area of the academy meant that he was not ordinary.

“This is a bit of a shame. I was hoping to use some peaceful means.” The withered figure sneered. “Isn’t it better to just pretend you didn’t see anything?”

“Of course it’s better to pretend you didn’t see anything,” the pink bear sighed. “I don’t want to get involved in this mess either. Being able to hide in my office, smoking a cigar and looking at dirty pictures, is the second-best day in the world. By the way, the best day is watching the pretty girls’ legs on the beach. But since I’m spending the academy’s money, I have to do something for the academy. If Professor Planck were to give me another of his ‘lion’s roars,’ or just go and impeach me to the higher-ups and cut off my financial resources, it would be a huge loss.”

“So, it sounds like I’m the one who’s interrupting your fun?”

“Of course! You damn cultists! Couldn’t you have waited until my term as acting headmaster was over to cause trouble? You’re making me very angry.”

“And when I get angry…”

The pink bear suddenly opened its huge, black-hole-like mouth and reached in, pulling out a huge, spiked club.

His voice was no longer lazy, but was now filled with a bone-chilling coldness.

“—I feel like killing someone.”

In an instant.

A thick, pungent smell of blood filled the air.

The nauseating stench was so strong that it was as if they were standing on a brutal battlefield, surrounded by piles of corpses and rivers of blood.

But there was not a single drop of blood around them. So where was the smell coming from?

Drip, drip.

The sound of flowing water could be heard.

And it was then that the withered figure realized that from the pink bear’s comical eyes, ears, and even its decorative nose, blood was constantly flowing.

The blood was warm, and it gave off an indescribable, terrifying ferocity.

“What… what in the world are you?”

The withered figure’s voice was now trembling.

At this moment, even he, who had completely abandoned his living flesh and had embraced the silence of death, looking at the pink bear who had suddenly transformed from a comic relief character to a horror character, felt a flicker of… fear in his long-dormant heart.

“You can ask that question in hell. There are probably a lot of people there who know the answer.”

The pink bear slowly raised the spiked club in its hand. In that instant, the withered figure’s vision turned red, and his breath caught in his throat, as if he were drowning in a raging river of blood.

No, that’s not right.

This is just an illusion.

The withered figure suddenly came to his senses and once again raised the lantern in his hand.

The pale blue light in the lantern flickered, and with it, his shadow also wavered, like a beast stirring in the darkness.

The shadow expanded, and the pink bear, as if sensing something, suddenly stopped, hesitating to move forward.

“Ha—haha! See that? I am a child of the moon! How can a lowly mortal like you possibly compare to me?”

Seeing the pink bear stop, the withered figure laughed madly, completely unaware that as the pale blue light in his hand grew stronger, his already gaunt body was becoming even more withered, as if his remaining life force was being sucked away by some invisible entity.

“Are you so far gone, so completely duped by that Evil God, that you don’t know which end is up?”

A hint of mockery was in the pink bear’s voice. He scratched his head, feeling that dragging this out was not a good idea. So he decided to just ignore the Evil God’s power and kill this bastard first. Although it would come at a price, it was not an unacceptable one.

But just as he was about to make his move—

Squish.

The sound of a sharp object piercing through flesh suddenly rang out.

The withered figure’s mad laughter was cut short.

Even the pink bear, on its comical bear face, showed a look of shock.

What the hell? What happened?

“Why?”

The withered figure slowly looked down at the greatsword that had pierced through his chest.

His sunken eyes were full of confusion.

“Aren’t we… partners? Aren’t we all… believers of the great god?”

Why did you backstab me?

“You have the nerve to say that!”

Behind the withered figure, the scarred man’s face was full of grief and indignation.

“The thing I hate most in this life is a good-for-nothing like you who has no plan, no backup plan, and can’t even beat the opponent!”

With that, he kicked the withered figure aside, tossed the bloody greatsword in his hand, and turned to the pink bear with a fawning smile. “Um… brother, oh sorry, boss. I’m switching sides now. Is it too late?”