Mutagen

Day 364 - 6:02 PM - Meeting Room, 38th Satellite Settlement, Muria Sacred Fortress, Mount Muria, Kudus Regency, Central Java, Indonesia

Several hours after the unexpected event in the training grounds, everyone still felt livid. Limabela, who returned late, and even General Wijaya, who came for various reasons, learned about what happened in detail.

And now, everyone closely involved in the current events gathered in the meeting room of the Moon Chasers for an early dinner meeting.

Among the leading figures of the Moon Chasers, Luna, Limabela, Edge, and Nelia were present. Mark was the only person present for his group. As for the military, the representatives were General Wijaya and a female soldier to serve as his secretary to record information discussed in the meeting.

The representatives of the groups aside, there was another person, or maybe an item, present in the meeting.

Although the food was already served to everyone, only Mark was eating properly. It was because their attention gathered on Melfiss, who was also having her dinner with everyone.

It was quite unbelievable that Luna's precious weapon turned into a little girl and was even having dinner with them. No one would probably believe it if not for the little girl in question being present in front of everyone.

Luna was the most surprised about Melfiss' existence. Luna picked up the strange keris by coincidence and used it for most battles she had since then.

The silver keris back then already displayed some strange things. 

First was that only Luna felt comfortable using it. Other members of the Moon Chasers had tried to use the silver keris. However, no one felt comfortable using it. Even Bajing, who used daggers as her main weapon, felt the same.

Second, Luna never had to give maintenance to the silver keris. No matter how she used it, it never went dull. It never got dirty, either.

Lastly, Luna felt the urge to always keep the silver keris by her side. It did not matter where or when. She kept it around her. It was a strange behavior that caused Luna to be reprimanded by her friends several times.

Now, everyone knew the reason.

The silver keris was not just a strange weapon. It was actually a cursed one.

Cursed Divine Keris, Melfiss. That was the name of the silver keris... no... It was not just silver anymore after Melfiss awakened. Although the blade remained silver in color, its handle and hand guard already turned deep brown with golden accents. It was just like the colors that Melfiss had on her body.

Melfiss ate her food mannerly. If one did not know that she was a weapon that turned into a girl, one would think she was just a girl with a decent upbringing.

"Ahem," Luna made a fake cough. "Should we start?"

Melfiss' existence might be causing a lot of questions. However, she was not the only focus of this meeting. After all, General Wijaya was also here even though the sun had already set. There were other important matters to discuss.

"General," Luna turned to General Wijaya. "Please start."

General Wijaya nodded and turned to Mark afterward.

"First of all, because of Sir Mark, the threat we are facing due to the [Face Wearers] has decreased significantly," General Wijaya thanked Mark. "Since we began the distribution of the badges in the past few days, we recorded more than five hundred cases of confirmed [Face Wearers]. Unfortunately, capture was impossible as they turned to ash even after being tranquilized."

It was a problem General Wijaya faced as they tried to capture the [Face Wearers]. These impostors would not hesitate to kill themselves if escape was deemed impossible. Worse, there was not even a body left to examine since they all turned to ash upon death, leaving only the skin mask they wore.

General Wijaya continued to explain.

If there was something significant that the military found out, it was that the ash left from the bodies of the [Face Wearers] had similar properties to ash released from volcanoes.

"Volcanic ash, huh..."

Limabela murmured with a frown. Those words seemed to tick something in her head, but she could not figure out what.

"Is something wrong?"

Edge noticed Limabela's frown.

"No, it's nothing."

Limabela shook her head, only to notice Mark looking at her.

"A fourth of those numbers is thanks to Ms. Astria's father," General Wijaya also turned to Limabela. "Their distribution might be at a smaller scale, but they contributed no small number."

Limabela's father was given a batch of medals to distribute. However, it was not for free, unlike General Wijaya's approach.

General Wijaya focused on distributing the badges to the populace. It was because, unlike the more powerful people in the fortress, the weaker people were far more vulnerable to the threat of the [Face Wearers]. However, this approach gained more ire from the people in the position, especially those already hostile to General Wijaya in the first place.

And that was where Limabela's father came in. It was to sell badges to people who wanted to be prioritized. Of course, it also gained some negative attention. However, in the end, they had no choice but to buy. It was because their only other option was to wait for General Wijaya, for who knows when he would distribute the badges to them.

The badges sold by Limabela's father would be the income used to further develop the 38th Satellite Settlement.

As for General Wijaya's side, there was barely any incentive to gain aside from extra materials and direct support of General Wijaya. However, the fully equipped workshop and that support alone was more than enough of a payment for the cooperation. After all, not all survivor groups in the Muria Sacred Fortress could gain the direct support of one of the leading figures within the fortress.

"But reporting the progress isn't why you are here, right?"

Mark asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," General Wijaya nodded and took a deep breath. "We managed to eliminate those more than five hundred. However, as of this afternoon, there was already a confirmed more than two thousand cases of sudden disappearance in the past two days."

"Huh?"

That was everyone's reaction to the bomb that General Wijaya dropped.

"Since the other day," General Wijaya continued. "We began receiving reports of missing individuals. It started to increase further when we increased the distribution of the badges."

"That's..."

Luna was speechless as the thought of the worst-case scenario came into her mind.

"It probably is what you are thinking, Miss Luna," General Wijaya said in all seriousness. "All those missing cases were likely [Face Wearers] who began withdrawing from the fortress."

While it may not look like it since the population of people within the Muria Sacred Fortress was spread out across the mountain, there were around thirty thousand people here. It may sound like a large number, but it was already all the remaining people on the island of Java.

But all of a sudden, a large chunk went missing, with the possibility of them all being [Face Wearers].

"And that's only the number of reported cases, correct?"

Mark asked.

And in response, General Wijaya nodded.

"We suspect there might already be three thousand or more cases. In the worst case scenario, around four or five thousand."

The words from General Wijaya made the leaders of Moon Chasers take a deep breath.

"And that large number went missing without even a single witness?"

Edge asked.

"That is the strange part," General Wijaya answered. "After the first day, we already had suspicions. I am sure you all noticed, but we also increased patrols around the walls under the guise of distributing some medals to settlement leaders."

Luna and her friends looked at each other. They did notice but did not think too much of it.

"Even with the increased patrols and even adding mutants with detection abilities, we failed to find any escapees. Yet, the number only increased." General Wijaya began to show a bit of frustration with the current situation. "It felt like they just vanished without a trace."

Everyone began mulling over everything General Wijaya presented. However, none of them could come up with a concrete answer.

Mark even began thinking of teleportation abilities. However, if these [Face Wearers] had that kind of ability, there would be no need to wear disguises just to cause trouble to the people in the fortress.

In the first place, what did the [Face Wearers] want? Why were they causing trouble and leading humans to their deaths?

Unless they could capture one and question it, the important questions would not get answered.

Then, Nelia turned to Mark.

"Sir Mark... What about the one you captured?"

Nelia's question made everyone look at her and Mark.

"Wait, Nelia? What are you talking about?" 

Luna asked the question that even Edge and Limabela had in mind.

"Well... I saw it," Nelia explained. "When Abbygale, Sir Mark's daughter, defeated Dr. Murni's impostor, he rushed out and shot some rods surrounding the impostor. Then, he took out a cylinder before retrieving the rods. I don't know what he really did, so I didn't say anything, but I remembered that the cylinder he held at that time was similar to the one he used to capture the creature eating Shasha's soul. So, I thought he might have caught something related to the impostor, if not the impostor itself."

Nelia's explanation made everyone focus on Mark.

With a shrug, he opened his bag and took out the familiar cylinder Luna and Nelia had seen before. However, everyone could see something floating inside the cylinder.

"I'm surprised you managed to see all that," Mark praised Nelia. "I'm pretty sure I did everything fast enough to conceal it from everyone."

"I'm not exactly good at fighting," Nelia replied with a smile. "But my eyes are really good at noticing movements."

"What is inside?" Luna asked. "It's different from the black thing you caught from Shasha."

Everyone focused on the contents of the cylinder. Even the two confused soldiers were the same.

What was inside the cylinder looked like some orb of energy. It had fizzes like flame, but the color was murky reddish black.

"It's a soul," Mark answered. "The soul of that giant [Face Wearer], to be exact."

"Huh?"

Everyone was flabbergasted at Mark's words.

"Wait, wait..." Edge made everyone quiet. "You are saying you captured someone's soul? Is that right?"

"I captured a ghost-like creature that is eating the soul of Luna's niece," Mark replied. "Why is it surprising that I captured something's soul?"

Luna's group fell silent. That was right. No, it was wrong. Well, the four were confused.

"Wait..." General Wijaya spoke. "Can anyone please explain to me what is going on?"

General Wijaya and his secretary could only keep up with the conversation anymore. After all, most of the things that happened in the hospital's private room were only known to the leaders of the Moon Chasers.

With the General's requestion, Luna's side began to explain. The General and his secretary were surely surprised after learning the truth of the things that happened there.

After the explanation, their focus was back on Mark and his imprisoned soul.

"Is that really a [Face Wearer's] soul?"

General Wijaya asked Mark.

"Yeah, there's no doubt about it."

Mark confirmed one last time.

"Is it possible to even converse with it?"

Limabela asked next.

"Yep, it's possible," Mark nodded. "Of course, only if the soul is willing to talk."

"Then that one is not talking, is it?"

Luna asked, noticing the issue.

"Yeah, this prick is too tight-lipped," Mark voiced his frustration. "Maybe because it's not a human soul. Human souls aren't this mentally resilient."

"Mentally resilient..." Luna repeated Mark's words. "What do you mean?"

"I mean spiritual torture," Mark bluntly replied. "Souls can feel more than a hundred times more pain than their physical body. After all, souls don't have the pain limiters their living bodies have. Because of that, the souls I tried this before immediately confessed after a few seconds of torture. This prick had already been cooked for several days, yet it's not talking."

Mark was just explaining some things that should be important for everyone listening to know. However, they could not help but feel shivers creep up their spines as they learned things they were not supposed to know normally.

And for sure, they had just seen what cruel fate Mark's enemies would face after crossing paths with him.