Roth’s stomach twisted as he heard the distorted voice of his crewmate.

It’s definitely the same Bindon from last night…

Roth’s hands started to tremble as he gripped onto his map.

Do I try fighting him? I definitely wouldn’t have a chance against the original Bindon- he was a trained naval soldier- but maybe now I can hold my own…

“Alright, I’ll come out.”

Roth rolled up his map, tucking it back inside his backpack before withdrawing his knife from his belt. After another moment of thinking, he pulled his pack onto his back, then withdrew his dented metal spyglass to use as a secondary weapon. The more protection and weapons he had, the better, right?”

Roth shivered as he tucked the spyglass under one of his sleeves, the frosty metal brushing against the skin of his wrist. He confirmed that it was completely hidden from sight, then used the knife to brush the lichen out of the way and peeked out of his hideout. Standing a few meters away, Bindon had a wide smile on his face as he watched Roth’s knife.

“Oh? Do you want to try fighting me, child?”

Roth shook his head as he hefted himself out of his little hiding hole, but he still kept the knife angled toward his teammate.

“What are you?”

“Why, I’m your old pal Bindon!”

Seeing the unconvinced expression on Roth’s face, the person in front of him let out a sigh.

“Come on now, last time I did something like this, it stunned an entire nation. Why are you looking at me like this?”

Roth used his dagger to point at Bindon’s jacket pocket.

“That booklet, did this happen because of it?”

“Hmm?”

Bindon tilted his head.

“I suppose that was pretty obvious, but it’s good to know that you are at least somewhat intelligent. Seeing what you have, though, I’m starting to get a bit impatient.”

Bindon pulled the booklet out from his jacket, then steadily began walking toward Roth. The young man reacted immediately, raising both of his hands into a fighting stance.

“You have no Regard, kid.”

Bindon’s figure flickered, black lines cracking over his skin as he appeared in front of Roth and thrust out the book toward him. All kinds of alarm bells rang in Roth’s mind as he hurriedly blocked the attack, his dagger knocking away the book just before it could touch his gloves.

“Weak shells like this one are trash, but your reaction was still pretty good.”

A small black cloud of mist started to form around Bindon as he attacked again, and Roth hurriedly slid the metal spyglass out of his sleeve to defend again. Seeing the thick black smoke seeping out of the booklet, he really didn’t want to take his chances with it hitting him.

Bits of Bindon’s facial skin started to flake off as Roth blocked another attack, but he wasn’t the only one suffering. The black smog suddenly increased in density as the book clashed with Roth’s weapons, and something impacted the young man’s legs.

His feet were swept out from beneath him, and Roth crashed down into the mud.

What the… I could see both of his legs-

Roth’s panicked gaze caught a small glimpse of a massive tear in Bindon’s lower pant leg, revealing a huge bloody red mark beneath it.

“Accept my gift now, Kiddo. It’s not even a ba-”

BANG!

The explosive bark of a gun shouted through the forest, and a massive plume of bloody chunks sprayed out in front of Roth. The left half of Bindon’s head splattered all over the surrounding mud and trees, instantly silencing anything he’d been saying.

The remaining momentum of the bullet even caused the half-decapitated corpse to be thrown to the ground, falling into a mess of human chunks. The black lines that’d been snaking through Bindon’s skin retreated back into the booklet as Roth stared in shock and horror.

“Roth, get back now! That thing might still be alive.”

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A hand suddenly pulled at his arm, and Roth looked up to see Cundy.

The supposedly dead sailor kept a large revolver pistol pointed at the smoking corpse a few meters away.

“Wh- Wa-...”

Roth tried and failed to understand what was happening, and an intense twisting feeling was rising up from his gut. Cundy pulled at his arm again, but the young man doubled over and started throwing up the few chunks of jerky he’d eaten the previous day.

He’d never seen anything nearly as graphic as his crewmate’s head being blasted all over the forest floor, and even knowing that it was to save him didn’t really soothe Roth’s stomach.

It wasn’t enough to make Cundy stop pulling at his arm and dragging him away, causing a small trail of vomit to be spread on the ground.

“Holl will be heading to the campsite as soon as he hears the gunshot. From there, we need to figure out how to get off this island, and fast.”

Cundy glanced back at the forest behind them every few seconds as he dragged Roth away. There was no sign of Bindon’s corpse getting back up and chasing them.

“There is a lot of unnatural stuff on this island, and it’s better if we don’t stick around long enough to discover all of it. We’re already lucky enough that Bindon wasn’t smart enough to follow your footprints immediately.”

Roth was finally starting to recover from his puking fit, and when he looked up at his teammate, he could see Cundy’s back caked with mud and chunks of moss.

“H- how are you still alive?”

“What do you mean? I just got lost in the woods for a little while, it’s nothing that would kill me. I still had plenty of blankets.”

“But, the stream…”

“It’s just some water. Why would it be anything else?”

Roth was about to agree with Cundy’s words when he suddenly remembered what he’d seen on the map. As the darkness took over, the creeping red lines had spread around the banks of the stream, corrupting the area around it. While he couldn’t be sure what exactly it meant, Roth was pretty sure it wasn’t a good thing.

The newly discovered features of the map only reinforced his thoughts. It wasn’t any normal map- he could move the details on it around with his fingers, and could even alter the landscape, though he wasn’t exactly sure how he’d done that before.

If the map said that the stream was dangerous, Roth was inclined to believe it.

It’s way more red up on the hilltop too, and that’s where Bindon fully changed. We saw Cundy’s footsteps going up there too, and Holl went to the top, too…

A shiver ran down Roth’s spine as he observed Cundy’s back. Even if his crewmate had just saved him from something that was definitely bad, Roth still felt like there might be something off.

The captain and Cundy… they might both be changing like Bindon did, too. Should I run away? If I do, they might come after me, too… and Cundy still seems pretty worried about Bindon not being dead. Even after shooting him like that…

Roth’s heart was encased with a sense of dread. Stick with his remaining crewmates, possibly die at their maddened hands. Run away, be hunted down by them and Bindon’s corpse, probably die. The thick mud coating the entire island made it nigh impossible to actually get away and hide somewhere.

Cundy going missing and now showing up, seemingly privy to everything that’d been happening with Bindon was equally concerning to Roth.

I can’t really run away right now… I guess all I can hope for is that nothing happens before there is a possible escape.

Luckily, Roth had an idea. His mind churned as he followed Cundy up to the top of the campsite hill, and his gaze wandered off toward the island’s shore once he reached the top.

If drawing a boat out there actually makes one appear, I might be able to sail myself out of this place.

Now that he’d figured out how to ‘zoom in’ with his map, Roth wanted to test creating an escape of his own.

-

In the forest, behind the two men.

Bindon’s corpse lay still, a thin layer of frost already starting to form over the body, hardening the spilled blood all around it.

Still clutched in one of its hands, a black book with a cracked golden engraving on the cover still shone with a mysterious energy. It started to shake ever so slightly, sliding out of the frostbitten fingers that held it. A dense cloud of black mist started spewing out of it, but it was quite small. The small cloud of mist was only a few hand lengths wide, and was very short as well. By the time the mist was fully formed, the book disappeared.

It condensed for multiple minutes before finally forming into a distinguishable figure.

It was a rabbit. A tiny, pitch black rabbit with a small patch of golden fur directly in the center of its forehead.

It looked incomparably cute, but anyone laying their eyes on the little critter would immediately feel a sense of dread when it lay its beady gaze on them.

“I hate this slippery little bastard’s form the most. If he was awake, he’d probably be cackling right now.”

After cursing a few more times in a chirpy, barely-english voice, the rabbit hopped back over to Bindon’s corpse. Ignoring the splattering of blood and brain guts all over the ground around the body, the rabbit pushed its head into the dead man’s coat. After digging around for a while, it found the object it was looking for inside one of the inside pockets.

Pulling its head back, the rabbit withdrew with a fine ballpoint pen in its jaws. The pen was black with gold lines running down it, and it looked oddly similar to the rabbit holding it.

The rabbit studied it curiously for a few moments, but when it couldn’t find anything about its uses, it picked the item back up with its mouth.

Being a rabbit and not having any pockets to put the pen in, it was forced to keep the writing utensil clutched in its mouth.

Looking down at the forest around it, the rabbit noted the trail of vomit and the footsteps leading away from it.

That annoying fellow who just shot my shell… he’s gotten lucky too many times now. The first time is because of this pen… but was I really so sloppy as to not notice him hiding in the brush nearby? Even if he’d been sitting there for hours, I should’ve noticed him. He’s just a useless Regardless.

The rabbit let out a little snort of derision as it thought of Cundy’s face.

It’s only a little annoying, at least it’s easier to ditch this cursed trickster this way. My wait is finally coming to an end.

A happy, cute little rabbit hopped off into the woods, the fancy pen still clutched in its mouth.