"Do you know something about it? Who's this witch?" Felix asked Sarah.
"Y—Yes. Lady Morwen. She's the only one who's capable of using magic in our city. She claimed we were under attack by a powerful Morbos that posed a great threat to the city and the only way to stall it from stealing our people was to sacrifice a soul to it every day." Sarah explained in a pained tone.
"What's a Morbos?" Felix asked in uncertainty.
"A Morbos is a dead soul from the underworld given a second chance to life by the Dark Lord," Lucy chirped excitedly as she flaunted her knowledge from spending hours at the Sage library instead of honing her physical skills and abilities, as she strongly believed knowledge was power and sharper than any two-edged sword. "They possess the body of the living and have to absorb the energy of humans each passing day to keep them alive and thereby send more souls to the underworld."
"Precisely. It was only after I was chosen and sent out as a sacrificial lamb to the Morbos did I realize it was all the Sahuagin's doing when I was delivered to them and taken back to their base." Sarah lamented.
"Y'all must have been dumb to fall for such crap." Athenae commented bluntly.
"We protested at first, but when we noticed the attacks stopped after the first few people were gone… we didn't have a choice."
"And just how long did y'all plan on sacrificing a person each day?" Felix frowned. He couldn't agree more with Athenae.
"The sacrifice was supposed to drag out the battle with the Morbos till Lady Morwen prepared her ultimate spell that required unconventional ingredients that wasn't easy to achieve to defeat the Morbos." Sarah explained.
"And?" Felix pressed.
"I'm supposed to be the last person to be sacrificed before the spell was ready at full moon tonight."
That was all Felix needed to hear to piece two and two together to know Lady Morwen had indeed orchestrated it all and secretly practiced necromancy. Making a deal with the Sahuagins to terrorize the city from the shadows, probably giving them the full layout to avoid detection, then blaming it on a Morbos so the city could fund the unconventional ingredients she needed for a spell at full moon which most at times required blood—the blood of the prisoners.
That meant whichever spell she was preparing with blood on a full moon that would boost her prowess—"ultimate spell" like Sarah had called it—as a Necromancer was probably for an even bigger undead army. As that was the strength and fear of a Necromancer.
That only left one hypothesis on what Lady Morwen's true plan was. Not to mention how she had unleashed the undead in the city on hearing the arrival of Sages with the hostages after she saw the soldiers were no match for them.
So the undead horde was probably to curate more undead before the Sages made it into the gate, to stall them long enough till the moon, which was only a few minutes away now from arriving, before she enacted her plan to turn the whole city into an army of undead with a blood moon.
That was it. Felix had finally solved the mystery.
[+1 Int…]
That also explained Aaron's disappearance as he'd received the quest update after hearing this side of the story from Sarah but decided to keep it to himself. And that meant Aaron was never mad at the city sacrificing its people and wanted to teach them a lesson, but it was all part of his plans because he knew they'd volunteer to help sharing his resentment then he'd disappear amidst the chaos, teleporting into the city to find Lady Morwen. As Sekolah The Maw Crusher was only the mini-boss with Lady Morwen The Deathcaller being the main boss all along.
"That conniving son of a bitch!" Felix hissed.
—
[Chain Quest Update]: Devil Men of the Deep
Find Lady Morwen The Deathcaller and defeat her with minimum casualty on the city.
Rewards:
Reevaluating…
—
This proved that Aaron had been indeed unhappy with Felix getting the kill count for Sekolah The Maw Crusher, and was probably excited to realize there was another boss. But he couldn't risk letting anyone know to avoid the kill being stolen from him once more, forgetting that even Sekolah The Maw Crusher required teamwork between the S-Ranks to defeat, and that Felix was just built different—but what if Aaron was actually stronger than he let show and was confident in defeating Lady Morwen The Deathcaller alone?
His greed was evident in the fact that he'd ignored the part of the quest that stated Lady Morwen The Deathcaller was to be defeated with minimum casualty to the city, as it was under a siege by her undead army whilst he made a beeline for Lady Morwen uninterested in the quest description and the safety of the people but getting the kill count on the final boss.
Aaron had proven to be too smart for his own good and should very well have in mind that his absence has been discovered and will be investigated. But he probably wouldn't think that by now Felix had discovered everything.
Felix didn't plan on sitting still after confirming Aaron had bailed on them out of greed and jealousy.
"Everyone, I'm sorry to say this, but Aaron just bailed on us." Felix said to the hearing of everyone.
"What?"
"W—What do you mean by that?" Lucy asked in confusion.
"I'm sure by now y'all got an update on the chain quest which we thought was completed after hearing Sarah out," Felix began, "Now guess who heard about it first and decided to keep it to himself?"
"I don't think I understand," Chelsey chuckled nervously.
"I had only come here because Aaron was missing in the battlefield. Which was when I learnt that the city was under an undead siege whilst Aaron had snuck inside—not to rescue the people, but made a beeline for Lady Morwen the main and final boss."
"Fuck." Chelsey blurted.
Athenae was oddly quiet for a moment, before she looked Felix in the eyes and asked, "What's the plan?"
"No plan… but another boss kill count wouldn't hurt to achieve."
"Felix… I'm really one of your biggest fans and I'm sorry to say this but I don't think you have what it takes to face off Aaron." Lucy spoke up.
Felix chuckled in amusement. "And why's that?"
"You're like a frog in a well. We all know the extent of your abilities and how powerful you can be, but you know nothing of the rest of us which gives us the upper hand in battle. You probably think your skills are broken after you one shot Sekolah, but do you know Aaron had used just one of his basic abilities to fight which is his teleportation, and Athenae had used none? You probably thought we'd lost the battle when you arrived but we were only crestfallen that we'd be forced to use our Lv2 skill set cause we made a fun bet beforehand that the first person to use theirs would serve the rest of us for the rest of the training."
"W—What?" Felix was flabbergasted at being roasted by the cute healer, "Why are you telling me all this now?" He couldn't help but ask.
"I've seen Aaron's private training and I've seen you all buffed up… and I honestly think Aaron would definitely kill you if you got in his way this time."