Chapter 166 – Losing mind

When the cave was clear Noah appeared at the battle puppet's side bending down and picking the medallion. He looked around and threw a quick gaze at the two dead Kobolds. Seeing their blackened wound instantly cauterized without letting a single drop of blood fall on the ground, he turned to the puppet and nodded.

"Good job. These bastards can smell blood for miles. Until we get to the core of their pack we should try not to raise an alarm." Explained Noah seeing a puppet nod at him.

Then he stored the bodies of monsters and took out a sack of smell-masking powder, spreading it around, and daubed with it himself and the puppet.

"Well then. Shall we?" He said looking at the minimap that showed him a large part of the caves and tunnels of the Kobold base, marking all nearby enemies.

They sneaked through the hidden village of the Grey Scaled Kobolds taking care of warriors in silence. Quick and efficient.

As they walked Noah noticed many magic sigils at first thinking they were traps, however, after consultation with Ugy, they quickly came to the conclusion that these were most likely hiding sigils and anti-spying sigils that allowed Keepers to stay hidden from occasional adventurers that dived into the Labyrinths.

Grey Scaled Kobolds were quite an old household just like Mist Cats and had quite a lot of knowledge and resources that allowed them to build magical defenses that simple monsters could not even think of.

"Stop!" Said Ugy suddenly as they neared the inner part of this monster anthill.

Noah and Wolf immediately stopped and looked around.

"What is it?" Asked Noah.

"The sigils changed." Said Ugy.

As they studied the new sigils and their effect Noah's eyebrows creased.

"This is the end of our sneaky travel. If we cross this place we are no doubt going to alert them of our presence." Said Ugy.

"Maybe…" said Noah thoughtfully.

"Anything the size of a mouse that passes here will sound the alarm. No doubt would be a better word here than 'maybe'." Said Ugy.

"As big as a mouse, eh?" Said Noah, his lips raising in a smile. He closed his eyes and stood silent for a minute before Aster appeared at his side in her maid dress bowing slightly.

"That's a strange request you had, Master. Why do you need this little fella?" She asked stretching her hands toward Noah, showing him a spider the size of his thumb.

"This barrier would react to anything the size of a mouse or bigger." Said Noah taking the spider from her and rosing it.

The spider woke in confusion turning to look at Noah and froze. They stared at each other in silence for some time as if in a staring contest. Before the spider finally moved, raising his one leg.

"As you command, Your Majesty." Said the voice in Noah's head.

Then spider attached a thread to the medallion in Noah's palm and jumped off of the palm when Noah bent down lowering the spider to the ground.

Spider rushed toward the barrier and passed it without sounding any alarms while dragging the medallion on the ground by the string. It quickly passed through the long tunnel, turning a corner, and disappeared from view.

"I see." Said Aster with a smile, taking Noah's hand and they all together with the puppet disappeared back into his mind realm.

*****

Spider passed the tunnel coming out into another cave. But before entering it carefully studies the room. It was a small cave that had many entrances similar to the one where the spider hid but, a dozen fully armed Kobolds sat in this room guarding one of the entrances to the next tunnel.

Spider climbed the wall going up to the very ceiling of the cave where it was hidden by the darkness of the shadows in the dim room and was away from the monster's gazes. Then it crossed the cave over the Kobolds' heads, sneaking into the tunnel that they guarded.

After passing this tunnel spider came into the cavern where many wooden huts stood side by side.

In the very center of that cavern, spider climbed down from the ceiling on the string, silently lowering onto the roof of one of the huts, and Noah appeared with Dryad near him.

"Thank you, my friend" Noah sent a thought to the little spider as he picked it up and gave it to Aster. A moment later Dryad disappeared leaving Noah alone, hiding on the roof.

However as he sat alone in silence gazing at the monster parody of a village, thoughts started to creep into his mind.

"User…" Started to say Ugy.

"I can't." Said Noah interrupting Ugy.

"Wait. WHAT?" Exclaimed Ugy inside his head.

"I can't. Not until we talk it out. I keep feeling that I am being led on. You led me on to this choice." Said Noah.

"What? User I would never try to manipu…"

"You mentioned Dryads and how they would dislike it if I ruined some forest on purpose. Then you inserted a new idea as soon as I rejected it. You wanted me to disagree with the first method just so that you could fit in your next solution. This is a renowned method. Give an outrageous idea, then find a consensus on the second one once it is rejected. You manipulated me. The one you really wanted me to agree with was this here." Said Noah shaking his head in doubt.

"Okay, User. I understand your hesitation. Desecrating the very essence of rational life, by driving these rare monsters who gained sanity back into their normal maddened state, turning them into simple monsters with no sentience. Robbing them of the most important thing that they possess. This world gave them once in a million chance to be special, yet you will smear this world's huge gift in shit. It is normal that you hesitate. I understand it." Said Ugy.

"Really, Ugy? You understand my hesitation? I am not believing that." Said Noah. "What I do believe is that you very much want me to do this and promote it as much as you can."

"Alright, maybe you are partly right. I do have a strong desire to see this through, but only as pure scientific interest. However, user, I would never suggest it if only…." Said Ugy.

"I knew it! What was I thinking? I must have lost my mind. It was so obvious." Said Noah, interrupting him. "You even had a target ready for me. Second most hated by the Black Mist Cat household, 'because we need to let them kill the most hated clan themselves in honor of all their fallen warriors'? B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T." Said Noah spelling the last word by the letter. "Tell me honestly, Ugy, how long did you plan this?"

"Okay. Maybe I did choose my words the way they would heighten the chances of you choosing this method. But 'manipulation' is still a big word. And you can't disagree that you needed to solve the Black Mist Cat monsters' problem before you went away for a month-long training. You will need maximum concentration without any disturbances like this one. So yes, I thought about how we can save them in advance."

"So why these guys? What, really made them the unlucky winners? Asked Noah.

"They have the highest chance of not dying in the process. The main idea of this plan is to leave them alive. If we kill them, we will not gain any EE from this as we did not get any from normal hunting." Explained Ugy.

"I see. Because of the scales? They have magical protection. " Said Noah, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Yes. We need to achieve a similar situation to the one when we met Wolf's pack in Great Tree Labyrinth. Back then, they guarded against Malign Aura's attack and got hit only by the side effect. This time we will adjust this side effect. In the process, we will gain lots of useful information for future skill creation. So we actually kill three birds with one stone here."

"Yeah, yeah. I got it. This is very beneficial to us." Said Noah sighing.  "Damn, you even studied the clans in this Labyrinth and their unique traits. And I only now understood it." He added shaking his head.

"Even if I planned it in advance. This doesn't change anything for you. You brought Black Mist Cats under your wing and these guys are their enemies, meaning they are your enemies. It's their fault for choosing the wrong side. And think yourself. Black Mist Cats attended Priscilla's and Brianna's ball, but none of the keepers of this Labyrinth did. This was an act of disrespect. Also, they most likely did it to please the Labyrinth Lord. Meaning this Labyrinth Lord is without a doubt not friendly to us. This is the enemy camp, User. And everyone in it is the enemy." Said Ugy.

Noah sat in silence for another minute thinking it all through.

"Ah, shit. Let's do it." He said, finally making his choice and starting to change shape as he activated the 'Ugly Bastard' transformation skill.

A huge humanoid monster that now stood in Noah's spot, made a deep breath in, filling his lung to the maximum, before producing a tremendous roar that shook the caver walls with its force. Together with this mighty roar a Black Miasm-like mana streamed out of him in a circle, spreading in all directions at once.

This black mana dissolved everything it touched and seeped into the huts swallowing everything inside.

Soon this monsters' imitation of a town started to crumble. But the Kobolds inside their homes, even though mightily scared for a moment, found out that black mana could not harm them as it slid off their gray scales. However, they did not notice it seeping through their orifices into their heads.

Loud dog howls sounded in the cave and even though Noah did not understand their language he was sure it was full of anger.

Countless howls sounded after it in answer before the cave floor started to tremble from the feet of all the rushing through the caves monsters.

"So did it work?" Asked Noah.

"It sure did. EE is pouring like a river. We will get enough to level up at least once. Our task is done." Answered Ugy. "So, I think it's time to get out of here."

"Agree." Said Noah and disappeared into his mind realm.

When an angry Kobold army gathered at the call of their masters, they found their masters in mindless anger, and hungry for vengeance. But they did not know who the target was. So, everyone was the target. They would destroy all.

With fury in their eyes blinding their thoughts, robbing them of the rationality that they were so proud of, Keepers of the Gray Scale Kobold Army led their clan outside to fight against everyone that they would meet, fighting at the forefront for the first time in their lives.

And by the next day, after incurring great disturbance, harming two more Keepers clans, scaring human adventurers with their mad rush to the degree of emergency evacuation call from the Labyrinth managing office, incurring an emergency subjugation mission from The Adventurers Guild, and infuriating Labyrinth Lord, The Gray Scale Kobolds Keeper household ceased to exist.

But even then this incident was not over. For all who were aware of the monster-human alliance, this was an unprecedented incident where rational monsters suddenly lost their sanity and rushed at everyone like mad. This called for an in-depth investigation. Even Labyrinth Lord's family did not avoid the Royal investigator's visit, showing great concern this occurrence brought to the Crown.

However, even after an in-depth investigation, they received only more questions, but no solid answer to why this incident occurred.