Chapter 118: If I'd Known the Viewpoint Would Give Away Information Too...
Two years and nine months later, the Phantom Troupe was assembled. If you counted Feitan's skeleton as being present.
Almost everyone who saw the bones and received confirmation from Franklin and the others was somewhat dazed.
The "almost" specifically excluded Hisoka.
He had originally intended to decline this kind of emergency full assembly. But when he heard Feitan had died inside a strange castle, Hisoka's interest immediately lit up. He ignored the fact that both arms still needed time to heal and booked a first-class international airship ticket on the spot.
Following the group and quietly waiting for the leader to give instructions, he was deeply curious about whatever entity had managed to kill Feitan.
That said: after the initial shock of Franklin's call, the vast majority of members had quietly come to terms with Feitan's death.
Just as Ross had assessed earlier — without a specific hate target like "the chain bastard," Feitan's death felt more like watching an acquaintance have a fatal accident.
Beyond Phinks and the three who had been there firsthand, the others genuinely couldn't work up much emotional intensity.
The darker truth was that these people had actually developed considerable interest in Castlevania itself — the place that had managed to kill Feitan. This probably had something to do with the gold lumps Machi had casually brought out.
Those lumps were the coin bags Feitan had collected and stacked against the wall. In the extreme heat they had partially melted and resolidified. They had basically lost any value as ancient civilization artifacts; what remained was just their value as raw gold.
If not for Chrollo's standby order, people like Uvogin and Phinks would almost certainly have already charged straight in to smash, loot, burn, and vent.
On the other side, the three-day wait had turned Ross into a complete shut-in who spent almost all his time on electronic games, only periodically running Castlevania: Dracula's Curse between his other grinding sessions to check what was happening outside.
Mainly using the aerial views from flying grunt units — bats, Medusa heads, flying skulls — to watch from a distance as the Troupe camped at Castlevania's edge. He witnessed the members arrive one by one.
He had to admit: the last to arrive, Chrollo, carried something genuinely distinct about him. Even in a group of people this strongly characterized, with this many clashing personalities, he was the most immediately conspicuous.
Not just the oddly priest-meets-punk aesthetic. Something that came from a life experience almost impossible to replicate.
The moment he arrived, the Troupe members who had been sitting at Castlevania's edge for three days found their true center of gravity. Even the atmosphere that had been building like a repeatedly-shaken carbonated bottle settled down with his presence.
"Leader! Let's tear this place apart! Kill everything that moves in there! Give Feitan's spirit something worthy of it!"
All emotion written plainly on his face, the terrifyingly muscular man who could have passed for an ancient barbarian warrior roared directly at Chrollo.
Phantom Troupe No. 11 — Uvogin.
If not for the leader's order, he would have charged into Castlevania long before now and killed anything alive, smashed everything solid.
"I'm in. Leader! Fei can't die for nothing!"
Three days of waiting had done nothing to cool things down — if anything it had built up more pressure, and the short-haired man detonated along with the leader's arrival.
Phantom Troupe No. 5 — Phinks Magcub.
Facing one who simply wanted to fight and one who wanted revenge, Chrollo raised one hand slightly and brought both emotions down, then immediately turned to look at Franklin and the others who had been there firsthand.
"Nobunaga."
The unexpected address made Nobunaga — who still hadn't fully recovered from his self-blame — flinch slightly. He raised his head.
"It isn't your fault."
That was the first thing out of Chrollo's mouth. He settled the matter with it.
"Feitan's death is not your fault. This Castlevania has someone operating it from behind."
Before anyone had worked out how he had reached that conclusion, Chrollo had already turned toward Machi.
"Machi. That feeling of being watched you mentioned in your phone report. Do you still have it?"
"Yes. It comes and goes, but it's there. Even right now."
Machi nodded. Having something stare at her for three straight days with no way to locate the source had been genuinely irritating.
"Over these past three days, what was the longest gap when that monitoring sensation disappeared?"
"Between eight and ten hours."
"Right. While we can't confirm whether this is the same person as the mastermind, the one monitoring you is almost certainly... human. Or a humanoid demon whose living patterns have been heavily assimilated to those of humans."
Most of the other members had no idea what to make of such a definitive conclusion.
"...I see. That explains why you gave Machi separate private instructions, Leader."
The baby-faced young man who looked completely harmless had a look of dawning realization, finally understanding why Machi had stayed fully awake for the past three days without sleeping once.
Phantom Troupe No. 6 — the wandering knight,
As the member responsible for processing and analyzing intelligence, on days when the leader was absent he was effectively the one who organized tasks and assignments. A complete rationalist. Over the past three days, he had also shouldered some of the pressure of keeping Uvogin and Phinks from going berserk.
"This Castlevania has an owner."
Chrollo looked up and gazed toward the direction of Castlevania's main structure from a distance.
"Based on how Feitan died — burned — and the fact that what Nobunaga and the others killed was a stone creature, we can establish this: Feitan essentially died from his own ability turning on him. His Pain Packer was broken while Rising Sun was active. The stone creature apparently had some kind of flame-resistance mechanism, at minimum enough to operate under Rising Sun conditions and attack Feitan directly, breaking his fire-immunity suit. And Feitan happened to be inside some kind of scenario similar to a game BOSS fight, with no way to leave."
"Machi, Franklin, Nobunaga, Feitan — those were the four who initially entered to explore. Based on personality, Feitan was indeed the most likely to end up acting alone. But this time, taking together Machi's detection of a humanoid observer, and both how and where Feitan died, I'm inclined toward deliberate guidance."
"In other words, whoever is behind this Castlevania likely had considerable prior knowledge of the Phantom Troupe — at minimum of Feitan specifically — and used it to set a guided kill."
"This was not an accident. It was a trap."
Chrollo's verdict made everyone present go still. Uvogin and Phinks in particular had expected an order to assault. The next instant, Chrollo changed direction entirely.
"The enemy is in the shadows; we are in the open. Without knowing how many unknown rules exist inside Castlevania, without even knowing how many people are behind it or whether they're inside at all, the risk of continued exploration far outweighs the benefit."
"Even wanting revenge requires confirming who exactly we're taking revenge against before acting. Not blindly charging into a trap-filled environment the enemy has built in advance, losing our time, energy, and possibly lives for nothing."
He clapped his hands once, sharp and loud, pulling everyone's attention back. He looked toward the wandering knight.
"Wandering knight, you handle getting information posted online. Frame the relevant details about Castlevania as an 'undiscovered ruins site.' Watch the format and how much you disclose. Done correctly, it should draw independent Hunters and professional Ruins Hunters. Let them do the advance scouting for us."
"Everyone else: standby in the surrounding area. No one is permitted to enter Castlevania independently under any circumstances. Estimated wait and execution time for this operation: one week. All subsequent changes wait for my orders. No definitive results within one week — disperse on the spot."
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Im annoyed as hell now, the wandering knight is Shalnark and the collector is Kortopi..... the Whole time I thought the wandering knight was an oc or something...but it's mostly the OG author's fault...why call him the wondering knight.....