CH707 Berserk Human Therapy I
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The current of the River of Ti was unceasing, waiting for no one. One either seized the opportunities flowing within it... or was left behind by its relentless tide.
Another month passed in what felt like the blink of an eye.
During this period, the Fortuna Company managed to settle many of its affairs within BloodIron.
The assembly of the crossbows, overseen personally by Sugud, was finally completed. Once the new weapons were deployed, they beca like a powerful wind filling the sails of the joint BattleBane–Fortuna task force.
From that point onward, the subjugation missions progressed at a far swifter pace.
The task force was now capable of eliminating vast numbers of hostile monsters and beasts from a distance, allowing the combined force to focus their strength on the remaining powerful opponents as a cohesive unit.
The introduction of the weapon not only increased the speed at which monster nests were cleared, but more importantly, it drastically reduced the number of lives lost during such operations.
Within this sa period, Udara and the scouting party also completed their ’internship’ within the Black Scar Syndicate.
Through the experience, Udara gained a far deeper understanding of the syndicate’s operations, as well as the way Verdantis’ underworld functioned—knowledge that would undoubtedly prove invaluable in the future.
Zora and Kron Belloc likewise concluded their negotiations with the administrative building, securing several important assurances and concessions for Fortuna-aligned businesses operating within the city.
They also managed to obtain a vital trade licence that granted the group and its affiliates a certain degree of free-trade protection—largely exempting them from excessive scrutiny by the administrative building’s enforcent forces.
Of course, such agreents were only worth the paper upon which they were written—perhaps even less. The mont the administrative building chose to disregard the arrangent, every agreed term would beco aningless.
However, more important than the agreents themselves—much like Udara’s experience—was the process of securing them in the first place.
As for Alex, he remained stalled in his efforts to derive the degraded coordinates of the Pangean plane. Nevertheless, that setback did not prevent him from achieving success in other areas.
During this period, he successfully crafted six additional sets of the Guardian of Happenstance rune set, bringing the total number in his possession to seven.
The six sets of rune tattoos—comprising a total of thirty individual rune inscriptions of varying complexity—required an imnse amount of work to create. Even so, Alex managed to complete them within a remarkably short period of ti.
For now, Alex decided against unveiling the Guardian of Happenstance sets to the rest of the party, choosing instead to wait until he had accumulated a sufficiently large number of them first.
The reason he crafted exactly seven sets was simple, the number corresponded directly to the Fury Knights currently under his command.
Of the original fifteen Fury soldiers who had accompanied him on the expedition, three had perished, leaving only twelve remaining within his party. Of those twelve, five had transitioned into crossbown, while the remaining seven beca Alex’s personal knights.
The Guardian of Happenstance was an exceptionally suitable rune tattoo set for a knightly unit.
However, to properly implent his plans, Alex intended to restructure the Fortuna Company once the subjugation contract ca to an end.
Until then, he kept his intentions close to his chest.
The most significant developnts during this period ca from Eleanore, who had finally begun work on her Berserk Human treatnt project.
Raven Horn discreetly managed to acquire a forr fort outpost once used by BloodIron City during its earliest years of establishnt.
Though the outpost had largely fallen into ruin after years of exposure to the elents, a swift round of rehabilitation was enough to render the location usable once more.
Making the best of the limited resources available to her, Eleanore transford the old fort into a makeshift dical centre.
The Fortuna task force had just returned from yet another raid operation. While the main force headed back towards BloodIron amidst celebration and fanfare, a smaller squad quietly split away from the group, escorting three carriages in secret.
The squad, led personally by Kavakan, delivered both the carriages and their concealed cargo to the fort outpost where Eleanore was currently stationed.
"Lady Boss," the brute called out, "we’ve brought the cargo."
"Take them to the cellar," Eleanore responded calmly. "And rember to keep them sedated."
"Oh, and Kavakan..." she suddenly called out just as the group was about to carry out her instructions.
"Yes?" Kavakan turned back towards her.
"They are patients, not cargo," she corrected calmly.
Kavakan scratched the side of his cheek sheepishly.
Without arguing further, he waved his hand and motioned for the squad to move quickly and deliver the ’patients’ as ordered.
Naturally, the so-called cargo consisted of a group of berserk humans captured by the Fortuna task force for Eleanore’s experints—one specin each from the weakest Class 2 rank of the three known berserk human variants.
The cages containing the berserk humans were transported carefully before being aligned with a series of holding cells that had been repurposed specifically to contain them.
Once the berserk humans were lured into their respective cells, Kavakan hurled potion bottles into the chambers. The instant the glass shattered, thick grey fus burst forth as the liquid reacted violently upon exposure to the air.
The mont this occurred, one of the squad mbers imdiately pulled a nearby lever, sealing the cells into airtight chambers from which the fus could not escape, forcing the berserk humans to inhale the sedative in full.
The sedative itself was one of Eleanore’s own creations. It was an extrely fast-acting formula, though depending on the berserk human variant, complete sedation could still require up to ten minutes—a conclusion drawn from previous field experints.
Once the ten-minute mark passed, Kavakan signalled for the cell containing the most stubborn variant—the vitality variant—to be opened.
The sedative possessed an additional effect that caused the bloated vitality berserker’s pus-secreting pores to close shut.
As a result, the grotesquely swollen berserk human now resembled so sort of malford crustacean, its hardened secretions forming a shell-like layer around its body.
[Call of the Wild]!
Standing at the entrance of the cell, Kavakan listened carefully to the berserk human’s heartbeat.
After confirming through the rhythm of its pulse that the creature had indeed been fully sedated, he walked into the chamber without ceremony, grabbed the massive body, and dragged it across the floor towards a reinforced wooden dical restraint bed, where he firmly strapped it down.
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