Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 214 - 12 Mobius Strip

Chapter 214: Chapter 12 Mobius Strip

After a short rest, the group set off again.

Since this mutant event was quite particular, Aske decided not to bring up splitting the team and allowed the unit to remerge into one.

Meanwhile, similar incidents were breaking out around other mercenary groups.

These mysterious impostors sometimes pretended to be separated members of the mercenary group and at other times posed as members of other familiar mercenary groups, luring the deceived teams to a specific location nearby.

Once they chose to believe these impostors, what followed was disappearance.

Mysterious disappearances.

Of course, being in the midst of an extraordinary mutant event, most mercenaries naturally wouldn’t trust others easily.

It was one thing to impersonate a member of their own group, but if they pretended to be from another familiar mercenary corps, most groups would be wary, such as only sending a scout to investigate.

Consequently, the scouts never returned, which immediately caused the duped mercenary groups to jump to their feet in dismay.

Whether realizing these impostors were fake or merely mistaking that they had been deceived by an "allied group," in a few hours, these mercenary groups had heightened their guard to the extreme, refusing to trust any humans they encountered in town.

The Azure Longsword Mercenary Corps and the Free Wind Mercenary Group, led by Squad Leader Matthews, whom they had dealt with previously, met in such a situation.

"Hey, isn’t that Squad Leader Matthews?" Just as they turned the street corner and faced Matthews and his men, Aske immediately recognized the squad leader and expressed his surprise.

"You are..." Matthews, not showing his emotions, put his men on alert while quickly recalling the past, and finally remembered who this unexpected visitor was, "Are you the commander of the Pale Sword Mercenary Corps, Lord Aske?"

"It’s The Azure Longsword." Aske said indifferently, "Squad Leader Matthews, this mutant event seems very wrong. Have you discovered anything on your side?"

"Discovered? Nothing so far." Matthews pretended to say, "We have been fortunate not to encounter any monsters on our way here."

"Oh." Aske realized that the other party was neither willing to reveal the clue about the Wizard Stones on the bodies of the monsters nor trying to hide the impostor issue, and smiled, shaking his head, planning to leave with his team.

"Squad Leader Aske, you mentioned that there’s something off about this mutant event, what exactly do you mean?" Seeing Aske seemed intent to leave, Matthews immediately called out.

The warriors of Free Wind felt embarrassed. Not a bit of useful information was revealed to the other side, yet they were trying to extract favorable information; their squad leader was truly cunning and sly.

"Ah, just like you, we also haven’t encountered any monsters on our way, which is why I found it a bit strange," Aske said with a smile.

I don’t believe you for a second! Matthews roared inwardly.

They had also killed six or seven humanoid monsters along the way, noticing that although the creatures had weak attacks, their tough skin and stubborn vigor made them hard to defeat. Besides, the earlier impostor incident made it impossible to take this mutant event lightly.

This commander of The Azure Longsword Mercenary Corps, actually trying to deceive us by saying this mutant event is simple? Shameless, absolutely shameless, he must be condemned in my heart.

"I see." Matthews forced a smile, "Indeed, according to the scouts under Duke Carinthia, all the residents in town seemed to have turned into monsters. How come we haven’t encountered a single one since we arrived? Something is definitely peculiar."

"However, we have signed a mercenary contract with Duke Carinthia," Aske said, "So we still have to find the source of this mutant event and resolve it completely."

"Indeed." Matthews said, "So, we won’t bother you any longer."

"We’ll go right." Aske stated.

"We’ll take the left." Matthews responded.

And so, the two mercenary groups parted ways once again, tactfully avoiding any talk of collaboration from start to finish.

After about ten minutes, the two mercenary groups unexpectedly bumped into each other again.

Matthews and his men: ???

The Azure Longsword Mercenary Corps: ? ? ?

"This environment is problematic," Aske said calmly. "First, we’ve been walking straight ahead the entire time. Second, this crossroads is exactly where we met before, at least judging from our surroundings."

"We thought so too," Matthews said. "No turns, just straight ahead, and we end up back here again."

Faced with this ghostly and bizarre situation, both mercenary groups were baffled and couldn’t help but cast wary glances at each other.

"I have a hypothesis," Aske said. "This mutant was deliberately drawing our two mercenary groups together, perhaps to entice us into slaughtering each other."

"That’s right," Matthews said. "Of course, we won’t fall for that."

If you won’t fall for it, then why is your right hand always tightly gripping the hilt of your sword? The girls couldn’t help but be speechless as they looked at Matthews, who seemed ready for a fight.

"Let’s turn right this time," Aske said.

"We’ll go the opposite direction," Matthews stated.

And so, the two mercenary groups once again walked away from each other. Aske took a bullet out of his pouch and dropped it on the ground.

Ten minutes later, the two mercenary groups met each other again.

Everyone: ...

"Last time we parted ways, I dropped a bullet on the ground," Aske said leisurely.

"Did any of you see a bullet on the ground?" Matthews asked the people behind him.

The Free Wind Mercenaries looked down and observed, all confirming that they hadn’t seen any bullet.

"This means that even though the environment looks exactly the same, we haven’t actually returned to our original position," Aske said.

"What does that tell us?" Matthews asked cautiously.

"It tells us that we’re not walking in a closed circular path, but there is some kind of special force that is forcibly merging the paths of our two mercenary groups together," Aske explained.

"Like a Möbius Strip?" Nora fell into thoughtful interest. "We walked on the front side, they on the backside, and yet unexpectedly, we met up; it’s because a twisted space connected our paths."

"I don’t know what a Möbius Strip is," Matthews frowned and said. "But since extraordinary powers are at play, even if we separate again, it will just be repeating the phenomenon from ten minutes ago."

"If that’s the case, let’s travel together for now," Aske said calmly.

Matthews nodded.

So the two mercenary groups merged and casually chose a direction to continue forward.

The Azure Longsword followed the left side of the path, while Free Wind advanced on the right side, maintaining a distance of about 10 meters from each other, the mutual wariness and suspicion were palpable.

Ten minutes later, they saw several bodies lying haphazardly in the center of the road ahead.

One of them was covered in blood, seemingly not yet fully dead. Hearing footsteps approaching, he struggled to prop himself up in the pool of blood.

After seeing the faces of the newcomers, he suddenly looked incredulous, pointing at Aske and shouting:

"You! You’re a fake! Disguised as me... you!"

Before his words could end, Aske drew the Longsword and cleanly pierced the man’s heart.

The mercenaries behind watched the body in horror.

The young man, who Aske had just killed and who had fallen back into the pool of blood, looked exactly like Aske.