Wonderful Insane World
Chapter 177: Dance of Fire and Falsehood

Chapter 177: Dance of Fire and Falsehood

The night was never truly silent on this construction site. Even when the wind fell asleep, the base vibrated with a constant murmur: the creaking of cables, the clinking of tools, the weary groans of men who had been awake for far too long. Dylan, crouched between two stacks of crates, observed the ballet of workers and soldiers with a glacial calm that masked the tension in his neck.

He made himself into the shadow of someone utterly ordinary. His face was dirty, his hands reddened by fake labor he sometimes mimed to divert attention. In reality, he was listening. Waiting. And that night, he didn’t have to wait long.

A messenger arrived at a gallop, the horse lathered in foam, its flanks soaked with sweat. The man jumped from the saddle before the animal even stopped, nearly stumbling, his voice tearing through the relative calm of the construction site.

"Attack!" he rasped. "The southern base... they... they’ve reduced it to ashes!"

A shiver rippled through the camp like a shockwave. Dylan saw heads lift, shovels freeze midair, hammers suspended. A few seconds of silence, and then chaos erupted.

The captain, a colossus with a black braided beard, emerged from the command tent. His grim face radiated more rage than fear. He grabbed the messenger by the collar.

"Who?"

"Awakened ones... five or six... They... they took the banner. Nothing holds there anymore."

The captain released the man like a worn-out rag and turned to his officers.

"Double the teams! No sleep, no rest! I want these fortifications standing by dawn! If High-Terre thinks they’ll beat us to it, let them come! We’ll be waiting."

Behind his mask of weariness and dull obedience, Dylan smiled inwardly. This kind of chaos was gold for an infiltrator. Orders cracked like whips. Men ran everywhere. The construction site, already infernal, became a furious anthill.

He noticed a detail: some soldiers, nervous, checked their weapons more often than necessary. New arrows, bows drawn taut for no reason, daggers sharpened to a gleam. The air reeked of the scent of expected blood.

Dylan loved these moments. Not for the war, no. For the cracks. When fear creeps into the eyes of a man who thought himself unshakable, everything becomes visible. Dylan slid toward a group loading sacks of earth onto carts. He hoisted one up, mimicking the others, but kept his ears open.

"They say Zirel was there..." muttered a worker.

"Zirel?"

"Yeah, the one they call the ’Iced Blade.’"

"Shit. If it’s him, the southern base didn’t stand a chance."

Dylan narrowed his eyes. Zirel. The name sounded like a promise of slaughter. Yet he hadn’t seemed that dangerous when Dylan saw him during their meeting. Whatever... He filed that detail away in a corner of his mind. These were the kinds of facts he burned into his memory to avoid making someone like that an enemy.

He kept loading the cart, silent, his body bending to the task like that of any laborer. The captain roared again:

"You, over there! No rest, or I’ll bury you under these palisades myself!"

Torches flared back to life everywhere. The construction site became a theater of flickering flames. Silhouettes hunched over beams, sawing, hammering, reinforcing walls as if hell itself were about to rain down on them. Dylan blended into this frantic dance, noting every change: doubled sentries, delayed convoys, rations redistributed in haste.

He also sensed the fatigue. Waxen faces, trembling hands. The captain could scream all he wanted — fear had already claimed half his men.

He leaned toward a soldier staring at the ground with a vacant look.

"So, what happened down there?" Dylan asked in a neutral tone.

The man shrugged.

"They say no one was left alive. Not even the errand kids."

A brief silence, then the man added, almost to himself:

"If Zirel was sent there... he might be here tomorrow."

The wind suddenly picked up again, heavy with the acrid stench of heated pitch and fear. Dylan kept his mask of dull exhaustion as he headed for the material stores, not far from where the soldier was still staring at the ground, haunted by the image of those "errand kids" slaughtered. The man, named Braham according to the barely readable inscription on his gambeson, was like an open door to the camp’s despair.

Dylan crouched next to him, pretending to tighten the strap on one of his worn-out boots. His voice was a hoarse whisper, calculated to blend with the squeak of a nearby cart.

"The kids too?" he murmured, a fake tremor in his voice. "My brother... well, a friend who was like a brother to me, he was assigned to the southern base as a kitchen hand. If they spared no one..." He let the sentence hang, a gut punch meant to stir Braham’s emotions.

The man lifted a ravaged face, bloodshot eyes seeking a reflection of his horror. He gave a weak nod. "No one. Like animals." His hand clenched convulsively around his dagger’s hilt. "And if he... if Zirel comes here? The captain can yell all he wants, but..." He lowered his voice further, casting a furtive glance toward the command tent. "... the arrow reserves are half-empty. And the East palisade? It’s held up by rotten rope and prayers."

"A gaping weakness." Dylan felt the opportunity like a hot coin in his palm. He feigned a hesitant, frightened laborer, leaning closer.

"I... I overheard two officers talking, near the latrines..." he whispered, eyes wide with manufactured fear. "They said a supply caravan... weapons, provisions... it’s supposed to arrive through the northern ravine just before dawn. The last chance, they said. If it gets intercepted..." He shook his head, looking crushed. "But with those Awakened demons everywhere... who’d go protect it?"

Braham stared at him, a feverish glint lighting up his deadened eyes. A glimmer of desperate, suicidal hope. The northern ravine? A narrow choke point, perfect for an ambush. If only a handful of men, driven by the promise of salvation or despair, ran there...

"A caravan? At the northern ravine?" murmured Kael, straightening slightly. He cast another nervous glance around, then at his companions, as exhausted and terrified as he was. Dylan saw the idea sprouting, dangerous, contagious. He said nothing more. He stood with a grunt of fatigue and walked away, leaving the poison of misinformation to do its work in Braham’s fractured mind. A diversion was taking shape, draining precious men and resources toward a deadly, imaginary trap.

But Dylan wasn’t stopping there. He was never the kind to settle for so little.

He moved toward the piles of earth sacks, near the carts. That’s when he saw the captain emerge from the command tent, his face grayer than ash. The colossus suddenly looked smaller. He brandished a crumpled parchment like a useless weapon.

"MESSENGER!" he bellowed, his hoarse voice cutting through the racket. "Where is that damn messenger? HERE, NOW!"

A young rider, pale but determined, hurried over, adjusting his saddle as he ran. The captain shoved the parchment into his hands.

"To the Marshal!" he roared, trying to hide a trace of doubt beneath his fury. "Tell him... tell him the sector holds! That we’ll hold until the last! The fortifications will be ready! AT ALL COSTS!" His order rang false, a desperate bravado.

Dylan was already moving. A crate of nails, "accidentally" spilled near the messenger’s horse, created a brief commotion. Dylan rushed in, playing the helpful worker.

"Leave it, soldier, I’ll handle it!" he called in a strong, neutral voice, bending to gather the scattered nails. In the chaos, his left hand, covered in the site’s dust and grease, "helped" secure the messenger’s saddlebag, already open. A single second was enough.

He slipped a small rolled-up parchment inside, a fake message hastily scribbled — something he’d prepared just in case. A few simple words, but heavy with consequences: "Northern ravine. Possible ambush. Divert the caravan." Nothing more. The kind of line that, read in haste, could redirect an entire plan. Dylan closed the saddlebag with a motion so natural it looked as though it had never been touched, then rose, shaking the nails from his hands.

"All set, sir!" he called, a forced smile on his lips like that of a simple laborer proud to have saved a messenger’s precious time.

The rider, oblivious to the trap, spurred his horse southward. Dylan followed the silhouette with his eyes until it vanished beyond the palisades. A faint smile crept across his dirt-streaked face: the poison had spread even further.

The night resumed its feverish clamor. The captain roared orders, his lieutenants following half-heartedly, and the men hammered, sawed, nailed, possessed by the fear that their camp might become Zirel’s next torch. Dylan melted into this chaos, helping shift a cart here, line up beams there, while noting every movement.

He noticed the double row of sentries newly posted around the supplies. Taut bows, faces drawn with fatigue. A bad sign for him: the camp was slowly locking down. The window to slip toward the convoy was closing.

Braham passed nearby, looking vacant, his hands still trembling on the handle of a shovel. Dylan simply gave him a brief nod, like a fellow sufferer. No need for more words — the seed planted in the poor soldier’s mind was already sprouting