The Lord Is Too Overbearing

Iliana glanced towards Jocelyn, Thompson, and Steven who were distributing food to the civilians, before returning her gaze to Whitney and Cray. They were looking at her curiously with a hint of puzzlement in their eyes.

"Why does it have to be between the three of us?" Cray asked.

"If it's something crucial, isn't telling everyone the best course of action?" Whitney added.

Iliana quirked her eyebrow as she looked at them like they were mentally handicapped. "It's because you two are the only people I can trust here." Sensing a response coming, she raised her hand. "I haven't informed you anything yet, so debate me after that."

Whitney, who was about to say something, closed his mouth, and nodded his head silently. Iliana looked at the two people in front of her seriously, before opening her mouth once again.

"There is a Monster amongst us."

"Yes?"

"Holy cow."

The response she got from the two was, as she expected, shock and disbelief. They even stayed silent for a couple of seconds—likely thinking about the absurdity of the situation—before looking at Iliana questioningly.

"From the way you said it, can I assume that this Monster is impersonating one of us?"

Iliana nodded her head at Whitney. "To be exact, one of the civilians, but you are right—it is in impersonation."

"Is it a High Doppelganger?" Cray asked.

"No, it is not." Iliana shook her head. "Doppelgangers are categorized as a Magic Beast. They may look like a Monster, but they are not Monsters."

Magic Beasts, although some of them looked no different than Demons, were fundamentally different from Demons. It was a fact that everyone had come to accept after years of research that was done by Mages.

Unlike Demons who could mate with any of their kind, Magic Beasts had to mate with Beasts of the same kind. For example, a Unicorn could never produce an offspring with a Gryphon, and vice versa.

Other than that, while Demons had Mana Vein inside their body to use Mana, Magic Beasts relied on their Mana Core. The former utilized chaotic Natural Mana from the environment, and the latter utilized a well processed Mana.

"This Monster—although has the same ability as a Doppelganger—its ability is superior than a High Doppelganger's." Iliana turned her gaze to the side and found that Thompson and Jocelyn with Steven in tow were already done distributing food.

Turning back to Whitney and Cray, she continued, "I can't detect its presence, not even a trace of Mana. Furthermore, it is so good at imitating human, I can't find anything abnormal from it."

Iliana actually had a rather special ability in recognizing a Demon; she could not only differentiate their Mana Signature from the other creatures, but also their smell. Therefore, it should've been easy for her to find the Monster amongst them.

'However, the scent of Silencer on them is so thick, I can barely differentiate between the smell of human and Monster.' She wisely kept this thing away from the others as she didn't want to paint a bad picture of Basil in their mind.

"Let me ask something." Whitney raised his hand. "How could you know, in the very first place, that there is a Monster between us?"

Iliana frowned lightly, before quirking her eyebrow at Whitney. "It's unusual of you to be this dull, Whitney. Think about it. How many civilians have we lost and where did we lose them?"

"I know what you want to say—there is no way they were left behind. However, that doesn't make a Monster suddenly appear between us."

Iliana sighed in exasperation then shook her head in disappointment. "Though it was dark, I saw it myself. There was something killing the civilians while we were passing through the tunnel."

Whitney widened his eyes, and was about to ask something when Cray chimed in. "Oh, I think I know when that happened. I also heard that weird sound."

He rubbed his head awkwardly, then chuckled faintly. "I thought it was only me. I wasn't sure since it was too dark at that time."

Normally, although they wouldn't be able to see it as clear as day, the Mages would have been able to look what was 10 meters ahead of them, if they supplied enough Mana to their Magic Circles.

Since they had tired their Magic Circles out however, they didn't dare to take a risk and gathered more Mana with their Magic Circles just to look at their surrounding better. Unless they were really in danger, they wouldn't do that.

"Why didn't the two of you say anything?"

"What do you expect from notifying you about it?" Iliana scoffed at Whitney. "We wouldn't be able to fight it in our state either way. It was better to let it eat some people, rather than letting it endanger all of us."

"You didn't even notice it, did you? It means that it is skilled at fighting in a dark place." Cray shrugged lightly. "Iliana's choice wasn't wrong."

Whitney nodded his head at their explanation, then silently ate his food. He already understood what Iliana's real reason of doing it—to lessen the amount of victim on the civilian side—and he couldn't help shaking his head at that.

"Yo! Can we join too?"

"Of course, you can join us, Steve!" Cray's eyes lit up as he patted the ground beside him. "Come, sit beside me, and share some of your food to me."

"Human relationship is a give and take. Let's trade instead of just sharing."

"Haha. That would be better, I guess."

"I knew you were planning about doing something dirty to me." Steven sat himself beside Cray, and clicked his tongue when he saw Cray wasn't very happy about it. "I won't let you steal all of my food!"

Thompson chuckled at the two's exchange, and sat himself beside Whitney, meanwhile Jocelyn sat herself beside Iliana. Whitney offered his food to Thompson, and Thompson did the same—they ended up trading their food.

"Leader Iliana? I don't need any of your food. You can have it yourself!" On the other side, Jocelyn was vehemently rejecting the food Iliana offered.

Of course, Iliana had none of it. "You should take care of yourself more, pipsqueak. You are as small as a 3 year old—eat more."

"I am actually a year older than you, Leader." Jocelyn scratched her head awkwardly, before protesting. "Also, I am not that small! I'm as tall as any other 14 year old girl!"

Looking at Jocelyn's reasoning, Cray couldn't help shaking his head. "Ah, she's a helpless idiot. What a lost cause..."

Everyone other than Iliana and Jocelyn, of course, laughed at that, before continuing their meal with some small talk.

The meal finished a few seconds after, but none of them moved from their seat as Iliana had said she had something to announce a few moments earlier.

"We will stay here a little bit longer." Iliana crossed her hand. "I am afraid some of us have already been infected with some kind of a disease from a particular Monster, and I don't want to travel with infected people."

'Eh, so that's what she is going with?' Cray and Whitney couldn't help cringing at how serious Iliana looked when she lied. 'Only idiots will believe this kind of lie.' Much to their bewilderment though, the other three people believed it. 'Right... All of them are idiots.'

While they could understand the Knights' lack of knowledge, they didn't expect Jocelyn to not question anything about it. After all, none of them would last a minute if they were indeed infected with a disease from a Demon.

"So, are you suggesting that we should separate the civilians to each of this chamber in the wall?" Thompson asked Iliana.

"Not only the civilians, but also us. Although we are far stronger than them, there is no guarantee that we are not infected."

"Hmm... What will we do after we found the infected?"

Iliana turned to Steven, who had just asked, and simply answered, "Nothing. They would die by themselves, and by that time, we have already secured the uninfected from them."

"From the way you said about your plan earlier though, I can't help but think that you are going to separate the civilians into groups, before putting them in the same room."

Iliana slowly clapped her hand, and remarked, "That is a good analysis, Steve. So, what is your point?"

"Isn't it unfair to the others?" Steven frowned. "What if they are not infected but became infected due to the others? What if the infected are evenly distributed to all the chamber?"

"They can only blame their fate." Iliana shrugged nonchalantly. Seeing that Steven was about to rebuke her, she put her hand up. "Hold your horses—I am not done yet. There is a special medicine I put in everyone's food that works as a poison and antidote."

"What do you mean by that?"

"It will worsen the symptoms of the people that are infected, but become an antidote to the people who are not."

Although Steven wasn't very fond of the fact that Iliana had just basically given the infected a death sentence that way, he didn't say anything about that. He was aware that they wouldn't be able to heal the infected either way.

Seeing that the situation had calmed down, Thompson raised his hand, and asked Iliana. "Do you have any specific requirements for how we should group the civilians? I believe we are not just going to group them randomly, right?"

"Yes." Iliana nodded simply. "Look at their complexion. Group everyone with the same complexion; the people with the worst complexion are likely infected."

Thompson nodded his head, and all of them stood up to group the civilians not long after. They didn't explain anything about the infection to the civilians, because they didn't want to cause a ruckus.

Of course, they had to make a front so the civilians would willingly enter the chambers in the wall. They merely told that they were giving the civilians some time to sleep, so the civilians should use that time as effective as they could.

As they were pretty tired and obviously needed some sleep, the civilians easily bought their excuse. 15 minutes passed, and the civilians were already inside the chambers.

"I am surprised everyone bought the lie," Whitney whispered to Iliana.

Iliana turned to Whitney, and gazed at him silently before speaking after some time. "You will never know what people will believe, Whitney." Turning her gaze to the chambers, she thought to herself. 'Just like how none of you doubts me.'

Iliana knew she wouldn't be able to lurk the Demon out by merely isolating it, therefore she created a situation that would force the Demon out.

'You should know me better, Basil. I am not as naive as you think. I can fool my allies to get my enemy.'

The "medicine" she had fed everyone was a piece of Minotaur Warrior's heart that stimulated Demon's appetite. Because of her, everyone's stomach had become an irresistible delicacy to the impersonating Demon amongst them.