I Hate Systems
chapter-179

'What…the heck happened?' Compass Carburettor was genuinely shocked. After all, he had been keeping an eye on all the members of the group, constantly listening to the sounds of footsteps that resounded in the place.

Moreover, the reason he had been conversing with everyone was to prevent such a thing from happening. After all, based on the name of the Systems, he obtained a gist of their abilities. And hence, he wished to prevent any unforeseen incidents from happening.

But, it was unknown as to when it happened, but he had lost conscious track of Neena, which resulted in the current situation.

Neena had vanished.

The trio of men looked at each other, breaking into a sweat as they came to a unanimous decision of searching around for her.

They couldn't simply leave her behind, especially since they didn't know of her state. Except for Compass Carburettor, the other two thought of her as a regular human being.

And, unwilling to be questioned by the authorities due to the disappearance of someone from their group, they earnestly searched for her.

Compass Carburettor activated Info Scanner, frowning as he obtained the location of Neena, 'She's only 100 metres away from us.'

But, Neena remained at the same place. And, when he tried to walk in her direction, he was alarmed, noticing that he was actually walking in the opposite direction.

Thankfully for him, Info Scanner allowed him to sense her position, allowing her to serve as a reference point as he observed how he was affected. Soon, he understood the cause.

His thoughts were getting interrupted!

Rather, they weren't actually interrupted, but his sense of direction was screwed up. The direction he thought of as left was actually his right.

Normally speaking, something like this wouldn't make sense. Even someone braindead won't mistake their left for their right. But now, he did exactly that.

Moreover, in his mind, he was still of the thought that he had turned left. This was the scariest part.

And worst of all, they were surrounded by trees, looking more or less the same. Even for nature enthusiasts, they wouldn't be attentive enough to spot the difference, not to mention them. Men as a species generally paid less attention to nature, especially when it was in abundance around them.

Because it was like a forest, with everything in disarray, their brains simply glossed over them.

And in such a situation where they were confused from left and right, it would no longer make sense anymore.

Confusing his left from the right was only one instance. Sometimes, when he wished to turn right, he would walk straight, proceed diagonally to his right, turn around, etc.

It was constantly changing. His sense of direction was completely messed up.

"This is bad, I'm unable to find her anywhere." After some time, Rhizen said in a fluster. It had been an hour since Neena's disappearance. And while they were searching, thanks to their sense of direction being completely messed up, they coincidentally split up as a result.

Due to that, they were alone, wandering around while hearing the sounds of others. But, before they realised it, they found themselves alone.

Krager arrived at the main path, turning around to see a group approaching from far away. He recognised them to be the group that followed them at the start.

As they had been speeding along, they had increased distance from the second group by a lot.

'For a moment, I feared that I had gotten lost.' Krager muttered before turning around as he began to run through the main path.

Suddenly, he felt something different, smiling, "Alright, the condition has been met. No one is seeing me now."

As he said it, his eyes turned scaly while his body rapidly shrunk, soon turning into a cat. As for his clothes and gear, they had mysteriously vanished.

Meow!

Followed by a short cry, the cat began to run through the main path, casually skipping upon the obstacles, 'Even after experiencing this many times, it is still a wonder as to how amazing a cat's muscles, senses, and reflexes are.'

"Ugh!" Compass Carburettor suddenly grunted, feeling mild pain in his head as the connection to one of his Spydragons were abruptly cut off, "That's strange."

The reason was that he had slipped a Spydragon into the bags of both Krager and Neena. This way, he'll be able to track them all along. As he had only made two Spydragons, he was unable to track Rhizen.

But, that wasn't necessary since the other two were definitely going to track him down.

If not for the fact that the Spydragons weren't useful for determining the positions of others, he would have relied on them more. All they displayed was the increase in his Darlac expenditure.

With that, he'll have to calculate their relative distance from him. And, this distance was like the radius of a circle with their positions being anywhere on the circle.

That was the inherent disadvantage of using a puppet. And, it was usually solved through the senses of the puppet which was able to relay the sensation of touch, sound, sight, and smell.

Though, that was only with sophisticated Puppets. The Spydragon was a miniature Puppet. So, all it was able to relay was sight and sound. And, the current inferior versions relayed them with poor quality.

If not for the fact that Info Scanner only relied upon Mental Energy to activate and every activation consuming around a tenth of his Mental Energy, he would have relied on it more.

Once the Spydragon left on Krager had its communication cut off, Compass Carburettor immediately activated Info Scanner, sensing the other party running towards the peak of the mountain pretty fast.

'This is bad!' He was alarmed, not because of Krager's actions, but because of the fact that Neena was slowly leading Rhizen deeper into the Eastern Range, trying to make him leave Mount Craire and head into more dangerous locations.

As there had been a mild drizzle the previous night, the places beyond Mount Craire would be teeming with leeches.

Alarmed by the notion of Rhizen's death, Compass Carburettor hurried towards him, intending to save him when he grunted in anger. For, he had returned to his starting position by the time he came to a realisation, 'This damn ability!'