Wait wot were they not trying to kill themselves??
So the men commited suicide so that their commander live due to their mission failing?
Everyone was meant to commit suicide, but Krunig's flask had honey instead of poison. Now he's watching his comrades die in pain right in front of him.
MC mentioned that this epidemic occured randomly (both place wise of time wise) since years ago, so is this a known thing to the royalty in the capital? Surely it's known since they have inquisitors and gas helmets, but why royalty handling this outbreak like amateurs by refusing to send any support?
I'm confused why the church squad no longer wants to purge the Akines villagers to prevent infection. As the captain said, there's no way to prove that the villagers arent infected. Surely he wasnt just satisfied seeing the Akines refugees healthy and fit?
I'll try to explain, though I'm not exactly confident I understand it all either. This manga likes to play with expectations and mystery, so it mentions lots of things/people that are explained/introduced chapters later and creates lots of confusion when trying to translate ambiguous terms.
The epidemic happened only once several years ago (it was the curse of the witch) and it was terrible so it's natural for people and royalty to be terrified of it starting again. In a rather medieval society, with no medical research or human rights, it's not surprising they decided to "amputate" the infected area.
Gas helmets seem to be normal to avoid fainting in the forest, since apparently Setia's presence affected humans like that as mentioned by Agredios in chapter 01. And Krunig mentions inquisitors chased heretics (most likely, whoever went against the church) so they are not exactly a unit dedicated to contain the epidemic, they were just sent to do the dirty work of eliminating all survivors.
Regarding the squad, it's not like they don't want to complete their mission. It's just that they've realized it's impossible with Agredios nearby and them being wounded after the fight.
Some details I wanted to mention regarding the story:
There was a legend, as shown in the first chapter, about a witch living in a forest and cursing the people of a nearby town only to be killed by the king's knights. Agredios recently explained this curse to be an undetectable epidemic that got to the capital via immigration and killed lots of people.
According to Agredios, that town of legend was granted to his ancestors by the king, and his family has been managing the land for generations. This land is called the 辺境伯領 ("margrave fief", or frontier/borderlands) perhaps because it's limiting with the forbidden forest or maybe it truly is the kingdom's border. People living there are called 開拓団 ("reclamation/development group") and Agredios mentions his family "carving the sea" so perhaps their work was more than just managing and involved restoration of some kind.
I'm not sure if people from town knew that a witch lived in the forest (people from Akines at least didn't), maybe only the margrave's family did (Agredios had a map with a marked area where they believed her to reside).
Setia mentioned on chapter 01 the curse would:
- Distort the death (as seen by the villagers dying but not decaying)
- Corrode the land (maybe the rampaging beasts?)
- Deteriorate the water (soon, chapter 14)
- Stagnate the wind
- Contaminate trees, grass and flowers
So we are halfway there!
And a fun fact: Tauros had hands (ch05) before getting hooves.