Arev Incident
The Arev Incident was a ecological accident in June 14 of 2047 that caused the countryside surrounding the former town of Arev to become infested by genetically modified fungi named KANSOS-1. Esterlod Petrochem, who engineered the fungi in attempt to produce biofuel, had been using Arev as a testing ground for its products due to its low population. The initial fungicide meant to contain KANSOS-1 failed, leading to the disaster.
The incident
In June 14 of 2047, Esterlod Petrochem tested KANSOS-1, a new strain of a fast-growing fungi that ate simple mana and turned it into high-energy mana. In theory, the fast-growing nature of KANSOS-1 kept deployment costs down, and only needed to be bounded by a special fungicide marking the border of the production zone. The only problem was the fungicide didn’t work, so it kept spreading across the Arevian countryside. Esterlod had to dig massive ditches to contain the spread and spray new fungicide along the border.
They didn’t spray the inside of the infected area, since that would have been expensive and the land it grew on was worthless now anyway, so Esterlod covered it up by telling everyone the ditches are a new mining system despite the fact that the interior is brimming with writhing masses of fungi. People got curious about it, and now nobody is allowed within several kilometres of the affected area.
Conspiracy theory
According to one popular conspiracy theory, the town of Arev is still inhabited, despite the fact that the entire Arev exclusion zone is overrun with rapidly-growing fungus leeching all the nutrients from the soil. Supporters of the Arev conspiracy theory point to satellite imagery depicting vaguely humanoid figures and the fact that if you measure electromagnetic waves in the area surrounding the exclusion zone that you can pick up signals that are too uniform to be natural, so they must be manmade. However, the electromagnetic waves are best explained as either 1) old, abandoned equipment that still hasn’t used up its batteries yet or 2) hidden devices around the exterior of the exclusion zones that alert security when people are trying to get too close to the writhing masses of invasive fungi.