In the evening, in the magic workshop…

Straf enters, lazily swinging the door shut behind him. There are half-finished Innovative Energy Device assemblies scattered all over, requiring only the gem and the cap secured on its end, then the remainder to be placed in its nail-filled delay mechanism shell. He looks around and can't seem to find Stripe, but a moment later he finds eartips peeking out from beyond the workbench. He walks to its side, and finds Stripe sleeping on the floor, curled up into a ball.

「Hey. Did you finish?」

Straf asks, shaking her awake. She groggily opens her golden eyes and looks at his face, partially sitting up.

「Did you finish? Are they all ready?」

He asks again while Stripe is staring at him a with confused, half-asleep gaze. She mumbles something incoherently, then points her clawed finger to the corner of the room.

「…The boxes… With nail things…」

She says, pointing at the corner full of the delay shells, then points at the IED assemblies themselves by the workbench on the floor.

「…IED… Needs cap… I need sleep…」

Stripe semi-coherently explains, then lies back down, curling up again.

「Right…」

Straf looks at the two sets of items. Stripe has indeed finished her task, at least to the degree that she could without the magic gems on hand.

《I could wake her, hand her the gems, and then just leave and go about my day, but…》

He rubs his chin while looking at the sleeping beastman on the floor.

《…But I bet I'd hear an explosion coming from here sooner or later. Best if I do it myself. Let the sleeping cats lie.》

Straf shrugs, pulls a magic gem out of his [Portable Storage], then compresses the spring inside one of the IED assemblies and inserts the pin, then the gem, and adds the cap. He takes the delay mechanism shell, inserts it into a very snug slot, then closes it up with a loud click of its metal latches on the bottom of the shell.

He throws the complete IED back into the purple vortex, then pulls out another gem, and repeats the entire process…

…

The next day, a few minutes before noon, in a small and unremarkable village of Redwing Kingdom by the border of Telas Kingdom…

Peasants are working their small household fields, harvesting the crops with sickles and scythes. One of the old men with a scythe by the edge of the field notices a flag and men bearing heraldry of King Telas. A little alarmed by the flag more so than by the military men, he hastily trots up to an old woman nearby as quick as his aged knees allow.

「Sona, why do you think they're coming here?」

He asks the old woman, and nods towards the two dozen or so men crossing the crest of the hill, torches in hand despite being in broad daylight.

「Maybe their food went bad again? Remember, how a few of them came a few years back?」

She shrugs and leans onto her scythe, furrowing her brows on her wrinkly face.

「I remember!… But they didn't have a flag last time!… Or the torches!…」

The old man says with a raised voice in an urgent tone, pointing at the men holding the lit torches.

「You're right… It is weird…」

Sonafreda straightens out, nodding her head. She looks at the old man with a worried gaze.

「…I'll go tell the kids. Keep an eye on them.」

She says, and leaves the scythe propped up against the wooden fence bordering the field as she walks a few steps through the felled, cut crops.

「…And be careful, Henrick.」

The woman adds, looking at him with her concern growing. He smirks.

「What are you saying!? I've still got adventurer bones in me! If they're coming for trouble, they'll get more than-!」

Henrick grins as he holds the scythe up in his hands.

「I'm serious, you old buffoon! Don't do anything stupid!」

Sonafreda shouts angrily at the man and he rapidly deflates.

「…I was just joking. I'll be careful, don't worry.」

He replies, lowering his arms while his shoulders slump. The old woman nods, and leaves for the village center in a rushed step.

In front of the village, Henrick joins the nervous gathering of men waiting to see what the group approaching them wants. All of them have some form of a tool in hand, be it a sickle, scythe or a hammer, or anything else that a peasant may be found holding onto, though none of them are wielding their tools with much confidence nor project a threatening aura.

「What do you figure they're coming here for?…」

The old man asks as he walks up to one of the men waiting.

「Honestly? Probably to fuckin' kill us, Henrick…」

The man younger by a few years replies, and shrugs his shoulders.

「Well, I hope not… Sona would be mad…」

Henrick chuckles quietly with a tinge of nervousness in his voice. The heraldry-covered men stop in front of the village, 40, perhaps 50 paces away.

「We are the men of King Telas! We've come to take what's his from this so-called kingdom!…」

The military man up at the front of the group shouts while the rest stares at the peasants with grim, serious faces and hands on their sheathed weapons.

「Great. Now we'll have to learn different money-」

One of the peasants in the rear of the group grumbles with his arms crossed.

「…And we've come to lay waste to this village on the king's orders!」

The shouting man adds.

「Oh shit.」

The grumbler quiets down. The peasants all glance at each other, then turn their eyes to the armed group.

Shw- Shwwi- Shwwwwwing!…

The armed men draw their swords with the sound of a sword being drawn, and approach the village in a steady step. The peasants begin to scatter inward into the village.

「Oh shit! Warn everyone!」「Everyone run! Everyone run!」「Oh no!… Oh no!…」

The peasants scream and shout. Some run into the houses dotted around the dirt road, some simply peek their heads into the open doorways, and some simply run as fast as their legs can take them. Henrick drops his scythe and runs into the village in a jumpy, stiff, awkward jog. The men pause ahead of the frontmost home and look at each other.

「Burn it.」

The man who shouted the announcement gestures his head towards the house. The men with torches nod, and one of them throws the lit torch onto its thatch roof. It takes no time at all for the fire to spread all across the building's top. Two torches fly into the half-harvested field still full of crops, and likewise rapidly take fire. The men advance deeper into the village while terrified peasants are fleeing the other way, clutching onto the most valuable items they can find in their homes.

One of the men cocks his torch arm back to throw it at another house, but he pauses when he sees a woman run out of the doorway with a young screaming child in her arms. Her eyes widen when she sees the armed men just a few steps away, then turns around and runs. The man lowers his arm, peers into the house through the windows, then takes a few steps back and throws the torch onto the roof.

A column of black smoke rises high into the air, billowing from the buildings as the interiors begin to burn as well. The flames are already hungrily devouring the harvest on all of the small fields, dancing on the fences separating them. The leader of the men takes a few steps away from the village and looks towards the nearby treeline.

Clopclopclop. Clopclopclop. Clopclopclop…

A horse-drawn wagon rushes out of the forest and up to the man, stopping right beside him. The driver and three more men dismount, all wearing body-obscuring green cloaks and wearing dark, metal masks depicting animal faces. The two remaining on the wagon pick up a corpse dressed in heraldry of Telas Kingdom, and hand him to the men waiting to receive it below.

「Put one or two there, and one somewhere around the center…」

The heraldry-wearing man instructs the bear and wolf masked men, pointing his finger at a spot by the roadside in front of the village. They nod their masked faces, and rush to the spot that he pointed out. One holds the corpse's feet, and the other his arms. They set him down and dust their gloved hands off, then return to the wagon in a jog.

「Any casualties?」

An owl-masked man asks, his voice lightly echoing the metal mask, and muffled slightly.

「No. They all scattered.」

The military man nonchalantly replies with small shake of his head.

「…And the peasants?」

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The bear asks.

「None.」

He replies, and the two masked men nod at each other before taking another corpse into their hands. He follows them to the next spot.

「Make them look like there was a fight, too…」

He points at the corpse on the floor and looks around. The wolf and the bear stab the corpse a few times with a weapon too short to call a sword, but too long to call a dagger.

The man in the tabard spots a discarded sickle on the floor, he picks it up and returns to the corpse. He tries to lodge the sickle's tip into the dead man's throat right at the connection between the shoulder at the neck, but he struggles to do so. He puts more and more of his body weight onto the sickle, going as far as gripping it with both of his hands.

「Shit… Ngh… This bastard's still frozen solid-」

He grunts, pushing and pushing at the sickle to no avail.

Thud-KRK!

The wolf gives the sickle's blunt edge a rough kick, and the blade cuts into the corpse. A little surprised, the man stands up. The wolf-masked man bows a little, gloved palm on his chest.

「That does it… Now get to work. Hurry up…」

The bare-faced man nods and turns for the carriage, approaching it in a rushed step…

…

Two hours later…

Greaves and his party look at the smoking village up the hill. They glance at each other, then proceed up the road.

「…What happened here?」

Will adjusts his glasses as he looks at the carnage in disbelief. Corpses are strewn along the road, the embers of the collapsed homes are still smoking, the fields are charcoal and ash.

He hesitantly approaches one of the heraldry-wearing corpses, and adjusts his glasses.

「…Telas Kingdom. Why would they do this?」

He furrows his brows while looking at the dead man's heraldry, his peach-brown tabard slightly soaked red with blood.

「This is messed up… This could have been our village.」

Greaves clenches his fist, then his teeth as he looks around with angrily narrowed eyes.

「Not really, Greaves. It's surrounded by mountains-」

Alicia chimes in, eyes focused on the smoking buildings.

「I meant the scale, Alicia. This village wasn't any smaller than ours…」「Right…」

He elaborates, glaring at her for a few seconds before realizing he's staring. Greaves takes a deep breath in an effort to calm down, and turns his eyes towards the border.

「…Can you imagine the tree burning, Will?」

Greaves asks, to which Will remains silent, only clenching his teeth as he adjusts his glasses.

「Greaves… Get the camera.」

Will peels his eyes away from the general direction of the village back to Greaves, and finds him already fiddling with his backpack.

「Tsk… I know…」

He clicks his tongue and pulls the camera out. He points the lens at the corpse, and presses the button.

Fffffwap!

Lian is looking around idly, taking a few steps further into the village. Her brows raise a little.

「…Is slavery legal in that kingdom?」

She asks Will, who tilts his head in confusion.

「No, I don't think it is. Why?」

He shakes his head with furrowed brows.

「Hm.」

Lian nods, grimacing a little as she leans on the spear and ignores his question. Greaves looks at the developed photo of the tabard-wearing corpse.

「Let me have a look.」

Will reaches out for the photo, and Greaves hands it over. He adjusts his glasses, looking at it, before he lowers it and looks at the bloodied corpse.

「Greaves, wait…」「Huuh?」

Will stops Greaves just before taking a photo of another corpse, hurrying up to his side.

「Look. We're supposed to collect evidence, but on this photo it's just a dead soldier of Telas Kingdom. It doesn't show what they did.」

He explains, showing the photo Greaves took a few moments ago to him again.

「…Sooo?」

Greaves asks in an expectant tone with his brows furrowing.

「So…」

Will sighs and adjusts his glasses. He squats down, and points at the collapsed building ahead.

「…Use the camera so both the corpse and the building are in the photo. Try crouching down. It's supposed to be evidence of this.」

He explains, and stands back up.

「Alright, alright… Tsk…」

Greaves shakes his head, but obliges and squats down a few steps from the second corpse. He takes a low angle, aligns the viewfinder, and presses the button.

Ffffwap!

The camera's flash makes a loud sound again, and after a few seconds the rapidly developing photo pops out of its front. Will leans in to take a look at it.

「…That one will work. Give it to me, I'll hang onto them.」

He nods, and holds his hand out for the photo. Greaves reluctantly hands it over with his mouth aslant, then walks to another corpse, taking a photo of the burnt-out buildings along the way, catching Alicia in the frame while she's pacing around with a worried face, and a small portion of Lian in the back. He squats down again and takes a similar photo to the previous one while Will walks ahead.

He comes across a corpse with a sickle lodged in its throat, and begins rubbing his chin while pondering it.

「It looks like they fought back… Is that why they retreated?」

Will mumbles to himself. He finds himself unwilling to peel his eyes off of it while he thinks further.

「What's up, Will?…」

Alicia asks softly, tilting her head as she joins his side.

…Fffwap!…

「…Nothing. But something about these corpses… I can't quite put my finger on it, but they're… Weird?」

He shrugs, still rubbing his chin with eyes focused on the dead man in a peach-brown tabard covered in heraldry.

「Weird how?… They look like corpses to me.」

She blinks at his face, furrowing he brows gently.

「…Honestly, I don't know. I have a feeling something is off about them, but I'm not actually sure what.」

He shrugs again, and leans onto his staff with a sigh.

「…Sorry for having you look at stuff like this, Alicia.」

Will finally peels his eyes away, and looks at Alicia. She shakes her head, smiling softly.

「No… A healer should be ready to see dead people. Grandma always said that healers see pretty harrowing things.」

She shrugs her robed shoulders too, and Lian joins behind them in an unrushed, idle step.

…Ffffwap!…

「…I think your feeling is right, Will. Something is wrong here.」

Lian chimes in as she looks over their heads at the village.

「You think? What makes you say that?」

Will asks, and Lian turns her black, almond-shaped eyes to him.

「There's corpses of the soldiers, but what of the peasants? I thought that they were maybe rounded up and taken as slaves… But supposing that they don't take slaves…」

She replies, and turns her eyes back to the trail of dead men strewn along the road.

「You're right. It is a little weird. I'd expect to see at least one or two dead peasants, especially if they fought back…」

Will nods, rubbing his chin, brows furrowed with renewed intensity.

「…Maybe they just got lucky and ran away unharmed?」

He says, glancing at Lian. They briefly look at each other, and she shrugs her shoulders with a light tilt of her silken black head, jiggling her ponytail.

「Maybe. Who knows…」

…Ffffwap!…

Lian says, watching Greaves take a photo of the burnt-out field…