Chapter 54: Wreckage II

It soon became clear what Spade was talking about. Leo’s steps slowed, eyes widening as the dark, jagged silhouette of a village came into view. It was small, smaller than Clearside had been, and the path cut cleanly through its center.

Leo rushed forward, ignoring Allan’s call. He didn’t stop until he reached the edge of the village.

Squat, crooked wooden buildings sat in clusters along the road. Strips of wooden planks had been ripped from the walls and left lying in scattered piles. Deep cuts slashed across the buildings’ surfaces, and shattered glass gleamed in the bright light beneath broken windows.

Doors had been torn from their hinges and tossed aside. Stray pieces of furniture, clothes, cookware, and other possessions spilled out of those open doorways and gaping holes, recklessly thrown without a care.

Against that pale wood, dark red stains crusted over.

Bodies lay slumped against walls, limp across the street, open wounds attracting flies where they’d been cut down.

A few dead villagers had crude weapons in hand: kitchen knives and shovels. They’d put up a fight, but in the end, it hadn’t mattered.

Iron and rot mixed into one putrid scent, and Leo instinctively covered his nose as his eyes darted around.

The dirt road was covered in overlapping footprints, making it difficult to discern a clear set of tracks. He cursed under his breath and slowly stepped deeper into the village.

“…What the hell happened here?” he muttered.

Allan crouched over one of the bodies, frowning down at it. “I think,” he said slowly, “they’ve been dead for a few days now.”

Spade nodded in agreement. She peered down at a body slumped against a wall with cool grey eyes. The [Executioner] didn’t hesitate to actually touch the corpses, apparently unbothered by the smell and rot.

“The bodies’ve gone soft,” she remarked, “and there’s some marbling already."

She flipped the corpse over, and Leo cringed when a bloody face was revealed, the upper right half of the skull smashed in.

With the body turned over, it was easier to make out the thin, discolored skin and patches and streaks of blood vessels popping through.

“No bloating or foaming yet, so I’m guessing two days ago,” Spade finished. Allan hummed thoughtfully and stepped closer.

“Is that how you tell?”

“Well I’m certainly not an expert, I’ve just seen a lot of dead bodies,” the [Executioner] said with a chuckle. Allan cocked his head.

“What about the flies? Would that—”

“Guys,” Leo cut him off, voice a bit strained. “Can we save it for later? We don’t even know what happened yet.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” Allan said sheepishly. Spade just shrugged and rose back to her full height. Leo kept looking around.

The damage was extensive; the villagers clearly hadn’t stood a chance. For a second Leo wondered if the Silence had appeared here and this was an Echo attack, but he quickly brushed the idea aside.

An Echo wouldn’t have left so many bodies.

“Bandits?” Allan suggested, and Leo nodded slowly.

That was the most likely explanation, but at the same time, the brutality and thoroughness of the attack was strange. For a village this small, there wouldn’t be much in the way of valuables to begin with. Why waste the effort?

Glancing around, Leo noted that every single building looked like it had been broken into. He turned and, after a moment of hesitation, ducked into the closest house.

The interior was in even worse condition than the exterior. Every drawer had been pulled and turned inside out. Vases were shattered, a dingy couch slashed and its hay stuffing roughly yanked out from the cloth.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Leo frowned and stepped over broken plates and splintered wood. He pushed open an ajar bedroom door and peered inside, only to immediately look away.

Lying face up on the bed, a couple stared lifelessly up at the ceiling. Their bloody chests had been carved open, and organs spilled out from their abdomens.

Leo resisted the urge to retch and took a moment to calm his breathing, then turned and stepped back outside of the building.

“They were definitely looking for something,” he muttered a little hoarsely. He just didn’t know if money was the answer.

The [Fragmentholder] paused. The image of the dead couple was still sharp in his mind, but he forced himself to push past his automatic recoil.

He glanced around at the bodies outside and realized that all of them had been cut open in some way.

An image of Sonia, dagger pointed down at him, flashed in his mind, and he froze.

“Leo?” Allan asked questioningly. The former [Thief] swallowed before turning to the other man.

“I think,” he said slowly, “they were looking for fragments.”

Allan’s eyes widened. He looked to the bodies again, scrutinizing. His voice was quiet.

“…You can rip the fragment out of someone?”

“Sonia seemed to think so.”

The [Healer] looked up, dark eyes flashing with something resembling anger. Leo was quick to shake his head.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” he assured. He smiled wryly. “I definitely wouldn’t be walking around if she’d actually succeeded.”

That seemed to appease the man, and Allan raised an eyebrow.

“You did try to break into a store with a broken hand.”

Leo made an affronted sound and punched the [Healer] good naturedly. “I’m not gonna hear that from you of all people.”

Allan chuckled. For a brief moment, it was almost like they were still in Sindrey’s slums, gathered inside that abandoned building and casually chatting after a long day.

The reality of the situation and their surroundings, however, quickly hit, and Leo sobered.

“…I guess that explains why we haven’t seen many people around.”

While they’d been in Clearside, other groups must have begun hunting fragments—some clearly far more brutal than the Hounds had been. If it had really grown so dangerous, it was no wonder there were less people willing to travel.

“What should we do?”

“Let’s search for survivors,” Leo decided. “There’s not that many buildings. If we split up, we can be done in a few hours.”

Allan and Spade nodded, and the group dispersed.

Leo carefully combed his way through various houses, now more mentally prepared to find the dead bodies inside. Just like the first one, every building had been thoroughly ransacked and destroyed.

Though he couldn’t confirm it, the houses further up the road seemed even more damaged than the first few. Leo wondered if the bandits had gotten increasingly frustrated as they failed to find a fragment. He certainly saw no signs of any, and the fragmentholder map remained vague.

By the time they gathered back together, none of them had found a sign of life. They were a few days too late.

Leo felt bad about leaving the bodies behind, but they didn’t have the time to give them a proper burial.

Hopefully a guard on patrol would spot the place, but he didn’t have a lot of faith in that happening. There was a reason Avel’s citizens were so reliant on mercenary groups for protection, after all.

The trio continued traveling south, the sun now beginning to sink.

Spade soon spotted a stream off to the side of the road, partially obscured in a field of tall, swaying grasses.

They elected to take a detour there to clean up. Their clothes were still covered in dried blood and grime from the fight on the lake, and the search through the ravaged town certainly hadn’t helped any.

While Leo waited his turn to bathe, he practiced flicking his gaze to various locations. He didn’t actually activate [Teleport Object] in case they ran into a fight or the Silence appeared that night and he needed the mana, but he could practice the motions.

It turned out it was harder to get it right than it looked. When he was accurate, he wasn’t fast enough and vice versa. By the end his eyes were feeling sore.

“I’ll take first watch again,” Allan said when he returned. He’d been the last one to use the stream. “Are we staying here tonight?”

Leo frowned up at the sky. There was still some lingering sunlight left, the moon still faint and hazy.

“Well, we could travel a little more,” he said slowly.

“If we wake up early tomorrow, we’ll reach Alnwick before noon,” Spade pointed out.

That was true, if Leo’s memory of the map was correct, and traveling in the early morning was a lot safer than the late evening, when the time of the Silence was so close.

He nodded in agreement, and the group settled in for the night.

Leo curled up near a round grey boulder jutting out from the ground. The tall grasses provided some cover already, but he appreciated having something more solid near him while he slept. Its shadow also helped block out some of the wall of light.

It took some time to fall asleep despite the weariness of traveling all day. The destroyed village and limp bodies still lingered in his mind, as did the fragmentholder counter ticking down.

Leo’s uninjured hand unconsciously moved to his chest as if he could physically feel the fragment there, but there was nothing. Exhaling, he forced his muscles to relax and let sleep take hold of him.

As his breathing finally steadied and the sounds of the night faded around him, a notification flashed just as he slipped into sleep.

[??? has activated the [Dreamscape] spell]