Chapter 959: A bloodbath
Entering the town on their own, the two guys couldn’t stop turning their heads and using their coin to buy snacks, ornaments, and more. It had been a long time since they were able to just do this.
To just enter a town, or a city and enjoy it for what it was. Even though they knew they were here for a reason. As for the second thing, it was the first time they had money available as well.
It seemed like not just Simyon but even Liam had lived a life that was filled with poverty, especially the way they were spending coin.
“Can you guys cool it a little?” Safa asked. “We don’t even have a place where we can put all of this stuff.”
“Don’t worry, I paid a carriage man to look after our excess items and we can use him to head back as well. I don’t think it’s a problem,” Liam said.
“Yes, but you guys are using the money that Raze got, it’s not really our money. He gets allowances from the clans, and he also makes a lot of money from selling his creations. You’ve seen how much he works doing those things in his spare time,” Safa said.
For a moment both Liam and Simyon felt guilty, and after giving their items away, they quickly followed Safa again, and turned their heads more straight onto the task.
“So what are we going to do, are we just going to head into the Rylon Religion and try to do some detective work?” Liam asked.
“Or maybe we can wear disguises, or pretend that we want to become members. Sneak around and find out what they’re up to!” Simyon suggested.
“No, that would take too long,” Safa replied. “First, I think it’s best we pay a visit to the local clan.”
The three were standing in front of a large red door surrounded by a wall, and two guards stood out front. It was the local clan of the area, the Force Clan.
“We are here from the Dark Faction Academy,” Safa claimed. “We would like to have a meeting with your leader. Please let him know we are here.”
The two guards looked at each other, and smiled, they then looked up and down what practically looked like three children in front of them.
“Yeah, and erghh I’m best friends with the Dark Magus, go home kids,” the guard said, and the two of them chuckled.
“Seriously?” Simyon asked. “Is this going to happen every time?”
“This is why I told you, we need a name for ourselves man. Something that everyone can hear!”
“AHH!” The two boys heard screams of pain as they were discussing, and they could see that Safa was holding the spear in her hand. She had whacked one in the leg breaking it, and the other in the face, and slammed his body against the wall causing him to fall to the ground. Right after, she wasted no time as she walked in.
The air around Safa had changed since she had entered the town, and the two needed to quickly follow her lead.
They entered the small courtyard that was filled with trees and plants, and the building in front of them with many members turning their heads to look at what was taking place. One of the guards outside who had been hit in the face, shook his head before shouting. “Intruders… we have intruders attacking us, hurry!” The man shouted at the top of his lungs. Quickly, many of the warriors that were on the inside had rushed and had placed a formation around them. They drew their weapons ready to fight.
“Maybe we just need to look at this as training, and it reminds me of the time when we had to raid all those other clans,” Liam added.
Due to the commotion, it was clear that the head of the clan moved from inside the building. He pushed the sliding door to the side and walked out onto his banister looking at the situation.
He squinted his eyes as he looked at the three in the centre.
“You fools what are you all doing, put your weapons down!” The Clan Head said.
Hearing the Clan Head shout like so, the other warriors immediately put their weapons down. The elder then rushed out, and when in front of them, he placed his knees on the ground. “Please forgive my clan members, your appearance is not known to many,” the man said. “Please forgive me!” In that moment raising his own hands the Clan Head started to slap himself, at the side of his face hitting his cheeks.
He hit them so hard blood was appearing from his mouth. The others watching had no clue what was going on, and then Safa eventually grabbed the Elder’s hand, and with her other hand glowing she treated his cheek with her Light magic.
“You don’t have to do this, it was us who came here unannounced,” Safa said.
The elder remembered well, the Force Clan was also affected by the great attacks that had occurred, and he did well to remember every single person that stood next to the Dark Magus. Not only was he afraid of these three individuals but also the Dark Magus himself.
Seeing how their elder was reacting the two guards at the front couldn’t help but gulp at the scene, wondering what they had done.
“Please tell me, what is the reason you have come to visit us today, is there anything we can do to help?” The elder asked.
The healing on the cheek had come to an end, and Safa leaned back up.
“I came here to inform you that we will be investigating the Rylon Religion. I thought it was only right that we would inform the local clan here of what we are going to do.”
“I want to tell you, that whatever happens, to not get involved, and to keep all of the public away as much as possible.”
Safa turned away without hearing an answer, and the other two followed her.
Hearing those words there was only one thought that was going through the elder’s mind. “It’s going to be a bloodbath,” the elder mumbled.
Chapter 960: Enter The Rylon Religion
Safa had exited from the clan base and was already making her way back through the town’s street, and she had one place on her mind, the church spire that could be seen up in the sky.
She was quick in her stride, and Simyon with Liam weren’t too far behind.
“Hey, are you a little worried about her?” Liam whispered. “I mean, she seems to be a bit different. Like she has too much emotion involved in all of this. I’ve never seen her act like this, although it’s not that I’m saying I don’t like this side of her.”
It was usually then when Simyon would disagree with Liam, to tell him he was talking crazy, or he was thinking with other round objects in his body, but he had to admit, even he was worried.
“Safa,” Simyon said as he caught up and was walking by her side. “What was the point of doing that to the clan? I thought we might be using them, and we’re heading to the church now, so are we going to sneak in, or what? I need to know, we need to know so we can help.” Safa continued to walk forward as she went on to talk.
“According to the report, just like my hometown, deaths of several families have occurred. I don’t know if the clan is involved or not, but they should be well aware of what is happening.”
“There is a good chance that the clan might have set up some type of deal with the religion to turn the other way. I don’t want things to become harder for us. Our visit just then was to tell them not to get in our way.”
Safa could feel that this whole thing was linked, and she was getting upset, as images would return to her mind of her having to hide that day when her family died, when everything was taken away from her.
When she had no power, but now she had the power to fight back, to go after these people, and she wasn’t going to hold back.
The current Rylon religion was located in the city. Taking a turn around the corner, they could see several people coming in and out. They just looked like ordinary citizens and weren’t even Pagna warriors.
At least not from what they could sense. Simyon wanted to stay back and observe a bit more, but that was when Safa walked forward.
“With the system, you can tell right, you can tell if someone is lying?” Safa asked.
“Right… I can tell,” Liam said.
“Good, then come on, let’s head inside.”
All three walked up to the large double doors that were already swung open. There was a man standing on the outside wearing a yellow robe, and he saw the three quickly walk past.
“Wait, I haven’t seen you three before, if you are not part of the Rylon Religion, you need to register first before entering!” the man shouted.
Liam turned around with a smile.
“It’s not a good idea to get in our way, so I’m going to help you for now.” Grabbing the open wooden door, Liam then swung it, and the door crashed into the member that was trying to chase them.
It made a slight bang, which caused those inside the church to turn around and have a look at just what was going on.
After entering through the double doors, they were immediately in the main hall, where there were several benches for those to sit at, at the back a stand, and an image of a large sun with various beams coming off it in different directions.
On the stage, there was another man in yellow clothing.
Safa wasted no time, as she continued to walk down the middle of the aisle between the two sets of benches. Some of the guests were already leaving, worried for what was to happen.
Eventually, Safa stopped in the middle.
‘I can feel a tingling sensation from the Lux Spear. What is it reacting to?’ she thought, the energy inside this place?
“Recently there have been a number of missing people, deaths, as well as family deaths and more that have occurred in this town,” Safa said, with no care for the people around them. “I’ve come here to ask you if you are anyway involved in these deaths!”
After asking her question, out from the halls and the pillars on the side, several more men and women wearing orange robes had come out from the sides.
“What atrocities are you speaking of, we would do no such thing, you are scaring the people, get out of here!” the man on stage shouted.
Safa then looked at Liam, who had only one word.
“Lie.”
“It looks like we’re in the right place after all then,” Simyon said, as his eyes were darting around. For some reason, he didn’t think these church members were just regular members who didn’t know how to fight.
Safa then tapped the side of her head in that moment, activating her god eyes. She could see it – a flow of magic that was appearing from each one of them. It was small but it was on their clothes as well as the rest of their bodies.
When she looked around, she could see a concentrated mass of it under the church as well, in the underground floor. She knew where she needed to go next. When looking up though, she noticed something else: on every single one of the church members, underneath their robe, they had a finger-sized tube hidden.
It was glowing with energy, and it was the same type of energy that she used, light magic was condensed inside.
The church members were asking all of those inside to get out quickly, and when the last of the public were out, they closed both of the doors.
“This is the first time in a long time we have had someone so brazen enter our doors!” the man said as he reached in for the finger-sized vial, and so did the rest of the members.
Chapter 961: Praise The Sun God
All of those that were wearing yellow had the small vials in their hands. They then placed them to their mouths and ripped apart the top with their teeth. Right after, they gulped down the contents inside.
“I have a feeling that those things aren’t so good, so let’s try and stop them!” Liam said as he cloned his sword, and then hurled it in the air right toward one of the men in yellow.
With Liam’s Qi strength and also the nano robots in his body, the sword went through the air fast and was able to pierce and deal with next to no one.
When the sword got close to the man, his eyes glowed white, and expanding out of his body was great energy. It exploded and hit the sword causing it to flip and fall to the floor.
“What was that?” Liam asked.
Safa already had the answer.
“It’s magic, they’re using magic!”
The mages from all different directions lifted up their palms. Their eyes started to glow and beams of energy were shot out toward the trio. Quickly all three of them split apart, as they went to dodge the attacks.
Liam swung his sword hitting one of the large beams of energy and needed to use his Qi to push back against an attack, while another started to come his way. He had to quickly roll out of the way of the other incoming beam and due to them coming from so many different directions, he had no idea where to roll or how to even get close to one of the warriors.
“These beams, I have a feeling they’re going to hurt quite a bit if they hit me!” Liam shouted. There was one person though that wasn’t so much afraid of getting hit. He had activated his lightning body, ready to zap himself around the room to deal with each of them. When the beam of energy hit him though, the lightning aura around him started to disappear.
A burning sensation could be felt on the outside of his skin. However, he wasn’t badly hurt. “What are these guys then, are they mages or what?” Simyon shouted, frustrated he decided to bear the burning sensation, and just ran toward one of the men.
One of the men was quite surprised and focused his constant beam on Simyon. Several of those close started to do the same, and pushed back Simyon’s body with the beams.
His advance had eventually stopped and Simyon was screaming as he tried to push forward. “ARGHHH!!”
As for Safa, she was observing everything, while avoiding the beams as well, and eventually she took out her spear. She spun it in her hands as a beam of energy came from the front. When it hit the spear, the energy coated around it.
It almost looked like the spear itself had absorbed the energy, and she could feel even greater power in her.
‘It is the same type of magic, it’s Light magic, and the Lux Spear can do some impressive things, I wonder if it can do something similar back!’
Stopping the spin of her spear she then thrusted it forward and Light magic appeared out of the tip. She often used this power to heal others but now she was using it as a force.
It hit one of the robed men and lifted them off their feet until their body crashed into the wall causing them to pass out.
The other robed men had no clue what was happening and started to focus their attacks on Safa, but spinning her spear she was able to block them and redirected the energy blasts toward them.
This finally gave Liam a chance to use his swords in his throwing manner as well. Even attracting them to a fallen point from before.
Eventually, Simyon had pushed through and grabbed one right by the waist and ran into the wall with another, and then, there was only one left in the room.
Safa leapt from her position and reached the stage, she stabbed the spear right in the man’s shoulder and pinned him upright against the wall.
“What is going on here right now? What is the Rylon religion doing!” Safa asked. “Why is it that you guys can use magic? What’s going down in the underground basement.”
The old man who had been stabbed in the shoulder, he just smiled and laughed, his eyes shined bright, and Safa could see it, his own magic from within him, it was burning him up inside, it was taking his own life.
“Our sacrifice is for the Sun God!” were the man’s last words, before his life had ended.
“I thought I would get more answers,” Safa said as she pulled out her spear, but wondering what had happened to the man, she tapped the side of her head and activated her god eyes once more.
She could see trails of magic not just coming from the man, but coming from every single one of the members that they had taken out. The trails of magic were leading down, to the same area she had seen before, they were going down to the basement.
“Come on, let’s see what’s going on!” Safa said, as she rushed ahead, and the two boys followed.
“Good work there, strong body man!” Liam chuckled. “I saw you managed to at least take one out.”
“If Safa didn’t do all of the work, then you would have taken none out,” Simyon shouted back. Safa eventually led them to the staircase and they had quickly gone down the stairs. A foul stench wafted into their faces, a smell that they were familiar with before. Going underground, it was a familiar feeling to their past experience as well.
When they eventually reached the bottom, Safa raised her hand and Light magic was cast allowing them to see the whole scene.
“Just what were they… doing?” Simyon asked.
The underground basement was filled with bodies. Bodies had been piled up in the corner. Blood was splattered across the floor, as if they had been sacrificed. Then oddly there was a chair centered around the back.
If it was the first time the group had seen something like this, they would have struggled but, it wasn’t the first time for them, but it still came as a shock.
As Safa moved forward, she went to the chair placed in the centre. There was a man sitting in the chair tied up, his life had already been taken from him, but she noticed something on the
ground.
“I’ve seen these before, in the books that Raze lent me. It’s a magic circle.” Safa said.
“What does it do?” Simyon asked. “What were they doing here with all of this?”
“I have no idea. Liam, can you make note of this magic circle every single detail? There’s one person that will know what this magic circle will do.”
“Raze right, maybe he can shed some light on what was happening.” Liam said. “I’ll make note of it, I’ll be able to draw it perfectly again. But what are we going to do now, go back to the clan, head back to the academy and see if Raze is there.”
“No.” Safa answered. “It’s clear the Rylon religion is up to something, that’s obvious. I think we might be able to find more answers at the other churches. I want to head to my hometown, the closest church to my hometown. I’m sure we’ll find answers then.”
Just as they were leaving the place, Liam noticed something in the dark.
It was scratched out on one of the walls.
“Praise the Sun God, praise the Grand Magus…?”
Chapter 962: All Roads Lead to One Place
Anna had left the Dark Faction Academy for a while now, with one task on her mind, and that was to find Charlotte. It was the request of Raze, and more importantly, it was something she knew Himmy would have wanted as well.
Although part of Alter, like her, she had abandoned it and was on the run. When Rayna had given the order to get rid of all of those belonging to Alter, Anna had also eliminated said members. Charlotte was in the Dark Faction-that was the most likely probability.
From those she had interrogated so far, some were on her trail, following her from town to town, but she always managed to give them the slip now or then.
Right now, Anna was walking through the streets of a rather small town, the last location someone from Alter had seen her.
‘Charlotte did well to avoid them. I guess Himmy had taught her well, and with her magic she could give them the slip rather easily,’ Anna thought. ‘But things have gotten incredibly hard now. With all of the deaths of Alter members, I doubt there are any left in the Dark Faction.’
‘Either they’re dead, or have already pulled out of the area, so there’s no one I can really interrogate anymore.’
Anna was slightly worried as well. The sad part about all of this was Charlotte was probably still living in fear, afraid that at any point and time someone from the organization would be out to get her, even though it was perfectly safe.
Eventually, Anna looked at one of the buildings and then jumped up from her position, using part of the housing as footing, and landed on the flat roof. She looked out over the town to see what there was close by.
“I have to think of all of this logically. With how much time she’s been on the run, she would have run out of money. So she had to survive somehow?” Anna started to calculate, and with help from her system she could figure a lot of these things out.
She observed the mostly red rooftops of the houses, and even saw a small clan.
‘If I remember correctly, the clan here is known as the Red Brigade, but would the warriors know anything? They would have gotten the order to take out those from Alter as well, right?’
It was the only lead she had, and so she decided to venture out to the local clan base. Upon arriving, there wasn’t much problem with Anna going in through the doors.
The guards had told her to wait a few moments as they ventured and got one of the elders from the inside. After, they had invited Anna inside and were willing to answer any questions she had.
“So you say that you were ordered to come here by the Dark Magus?” the elder asked.
“Not quite. I’m looking into something, but it could be related to the order you received recently,” Anna explained. “I’m looking for a woman with orange hair. She’s quite short and appears to have passed through this town.”
“If you don’t know anything, I was hoping that there might be others that do know something -the members of Alter.”
The man stroked his beard and shuddered slightly as he heard the name.
“I’m afraid Alter members haven’t visited this town for quite a while. I believe it was since that incident, where a man wearing long clothing had entered. Come to think of it, I believe that woman also had bright orange hair that was with him at the time?”
Anna blinked a few times. An orange-haired duo with a large man-that sounded exactly like Himmy and Charlotte, but how was that possible? She had seen Himmy’s head.
“But that was months ago, and it seems like you are looking for someone who was here more recently. Since then, no people from Alter have answered our call,” the elder explained.
Anna somewhat sulked as she realized that it must have just been a mission that Himmy and Charlotte were on in the past, a mission that had been done without her. With nothing else, all she could do was guess what Charlotte would do, and try to follow her movements.
“Thank you for your time,” Anna said, standing up and giving a bow, getting ready to leave.
The old man suggested he escort her out, feeling bad about what happened. As they walked through the open area toward the gate, Anna thought about asking the old man what had happened back then, to have Himmy and Charlotte here, but there was a commotion at the gate.
“Please, I need someone to help me! I just need you guys to listen to me!” a voice pleaded. “Just relax, young one. The elder is currently in a meeting. We will inform him of your problems, but you just have to wait,” the guard replied.
“We can’t wait! If we wait any longer, who knows what will happen to her. Please, I can’t do anything by myself, I can’t, I can’t!” the young man continued to plead.
Anna, walking with the elder, waved the man off; she didn’t need an escort and informed him that he could deal with the kid’s problems. Maybe another person would have stopped to listen to the young one’s worries and helped out.
But Anna had her own problems, and she was in the middle of something herself-not that if she wasn’t she would have helped; she was just not that type of person. As Anna walked past, she continued past the young man on his knees, and the elder had eventually reached the walls.
“Please, you have to help me!” the young man pleaded. “My friend, she was taken by the church. The one just up the hill. I need warriors, we need warriors to save her. They’re strong, and they’re using strange powers, like some type of magic. Please, you have to help them.”
The elder wished to comfort the young man, as in this state there wasn’t much he could do, and the church wasn’t even part of the town’s jurisdiction in the first place. For clan members to get involved would be a hard task.
“Did you say magic?”
The boy looked up, a bandage covering one of his eyes, at the strange woman in front of him.
“This girl, your friend that you’re talking about, she didn’t happen to have orange-colored hair, did she?” Anna asked.
Chapter 963: The Sun God Revealed
Slowly, Charlotte’s eyes started to flutter open. At first, she could only see a blur in front of her, as her eyes were out of focus. All of the energy felt like it had been drained out of her body and was still being drained now. Her body didn’t even want to focus on what was in front of her and around her.
Using what will she had, she attempted to move her hands, but it was impossible. All she could tell was they were behind her back, and she could feel her feet planted on the ground.
‘Am I in some type of chair, tied up?’ Charlotte thought, but even her mind was foggy due to her energy levels being low. ‘I can’t even muster up any mana or anything. What happened? I can’t even remember properly.’
Although she didn’t remember how she had gotten here, wherever here was, she was remembering what had occurred before.
‘I was helping Sunder out. Those from the Church, they were attacking him, just like I thought they would, and then they all used that illegal substance-it gave them magical powers.’
Charlotte was a 3 star mage, and she was quite versatile in her magic abilities. She could deal with one who had magical powers, but multiple ones were a tall task.
The moment she had been struck from behind by the strange power, more beams of energy were hitting her. As a last resort, she had decided to muster all of her Wind magic and blow Sunder as far away as she could. After he landed off in the distance, the last thing she saw was him running away to the city.
‘Wait, that’s not quite right. They didn’t even bother to chase after Sunder. It was after they had learned that I was a mage, they decided to focus on me instead.’
Finally, her vision was becoming clearer, and her other senses were starting to work as well. A foul stench had filled her nose. Her vision returning allowed her to see she was in a dark room; it was dimly lit with a few lights in the corner from some sort of glowing stones.
However, she wished she couldn’t see, as the sight in front of her was a tragedy. Countless bodies were on the floor, their bodies either pierced through the stomach or slit by the throat, lying on the floor.
Her gag reflex almost activated, but it was almost as if her body couldn’t even do that. She couldn’t throw up due to how weak she was feeling.
“Mm!…Mmm!..Mm!”
Turning her head to the side, Charlotte noticed that she wasn’t alone in the room. Her guess was correct; she was sitting in a chair, tied up, her hands close to the back of the room, but in the space there were two more, who had blindfolds on, as well as their body parts tied.
The thing was, Charlotte recognized them.
“You two, you’re from the Church as well… they brought you here as well, what for?” Charlotte wanted to shout out; she wanted to use her magic to cut their bindings and get answers, but there was nothing.
Looking around to see if there was something she could use, that’s when she spotted a poor boy down by her side, already life lost from him.
“No… Harper… Harper… no… no, no!” Charlotte thought as she shook her head frantically. She didn’t want to look at the young boy, who had no reason to lose his life, but when she did, she noticed there was something different about Harper compared to the rest.
For one, there were no cuts on his body, no blood, yet his life had clearly ended. When she looked under his body, she could see a magic circle drawn underneath him. It was a formation she hadn’t seen before, and she was too low a star level to even have any idea of what it could accomplish.
When she looked down below her own chair, she noticed the same.
“A magic formation under me as well, and then there are links.”
A magic circle was drawn around her and her chair. Then branching off, a line could be seen connected to the two that were tied up. Equally, there were two more magic circles around them as well.
The image, if one was to look from a bird’s eye view, looked a lot like that of the images in the Church-of the sun, and connected links streaming off from it.
In the middle of her thoughts as she tried to figure out what was happening, she heard footsteps. Eventually coming out from the stairs were three dressed in robes, and at the center of them all was Carl.
“You… you!” Charlotte tried to go after him, but all she could muster up were a couple of words.
Carl eventually walked up to Charlotte and stood a few meters away from her.
“You ruined my plans, you know, but it’s no wonder since you are a mage,” Carl said. “It’s the first time I’ve actually managed to get my hands on one.”
“But look at this!” Carl said, pointing toward the two that were tied up. “Because of you, there aren’t enough sacrifices to perform the ceremony. Although, there’s a chance because you’re a mage that things could work better.”
“After all, it’s you mages and your power that are able to form links between different worlds, right?” Carl smiled.
In all honesty, Charlotte had no clue what Carl was even talking about. Them creating bridges or what this magic circle was for.
“This ceremony is twofold. We use the sacrifices to call and link with those above. They are always observing and watching us,” Carl explained. “Then that goes down and gets stuck in you. After that, we extract the energy from you and deliver it to our Sun God.”
“That is your duty-you are to be used as a pass-through project, in order to allow us to gain great strength. It doesn’t always work though, and at times the energy we have is used to make various weapons or tools that we can use as well.”
“Our god has given us a lot, and we have to pay him back for all the miracles he has solved. We pass on all the energy from the realm above to Gizin, our Sun God.”
The moment Charlotte heard the name, she was left with deep confusion. Gizin-a name very familiar in the world of Alterian; there wouldn’t be a single person, mage or not, who wouldn’t know him. As they were the largest supplier of pharmaceuticals for the general public and mages, creating medicine and even special clothing to enhance the lives of the people, he was one of the Grand Magus.
Chapter 964: Visiting The Start
The trio had finally arrived at the medium-sized village, and it was a place that had brought back big memories for a couple of them. Walking down the streets this time, it was the first in their journey where they had seen Safa slow down her pace.
As they were walking, Simyon pulled Liam by the scruff of his shirt.
“Hey, I need to mention something to you and it’s pretty serious,” Simyon said. “This village, it’s Safa’s hometown. So she’s going to have a lot of memories and feelings going through this stuff, so calm down on the intensity.”
“What do you mean intensity?” Liam replied. “Are you saying I’m insensitive? I think I’m more aware of things than you.”
Liam wasn’t joking with his reply either; thanks to his system, the subtle movements in the muscle structure of one’s face told him how one was feeling or the emotion they were portraying. Still, it didn’t mean he knew how to deal with it.
“Also, isn’t this your hometown as well?” Liam asked.
Simyon shook his head. “The three of us met at the same orphanage which was located close to this town but not really a part of it,” Simyon explained. “I was from another village that was destroyed due to a portal break, and I lost everything. So the town itself, I have no attachment to, and I’ve somewhat dealt with my demons. I’m just not sure Safa has done.”
There was a lot of regret with Simyon originally—his sister sacrificing herself for him, him not being strong enough to do anything, and wanting to be as strong as the Pagna warrior that saved his life.
Because of this, he had become a shield, a strong shield, and he couldn’t let the past hold him back but have it try to push him forward.
While walking around, they had gone down an alleyway, away from the marketplace. There were still people selling items but it was with a rag on the floor, handing out vegetables or trinkets for coin.
As they walked, a few times Safa had even given them coin, without asking for anything in return, and the two boys didn’t say anything.
Until they had eventually stopped. Safa stared at a wooden house that connected to a row of other houses. It was slightly slanted on its side.
“Is this your old home?” Simyon eventually asked.
Safa nodded and continued to look at the door, until it creaked open. She saw a young child inside wearing just a long shirt that covered their knees; it was filthy.
“Mum, there’s a few strange people outside staring at our house!” the young boy shouted.
“Come on, let’s go,” Safa said, as they wandered off.
“Wait, don’t you want to go inside and have a look around?” Simyon asked.
“What I’m wondering is if they aren’t family members then how did they even get inside the house,” Liam added.
“It doesn’t matter; most likely they learned of what had happened. I don’t even know who got the rights to the house after our parents passed away and we moved from that. I don’t think there are many that would want to live in a house of death anyway,” Safa said. “If it can at least provide some shelter for another family, then that’s fine with me.”
After visiting the house, Safa didn’t say much, but they had grabbed some food to eat, and then she said they should head to the nearby church, which came as a surprise to Simyon.
“Wait, don’t you want to go anywhere first? Do you want to head to the clan, or to the orphanage to see if everything is okay?” Simyon asked.
Safa shook her head. “That would just be distractions right now,” Safa replied. “Right now I want to focus on the task. We know the Red Brigade aren’t involved this time—they wouldn’t be. Besides, the more time we spend, who knows how many more lives could be lost.”
With the three in agreement, they decided to head off. It had been a while, so Simyon was looking forward to heading to the orphanage again; he thought maybe he could teach them a few things he would have liked to have been taught back then.
However, as he thought about his hometown and Safa’s place of origin, a deep thought did enter his mind in all of this, and he had to ask.
“Liam…what clan are you even from? We’ve traveled quite a lot through the Dark Faction and we haven’t run into your hometown, have we? I mean, don’t you want to go home or anything?”
“Yeah, home, I guess I haven’t gone home. I didn’t even go home during the break, did I? Well, my home is wherever I am, so there’s no need for that. Besides, don’t you think all of this talking is going to slow us down? Come on!” Liam said, going slightly ahead of the other two.
Now, it was Safa and Simyon that were turning to each other.
“Did he just completely avoid the question?” Simyon asked.
“He did. Come to think of it, we don’t know much about Liam, do we?” Safa replied.
Liam was the most talented individual not from a big-name family. That was all they knew, and through a series of coincidences he had ended up coming along with them and getting the power of a system from another world.
Although Simyon found Liam incredibly annoying, he had been with them through it all, in every situation always willing to fight. Yet they knew nothing about him, and for a moment both of them felt bad.
However, the issue at hand that they were going through now was the bigger thing.
“If he needs to speak to us about it, he will, and when we can we’ll help him as well. It’s because of him I might find out everything to do with my brother,” Safa answered.
They had long exited the town, and now having reached just over the hill, they could see the church in the distance.
