Ou'Ki was intrigued at these humans who came from another world, so he sent another ball of light towards Miyu, to see what would happen.
Similar to what happened earlier, Miyu only froze for half a second before she resumed fighting the zombies with her bow.
"Oho. Maybe this is a characteristic of the people from another world?"
Ou'Ki continued watching them for a few more minutes before he left and flew back to the Tree of Life.
***
"Whew... Miyu, are you getting used to killing these zombies now?"
"Mhmm. It's not so bad because I don't have to fight them up close like you."
"Haha. Sounds like you should pick a ranged class later on. This definitely isn't the last zombie we're going to fight in our lives.
Kio and Miyu made their way towards Fae's house again while keeping up their guard. They eventually passed the area with the bodies of the four zombie wolves.
Thinking back to the fight from yesterday, Kio breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good thing neither of us got injured by these wolves yesterday."
"Yep. I was so worried when one of them almost scratched your head."
"Yea, I narrowly avoided it."
At the entrance to Fae's home, he thought it was safe for now since his [Threat Detection] didn't warn him of anything. With a max distance of 25 meters, he knew it wouldn't cover the whole house, but at least it meant the entryway was clear of zombies.
Kio opened the door and walked in, with Miyu following close behind.
The hallway and living room looked awful, as if a war zone occurred there. The walls were destroyed, and the furniture were all ripped to shreds. There were also slash marks all over the place.
As they walked deeper into the house, they saw the corpses of many species, such as humans, elves, goblins, and orcs.
"It stinks."
"Yea. I don't know what happened here, but the stench of blood is really strong. Are you going to be fine, Miyu?"
"Mhmm. But I don't want to stay here for too long."
"I'll make it quick. I just want to check if there's anything we can take inside. We also need to see what happened here."
Further down the hallway, they heard something from one of the rooms.
*Urrgh...*
Kio's [Threat Detection] only warned him of a small danger inside, so he wasn't too worried. He slowly opened the door to take a peek, causing a creaking sound that was quite loud in contrast to the quietness of the house.
When the door was halfway opened, Kio noticed the figure of a young elven boy walking in their direction. He already knew that the boy turned into a zombie, due to the missing piece of flesh on his shoulder and limbs, so Kio quickly killed him to end his misery.
Although he sort of guessed it already, the boy turned out to be Felix, the younger brother of Fae, who he had rescued back at the slave building.
"Sigh… Looks like he didn't manage to escape with everyone else."
"Is this…?"
"It's Fae's younger brother. You didn't interact with him much, so you might not remember him, but he traveled with us for a few days. Although his appearance is slightly different after he turned into a zombie."
"Oh no… How did this happen?"
"I'm not sure, but at least the other girls are safe at the moment because they are still showing up in our [Minimap] party function."
While Miyu was upset over the death of somebody she was acquainted with, she saw something on Felix's arm.
"Kio, let's take this bracelet and give it to Fae when we meet up with her."
"Sure."
Miyu crouched down and picked up the bracelet. It looked handcrafted, with a few objects attached to it like a keychain. She then stored it into her inventory, before standing up again and looking at Kio, to indicate that she was ready to continue exploring the house.
Kio nodded and continued down the hallway, where he soon received a huge danger signal from his [Threat Detection].
"Miyu, stick close to me. There's something dangerous down there."
"Mkay."
Miyu walked closer to him and grabbed hold of the back of his shirt. They both cautiously moved forward while observing their surroundings, to minimize the chances of getting ambushed by whatever danger is lurking inside the house.
As they reached the end of the hallway, there was a closed door in front of him. Kio's senses have been warning him nonstop ever since he was notified of the danger here. His instinct was telling him to leave immediately, because he wouldn't be able to handle whatever it is on the other side of the door.
*Gulp*
It wasn't just him, he noticed Miyu was also shivering in fright behind him, since he could feel it through his clothes.
He turned around and patted Miyu a few times on the head to calm her down.
"Miyu, it's okay. I'll be here to protect you. However, be ready to use the Return Stone immediately if the situation turns bad."
Miyu nodded as her shivering slowly subsided.
Kio proceeded to slowly open the door, peeking at whatever is on the other side of it.
He noticed the figure of a man, although its appearance couldn't be completely seen due to the darkness inside the room. The windows were blocked by what appeared to be overgrown roots, making the room effectively sealed if not for the doorway between them.
After Kio's eyes adjusted a little bit to see into the darkness, he noticed the figure had its back facing them. Although he wasn't completely sure, he had a hunch that it was Eldun, because there shouldn't be anyone else in their home that would fit the description.
However, the reason why he wasn't completely sure was because that man had two arms, although one of them was slightly irregular. The man's right arm was twice the size of his left arm, with a few bones sticking out of its joints.
Miyu felt a sense of dread as she clenched onto Kio tightly, unwilling to look at that figure for another second.
"Eldun? Is that you…?" Kio voiced out, as he wanted to confirm his guess.
The moment that figure heard him, it turned around to look at the source of the voice.
Kio saw the lifeless expression on that figure, as he confirmed it was indeed Eldun. However, half of the flesh on his face was deformed, as there were boils all over it.
This was the first time he saw anything like that, so Kio instinctively raised his sword in a defensive position to be ready to react immediately.
A few seconds after the figure turned its head towards Kio, it disappeared from its original spot.
*Shatter*
Before Kio could even react to the sound of something shattering, the figure already made its next move.
*Snap*
Following the sound of something breaking, Kio felt his chest cave in as his body was launched backwards into the hallway he entered from.
Kio painfully looked behind him as he was still flying from the impact. Luckily, there was a shadow at the spot where they were landing at, so he quickly used his [Shadow Step] to dive down.
The moment he entered the shadows, he spat out a mouthful of blood in front of him. He quickly checked on his wounds as he noticed an imprint of a fist on his chest.
"Fuck. I didn't even see him move. And how come he looks so different now? Did his body mutate...?"
Kio looked behind him and noticed Miyu was unconscious. Although she wasn't directly hit, some of the damage was transferred to her due to how close she was to Kio.
"Shit."
He quickly lifted her up and exited the shadow, moving as far as possible from their current location. He already had [Haste] applied the moment they entered the house, so he quickly dashed a few hundred meters away.
After running for a minute, he stopped and hid behind a tree as he felt he couldn't run anymore. Although his injuries were causing him to have difficulty breathing, he wanted to check up on Miyu first.
Initially, he wanted to pour a potion into Miyu's mouth, but it wasn't a smart move to do so when she's unconscious, so he just laid her flat on the ground for now.
He drank the potion to heal his own wounds first, before he lifted her onto his back. He then tied her body to him with a piece of cloth because he didn't want her to randomly fall off if he needed to move around.
Kio was surprised at how quick the potion worked since he felt his chest wasn't as painful as before. He then took a peek from the side of the tree towards the direction of Fae's house.
There was no sign of any movement at the moment, so he breathed a deep sigh of relief as he planned to use the Return Stone.
However, he just realized something disastrous that would prevent their escape.
"How is Miyu going to use the Return Stone?!"