Chereads / The demon war / Chapter 44 - CHAPTER 44: something near the wall

Chapter 44 - CHAPTER 44: something near the wall

A few hours passed and some of the nuns had managed to fall asleep despite the cold.

It seemed that I was asleep for longer than I thought, since the sun was already starting to rise. It wouldn't take long before we needed to move in order to catch up with the villagers.

A rustle far of in the grass caught my attention. It came from the direction of the village. Due to the wind blowing in the wrong direction and how hard it was to detect the soulless creatures I had no way of telling what it was.

Whatever was walking around was walking between the barrier of furniture and the wall. This caused it to be blocked out of my view.

I suspected that if it was a soulless monster, it was unlikely to attack without the orders of the demon who had fallen in the previous battle. But I didn't know for sure.

It also was a possibility that it was one of the prior villagers. All of them had remained in the village after the attacks. Maybe due to nostalgia.

I decided not to investigate and wait for whatever was walking around that area to come out on itself.

I lifted my gaze from the wall to the nuns. They had brought blankets to block out the cold, but they didn't build a fire, because it could be that there were still monsters that I somehow wasn't able to detect lurking around.

At least that was the explanation they gave me. But I doubted that if such a creature was nearby it would be as hard to deal with as that demon. I didn't gave any objections. If they felt that they were safer without a fire, then I wasn't in the position to stop them.

I sprung up when a loud cracking sound came from the direction of the village.

The nun with the freckles noticed my sudden movement. However, before she could ask any questions I already said. "There is something near the wall."

With that se remained quiet. And I quickly made my way over to the former village.

The damage to the village was really bad. The outer walls, as well as some of the walls of the houses were completely broken. With this one could look directly at the broken bridges that ran over the paths of water, no longer connecting the left side of the street to the right side.

Monster corpses were still floating in between the houses. Despite being killed yesterday, the chunks of monster meat released a horrid smell that gave me the idea that they were burning my lungs from the inside out.

I frowned upon seeing the damaged scenery of my surroundings, but still continued to move forward.

I reached the origin of the sounds. It was an elderly man. His hair was white, and he no longer possessed teeth. The left half of his face was an unnatural purple-ich colour, and his eye was absent along with some of the hair on that side of his head.

The cracking sound he created came from how he pushed the furniture aside in order to get through it. and the already heavily damaged obstacles broke when falling over.

I grabbed the man by his neck and pulled him out of the pile of furniture. When he landed on his feet, he clumsily stumbled a little before finding his balance. His clothes were dirty and was hanging lose around his thin body.

His back was bent, but I was unable to tell if it was due to old age or due to the corruption that was clearly present.

He looked at me with his last remaining soulless grey eye before he fell to his knees.

Then he started to mumble something. His words were unrecognisable as a result of the absence of teeth and the damage done to the insides of his mouth.

"Try to speak louder!"

I was slightly irritated by the mumbling of the old man.

He looked up again and spoke louder. With some effort I could make out. "Please… kill me. I…I want to feel again."

Confused I took a step back. But the man crawled further in my direction. Blood slowly dripping from the wounds obtained by making is way trough the broken wall and furniture.

("he seems to be unhindered by those wounds unless they make him physically unable to do the movements. Should I let him live to ask him how Theseus did this to him? Information like that could be useful.")

But the man continued to beg for death. Tortured by the complete absence of his soul. Yet he would display no emotion during the entire time.

I sighed wen looking at the pitiful existence of the man. ("It wouldn't be of any use to let this man live. Being alive without a soul is simply to cruel.") with that I lifted the man up by his neck once again, only this time I snapped it in the prosses. But not even the sweet release of death could make this man smile in his last moment.

This left me to wonder what I should do with the remaining ones. I had no idea how the corruption started, let alone how to reverse or even just stop it.

Yet the escaped villagers wanted their loved ones to return. ("If all of them were in that state, it would be brutal to let them live. But if I were to kill them the villagers would blame me.")

The ones where the corruption had jet to spread to the outside looked normal to other humans. They wold have no idea that they were suffering this much. If I killed those corrupted humans, the villagers would think that I killed someone who still had a chance of healing. And maybe they did. Maybe those who still had a soul could be healed.

But at the moment there was no way of telling.

Eventually I decided to explain the situation to the broken humans. And make them chose for themselves. If they themselves wanted to live, it would be far less cruel. And if even one of them would remain alive. Then that person could explain that they all wanted to die, and the villagers hopefully wouldn't blame me.

I flew over the wall and found nearly all the people in the centre of the village. Some were emotionless others were quietly suffering from the pain brought upon them by their damaged souls.

I started to worry what I would do if they all chose to die.

A few turned their heads to me when I landed in the centre of the small crowd.