In front of us was a wooden house that looks different compared to the houses we investigated. It stands intact even after removing all the remains of the boss.
I knocked on the door just in case but still ended up busting through it because no one answered after a while. Nothing was stopping us coming inside besides the rotten smell spreading out when I pushed the door open.
Retching sounds can be heard behind me when they sniffed what was coming to them. I was able to avoid doing the same thing because I have already turned down my game settings for olfactory senses down to the lowest.
*Gasping* "How can you proceed like nothing, Cherry?"
"Turn down the settings."
That should have done the trick because Michelle was able to walk straight after moving her fingers navigating through her interface. I cannot believe she does not know about it, and she forced herself through all those awful smelling monsters we just faced. Maximizing the realism of the game is what I thought she did, but I guess not.
"This smells like it is coming from a decaying human corpse. It should be nearby based on the intensity of pungent odour it gives."
"How do you know what it smells like?-- Never mind, I don't want to know."
Despite having my sense of smell to the lowers, that does not mean I cannot smell anything. It is just that it is not as intense as what would I think it would be if it were the default settings.
Amazingly, Fifty Silver was right, and we were able to find skeletal remains of a single person lying down on a rotting bed. This would be the first time I saw the remains of a dead person or at least what I think before realizing that this is still a game.
"This body is already long dead, but it still smells this much?"
"Just the game design, I guess?"
After careful inspection of everything inside the room, we conclude that there is no hint of anything being left behind except a book the skeleton was holding on to his chest.
"ChickB, take the book."
"Wah! Are you serious, Leader? Isn't disrespectful to the dead?
"You're chickening out? It's just some skeleton. The worst we can get is another boss battle."
"If you say so... Why don't you do it yourself Lead-!!! Okay, I'm on it."
Aria gave him the glare that says nothing will change her mind or else something bad will happen. She hates these kinds of stuff as usual to the point she might kill someone if you ask her to get any closer of the remains.
Since called out, ChickB proceeds slowly to the corpse while checking for any possible strange movements. He excused himself first before moving the hand holding the book away. Some bone fingers were caught stuck on the pages resulting in Aria shivering while ChickB hands her the book.
"Any of it still readable?"
"Barely. There's a page filled with words, but besides that, the rest is blank or torn apart. Wait a minute, I'm going to copy and paste to our chatbox."
"How convenient that you can actually do that."
It did not take long or the content of the book to show on our chatbox. There is actually a lot to read because I need to scroll up again to see the start of the paragraph.
[13th day…
It's almost been 2 weeks ever since I summoned that 'Devil'. I can't believe I am still alive despite how it killed everyone and anyone who steps into this village. I feel like the reason it was keeping me alive because it enjoys letting me see the horrible deaths of the people I know one by one. I am afraid that after the last person has fallen to its fangs, it won't have any reason to keep me alive.
But I don't want to play to its game.
I am going to take my own life before that demon takes it first.
I can never show myself in front of my people in the afterlife. No, I won't even have the chance to.
As much as I regret dealing with that devil for the false promise of dealing the starvation of my people, I can never excuse myself for even being tempted to begin with and use my own people as a sacrifice.
For whoever sees this, I hope you won't have the same faith as me and my people. Never say its name no matter the situation is. Chaos only waits once this thing finds your weakness…]
"I suppose he is talking about the 'Devil's Tooth monster. But isn't it too weak to have this kind of backstory?"
"What's with the creepy story. It even mentioned demons and sacrifice. Do demons even exist in this game?"
"Well Vice Leader, I checked the forums while you were reading that and there is no mention of demons or any close relation to that. Maybe demon looking monsters, but no demons coming from other places than New World."
I also confirmed ChickB's words it by browsing through the NWF myself. The thing that only showed up on my search were item descriptions that mention demons or devils somewhere between the lines.
"I don't care about that. There's no mention how to take over this land."
"Don't shrug it off just like that, Aria. Maybe there are clues regarding this story."
"No!!! There is no such thing as ghost and devils."
"Well, this is a game, so anything is possible."
Aria was being illogical because of here fear, but she has a point. There were no instructions or whatever indicating that this place can be salvaged. Rather, it makes it more complicated because as the story said, the 'devil' was supposed to be summoned here.
As someone who does not want to give up on this village, I look at any hidden clues that may lead to anything while my group was calming down Aria.
"Oh~ What've we got here."
"What is it, Cherry? Please not related to any supernatural stuff or we need to calm down Aria again."
*Nervous laugh* "Who said I'm scared… What you got there, Cherry."
It was clear that Aria was still shaking with her voice sound so meekly. Michelle has somehow calmed her down. I should be careful how to introduce this because what I am holding is something creepy.
A half-scorched half-bitten doll was hiding under the skull of the village head. We have missed on this first because of the book being a clear emphasis to take but looking closely this thing, it looks more out of place compared to the book.
I was thinking about my choice of words when showing this thing when suddenly a ting inside my head ring.
[Estro Village]
There it is.