After about three hours of walking, we finally made it to a village, or if we can even call it a village. The first thing we noticed upon arriving was the smell. It wasn't hard to know that kind of smell since it was so strong that it made me want to throw up.
The stench of the dead was everywhere.
Dead bodies were scattered everywhere. Some were already in a decaying state while the others were still fresh.
"What on Orion happened to this village!?"
"H-help."
I heard a voice. I looked around hoping to find the owner of the voice but the stench was too much, making me feel dizzy.
Cheru! Locate the owner of the voice!
[Understood]
It took only a few seconds before Cherubim located the exact location of the voice's owner.
[Third house from the left]
I ran towards the house and kicked the door open. Right there in the middle of the messed place, there was a man who was probably around the same age as Leo lying there with a long gaping wound on his stomach.
"H-help!"
Cherubim! Switch self-healing mode to external healing!
[Warning: External Healing is an active sub-skill of Self-Healing. Enemies might detect y-]
I don't care! Just activate the damn skill!
[Understood. Self-healing has now been deactivated, switching to external healing]
[Warning: The subject is on the verge of death, a large amount of mana will be consuming]
Damn it, Cheru. Just do what I say!
[Understood. External healing will now consume mana. Proceed?]
Yes!
[External Healing now activated]
I placed my two hands up above the gaping wound of the human and let my mana flow there down to the wound.
As the man's wound started to heal, I started to feel dizzy.
"Boss! Why the heck did you run like- oh.." I heard Leland enter the house followed by Fenrir and Hel.
"Damn, Summon, you're losing too much mana!"
That was the last thing I heard coming from Hel before I was consumed by darkness.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Hel's smiling face.
"Oh, I'm glad you're awake, Boss. You got us scared back there," she said.
"How long did I sleep?"
"Four days at most. You shouldn't push your body to heal a person on the verge of death. You are careless, Boss. If I wasn't able to settle this to the God of Death, half of your life span might have been taken away."
Oh, that sounds like bad news.
"The man was still alive so I-"
"Boss, death is inevitable. Although that man was clinging for dear life, he was deemed to die. And you disturb the flow of life and death even I, a necromancer, didn't dare to do. Please, no more next time or you'll die."
"Okay, okay I get it. Thank you for your concern, Hel."
Suddenly, the door opened up and Leland with a man whom I didn't know came in.
"Boss, my goodness. I'm glad your awake now. How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine."
I'm fine but I still feel dizzy.
[Noticed: All the mana you had was consumed. Your body undergoes Mana Regeneration. In the absence of a Devourer, your body had to deactivate for three days]
That long?
[Yes]
Ah, this sucks.
"I made a delicious meal, Boss. Wanna try?"
Speaking of food, my stomach started to growl which made Leland look at me knowingly and then smile.
"I'll bring the food right away, boss," he said. "And oh, by the way, this is Froilan. He was the man you saved and the son of the village chief. He had been visiting you every day, wishing to talk to you. So now that you are awake. I'll leave you two." And he turned to the man named Froilan. "Go and deliver the speech that you've been practicing for days." He winked at him and left.
The man bowed down before me.
"Thank you very much for saving me, Sir! I owe you my life. I..starting today, I'll pledge my loyalty."
"Given the situation, you're just going to die," Fenrir commented, who was sitting in the corner of the room.
"Ace, your mouth." Hel a.k.a Violet scolded Ace.
The man was still procrastinating on the floor.
"Oi, what are you doing? Stand up." I said.
The man stood up and now that I looked closer at him, he's a human but covered with a wolf's skin.
He had a huge smile on his face.
"Uhm are you a werewolf?"
"No, sir. I'm a beastskin," he replied and walked closer to me before giving me a half vow.
"Beast skin? What is the difference between beastfolk and beastskin?"
"Ah, beastfolks can't shift into human form while we beastskins can," Foirlan answered.
I decided to get out of the room instead of just laying there doing nothing. According to Hel, they managed to take me to the nearest Village, next to the one we've been to. She said, Ace sensed an incoming force to where we were and if it weren't for Ace's transportation portal, we might have been caught by the incoming force.
Thanks to Foirlan, we were able to hide in his father's house but the entity who was coming for us managed to follow us to the new Village.
Hel said the entity wasn't actually an entity but a man riding on a Dragonoid. He was a knight. People in this village were so afraid of the man. He was threatening the villagers to spill what they knew about us. And to make everything complicated, Fenrir, who was pissed, killed the man and the dragonoid.
Seriously, there's something wrong with Fenrir's temper. I should work on that.
"As long as the body disappeared and there is no trace of murder, we're safe, boss," Hel assured me.
"The village we came into was full of decaying dead bodies. Were they your tribe, Foirlan?"
Froilan shook his head.
"No, they weren't. The village has been empty due to the danger of the dragon living in the ruins. They were the heroes that had been summoned years ago," Froilan replied.
"Heroes?"
Froilan nodded.
"There have been rumors about a prophecy. A hero from another world will come here and save Zephyrus from the corrupt Archon Knight. And when the Archon Knight heard about it, he started to steal the summoned heroes' skills before killing them," Froilan explained. "I was in our house, checking the passage of a mining hole to see if we can start mining again to pay our taxes. I heard a begging voice and when I looked for the source, there were twenty heroes. And I saw the Archon Knight beheading them one by one."
"Aren't the Archon Knight a hero too?" Leland said as lay the dessert before me.
"A hero that lost his way, that's the exact word," Froilan replied. "Otherwise who would in their right mind dump dead bodies near a village? For what reason? To create deadly dungeons full of monsters?"
I looked at Froilan.
"Dungeon, you say?"
"Yes, boss."
"Using heroes' bodies?"
Froilan nodded.
"My father used to be a dungeon observer. He told me a dungeon made with a monster body such us goblins produce a level c type dungeon but with human remains and a hero to be exact, a type of dungeon filled with class A to S monsters and a powerful boss will appear."
"That's dangerous!"
"Worry not, boss. I consumed all the bodies. Rest assured, no dungeon will appear anymore," Hel said.
Between Fenrir and Hel, I would say Hel was more handy than him.
"Alright, we'll check this village out. And also the passage of this mining you were trying to say Froilan."
"Yes, Boss."
The sun was already up when I decided to look around the village. There was nothing special about it but I could see some of the villagers were poor and unfed well like the kids.
"If you walk straight ahead, Mister Troy, you'll find the Medusa village. Medusa village is home to Lamia. They are nocturnal beings and they sleep at night," the Chief explained to me. "The village you passed by before, out village and the Medusa were all considered outcast village by the Palace. We were not protrect by the wind walls."
According to Froilan ealier, Zephyrus has a three-wind wall that separating the towns, city, and villages. City was designated for the noble class, towns for merchants and important and villages were for those living races which considered as nuisance.
The towns, and city were under the protection of the Palace while villagers weren't plus they had to pay mandatory monthly taxes to the palace.
And what do they get for their paid taxes?
None. The Palace treated them as laborers with a tax to pay which was unfair.
I think this village needed a massive change.