It was remarkable how recent events in my life seemed to have veered toward knowledge, pushing money and greed into the background. I still wasn't sure whether to trust Vorax to help me find what I'd been searching for, especially considering his cynical interest in devouring my sins. And now, as if fate wanted to test me further, I had this task that promised some sort of forbidden knowledge. Was this the answer to my questions, or just another trap?
"You're unusually quiet," Aria commented, breaking through my thoughts as we walked toward the town's bar.
"I'm just thinking about what I'll order when we get there," I replied, offering a trivial excuse to dodge the growing unease within me.
"You know we're not here to drink," Aria said, casting me a sidelong glance.
"Not necessarily," I shot back with a wry smile. "You'll do your job, and I'll enjoy a good drink."
"You're incorrigible," she muttered, but let the matter drop.
As we entered the bar, the atmosphere was exactly what I expected: old wooden walls, dimly lit tables, and the heavy air of a place that had once been lively but now felt like a graveyard. The bartender watched us from behind the counter. As we approached, he greeted us with a forced smile, as though the darkness looming over the town was just a bad dream.
"Oh! The travelers, right? What can I get you?" he asked, his voice sounding more cheerful than I'd anticipated, lacking the paranoia he'd shown earlier when warning us about the evil haunting the town.
"We're not here to drink," Aria began, but I quickly cut her off.
"Your best whiskey on the rocks, my friend," I said, once again with no intention of following her rules.
Aria shot me a fiery glare but eventually gave in. The bartender set to work preparing my drink, though his hands trembled slightly. There was something off about him, and I couldn't shake the suspicion that he knew more than he was letting on.
Aria, realizing she couldn't control the situation, decided to strike. Her expression turned cold and calculating.
"What do you know about Lira?" she asked, her tone commanding.
At the mention of the name, the bartender visibly paled. His shaky hand faltered for a moment before he resumed pouring the liquor, though his movements were mechanical.
"Nothing that the priest hasn't already told you…" he replied, his tone attempting indifference, though it was laced with nervousness.
I watched him closely. Something wasn't right about his response. There was a deliberate evasion in his words that I couldn't ignore.
"You're hiding something," I stated in a low but firm voice, almost as if it were a certainty.
The bartender avoided my gaze. In fact, he seemed to shrink under the weight of my observation.
"I… I didn't want to kill anyone… but she…" His voice cracked as a single, treacherous tear escaped. The tension in his body was evident. Something had happened—something that haunted him.
Aria, noticing his distress, snapped.
"Who did you kill?" she demanded, her voice reverberating with authority. I could feel the release of her power, an invisible pressure that seemed to affect everyone in the room.
The bartender, now overwhelmed, staggered back and struggled to speak. Words caught in his throat as fear overtook him.
"I… I didn't know… I didn't want to…" he stammered.
I took a slow sip of my whiskey, keeping my eyes fixed on him, and let out a sigh filled with both annoyance and disappointment.
"And here I thought you seemed like an innocent guy," I said, more as an observation than a critique.
Unable to control her fury, Aria leaned in and grabbed him by the collar in a swift, harsh motion.
"WHO DID YOU KILL?!" she shouted, her voice now a roar of rage. The pressure in the room intensified, and the patrons began fainting—not just from fear but from the sheer force of her energy. It was as if the very air was being crushed under her power.
The bartender, unable to bear it any longer, screamed in a burst of desperation.
"They burned my mother!" he cried, tears streaming down his face.
Aria and I exchanged a look of silence. His confession hit us like a sledgehammer. This wasn't just a man who had lost his mother; it was someone willing to do anything to bring her back—even if it meant dragging an entire generation down with him.
The bartender was trembling now, his body shaking under the weight of his guilt. I watched him, feeling anger bubble within me.
"Was it worth it?" I asked, my voice tight as if the words themselves burned. "Killing all those young girls, those children… just to bring her back?"
The bartender, lost in his anguish, didn't respond immediately. But his gaze, filled with regret, told me everything I needed to know. His desperation to bring back his mother had clouded his judgment and led to a chain of deaths that could no longer be undone.
"According to the records, at least thirteen girls have gone missing," I added, the gravity of the situation weighing on us like a curse.
The bartender nodded, his sobs intensifying. Every word he spoke seemed to add more weight to his already burdened soul.
"I… I didn't know what I was doing. I just… I just wanted my mother back."
At that moment, the air around us grew heavier. Something had shifted, as though the atmosphere itself had reacted to the bartender's desperate cry. A dark, powerful force was stirring, and all signs pointed to the beginning of a battle for the town's soul—with a figure far more sinister than the bartender's mother at its center.