Alongside other Slime Clones, Huginn and Muninn flew across the skies of this glorious continent, they had been flying around for a few days now, while taking some breaks in between, eating prey, and then continuing relentlessly. I had used my clones to carry food for them, fresh meat was what they liked to eat the most too.
I felt a bit sorry for them to have to scout for so long, but they were super strong Rank 3 (almost 4) Crow Monsters, so they were hanging just fine, their stamina was surprisingly high, and they could hang on for a while without getting really tired, so I began to admire their resiliency as we traveled together.
Putting some parts of my mind into these flying slime clones that accompanied them, I ended bonding some more with my crows, until we finally reached our destiny, which they tracked using their sense of smell and direction, something I lack and wouldn't have been able to do. So they were very useful in this regard!
After tracking down the village, we finally and slowly approached it.
We found that the entire place was burned down and into ruins. There was rubble everywhere and the scene was pretty much like Benladann's village, which left me rather heartbroken.
We found out the burned houses and there were many destroyed ones, there was a faint amount of dark essence overflowing the place.
I had inspected the area using my slime clones and used one to descend into the scene, as I walked across the village, I found the burnt corpses of some people covered in the rubble, perhaps those that were not well covered ended being eaten by the wild monsters…
I looked around with the crows until I found roughly 32 corpses. This was awful, it was the same horrendous thing that Greenwood had done. What was the fixation over burning down an entire village of innocent people that these idiots had?!
For a moment I feared that Greenwood might have been involved with the issue of the Dark Shadow Sect one way or another, but I would need to find proof before having any more assumptions in such regard, as it was just a thought. Maybe attributing everything awful that happens around to him is not the right thing to do, there are way more awful people than this elf and his "colors" or whatever these other allies of him are, which include one of the leaders of the Vampires.
The other thing is, the Vampires could be connected to this which are, funnily enough, also connected with Greenwood… God, is everything connected to him?
Maybe the Vampires have something to do with this? There's no point in being overly racist with the race of bloodsuckers, being a vampire doesn't mean being evil, but they had proven to be quite the ravenous people.
And the other option is… merely that the Dark Shadow Sect is like this and that's it. It is a sect made up of criminals of the cultivation world, they're all demonic cultivators that had committed one or many crimes against the righteous factions, so it's obvious they might be up to no good.
Belle had already reached the place but is still gathering any info she can get, she said it was actually harder than she thought it would be…
Anyways, after making sure there weren't any more corpses around, I decided to use my real body to bury them, I told Cassim that we arrived at his village.
"S-So we are finally here…" he sighed.
"Indeed… I will now go with some of my friends and bury your people, don't worry, I'll bury them in a way that they won't be taken away by animals by just digging in the ground… They will slowly go back to the earth." I said.
"I-I see…"
"You don't have to come, dear, but if you want to, you're free to do so." Said Benladann, petting his head.
"…T-There were no survivors?" he asked.
"We… couldn't find anyone. But there might be people that simply escaped somewhere else, we have to scout more the place around. But don't worry, I am sure there should be some people." I said.
"Yeah, it doesn't take any effort to scout around using our abilities, so it's no pain to do it just because we want to, no need to feel in debt." Said Benladann.
"T-Thank you, you've done a lot for me… I-I also want to join and see it… I feel like I must." He sighed.
"Then come," I said, as the boy held my finger with his little hand, and we moved into the surface.
I used a special covering of ice to cover the corpses and covered them with Slow Decomposition Spell, which slows down the decomposition of the corpses, but makes it a process way more gradual while the soil absorbs their nutrients. This way the people go back to the earth where they were born and are also not attacked by all sorts of disgusting bugs in the process.
The bodies were unrecognizable, so Cassim couldn't tell apart from one from the other. But one could clearly notice that there were corpses of adult men, of women, of… little children, and more.
I am not a hero nor someone righteous, but it really pisses me off when these monsters with power abuse it and attack and kill completely innocent people minding their own business for no other reason than just being mindless and wrathful imbeciles.
I might as well avenge these innocent cat people and just wipe out the entire Dark Shadow Sect if we are at it, yeah, why not? Burying these innocent souls had only made my anger grow larger. I am not someone selfish enough to simply shrug these thoughts off. I suppose I've made of this my personal grudge without realizing it.
Well, I will do what I must do then…
Cassim suddenly began to cry sorrowfully, as the last person was buried.
"Don't worry… they're back to the world now." Said Benladann.
"I am sure they're thankful…" I sighed, as I saw their souls slowly fading away, they seemed grateful for having been buried.
