Chapter 157

Chapter 157

Ellen suspected everything she saw. All I wanted was to find a place with light and quickly get some rest, but Ellen’s first thought had been to question why there was only one light visible.

It was probably because she’d constantly heard from Artorius that if one’s senses were not sharp, surviving as an adventurer would be difficult.

One had to guard oneself against both monsters and people. The clumsy ones would always be made to pay some sort of price. The three of us left the path and approached Klitz Point.

Unlike the relatively safe Saints Point, there was a palisade erected around Klitz Point. It seemed like it was there to prevent any possible raids.

The pouring rain and darkness severely limited our visibility, but they also hid us from any potential enemies. Fôllôw new stories at novelhall.com

Soon, we were able to reach the palisade.

“Can you hear anything?” Ellen asked me as we stopped in front of the palisade, thinking of my enhanced hearing.

However, even with enhanced hearing, all I could hear was the sound of the rain.

“The sound of the rain is too loud. I can’t hear anything.”

We needed to try to catch any sound coming from the only building with the lights on, but nothing could be heard through the noise of the rain. It was also quite a distance away. Ellen nodded in understanding, then took off her poncho and backpack.

“Miss Rellia. Please wait here. Reinhart and I will go check it out.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Eleris asked, sounding worried, but Ellen nodded.

I followed Ellen’s lead and took off my poncho and backpack as well, lightening my load.

The palisade was roughly three meters high.

With a thud, Ellen drove her knife into the middle of the palisade. After applying considerable force a few more times, she drove the knife into the wood, up to the handle.

“Let’s step on this and get over.”

“Alright.”

The idea was to use the knife handle as a step and leap over the palisade. Normally, this would have been impossible, but my physical abilities had now evolved to the extent that such feats were easily manageable.

Swoosh!

In one swift motion, Ellen stepped on the knife handle, grabbed the sharpened part of the palisade like a handle, and flipped over it.

We did not know what was waiting for us on the other side.

A fight could break out any moment.

Since Ellen had already jumped over, Eleris quietly held my hand.

She didn’t say anything, but I could tell what she was thinking well enough.

Swish!

I too, just like Ellen, stepped on the knife handle and leaped over the palisade.

The rainy conditions were more of an advantage for us. The noise we made was likely to go unheard by any unintended ears.

However, the darkness made it difficult to discern objects that were not close to us. All that was visible was the lit interior of a building at the center of Klitz Point.

We did not approach that building immediately.

“Let’s move slowly.”

“Alright.”

Ellen and I moved forward, keeping low to the ground. Even in the dark, there were places that were more shadowed, and we moved bit by bit, taking advantage of this deeper darkness.

Sssshhh...

Rustle... Rustle...

As we moved slowly, a sound cut through the noise of the rain. I wasn’t sure if it was only audible to my enhanced hearing, but when I grabbed Ellen, who had begun to move instinctively, she immediately stopped.

—Damn it... why does it have to rain so much...

I could hear someone grumbling.

It was a person.

After the person passed by, I whispered to Ellen, “It’s a person.”

“...”

That explained why most of the buildings in Klitz Point were not lit up.

A person walking in the rain, without any light.

I was nowhere near convinced that it was safe. In fact, it only seemed more suspicious. Ellen, who was now considering even more caution, whispered in my ear, “Let’s not go near that side yet.”

She was indicating the only building with light. It seemed that Ellen wanted to check the buildings without lights instead. Since we couldn’t properly see who was wandering around where, Ellen and I moved slowly, taking our time.

We eventually found ourselves against the wall of one of the darkened buildings.

“Through the window, not the door,” Ellen whispered shortly, and we circled around the building wall until we found a closed window.

Ellen carefully opened the window from the outside. Fortunately, it was not locked.

There were no lights in the interior. Ellen grabbed the window frame and climbed inside, and I followed her.

And, as soon as we got over, although we couldn’t see anything, we instantly realized everything.

“Gasp!”

“Heup!”

Reflexively, we covered each other’s mouths.

Not our own mouths, but each other’s.

We were both perfectly fine, but were worried that the other might scream. Realizing we had the same thought, we slowly removed our hands from each other’s mouths.

The reason was simple.

Even if we couldn’t see, we could still sense things.

“This...”

I nodded in the darkness.

“It’s the smell of blood.”

It was a familiar scent.

The same smell had pervaded the Demon King’s castle, with its mutilated dead bodies.

***

Inside the building, we could see nothing.

Ellen and I exited Klitz Point and returned to where Eleris was waiting.

The more we heard, the more unbelievable the facts became.

Ellen and I led Eleris silently away from Klitz Point, to a spot further off.

Having taken off our raincoats, our bodies were already soaked through.

“What happened?”

“... It’s complicated,” Ellen replied after some hesitation.

Klitz Point was occupied by an unidentified group of people, and all the original inhabitants of Klitz Point had been murdered.

We initially believed that they were bandits, but they turned out to be adventurers who had banded together, becoming a gang of robbers.

“Th-That means that the supply caravan that’s arriving soon is in danger, then.”

Eleris was horrified to hear that a massacre had already occurred and seemed shocked by the thought of what was lying in wait for the supply caravan.

“They already knew that a supply caravan transporting supplies would be coming.”

These men had predicted the Adventurers’ Guild’s movements.

They anticipated that the guild would invest in supplies to rebuild the Altz Point base, and planned to seize those supplies for themselves.

They even intended to disguise the total annihilation of the supply caravan and Klitz Point as the work of demons. They might even try to pull off similar schemes several more times.

If their plan succeeded, the actual deeds of these adventurers-turned-robbers would stay undiscovered. These men could calmly continue their adventuring facade, grab a significant profit, and then disappear.

They had the choice to continue being adventurers or not.

The fact that these people had massacred countless others would remain hidden beneath the surface.

“No way... that can’t be...”

Eleris was so shocked that she couldn’t even close her mouth.

“It seems the other adventurers who had entered Klitz Point and who were not part of their group were killed.”

The reason they were lurking in the dark was likely to identify adventurers who were coming in that were not part of their gang. If Ellen hadn’t sensed something was off earlier, we might have unsuspectingly stumbled into a fight with this adventurers-turned-robbers gang.

But the problem wasn’t just the supply caravan.

These men were currently occupying a transit point, and were undoubtedly killing people who were trying to return from Altz Points 1, 2, and 3 as well. That’s why no one had returned from those three isolated points.

Eleris seemed to be contemplating whether to part ways with us and take matters into her hands. However, without my command, she wouldn’t act.

We did not know the total number of robbers occupying Klitz Point, but I estimated that there were at least twenty of them.

“There are two options,” Ellen said, calmly summarizing her thoughts. “One is for us to take action ourselves, and the other is to go back and inform the supply caravan.”

“... Take action ourselves?”

“Yes. It’s risky, though.”

Ellen was considering the option of entering the robbers’ den directly and wiping them all out.

Certainly, Ellen could potentially handle it. However, this wouldn’t just be her first time killing someone; it would amount to a mass slaughter. Whether Ellen could truly live with that was uncertain.

Even with Eleris’s assistance, a single mistake could mean death.

“Going back and informing the supply caravan seems to be the best option,” Ellen added.

Of course, she was aware of the risk involved. At this point, heading back to alert them was the safest plan.

“But... Do you remember the list?”

“... Right.”

Hugson had filled the escort with newcomers to increase his share of the loot.

They were all complete novices. If a fight broke out in Klitz Point, they would be killed with little effort. Even in the best-case scenario, they might all flee.

On the other hand, while we did not know the skill level of the adventurers in Klitz Point, they were familiar with murder. They were the ones having casual conversations while moving bodies.

“Do we really need to... take the risk?”

Eleris seemed somewhat opposed to the idea of taking direct action.

Setting everything else aside, it seemed she was reluctant about the possibility of committing murder ourselves.

“If news of this spreads, the fear it instills could lead to the supply caravan being disbanded.”

While Hugson might not care, the novices who believed they were simply heading down to Altz Point could panic at the mention of waiting bandits and might not even take part in the mission, choosing to flee instead. The supply caravan would have to be disbanded.

I couldn’t help but feel perplexed at Ellen’s words.

“If the supply caravan disbands, then we can’t really do anything about—Oh, wait a minute. The supplies.”

Something hit me as I spoke.

The mission of this supply caravan was not only the reconstruction of Altz Point, but also to deliver crucial supplies, including food, to the isolated bases further out. This was why there was a massive amount of supplies in the caravan.

If the supply caravan disbanded, the adventurers at the three forward points might starve to death.

Ellen was looking at the bigger picture.

Returning to inform the supply caravan was the safer option, but it would further delay the supplies from reaching those isolated points, points that might still be safe. The guild’s forces would mobilize if they learned about a massacre, but that would require the news to be reported all the way back to the Egxian Forward Base.

“Furthermore, if they know their situation has been compromised, they might scatter and return to Saints Point individually, leaving no evidence of anything.”

Scattered, they were just adventurers, but together, they were a gang of robbers. With no witnesses, it would be impossible to prove their criminal activities.

Even though we had heard their voices, that was all we managed. We had no idea who exactly those people were.

It was a stark reminder that this was a lawless land, and that everyone was an enemy to each other.

In the end, taking direct action ourselves was the best option.

Making the decision was easy, but what followed would not be.

Both Ellen and I would have to kill people. Directly, and with our own hands.

Whether they deserved to die or not wasn’t the crucial part. Whether I could bear the burden of it myself was an entirely different matter.

However, we couldn’t keep putting it off indefinitely.

A day would come when I’d have to stain my hands with blood. I didn’t believe we could get through this story without such occurrences.

“Alright. Let’s do it.”

“Yeah.”

If it was an experience we inevitably had to go through, it was better to get accustomed to it sooner rather than later.