Jahi PoV
We returned to the carriage after Kolia gathered her samples, and I and the others watched on in interest as she conducted so rather simple tests on them, speaking aloud the entire carriage ride to the next destination.
So, what did we learn from so magical dirt?
A fair amount of interesting things, actually.
For example, Kolia managed to pinpoint what made the dirt feel off from, well, normal dirt.
The mana that perated the grains was intricate and ancient, and when she pulled out a curved piece of glass that magnified the grains for her to see, the Arch Mage let out a loud gasp as she studied them.
"Whoa... How in the blazing hells is that..? Seriously? Each grain is inscribed with miniature Ritual Circles of... of... sothing... Huh."
Kolia frowned as she stared at the grains, before handing the magnifying glass to Mom as she asked "Marquess, have you ever seen magic like that before?"
Receiving the vial as well from Kolia, Mom inspected the dirt before shaking her head, handing it off to Leone next.
"No, I've never once seen runes like that. If I had to make a guess, just like the runes from the Southern half of the Continent are different from ours, I would imagine that the runes made from the Labyrinthian would be different as well. Like a whole other language."
That made the Snakekin nod, tapping her fingers to her thighs as she waited for Leone to finish inspecting them.
"I've never seen anything like this either. The control one would need to inscribe runes like this on sothing so small... Wait. These wouldn't be inscribed; they'd be a byproduct of the Gate itself... Sothing capable of leaving behind miniature Ritual Circles that last well after it disappeared... interesting."
"So instead of leaving behind traces of mana, like a normal spell would, the Gate left behind spells of its own? That do... sothing, but are most definitely spells?"
The two arcane obsessed won turned towards , pursing their lips before nodding, looking back down towards the dirt as they began to think once more.
After a few more minutes of studying, they managed to learn that there was also sothing that linked the grains together, aning that the vial of dirt they were carrying was interconnected magically, which was slightly worrying to the rest of us, but insanely intriguing to them.
It took us another hour of travel to reach the second village on our journey to the city of Nogart, where we would hopefully find many more clues since it is such a large, better defended location than the rest of these places.
But for now, we stopped at a small village that was situated on a hill above a lush forest, the fields of golden wheat swaying in the soft breeze that brushed over the destroyed town.
Like before, we stopped a good distance away before disembarking from the carriage and making our way up onto the hill, where the village lay.
We located the contact point of the Gate with ease; directly in the center of the village, where a large mass of bodies were scattered, left in the sa states as the previous two locations.
Leaving Leone and Kolia to study the contact point, I wandered around the razed village, taking it all in as I searched for anything at all.
Corpses were strewn about in various states of decay, all running from the contact point with obvious fear on their rotting faces, and I gingerly nudged a larger woman with my boot, wondering if she was undead or not.
With no response to my touch, I looked out over the simple farming village and sighed, wondering what these people thought when the end ca for them.
Unlike soldiers, who were ant to be prepared to die, these were just normal people; hard working, simple people that made ends et by growing this wheat.
Not a single one of them had a working Core in them, so these fragile humans had been butchered by sothing... for what?
Why target a place like this?
The contact point was too perfect to not be deliberate, so why did this person or thing target this poor village?
Was it trying to eradicate all of the mapped settlents, or was this just a test location to keep news of its massacres under wraps?
After all, I imagine the only people who would visit this out of the way village would be tax collectors or traveling soldiers looking for a place to rest.
I can't imagine this was a trading center or that it was on a normal trading schedule...
As I was deep in thought, Mom stopped beside as she looked out over the fields of golden wheat, a few corpses or body parts rotting in the fields.
"This isn't a bad village. See the wheat? Notice how it's growing from the stony ground? It's a special variant of wheat called Soft Rock Wheat. When it's ground down into flour, it makes softer, fluffier breads. Sells for more than normal wheat too, but still not by a lot; probably could get around 1 pound of it for... eh, 6 or 7 Coppers? Unprocessed, that is."
I glanced at her and frowned, and she just gestured to the golden wheat, saying "This is all ours now, so it's nice to know what we're getting. This village will be kept and developed because of this. Though..."
She looked towards our right, where the forest grew close to the village.
"Huh... There's a trace amount of that mana down there too... Co on. Let's see what it is..."
Mom rested her claymore on her shoulder as she led into the forest, the oak and beech trees creating a verdant forest ripe with undergrowth and animals.
Wading through the forest, we eventually reached a rather... sad scene, and I pursed my lips as I looked around at the small clearing we found ourselves in.
Another contact point was present here, suggesting this thing hunted the two won down to this point, not wanting them to escape and spread word of its existence prematurely.
An older, yet awakened woman rested with her back against the tree, while a younger, unawakened woman was held closely in her arms.
They were missing their upper torsos, their bones and organs open to the air while blood was covering the tree and ground around them.
"Pitiful... It would seem that the Core awakened human tried to attack whatever was hunting them, but broke her hand doing so. Must have ran after realizing the gap between her and it, and this girl must have been a... friend, family mber, or maybe a lover of hers that she escaped with. Got hunted down..."
Muttering a small prayer for them, Mom and I observed the corpses for a few monts more before we looked around for anything else, returning to the village monts later as we sprinted back.
It would seem that we were indeed dealing with sothing smart, and sothing that could track down its prey and open Gates with ease.
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Callback to Chapter 221: Happenings of the Kingdom
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