“Sirian, Sirian!”
Sirian’s eyelids drooped. His gaze drifted vacantly over the cracked patterns in the ground.
Only when Vera reached out and gently shook his shoulder did the beautiful elf suddenly snap back to awareness.
“Sorry, Vera…” Sirian rubbed his ear. “I was spacing out a bit.”
“It’s my fault for the poor arrangement.” Vera’s voice carried an apologetic tone. “You cast spells continuously during the day—you should be resting properly. I’ll take the night watch from here on.”
They kept their voices low, careful not to disturb the Philin and Phiyin sisters sleeping behind them.
Sirian didn’t insist otherwise and walked over to lie down on the pile of dry straw in the corner.
Vera’s party was currently camped in the ruins of a small town north of Golden Valley City.
This town had been reduced to scorched earth during the demons’ earlier sweep. The building they were resting in was the best-preserved structure in the entire town—merely missing half a wall, it could still barely shield them from wind and rain.
Previously, they had followed a convoy transporting Puchi into the ravaged western territories. Their first stop after arrival was Wimble Fort.
The demon raiding forces’ southward advance had ultimately halted at this fortress, allowing the towns behind it to escape disaster.
Vera and the others had witnessed firsthand the terrible state of that fortress—seeing the walls that had been patched with rubble, timber, and mud after being damaged, seeing wounded and crippled soldiers limping through the streets everywhere, and the massive burial pit outside the city for three thousand people that had been freshly dug…
Even the adventurers, including Vera, had been deeply shaken by Wimble Fort’s devastation. This was combat completely different from adventuring—more bloody, more cruel combat!
Before reaching Golden Valley City, Vera and his companions had mentally prepared themselves to face an even more horrific scene.
After all, Wimble Fort was already in a rear position close to the south. Many demon raiding forces never penetrated this deep—this was one of the important reasons the fortress had managed to hold.
In terms of fortification strength and garrison size, Wimble Fort could only barely rank in the top five of the western territories in the past.
But precisely because it was in a relatively rear position, it had instead become the only survivor among the five fortresses.
Of course, now it was already the number one fort in the west.
In contrast, Golden Valley City’s location was completely at the core of the demons’ rampage, and moreover, as a city, its walls’ defenses couldn’t possibly compare to Wimble Fort.
That this city had managed to hold out until the end without falling already counted as a miracle.
One would think this city must have paid the price of mountains of corpses and seas of blood to preserve itself.
However, when they actually arrived there, they discovered it was nothing like that at all!
It wasn’t that there were no traces of war here—the accumulated slash marks and scorched burn marks on the walls, the rubble and bloodstains not yet completely cleared from the streets—all testified that this place had indeed experienced several fierce battles.
But compared to Wimble Fort’s shocking devastation, Golden Valley City’s condition was unbelievably good!
Though the walls were damaged, the main structure remained relatively intact. The proportion of wounded among the soldiers was abnormally low, and in conversation, one couldn’t hear that kind of exhaustion that seeped into the bones. Even more puzzling was that they hadn’t seen any large-scale burial grounds outside the city at all.
It was as if they were saying they’d repelled the demons quite easily—utterly incomprehensible.
There was another equally puzzling point.
After arriving at Golden Valley City, the four almost thought they’d returned to Mushroom City.
Puchi Handlers everywhere—this was the first time they’d seen such a high concentration of Puchi Handlers gathered anywhere outside Mushroom City.
Moreover, Vera’s party had originally planned to help sweep the remaining demons in the surrounding area, only to discover upon arrival that the scattered demons nearby had long been completely cleared by these official or unofficial Puchi Handlers from the city.
Instead, another urgent task was desperately short-handed—purifying death plague.
In those fallen towns and villages around them, large numbers of victims’ remains were piled up.
With rising temperatures, these long-exposed corpses had begun breeding death plague, contaminating the land and water sources.
Professionals skilled in purification magic like Sirian were what was urgently needed at present.
Precisely because of this, they had come to this destroyed town, spending a full two days to completely purify this area.
After another full day of travel, the four returned to Golden Valley City dusty and worn.
After completing their mission report at the lord’s manor, Philin walked out holding a new commission: “The next location is in a city to the south, three days’ journey from here. Two priests are already purifying there, but the workload… seems a bit too much. They need us to help as well.”
Vera glanced at Sirian and suggested, “Let’s rest for a day before going.”
“Perfect. I wanted to take a bath anyway. That smell is awful—it’s stuck to me.” Philin said while tugging at her sleeve and sniffing it. Phiyin quickly nodded in agreement.
“But before that, we’d better go get dinner taken care of,” Vera reminded them. “If we miss this time window, there won’t be anything to eat.”
Golden Valley City now provided two meals of mushroom stew daily. Whether temporary refugees or adventurers who’d come to provide support, everyone could receive it for free.
It wasn’t that Vera and the others didn’t want variety in their diet—it was just that in the current city, aside from mushrooms, there really weren’t many other supplies to choose from.
Since they’d be eating mushrooms either way, free was naturally the better choice.
The food distribution location was set up in the city square.
When Vera and his group arrived, quite a few people were already sitting around the square’s edges, holding wooden bowls and drinking the glowing broth sip by sip.
Just as Vera stepped forward to collect stew, a wooden bowl suddenly came spinning through the air. With a “clang,” it landed at his feet, splashing broth onto his leg armor and leaving several glowing streaks.
“Ah… sorry, sorry.” The speakers were two Puchi Handlers in city guard uniforms. One still had his leg raised—clearly he’d just kicked the wooden bowl flying.
Vera looked down at his leg armor and waved dismissively, not minding. “It’s fine. It was already dirty anyway.”
He certainly wouldn’t get into a dispute over such a small matter.
But just as the two were about to leave, Philin called out to them: “Hey. You should apologize to her too, shouldn’t you?”
She pointed toward a woman in tattered clothing sitting between two groups of people. The woman kept her head down the whole time. The kicked bowl had originally belonged to her.
“Her? She won’t mind,” the city guard said, tapping the woman’s calf lightly but noticeably with the toe of his boot. “Right?”
“Y-yes… I wasn’t careful and didn’t hold it steady…” The woman’s voice was as faint as a mosquito’s buzz, her head dropping even lower.
The city guards shrugged and turned to leave.
“Stop!” Philin’s voice was already full of fury.
“Tch!” The soldier turned back impatiently. “She already admitted fault herself. Aren’t you being a bit too nosy… adventurer?”
The people around who’d been eating stopped their movements. Quite a few in city guard attire cast unfriendly looks toward Vera’s group.
(End of Chapter)
