Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 528: Advice

’He must know something,’ Asher thought to himself, yet he didn’t speak and simply allowed the man to speak, as he was certain the man would inevitably say something without needing to be prompted, and sometimes silence drew out truths far better than questions ever could.

"Take my advice, kid, return to the adventurer guild at whatever territory you took the mission from and declare the mission a failure," the man spoke, his voice firm yet not unkind, and he paused for a moment as though weighing his next words carefully before speaking again, "this is for your own good, kid."

Asher stayed silent for a moment, his expression unchanged, then asked, "why?" Although he already knew that people who went on this particular mission went missing too, just like the villagers themselves, he still asked, just in case the man sitting beside him offered new information or details that might connect the fragments in his mind.

The man, John, turned his black eyes toward the group of people who were working before him and Asher as he began to speak, his gaze lingering on them as though drawing strength from their presence, "as a caravan, our job is to move from one village to another for small and various types of trades, after all, these villagers can’t exactly reach this place or other territories every time they want to buy something, so they usually buy in bulk and rely on us to deliver what they need," he paused for a moment, his face gradually darkening as though an unpleasant memory had surfaced.

"At this moment, we are eighty in number, but we were exactly one hundred before," he continued to speak, his voice losing some of its steadiness, "but twenty of our group vanished, not all at once, but gradually across a few villages. At the Redstone Village, we lost six men, and at the Whitecloud Village, we lost two men," John’s voice dropped lower as he spoke, almost as if he feared that saying it aloud would make it happen again.

"When it first started, we thought one of the villagers within the village we were currently in got greedy then robbed and killed one of us, because that kind of thing isn’t uncommon when desperation takes hold of people, but after a few investigations, it led us to nothing at all, not even a clue, yet we still had to move on since we had goods to supply at other places," he paused again as though remembering that exact moment vividly, his brows furrowing, "but when we got to the next village, it happened again, and then again after that, the same pattern continuing, until we finally decided to stop visiting every village in that area entirely."

Asher didn’t speak, he simply listened without interrupting John, his expression calm while his thoughts sharpened quietly, dissecting every word with careful ease and attention.

Taking a deep breath, John continued, "later, we found out that some villagers had been missing even before our arrival, which made things worse because it meant we weren’t the only ones affected. Rumors spread quickly, some said it was the work of the Emovirae, some said it was the work of a group of terrorists hiding among the borders, and some even claimed that the enemy Empire had already begun making their moves in secret, but nobody truly knows anything for certain," John stopped speaking for a moment as though he didn’t want to dwell on such dark times any longer.

"How long ago was this?" Asher asked calmly as he tried to establish a clear timeline.

"Almost three weeks ago," John replied, his voice carrying an underlying sadness and a quiet fear of the unknown that he couldn’t fully hide, no matter how composed he tried to appear.

Asher fell into his thoughts for a moment before asking, "what do you think is the cause?" he asked, his purple eyes resting steadily on the man sitting beside him.

"I don’t exactly know," John admitted with a weary sigh, "but I’m guessing maybe a group of terrorists, because Emovirae aren’t really intelligent, and enemy Empires wouldn’t waste their time on a bunch of villagers anyway. If they wanted to make a statement, they would strike noble territories directly and loudly, not disappear a few village commoners in the shadows where nobody important would even notice."

Asher’s thoughts began to spin slowly as he processed John’s analysis, and while the timing of the Vandross Empire knights disguising themselves as bandits during their invasion seemed oddly convenient alongside the timing of the missing villagers, he still agreed that an Empire wouldn’t waste valuable resources and manpower on insignificant villages, since such a tactic wouldn’t pressure any Emperor or cause political damage worth the effort.

But there was an error in John’s statement, because saying Emovirae weren’t really intelligent was both false and true at the same time. At John’s level, it was understandable that the man had only encountered Emovirae consumed by raw malice and instinct, creatures that acted like beasts without reason or strategy.

However, Asher had personally met two intelligent Emovirae until now, beings that clearly possessed thought and will beyond mere savagery. The first had been the Rank Five Emovirae that Blue’s death had summoned during his second teamed mission from the Star Academy, and the second had been Lior, Finch’s bond, whose behavior had proven beyond doubt that intelligence among their kind was not impossible.

’Could a group of intelligent Emovirae be behind this?’ Asher thought to himself deeply, the idea settling into his mind with unsettling plausibility, because if even one such creature could exist, then an organized group wasn’t entirely out of the question.

But just as that was possible, it was equally possible that it was a group of the so-called terrorists instead, humans who had abandoned morality for power or profit, and Asher couldn’t dismiss that angle either.

’After all, in the novels I’ve read, there are always humans who abandon humanity and join hands with the enemy, so why wouldn’t reality be the same? What is to say there isn’t an organization that has already abandoned humanity and secretly teamed up with the Emovirae?’ Asher thought to himself, his mind weaving possibilities together.

His thoughts seemed to latch onto a hidden truth hovering just beyond his grasp, something incomplete yet disturbingly coherent, but at the same time, whether this theory was true or not, speculation alone would accomplish nothing, and he would have to verify everything with his own eyes once he reached Blackstone Village.

He couldn’t help but imagine the power of the enemy who was behind this entire operation, wondering whether it would be human or Emovirae, or perhaps something far worse that didn’t fit neatly into either category.

"You seem like a kid with a bright future, kid, you are young and rich, and in a few years you would probably settle down and have children of your own," John began to speak again, his black eyes shifting toward Asher with an almost fatherly concern, "so don’t throw it all away chasing something pointless, because even a group of people who are stronger than you have gone on this mission and still failed," he sighed deeply as he spoke, offering advice that only an experienced elder could give to someone younger and less seasoned, "so take missions like escorting carriages, wiping out a few nests, monsters, and beasts, make your money, live a rich and happy life while you still can," he added in finality, his tone heavy with the regret of someone who once had such an opportunity but neglected it in pursuit of ambition and dreams that never truly paid off.