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*Urgh*

Jay grunted from a disgusting smell, the room was filled with a thicker layer of slime which had built up a pungent smell in the darkness.

Entering the room, a few broken chairs and a flipped table greeted him. Some of the chair legs had been torn off, probably used as weapons.

A window sill hosted a potted plant with a yellow flower – though it was beginning to wilt already since the curtains had been closed. A cabinet in the corner of the room was half-opened, inside some jars filled with different coloured jams were waiting to be eaten. An axe was lying behind the flipped table, slightly covered in a mixture of black and red goo from whatever monster it hacked away at. Next to it, a hammer too – though it was still clean, as if it never hit the enemy.

No monsters were present.

Jay squinted at the axe, wondering what it was that attacked. The axe wielder had clearly been unsuccessful as there was no monster corpse around.

“Clear.” He said, stepping back into the hallway since there was nothing else to make of the room.

This room had no door, so that’s why he searched it first. He had to make sure it was safe before opening the door on the other side of the hallway. The floorboards betrayed him again as he left the room, making a loud creaking noise, It was as if the house was mocking them.

He opened the door slowly.

Sadly, it was another ordinary room. The only thing that appeared to be strange was the slime everywhere.

He sighed, “Clear.”

There were still seven houses left to search and Jay had only cleared two rooms, the progress was slow.

“This is useless… it’s going to take forever this way… but I suppose I should keep my guard up.”

Jay was tempted to simply march through the house, opening doors with reckless abandon like he did in the silk woods dungeon, but he knew this kind of temperament would only lead him to an early death.

He closed the door behind him as he continued down the dark hallway. The only light was coming from the entrance to the building, they had left the front door open in case they needed to make an emergency exit.

The next two rooms down the hallway yielded the same results. One was a pantry while the other was a kitchen, but there was still nothing out of the ordinary apart from the slime._.

“It seemed whoever was here was in the first room when something happened.” The first room was the only one with any evidence of a fight. Jay closed the doors before he made his way upstairs to the floor above.

He crept upstairs with his shield raised and short sword ready.

The stairs creaked as he crept up them, giving away his presence once again, he smiled bitterly as he continued up the stairs.

It was much darker upstairs, the only light coming from a small square window at the end of the hallway.

Jay repeated the same process as he searched the rooms: search, sigh, clear, close door.

The first two rooms were clear again. One room appeared to be a large closet and a storage room of sorts, while the other room was a bed chamber with a hinged window and a small closet.

Jay made sure to check under the bed, as well as in the smaller closet. No monsters were present.

Checking the storage room, there was nothing of use to him. It was mostly filled with old clothes and some sort of wood working tools. The storage-closet room had no slime in it, so Jay simply closed the door and moved towards the last two rooms on the second story of the abandoned house.

The second-last room had a lounge, on the wall were some books on a small shelf. A luminous orb still flickered lightly, confirming Jay’s thoughts.

“Yep, it must’ve happened yesterday, in the evening” he reasoned, since the luminous orb would’ve been dark by now if it went without mana for much longer.

Curious about what a handful of people living in the wilderness were reading, he had a look through the bookshelf. The books looked old, they were mostly about which native plants to avoid, signs of monsters, and survival tips; though there was a few different peculiar books about living by one’s own means, being self-sustainable, personal responsibility, and self-governing.

“Huh, maybe this is why they moved out here…” Jay thought, intrigued by the books.

He shrugged, putting a book back onto shelf. Nothing else was in the room apart from a circle carpet and some wooden children’s toys, so he left to search the last room.

The very last room was the master bedroom, as there was a double bed in it. The double bed had a small bedside table next to it with a hinged window behind it. The window was partly opened.

Jay went further into the room, squinting at the open window – but paused for a moment as he checked under the bed, though nothing was there.

“It’s too cold for the window to be open..” he thought as he curiously went over to it.

As he crept closer to the window, Anya put her hand on his shoulder.

Jay stopped, looking back at Anya with a raised brow; she pointed at the bedside table.

It was dark so Jay missed it at first, but there was a scrap of paper with a rock on it.

Without saying anything, he quietly moved the rock as he grabbed the paper to read it. It was dark so he had to hold it in the light coming from the window.

A shiver went up his spine as he read it. The letters were thick and heavy, small shards of graphite made smudges all over the paper because of how hard the writer had pressed down. Clearly they were scared at the time. Two words were hastily scribbled onto it.

“RUN ROSA”

Flipping over the note, it had a single word one the back too.

“LIE~”

With a clenched jaw, he showed the paper scrap to Anya. She read it but remained silent, looking back at Jay with a hint of fear as she held her crossbow a little closer.

“Maybe it was a message to her daughter?” he whispered.

Jay added “Not sure what the lie part means though… hmm”

Anya only raised her brows and shrugged.

Jay dropped the paper as he gripped his sword firmly, stepping up onto the bed as he leant towards the open window.

[Stress Response Activated]

[+5% Melee damage]

He ignored the notification as he pushed the window open, however he noticed something on his hand as it entered the sunlight.

There was blood on his hand, he only noticed it after it was in the light.

“What the..” He had another look at the note and the rock again.

When he first looked at the rock, he didn’t realise there was blood on it since it was so dark. Most of the blood had dried but there were still congealed lumps of it with liquid blood inside.

Frowning, he wiped his hand on the pillows while Anya looked at him with a hint of disdain – it was only some blood.

Noticing Anya, he shook his head at himself, snapping himself out of his annoyance as he continued to open the window.

Despite having been coated in blood, gore and goo multiple times, Jay still wasn’t used to being covered in bodily fluids; he probably hated it even more now, his past experiences leaving mental scars behind.

Jay was already getting sick of the tension and the slow speed they were searching. With a sigh, he put his shield away as he poked his head out.

Outside the window, a make-shift ladder was leading up to the roof. It was basically thick planks nailed into the side of the house. There were some dried smears of blood leading up to the roof, staining the planks of the ladder.

Jay knew he wasn’t going to go up – he simply didn’t want to, so he turned to Anya with a whisper.

“Can you check the roof?”

She rolled her eyes and nodded as she put her crossbow away and pulled out a dagger. With a quick step, she jumped onto the window sill and climbed onto the roof.

Jay waited in the bedroom, shutting the door to the hallway so he was alone and sitting on the bed. It was quiet for a moment until he heard Anya’s footsteps above.

Taking the opportunity, he lied on the bed which caused him to involuntarily smile.

“Ahh… It feels softer than it should. Probably because of the journey we just went on.”

He felt like he could almost fall asleep – though he stopped himself as he felt his eyes start to close.

With a sigh, he ate some bondtussle root hoping it would give him some extra energy.

[Mana Regeneration buff 1%]

– lasts for 1 hour(s).

“Probably a bad idea letting my guard down in the ruins of a slimy house.” he sat up on the bed, taking a deep breath as he tried to resist the temptation of a comfortable bed.

Anya followed the trail of blood on the roof, it led her to the spine of the house. It went along the spine until it abruptly turned and created a trail going down off the side.

“It’s not hard to guess what happened here” she thought as she went back to inform Jay, hopping in through the window as quickly as she hopped out of it. She stood on the bed next to Jay.

It was too quiet, Jay thought he was beginning to hear creaks coming from other parts of the house, so he was glad she was back.

They were both a little tense since this was the first proper monster hunt they had outside of a dungeon. Anya had accompanied guards on their monster hunts, but never played a role in them, or was in any danger. At the moment Anya didn’t have any guards, and Jay didn’t have any skeletons to help them, which only added to the tense atmosphere of the destroyed, silent hamlet.

For some strange reason, Anya felt more relaxed around Jay’s skeletons. While they were horrendous abominable monsters, they were on the same side and protected her.

“We need to check behind the house.” Anya lightly stepped off the bed.

With a nod, Jay pulled his weapons out again, opening the door and leading her back outside.

The duo made their way to the back of the house, a dirt path leading them between the houses.

In the backyard was a small fence circling a vegetable garden. The fence was partly broken and pushed over along with some trampled crops. The plants were ruined, not only due to being trampled but also because they were covered with a coating of slime.

One piece of the fence was completely covered with a blood stain, as if it had been painted red – though no blood trails were leading away from it.

“Strange…” Anya thought as she looked up at the roof, plotting the trajectory of a falling person. “Someone would surely have been heavily injured after falling from that height… but impaling on this spike would definitely kill them…”

After some scrutiny, she turned to Jay.

“I think someone was chased onto the roof, slipped, fell, and was then impaled here.” she pointed to the wooden spike.

“Mm… but no corpse…” Jay nodded, crouching down as he examined the vegetable patch. “Only human footprints? And they’re all travelling back towards the village.” he thought to himself.

Jay had a strange feeling as raised his shield as he turned to the woods, scanning it with his eyes and with his shield’s eyes – though neither detected anything.

“Hmm…” he glared into the woods.

“What is it? Do you see anything?” Anya raised her crossbow and crouched, ready to fire into the woods.

“No… Just a hunch. Nevermind.”

As they both stood still for a moment, all they could hear was the breeze blowing through the forest, but neither of them saw or heard anything.

“Shall we search the next house?” Anya asked.

“Not yet,” Jay shook his head. “We should wait for the others to finish their house search before moving onto another – maybe they found something.” replied Jay, still squinting into the woods as he searched for any movement.

“Yeah ok,” still holding her crossbow, she was feeling a little more relaxed now since Jay was busy scanning the woods. “Shall we wait in the centre of the hamlet?”

Jay responded with an affirmative “mhm.” as he slowly stood up and left the vegetable patch.

“What’s gotten into him..” Anya walked back to the centre of the hamlet with Jay following.