* * *

He overdosed on the medication Van had bought and got new bandages. The bleeding had stopped thanks to the hemostatic medication, but the intensity of the reunion had left him in the worst shape of his life. A mild fever that could boil over at any moment spread through his body. A headache with dizziness made him feel sick to his stomach.

Though he was in no condition to move, Cadel forced himself to nod when Van asked if he was okay. He didn’t want Van to feel guilty about the injury he’d caused with his stupidity. He was also eager to get back to the Mountains of Silence with Van as soon as possible.

“If there’s a big village on the way, I’ll look for a healer.”

“Never mind, Garuel will be there when we arrive anyway.”

Cadel hurried his pace, secretly breaking into a cold sweat behind Van’s back. He needed to find a carriage and sit down so he could survive a little longer.

“What about the village? Should we go further?”

“We’ll see it soon.”

Cadel didn’t know much about the geography of this place, having traveled in a traveling magic circle that Lydon had created for him. With that disorientation, he followed Van’s instructions to the village. The village, which should have been bustling with activity in broad daylight, was disconcertingly quiet.

The two men couldn’t hide their bewilderment as they entered the village, where not a single grasshopper could be heard.

“I don’t see a horse, let alone a carriage……?”

“That’s weird because just yesterday there were tons of people.”

“What happened overnight?”

The buildings were too intact to have been attacked by a monster, and there was no blood or corpses to be seen. Perhaps there was a festival going on in the neighboring village, and everyone had gone to see it.

Cadel stopped in his tracks as he slowly scanned the village, his mind racing with wild theories.

“……Hold on, Van.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t move from that spot.”

Stopping Van’s movement with a stern face, Cadel pointed to a spot on the floor. In the center of a street lined with empty storefronts and stalls were two very familiar magic circles.

“These are…….”

“It’s a summoning circle and a fragment of the great magic circle. There may be a demon in this village.”

There were no seal circles in the immediate area that Cadel knew of. So it was likely that a demon had traveled over via a summoning circle solely to install a fragment of the great magic circle.

‘It was set up on the side of the road. Did he already kill all the villagers? Overnight?’

If no one in the village was a fighter, and the demon’s power was overwhelming, extermination wasn’t out of the question. But unless the demon killed all of the villagers at once without a struggle, there should have been some signs of defiance.

But this village had no signs of a battle as if aliens had come and abducted all the humans. What kind of slaughter didn’t spill a drop of blood on the ground? At least none of the demons Cadel knew were capable of such a thing.

Perhaps Mendel Haliev could manage to disintegrate them alive, but he had been killed by the Knight Order directly. Besides, it seemed unlikely that a demon of Mendel’s rank would be in charge of a remote village like this.

‘This isn’t even a main quest area, so the chances of running into a High Demon right away are slim, but…….’

They had to be careful. They had faced unplanned encounters with High Demons in the name of ‘sudden quests’ before.

“Are there any signs of life around?”

As Cadel carefully began the task of dismissing the summoners, Van’s senses tingled. And then, a moment later.

“……I think there’s someone nearby.”

“A demon?”

“Umm……. I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s a demon.”

A sign of someone who wasn’t a demon. Cadel, who had just destroyed the summoning circle with a burst of mana, leaped to his feet.

“Let’s go to see it.”

What Van detected was a moan, more like a sob, that stood out in the otherwise deserted village. The moaning didn’t stop until they found the source, and when they did, Van stopped in his tracks.

“This is…….”

“A weapon shop?”

This was the store where Van had bought the new greatsword before he met Cadel. Remembering the barbaric threats he had hurled at the arms dealer, Van licked his lips and went inside.

“Hello, is anyone there?”

Cadel’s ears were now ringing with the painful sound. But the owner of the sound was nowhere to be seen, neither at the register nor near the shelves, and he began to wonder.

“Save, save me…….”

A human voice was heard from behind the stand. The two men made eye contact and hurriedly jumped over the stand. When they opened the old door in the back, what was revealed was the interior of a warehouse filled with crates of supplies. And.

“Please save me…….”

It was the figure of the merchant, cowering in the corner of the warehouse, shivering like a man cornered, his body crumpled into a ball. His panicked face was messed up with what they couldn’t tell was spit or tears, and his eyes were unfocused.

“Are you okay? Where are you hurt―”

“Commander.”

Cadel walked straight up to the merchant and tried to check on him, but Van grabbed him by the shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

“Look at that.”

Van’s jaw jerked at the wooden floor where the merchant crouched. Cadel’s brow narrowed as his eyes scanned the floor.

“What the heck was that?”

It was a tiny hole. One could barely fit a pinky finger through it. And dozens of such tiny holes surrounded the merchant as if to trap him.

Something was wrong. Sensing danger, Cadel created a wind barrier.

“Hyaah!”

“Haashh!”

With a thin, slender screech, something surged up the hole. A creature as tiny as the hole itself.

“What……!”

Cadel’s eyes flickered wildly. He didn’t know what they were, but if they were as numerous as the holes in the floor, he wouldn’t have been so panicked. But these mysterious creatures bubbled up from the bottom of the hole like an endless spring.

“Hyaaa―!”

When the last of the creatures appeared with a roar. Van and Cadel had been pushed to the door of the warehouse.

‘No way…….’

The appearance was close to human. They had limbs, and they had eyes. Though their bodies were puffed up like balloons, and they had a harsh appearance that didn’t match their slender voices, they looked more like miniaturized humans.

The problem was the tiny pair of wings on their backs.

‘High Demons? Those guys?’

Those dark red wings were clearly the mark of a High Demon. But Cadel didn’t even know their names, let alone their abilities. Even if they could be deceptive, a High Demon couldn’t be this new to him. He had faced every monster and demon in the game. However.

‘I don’t know them. What on earth are they doing?’

No matter how much he racked his brain, he had never seen them before.

‘Was it a demon that appeared in the story or cutscene, not the stage? Or ones that only got a brief mention in passing?’

Whatever the case, the result was the same. Cadel had no information about the strange horde of demons in front of him.

“Commander, step aside.”

In Cadel’s confusion, the huddled masses began to stir. Van pulled Cadel to his feet and stood in front of him, right outside the door, blocking his path. Cadel formed a barrier behind him, protecting the merchant.

‘Let’s stay calm. Whatever they’re doing, we’re not going to be easily defeated. Let’s stay calm and observe their techniques.’

Drawing his greatsword, Van aimed it at the demons on the floor. But the merchant’s presence was too much of a distraction for him to do so. Even with Cadel’s barrier, his skills would be limited if the merchant was still there.

“Hey! Get your sh*t together and come over here!”

Van called out loudly, but the merchant didn’t answer. He had his head buried in his lap and his hands up to his ears ever since the little demons had appeared.

“Damn it……. Commander, I’ll go over and bring the merchant. Please strengthen the barrier.”

“Alright.”

The most important thing was to make sure there were survivors. Cadel nodded and poured his energy into Van’s shield as the strengthened Van approached the merchant.

“Hyaas!”

“Hyaraass!”

The small demons flapped their arms in the air and began to run, their sights set on the merchant. Spread out across the floor, the demons all rushed toward the merchant, pounding on the barrier with clenched fists.

“Ho, hold on……!”

Cadel’s reflexive reinforcement of the merchant’s barrier gave a new sound. He had assumed that such a diminutive creature would be the type to fight with brute force, but the force of each of those diminutive fists pounding against the barrier was no joke.

The demons quickly began to swarm the barrier, their pounding fists echoing through the warehouse like giant drums, and Cadel’s complexion turned white.

‘Why now…….’

The morning’s illness had taken a turn for the worse during his consecutive use of mana. A cold sweat broke out as the pain returned to his side, which had finally stopped bleeding.

“Commander?”

As Van approached the demons, he turned at the sound of ragged breathing from behind him, where a now contemplative Cadel lay panting on his back.

“Commander……! Wake up!”

Surprised, Van wrapped an arm around Cadel’s shoulders, and Cadel struggled to lift his head, clutching at Van’s arm. Biting his lip tightly against the pain, he stammered.

“There, there’s a crack in the barrier……. Help him, Van…….”

Cadel’s gaze was on the merchant beyond, not Van. And the next moment.

“Kyaaagh!”

From a corner of the warehouse came a pitiful wail.

“No……!”

Cadel’s eyes widened, his center shaking. Van steadied the shaking Cadel and turned his steady gaze away.

A tiny crack, barely big enough to fit a finger. Like burrowing moles, the demons had mercilessly burrowed into that tiny crevice.

The number of demons clinging to the outside of the barrier quickly dwindled, as hundreds of them slid in with an eerie cheer.

Unfortunately, the wind barrier provided a transparent view of the inside.

“What the hell are those guys…….”

They flailed their thin, short arms wildly. Their tiny hands flexed like hooks, scooping up the merchant’s flesh like tofu, and then shoveling it into their mouths. The act was repeated in eerily quick succession, the demons enjoying their ‘meal’ with a full house inside the useless barrier.

The act lasted five seconds at most. The horrific wailing ceased, and the human Cadel was protecting vanished without a trace.

The demons patted their plump bellies in satisfaction as they finished their ‘meal’ in a flash, but when Cadel reinforced the barrier that trapped them without removing it, they stumbled forward with a sudden burst of anger. Then they raised their arms again and began to strike down the barrier.

“Hang in there, Commander.”

In his current state, Cadel was unable to use proper magic. In addition, the countless demons in front of them were feeding on humans, and the time it took them to kill a single human was mere seconds.

They must flee. Having made his judgment, Van picked Cadel up in a harsh embrace. His body was hot as a ball of fire against his embrace. Van couldn’t imagine how long he’d been like this.

‘We just need to get out of the village.’

After that, it didn’t matter a bit what happened to the rest of the village. With that thought, they left the shop. Outside the shop, they saw something they hadn’t expected.