Investigation by the Outskirts

The following day, I woke up early per Nila's request, although it was not a problem for me any other day as well. I lay in bed for a little while until finally glancing at her bed where she had enveloped herself with a blanket. Only her head was visible, the rest of her body hidden underneath the sheets. Nila sniffled quietly without a care in the world, as if we did not need to help nor go anywhere that day.

I came closer and noticed how her blue hair had wrapped around her ear in her sleep. I wondered if it was a common problem among elves. Not only that, I shook her lightly and announced, "It is way past morning, wake up!"

At that, Nila only mumbled gibberish and burrowed her face further into the blanket. My eye twitched at her attitude towards the task, and I shook her harder, with no result. My attention then shifted to the jewellery she always wore on her ears. Two silver caps in the form of her ears were now put away on the bedside table. I went around her bed to have a closer look at these items. If those were golden, I would have been easily able to differentiate whether they were actually valuable or not, but I did not know how to check if it was real silver. The inserted gemstones, however, did look real. Not nearly as magnificent as Solitaire's red ruby or whatever that gemstone was, but I was sure that these pieces of jewellery would fetch a great price regardless.

Suddenly, Nila rolled over, revealing parts of her body hidden by nightwear as well as another ear. My eyes widened at this sight; there was a scar that ran through her left ear. Moreover, the tip was slightly cut, which made it visibly different from her right ear. I immediately put her jewellery back on the table, dressed in the pants and tunic I was given yesterday, and went outside while saying, "Fine, I will bring food and water. If you are not up by then… you will see!"

And I slammed the door, hoping that it would at least startle her. First, I visited the farm, where Derek gave me a few fruits and bread they had left since yesterday. He was not very pleased by my early arrival, which made me wonder when the hell these people worked. I passed by a few kids who followed me for a while, saying how much I looked like one of their friends who went to his grandparent's home. Curiously, the direction they mentioned was exactly the one where people had been disappearing. It seemed like kids there were pampered a lot; no one told them about the harsh truth of their friend's uncertain status.

After I fetched water from a well, I returned to the hut, fully expecting Nila to be up and running already. Alas, after I opened the door, all I heard were excuses, "I am up… I just need to put another leg on the floor."

She was indeed correct, her one foot was already on the floor, however, her whole body still lay motionless on the bed with her face half asleep. I narrowed my brows at her for a moment, but then left her share of food and water, and went outside once again while saying, "I give you 15 minutes. If you do not come out, I will be loading cargo instead of dealing with those disappearances."

I really did hate slackers. If you had a task at hand, then why was it so difficult to concentrate on it? The gang members were like that as well, postponing their duty until the last moment or assigning it all to others, mostly me, of course. But it seemed like Nila simply lacked pressure, since our success did not depend on whether we would get to Wiskoschia or not. I would have assumed that she was serious about helping out the people of this village, considering how friendly they were. I really did not get her at all.

For better or worse, she actually followed through with my demands and exited the hut even sooner than I had asked for. She observed me for a second, then turned to the road and walked past me.

"Do not go one step away from me. Who knows what kind of wicked beasts could be living in these forests."

I nodded slowly, even though she could not see it, and moved forward, following her. I still had her knife in my pocket, which meant that I could protect myself in case some beast did indeed block our pathway, or worse, we became enemies. Therefore, I should consider every possibility in order to keep myself safe. The air between us had remained heavy ever since she found out about the calamity Dusk brought to this region. She did not trust me, but neither did I trust her, which only made us even. If I had no choice, I would stab her in the back and escape from here, at least by foot.

Soon enough, we exited the village and entered the woods once again. This time, however, from another side of the village. A wide road stretched deeper into the forest, along with the tall grass that divided the road from the forest. I tried not to look around too much and instead focused purely on Nila's back. I did not even notice how she stopped, and I accidentally bumped into her, after which she pushed me back a little. It was not an irritated gesture, but rather one of precaution. I peeked through her shoulder and raised my brow at an unexpected find along the road. Standing in front of us was a girl, older than those kids who had followed me around, but not yet a teenager like myself.

"This might be troublesome," whispered Nila and pointed her staff at the girl who was smiling a second ago. Now her brown eyes were filled with terror.

I clicked my tongue and pulled Nila's staff away from the girl's direction and yelled, "What do you think you are doing!?"

At that, the girl ran away deep into the woods. I tried to follow her, but Nila caught my sleeve and pulled me back. She stared at me blankly, then her ear twitched, and she peeked in the direction the girl had run. "I told you to not go one step away from me."

"But we found one of the kids who got lost here. What did you think while pointing this dangerous thing at her?"

"Because she was not alive. Her skin was pale, her eyes were dry, and I did not hear her heartbeat."

My eyes widened in surprise. If she was dead, then how was it possible for her to walk like that? Moreover, the girl showed fear in the face of Nila's threat. But before I addressed that, I wondered about another thing, "You can hear a heartbeat from a distance like that?"

"I hear yours, for example, although faintly. But it is true, she is like a stuffed puppet, controlled by someone or something."

Nila stepped beyond the road onto the grass and pointed in the direction of the grove. "What are you waiting for? We should find the lair of the monster who controls her. Better be careful, there must be other puppets like her, since 4 people in total disappeared here."

I was taken aback by her calm attitude about the situation. Not only had she seen a dead, yet walking child just a moment ago, but now she proposed that this occurrence was only possible due to some corpse-controlling monster. Just a single thought about it overwhelmed me completely, and I remained standing still.

"M-maybe we should call farmers to help us out? If you are correct about the monster, who knows what it is capable of!?"

Nila sighed at my concern and came back to me, although not in agreement with my words, but rather to pull me by my hands and force me into the forest. I struggled sluggishly, not knowing what to do, but then she looked me in the eyes and smiled. "Do not worry, Dusk, or rather Blake. I am too strong for a monster like this to kill us."