Thinking about the identity of the missing person, Val remembered the important question he had forgotten to ask.

  The brothers held confused looks toward Val.

  Riney: "Like, Meshen, the place?"

  Val: "Explain like i'm not from this world."

  Masako: "Huh..."

  The confusion turned to concern.

  Riney: "It's a sort of 'empire' not far from here. Why do you ask?"

  Val understood, nodding slowly, with a soft "Ooooh". That was the option that would've made more sense. But what do angels have to do with it?

  Val: "What do angels have to do with Meshen?"

  Masako: "Oh, well, they're it's inhabitants. It's basically just a nation with war machines as their people that carry out that dictator's will..."

  Riney: "Yes. That guy uses them as spies, assassins, and in the past, he even made an army out of them. How do you not know this?"

  Val was more confused than ever. Angels were already on earth? And they sided with an evil emperor?

  Val: "Oookay... So, what you mean, is that if you saw one roaming about, you would try to kill it?"

  Both brothers furrowed their brows at him almost in disbelief.

  Masako: "Well yes, of course, even though it takes a lot of strong people to overpower one of those bastards. We're hunters."

  Val's eyes widened, realizing what he had gotten himself into.

  Masako: "As in, angel, hunters?"

  Masako pointed it out as if it was something obvious.

  Val: "Oh. Right."

  Val grabbed his heart once more.

  Val: "Of course. Sorry for all these questions."

  After saying that he let out a forced laugh.

  Val: "I'll help you gladly with your search."

  Riney: "Alright. I'd say you should go get some sleep."

  He said that with concern. Were the things being said really that well-known?

  Val: "Will do. Thanks again for the meal."

  Masako: "It's nothing. See you tomorrow.."

  Val quickly got up and headed up the stairs, his hand still on his heart. He felt he needed to get away from that table as soon as possible.

  Once he was on the second floor, where no one was present, he almost sprinted to his room.

  Closing the door behind him, he let out a deep breath. He placed a hand on his face as a sign of disappointment.

  Val: "Of course. How could this be worse."

  Then, Val thought about what he was going to have to do tomorrow. He closed his eyes, almost angry, but he was too tired to think anymore. As usual, he launched himself on his cozy bed and tried to sleep-- Not without removing the halo from his neck.

  --

  The next day, Val went to the main hall to find Masako and Riney, along with other 'hunters', ready to go search the forest. Masako was not smiling as he would usually be. As soon as he faced Val though, his smile reappeared.

  Masako: "Hey! You ready to venture out?"

  Val: "Yes, I'm ready."

  Masako: "Perfect! Let's go then."

  The party walked out of the Inn, and subconsciously, Val had counted the participants.

  They were 7 in total.

  --

  They reached the far end of the village, the opposite of where the incident of yesterday had happened, instead this was where Val had come from. All members were talking, until they came to a stop once they were about to exit to the forest. Even though it wasn't anything like a big wall, or even a fence, there could be seen a clear line between 'here' and 'there', and they were about to surpass it.

  Riney: "Very well then..!"

  He was the one who took the first step outside as the others watched. And then, they followed. Val looked at each member of the party as they walked toward the start of that big, empty forest. Then, he followed behind too.

  --

  As he had already experienced in the past, the sheer emptiness of this forest was devastating. But, now, Val looked like he was the only one suffering from it. The others were alert, and on the look out for hints. This helped him regain his lost motivation. Though the motivation couldn't come back, because he was thinking about who they were searching for. In reality, the boring aspects of the environment were not what was holding Val back.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Masako slowed down his pace, and approached Val toward the back of the pack. Once he reached him, he started speaking.

  Masako: "Right now we're going toward an area of the forest we haven't searched yet. Once we get there, the real search will start."

  The real search?

  Masako: "On the team, we have a guy who learned that new locator spell, the one using soul magic."

  Val instantly had many questions. But he kept them for later, worried he might repeat the ignorance of last night and raise suspicions.

  Val: "That's nice."

  Masako: "We're gonna move to that location and he's gonna fire the spell off, but the range isn't enough to cover the whole area."

  Masako kept explaining with a proud tone, as if he was the one who crafted the plan. He probably was.

  Masako: "So, he's gonna use the spell periodically, until he's worn out, hoping we'll have found something in the meantime."

  Val listened with curiosity. Magic?

  Masako: "Felt like i should have explained that to you."

  Masako returned at the front and joined back in the conversation with the others.

  _That was quite an info-dump_

  Val looked down and started thinking.

  _I'm sure i will be able to ask them about it without sounding totally oblivious. In one way or another--_

  The group came to a halt. Presumably they arrived at the new area that had not been searched yet. And of course, Val recognized the tall wall that stood not too far from the group. He had definitely been there already.

  Riney: "Guess we could start here and move in a circle until we're coming back toward the village."

  The village was directly behind where the group was facing. So Riney suggested starting from there and tracing an arch until they were going back toward the village.

  If Val's suspicions were correct, they wouldn't find who they were looking for until the very end of the search. Nevertheless, one of the members stepped out of the group, and closed his eyes.

  Everyone stood in silence, looking at the man who was also completely still. And, after about 10-15 seconds, he opened his eyes.

  Man: "Nothing here."

  Riney: "Let's move forward."

  After the first search, Val got the gist of what was going on.

  The man had used that spell Masako told Val about earlier, and did not detect anything nearby. But what was it's range?

  Val found out soon enough that the range was very large, as after a full 45 minutes of walking since they first had stopped, the man still had not used the spell again. But after some more walking, they stopped again, and the same ritual went down.

  Man: "Nothing here either."

  The group unanimously let out a groan, disappointed. Val was the only one who deep down preferred nothing being found.

  They kept moving forward.

  --

  Again, the man was standing still, concentrated.

  Man: "---!"

  Everyone turned their heads toward him.

  Man: "Something is behind that tree!"

  Masako was the first to start running toward it. As Val caught up, he saw what the spell had detected. His heart was racing.

  A squirrel, frightened, climbed up the tree's trunk and into the branches. Masako put his hands on his face.

  Masako: "Damn it."

  On the contrary, Val was extremely relieved.

  After, the group caught up to those two, and they also seemed to be disappointed again. But, after they regained composure, they kept pressing on.

  Val could gain some things from this;

  -The spell was able to detect anything alive, or anything that possessed a soul.

  -It could not determine between types of living things. But maybe plants or trees?

  Many things still remained a mystery, even though some progress had been made.

  They walked some more, and they were now facing the direction of the village, and walking toward it. After about 20 minutes, they stopped and the man launched the search. But it wasn't necessary, as one of the party members spotted what looked like blood on the ground, behind one of the trees, far away.

  Man: "Hey! Behind that tree!"

  Everyone leaned slightly forward, to try to spot what the man had pointed out.

  But Val's heart was beating fast, as he could recognize this place as one of the spots he had already been to. The leaves on the trees were darker, and less light passed through. He had definitely already been there. He just hoped, they hadn't spotted what he was thinking of.

  But, once Riney and Masako started moving toward the tree, he could see their faces change as they saw what was behind it.

  Masako: "Wha...?"

  Val was able to start walking toward them.

  Riney: "How... "

  What the brothers were feeling was a mix of disbelief and sadness. Masakos' mouth fell open, while Rineys' eyes widened. Once Val was able to check and confirm what he believed to be behind the tree, he wasn't surprised. Even though he hoped with all of him that that was not what they spotted, he was sure it was. Next to the trunk of the tree, the man laying face down showed no signs of injury, apart from his head which was flattened on the ground.

  His first reaction, was the tensing of all of the muscles in his body. He took a step back and raised both his hands with the palms facing away, as if negating responsibility. Once again, a feeling that had driven him insane returned. A feeling that made him feel heavier, and frozen. The leg he had been using to balance himself in his backwards step gave out, and he fell backwards. No one was paying any attention to his fall though, as everyone kept their eyes glued to the corpse of the man Val had killed.

  This corpse that made Val feel despair once more, even though it was in a slightly different shade.

  The lump made him unable to move once more. And in this moment, in order to evade these feelings of helplessness, one of the voices in his head won him over.

  _This is what i get for acting. I should've just died right there instead of feeling this now._

  1: "This is your fault. You should not have listened to your instincts."

  2: "What you did was right. You wouldn't be here if you listened to your will."

  _Maybe it was better if i wasn't here._

  The second voice, which now had a different school of thought from himself, inevitably got sidelined, pushed down, and ignored.

  It was wrong, but it felt like the only way to live from there on out.

  --

  One of the party members, different from anyone Val ha noticed until now, tried to pick the corpse up, but once he did, the head remained on the ground, cleanly removing itself from the rest of the body. Val was still on the ground, unmoving, looking at his own hands.

  The forest fell silent. The wind stopped blowing, and everyone froze. Masako, on his knees, looked around himself. Riney gritted his teeth and looked down, probably knowing what was coming.

  Masako gripped his sword, still on his knees, and called to Val.

  Masako: "Val."

  An instant later, Val saw something shiny in front of his eye. Was it, a sword? Was it some other type of weapon? Whatever it was, it was aiming to pierce his head through his eye. He could see it. He could've been able to react and defend accordingly, even if the attack was so fast any normal person wouldn't be able to.

  But, he decided not to. Due to some wretched reasoning originated from dire circumstance.

  He stood still, waiting for the attack to land.

  Suddenly, the weapon was swept away from the side. Val almost felt disappointed.

  He turned to face the attacker. A small girl was moving backwards, with her hands in an X in front of her head. Masako followed.

  ???: "Hey! Why'd you do that!"

  The girl wore an elegant attire, with a combination of purple, red and black colors. Val, in the moment, could only notice her long skirt and a big ribbon under her neck.

  ???: "I need to talk to him. Are you saying i'm not worthy? That's what you're saying aren't you."

  Her long black hair flailed around as she stomped her boots on the ground, in anger.

  Masako: "----"

  She looked Masako in the eye while her angered look turned into a grin.

  ???: "I'll have you know, you're wrong. Ahhhhh..."

  Masako looked at her back, disgusted, holding his sword tight in front of him. Riney joined him against this seemingly innocent and powerless loli.

  ???: "For that, I'll have you die!"

  Her forearms suddenly changed shape. Her clothes and her flesh merged and at the end of her arms the blade of a scythe formed. It was spotless, clean metal that appeared on her small arms.

  ???: "Good-- bye!"

  She tilted her head, her grin only growing.