Chapter 161: Reaping What They Sowed

Something's off. Before, the lack of sentries was understandable, but now they stood at a distance where they could clearly see the dried food strings hanging by the windows—and still found not a single living soul. Not even a hidden patrol, let alone someone openly standing high up to keep watch.

This completely contradicts their understanding of the heretics' modus operandi. After all, this was an organization that could set ambushes even at illegal river crossings. Given the scale of this forest village, it must have taken years to build, requiring external imports of irreplaceable supplies—near-total isolation was the ideal environment for proselytizing.

Like a hunter lost in the woods stumbling into a mirage, a complete village suddenly sprang forth from the dense forest backdrop, appearing before them.

An ominous stillness settled between the buildings, and after the team instinctively fell silent, it merged with the forest's atmosphere, coalescing into a deathly silence that confronted them, accompanied by an intense sensation of being watched from all directions.

The extreme quiet made movement unthinkable, as if trapped in an invisible bog, frozen in place, breath held, hearing only their own faint breathing and the thudding of their hearts.

Until someone could no longer bear it and sneezed, breaking the stalemate. Though he tried hard to suppress it, the rush of air through his teeth carried far through the forest—far enough that anyone inside the village might have heard it.

Nothing happened.

Everyone turned toward the sound, glaring angrily at the man clutching his mouth in terror.

Yet the oppressive feeling had indeed lessened somewhat. Perhaps the only explanation was that there were no ambushes here at all—perhaps the heretics had simply abandoned this outpost?

"Sorry, my nose suddenly itched." The culprit pinched his nostrils, hands over his mouth trying to stifle the reflex—but the itch on his mucous membranes was too intense to control. His throat convulsed as he sneezed again, expelling whatever was irritating his sensitive nerves.

"Keep it down. Let's move in slowly," Martin ordered, gesturing for the team to advance.

"A…choo!"

Before he could finish speaking, another sneeze rang out. He was about to rebuke the servant who'd caught a terrible time to get sick—until he realized this time, it wasn't from the same spot.

He turned to see Kraft pulling out a black square cloth, covering his nose and mouth, tying the strings behind his neck and head. He had more than one—he casually handed another to Kup to put on.

Seeing Martin look over, he waved dismissively. "My nose is a bit uncomfortable."

It was more than that. He felt the pervasive, undulating atmosphere constantly brushing against his mind, keeping his brain in a faintly intoxicated state for days—like a feverish heaviness and dizziness echoing back to his body.

Just now, an unexpected itch in his nasal passage triggered a strong reflex to expel foreign matter—as if dusty wind had blown into his nostrils.

【Dust】

The empty, silent space, the overwhelming smell of dust—memories surged back to the corridor of the Rivers University gala night, standing again before that door that had blocked nothing.

The undulation in his mind still swayed, like ripples of blurred concepts that had become clearer since arriving here—specifically, since that sneeze.

He now felt it resembled… a wheat field stirred by wind, rippling in short, dense waves, densely packed like a velvet carpet laid over every surface the air could touch.

"Something's wrong. Stay where others can see you. Don't wander off alone."

Kraft drew his sword and moved closer to Martin. As the team advanced, Kup followed behind him, guarding the flank.

The retainers carrying shields walked at the front, crouching low behind their shields. The crossbowmen positioned themselves at the forest's edge, ready to retaliate against any emerging enemy.

Once beyond the tree cover, they accelerated, sprinting across a short stretch of open ground, reaching the outermost ring of village buildings. They scaled the fence and pressed against the walls, arriving at the blind spots beneath the small windows, listening for movement inside.

Ordinary people without specialized training would likely be paralyzed in such a situation—unable to aim properly, firing arrows blindly or dropping their weapons and fleeing, let alone engaging in close combat.

Yet their tense, orderly movements became a solitary silent play—no arrow shot out from the shadows to match their dramatic performance.

No sounds stirred inside the houses. No tense breathing. After they stopped moving, the thick silence wrapped around them again. The village remained silent, indifferent, offering no reaction to the intruders.

Barro broke from the retainer's protection. Before Martin could stop him, he kicked open the nearest door. The door, little better than a wooden plank, flew clean off its hinges and crashed into the dusty interior.

Sunlight streaming in revealed the dust motes, illuminating a faint human shape seated at the table, its back exposed and defenseless toward the door.

The retainer rushed in, instinctively raising his shield and hurling his axe, then drawing his short sword to guard the shadowed corners of the room.

The silhouette remained motionless as the thrown weapon struck—cutting cleanly through the shoulder blades, shattering bone and cartilage, the impact knocking the chair backward, sending up another cloud of dust.

"What happened?" Martin and Kraft hurried forward, mistaking it for resistance.

"Cough! Cough!" Barro lifted his visor, coughing as he stepped out of the room. "Nothing. You see for yourselves. If they're all like this, I guess we won't need to do any heavy lifting here."

A seated "flower stand," covered in vibrant mushrooms, lay in the dust. A cluster of smooth, crown-like fungal masses, caked in dirt, embedded with a well-aimed throwing axe.

"Looks like your man's pretty good at this?" Martin lowered his longsword, exhaling deeply. He'd almost thought the room held some brand-new trap—and new things usually meant paying a trial-and-error price.

As the dust settled, the retainer who'd thrown the axe carefully inspected the rest of the small room, trying to mask his embarrassment over his hasty action.

"Better to act fast than slow. But don't use that axe again." Martin patted his shoulder, stopping him from retrieving the axe, half-buried in the fungal cluster. "What's your name?"

"Braet. Braet Ry. Retainer to Knight Barro."

"Good. Braet. Tonight you're on watch. Hope the night wind cools you down—once something's thrown, it doesn't care if it's friend or foe."

A false alarm. Nothing serious. Considering he was Barro's man, and had a surname, Martin didn't intend to dig deeper into the lapse—only issued a symbolic order for watch duty as penance. "Open a few more doors. See if you can find anything. Don't go off alone."

"Professor, what are you looking at?"

"Nothing." Kraft shook his head, turning his gaze away from the seated corpse. Its posture was unusual—not a normal seated position, but reversed, hands resting on the back of the chair, as if gasping for air after drowning. Yellow mushroom stalks, shaped like clawed fingers, grew from its hollow eye sockets and open mouth, lifting a layered, mask-like cap.

Due to fungal fusion, it had grown completely into the chair—so even when it fell, it retained that pose.

The seated position is common among patients with heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—adopted unconsciously to ease breathing difficulty.

Kraft tried to reconstruct the scene. At that moment, it had been experiencing an attack—likely awakened during sleep by suffocation, sitting up to relieve the sensation, discovering this posture by accident.

Usually, that would be correct.

But since it was found here, it had failed. Something killed it at that moment—not respiratory illness or heart failure, which wouldn't have acted so quickly while preserving this posture. It froze the victim in suffocation before he could change position.

"Terrible. Let's go see the others." He couldn't bring himself to say "rest in peace"—it was clearly not a peaceful death. Kraft scanned the room, unsurprised to spot the circular ring hanging on the wall—without wings.

One by one, the houses were opened. Inside, each was a different fungal growth substrate. Their original clothing had vanished; in death, they all wore dazzling, inhumanly beautiful appearances—each corpse offering viewers a unique, indescribable experience, somewhere between horror and awe.

The eerie beauty struck the living consciousness, blurring the boundary between fear and wonder—so much so that, at times, people forgot their essence, as if stepping into an unprecedented grand celebration, where all guests wore elaborate, daringly novel robes.

Many doors stood open, their owners vanished. Kraft moved through narrow alleys between low cottages, finding them along the main path leading straight to the church's front entrance.

A magnificent road.

Barro and his retainer stood stunned in the blinding colors—like stained-glass rose windows multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold, shattered into fragments that melted into the ground, like scripture painted with mineral dyes rising from the soil, stretching all the way to the church's stone steps beneath the suspended circular symbol.

The colorful human forms had merged into thriving fungal colonies—indistinguishable whether the faithful were pilgrimaging toward the road's end, or journeying together to a feast. Thick, crown-like fungal folds grew high above, shaped like grooved coronets.

For those stunned, it was beyond mere disgust or terror—it was the deeper fear that they didn't find the scene revolting, as if this were the natural order, the manifestation of some worshipable force.

"Lord…" Barro's sword dropped to his side. This knight, brave to the point of recklessness, retreated for the first time.

Martin, having seen autopsy scenes, fared better—only stunned for a moment before recovering from his shock.

"You were right, Professor. Those who touch these things will eventually swallow the bitter fruit they've sown." He stepped back into the alley, brushing fungal fragments off his shoes. "Since they've already reaped what they sowed, we shouldn't stay here any longer."

His intent to retreat was unmistakable.

I can understand that mindset; the scene is too shocking for ordinary people, and the fact that order has still been maintained until now is indeed a sign of an elite force.

"But…" Kraft glanced at the church. The circular mark was fixed on a wall surface that seemed deliberately left cracked — undoubtedly the heart of the pagan village, where useful clues to unravel the mystery might still be found.

But this was not the right time; even Barro and Martin were shaken, and the others were likely on the verge of emotional collapse — pressing forward now would almost certainly lead to disaster.

"Let's fall back and set up camp farther away, and gather some firewood." Night was falling, and Kraft didn't think it wise to venture deep alone, "If we truly have no other choice, we'll burn it all clean."