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And then, silence.

The darkness that had swallowed the temple chief vanished as if carried away by the wind, leaving no trace of its malevolent presence.

For a while, everyone remained still, fearing that something might consume them from beneath, just as the temple chief had been.

But nothing more happened.

“Is he gone…?” someone finally whispered.

The abrupt and enigmatic phenomenon had begun and ended suddenly. But in proof that it wasn’t a daydream, the temple chief had completely disappeared, not a single strand of hair remaining in his place. His chair sat undisturbed, showing no signs of the unusual events that had transpired.

Then, in the next instant, all eyes turned to a corner of the room, where a temple priest, just like the temple chief, was wearing handcuffs and a mask. He was also a local villager.

“Ah!” He exclaimed, startled by the piercing gazes directed at him.

“What the hell is going on there! What just happened!”
“I-I don’t know! I don’t know anything!”
“Is that true? The village’s children have been abducted, think about the gravity of deception.”
“I really, really don’t know! There are many things that only the Temple Chief knows…!”

Under pressure from the guards, the priest vehemently shook his head.

“Given that the village’s faith was self-contained within a single community, oral traditions were probably sufficient. Moreover, if the stories about reincarnation are true, the core of their faith could be handed down from temple chief to temple chief,” Ivar analyzed while massaging his temple.

The priest remained silent, but it seemed that Ivar’s words had hit home.

“…In this village, there are only two ‘temple chiefs’… The previous one hasn’t been reborn yet. And the current one…”

Was silenced.

Those words passed through everyone’s mind.

In any case, the most pressing issue at the moment was that all leads regarding the whereabouts of the abducted children had vanished.

“Can anyone use a Seek Person spell or something similar? The kids’ belongings could serve as a medium, and there should be plenty of those,” Ivar suggested.
“We’re not specialists in magic, so…” one of the guards responded.
“Lucella, what about you?” Ivar asked.
“At the moment, I can’t do much other than fire-based attack magic. I might be able to handle water, but I’m not sure if I can use it for detection,” Lucella explained.

Certainly, Lucella’s magical abilities were already closer to a dragon than a human, but that didn’t mean she could wield all types of magic with ease. It was like giving a person who had never ridden a horse a wild stallion and expecting them to control it. It was impossible no matter how powerful the horse was.

A collective sigh or groan filled the room.

“We’ll call for reinforcements. In the meantime, could we ask for your cooperation in the investigation regarding the children’s whereabouts?” one of the guards requested.
“Us?”
“If it’s related to monsters, you adventurers should be more experienced than us.”

Lucella and Ivar exchanged glances before nodding.

“We can’t guarantee results, but we’ll take on the task,” Ivar affirmed.

The glistening water sparkled under the scorching midsummer sun. Setulev was a land blessed with abundant water. Rivers seemed to flow everywhere.

The footprints of the monsters that had left the village led to a spot where the river’s flow had become shallower.

“It appears they entered the river here.”
“Trying to be clever, aren’t they?”

Lucella and Ivar followed the traces left by the monsters.

If they had been eradicated by the malevolent power of the evil god, like the temple chief, they couldn’t be pursued. However, for some reason, the children hadn’t met that fate. They had been physically transported somewhere by the familiar monsters.

So, they could still be pursued.

The monsters had entered the river to erase their tracks.

But they wouldn’t swim in deep waters. Using the map to navigate, Lucella and Ivar quickly found the continuation of the footprints on the opposite bank.

Carved by wet paws, they followed the already dry footprints, eventually discovering a small cave amid the trees. In front of it, countless footprints were tangled together, and there were even traces of the ground being smoothed as if a giant snake had crawled across.

“A snake, here?”
“But where did it come from and where did it go? We haven’t seen any crawling marks around here, and it doesn’t seem like it went somewhere…”
“It might be around there.”

Lucella observed her surroundings while staying alert.
The cave, gaping wide, had the atmosphere of a lair dug by some kind of beast.
There was no sign of the monsters.

“Maybe they’re not here?”
“Hey, Lucella, take a look over here.”

Ivar pointed to a hole in the ground near the cave.
It was another hole dug by some creature’s paws. Surprisingly deep, it contained bones and dried feces piled up inside.

“A garbage dump and a toilet, maybe.”
“Wild animals don’t do this kind of thing. Bandit Lynxes are monsters known for ambushing and launching surprise attacks on their prey. They wouldn’t give away their presence by leaving excrement near their nest.”
“It’s not something a cat would do. It’s almost as if it were a person.”

Setting up a toilet at home, or placing a garbage bin.
It certainly seemed closer to human behavior than that of a wild animal.
Lucella then gently peered into the cave, and indeed, it was empty.
However, in its place, there was something that shouldn’t be there.

“This…”

A silver plate reflecting the piercing light.

“An adventurer’s card.”
“Hey now… Is this for real?”

Wiping off the adventurer’s card covered in dust, they could see that it belonged to an adventurer affiliated with the guild headquarters in the capital city.

By checking the date of the last update engraved on it, they could roughly determine the era the adventurer came from. The date was from 11 years ago. Along with the adventurer’s card, they found tattered remnants of what appeared to be clothing and pieces of armor. There was also a rusted sword.

“The equipment doesn’t seem very damaged for someone who was killed.”
“It feels more like it was stripped off. In any case, it’s quite old.”
“I’m speculating, but if they were offering adventurers as sacrifices every ten or twenty years…”
“So that’s why they invited us to the temple and served us food. I did think they strangely lacked hesitation for amateurs. So, it was a regular event.”

Putting adventurers to sleep, offering them as sacrifices to the evil god, and having messenger monsters consume them…

What they did to Lucella and Ivar was likely not their first time.

“Why adventurers, though? Those guys have some level of experience, they’re strong, cautious, and have the backing of the guild.”
“Hmm… Maybe they were looking for powerful sacrifices…”
“That does seem like something they would do.”

Lucella had some knowledge of evil god worship.
While offerings to evil gods were commonly associated with virgins or children, some evil gods sought strong sacrifices.
Ivar also peered into the cave as well, but there was nothing there anymore.

“If those kids were buried deeper in, this would have been a short conversation.”
“That’s a bit…”

As Lucella began to speak, she suddenly noticed something on the periphery of her vision.

“That slope…”
“What’s wrong?”
“If a Bandit Lynx was making a den, I’d expect it to prefer the area beyond this one.”

A place away from the river was slightly elevated, and its side resembled a gentle cliff. It might be easy for a person to slip, but for agile creatures, it would be no problem.

“This is the ‘Land of Water,’ so magic beasts not adapted to water tend to avoid flat areas or places near the river. I heard some interesting cases from Viola…”
“Hmm, regional preference, but does that still stand true with evil god’s familiars?”

The slope was lush with greenery, but there were sporadic patches of exposed soil, which gave Lucella a feeling that something was not right.
Lucella grabbed the grass and began to climb up the slope when a pungent odor hit her nose.

“Yuck! It’s that smell.”
“That smell…? I don’t smell anything.”

From the exposed soil, there was a noxious chemical-like smell wafting out. Lucella pointed at it, and flames surged, causing a small explosion that blew away the soil.

“Just as I suspected…!”

A deep cave was revealed. It wasn’t just a result of the explosion blowing away the soil; the entrance to the cave had been sealed with earth, and Lucella had merely uncovered the ‘lid.’

A strange foul odor mixed with the smell of blood.

Inside the sealed cave, the Bandit Lynx was dead. It had split its own belly with its strong claws and devoured its entrails with its sharp fangs. It was dead, and there was no sign of the children.