During my flight, snow is still falling heavily. The cold temperature from the air nearly froze my body, but since I don't feel like being warm right now, I simply let it.
It was so cold that I will definitely get hypothermia after this. It felt painful, all over my skin. But I endured it, and tried to think of a way to deal with the pain.
I can't fight with hypothermia, so I let go of 10% of my flight speed. That way I can still do some critical thinking and battle when I arrive.
I just hope… No. Let's not even think about it.
The flight took a very long time, where each seconds passed felt like forever. Snow was already piling on the ground as I flew, and I finally arrived near the vicinity.
I arrived fifteen minutes later in the village.
…
I was too late.
BOOOMM!!!
I didn't even manage to land properly due to the confusion, and I fell to the thick layer of snow with my face first. The piles of snow exploded after I crash landed, and some even melted due to my flames.
I lifted my body from the piles of snow, and a whole shovel of snow fell from my head to the ground. My eyes have reverted back to normal as it tries to understand what is happening.
My mouth was opened from controlling my breath, and a single word managed to leak out.
"Lury..."
Right in front of me, is the bright scene that illuminates the night.
Brightness…
That came from the flames.
VWOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!
The entire village is burning.
Every single building is cladded in large flames, and some even explode every now and then.
I tried using my senses to look for anyone, but I couldn't find any living beings there. My first guess would be that they are already dead, but my second guess would be that my senses are wrong.
I dashed forward, bearing the second guess on my mind and quickly took all the flames from the village to my hands and dissipated it. It was the trick I learned from Xyphon, where I absorbed the flames into the palms of my hands to dissipate it.
After the flames were gone, I started looking around even deeper. However, I couldn't find a single living being.
I found only eight dead bodies that got charred to coal from beneath the rubbles of the building, and they are all male adults. Four of them seemed to be wearing casual villager clothes, while another four were wearing steel armour.
I pulled the bodies to the snow, away from the building. I sat down next to them to mourn, but the guilt is already eating me away.
After thirty minutes, I can feel a presence coming from the direction I came from. I didn't even have to turn to notice a group of people flying in the air.
Emily used her flight magic to fly here while bringing everyone on her wind airplane. The whole team is here, and also Valon.
They landed in front of me, but I'm still not turning my gaze to them. They looked around, only to find the houses were charred from burning. The flames are gone, but it's clear that the entire village was burned down.
"C-Captain..."
Emily called, but I still sat down next to the corpses. They approached me, and Fran patted me on the shoulder.
"I… was too late..."
My voice was heavily cracked, and Fran gulped down from hearing that.
"No one else… could have gone faster."
"I could have gone faster…"
I turned to her while crying.
If it wasn't for the snowstorm, I could have gone faster. But I would die from freezing to death, so I had to limit my speed.
There is a limit as to how much I can heat myself up. If I heat up too much, my clothes will burn, and possibly my skin too, so I have no choice but to heat up only to a certain degree.
Thanks to that, I arrived in fifteen minutes, when I could have gotten here a minute or two quicker.
"No one else is here. They all got taken away."
"Then these eight..."
"Are the only casualties."
Four of them were villagers, while the other four were the knights of Mazino who were previously stationed here. The knights were tasked to be ready for attacks at any point in time, but since there are only so few of them, they won't be able to hold back a large-scale attack like this.
We… basically sent them to die.
Fran studied the charred corpses, and she went for the second one from the left. I noticed what she was doing, and I understood who that corpse belonged to as well.
"This guy… he was the new chief."
She cupped her hands together and prayed. Everyone else also followed.
I was just talking to that person earlier today. It's as if nothing was going wrong at all… and now he's dead.
Valon approached not long after that.
"It is possible that there might be more villages that got attacked. We should check them out."
"... Right."
I stood up, knowing that he was right. I flew upwards and looked around at high speed. But all the villages that I found while flying... were already burned to the ground.
From the looks of it, they all burned around the same time as Lury's village. I got more enraged, knowing that I could have saved them too.
After searching for thirty minutes, I went back to the village. Just when I was about to land, I could feel that my entire body felt rather cold, and I failed my landing again.
BOOOM!!!!!
This is all so depressing…
Fran and Brod lifted me up from the pile of snow since they are the closest, and I answered them while trying to breathe.
"All six villages have been burned, and no one is in sight."
Hearing that made everyone else become more hopeless. The king never planned to follow his words at the letter, and he never exactly planned to leave the villagers alone.
His aim was the villagers all along… and he made us drop our guards by replying to the letter that way…
"There are no dead bodies in the other villages, which means they all got taken away."
"Then at least now we can just try to get them back."
Valon replied while holding his chin, and his face was wearing a fearsome expression. He knew exactly what was about to come, and so did we.
But, we need to plan this carefully.
Valon is the second best planner in the Office after Hod. He came up with a plan right here and then, and he told us about it.
"First, we have to play our cards right. Even after what happened, we STILL have to try to avoid a war as much as we can. Let the kingdom talk with them through peaceful means first, and if they can't talk at all, then we are up to war.
Second, our main objective is the villagers. Those villagers are probably being held hostage by Veldonia, and seeing how they captured them instead of killing them shows that they needed the villagers for something.
So, let's try saving them first, and then we can try to stop the war."
Everyone nodded, and I can't help but agree.
I really want to just barge in and kill everyone, and then grab the hostages out. But that would mean starting a war with Veldonians, and we definitely wouldn't want that. Not now, when we are this close to a war with the demons.
"For now, let's contact the kingdom first."
Valon turned to Emily so she could fly him back, but I stood up and walked to Valon.
Emily noticed my firm expression towards Valon, and she quickly backed away from us. Valon also noticed my approach, and he turned to me instead of Emily.
I will be flying back. Emily's flight is still too slow.
Also, I just want to do something. I'm not staying put.
"I hope you are not afraid of speed."
I said to him coldly, but he chuckled hearing that.
"I once flew with a dragon, you know?"
"... Then don't mind me."
I gripped his entire body using my large shadow hand and flew at high speed towards the kingdom. The others will be waiting there, just in case some knights from Veldonia came to check.
Me and Valon flew straight towards the middle castle. We landed merely meters away from the front gate, startling the guards.
"Halt. Master of the adventurers Office, Valon Mazino. I am here to see the king."
"Y-Your majesty! But you know the rules, we don't open the gates after it's dark."
"This is an emergency, war level."
"Y-Yes, sir!!"
The gate was opened by the guards, and Valon turned to me.
"I need you to go to the Office. Talk to Keila about all of this, and tell her about calling all the high ranking adventurers. Get Jonus on the spot, we might be needing him."
"Okay."
Valon left and headed in to see the king, while I left and flew towards the Office.
Realizing that I somehow destroyed the front door to pieces during my rush out made me slightly guilty, but I have no time for that. I went to Keila and told her about everything.
She and the new receptionist girl (whose name I still don't know of) looked at each other for a second, and they nodded at me.
"We know what to do. Leave it to us."
.
.
.