"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Jonah grabbed his head full of hair. "What are we going to do now?"
"Calm down. We aren’t dead yet." Quinlan said. "But he has a point. What are we going to do now? It won’t be easy finding the witch in this castle."
"We don’t need to find them. They will find us." Siderius said.
He came over to the dining table. There was a lot of food still laying around. Most of them were vegetables with occasionally a piece of meat laying around. Molded breads were everywhere.
Siderius took his serrated knife to poke at the meat.
"What’s wrong?" Quinlan stood beside Siderius.
"These meats are too soft to be pork."
Siderius cut a piece of bread open. Inside was a pale thumb that lost its fingernail. Quinlan widened his eyes by the sight.
Siderius took out a piece of cloth to grab at the thumb. He didn’t know if there was any poison or curse on it, so it’s safer to do it that way.
"You said there were twenty-three corpses hanging in this hall before, right?"
"If we count the disappeared Mother Reverend, then it is twenty-four. That nun called Nora is twenty-five. That is all the people in this monastery. That ghoul can be Mother Reverend or the nun.
So whose meat do these belong to? It can’t be one of their own."
"You’re saying they kill someone else?" John muttered.
Siderius nodded. "That. And they tortured these people too. See the nail missing? That wound was made when they were alive."
Siderius turned toward Jonah. "You came from Scalize. Has anyone been missing lately in town?"
Jonah rolled his eyes around, looking into his memory. "There’re always people missing. On the road or in the town. The nearest one was some group of traveling merchants. But people said it was because of the Chaos Beast."
Siderius smirked under his scarf. He finally understood why the Chaos Beast became such a fear figure in this kingdom. They were simply scapegoats for the witches.
Siderius stayed in the woods for months but only encountered one Chaos Beast. It was far from the number he heard. But people still disappeared regularly.
It was the witches. They were the one responsible for the death of these humans.
Siderius had always suspected this to be the case. He only had proof now.
Witches, rulers of Eldoria, ate their citizens for power. A fitting behavior for a genus under the Kingdom of Chaos.
"Well. We’d better get going." Siderius dropped the finger along with the piece of cloth.
"To where?" Quinlan said.
"To the core of this magic circle. We need to kill the witch. Or we can destroy the core. Either way, it would allow us to leave, ending this nightmare early."
"I thought you said we can only destroy the circle by killing the witch?" Quinlan furrowed. He was a meticulous man, noticing the little details in Siderius’ words.
"True. But that was for humans only. I am not."
Siderius flexed his left arm. A silver bracer appeared out of thin air.
"You are also a witch?" Jonah exclaimed. His eyes were filled with glee.
Siderius didn’t admit it. He simply shrugged.
The hunter walked away from the dining hall. Quinlan and Jonah followed right after.
When they’re gone, a shadow emerged from the floor. It was a nun in a black habit.
She clenched her teeth so loud it let out a metal striking sound.
"Puny wicca... You haven’t even awakened yet. Do not interfere with my work.
The shadow submerged back to the floor and disappeared.
The piece of cloth Siderius left behind suddenly set aflame. In the middle of it was a small sulfur seal.
Siderius turned his head back lightly. It was as he suspected. Their every move was being watched.
Quinlan followed Siderius’ gaze but he didn’t see anything. "What’s wrong?"
"Nothing of interest. Let’s go."
The trio continued on their path.
The monastery had several buildings and structures. Each dedicated to a singular purpose to ensure the livelihood for the people inside the monastery.
The refectory was the dining hall and also the food storage.
The dormitory was where the people rested. This dormitory was separated from the guest rooms to avoid the nuns and priests being disturbed by wary travelers.
The bell tower was the tallest structure in the middle of the courtyard, right next to the church.
The church was where the nuns and priests practiced their religious faith. Find the newest release on novel•fire.net
Siderius didn’t know much about the faith of this world. He wondered who they would be praying for.
Back in the Holy Order, the knights and priests worshipped the Creator. The one true God that created everything and anything.
Siderius was a part of the Holy Order. He did believe that there might be some higher force than the physical plane they all saw.
But he wasn’t religious. He was only acting like it to be accepted in the Holy Order.
That was why most of the knights disapproved of his intention to look for immortality. For them, immortality was only for the Creator.
Siderius had a different take.
The knights said: "The Creator is above all."
While Siderius thought: "Man is above all."
For him, there was no god worthy of his total loyalty. He was only loyaled to himself.
After checking the refectory, the trio took a look inside the food storage.
"Holy..." Jonah covered his mouth while his other hand hurled away the pile of dust in the air.
The food storage must have been abandoned for months. All of the food was spoiled to the point of being poisonous.
Quinlan pulled out a few bags of grain and cut them open. The grains were all soaking wet and molded to the core.
"How did they even survive? Everything is rotten." Quinlan said.
Siderius walked around the place and grabbed a handful of salt. He sprinkled them all around the floor, checking for any reaction.
Salt was the best in revealing evil prospects.
"The core isn’t here." Siderius said.
"Where should we suggest we go next? To the church?" Quinlan said.
The church was the heart of a monastery. It was only logical that the core of the magic circle was also there.
Siderius shared the same thought. But he didn’t want to go there yet.
"Let’s go to the guest house. I want to see the bedroom your bodyguard has used.
If we can find him, our chance of survival will be better."
The trio continued on their path. Jonah stayed at the back of the group again.
He pulled his sleeves lower, hiding the dark veins popping on his skin. His fingers twitched randomly.