With how I moved back to the village with just a single jump of mine, it took me a while before I turned around to finally notice a huge set of sharp stakes surrounding the entire settlement.

Back when I first visited this place, it was build right in the open, with not even a single fence surrounding it, yet right now, it looked like a village that was used as the battlefield between two modern armies from the earth.

Most of the stakes that I could see around this place were either broken into several parts or covered in stinky blood, leaving only several parts of the barricade intact.

"Just what the heck happened here?"

Despite being in the exact same place just a few moments ago, as I finally had the time to look around with care, I finally noticed all the signs of battle that marked this entire place. Yet what was even more surprising, I couldn't find even a single hint of human invasion here!

"Stay here for a moment."

Rather than pulling the girl everywhere around with me, I decided that just leaving her to wait in the middle of the clearing in the centre of the village would simply be easier. After all, just by surrounding her with my barrier, I could buy myself enough time to come with any necessary rescue if she were to be attacked, while doing so with her by my side would be far more challenging, even with my overwhelming advantage of strength over literally any being that could exist on this island.

Seeing that the girl didn't refuse my request but obediently sat down directly on the ground, I secured her with a set of several barriers before approaching one of the nearby huts.

As there was only a small number of corpses lying around the entire place, with most of them near the eastern side of the barricade, I was sure that not every single villager died here. In the end, even if some kind of massive wild beast attack happened, even if there was no corpses before those magical beasts simply consumed most of the traces, I would still be able to feel the lingering energy of the freshly deceased!

Yet how could I know that this entire event happened only recently? It was fairly simple. With how no one in this village reached any respective level of cultivation during my first visit, organising this entire barricade would take them most of the time that I spent in the heavenly city, leaving only a short window during which something could happen. And even without those rational clues, just a short look at the scars on the woods of the walls told me that whatever created those cuts, did it recently.

Thud.

Just as I was about to stand up from my half-kneeling position, I heard a noise, unbefitting of the nearly complete energetic silence in the area. At first puzzled, it took me only a moment to realise that while scanning this place for the energy, out of habit I used my altered vision, rather than its pure form!

As if my eyes were finally capable of seeing, nearly half of the village started shining wildly with the plethora of different colours, showcasing both different heights of talents and different emotions that were going through the minds of those that I finally spotted.

"Jackpot…"

After muttering to myself, I coated my arm with the entropy before slamming it right down at the ground at my feet! While my arm itself was far too short to achieve the task, by forcing the energy of mine to flow downwards, I managed to grab a hold of the ceiling of the underground base before pulling at it with all my strength!

Or rather, with an incredibly small amount of strength that I could call forth right now, as I was quite worried about the cave actually collapsing on the heads of the people hiding there!

"Good afternoon. Would you be so kind as to tell me where can I find a girl going by the name of Jelleria?"

Starting down at the faces of the people holding each other while staring back at me with their eyes filled with as much terror as curiosity, I had to wait for them to properly respond, as forcing any answers would be taken as a hostile act. And while I didn't really mind creating this kind of weak enemies, doing so right before dropping Jelleria's sister off here would be a supreme act of unthoughtfulness!

"J...j-j…."

Even after the first person finally managed to open his mouth, all that random was capable off was useless muttering.

"Wait, it's you?!"

Suddenly, one of the girls hiding in the far corner of the collapsed cave stood up and looked at me as if I just came here to tell her that she won the ultimate lottery.

"Do I know you?"

Despite how this girl clearly recognised me, even after pushing my mind and memory to its limits, I failed to bring up any memory that would accommodate the girl in front of me in it.

"How could you… I had the time of my life back when you first showed up!"

With the girl's voice finally clearing up the clog that blocked me from this memory, something that I might've put myself in order to at least slow Eve's progress in discovering my debaucherous acts done while she was locked within the prison of her own mind.

"Ah, anyway, quick question. Where can I find Jelleria? I promised to bring her sister back in exchange for leading me to the city, so I want to finalize our deal and get it off my shoulders. And sorry, but I can't help but get curious, just what the heck happened here?"

In the end, while I had some guesses, not even a single one of them could be supported with enough evidence to turn into reality. As such, asking the true victim and spectator of the events that had to unfold recently, was the best way for me to learn just what the heck happened here!