The fight had ended quickly, but it had only created another problem. Edward’s reaction had killed the monster instantly, not giving them the opportunity to gather any information. That thought was only brief though, as Jill’s presence would let them find the monsters origins anyway. Normally, they would probably need to do a lot of investigation to find real results, but Jill’s ability was letting them take a lot of shortcuts. Honestly, Mash wouldn’t have known where to start without her ability.

Edward quickly moved the monster’s body inside the house, his motions seemed a little panicked. He was probably worried about other people in the town seeing it, and Mash caught Robert nodding at his brother. The three of them that had been walking around entered the house to. Once Mash got inside, he could see a trail of blackish blood, and watched as it followed Red’s feet, and get drawn into her body. She was cleaning the ground and hiding any trace of the presence. It was an obvious thing to do, but Mash had forgotten about it in the excitement.

There was a short entrance hallway in the house, and Mash only saw the body once he turned the corner. It was splayed out in what looked like a living room. There was a large couch against one of the walls, and children’s toys scattered across the floor. He stared at the body of the creature. It had died while transforming from its human appearance, and half of its body was a sickly green shade while the other half looked entirely human. Its left arm had turned into a stinger of some kind, and it dripped with a red a substance. Mash didn’t think it was blood. The substance was viscous like honey, and he could watch as it dripped slowly.

“What is it?”

Robert asked the question aloud, and Mash had to restrain himself from answering on the spot. Despite the thing’s unusual skin color and abilities, Mash could tell that it was a demon. His draconic domain let him feel what its magic was like, and it reminded him a lot of the black fires the demons had used. Plus, there was a subtle likeness between the demons he remembered and this monster here. The sickly hue to its skin, and the pitch-black eye reminded him too much of the demons.

“It’s a demon, or at least that’s what I think.”

Jill seemed to have no problem sharing that information, and Mash was shocked as neither of the twins seemed to doubt her. In fact, they didn’t even question her about it. It looked like Jill’s role as a prophet was granting her some inherent trust from the twins.

“Can you tell where we need to go?”

Red sounded a little impatient, and Mash couldn’t really blame her. Although, it was unlike her, and Mash wondered what her had so riled up. Jill nodded her head, but they didn’t leave immediately. They still had to check the body and the bodies of the people who had lived here before.

There was not much more to gain from the demon’s body. Studying it might let them better understand how its body worked, but that wouldn’t really help solve their immediate problems. Several of which had sprung up from this discovery. In the back of his mind, he wondered how many demons had infiltrated this village. They had passed a few people on the way here, and Mash hadn’t sensed anything amiss. Although Mash didn’t actually know if he would. He hadn’t had the opportunity to scan this creature while it was imitating a human and didn’t know if it had been able to hide from his domain. If it could, then Jill was probably the only one who could tell the difference.

After checking the body, Mash led the others into the room he had sensed earlier. It was a bedroom, the only one in the house too. It was only a single floor house, and he could see most of it now that he was inside. The bed was large, and there were three distinct lumps on the bed. Even if he didn’t want to see it, his domain revealed the truth to him. Edward walked over to the bed, removing the sheets that were covering the body.

There were two adults and one child on the bed. They were naked, and Mash doubled over vomiting on the ground. All that was left of their bodies was skin, and it had looked like a vile costume. He could tell the bodies had been unnatural from his domain, but only upon seeing them directly did he realize how disfigured they were. It was if they had been skinned, and that their bodies looked like they had been drained. All that remained now was oddly clean skin and hair.

Once his stomach was thoroughly empty, Mash managed to return his gaze to the corpses. The others were still struggling, but it looked like Red had adjusted quickly. Mash noticed holes in each of their stomachs. The stinger the demon had was probably the cause of this. None of them wanted to linger in the room for very long, and they left quickly. Edward set one of his clones to check for clues while they moved onto the last location. That ability was proving to be far more convenient than Mash initially understood, and he was more than happy to leave the investigation of the house to Edward.

Even if his father in this scenario was fake, Mash still wanted to save the man. Hopefully, they would find him at this last location. More importantly, he just hoped they weren’t too late. What would happen if he was already dead? He believed that saving his father was supposed to be a part of the dungeon. It was pretty clear that Mash’s role in the scenario was to find out about his father’s disappearance, or maybe he was supposed to prevent it. Either way, it sounded like a good idea to pick up the pace.

Jill had no problems leading them to the next location, and Mash noticed that she wasn’t teleporting. Like Mash, she was hiding her true abilities. Mash still didn’t trust the twins and wanted to keep his transformations hidden for as long as possible. With the dragon form he should be able to beat them, but he knew that they probably had more abilities too. Mash didn’t think that anyone would reveal the true nature of their skills and doubted that the situation would change with these gifts.

They ran through the streets now, no longer caring about maintaining a calm visage. After seeing the corpses in the previous house, none of them wanted to take things slowly. The twins seemed especially anxious, and it looked like they wanted to carry Jill so that they could move faster. This run showed Mash that the twins were a lot more capable than they let on. Their upgraded bodies were more capable than Mash’s, though he was still confident that he would be stronger with his dragon form. At the very least, he could compete with them.

They passed a lot of people, and Mash kept moving from side to side in order to check them with his domain. Unfortunately, nobody was revealed to be a demon. At the very least his skill wouldn’t show him. After running like that for a minute, Jill stopped at a pier. He hadn’t noticed this place earlier and wondered how he had missed it. It was large, and there were several tall boats in the river. The whole dock was made of wood and there were several big storehouses along the river. Jill pointed towards one of those.

“That’s where the trail ends. There are a lot of threads leading there, even one from the house we were just at.”

Mash felt something rise in the back of his throat at the mention, but he managed to avoid throwing up again. Jill’s face was similarly marred with disgust, but again Mash thought that Red looked surprisingly fine. Was it due to her new race or something from her past? He would aske her about it later, for now, there was something more pressing to him.

“What’s the plan?”

Robert asked Edward, obviously deferring to him for this situation. Mash was tempted to just barge in there, and deal with the demon’s but knew that it was a bad idea. If any demon’s managed to escape, then they would be in some serious trouble. Mash spoke aloud, cutting of anything Edward would have said.

“Let’s check the building out, if we walk around the outside, I should be able to get a small idea of what’s going on inside.”

The building was large, and even with the increased size of his draconic domain, he still wouldn’t be able to see the entire building by circling the outer walls alone. However, he could probably see any rooms or the like and could find any people or corpses. Robert nodded to him and spoke quickly.

“Well, lead the way. No point in slowing down now.”

Robert didn’t seem to mind letting Mash take charge, probably because it was his father at risk currently. Leaving it at that, Mash ran towards the side of the building while making sure to avoid being spotted. The building was big and made of wood too, and the bottoms of some of the walls were slightly damp. The wood was darkened by regular flooding. He wondered what goods a village like this would trade and remembered the immense amount of farmland outside.

Approaching the side of the building, Mash got as close as he could to the wall. The building didn’t really have rooms, instead the inside seemed like one massive room. He could feel piles of boxes and noticed that many of them were open.

“I think the demon’s have been eating your supplies.”

Mash spoke to Edward, his tone carrying his confusion. He hadn’t realized that the demons would eat crops and had expected them to be meat eaters. They seemed like the type of monster to eat human flesh. Honestly, he knew little of the creatures and their motivations, and whished again that he had the ability to understand their language. He didn’t think that peace would be possible, that was obviously a foolish idea, but the curiosity had been eating away at him. What had that demon been trying to tell him?

That conversation would continue to bother him, that was an issue for another time though. He refocused on their search, circling the outside of the building. Once he got to the corner of the building, he finally noticed what felt like humans inside. They were chained up, and he hoped that was a good sign. They were attached to something, though he couldn’t tell what it was from the shape.

“There are people chained up in this corner. We need to get them out and probably have Jill check whether or not they are human.”

Edward nodded and gave some instructions to Robert. The two had an obvious dynamic where Edward came up with most of their plans. Robert seemed more like the type for action, and he followed Edward’s instructions perfectly. A blade appeared in Robert’s hand, one that seemed to form out of thin air. It was a long blade, that had the slightest curve to it. The top of the blade didn’t look sharp, but he could see a thin layer of mana coating the entire blade.

The man’s strike was impressive, in that Mash’s eyes only barely managed to keep up with it. He wasn’t sure if he could dodge it, though that had never been what he focused on. Mash relied more on the durability of his forms, and while the power behind the swing was impressive, he still didn’t think it would cut his draconic form. Mash kept comparing himself to these two men, as he didn’t think he would be lucky enough to avoid fighting them in the future. They were the strongest people he had met and expected that he would end up fighting them for one reason or another.

The wall was cut cleanly, and Robert slid open the cut section. It hardly made any noise, and Mash was presented with the sight of four chained people. Thankfully, they were still alive, and he saw the recognition in one of their eyes. The man didn’t look like Mash, but the expression he gave him revealed his identity. This was his father, and Mash stared at him silently. Looking over the people, Mash felt something rise in his throat again, and it took a lot more effort to keep it down.