The Otherworlder and Vera joined the jovial townsfolk around the singing bards and the grilling meat. The mood akin to a celebration was a daily occurrence amidst the townsfolk.

“Hey, Mr. Fors! Come join us!” Some of the dancing ones came towards the Otherworlder and asked him to join in the dance.

“No.”

“Ahk!”

“Hey, Sir Iatra!” One of the thug-like adventurers grilling turned towards him. “Have some grilled pig meat! It’s very spicy!”

“That’s disgusting. No.”

“Ahk!”

“BEEP! Welcome to the adventure–”

“No, go away.”

The Otherworlder shot them all down ruthlessly as he looked around. A large part of the central town had already been cleared off the debris and the groundwork for new structures had already been laid down. By some miracle, the adventurer guild’s guild house was relatively intact and was wide enough to house a large number of people, while the rest camped out in the cleared spots and some even took guard outside the bounds of the town.

“The people here sure are brave...” the Otherworlder off-handedly muttered.

“Haha, well, we expected our town to be destroyed as well. But not this badly!” An unfamiliar voice answered back.

The Otherworlder looked to his side to find the brunette receptionist of the adventurer’s guild standing next to him. He gazed further back and saw Vera tackling down the grilled pig meat. The spice had fished her up. Shifting his gaze back to the receptionist, he asked.

“What do you mean expected it?”

“Hm?” the receptionist gave him an odd look. “Isn’t it pretty common near the ends of Angnarmarak? It would be stupid to not expect it.”

The Otherworlder was slightly surprised at how casually she had called something like a town being destroyed common but did not show it on his face.

“I see,” he answered, and turned his gaze away again. He took a glance at the dancing townsfolk before shifting towards the ruins again.

For a while, he wasn’t able to tear his eyes apart from the ruins. The town was certainly beautiful. He meant it when he told it to Vera. He could remember thinking multiple times that the town was beautiful...

‘How was it again?’

... So why couldn’t he remember what exactly it looked like? He remembered thinking the town was pretty but had he ever truly seen it? The Otherworlder wasn’t sure.

He closed his eyes to take his mind away from it.

“Hm, where are the Sanguine Snakes?” the Otherworlder asked.

“Oh, they went back down into the sewers along with some other adventurers. The guild master issued an urgent scouting quest after learning that a whole cult and such a giant monster had based themselves down there.”

“Sloppy.”

The receptionist winced. She couldn’t exactly disagree.

‘So they are down there...’ The Otherworlder still owed them an apology, and he wanted to take a good look at what had remained of the sewers himself. Thinking so, he decided to go down there and take part in the quest himself.

“Oh hey! Look, it’s a pigeon!” Just then, the receptionist exclaimed out loud while pointing in the sky. The Otherworlder followed her finger and looked up himself.

A black bird flapped its wing in the air, with each flap it smoothly pushed itself backward. It moved in the direction of its tail.

The Otherworlder’s face scrunched up. A bird was flying in reverse! Reverse!

“That’s no fucking pigeon!” the Otherworlder.

“Huh? What else flies backward?”

“Not pigeons!”

The ‘pigeon’ continued flying in reverse, it went right overhead the Otherworlder and ascended further up in the sky. The two of them kept staring at it as a gooey white mass dropped from the sky and nestled right on the Otherworlder’s head with a plop.

“Oh my, Sir Iatra, you got shat on!”

The Otherworlder’s eyebrows twitched. “Really now?”

“Yeah, it’s a sign. You’ve been blessed,” the receptionist said.

Taking a handkerchief out of his coat’s pockets with annoyance seeping out of his every movement, the Otherworlder wiped the bird shit out of his forehead. Putting pressure on it meant sticking the shit further into his skin, not putting enough pressure meant risking leaving some shit on it. “What kind of blessing could this be?” he asked, his teeth clenched tight enough to muffle his words.

The receptionist showed him a thumbs up and winked. “Bad luck”

Enough.

The Otherworlder decided to report her to the guild right then and there.

┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈

A small ruckus broke out when the adventurer’s realized that Vera was eating up almost all of their food. With great effort, they managed to tear her off of the spicy grilled pig and rescue their lunches.

The Otherworlder then told her of his plans to go and take a look into the sewers. He expected a strongly negative reaction, but to his surprise, Vera had meekly agreed.

The two of them descended down to the sewers with a wooden ladder set up by the adventurers. It almost unhinged from the ropes it was tied to to keep it stable when the Otherworlder was descending, but he made out of it by jumping down halfway through.

He was too weak to land on his own from a long jump, so Vera caught him before he could fall.

Exchanging more insults and jabs, the Otherworlder and Vera explored the sewers very cautiously. It was after walking around for half an hour that they reached a familiar tunnel.

Crossing it through, a hellish sight awaited them.

Almost a hundred corpses laid on the floor with slits and stabs all over their bodies.

They had come up to the room where the ritual to revive Ifcarus had taken place.