[ ––––––––– ֎ Day 14 ––––––––– ]

Since the first day, Noemi covered almost one and a half hundred kilometers. Forest grew thinner with a distance, trees were beginning to get scattered like in an orchard, and shapes of their leaves became rounder and wider. Colors also changed, to rarer yellow and light green. Noemi could hear the chirping of birds unlike any heard earlier. She knew, or rather believed, these were smaller birds, that often fed on fruits and flower nectar.

Noemi reached a small pond surrounded by a few rocks, surrounding it was a bed of flowers and on the side was a collapsed trunk, also with a few flowers on its top. The entire area, including the bottom of trees and rocks, was overgrown by thick, pillow-like moss.

In the area were four new creatures, one larger than the others had moss and flowers growing on its back. It appeared very old. Ancient.

All of the herbivores peacefully chewed on the moss. Their torsos had a shape of a thick brick, their neckless heads had flat faces with thin, yet wide eyes and their straight mouth spanned nearly from ear to ear. They moved on four short legs with elephant-like feet and their skin had a green, rocky tone.

A few other small mammals, that were present at the pond, were all asleep, what seemed weird to Noemi. They were all close to the largest moss-chewer, whose runic name was 'Slumbering Father'. The girl's keen lizard eyes wouldn't omit a detail. Flowers on top of 'Slumbering Father' were emitting large quantities of yellow pollen, which even created a visible cloud of dust underneath the creature. All of the sleeping mammals were in the vicinity of the powder. Noemi decided that such a powerful soporific might be useful in the future, so she covered her nose and mouth, held a breath, then collected some for herself and wrapped it in leaves. She would test it during the journey, later.

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The forest grew thicker again. Noemi stopped in her tracks to examine the ground - she had found snares.

“People.” - Noemi whispered. She was half worried, half hopeful.

The girl attentively progressed onward and found more signs of intelligent presence. There were uncanny totems painted in red and made of skulls, bones, and feathers. They were marking borders of habitats and were supposed to be a deterrent, but Noemi wasn't aware of that function. She assumed they were similar to totems at her village, a simple monument to warriors' courage and strength, or to their achievements.

Not far away, there was a corpse of a hideous anthropomorphic toad. It seemed like an adult, had 1.2 – 1.3 meters of height and morbidly obese stomach, numerous bumps on its skin, and a notable hunchback protected by an ingrown shell, parallel to that of a turtle. The species were called troglodytes.

“Death everywhere I go.” - Noemi sighed. Aurora circled around her leg, hugging it, then climbed onto it, as If to show she tries to comfort her reptile companion. Noemi lifted the fox and let it lick her cheeks, she giggled a bit. - “Thanks... you're such a good girl.”

Noemi knelt to pray for the deceased, then after finishing, inspected the body. The cause of death was a slit throat. Other than primitive clothes, there were no personal belongings, they had to be likely taken.

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Noemi couldn't comprehend what she had in front of her eyes. The lessons she had learned back in the village, the culture of her people, her beliefs, it was turned upside down. In the supposed lands of gods.

A blood-soaked, reversed wooden cross was in front of Noemi. Religious reliefs were carved into it, representing an infernal afterlife. The toad race was represented as tormenting featureless humanoids. None of such desecrating pictures would be placed on totems in girl's village.

But this, it was nothing. It was just what was seen after Noemi averted her eyes. She lifted them once again, slowly. Naked, disemboweled female human was crucified with her feet at the top. A sturdy rope held her legs and palms were pierced by a pair of bone nails. There were three precise cuts at her stomach, below the chest, and below the bridge. It was supposed to open the skin in a way that resembled a double door. The woman's guts were pulled out of the body, while still attached when the brutal method allowed, and placed on a stone plate at the bottom of the totem, next to the victims face.

Noemi couldn't utter a word, her lips simply trembled and she burst into tears. All tales told her during a childhood turned out to be a cruel lie. She couldn't accept that any creation was capable of the evil of such heights, but she had to. The evidence was in front of her eyes.

Aurora was angrily growling but stopped after realizing Noemi's nervous breakdown. She walked closer, then climbed onto the girl's leg, while squealing. Noemi simply crouched and lifted the vixen, then hugged her as tight as she could.

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After calming down, Noemi did what had to be done. She never buried the bodies earlier, since it was a tradition to leave hunters or farmers, who died in the forest, to become one with nature. But this was not the case. There was a tradition to bury people who died in their homes, but there was nothing said about desecration. It was against a tradition to bury the woman, but Noemi felt in her heart it was not the right thing to listen to the village's codex right now. She disobeyed supposed deities of her lands, dug a hole with her own hands over several hours, since she lacked tools, and buried the victim, then prayed.

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After two miles of travel, Noemi spotted another dead troglodyte, then discovered that she is in the middle of a former battlefield. Over a dozen deceased toad humanoids were evenly scattered among the trees. It appeared they were slain during a pursuit. Most of them were dead due to blunt trauma or arrow and bolt wounds.

A few feet farther, there were two looted bodies of male humans. The first was a scrawny, brown-haired man in the age of twenty-five to thirty years. The second was a prime example of a knight. He was one head taller than his acquaintance, had wide shoulders, massive chest, and bulky muscles. He appeared mature, but in reality, he had just entered adulthood. His wounds were more severe, spread throughout the entirety of limbs, with a few deeper punctures under armpits, knees, and neck. To compare, his fragile companion had a single piercing wound under a liver, and a spear pierced his torso in a lumber region. The angle suggested that its tip was somewhere near the heart.

Noemi could tell there was a fight, but she never in her life seen or experienced any kind of violence between brothers and sisters of her tribe. There were arenas for duels and challenges, but no intention of deliberate harm was ever found during competition. It was always a healthy rivalry. That's how her tribe was raised, that's the only path in life she knew. But she wasn't surprised anymore, not after seeing terrible things done at the blasphemous shrine.

The girl knew what she had to do, but she was mentally scarred and fatigued. She gathered some flowers, crossed the hands of corpses, put the flower inside, closed their eyes, and prayed for each deceased person. After that, she no longer had the strength to walk, she sat under a tree, covered her face with hands, and started to cry.

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It took a quarter of an hour for Noemi to calm down, she ever ignored the squealing of Aurora who always tried to comfort her. In a single moment, the girl stopped to cry and wiped her face, then patted the vixen.

'I'm a warrior' – There were strength and confidence in the girl's weary face. – 'Remember.' – She recalled her lessons. The warrior doesn't despair in a dire time. He focuses. He struggles. He fights. He does not surrender. Time for grief comes after the job is done.

She didn't understand her situation earlier, at the shrine. She was thinking emotionally. There was always something that could be done, that could be improved or fixed. She was blind to her role as a warrior and as a hero.

Noemi approached the two human corpses, her composed gaze observed the trails of blood. She was right earlier, it was a pursue. She then inspected the bodies, they smelled like their death was max a few hours ago.

There was no time to waste. She knew how to could prevent further slaughter.

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Noemi was swift and precise, she tracked broken twigs and red droplets. After two kilometers, the reduced density of grass allowed to better track the footsteps. There were two more people, one had to be carried later.

Noemi had arrived in an abandoned encampment just before the night. There was an extinguished campfire, one filled sleeping bag, and trash lying around. She could tell there was no danger since not a single rustle could be heard around, and no foreign smells were to be found.

'Why would they lit a fire?' – The girl touched ashes with her finger to feel If they're cold, but they were still slightly warm.

Next, the contents of sleeping bags were inspected, but the view was horrific. There was a blond, long-haired female with skull mauled beyond recognition, literally smashed to pieces with an aid of a blunt weapon. Noemi, however, believed to no longer have time to think. She had to act.

There were footprints of a single troglodyte accompanied by larger ones of a domesticated moss-chewer. She wouldn't lose that trail.

Right before midnight, the girl arrived at a small cliff hidden behind a dense flora. She ran through the troublesome brushes and scouted lower areas with her keen eyes.

Below, there were two fast-moving dark silhouettes. One froze in place and collapsed all of sudden. Noemi immediately jumped down the cliff, running down the steep hillside.

She arrived at the location about fifteen minutes later. The last human was already dead.

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Noemi inspected the body. It was beheaded and it was stiff from some kind of poison, like when the village children ate forbidden fruits. There were two needles at the neck, it had to be the source.

Noemi clenched her fist around the spear in anger. To kill a tribe member was already forbidden, but to also take away the skull and prevent proper burial would be deemed an unforgivable act. There were no survivors left, but she still had a task to finish.