We continued on, we killed another ghoul, and we continued walking on the path, it seemed to go into a now abandoned village, the homes were desolate, and it was lifeless. The smell of the decaying bodies penetrated my nose, it made me want to vomit.

And slowly the three of us walked, we were cautious, we didn’t know what would appear in front of us. We wanted to clear out the village of any ghouls so that we could loot the place. I took Ana’s bag since I didn’t have one, and she didn’t want to carry it anyway.

Once we reached the other side of the village, we noticed that it split into a few different roads, one leading to what seemed like a castle, and another went into a mine, while the other went into a forest.

Confirming that we cleared everything, we walked back and we looted the houses individually. Ana and Hen stayed close together in case anything happened while I was looting.

In the first house that I looted, there seemed to be a necklace lying under the bed, and a bit of money was in the drawer. To be exact, it was 5 coins. In total we now had 170 coins. I didn’t know how much the necklace was worth, but I think it might be profitable.

And while I continued to search the room, I heard “help... me..”

When I looked behind me, it was a ghoul... No, it was something in between... Half its body disproportionately morphed into the ghoul, while the other half was human. It approached me saying the same thing. I shouted, “Guys! Ghoul!” The two of them were stationed outside, Hen came running in, while Ana stayed outside to finish it.

Since the ghoul was in front of the entrance, Hen charged at it and pushed it onto a wall, he then stood in front of me and put his shield up.

Hen tried shouting for Ana to shoot it, and realised he couldn’t. This was the worst situation. Ana couldn’t do anything if it came charging at her, so the both of us had to stand still while it hissed at us. It seemed like the ghoul was controlling itself from attacking us, it said, “Raaahr... Raa- run... a.. away!”

And suddenly an arrow flew into its head, it penetrated into its eyes, blood sprayed as it screamed in pain. Looking at Ana, it charged at her. Hen ran his best trying to catch up to it and stab it with his sword. And before he could, it jumped at Ana. Hen then charged and sliced it with his long sword, it screeched and opened its mouth to devour Hen, without his shield, he was a sitting duck. I unsheathed my knife and stabbed it straight into its mouth. It tried to bite me, but I held its mouth open with my other hand. Its disgusting saliva dropped down from my hand.

Like a mad dog, it screeched and tried to bite me, but due to it being a half-ghoul, it couldn’t open its mouth fully. But I couldn’t keep my balance.

It threw me onto the house’s wall, I lost my breath. Hen then drove his sword into its heart, while Ana shot into its other eye. As it slowly bled out, it said “Thank... You...”

Ana said, “W-we should probably get back...”

“Right... Let’s get going, Bluu.”

“Alright. Right now we should have about 31.5 Markis for you and me, while Ana has 27. And we have about 170 coins plus this necklace.”

Hen replied, “We have enough for about 3 days now, at least for food.”

I said, “Now all that’s left is a place to stay...”

“Right...”

Now that we had some more money, the three of us decided we'd get some rest after eating at the stand again. Seems like the stand offered some cheap rice-cakes. They were about 5 coins each but they were small, after sharing some food, the total cost for this meal came out to be 20 coins.

However there was something interesting at the foodstand, it was a lamp, there didn’t seem to be a fire in it and it seemed to be a crystal. I wanted to know what it was, and so I asked Hen to look about.

Apparently that’s a crystal lamp, one of those can light up continuously for a few weeks if you use it on a minimum. They cost 40 coins, but we were able to bargain with the shopkeeper that sold it and got it for 25 coins, although this one was a bit used. And we got a big cloth for 8 coins. We thought we could split the cloth between us and use it for when we sleep.

Since I decided that right now we couldn’t afford any of the Inns and could only sleep at that cave, since it wasn’t the worst place to sleep in.

In total now we had about 117 coins left. We went back to the cave, divided the cloth into two since it couldn’t be divided into 3. We’d also sleep on a schedule, with one of us awake.

We decided that we’d go to the priestess once we’ve slept. So after a long day, we finally closed our eyes, and went to sleep.

I woke up and took a moment to let my eyes adjust, the three of us were tired yesterday, and honestly we couldn’t do much... That was when I noticed that Ana was asleep. I tried waking her up only to notice that her right arm had a bite mark.

“Oy hen!”

He got up startled and asked me, “wha- What happened?”

“Look at this...”

“What the hell... No way... It’s that ghoul!”

“What?”

“Remember when we fought a ghoul yesterday? I think she got bitten by that thing... Wha- what do we do bro?”

“Uh-.. I don’t know.. Let’s uh-...”

“Alright calm down Bluu, we have to think this through.”

“Alright.. In that case do we know of any way to fix this?”

“We have to get medicines.. Or... I don’t know if it’ll work..”

“Tell me, what is it?”

“Well, in most RPGs you can go to the church to get healed up, right? So I was thinking that... But the church here is- well, broken.”

“Ah shit... Well, let’s try it anyway, I’ll go to the stores... No, you go to the stores.. I’m an infected. I’ll carry her to the church.”

“Are you sure man..?”

“Well, no choice really.”

I tried my best to carry her on my back, I wasn’t very strong here either, and she was pretty heavy for me. Regardless I carried her as fast as I could to the church.

My back hurt, my knees felt like they’d collapse at any moment now. The sweat got into my eyes... Ah shit.. It burns.. Once I saw the church, I rushed in to see the priestess praying.

“Pr- Priestess! Please help us!”

Slowly she got up and came towards us, her silvery pupils looked at me and then looked at Ana and said, “Oh you poor soul. She has been infected. She cannot be saved not unless the goddess herself showed mercy on this child.”

“W- What?”

Closing her eyes she slowly placed her hand on Ana’s forehead, and suddenly I could see something flashing into my mind. It was my Markis, it was being reduced to nothing. It seemed Ana’s Markis was also being used, it was as though I could see a stream of information flowing.

Steadily the bite marks that had started decaying her skin disappeared and it was healing, her hand was healing. Butー I had already run out of Markis. And it stopped healing.

“I have done all that I can, my child.”

“Wh- What about Hen’s Markis?!”

“I have already told you, I have done everything I can. Forgive me.”

N- no way... All our Markis is gone.. And Ana’s bite marks haven’t gone yet. Ana slightly opened her eyes, “Ah... Our Markis... It’s not there...”

I didn’t say anything.

“It’s my fault... mine...” she said with tears in her eyes. “Just... let me die... I’m not gonna make it...”

“No. We won’t let you die like that. Not to a friend.”

“Tha- thank yo..” she trailed off and closed her eyes, it seemed that she was sleeping.