Missing Villagers II/III [Solo / Plot / Job]

The purple-haired maiden was still holding onto her large hat in desperation, as she flew across the starry sky. She had no other choice but to get an eagle-eyed view on the entire forest. Still, nothing seemed to be in sight. Somehow she had completely lost track of the culprit a few minutes back. It was as if she was directly on his tail one minute, and then they suddenly disappeared the next. “Where did he go?” she would mutter to herself, wiping some of the sweat off of her brow.

Rima wasn’t used to pushing herself past her usual limits, as told by her heavy breathing. However, desperate times call for desperate measures. Flying took a surprising amount of effort out of her. She had wanted to get better at maintaining it, but she had followed Diana out of Reim before getting more practice in with Faris. Though, that excuse didn’t really work in actuality, considering she could have simply spent some time training it on the road.

“When did I become so lazy and weak? I have always talked about getting stronger, yet I have no actual results. I guess depression has really gotten to me lately..” She would say to herself, gritting her teeth out of frustration. She couldn’t help but remember back to about a year ago, when she actually had the drive to become stronger. Faris, Noir, the names of both of her masters. If they were to see the shape she was in now, they’d be furious and scold her. Maybe it was time to simply seek out a new master. If it were only that easy, though. Ever since she’d arrived to Kou, it had been hard to encounter even a lower-class magician. The civil war seemed to have everything in turmoil.

Still bearing low motivation on her shoulders, Rima would begin to descend back down to the forest floor. Though, continuing to stay afloat, keeping her feet just off the ground. Right when she was about to call it quits and head back to the village in shame, the sound of crying would grip her attention.

She was incapable of deciphering if they had shouted any words, but it had still given her a good idea of which direction to head in now. North-West. Tapping back into her flight spell, she would dart off immediately, heading further into the dense forest ahead. Despite doing her best to dodge and weave around the loose branches, she would still manage to get snagged by a few of the loose ones. Due to her sudden adrenaline rush, it wouldn’t even phase her. She would simply push past them, whether or not they cut into her soft tanned skin.

Upon reaching a clearing, she would be forced to stop momentarily. One of the branches must had cut above her eye, as there was a small stream of blood running down her face. It wasn’t bad enough that she had to doctor it, but some of the blood still managed to get into her eye, thus blurring her vision for a short time. For a mere moment after wiping it away, Rima would find herself suddenly alerted. It must have just been her eyes simply playing tricks on her, but for a second there, she could have sworn the blood she had wiped away had left a blackened stain upon her hand. Clearly this was both the works of it being night, and also having her vision impaired. As when she took a better look at her hand, there was but only a small red stain left on it.

“Huh, that’s so strange. I could have swor- No, I must press on. That wouldn’t even make any sense. Right, Set?” The confused magician would sputter out, trying to get sense out of her dear bat companion. Upon taking yet another deep breath, the girl was just about ready to set back out. That was, before she noticed what lay right before her own eyes.


“Wha-” As Rima raised her head up high, the sight just before her had confused her greatly. She hadn’t noticed any buildings before, but for some strange reason, there was one directly in front of her now. It was large and quite aged, with many cracks running along the outer walls. For some reason, she wasn’t able to notice it before. Perhaps it was merely an oversight by her?

The entrance of the building wasn’t exactly what one would call welcoming, but the magician still had to enter inside. The chances of this being where the 'pale-faced men' lurked about, was quite high in her opinion. What else would a creepy villain use as a base? A creepy abandoned house like this worked perfectly.

Upon entering inside, the floorboards beneath her geta would begin to creak and moan. This would only continue adding to the creepy factor. While Rima loved horror novels, actually living one was an entirely different story. The girl wasn’t entirely sure if this feeling was something she enjoyed or not.Whatever the case, she wasn’t going to want to stay here for too long. She simply needed to look around to see if this was the place she needed to be or not. If not, despite it being a relatively decent shelter to sleep in for the night, it wasn’t the time to even think about that.

The building didn’t look too big from the outside, so there wasn’t going to be much for her to explore. However, she knew better than to just give up. After reading as many mystery books as she had, one would know to check thoroughly for a basement. She wasn’t entirely sure where to start looking, but if it was going to take too long, she would simply try blasting a hole through the flooring. As old as the structure was, she could probably give the floor a small tap with her Headless Caster and it’d break with ease.

Luckily, she wasn’t forced to go to those lengths. After about three minutes of looking around, the magician would finally come across a loose square tile in the corner of the main hall. Gripping the rusted handle on top, she would pull it straight upwards, revealing the somewhat bright chasm below. This had to be the place where everyone was being taken. It was secret and concealed, something no one except for her would have been able to find.

Rima would drop her entire body through the trap-door. It was a risky move, but what were the chances of it being that dangerous. Whoever used this most likely counted on it never being found, so why would anyone even bother setting up a trap for intruders. It wasn’t a long drop, though, it was quite odd there wasn’t a ladder connected to it. However, things would only continue to get stranger as she turned away from the wall she was facing.

A lit hallway, one that continued to stretch throughout an underground tunnel. The weirdest part, though? It seemed to be a hallway to some kind of prison. Just as any jail is normally constructed, there were cells on both sides of the hall. Each lit, by what seemed to be freshly-lit torches.

“What the…” Rima couldn’t help but feel a bit frightened by all of this. She knew to take precautions before advancing, gripping her Headless Caster tight within her hands. If anyone were to sneak up on her, she could easily deal with them. Though, the thought of it being that man still frightened her. If it really was him, wouldn’t he have said something to her at least? When they were face-to-face, that is. As much as she tried to push those thoughts back, she knew that this wasn’t some kind of strange coincidence.

“He-help..” a stray voice would call out from one of the cells, along with the sound of wheezing behind it. She couldn’t help but feel as if the voice was of someone she knew. The sheer thought of that terrified her. Closing in on the caged-room, Rima would try to swallow back any fear that had built up within her. What she saw next, was something that she would never be able to shake from her mind. A truly haunting image.

Inside of the cell, lay a young maiden. She bore bright pink hair, and a dirty-looking kimono. She had obviously been in there for a while. However, the girl herself is not what had horrified Rima. It was what was wrong with her. Both of her sclera were completely black, similar to how her own turned when angry or sad. The difference was that they seemed to leak a black fluid, a fluid that traveled all the way down her face. Despite the girl looking as if she were in pain from this, there seemed to be a large toothy grin across her pink lips.

The fluid didn’t seem to stop there. It had also began to drip out of her mouth, along with an elongated and discolored tongue coated by it. The woman had completely gone nuts. She was not only crying out for the magician’s help, but she also seemed to laugh during this. Rima couldn’t help but feel great horror from this scene, as she remembered back to when she flew throughout the forest. Was that blood dripping from her forehead truly black back there? There was only one way to find out.

The magician would begin rummaging throughout a bag tied at her waist, eventually pulling out a small bladed object. The girl's first instinct was to simply shove it into her right hand, despite this action being a bit over the top. What she saw was enough to calm her rattled mind, a thick stream of crimson liquid poured from the wound. The blood was red, as it always had been.

Still trembling after all of this, Rima would drop the blood-coated blade to the ground. ‘I’ve got to help her..her and everyone else that might be locked up in here.’ she thought to herself, finally getting a grip back onto reality. She would begin to rush towards the next cell, looking inside to find yet another person. This would go on for the next couple of minutes, until she found the very last person locked away under here. She had to get them all out, however, she was still frightened that the first woman might be too far gone. What had they done to her? Did they do the same to everyone else? If so, this might be out of her medicinal skill.

Eight, that was the grand total of ’prisoners’ she had found. This included the black-goo leaking chick at the start, despite her health looking in incredibly bad shape. After rounding them all up out of their cells, she would come to realize that they all seemed to be somewhat ill. As worrisome as this was, she needed to focus on getting them home first. Which was going to be quite the pain, considering how far she had to fly out just to find this place.

magoi: 350 / 380 | stamina: 80 / 80
WC - 500+
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