IDDYD 13

Chapter 13

Alice and Aiden had to ride for another full day after that. Only by the following dawn did they finally manage to reach the vicinity of their destination.

“Still, we shortened it by half a day.”

Alice slowly guided her horse into the village.

The village of Cielle, located near the Saint Mountains, was smaller in scale compared to other villages in the Erdin territory but was peaceful and scenic, often attracting people from other regions for vacations.

“We should go to the inn first to rest and reorganize for a bit before heading to the mountains… I suppose.”

Alice trailed off as she surveyed the village. Aiden, who was following behind, noticed Alice had stopped moving and asked,

“What’s the matter?”

“No, it’s just… the village is unusually quiet.”

Cielle village was known for being peaceful yet vibrant. It wasn’t a place shrouded in such desolate silence where not a single person could be seen on the streets.

“Sir Neil’s report didn’t mention anything about Cielle Village.”

Had something happened in the meantime? With an uneasy feeling, Alice headed towards the inn.

After tying their horses at the stable near the inn, Alice and Aiden immediately entered.

“Welco—”

At the sound of the jingling bell, the innkeeper reflexively greeted them, but upon seeing them, her eyes widened.

“Ah, Milady…!”

“Emma?”

The middle-aged woman called Emma recognized Alice and burst into tears. She spoke with tears streaming down her face like a waterfall.

“Milady, please find my husband…!”

—

Emma took a sip of warm water while sniffling. Alice sat across from her and waited patiently until she had calmed down somewhat.

Once her composure had settled a bit, Emma began to speak.

“My husband disappeared ten days ago. It was when he went out to stock up on supplies for the inn. Our inn always gets its supplies from town.”

Tears welled up in Emma’s eyes as she continued.

“But my husband didn’t come back even after half the day had passed. At first, I just thought it was taking longer than usual. But a day passed, then two, and my husband still…”

Fresh tears gushed from her eyes once more.

Although her pronunciation was unclear due to her sobbing, Alice listened carefully to every word, her face serious as she crossed her arms.

The town Emma mentioned referred to Breeze Town, the closest town to Cielle Village. Being a relatively bustling area compared to Cielle, the villagers often went to the town to purchase necessary goods.

It took a solid hour by carriage from her village, Cielle, to reach Breeze Town.

It was a considerable distance just to buy things, but even so, it shouldn’t have taken ten days to return.

“Did you go to the town?”

“Yes, but they said he never even came to the shop. Then where in the world did he go…?”

Emma, answering Alice’s question, couldn’t continue and pressed her lips tightly together.

To have never even arrived at the town? Did he have an accident on the way?

Alice tapped her chin with her finger, lost in thought. Then Emma spoke again in a trembling voice.

“And it’s not just my husband who disappeared.”

“What?”

There was more than one missing person? Startled by the shocking news, Alice stared at Emma.

Fidgeting with the mug she was holding, Emma said,

“It started with my husband. One or two people have been going missing from the village every day. Yesterday, it was the daughter of Mr. Thomas from next door. She’s not even ten years old yet… where in the world could she be and what’s happening…?”

“…”

“With incidents like this happening continuously, no one dares to go outside. People disappear whenever they go out. I imagine the other villagers feel the same way.”

Was this the reason there was no one on the streets? As Alice quietly organized the information she had heard from Emma in her mind, she suddenly noticed something odd and raised her head.

“You said the first disappearance happened ten days ago, right? Around that time, our family’s knight order should have visited this village.”

To go to the Saint Mountains, one had to stop by Cielle Village briefly. To ascend the steep mountains with a large number of knights, it was necessary to complete thorough preparations in a nearby village before departure.

It had been a week since the Fort Knight Order, which had gone to the Saint Mountains, returned to the ducal residence, and it took about three days to travel from the mountains to the ducal residence.

That meant the knight order was stationed near the mountains ten days ago. As Alice expected, Emma nodded.

“Yes, but my husband hadn’t disappeared yet while the knights were in the village. The knights left the village in the morning, and my husband went to the town that afternoon. I didn’t know he wouldn’t be able to return until now…”

“So the disappearance occurred on the very day the knight order left?”

This must be why there was no mention of Cielle Village in Neil’s report at all.

The timing was highly suspicious. It was as if…

“They were waiting for it, weren’t they?”

Aiden, who had been silently listening to the entire conversation, spoke up. Alice met his gaze as if prompting him to continue.

“It’s like someone intentionally waited until the knight order left and then started the disappearance incidents.”

“Why do you think that?”

“You know it too. This isn’t a normal situation. People start disappearing conspicuously as soon as the knights are gone from the village. There must be someone behind this incident, right?”

He was right. With so many people disappearing overnight, there must surely be a culprit behind the incidents. It was unclear how they made people disappear, though.

“But…”

Emma cautiously interjected into their conversation. She glanced at Aiden and asked,

“Who is the person next to you…?”

“Ah, did I not introduce him? My bodyguard.”

“Bodyguard?”

He’s speaking casually to the young lady? Although the words weren’t spoken, Alice could guess what Emma wanted to say.

Feeling awkward for no reason, Alice cleared her throat and said,

“Yes, he’s not a suspicious person. He’ll also assist with this disappearance case.”

“That’s right. I move according to our young lady’s orders.”

Aiden agreed, tilting his chin and meeting Alice’s eyes. A pretty smile formed at the corner of his mouth.

Why is he smiling like that? Alice subtly avoided his gaze. Even for her, it was difficult to maintain eye contact with someone looking at her while smiling like that for long.

Alice, pretending nothing was amiss, turned her gaze back to Emma and said,

“Anyway, I wanted to ask you a few things about this case.”

“Ah, yes!”

Seeing Alice’s serious expression, Emma straightened her posture. Alice leaned towards her to listen to her story in detail.

How dare they cause disappearance incidents in my territory? They messed with the wrong person. Determination to catch the culprit blazed in Alice’s eyes as she made up her mind.

—

Alice and Aiden went around together collecting information. The villagers were surprised when Alice visited their homes, but they told her everything they knew.

After visiting every house, Alice organized the collected information.

“The first disappearance occurred ten days ago, on the evening the Fort Knight Order passed through. Since then, one or two people have disappeared from the village every day, making a total of eighteen missing people…”

She muttered while looking at the list of missing persons she held. There were more than just one or two strange points.

“How is it that with eighteen people disappearing from one village, there isn’t a single eyewitness?”

The testimonies of the people were generally similar. A family member who said they were just stepping out for a moment didn’t return even after a day had passed.

But despite so many people disappearing in such a short time, no one had actually seen the face of the culprit.

That’s why the residents of Cielle Village thought of this disappearance case as an inexplicable, supernatural phenomenon.

“On top of that, it’s also strange that the communication stone just happens to be broken now. They said its condition hasn’t been good for a while, but…”

Any magic that traverses space is very high-level magic. Magic that transmits voices or signals over long distances is the same.

That’s why there are few people who can make communication stones, and the time and cost invested in making them is high, yet their efficiency isn’t great, so they haven’t been commercialized in the Empire.

Even in the Erdin territory, where magic is the most developed in the Empire, communication stones were installed one per village only for the purpose of notifying the lord when danger arises.

But Cielle Village’s communication stone happened to be broken, so even though ten days had passed since the disappearance incidents started, they couldn’t inform the ducal house. It was as if every circumstance was set up just for this one disappearance incident.