Chương 458: (451) 6.65. Tragedy

The reading Vin was getting from the Soul Mark he'd placed on Scule was in fact not coming from the trogums' original fragment. Instead, it seemed as though the Rebel Queen had relocated to the fragment directly south of her original one, still bordering the zero-gravity fragment with the floating bubbles. That meant four of the remaining six fragments adjacent to her new location were completely unknown to them, but Vin had a feeling that wasn't going to matter all that much.

Not if the trogums had already wiped all of them out. Vin was curious as to what the trogums' original fragment looked like at this point, but he didn't see much reason in launching their assault from there. In the event the Rebel Queen left any of her soldiers in her old fragment, it would just lead to needless fighting. Instead, with the help of Replenishing Breath, Vin, Shia, and Alka traveled through the Underside and emerged within the floating bubbles fragment, traversing the underwater dungeon with ease.

"Remember the plan," Vin said as they emerged from the water and drifted down to the ground. His gravity boots locked him onto the ground easily enough, but Alka and Shia were reliant on the grass reaching up to secure their feet and keep them from drifting off as they spoke.

"We find Scule and Reginald, make sure they're okay, and then split up. You guys draw their attention, Alka and I will figure out where the Rebel Queen is hiding."

"You do realize we're not going to be able to do this without casualties, right?" Alka pointed out.

"I know you don't want any of the trogums to die, but we're not stealthy like Scule and Reginald. We're going to be spotted almost immediately, and we're going to have to fight our way through."

"I know. And I'm not so naive as to think we can find the Rebel Queen without any bloodshed," Vin admitted with a frown.

"Let's just try and move as quickly as we can. The faster we do this, the less trogums have to die by our hands." With that, the three of them took off. Vin jogged along the ground while Alka and Shia flew from one bubble to another, avoiding the dark, murky ones that often held monsters within. As they moved, Vin cast Sense Soul every few minutes, confirming both that Scule and Reginald were okay and that they still hadn't moved. It wasn't too long before they hit the fragment border, and Vin pulled them up short.

The next fragment over was a dark, depressing biome filled with squat trees and not a lot of grass. The ground was almost entirely dirt and rocks, and Vin spotted a few stubby creatures that looked like squashed-down deer nibbling away at leaves. A quick glance at the ground showed that a significant number of footprints had been left in the dusty ground along the fragment border, and Vin was able to tell easily enough that a large force of trogums had come up to the fragment barrier.

The more he examined the tracks, the better a picture he was able to paint in his mind. Tracking increased to level 13! 1, 300 exp gained.

"Looks like the Rebel Queen didn't do too much reconnaissance before ordering her troops to check out the adjacent fragments," he said, gesturing to the churned-up dirt.

"A lot of them came this way before changing course and following the barrier to the next fragment to the southwest. Maybe she grew more cautious after realizing not all the fragments were quite so easily attacked."

"Makes you wonder how many trogums bodies are drifting around up above us right now," Alka said, glancing up at the floating bubbles hovering over their heads.

"No gravity means no stopping them, and I highly doubt they can swim."

"I'm just glad we don't see them guarding the border," Shia admitted, peering curiously at the squat trees dotting the landscape of the next fragment.

"Seems a bit careless, don't you think?"

"She probably assumed that there wasn't going to be any sort of significant force coming through this fragment. Let's just take our lucky breaks where we can get them," Vin said, stepping through the barrier. Third ring fragment discovered! 1, 500 exp gained. The fragment was drier and a bit warmer than the floating bubbles, and a handful of the stubby deer turned and fled as he appeared out of nowhere.

It was easy to forget that basic animals living within fragments couldn't sense anything happening beyond the fragment border, and Vin chuckled as the deer bounded away.

"How close are they?" Alka asked as she drifted in after him, landing nimbly when gravity was suddenly returned to her.

"About four miles toward the center," Vin said, already running up into the air with his cloud stepping technique to get a better view of their surroundings. It was risky, as any trogum peering up into the sky might be able to see him as well, but they probably weren't going to maintain the element of surprise for long anyway. Better to see exactly what they were dealing with. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

From his higher vantage point, Vin was surprised to discover he still couldn't make out even a single trogum. As far as he could tell, this fragment looked fairly normal. At least on the surface.

"Crap… I think they've already set up a new tunnel system," he said, dropping back down and landing beside his friends.

"That's going to make this tricky."

"On the one hand, it makes moving across the surface all the easier," Shia pointed out.

"But yeah, launching an assault on their tunnels is definitely not ideal. Maybe we should head back and grab Lumel? Her teleportation would make this a lot simpler."

"Lumel hasn't finished recovering from her dream journey yet, we should let her rest. Not to mention I don't want to leave Scule and Reginald sitting in the heart of the Rebel Queen's base for any longer than we have to," Vin said, motioning for them to follow him as he started running. Vin briefly entertained the idea of using his latest skill point to try evolving Running now that it had hit level 20, but he decided to hold off for the moment.

There was no telling how long it would take him to hit level 54, and he wanted to make sure he had a skill point in reserve for when Dungeoneering managed to reach level 20. The skill was still only at 16 for the moment, but better to be safe than sorry. The three of them ran across the rocky, dirt-filled landscape, and out of curiosity, Vin tried casting Sense Air aimed at the ground beneath their feet as they traveled.

His heart sank as his spell returned a few distinct tunnels running only a few dozen feet below the surface, confirming his worst fears. With his divine boon already spent for the day on his earlier miracle, he wasn't going to be able to map out these tunnels like he had in the trogums' original fragment. When it was time to head underground, they were going to have to do things the hard way. As they ran, they began spotting large mounds of dirt piled high beside gaping holes leading underground every so often.

Vin hadn't stopped to consider exactly what the trogums had done with all the dirt from their new tunnel system, but he supposed they now had their answer. A number of these holes even had trogums continuously walking in and out of them, dumping armfulls of dirt on the massive piles before turning around and trudging right back. Their party skirted these holes as best they could, taking advantage of Vin and Shia's high focus and ability to spot them long before the trogums realized they were there.

Even with the need to steer clear from the large holes they were making excellent time, and Vin started to wonder if they'd manage to find a hole close to Scule's and Reginald's location without running into any problems. Then they found the first scene of carnage. Vin spotted the building from afar, and he stumbled to a stop, halting his friends as he did so. A quick cast of a regular Sense Soul confirmed that the area was devoid of sentient life, at least on the surface, and he couldn't help himself.

It was still in the direction they needed to go, so he continued forward, his blood going cold as he approached what remained of the once-quaint village. Whatever race had lived here looked to have been a fairly short one, similar in size to the goblins. The small huts were only a little bigger than he was, and the doors were only three feet tall. Many of the buildings had been destroyed, and the fields of crops dug up and overrun.

Signs were overturned and a small well in the center of the village had been damaged, half the stones scattered about or presumably having fallen into the water. Though admittedly, Vin didn't even notice most of that. His attention was drawn to the weeks-old blood stains. Despite the clear carnage that had befallen this village, there wasn't so much as a single body to be found.

Trogum or mysterious villagers alike, any who had fallen must have been dragged back by the trogums to their Rebel Queen, turned into fuel to continue the war effort.

"By the Gods," Shia murmured, gazing around at what remained of the village.

"They really just swept through and destroyed everything. This is horrific."

"They're monsters," Alka growled, her eyes burning into pinpricks as she peered at the small houses.

"From the amount of green blood compared to red, it looks like the villagers put up a decent fight. But going by the houses, there were probably only a few hundred of them. They didn't stand a chance against the trogum tide."

"The Rebel Queen is the monster," Vin reminded her. Though it was difficult to maintain that distinction as he wandered the village, his tracking skill all but forcing his mind to play out precisely what had happened here. The trail of red blood showed how the surviving villagers had tried to flee, only to be chased down and finished off by the trogum horde.

"The trogums aren't even conscious of their actions right now. They're basically sleep walking."

"More like sleep slaughtering," Alka grunted, bending down and picking up what looked like a doll made out of some wooden fibers. It was covered in dust and blood, but whoever had made it had to have been a skilled crafter as it was still largely intact. Holding the doll up to her face, Alka stared at it for a moment, before gingerly placing it down against the remains of one of the huts, ensuring the doll was sitting up. Turning to look at them, she raised her sword, pointing it off toward where they were heading.

"Vin, unless the other fragments were significantly stronger, this scene? This has happened five times now. Not that I think you were planning on trying to come up with a peaceful resolution to this, but this needs to end. Today."

"Don't worry, I'm right there with you," Vin said, tearing his eyes from the splotches of red blood that showed him where the last of the villagers had fallen. He wondered just what these people had been like. If they'd been peaceful and friendly, or perhaps secluded and fearful of others. If they had any fun quirks he would have loved chatting with them about, or maybe unique magics he'd never experienced.

Unless any of them had managed to flee and somehow escape the wave of trogums, nobody would ever know what the denizens of this world had been like.

"If I hadn't acted, all the dwarves would have been dead by now, just like these people. The Rebel Queen is a monster, and we're going to put her down just like any other. We're close."

"You're damn right we are," Shia said, her eyes hard as she directed Blossom to keep moving.

"Come on. The sooner we reach the Rebel Queen, the sooner we can be sure nobody else will have to suffer like these people did."