“Everyone in the village became different…!? What does…?”
“…They look the same, but I know. That’s not my mom and dad. Something’s pretending to be them…!!”
They all looked at each other with surprise, as they heard Shiroi’s unbelievable story.
It seemed Shiroi himself knew what he was saying sounded absurd, but he continued talking about what he saw.
“…A few days ago, I came to this forest alone. I’ve been told to never come here, because monster armor beasts roam around, but my mom had a fever, so I went out to pick medicinal herbs. And when I came back… Everyone was weird.
My mom wasn’t mad at me for not doing what she said, and she was feeling better all of a sudden, when she had a fever before.”
Shiroi trembled with fear as he recalled that.
Yuugo put his hand on his shoulder, and looked at him as if saying he did not need to force himself to talk, but the boy continued with tears in his eyes.
“It wasn’t just my mom and dad either. The neighbors, and my friends too. Everyone had this weird smile on their faces like it was pasted on them… Seeing everyone like that scared me. Those weren’t my mom and dad, and everyone I knew. Something took their shape and was pretending to be them… I thought they’d get me too if I stayed there, so I ran into the forest. And then…”
“You saw us.”
Shiroi nodded, and Yuugo held his shoulders gently, encouraging him for doing a good job holding out.
Shiroi was still a child, but he noticed something was not right, and continued fighting alone. It had to be disheartening.
Yuugo praised him for continuing to resist despite not knowing what to do, and turned to Precia.
“What do you make of this?”
“…I think it’s unbelievable. But I also don’t think Shiroi is lying…”
“If this is true, it means the inn owner’s story of guards beating monster armor beasts was also a lie. But there’s a lot that doesn’t make sense. Arachlaw usually move in groups, but this one was acting alone…”
If Shiroi’s story was true, that meant the day he ran to the forest, there should still be monster armor beasts.
So guards came, put down the monster armor beasts, and left before Yuugo and the others arrived. Yuugo felt there was not enough time for all this to happen.
But… It was strange that the arachlaw was alone. Arachlaw inherited the trait of forming groups from their goblin roots, and judging by how it seemed to be starving, it felt as though it lost its friends and was trying to survive somehow.
This meant there had to be something in the forest that exterminated a group of arachlaw.
But what? As this new question popped into Yuugo’s head, he told Phi what he was thinking.
“If we assume Shiroi’s story is true, it would explain the strange atmosphere in the village. I don’t know what’s going on, but I think we should investigate.”
“Yes…If something is replacing the villagers, that means the original villagers disappeared somewhere too. And I doubt the guards would mobilize without concrete proof.”
“But what about Shiroi? If we take him back, the villagers will take him, right? It’d be bad if they realized we heard about this, but we can’t just leave him in the forest either…”
Presently, they had no evidence to back up Shiroi’s story. If they reported it to the guards, there was a good chance they would brush it off as the delusions of a runaway child. And on the off chance that they would mobilize, the situation could change drastically in the meantime.
First, they had to gather as much information as they could, so they decided to investigate the village. But that left them wondering what to do about Shiroi.
They could not leave him in the forest, and as they wondered if they could take him back with them without letting the villagers know, Precia remembered something.
“I know! I’m pretty sure Hao has a big bag to carry any wild animals they hunt! If we borrow that, we can put Shiroi in it and take him with us to the inn!”
“All right! Then let’s contact them and have Melt and the others bring them. Can you talk to the vice-president?”
“Yes, of course!”
Yuugo took out Angel’s communication device from his pocket, and used it to talk to her.
Angel picked up soon after, and as he summarized to her what was going on, Shiroi continued looking on with an anxious expression.
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