As light crested over the city's walls, I confirmed my little party of spirits was together and started my way to the gates as instructed by the guild master.

Now that I thought about it, he didn't mention how I was supposed to recognize the rest of the investigation members. Then again, it was something that was answered for me when I got there.

The western gates had a group of what obviously looked like adventurers standing around. Some were inspecting their gear, others having a little meal, and yet more were just standing around chatting. There were probably about thirty people in the group, if they could be called such a thing. While they were all similar in the respect that they were adventurers, they had separated themselves into differing clusters. The only reason why anyone could consider them actually a single group was because of a single familiar presence that was overseeing it all: the guild master himself.

"Hey! Over here!"

The guild master somehow spotted me as I approached despite wearing those cloudy fake glasses and called out while waving an arm energetically. Frankly, the way everyone turned to look my way because of him made me want to just want to turn away and pretend that I had nothing to do with the guy, but that wasn't really a choice I had. There were lives at stake.

I quickened my strides and joined the haphazard amalgamation of adventurers.

"Alright, you're the last one."

The fact that somehow I was last annoyed me a little. The sun hadn't even started directly illuminating any of the buildings in the city and the gates were still clearly closed.

But rather than do anything untoward, I simply swallowed those thoughts and just bowed my head a little.

"Now then, this girl's name is Scarlet. Scarlet, this is Nereus. He's going to be leading the investigation."

I gave the tall man a curt nod.

Properly looking at him, my first impression was that he was a bit intimidating. He was an entire head taller than the guild master, pretty buff, and even had a stern expression on his face. His armour was made of soft looking leather with metal plates on key areas. Especially his gauntlets and greeves were pretty sturdy looking, but his chest plate didn't look half assed either. For some reason his thighs and upper arms weren't covered in armour. For that matter, his biceps were completely exposed, as well as his undershirt and pants being skintight meant that I could see the curves of his prominent abs and steely thighs.

"Scarlet? Haven't heard of you. You new, or from far?"

My eyes snapped back to the investigation leader when he opened his mouth.

"Ah, both."

"Both? Hey Pontus. I don't need some newbie dragging us down."

"Don't worry. Apparently she's real strong despite being new."

"One of those pretrained guys then?"

"I don't know?"

"Haaa?! You! What's your...?"

As that muscular man reached out to grab my robes I sidestepped to avoid him. Things were already going poorly and being grabbed wasn't exactly something I enjoyed.

His hand grasped nothing but air and he froze for a moment.

"...Alright. Maybe you won't be a burden after all."

"...huh?"

Before I knew it, the investigation leader turned away and went to talk to one of the people checking his gear.

I wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but I was glad that he didn't try to escalate. Really. I was worried about that stupid cliche bearing its ugly face.

With that, I had a closer look at the people gathered around the city's gates.

The numbers ended up being 29 members including myself, presuming that the guild master wasn't joining us. Of the 29, there was five dwarves, eight beastkin of various types, a single elf who kept glancing my way in between sharpening her knife, and the rest were all human as far as I could tell.

Most of the people where in groups of four or five, and the diversity of their gear suggested that they were actual parties as they covered each others weaknesses properly. There was two parties of four entirely made of humans, one with three humans and one beastkin, all five dwarves made up one party, the elf was together with three beastkin, a party of three humans and two beastkin, the last two beastkin were a single party of two and a final human was standing by himself away from the rest.

There were a pair of horse drawn wagons with their beds covered in bulging tarps standing at the side of the road. A pair of adventurers from different parties hopped on to the driver's seats and their parties moved to flank them on both sides.

"Alright! Gate's opening! Everyone, lets get a move on!"

As I was wondering how I would end up mixed in this weird conglomerate of adventurers, the leader suddenly shouted out to us. It looked like he was a part of the party with three humans and two beastkin, and that group moved up to the city's gates.

A few moments later there was some muffled shouting from near the gates before they started groaning open.

With a simple hand signal, the lead party started moving out, and the rest of us, including the two wagons, followed suit.

 

My anxiety was growing enough to be be palpable.

I had presumed that it would only take a few hours to reach the target town, but I was horribly wrong. I wasn't sure if it was my naivete or the fact that I wasn't used to the slow pace of travelling by foot that was the cause, but I was starting to really worry that we wouldn't find the captives in time.

While I may have had experience travelling like this before, it wasn't like I was in any hurry at the time nor did I actually pay much attention to the journey itself as I had spent most of the time playing around while leaving a dummy laying on the wagon while it was moving.

The fact that we had made camp for the night wasn't something I had expected we'd do when we were in such a hurry to find the missing villagers.

Each party made their own camp surrounding the wagons and each was preparing their own meals using food that was apparently being hauled by the wagons. While there wasn't any attacks made against the convoy, bandits nor monsters, nobody was taking any chances and each party had someone on lookout.

The party of two teamed up with the solo adventurer to work together for this occasion. They asked me to join as well, but I refused.

"Umm...excuse me."

I walked over to the team leader to sate my curiosity.

"Make your own food. The wagons have more than enough for everyone."

Without even turning to face me, the leader simply spat out his response.

"Ah, no. That's not it. Umm..."

"What is it?"

Finally turned to me, but I couldn't help but feel that he was hiding his irritation or something. I might have just been imagining it though.

"How much further is it to the village anyways?"

"Ah. At our pace, I guess we could reach it before nightfall in two days."

"Two more days?!"

"Yea, but we're gonna make camp before then, so we won't reach it until morning of the fourth day."

"Four days?!"

I couldn't believe it. This was supposed to be a search and rescue party, yet it was going to take us a total of four days to even start investigating.

I wanted to complain about it, but as I didn't know the nuances of everything around this, I couldn't even come up with an argument which included this world's common sense.

If it was going to take us four days to reach the village, then the person who first reported the missing villages must have taken about three days to reach the city in the first place. By the time we get there, the villagers would have been missing for at least a week!

"You wanna hurry, you can go ahead by yourself."

The offer was tempting. Incredibly tempting. Even if it was supposed to take another three days to reach the village, I would be able to make the distance overnight easily. But then it would raise quite a bit of suspicion.

That elf hadn't stopped glancing my way the entire time either. It was to the point that her party members had asked her about it. While it was hard to hear from the other side of the convoy, it sounded like she only thought that spirits were hanging around me. It didn't seem like she could actually see them clearly at all, thankfully.

While I was thinking to myself, the team leader turned his back to me and continued his watch.

Not bothering to answer his suggestion I moved to a dark corner a little away from the wagons.

"Will you fly there Master?"

[No. It'll be too suspicious.]

Flying was completely out. Especially with that elf paying so much attention to me, even if I activated [Spirit Form] where she couldn't see, she'd probably notice me taking to the skies. Even if she couldn't tell that it was me, it would be suspicious.

No, even going ahead would be suspicious in general. We were supposed to be an investigation team. Team was the imperative word.

While I was given license to work independently, showing such open disdain to work together with the rest of the team so early on wasn't going to do me any favours. And that was presuming that I could even figure out where the bandits took the villagers on my own in the first place.

My CSI knowledge wasn't very great and I had absolutely no experience in tracking down a food truck, let alone bandit tracks.

[I don't like it, but I'll stay with the group. I don't think I can find the villagers on my own.]

"I'm not very good at finding missing people, but if I get the little guys to look around, maybe we can find some clues on our own? They might even find someone who saw where they went?"

It sounded plausible. Or at least it could send us in the right direction.

[No. I don't want to insult the rest of the team like that. We'll go together, and we can try that if we have trouble finding any clues.]

That plan depended too much on being able to find any fluffballs that actually witnesses where the bandits went. Lesser spirits were pretty jittery little creatures. They tended to run away at at the slightest hint of danger unless if they were with someone that made them feel safe.

The thought reminded me that it took quite a bit of effort before any of the little fluffballs would let me get anywhere near them in the beginning. They freaked out at the very sight of me at first.

"Understood Master."

With our little discussion finished, I flattened out some of the tall grass with some casual application of wind magic and lay down into the nicely shaded clearing. Looking up at the darkening sky, I gave everyone their usual mana treats. At the very least, it helped distract me from the thoughts of those innocent villagers, even if it was only a little.

 

That night, once everyone but the lookouts went to sleep, I went out and got myself a loam wolf to feed off of. I couldn't really enjoy it, but not because it wasn't wasn't tasty. It wasn't, but my mind kept drifting to wondering if we were going to be too late to save the villagers or not.

Insisting on staying with the rest of the group to respect their commitment despite it taking longer before we could start the investigation felt like I was putting the cart before the horse, but it was true that they were professionals and aside from direct combat, I was a complete amateur.

Maintaining at least some level of cordial relations with everyone felt like a good way to increase our chances of making everything work out well, even if it took us longer.

Thinking about it, it had probably been close to a week since the bandits had captured the villagers even at this point. If they hadn't been sacrificed or something by this point, there was a good chance that they'd be kept alive for a few more days at least.

Since I was running out anyways, I occupied myself by making large jars of sauces while waiting for everyone else to wake up so we could get a move on.

Ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, barbecue sauce, and tomato sauce.

It was nice to be able to dedicate some time to stocking up. While they took a lot of time to make, none of these sauces were so fast that I could make them while preparing a meal.

In the hopes that despite being the most of an outsider to the group, I went the extra mile and made a second jar of barbecue sauce and used a generous portion of it with crushed loam wolf meat together with some chopped onions. Fried up in large quantities on a pan, I took some of the hard black bread stored on one of the wagons sliced them in half before toasting them and spreading heaping loads of the dripping meat.

I gave one each to each of the lookouts, and as the sky was slowly brightening up, I quickly finished up the rest of the sloppy joes and served the rest of the investigation team as they slowly woke up.

The reception was good, but for me, what was most important was that everyone's condition was as maxed out as possible. They were fully rested and moral had jumped up due to having a good meal. At least those two points were as good as it could get considering the circumstances.

The leader offered letting rest the entire night without taking any watches in exchange for making everyone's meals. I took it despite not needing to rest at night. It was always nice to have my cooking be appreciated, and keeping moral high improved the villager's chances, even if it was only a little.

The morning two days later, everyone packed their things after finishing breakfast of hornbull jerky boiled in barbecue sauce and sandwiched in black bread with lettuce and tomatoes. It was kinda a heavy meal to be had right before we made our final approach to the village where the people had gone missing, but I figured that by the time we reach there, the bulk of the food would have been digested and the extra energy would help everyone out for the long day that was likely to come.

It didn't take long before the village was in sight. The first thing I saw was the large walls that surrounded the settlement.

From a distance, there didn't seem to be any particular damage to the walls. The gates were wide open, but there wasn't any obvious damage to them either.

"There didn't seem to be much of a fight."

One of the other adventurers voiced his opinion, confirming what I saw.

"Maybe. Watch out. The bandits might still be around, or they might have left some traps."

My [Sense Presence] skill didn't trigger for anything outside of our group, but if there were some traps lying in wait, that skill wouldn't help me find them. I made sure to scan the ground as we continued our way towards the village.

But of all our precautions, nothing happened as we passed through the open gates.

There really wasn't any notable damage anywhere on the outside, but on the inside the story was a little different.

There were obvious signs of a struggle. All sorts of common materials were scattered around like they were thrown in a hurry. Some of the building doors were broken, as were many of the windows. The wagons scattered around all had broken wheels or axles making them completely inoperable.

But the thing that stood out the most was the silence. There wasn't the sound of anything alive here.

On the rare occasion, there was some splattering of blood, but they had completely dried up. More importantly, there weren't any bodies associated with them either.

"Spread out and search for any clues. There might be some villagers hiding around or signs of the bandits that did this. Stay in groups of at least two no matter what. We'll regroup here at the entrance at noon!"

Everyone scattered around. One group went back outside of the village while most checked the buildings or alleys.

Ignoring the group bit, I went into a quick jog and looked around.

[Sense Presence] and [Mana Perception] wasn't giving me any hits. What I saw wasn't particularly encouraging either. There was a surprisingly few number of personal possessions that were stolen. Coins, jewellery, various tools, they were all just left wherever they happened to be. It didn't feel like the sort of thing bandits would do. I really hoped that this wasn't a sign that this really was the work of cultists.

On the other hand, most of the food seemed to have been taken. Only a few things things hidden away was left.

But other than that I couldn't find anything of import inside the village.

The sun was starting to get pretty high in the sky, telling me that I had mostly used up the allotted time.

[Claret, see if you can find out anything from the spirits in the area.]

"Yes Master!"

After rubbing her cheek against mine one last time, the greater shadow spirit floated off of my shoulders and went around to search for witnesses.

As I continued my search for clues, Claret came back after a few minutes.

But the expression she had as she avoided my gaze told me everything I needed to know.

"I'm sorry Master. Nobody saw where the attackers came from or went. They just ran away the second they saw them."

[Huh? The second they saw them?]

"Yes Master. Apparently they had scary looking auras. The way they described it sounded similar to a vampire's, but a bit different."

[Vampire auras are that distinct huh?]

"Unless if they conceal it like you do, they are. They look pretty scary to us spirits."

[But...you said they were different?]

"Yes. The way they described it sounded a bit different from a vampire. It didn't sound like anything I've seen before."

[I see. I wonder what that means?]

"Everyone! Gather up!"

As I was contemplating the significance of Claret's words, the investigation leader's voice rang out and I was out of time.

I made my way back to the gates, the other members of the investigation team joining up as they appeared from whatever place they were checking out.

When everyone was together, we each made our reports regarding our findings. I withheld the information Claret had given me, as explaining how I discovered it would've been problematic, and I had no idea if any of it could even be marginally useful at this time.

It seemed though, that the other teams didn't have much better luck than I did. The most anyone was able to do was describe a few details regarding how the abduction was done.

One team that investigated the gates thought that a small initial group came and were let into the village normally before they attacked the village guards and opened the gates for the rest of the bandit group.

The other investigators seemed to be convinced of that reasoning, and I couldn't find any flaws to it either. That said, they also suggested that the bandits that did this must have been a pretty decent level to have been able to not only defeat all the guards but kept the rest of the guards occupied long enough for one of them to open the gates to let the rest of the invaders in.

The team leader gave the explanation some thought before prompting the last group to divulge what they had found.

It was the group that went to investigate the surroundings,

"Quite a lot of the captives were marched out of the village on foot, so it's hard to determine their numbers, but they did use eight wagons to carry their goods. And while they did try to erase their tracks, we were still able to determine where they went."

There was a bunch of 'ooh's from the surrounding adventurers. Frankly, I was feeling more relieved than anything. We had managed to get a solid lead. If we just followed those tracks, it was only a matter of time before we would find their base.

"I see. The wagons were probably filled with supplies and any villagers who couldn't walk. This is bad."

I tiled my head. I wasn't quite sure how it was such a bad thing. Those wagons would limit where the bandits could go, and since they cared enough about bringing supplies, if their base was somewhere wagons couldn't traverse, it would slow their travel down quite a lot as they'd have to carry the supplies on foot. We had wagons as well, but nothing stopped us from just leaving them in this village while we went out to find the bandit base.

"We still have some time. It seems like they took quite a lot of food, so it'll probably be a little while before they attack again."

(Ah, I see. The sheer number of people is the real problem then. Since we didn't find any bodies, that means that the food they took with them wasn't going to last very long considering how many mouths they had to feed.)

"...Alright! We'll leave the wagons here and go on foot! Take as much food as you need for two days, and we'll head out!"