Theron's carriage rode into the village south from the city as the sun tilted below the horizon, yet it was still bright enough to walk without a lamp as the sky was still lit in orange afterglow.

However, the street was already empty with most of the house's windows closed with solid shutters. Even though this was a safe region, the hundreds-year-old fear of monsters has sunk deep into the bones of humanity. There was no need for a massive wall, but the desire to feel safe and secure in their homes reflected in people's house building. This ancient fear made them compensate for the absence of the wall with the sturdiness of their houses.

Each house in the village was made of solid thick logs and massive stones with thick shutters on windows that everyone would close for the night. Yet even that was not enough. The garden was surrounded by spiked hedgehog-like-looking wooden fences. On top of that every corner, every window frame, every door hinge, everything was scribbled with symbols and runes that were supposed to protect from ghosts, demons, and other evil beings. 

Only behind such personal small "fortresses" families could feel safe in this world engulfed in darkness. People may have won this territory back with blood and tears, but they still were wary of the evil that once ruled this territory.

And country bumpkins they may be but these scribbles were not just beautiful decorations. All of them were if not overly powerful but very much working magical protections. It may have been surprising for the nobles that paid hefty money to the magic crafters guild for the barriers around their mansions to see every poor villager's house to be adorned with some kind of magic protection, but not many contemplated what was the foundation of the magic craft guild.

Since long ago magic ways of protection spread from place to place through connections with other villages even though crafters that made them had no idea of how magic even worked. Once some village attained magical or runic inscriptions from some traveling mage of old times, these protection methods were soon copied and shared among friends and relatives quickly spreading throughout the whole countryside. With time people that learned to copy and craft these protections accumulated knowledge and started to unite the crafters together. This was the preposition to the creation of guilds that shared and amassed knowledge enough to rival ancient noble houses that held magic a secrete. Many crafters that made their living by copying and making new magic scribbles in villages were the first members and founders of the magic craft guild, which is now helping noble houses to protect their homes while their children dream of joining this guild. The knowledge of craft however never left the countryside and was integrated into the villager's living habits, becoming a most common decoration.

These decorations were not powerful enough to stop a mid-level monster such as Theron, Taur, or Gorig but any low-level monster like slime, monster bunny, or forest wolf that may have slipped away from danger region and somehow got here, would not be able to easily pass through them. This gave people a sense of safety more than any thick wall.

As Theron's carriage entered the village they came over to the first house on the edge of the village and Theron sent his servant to ask the dwellers for direction. However, when the servant knocked on the massive wooden door with metal cross beams making it even sturdier, they saw the light inside the house go out, and even after a few minutes and a few more knocks no one opened the door or even replied from behind it to ask them what they needed. 

Finally tired of waiting, Theron ordered to ride further to the next house yet the scene repeated.

"Fucking country bumpkins with their fears." Said Theron with annoyance. "They earned the right to live in a safe region yet still hide like rats fearing monsters." Then he pointed them to the biggest house that usually represented village chiefs. 

As they rode over to the biggest house, the servitor once again walked up to the door knocking on it loudly.

A few seconds later they heard the squeaking of door hinges of the inner door. People tended to build a corridor with two doors, one inside and one outside as two-layered protection at the entrance of the house. After a few more seconds a small window on the outside door opened but it was a total darkness that met them from inside the house, even though they could see some light creeping through the shutters of the windows when they rode over to this house.

"Who are you? And what do you need?" Asked the rough voice from the darkness on the other side.

"This is the carriage of young master Theron of the Duchess Vespertine household. Can you point us to the local kirk? We need to meet with your local cleric."

"What do you need him for?" Asked the rude voice.

"We were on the road when the young lady, master's fiance, traveling with us, got hurt." Answered the servant remembering the cruel scene he witnessed before.

Silence took over after the servant's introduction and for a moment he thought that the man was gone, but he could feel his intense gaze from the darkness that made him gulp nervously.

Cities had platoons of city guards and investigators, but here on the outskirts, villagers had no one to protect them. They learned to do that on their own, so almost all houses had some weapons and people that knew how to use them. Also, many retired warriors or adventurers resided in such villages after the end of their careers. 

Very often villages were founded by the high-level ex-adventurers or knights that gained territory from the country as a reward for service in dangerous regions such as, dungeon captures and labyrinths clearing, becoming the village chiefs and living safe lives in the safe regions in their retirement. Some of them, although now retired, were very much jumpy and paranoid about the monsters they faced daily in the danger regions. And with their levels no doubt quite sensitive to monsters and all kinds of evils that they met in their life.

And this was exactly the village chief's house, while people that sat inside the carriage behind the servant's back were no doubt the evils that the retired warriors spent their whole lives fighting. This thought made the servant quite nervous, leading him to guess what the man, measuring him from the darkness, was thinking about while maintaining total silence. For a few seconds, the servant could swear he saw the glint of a crossbow bolt pointed at his head.

"It's outside the village. Down the road to the left of your carriage, past the fields to the small forest. You'll still see the kirk's roof above trees by the time you get there if you hurry. And tell your Lord he better find lodging elsewhere. People here don't let strangers inside at night even if they are noble." After that the small shutter of the outside door was closed shut, ending the conversation.

Servitor quickly ran back to the carriage and jumped to the driving seat near Goring that sat there with the cape over his head, watching the men at the other side of the door clearly seeing them in the darkness with his monster eyes. Both of them were quite sturdy-looking rough men, one younger holding a crossbow, and the one that talked looked like his father and was in his fifties. This was no doubt an ex-adventurers household.

As the carriage started to move, Gorig looked around checking his surroundings, and noticed being watched from several directions. And these watchers were not just some bunch of villagers but experienced warriors with fearsome killing intent.

Sometimes adventurers retired in teams and if they had good relations they would settle in the same village with their whole team. And doppelganger Nu disguised as Gorig felt the level of these people was enough to make Theron and all their team disappear without a trace if it comes to fighting.

*****

"Mark?" Sounded the woman's voice from the magic communication device held in the village head's hand as he watched Theron's carriage riding off.

"Milla?" Answered the village head.

"Who was it? What did they want?" Asked the woman.

"Some high noble's son. They needed a cleric."

"What the hell did they forget in such a place?"

"Beats me." Said Mark.

"So they are going to Father Benedict's place?" Asked the voice from the device.

"Yeah." 

"I am worried. My granddaughter is one of the cleric apprentices there. I don't trust nobles. We should check up on the place."

"Emmy did not come home today?" Asked Mark surprised.

"They have group training today. All apprentices from nearby villages stayed in the kirk today for the night." Answered Milla.

Mark rubbed his chin and turned to look at his wife and son that stood silently nearby.

"What do you say, Becky?"

"Nobles can be dangerous and I don't trust them anywhere near our children. Milla's right, they are strange and we better check up on them." Answered his wife

"Alright." Said Mark, lifting the device. "Get ready. We go out." 

*****

Theron's carriage stopped near a small kirk at the tip of a small hill in the middle of the woods, when the sun had already completely set and the darkness settled. 

Dim candlelight coming from the kirk's windows was the only source of light in the pitch-dark forest that went silent when Theron's group approached the place as if nature felt the presence of the creatures that had not roamed these woods for decades, monsters. The only beings that seemed not concerned with their presence were the crows gazing at them from the branches. Among these crows sat one black raven that followed them ever since they left the city.

Theron and Taur came down from the carriage dragging Lilly with the bound hands and a cloth in her mouth after them.

Gorig jumped off the carriage and told the servant to wait for them outside while following Theron and Taur inside the kirk.

As they entered a bishop met them at the front with a slight smile on his lips.

"Ah, young Theron. You have finally fulfilled your promise…so this is Lilly Wild." He said, scratching his hand toward Lilly. Theron always felt strange how this man called him a young man ever since they first met as if implying that he was a lot older, although he looked no more than forty while Theron was a century-old monster. 

"She is perfect, just perfect." Said the man with a fanatical look on his face, while rubbing her cheek. "Yes this is what I need, I can feel it in her…" he muttered but then his hand was grabbed by Theron and he was forced to let go of Lilly's cheek.

"Not so fast, Father Benedict. First, show us what you promised us for her."

The smile on the bishop's lips disappeared with his eyes blazing with anger for a second before a serene expression returned to his face.

"Tsk." He voiced with an expression as if he looked at bugs beneath himself before turning around and walking further to the door at the end of the hall. "Follow me." He said without turning to look back.

The group followed the bishop into the small room with shelves filled with books and a small table near the painted window.

Benedict came over to the shelf and picked up one of the books, opening it on one of the pages before muttering some words and the shelf suddenly moved into the wall and swung to the side, opening a stair path hidden behind the bookshelf. Then he placed the book back and went down the stairs that were lit with a dim light from small magic lamps on the wall of the tunnel.

As they all went down, Lilly's eyes widened at the scene before her.

There was a wide room with a large table at the side of it filled with all kinds of magic and alchemic devices. All kinds of herbs and potions filled the shelves nearby. But the most astonishing were half a dozen beds that stood at the side with children lying in them with their eyes open wide but glazed and unblinking as if they slept with their eyes open. All of them had some kind of devices connected to them that had wires and tubes stretching from them to the huge tank with some kind of bubbling liquid inside standing at the center of the room. 

When Lilly saw this tank filled with strange liquid she saw some kind of golden light dimly exuding from it that raised a soft sense of familiarity within her, yet she could not understand why.

However while Lilly felt a strangely calming effect on herself from the soft golden light exuded by the tank, her captors were not as lucky and the moment this light touched their bodies they felt weak and started perspiring, yet every breath they made burned their lungs as if the air itself rejected them. They tried to turn back and run, but their knees buckled and they fell to the ground. The worst of them was Theron as his skin started to redden and his body exuded a burning smell with smoke coming from his clothes the same way as it was with his fiance when he burned her under the sun.

Taur lost his human appearance turning back to the creature resembling a moose with large antlers but the most shocking was Gorig. At that moment Gorig's appearance suddenly twisted and he turned transparent, his figure quickly changing and taking a slime-like form resembling a woman. Nu's disguise was broken and she was forced into her true appearance.

Theron and Taur were so surprised by this occurrence that for a few moments they forgot all pain and stared at Nu in stupefied silence.

"I see." Said Father Benedict gazing at the three people laying on the ground. "It looks like you had a spy in your group. But it doesn't matter. I was planning to leave this place after tonight anyway. By the time someone comes here, you will all be long dead and I will be gone without a trace."

"Now then…" he said, placing his hand on Lilly's cheek. "Let us proceed with our business sweetheart." He said, making Lilly gulp in fear.