Seth Chapter 62

Seth looked down upon the burnt town from the top of the church, taking a good look at every corner for any movements, but there was nothing. The thick smell of burning wood and corpses still hung in the air even though most of the flames had died down.

In his previous life, his eyesight had been dwindling, and Sarah had pestered him to get glasses. Before he could do it, he had been transported to this world. Now, his eyes were much better than what they had been in his teenage years.

He could see far without any problems.

“I really wonder what happened in this town,” he muttered, looking up at the sky.

Clouds shielded the moonlight and darkness was everywhere. They had searched the whole town for the past few hours, but aside from the unconscious woman, they had found no other survivors and they could only take a guess on who might have burnt everything to ashes.

His attention was taken by the howls of wolves in the faraway grasslands, but he doubted they had anything to do with it.

“Seth, did you find anything?” A voice yelled from the ground and he looked down to see Noah waving at him.

“No, nothing. Nothing has changed at all.”

“Okay, come back down.”

He nodded and took the stairs back to the ground. The church seems to be one of the few buildings that hadn't been turned into rubble. A part of it had been destroyed, but the stairs to the upper section balcony had been intact.

They had been using it to keep an eye out on anyone who might be snooping around.

According to Noah, a lot of times perpetrators would return to the place of their crime. Seth wasn't sure if he was saying it from experience, but there was nothing wrong in keeping an eye out.

As he reached the ground, he saw Rebecca and Noah sitting around a camp. They had gathered wood and made up a camp to rest for the night.

As for food, Seth felt like he would vomit if he ate anything in his current state after seeing the burnt corpses. Rebecca and the carriage driver were the same.

Except for Noah who munched on some jerkie he had packed in a town. Among them, he was the most unaffected by the burnt town.

Seth's eyes lingered on him for a few seconds before looking elsewhere.

The carriage driver sat in the front of his carriage to the left, smoking with his pipe, looking like he couldn't wait to get out of his town.

Finally, his eyes laid onto the unconscious woman who was placed left to the fire. She was still breathing, but there were no signs of her waking up.

They had tried to wake her up, but she wouldn't even twitch. Noah had even casted a few spells on her, but nothing had worked. She seemed to be in a state of deep sleep, and they could only wait for now.

“No signs of her waking up,” he said as he sat down next to Rebecca who shook her head.

“No, either she's put under a spell or she's in a coma due to shock. There can be anything,” she said.

“Do you think she saw someone burning others?”

“I don't know, but she's the only one who would know something. We found no one else. Not even the sign of a battle, and it's all too strange.”

Seth nodded. They had taken another look around the town, but like before, they had found no clues.

It couldn't be monsters. It couldn't be a bandit group since nothing was plundered. Then, was it a serial killer? A fire mage who had lost his mind? Was it the work of Seven Seals or some other cults?

There were lots of possibilities, but they had no clue leading up to any of those.

“Seth, do you think it was Seven Seals?” Rebecca suddenly asked, interrupting him from his thoughts.

“Why do you think it was them?” he asked in response.

“I don't know. They have been after you and they have known to do similar things with towns and cities.”

Her hypothesis wasn't bad, but there was one thing she was missing.

“It's hard to say. I didn't find any abyssal mana here. Most of the bodies are burnt with fire magic. I might be wrong, but it's hard to pinpoint a perpetrator. If it's the work of Seven Seals, they have done a great job.”

Seth explained and Rebecca nodded.

An uncomfortable silence brewed around the campfire and everytime he breathed, he was reminded of the burnt corpses he had seen.

He felt immense sorrow at the death of innocents. He knew that these people were simple townsfolk, living their ordinary life. Maybe, it was because of that their deaths felt much worse on his conscience.

He knew he had nothing to do with it, but it really affected him.

Looking up at Rebecca and Noah, he asked, “Should we give a funeral to them? We would be moving ahead tomorrow, but if we don't do anything about the corpses, they would probably be eaten by monsters. Most of them are half burnt, but they deserve a proper burial.”

Rebecca nodded. “Yes, we should certainly do that. We found the church of Mirina. So, I think most of the people in the town might worship her. Mirina followers are burnt to death and their ashes are dropped into a lake for them to reach her. We don't have a priest, but I know a bit of the funeral tradition since I studied it in the academy.”

She looked up at the church and Seth followed her line of sight. They could certainly do that and it might help give peace to the souls of the dead.

As Seth was getting up to start gathering the corpses, Noah's voice pulled his attention.

“There's no need to do something like that. They are already dead. Giving them a proper funeral would achieve nothing other than give you two more troubles. Let the monsters get some food now that the people are dead.”

“What?” Seth looked at him like he had heard something wrong. Even Rebecca seemed bewildered by his response.

“You didn't hear me.” He raised his head. “Their god didn't save them when the town was being burnt. A funeral won't do anything to their souls. If Mirina actually cared about them, she wouldn't have let them die. Don't make any grave mistakes, let the wildlife have some fun.”

After saying that, he chuckled at the last joke and took another bite out of the jerky.

For a minute, Seth didn't know if his ears had stopped working properly or Noah actually didn't care enough to have basic respect for the innocents that have died.

He felt anger rise up in his heart. Normally, Seth wouldn't let it show on his face, but every breath he took, it simply flared up his anger more. If he could have, he wanted to punch Noah out of his seat right now.

“How can you say that? Do you even realise what you are saying?” He looked up at Noah who simply showed no emotions on his face. Rebecca just gaped, too shocked by Noah's words. “Don't you have any empathy for the dead?”

“Empathy doesn't always work out. That's something for common people to have, not for us,” he said, finishing up his jerky and drinking some water before continuing. “World is dangerous and life is cheap, especially when someone can burn you down just because you pissed him off. These people died and we can do nothing about them. A funeral wouldn't change it.”

Seth didn't know what to make of those words. Sure, this was a dangerous world where people and who could burn a whole town down existed. Still, it didn't excuse Noah treating the death of innocents as cheap.

“Noah, innocents died. Their lives were not cheap. They have dreams, a family and didn't deserve to die like this,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Apologies to them.”

Noah shook his head and frowned. “You don't understand, Seth. I know you are new to this world. Your world wasn't like this. At least, you lived a life where you didn't see any death. I have seen it my whole life. This town, a few hundred people dying, yeah it's sad. You feel bad, but you grow numb to it when you have seen much worse at every corner. Every expedition or quest I have gone on, people have died. Gods didn't do anything. A funeral wouldn't give their souls anything. They would simply move to whatever lies in the afterlife.”

He stood up, looking at Seth for a brief moment before turning around.

“I'm going to sleep now in the carriage. I don't want to sleep near the fire. It's not that cold,” he said and walked up to the carriage before halting. “I apologise for my words.”

Silence descended after he entered the back of the carriage. Seth glanced at Rebecca who put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don't think about it too much. You said nothing wrong,” she said in an assuring voice and he only managed to nod.

Sighing, Seth looked up to the sky. Noah's words rang in his mind about how lives were cheap and how he had grown numb to it. His words were still not acceptable to him. Though, he did wonder about one thing.

Will I be that numb too one day?

He didn't know the answer to the question and he didn't want to find out.

***

The next morning, they quickly packed up their belongings and decided to head to the next city on their route.

Seth didn't have a good sleep since he was busy collecting all the burnt bodies they could and giving them a proper funeral. Although Noah was against it, they still wanted to go ahead with it.

With their supernatural strength and Rebecca's magic, it wasn't a hard job.

Though, both he and Rebecca were barely able to stop themselves from vomiting after seeing such badly burnt corpses.

They were only able to give a funeral to a dozen people and pour their ashes into a nearby stream since they had to move early in the morning.

For the rest of them, he could only hope that the authorities would get to them before monsters.

“So, we will be reaching Hallmark City in two days and then, we can talk to the local authorities there and inform them about the situation in Nasper Town,” the carriage driver said to the three of them before looking at the body of the woman who was still unconscious and lying near the blown out campfire. “Are we taking her too?”

“Yes, she's a witness. Once she wakes up, she will be able to tell what happened in this town.”

Noah said and the carriage driver didn't object, walking to the front of it.

“Okay, we can leave whenever you want to,” he said before climbing on the driver's seat.

“We should leave until you are planning to give funerals to more people,” Noah said and Seth was about to say something when he noticed something right behind him.

The hand of the unconscious woman moved.

The next second, she raised her head and looked around, her eyes meeting with Seth.

“She woke up!” He shouted out, taking the attention of everyone.