I took a slow breath, trying to take the information in stride.
The scraping stopped again, but I could still hear the old woman's voice coming from inside. The young boy said something in reply, although it was too muffled for me to make out.
"….."
'Right, of course. I should've seen this coming.'
There was no way the compass would lead me somewhere useless.
In truth, this wasn't the first time I tried looking for something related to VILE-1048. The previous attempts didn't get me anywhere.
This was the first time in a while that the needle gave me something to follow.
I had no choice but to make the most of the situation. Who knew when the next opportunity came?
I moved away from the window, carefully placing my foot between the leaves gathered beside the wall.
Crunch.
My lips pressed together.
'Really now…'
Even despite my best efforts, the leaves crunched. Although their sound was incredibly subtle, they still felt loud within the quiet around me.
