The fog thickened, swallowing their vision in every direction. The swamp creature's roar still echoed, even though its body had been shattered countless times. From the bubbling mire, a shadow rose again—larger, more grotesque, more terrifying.
Barnard lifted his hammer high, the glowing runes along its surface pulsing like a heartbeat. "You're stubborn as hell…" he growled.
Kaze held his breath, both pistols trembling as a faint black circle materialized beneath his feet. The creature aura pressed down on the air around them, heavy and suffocating. "I-it's like… it's not really alive. Could this just be… the swamp itself taking form?"
"Good. You're starting to understand." Hiori stepped forward, her sword flames flaring brighter, dancing wildly as if rejecting the fog itself. "This isn't a monster… it's a bound spirit. This fight is not ordinary."
The swamp creature hissed, its voice echoing directly in their heads. "Gone… gone… all who come will be gone… like the village…"
The words made Kaze flinch. He turned to Hiori, his face pale. "T-the village… so it's true, the people—"
"—not gone," Hiori cut him off, her tone cold. "They were devoured."
The swamp beast roared, and its body erupted into thousands of writhing black roots, lashing at them from every direction.
Barnard slammed his hammer into the ground, a shockwave blasting outward and crushing waves of roots. Hiori spun with lethal grace, her blazing sword severing the rest, flames streaking crimson light through the suffocating haze.
Kaze shut his eyes for a brief moment, then drew a sharp breath. BANG! BANG! BANG! His shots tore through the fog, the black bullets carrying shards of strange energy that disintegrated the roots into dust.
For a moment, silence fell. The swamp trembled, then the creature vanished—leaving behind nothing but the stench of rot and a thinning veil of mist.
Barnard lowered his hammer with a long exhale. "Hah… I hate enemies that don't know when to stay dead."
Hiori's gaze fixed ahead. Through the thinning fog, the faint outline of structures appeared—wooden rooftops swallowed by moss, standing in eerie silence, without a single light.
"There it is…" Hiori whispered. "The lost village."
Kaze swallowed hard, his hands still shaking. "So… everyone there really…"
"Nothing is certain until we see it with our own eyes." Hiori's voice was steady, though her eyes brimmed with caution. "But one thing's clear: this swamp doesn't want us to uncover the truth."
Barnard smirked faintly, though his expression remained grim. "Well… the more it tries to hide, the more I want to dig."
The three of them stepped forward, pushing through the fog toward the village lost to time—unaware that what awaited them there was not just answers, but the beginning of a far greater nightmare.
Their steps sent small ripples across the swamp's surface. A thin mist clung to the air, limiting their vision to only a few meters ahead. The sound of night insects mingled with strange whispers that seemed to rise from beneath the ground.
"I feel… this village wasn't just abandoned. Something swallowed them," murmured Hiori, her eyes scanning the surroundings with caution.
Barnard raised his hammer high, the head trembling with runic energy. "You're right. I can sense fractures of mana in the soil. It's as if something here is draining life itself."
Kaze switched on a small lamp fixed to the tip of one of his pistols, its glow cutting through the fog. "Miss Hiori, Sir Barnard—do you see that?" He pointed to a hut half-sunken in the mud. Its wooden walls were cracked and broken, but strangely, deep claw marks scarred the surface.
The three of them approached slowly. The marks weren't from any weapon or ordinary beast. Along the grooves pulsed faint traces of dark green energy.
"That's… nature's essence," Hiori said in a low voice. "But it's rotted. Its essence was forced to evolve, twisted into something corrupt."
Suddenly, the ground near the hut trembled. The mud split apart, and from within rose a towering figure—a swamp wraith, its form built of muck, roots, and the bones of animals fused together. Its eyes glowed with a sickly green light, and each step sank the ground deeper around it.
"A swamp-born monster of corruption…" Barnard hefted his hammer, his expression grim. "Looks like we've found the reason this village vanished."
Kaze swallowed hard, trying to steady his trembling grip on his firearms. "If that's true, then… the villagers didn't leave. They… became that thing?"
Hiori tightened her hold on her sword, thin flames licking along the blade. Her cold gaze cut through the mist.
"We'll know the truth once we fight. Ready?"
The swamp monster roared, its voice rumbling like thunder from the depths of the earth. Its body of mud and roots lunged toward them.
Barnard leapt forward, his massive hammer glowing with runes. "Hyaaah!"
With a single swing, he struck the creature's chest. Mud exploded outward, but the monster quickly sealed the wound shut again.
Kaze stepped back, pulling the triggers. Bang! Bang! Two bullets of dark light pierced its body, weakening the roots that held the mud together.
"Nice one, Kaze!" shouted Hiori. The flames on her sword blazed brighter as she slashed straight at the creature's head. Fire raced across its form, consuming the mud already weakened by Barnard's and Kaze's attacks.
The monster writhed, then collapsed, dissolving into ordinary muck that seeped back into the swamp.
Silence fell once more. The fog drifted slowly, as if to conceal any trace of what had just happened.
"If that thing really was human once…" Kaze muttered, his face pale.
Hiori's gaze lingered on the smoking sludge. "Yes. This village wasn't abandoned. They were corrupted… forced to become part of the swamp."
Barnard crouched, pressing his hand to the mud. "Its essence… this wasn't natural. Someone's hand is behind this. Someone who knows how to twist nature's essence."
They exchanged glances, the air between them growing heavier. This was no ordinary village investigation—it was the beginning of something far greater.
The fog grew thicker as they pressed deeper into the heart of the sunken village. The dilapidated houses lay half-buried in mud, their roofs sagging, their wooden walls crawling with black moss. It was as if the village hadn't simply been abandoned—but forced to live within the swamp itself.
Hiori crouched, running her fingers along the cracked wooden planks of a house. "Claw marks… but not from an animal." Her brows furrowed. "The pattern is too deliberate."
Kaze swallowed hard. "S-so… like someone left these marks on purpose?"
Barnard gave a slow nod, his eyes narrowing. "Runes. Faint, but I can sense them. Dark essence was absorbed into the wood itself." He straightened, hefting his great hammer onto his shoulder. "This wasn't the swamp monsters' doing. Someone bound the village's spirit to the land."
They continued onward until they reached the village center: a small square with an old well at its heart. From within the well, a chill seeped out, biting straight into their bones.
Hiori stepped closer, peering inside. The water was pitch black, swirling like a vortex. "This is the source. This swamp isn't just a swamp… the entire village is bound to a rotten essence core."
Kaze took a step back, his face pale. "Then… the villagers…?"
Barnard lowered his head, his expression grave. "They didn't vanish. They were absorbed… transformed… into part of the swamp. That monster we fought—likely one of them."
Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of the fog and the faint ripple of swamp water.
Hiori straightened, her gaze cold. "Which means the one who created this vortex is still out there. What we've found here… is nothing but a living grave."
The swamp's fog slowly thinned as they left the village behind. Mud still clung to their boots, and the cold air lingered at their backs, as if the swamp itself was unwilling to let them go.
Barnard walked at the front, his great hammer already returned to its smaller form. "Hmph… so the missing village reports weren't just rumors. If that sorcerer is truly wandering around, we'd better hurry and report it."
Kaze, still clutching Hiori's cloak, glanced nervously over his shoulder as if something might be following them. "D-don't say that… I still have chills."
Hiori cast him a brief look, her voice flat. "If you can't handle your fear, you'd be better off going home. Investigation isn't for children."
Kaze fell silent for a moment, then tightened his grip on his weapons. "I-I've already decided to come along… so I won't back down." His face was still pale, but there was determination in his eyes.
Barnard glanced over with a faint smirk. "Heh. At least you've got some guts. Just don't let that courage turn into stupidity."
Their path wound through silent trees. From time to time, the cry of a night bird echoed, adding to the tense atmosphere. But after a while, the dirt road began to feel more familiar—a sign they were drawing closer to the city.
Hiori looked up at the sky, cloaked in gray clouds. "That sorcerer… he isn't just anyone. He was able to manipulate the essence of an entire village. If he's left unchecked, the next victims could be far greater."
Barnard gave a slow nod. "Agreed. And I doubt the guild realizes the true scale of this threat. We need to be the first to bring them the news."
Kaze forced a nervous smile. "So… we'll be the heroes who save the other villages?"
Hiori turned her cold gaze on him, though her lips curved ever so slightly. "Don't get ahead of yourself. We only just crawled out of that swamp alive."
Barnard let out a short laugh. "But he's not wrong. If we manage to stop that sorcerer, maybe we will be called heroes."
Their three shadows stretched along the dirt path as they slowly left the swamp's darkness behind. The city air was still far away, but their steps were steady, carrying with them the heavy secret of the lost village.