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Beast Tamer Who Got Kicked Out From the Hero’s Party Chapter 137 Part 1

CHAPTER 137: THE TRACES OF THE TRAGEDY PART 1

We left the Jizu village behind and headed straight south for a few days……

Just like that, we managed to arrive at the ruins of the Pagos village without any kind of issues alongside the way.

I mean, we DID encounter a few monsters on our way here, but with a pair of A Rank Adventurers like Ax and Cell to back us up, those monsters could hardly even be described as enemies worth mentioning.

Just like that, we were able to reach Pagos in what could only be described as a record time.

「This is…… This is just terrible.」

As we stepped into what was left of the village, I could not help myself but to say something like that while frowning my brows.

And looking at my companions right beside me, I could see that everyone here was feeling just the same.

Half of the houses have been burned down to nothing more but charcoal and cinders, only the smoldering rubble remaining.

The other half of the buildings and structures had been crushed to smithereens, as if a giant had shaken his fist down onto the village in mischief.

Aside from that, there were many small craters in the ground, as well as deep cracks running through the earth.

Just what kind of firepower was used here in order to reduce the entire village to such a sorry state?

I cannot even begin to imagine that……

There was no doubt about it. A storm of destruction that came through this place must have been something that clearly defied any notion of common sense known to men.

「This looks as if the entire village was suddenly caught up in some sort of hellish firestorm……」

Tanya opened up her mouth and shared her impression with everyone present.

Sora and Luna could only nod their heads in agreement.

「Yeah, I mean…… I thought it was terrible after hearing about it from you guys on our way here, but I didn’t expect it to be quite this bad. It’s more than I could have possibly imagined.」

「Yes, it’s horrible. I did not expect for the destruction to be so severe, either. Actually, since there was so much “Power” at work here, it is really surprising that about half of the village’s population managed to get away with their lives. Talk about being lucky…… And I know that a situation like theirs is far from being luck, but still…… It’s nothing short of a miracle.」

「That might have sounded a little bit impudent of you, but truth to be told, I thought of the exact same thing here.」

「Yeah, you can say that again……」

I agreed with Luna and Tanya’s words.

The fact that so many villagers managed to survive, albeit less than half of the entire town’s population, was something that we should have rejoiced over. It was a true blessing in disguise.

However, when you are being shown such a trail of destruction and violence, it really makes you wonder how they were able to survive in the first place?

I have no idea what could have possibly transpired here, but……

I know for sure that if whatever it was that wielded so much power would be dead-set on leveling the entire village and killing everyone in it, it would have done so without a second thought. But something like that did not happen here.

And the fact that the total annihilation of the village’s population was not the case here meant……

…… Could it be that the Devil actually let some of the villagers live and flee from the village on purpose?

It was a thought that just occurred to me.

It was actually just a mere hunch on my side, with nothing that could base it in reality.

But if I wanted to make my speculation to be something truly believable, I needed more clues and things on which I could base it upon. A mere baseless speculation would be of no real use to any of us right about now.

It would only serve to confuse everyone even more than we already are.

And most importantly, I myself still don’t know what even made me think of that in the first place.

So for the time being, I just decided to put that thought at the back of my mind and see what would become of it.

For now, let’s just keep quiet and see how the situation develops.

「Nyaah…… For this much destruction to be done on such a scale and in such a short amount of time…… Do you think that it was actually the member of the Ultimate Species that did this?」

Kanade uttered those words as she looked around the village’s remains.

「Yes, I think that the possibility of that being the case is extremely high here.」

「B-But…… why would they……?」

Nina tilted her head slightly to the side, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend why would someone even want to commit so much destruction of their own free will.

「If you were ever going to do something like this, you would need a small army that would be able to be quick on their feet and really efficient at killing and destroying. Or someone equally as powerful, like a member of the Ultimate Species. Are you able to understand that much?」

「Y-Yes.」

「Now, if an army was supposed to be behind this incident, it would go to reason that they would leave a reasonably large amount of footprints in the ground, right?」

「Footprints…… There are some here and there.」

Nina pointed towards the footprints she could see all over the desolated village.

But they were all pretty shallow.

If someone wearing a set of armor on their body was to go through the village, those footprints would have been much deeper and well-defined.

I made sure to explain that to Nina in a manner that would be easy for someone of her age to understand.

「I…… I see……」

「Well, I mean, there is always a possibility that for the sake of mobility the army was dressed as lightly as possible. But still, if a large group of people went on a rampage in the middle of the village, the ground would certainly look different here. …… It would look much worse than what we can see right here.」

「Nnhh……」

「And then there is the fact that the surviving villagers all claimed that the assailant was on their own. So based on all of that, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone else but a member of the Ultimate Species to be able to do all this all on their own.」

「Ahh, now I see.」

「Nyaah…… Not to mention that all of the possible clues might have already been drowned under all of this mud……」

Kanade murmured to herself in apparent frustration.

She then looked at me, for some reason looking a bit frightened and scared.

「…… Rein, aren’t you afraid of us Ultimate Species now?」

「Huh? What do you mean?」

「I mean, seeing all of this and realizing that one of us did all this…… Isn’t that making you afraid of us? That we might hurt you?」