Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Mountain Village (4)

She was woken up by a shrill scream.

Kirana opened her eyes and saw Putri, the usually solemn and quiet woman, with a pale, frightened face. She followed her line of sight and found a horrendous scene.

Miranda, the teenager that still spoke to her last night… The flowy mark on her had travelled all over her body, somehow cutting into her skin. She bled to death, a type of death that should be extremely slow and painful.

Kirana’s face went pale as well. Miranda slept next to her, yet she didn’t notice anything when she went out or when she came back. There was no smell of blood, either… Miranda died quietly in a lot of pain.

“What, what happened?” The old couple hurried in. Seeing the dead body on the floor, their eyes flashed with some emotions. Kirana didn’t miss that. “Oh, oh my,” the old lady Seruni said.

“I’ll contact the village chief,” her old husband said.

Needless to say, that she found their behavior extremely suspicious. Like her death had been calculated in their consideration. The festival was for the guardian god… that was, the river djinn mentioned in their daughter’s diary?

Was this part of the festival?

She shivered.

The corpse of the teenage girl was quickly dragged away. Kirana didn’t know what to feel. Sad, not really, since they didn’t have any deep friendship, but perhaps… Pity. Such a young girl… She remembered the teenage boy that died from the last game and sighed.

The players gathered together after the news of a player’s death. “How did she die?” The bespectacled young man, Kevan, asked.

Between the sullen Putri and the indifferent Kirana, none of them really want to answer, but they were the only two who saw it. Kirana finally said, “She bled to death.”

“None of you realized that?”

“I was asleep.” Putri glanced at her. “But I saw you leaving the room yesterday.”

There was blame in her eyes. Feeling inexplicable, Kirana said, “yes, I went to investigate. But I didn’t notice any weird smell on her before I left or when I come back.”

“So you left the room yesterday?” Kevan asked again.

“Yes,” Kirana said. Everyone stared at her. Realizing that they thought she killed Miranda, she laughed in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Can human make that kind of wound? The mark spread all over her body. It’s like a vine wrap around her and cut into her skin.”

Kevan’s gaze turned to Putri.

Putri nodded reluctantly. “That’s true.”

They actually suspected her. Kirana didn’t have a plan to share the clue with them, but now, she even more sure to keep the clues to herself. Putri’s inexplicable suspicion and accusation was even weirder.

Banyu quickly spoke up, cutting off the tension. “Where does the mark come from?”

Kirana stayed quiet, unwilling to answer. Everyone’s gaze now turned to Putri. The woman answered curtly, “she got it after going back from the festival yesterday.”

“So, something’s wrong with the festival,” Kevan said. “We should expect that… This dungeon really doesn’t want us to survive easily.”

“It’s still too fast,” Bintang muttered. “First few days should be easy… Why did that girl die so early?”

“Did she touch some taboo?” Banyu responded, asking. “Maybe it causes her death…”

Putri only shrugged. Knowing that none of them really knew what was going on, the four men gave up, and their group of players disperse again.

Kirana didn’t give Putri any more glances. She didn’t exactly feel resentful, but clearly, this game wasn’t suited for trusting people. Putri didn’t trust her, she also didn’t trust Putri. Who knew if she had some prop that actually killed Miranda?

Although, she was really more inclined to the festival theory. What did Miranda experience, and why did she die just like that? This was a D-level dungeon! It was, logically, shouldn’t be that hard. She needed to know what happened so she could avoid the danger.

The group had met on the back garden of the chief’s house, so it was a short walk. The corpse was apparently brought to the village chief’s house. When any one of them asked the villagers, none of them were willing to answer why.

The festival continued on. The players’ faces were lethargic. One of them had already died. They couldn’t enjoy the music, the dancing, or the food.

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Unexpectedly, in the evening, Miranda’s corpse was brought out. With horrid fascination, the male players who didn’t see it earlier finally saw what happened to her. The village chief came out. “In this festive day for our guardian, one of our visitors had died. It is right that we offer her to the guardian god so she can go in peace.”

Go in peace, my ass. Kirana thought so, but she kept her quiet. She still didn’t want to break the superficial harmony between the players and the villagers NPCs just yet. It was obvious, just like how the bus passengers was in hostile position, that they were enemies as well.

But there was no need to fight just yet if they could prolong the peace.

The villagers all brought Miranda’s corpse to the river. When they floated her above the water, something weird happened. All these water vines, following the bleeding line on her body, started to go around her body, then in one whoosh, it pulled Miranda’s body into the water.

Worse yet, everyone cheered as it happened. “Lord Guardian!” Someone yelled happily.

Music and dancing started again by the riverside.

Kirana started to move aside from the crowd. Somehow, the brothers noticed and followed her. Kirana let them. They walked to the empty village.

“That, Miss Kirana… What do you think happened to that girl?”

“Miranda,” Kirana said.

“Huh?”

“Her name.” She just felt pity that Miranda’s name wasn’t even remembered. The villagers probably took her as some sort of sacrifice, while the players thought of her as the poor player who died first.

“Oh, yes.” Banyu smiled. “Did the villagers do that? Curse her?”

“Probably,” Kirana said.

“I’d like to find out how she died.”

Kirana nodded, agreeing to that sentence. “We should probably do that. Logically speaking, if it’s the mark that kill her, it shouldn’t be that fast.”

“What time did you return?”

“Around two in the morning,” Kirana replied. “There is no indication that she was bleeding or hurt, at all.”

“Where should we start…”

“The bedroom,” Kirana said decisively. She hadn’t had a chance to go back, since they were all dragged by the villagers to the festival in the morning.

The bedroom was still as usual. Banyu and Bintang waited by the doorway, feeling awkward from having to enter a female’s bedroom. Kirana glanced at them a bit, then let them be. They were still shy. When they realized what was happening, they wouldn’t be shy anymore.

Kirana rummaged through Miranda’s makeshift bed on the ground. Aside from the blood pattern on the blanket, there was nothing else. The blood was a lot, though. It left the entire room pungent with the copper smell.

Seeing that, both brothers hissed, horrified. They started to enter and helped her moved the blanket, which now was heavy after absorbing blood. However, they couldn’t find anything else there.

Kirana moved Miranda’s pillow and saw something fell down. A bracelet…?

“I saw a villager gave something to her yesterday,” Bintang suddenly said. “Maybe…”

The bracelet was made of wood. Something was inscribed on it with a language that she didn’t know. “Did this bracelet kill her?” She pondered.

“Maybe it come into contact with the curse…” Banyu muttered. “And accelerate it.”

Kirana noticed that Banyu had said the word ‘curse’ a lot. Was it really a curse that kill Miranda? Maybe he found a clue pointing to that. Kirana didn’t ask.

They left the bracelet there, unwilling to touch it, and went back to the riverside. The villagers were still cheering, not realizing their disappearances. Kirana followed through the rest of the ‘festival’ with a heavy heart.

The old couple brought away the bloody blanket and gave them new ones. Kirana smiled politely. When everything was done, she found that she felt too tired from this day’s occurrences. She just decided against investigating and went to sleep. []

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