The silence of dawn and the terrifying calm prevails after Grave's revenge, leaving behind graves of his cursed new soldiers and the bodies of the werewolves with traces of the battle against them. At that moment, a small girl with curly hair, wearing a tattered dress, approaches from Bria, then she pulls her cloak with her small hand, saying in her uncertain, soft voice:
"My lady, my lady, are you really an investigator from the capital?"
Grave thinks to himself:
"Ha! Did the slavery spell not work on her?"
Lazos responds to him, saying:
"Maybe she is not from here, which is why the spell didn't work on her... Or did you really change the name of the control spell to the slavery spell?"
Grave:
"Yes, I think that name is more suitable."
Breya kneels before the little girl, responding to her:
"Yes, I am. Can I help you with something?"
The girl:
"Our village has been suffering from cannibals for a while. They attack us from time to time."
Breya turns to Grave upon hearing the girl's words, adding with wide eyes:
"Did you hear that? This means that the rumors about cannibals are true."
Grave:
"Yes, it seems that my village has nothing to do with it."
The girl:
"Please, can you help my village?"
Breya, stroking the girl's hair:
"Of course I will."
At that moment, Grave chuckles:
"Ha, I wouldn't advise you to do that. Who knows, maybe you'll find yourself cooking in a big pot with some onions and radishes."
Breya:
"That's why you will come too."
Graif, with a serious look:
"Don't dream of that."
Soon, Grave and Breya walk behind the girl through the dense trees in the west of the forest, while she leads them to her village with a silly expression on Grave's face. The three of them arrive in the morning at the entrance of a ruined and gloomy village that seems deserted at first glance. The sunlight barely reaches the rooftops of its houses due to the thick gray clouds, fog, and the massive trees surrounding it. As Grave enters the village, a cat passes by his foot, prompting him to say to Breya, who is beside him:
"It seems that the residents of this village are kind."
Breya:
"And how did you know that?"
Grave, pointing with his thumb to the cats that filled the area around him:
"The cats, they don't run away from us; the villagers must be good to them and feed them."
Breya then smiles slightly and says:
"That's really nice; I wish everyone were like them."
The girl leads Grave and Breya to the center of the village, where the two notice someone in the streets and the old, dilapidated buildings. Suddenly, while everyone is in that state, Grave stops in his tracks, listening. A faint sound of footsteps fills his ears, sounding like a beast tracking its prey mixed with the sound of it sniffing for its scent. Before the huge white fangs, seven centimeters long, can sink into the girl's neck, Grave grabs her and pulls her back. He lifts his head to find himself face to face with a three-meter tall wolf with rough, thick gray fur, glaring with its angry yellow eyes directly at the girl. Grave then mutters to himself:
"All this bulk, and I only noticed it when its fangs were right next to the neck of the prey beside me; it must be a top-tier predator."
Grave leaves the girl aside, attacking the wolf with his speed, and the gray wolf pounces on him in turn. But just moments before it reaches him, the wolf dodges Grave, ignoring him and attacking the girl again, leaving Grave with wide eyes filled with confusion. This time, Breya saves the girl, who screams while pointing with her finger to one of the main roads:
"To the big village building, we'll be safe there with everyone."
Breya follows the girl's command, heading down that road, while Grave turns his body toward the wolf, smiling, and says:
"You big pup, we are alone now."
Grave jumps at the wolf as soon as he finishes his sentence, trying to attack, but once again, the wolf avoids the strike, chasing after Bria. Grave then exclaims in astonishment:
"What! Again!"
He stands still for a moment, thinking, but suddenly a cat bites him on the foot, and he then realizes something important, saying with a look of concern suddenly etched on his face:
"Damn, so that's how it is."
Grave fidgets a little and then starts running as fast as he can toward the village building, following the tracks of the gray wolf.
Grave arrives at the village center building, bursting in quickly to find all the villagers busy with something, gathered under the lights of fire torches stuck in the blood-stained wooden walls. He begins to scan the area with his eyes, trying to find Breya. Grave spots Breya unconscious in a cage made of thorns and then remarks:
"It seems my suspicion was correct; the villagers are cannibals..."
Before he can finish his sentence, one of the villagers suddenly jabs Grave in the shoulder with a green substance, causing him to feel dizzy and then collapse to the ground, unconscious. Grave wakes up shortly after in a red circle surrounded by villagers from all sides, finding himself bound by a rope next to Breya, who is still unconscious. At that moment, Lazos' voice echoes in Grave's head, mocking him:
"Ha ha ha, you've been captured by a handful of cannibals."
Grave responds with an angry expression:
"I think I'm the one who will be eating human flesh tonight."
Grave tries to wriggle free from the rope bindings but to no avail, prompting Lazos to exclaim in surprise:
"Wait, don't tell me you can't cut this weak rope."
Grave replies:
"The substance they injected me with, I felt a terrible magical force; it must be the reason."
At that moment, Grave notices the poor little girl who led them to this village smiling at him with a wicked, taunting grin, provoking him. But instead of getting angry, Grave smiles an even more sinister smile, saying:
"Oh, how could I forget? I always have a backup plan."
Lazos remembering:
"Oh yes, how could I forget, the army of the dead."
Grave then laughs, responding:
"No, I actually tried to summon them, but it doesn't work because of the poison. My backup plan is..."
And before he finishes his sentence, Grave suddenly howls at the top of his voice, causing fear to appear on the faces of the villagers. One of the residents rushes towards him, trying to cut his neck with an axe, but Grave easily dodges, sitting cross-legged and letting out another loud howl. Suddenly, that big gray wolf bursts through the door with a fierce expression, starting to kill the villagers one by one, while Grave sits laughing and says:
"Haah, you fools, this is what happens when you mess with me."
At that moment, Breya wakes up beside him to find all that chaos and asks Graif:
"What's happening here? The last thing I remember is entering with that girl, then..."
Grave:
"Don't tire your head thinking. Those damned ones are cannibals, and that girl among them lured us to her village to eat us..."
He then points with his thumb to the wolf that continues to kill the cannibals, adding:
"That wolf there is magic-resistant, which is why they couldn't kill it. It was trying to wipe them out before we arrived, but they hid from it in this building."
Breya looks down at the ground after hearing Grave's words with a sad smile and says:
"Ha, how naive of me, believing you when you told me that the villagers here are nice because they care for the cats."
Grave sarcastically:
"Indeed, they are nice to the cats. They were feeding them the flesh of the original villagers they killed."
He then gets up from his spot while adding:
"Well, in the end, I wouldn't have figured all this out without one of their bites... But now."
The girl then tries to escape through the door, taking advantage of all the chaos in the place, only to suddenly find Grave in front of her, smiling his usual smile. Grave holds her head in his hand, but she begs him with tear-filled eyes, filled with terror, saying hysterically:
"I'm sorry, they... they forced me to do that, so please..."
But before the girl can finish her sentence, Grave throws her into the building in the air, The wolf grabs her and begins to devour her alive. Lazos laughs and says:
"Ha, great shot... So, what will you do after this?"
Grave sits again in front of the door, preventing the cannibals from escaping, then replies:
"I will wait for this dog to finish its work, then I will cast a summoning curse on it... As for the rest, a curse of slavery as usual."
Lazos:
"He's a wolf."
Grave smiles then, adding excitedly:
"No, he's the puppy I saved four years ago."