Outside, the barktown guard were patrolling every area. Daryl was patrolling with a squad given to him. They were heading to a shop that supposedly got crushed, hoping to find the owner, or at least one of her relatives inside.
"Five bronzes says she's dead." One man said. "…two says she's living." Another said chuckling. It was understandable. If something like this happened anywhere, nobody would be able to stop the cynical jokes from raining down, no matter the Time period.
But enough was enough.
"Knock it off and let's get moving. The next person who speaks gets two weeks cleaning
The farms." And he obviously meant the animal ones.
Getting to the shop, they saw destroyed pieces of clothes, spare parts of sewing machines, This used to be a clothing shop before whatever hit them last night.
'It's a shame the clothes are gone, but maybe I can save a person instead. With that Daryl turned around again. "Let's get digging!"
*10 minutes later
Some used any tools available to break down rocks and throw them away from the wreckage. More men had come and now about a third of the damage was cleared.
But something look familiar. Walking forward and moving some rubble, Daryl could see an open basement leading downstairs.
The men behind him were confused at what he was looking at. A young man came close.
"Excuse me sir, we like the observation but we could use some help here. These rocks are no joke."
"…I'm going downstairs. I'll tell you all what I find once I'm back."
Walking down, Daryl eying the surroundings suspiciously, always ready to draw a weapon.
Sighing as he walked down the stairs, he thought to himself. 'Come on. You've fought tooth and nail in one of the most dire battles in your area, surely you can handle some-'
"MONSTER!"
As daryl got downstairs, he saw a darkroom, lit up only by a candle on a dresser. At the edge of that light, a mysterious figure sat, just out of sight.
Wasting no time, Daryl unsheathed his blade, stabbing it and pinning it to the wall. But it was surprisingly light and seemingly lifeless. Bringing the candle up to it, he saw that it was just a clothing stand.
"Daryl Chester, you might be the biggest dunce in all the four kingdoms." Moving to pull his sword out, he noticed a pendant on the clothing stand. Pulling it off, he opened it to see a picture of a happy family.
a man looking tiredly walking into a house, with his hands full of gifts, seemed to be a holiday. The kids were running near him and the mom was in the frame laughing at him for trying to Carry all that himself. It was a gorgeous painting.
'Nice, I now know a family owns the place, where are the people?'
Unknowingly, he kicked something.
Looking down, he saw two of those creatures
From last night, now dead on the ground.
"Don't tell me…." His face darkened.
Rubbing one of his temples, he continued on to see more corpses. He hoped for survivors dimmed.
Eventually he he came to all a couple. They had their backs against something. The man held a mana stone and a relatively cheap spellbook. The woman had a sword.
'They held them off until the leader of these things went away. Daryl thought to drag the lantern to their faces, to see what their last moments look like. He instead decided to moved their bodies aside in the darkness.
He didn't want it to haunt him forever.
As the bodies pf the man and woman clattered to the sides, a small door was seen. Taking a deep breath, he pulled it open. 'Come on, let their efforts be worth something'
The door groaned open on rusted hinges, revealing a narrow crawlspace choked with dust and the faint scent of sweat. Daryl held the candle lower, illuminating a trail of small footprints pressed into the dirt—fresh enough that the edges hadn't crumbled. His grip tightened around the pendant still clutched in his palm. The metal bit into his skin.
A whimper echoed from the darkness ahead.
The sound was unmistakable—human, young, terrified. Daryl exhaled through his nose, forcing his shoulders to relax. He'd seen enough battlefields to know panic was contagious, even to the rescuer. "Hey," he called, voice deliberately rough but not unkind. "You down here to play hide-and-seek, or what? Because I've gotta tell you, kid, you're *winning*."
The silence that followed was thicker than the dust in the crawlspace. Daryl waited, counting his own heartbeat. Five. Ten. Then—rustling. Small hands scrambling against wood. A sniffle.
"Papa said... Papa said don't talk to strangers," came the voice, high-pitched and trembling. Closer now.
Daryl crouched lower, careful not to scrape his head against the low ceiling. The candlelight flickered, casting long shadows that made the crawlspace feel like the gullet of some great beast. "Smart man, your papa," he said, keeping his tone casual. "But see, I'm wearing a barktown guard badge." He tapped the metal insignia on his chest—a habit more than anything, since the kid probably couldn't see it in the dark. "That makes me the *good* kind of stranger. Like... a butcher who gives out free sausage samples."
A pause. Then, incredulously: "You're a *sausage*?"
Daryl snorted, the sound echoing oddly in the cramped space. "Worse. I'm the guy who *arrests* sausages." He shifted his weight, knees protesting against the uneven floorboards. The candle's flame trembled as a draft snaked through the crawlspace—somewhere ahead, there had to be an exit. Or at least, air. "Now, kid, I'm gonna need you to do something real brave for me. Can you do brave?"
The silence stretched again, but this time it was different—laced with the quiet determination of a child weighing trust against terror. Daryl held his breath. Then, like a mouse testing the air, a small voice whispered, "Papa said brave is... is when you do the scary thing anyway."
Daryl grinned in the dark. "Your papa sounds like a smart guy." He inched forward, the candle casting monstrous shadows that leaped along the walls. The crawlspace narrowed further, the ceiling pressing down until he had to crawl on his belly, the pendant still clenched in his fist digging into his palm. "But here's the thing about brave—it works better with backup. So how about you come toward my voice, and we'll be brave together?"
The crawlspace exhaled a stale breath against Daryl's face as he pressed forward, the candle's glow barely enough to reveal the splinters jutting from the floorboards. Something skittered in the darkness ahead—not rats, but the scuff of small shoes. Then a gasp, sharp and sudden, followed by the unmistakable wet hiccup of a child fighting tears.
"You still there, sausage inspector?" Daryl called, wincing as his knee cracked against a hidden nail.
A tiny hand brushed Daryl's wrist—cold, clammy, and shaking. The kid's fingers were tangled in the fabric of his sleeve before he could react, gripping like a drowning sailor finding driftwood. The candlelight caught wide, glassy eyes and a smudge of dirt across a nose that had clearly been running for hours. The boy couldn't have been older than six, his knees scraped raw from crawling, his breath coming in shallow hitches.
"Papa said—" the boy started, then choked. His gaze flicked past Daryl, toward the darkness where the bodies lay.
Daryl didn't let the boy look. He shifted his body, blocking the crawlspace behind him with his broad shoulders, and cupped the kid's chin with his free hand. The candlelight caught the tear tracks cutting through the grime on the boy's cheeks.
"Hey, eyes here. And get your sister, I'm taking the both of you away from here."