Science/Magic

"Amazing…!" When Bloed saw Camilla the next morning, he stood frozen with his mouth agape.

Dressed in a military-style uniform, with her brown hair in a bob cut, and her pitch-black eyes looking sharply to the horizon, Camilla's bearing resembled a powerful general leading thousand of troops.

And more astonishingly, she was standing!

Camilla was walking confidently while wearing a silver military-ish exoskeleton. Maybe due to the exoskeleton, her body seemed unusually tall and strong. Bloed felt that, although Camilla was a woman, the term handsome was adequate for the current her.

When she saw the stupefied Bloed, Camilla grinned.

"What do you think, son?"

"… Mother, you can walk!? Did your body recover!?"

Camilla shook her head bitterly. "… Unfortunately, not. I'm currently using this exoskeleton to assist my body to walk. It's a thought-controlled military combat suit I finished modifying a few days ago."

An expression of disappointment appeared on Bloed's face, but it was quickly replaced by his curiosity about the combat suit.

Camilla noticed the change in his gaze and smiled. "Don't worry, I'll allow you to study it later. You will be able to build your own combat suit soon enough."

Bloed's eyes shone. "Alright!"

"Now let's go. If we hurry, we can come back before night."

Bloed nodded and departed together Camilla and Tito (one of its terminals) in a vehicle.

For this travel, Tito prepared a buggy that could transport up to four people. This buggy was the only vehicle that Tito was able to rescue from the spaceship. The other vehicles were either too damaged due to the crash, or too old deteriorated after four hundred years.

In fact, even this buggy was repaired using parts of other vehicles and some materials found on the ship before it could be used.

Of course, that did not affect the vehicle's performance. Tito made sure of making this buggy better than any recently-build military car. It had a 1000-horsepower engine and could drive in any terrain without fear of being damaged.

Using the buggy, it took the trio less than five hours to reach their destination.

"Son, be careful and keep your weapons ready. We don't know what we will find there." Camilla reminded Bloed.

Bloed nodded. He confirmed that his two energy guns were working and put them back in its holsters. He then checked that his saber and military knife were in good condition before leaving the vehicle.

Bloed was wearing a black hooded parka with a military armor below. The armor was a high-technology product that could generate a relatively powerful forcefield to protect the user from attacks.

Same for the saber and the knife. Both weapons used oscillating technology to vibrate one thousand times per second, with 0.05 mm of oscillation range. This kind of weapon could cut practically anything as though it was butter, but it needed repeated maintenance to work perfectly.

Of course, that was not a problem for Tito, a high-class AI, and Bloed, a mechanical engineer (student).

When they entered the village, they were greeted by a desolate scene.

No sign of life could be found in the village, but it had traces of people living here until not long ago. According to Tito calculations, the people in the village had disappeared less than one week ago.

Unfortunately, Tito did not know why they left.

But it knew the reason was not something good.

No matter how Camilla, Tito, and Bloed observed the village, they came to the same conclusion. The people living here had left the village to escape from something.

And probably, many of them did not manage to escape.

Camilla and Bloed found trace after trace of battles. The traces were spread around all the village, as though the village would have been surrounded and then attacked to not leave anyone to escape.

Strangely, though, none of the three found traces of blood.

"How strange…" Camilla furrowed her brows. "Tito, what do you think?"

[I don't know master. The exiled lands are inhabited by many dangerous creatures, and even with my scans, I have failed to identify many of them and their characteristics. Plus, we don't know enough about this world's magic. Maybe something like this can be done through the use of magic.]

Camilla fell silent.

"… I think I saw something like this before." Bloed said suddenly.

"Huh?"

"It was when I just entered the exiled lands. The man that brought me here told me that other people were living in this place and that I could try to find them. I never found anyone, though. But I remember I saw another village like this one."

[Can you describe it, young master?]

"Let me think… I remember it seemed much more dilapidated that this village. But everything else was the same. It was as though all its inhabitants had left the village in a hurry, and you could see signs of destruction everywhere. I did not stay there for long, though, so I'm not very sure of my judgment."

Camilla expression turned serious. "… I hope you are mistaken, Bloed. If your words are true, it means that there is something out there hunting people, and it has somehow destroyed two villages already, maybe even more."

[… Master, I fear things are worse than you think.]

Camilla was startled. "What do you mean, Tito?"

[I'm detecting multiple signs of life nearby.]

Camilla's expression tensed up. "Where?"

[… Everywhere.]