Stray

“Maybe he’s crazy.” Oliver pinched the thick piece of parchment, his voice dry.

The leader of Tumbleweed was so shocked that he almost accidentally dropped the phonetic crystal in his hand.

Nemo opened his mouth and was just about to answer but found that there was a subtle difference in his surroundings. He got the answer in the next second— Telaranea’s pleasant humming stopped at some point and the air was a bit scary.

Even though the brilliance of the spell illuminated the entire attic brightly, the chill of early autumn was still surging slowly on the floor and tended to grow colder consistently.

“That’s not necessarily true,” the Sage of the Abyss, who had not joined the conversation, suddenly spoke and interjected Oliver’s conjecture smoothly.

Unlike the relaxed tone full of joy just now, Telaranea’s voice tightened. It sounded like he had entered another state of full concentration, like a beast lying down in the grass, staring unblinkingly at a target that was grazing.

He carefully put away the strangely shaped metal tools, acting solemnly as if he was performing some ritual.

“He died of starvation.” Putting away the tools carefully, the red-haired superior demon added in a very soft voice, as if worried about disturbing the body’s sleep.

But the explanation of the superior demon failed to relax the atmosphere. The unexpected cause of death caused the two members of Tumbleweed to take a step back away from the body.