Chapter 37: The Price of Blind Faith
Papers lay scattered across the floor of the village hall like fallen leaves. It looked like the place had been cleaned out in a blind panic, drawers yanked open, chairs kicked over, half-written logs left to rot on the desks.
Nuri stepped over a overturned stool, looking around. Are any of them still alive? Can a village like this ever come back from something like this?
Deep down, he already knew the answer.
He caught sight of Lucien crouching near the back desk, gathering sheets of parchment from the dust. Nuri dropped to his knees and started picking them up too, though he couldn't see the point. They already knew the broad strokes. What could a bunch of village administrative records tell them that the dead streets hadn't already?
Then again, staying close to Lucien was better than wandering this ghost town alone.
Lucien didn't say a word. He pulled out an old wooden chair, sat down, and began flipping through the pages. Nuri stood near the edge of the desk, shifting his weight awkwardly.
Without looking up, Lucien unclipped the small black charm hanging from his umbrella handle and tossed it across the room.
"Entertain it."
Nuri scrambled to catch it, nearly dropping it on the floor. Entertain it? What was that even supposed to mean? Had the man finally lost his mind? He considered tossing the thing back, but thought better of it. Offending Lucien was a short path to a bad day. He held the little artifact against his chest.
"Ugh... why are you squeezing me so tight?"
Nuri froze. Did the charm just talk?
He blinked, shaking his head. No, he was exhausted. Brain playing tricks on him. A wooden token couldn't speak unless Lucien had put some kind of weird illusion spell on
"Why are you ignoring me?"
Nuri slowly lifted the charm to eye level. His jaw dropped.
Right. Of course. Nothing around Lucien was normal. He really needed to stop being surprised when reality broke.
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"...Y-you're talking," Nuri choked out.
"Who else?" the voice snapped back from inside the stone. "You see anyone else in this pocket?"
Nuri took a heavy breath and gave up questioning things. "...What are you?"
"Don't know. All I know is my name's Mo."
Mo. Simple enough. Whoever named a talking artifact had a weird sense of humor.
Nuri sat down at the edge of the desk and set the charm on the dark wood, leaning in close to inspect it. The material was bizarre, a shade of black so deep it seemed to absorb the light around it, like a tiny hole in the world.
"Hey! Quit staring," Mo complained, the voice buzzing like a trapped bee. "You're making it weird."
"...Do I know you?" Nuri asked. The weight of the magic inside it felt strangely familiar, like a song he'd heard a long time ago.
"No."
The answer shot back instantly. Too fast.
Nuri couldn't help a small, dry smile. Instant denial. He got it, though, if he were hiding something that massive, he wouldn't blab to a stranger either.
Still, he had to admit his magic senses had picked up a lot over the last few days. Maybe he wasn't completely useless at this stuff after all.
"It's because you're standing next to a mountain of mana," Lucien's lazy voice drifted over from behind his stack of papers. "Your senses are just getting forced open. Don't let it go to your head."
Nuri rolled his eyes. The man physically couldn't let anyone feel good about themselves for five seconds. Every time Nuri thought he'd made progress, Lucien was right there with a bucket of ice water. *Will I ever live to see the day this guy runs out of things to criticize?* Not likely.
"Stop making that face. It's embarrassing," Mo chimed in.
Nuri's hand flew to his mouth. Was it really that obvious? He cleared his throat and looked back at Lucien, anxious to change the subject. "...Did you find something?"
Lucien stopped reading and set a thick bundle of parchment down, his index finger tapping a steady rhythm on the desk.
"Something interesting," Lucien said softly.
Nuri waited, his chest tightening.
"The villagers..." Lucien glanced at the page. "They knew. All of it."
"They knew?" Nuri repeated. "Wait—the diary said—"
"They knew what was coming," Lucien cut in, his voice flat. "And they let it happen anyway."
Nuri stared. "Why? Why would anyone walk into that?"
Lucien flipped the page over and slid it across the table toward Nuri.
"They wanted to bring down the God of Sacrifice," Lucien said. "Greed got ahead of their brains. They thought if they built the bridge, they'd get a piece of the pie. So they turned a blind eye to the cost."
The paper was covered in names, signatures, and dates. A full ledger of blood offerings organized by the town council.
"And it cost them every single life in the valley," Lucien added.
Silence heavy as lead settled over the room.
*Summoning a god...*
An entire town, wiped off the map, all because a few elders wanted to play with fire. Everyone had questions about the divine, sure. But burning down your own home just to see what was on the other side?
Nuri stared down at the ledger, the ink fading into the yellowed paper.
So this was another piece of the world's truth. Blind faith, unchecked greed, and the terrifying willingness of people to ignore the cliff right in front of them, all for a prize they were never going to reach.