51) Scavenging
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{3rd POV}
Weakness flooded Ember’s entire body.
Although he had adapted to the poison, the adaptation came at a tremendous cost.
His body had consumed an enormous amount of its own energy to sustain rapid healing and regeneration.
Thankfully, his mana had supplemented much of that healing.
And thanks to the blessings of Falna enhancing him beyond normal human standards, he hadn’t simply died from malnutrition halfway through the ordeal.
If he had been an ordinary person, his body would have failed long before adaptation set in.
Ember took a deep breath and began moving slowly toward the entrance of the tunnel he had originally crawled through.
Each step felt heavy, but he pushed forward until he eventually reached the guild basement cave opening.
From there, he found climbed his way up.
When he emerged, he discovered that the basement entrance was blocked off by rubble from the outside.
The Behemoth’s earlier shockwaves had caused parts of the building to collapse.
But Ember ignored that for the moment.
The first thing he needed now was food.
He began searching the still intact Guild basement for anything edible.
Luck favored him as he found a few loaves of bread that hadn’t spoiled yet.
Unfortunately, they were dry and stale, practically rock hard.
When he tried chewing a piece, he found it tough, unpalatable, and almost painful to swallow.
But it was food and he needed food.
He quickly searched for something to drink and, fortunately, found a barrel of ale.
Without hesitation, he grabbed a loaf of bread and dipped it into the ale, softening the dry pieces before eating them slowly.
He knew his stomach was empty, completely drained of nutrients and without food as a source of energy he wouldn’t be able to regain any strength at all.
He continued dipping the bread into the wooden barrel filled with ale, chewing carefully and swallowing each bite despite how unpleasant it tasted.
After finishing two full loaves, Ember cupped his hands and drank the ale directly from the barrel, gulps echoing in the silent and ruined guild building.
Once he had eaten and drunk enough to fill his stomach a little, he moved toward a nearby wall and lowered himself down, laying his back against the cold surface.
He took deep breaths, waiting patiently for the food to digest enough to give him even a fraction of strength back.
Only then did he take a moment to look at himself properly.
His robes were torn and filthy, soaked with dried blood and coated with the remnants of poison.
The smell of it was enough to make anyone flinch.
Ember realized that the sticky sensation covering his skin came from that layer of dried bodily fluids such as pus and blood, and poison residue clinging to him.
'I need to take a bath,' he thought, looking down at his filthy clothes and sticky skin.
Then he realized he had eaten stale bread and drunk ale with the same dirty, blood-stained hands.
For a moment he grimaced and then simply shrugged.
A person hanging on their last leg didn’t have the luxury of caring about cleanliness.
Besides, there hadn’t been any stored water in the basement to begin with.
Almost everything in the guild’s storage had spoiled already.
The vegetables had turned to rotten mush, and only the hardened loaves of bread remained as loaves that were practically on the verge of molding.
The only stroke of fortune was finding ale, though Ember knew the barrel he drank from would spoil faster now that he had dipped his hands into it.
He sighed.
'First, let me see what’s happening outside,' he told himself.
After that thought, he rested for another hour or two, waiting for his body to digest the food and regain a faint bit of strength.
When he finally stood up, he made his way toward the basement door.
As expected, it was blocked, completely obstructed by collapsed wooden beams and splintered rubble.
Ember pressed his shoulder against it and pushed with all the strength he could muster.
The debris shifted only slightly at first, but that was enough to encourage him.
He gritted his teeth and pushed harder, forcing his weakened body beyond its limits.
Slowly, inch by inch, the rubble gave way… until finally, with a heavy thud, the broken wood collapsed outward and the path was cleared.
He coughed lightly as a cloud of wood dust burst into the air.
Waving the dust away with his hand, Ember stepped forward and looked around.
The entire guild building had become dilapidated with walls cracked, beams shattered, furniture broken and scattered everywhere.
The sight made him pause in surprise.
'Just how many days has it been since that battle?' he wondered. He had lost track of time almost immediately after his first day trapped in the tunnel.
For all he knew, a week could have passed… or more.
He shook his head.
'No point thinking about time. First, I need to get myself cleaned.'
He was about to step out through the rubble when another thought struck him, there might be monsters outside.
In his normal condition, even a surface-level monster like a Minotaur wouldn’t be a threat to him.
But right now?
He was weakened, unarmed, and running on barely recovering body. Encountering a monster in this state could easily be fatal.
So he decided to search the guild first.
Navigating through the collapsed hallways was slow and troublesome, but after pushing aside beams and debris, Ember finally located the guild’s armory.
Inside, he found several racks of common steel knives and swords, some basic weapons meant for rookie adventurers.
There were also stacks of plain travel clothes and light-weight iron armor sets designed for low-level adventurers just beginning their journey.
It wasn’t glamorous, but for Ember in his state, it was enough.
The halberds, quality swords, bows, and arrows were all gone from the armory which made perfect sense.
During the stampede, every capable fighter would have taken the better weapons out to the battlefield.
Only the cheap rookie gear remained.
Ember considered taking a sword, but in the end he chose a pair of knives.
They were lighter, easier to carry, and far more manageable for his weakened state.
He took a plain white shirt and brown pants, tying them securely around his torso to change into later on.
Then he strapped the two knives to his belt and headed toward the exit.
The moment he stepped outside, he was met with a suffocating silence of a destroyed city, an uneasy silence that makes your skin crawl if it was an horror movie.
As he moved forward, a foul stench struck him without warning.
Grimacing, Ember followed the source by habit, only to find a corpse crushed beneath a pile of collapsed rubble.
The body had already begun rotting, swollen and discolored, attracting flies and maggots.
Ember immediately turned away, deciding there was no point in inspecting a corpse that would probably make him vomit just by looking at it.
Right now, he needed to focus on himself.
He smelled terrible with dried blood, poison residue, sweat, and dirt clung to him like a second skin.
'I need a bath,' he thought firmly.
Bathing wasn’t just for comfort at this point, he needed to wash off the poison residue before it caused further problems.
He decided to search the city for a well or any intact water source he could use to clean himself properly.
As Ember walked down the shattered streets, the reality of Karuna City finally settled into him, so this was why the place had been abandoned after only a few days of the monster stampede.
Entire rows of houses were burned to cinders, while others had collapsed inward as if crushed by something massive.
Some buildings showed scorch marks from wyvern fire; others looked as though pure brute force had smashed them apart.
Debris covered the pathways in uneven layers of stone, ash, and shattered wood.
And among it all lay the dead. Rotting corpses of both human and wyvern were scattered throughout the streets.
Some were half buried beneath rubble; others were exposed to the open air, bloated and discolored.
The smell was a mix of smoke, decay, and days-old blood.
Ember ignored it all.
He moved forward, refusing to stop until he found what he needed.
After navigating through the ruined district, he finally spotted a well in a small garden beside one of the few intact houses still standing.
He stepped into the garden and hurried toward the well.
Leaning over it, he peered down.
To his relief, there was water, and not stagnant sludge, but clean, drinkable water.
For the first time since waking up, his shoulders relaxed.
He removed the spare clothes he had taken from the guild and placed them neatly on the grass.
Then he grabbed his copper-colored robes which was saturated with dried poison, blood, and dirt and tossed them aside without hesitation.
Piece by piece, he discarded everything until he was completely naked, free of the suffocating filth clinging to his skin.
Only then did he finally allow himself to breathe properly.
He wasn’t planning to keep the clothes he had just stripped off.
Even if they could be washed, he didn’t want poison-soaked rags anywhere near his skin again.
Besides, he still didn’t know what had happened to the surviving residents of Karuna City, but he had a very clear suspicion that they must have evacuated once the Behemoth appeared.
A huge portion of the population had died, yes, but the streets weren’t covered with corpses the way they should have been if everyone had stayed.
Ember remembered that the guild was completely empty when he went there to hide from the Behemoth’s attack.
And that didn’t add up.
How could the guild during a city-wide crisis be without even a single staff member?
Even if they had meant to hide, they definitely weren’t in the basement or the secret tunnel beneath the building.
Which meant one thing the city had been warned about the Behemoth in advance.
Perhaps during his fight with the Bloodsaurus, the city authorities had already begun evacuating residents from the back gate while adventurers continued to fight the stampede head-on.
'Now that I think about it… no one told us to fall back,' Ember realized as the pieces fell into place.
'Does that mean they chose not to tell the adventurers anything? Did they use adventurers as a shield while they escaped?'
A cold, unpleasant weight settled in his chest as the implications sank in.
His expression darkened.
There was no surprise in it.
The city’s mayor, the nobles, and the wealthy merchants who lived here had likely made that decision.
From their perspective, sacrificing the adventurers to stall the monsters while they evacuated was the most logical way to ensure their own survival.
Cruel but an effective way to survive.
'No wonder the guild was empty!' Ember clenched his fists for a brief moment before forcing himself to relax.
Getting angry wouldn’t change anything.
He had survived somehow and right now ensuring he still survived remained his top priority.
Everything else could wait.
That priority started with the basics: cleaning himself.
Ember hauled up a bucket from the well, filled to the brim with clear water, and dumped it directly over his head.
Cold water ran down his skin, washing away layers of dirt, dried blood, and grime.
However, as the water flowed off him, he frowned.
There was no black or dark residue dripping from his hair as he had expected.
He reached up and ran his fingers through his hair and then paused.
He had missed a very obvious detail.
His hair was green.
And that was a problem, because he had dyed it.
“Did I forget to…? No. I remember dyeing my hair,” Ember muttered, brows furrowing.
His gaze drifted to the discarded copper robes nearby stained with streaks of green.
His eyes narrowed as the answer clicked into place.
“I see… the black dye I use is made from a green and red compound. When it mixed with my blood, it turned green,” Ember concluded.
Thinking back, he remembered seeing his blood turning green while he dragged himself through the tunnel, praying there would be an exit on the other side.
As for how the dye came off entirely? He could only chalk that up to the Behemoth’s poison.
A toxin strong enough to rot flesh and melt organs likely had no trouble dissolving a simple hair dye which was organic.
With that minor mystery solved, he didn’t waste any more time.
He hauled up bucket after bucket of water from the well and poured each one over himself, letting the cold liquid wash away every trace of dried blood, poison residue, dust, and filth.
He scrubbed his skin until the stains faded and the foul smell finally disappeared.
Only after the last streak of grime swirled into the grass below did Ember feel clean again, finally clean, and alive.
Ember lifted his head toward the sunlight and let it fall across his skin.
He felt both the heat and the brightness soaking into him.
For a long, quiet moment, he simply stared at the blue sky above.
White clouds drifted lazily overhead, moving slow enough to cast passing shadows across the ruined garden.
The world above looked far too peaceful compared to the shattered city below.
For a brief stretch of time, Ember allowed himself to just enjoy it the silence, the warmth, the light, and the clean openness of the sky.
There was finally no poison.
No pain that made him feel like wanting to isekai again.
No monsters ruining this peaceful moment.
Just the simple, quiet existence of a morning sky after a nightmare.
Then he slowly closed his eyes.
He mourned in silence for everyone who had died during the stampede, for the city swallowed by chaos, and for the countless people whose names he didn’t even know yet who had still given their lives fighting so that he could survive that final battle.
When Ember opened his eyes again, they held a strange and unsettling calmness, too steady, too controlled, as if something within him had settled into place in a way that could not be shaken anymore.
He quietly picked up the simple white T-shirt and brown pants he had scavenged from the guild and slipped them on.
Then he grabbed a leather strap belt and fastened it around his waist, sliding a dagger into the sheath attached to it.
On the opposite side of the belt was a small pouch meant for valis.
Ember clicked his tongue in annoyance; it was completely useless to him right now.
He would’ve preferred another dagger strapped there while holding one in hand, but it made sense.
This wasn’t equipment for a veteran.
This was rookie gear, basic starter equipment for new adventurers who couldn’t afford proper weapons.
A single cheap dagger sheath and a pouch for coins was standard issue.
After dressing, Ember leaned over the well again and drank until his thirst was finally satisfied, water dripping down his chin and onto the garden grass.
Fresh, clean, and at least somewhat put back together, Ember finally made up his mind to check on the carriage where he had stored his belongings.
He knew the odds of it still being there were slim, but if the merchant had died or if he’d been smart enough to abandon excess cargo in order to escape then there was still a chance his things had been left behind.
So he headed toward the last place he remembered seeing the merchant’s wagon.
The trip took nearly half an hour of slow, cautious walking.
Ember moved through collapsed streets and piles of debris while holding a dagger in his hand just in case something decided to leap out of the ruins at him.
When he finally reached the location, he froze for a moment in disbelief.
The wagon was still there.
The roof had been smashed in by fallen timber, and one wheel had collapsed under the weight, but the frame was intact enough to recognize.
Ember’s eyes widened.
He hadn’t expected anything from the wagon to have survived, let alone still be in the same place.
Without hesitation, he approached and started dragging away the rubble.
The wooden planks had splintered and cracked, but beneath them he spotted a familiar bag.
His clothes.
He tore the damaged roof aside and pulled the bag out.
Opening it quickly, he found everything still intact such as his spare outfits, neatly folded, and his identification cards tucked between layers of fabric.
Ember let out a long breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.
He decided to change immediately.
Other than the copper-colored robe he had discarded earlier, he had only one proper piece of clothing left: a green-colored robe made from a special material something he also had quietly taken from the treasury before leaving back then.
Calling it “stealing” would be an exaggeration.
It had been his property to begin with.
He simply hadn’t wanted questions about why he was packing enchanted clothing meant for combat.
In truth, he hadn’t brought much with him at all, just the two enchanted cloth armors, his magic staff, and his sword.
And with the staff and sword lost in the battle, the robe was now the only real equipment he had left.
His copper-colored robe had been discarded as well.
All that remained was the green robe.
He put it on immediately, discarding the plain shirt and pants he had been wearing.
Compared to those flimsy clothes, the enchanted robe offered far more protection, even if it wasn’t much.
He pulled the hood up over his head and then slipped a white mask over his face.
He had no intention of running into survivors or worse people from the Alf's forest and letting them recognize him.
With the dye washed out of his hair, his identity was far too exposed for comfort.
Once fully prepared, Ember began walking through the destroyed streets of Karuna City in search of an exit.
His pace was slow, his steps careful.
The quiet and barely standing buildings around him carried memories he couldn’t ignore, this was the city he had defended with his life, the place where he had almost died not once, but twice.
'I swear, if my parameters didn’t skyrocket after all this, I’m going to lose my mind,' Ember muttered internally, attempting to lighten the weight in his chest with sarcasm.
To be continued…