Chapter 296: No Time To Dwell
Survival wouldn’t be possible if she continued to dwell on what she was beginning to deem a life-or-death situation. Yet, as her search for shelter began to drag later and later into the day, she couldn’t help an occasional, nervous glance towards the east where she had just come from. Ever since that morning, her heart hadn’t been calm.
Had she really been so close to dying and killing Sammy as well? What would have happened then? Her father would eventually come to find her, as would the Knights of Chemois. She couldn’t help dwelling on the fact that her mistake of overlooking the village she was in led to those she cared for most dying.
She tried to shake off those thoughts. It didn’t happen, so she should simply move on so that she and her loyal steed could both have someplace comfortable to rest during the night when it got too cold.
Since the village’s buildings were fixed in a pattern of circles with a larger building in the center—a detail she should have noticed the previous village lacked—she began to travel from the outside to the middle.
Her path of travel wasn’t because she was searching for any building that would open. Rather, she was clearing off each door to find the symbols that indicated the Litharion clan. No matter what, she told herself she would open that door. Her father had been there in more recent years, and they would hopefully be in decent shape compared to the others that wouldn’t budge before.
At least, that’s what she convinced herself of so she could keep moving forward with purpose.
The village map was in worse shape than the others in terms of the markers that would indicate the specifics of the house. There was an arrow that indicated the correct one, but it pointed to a group more than it pointed to a single house.
Irene had a feeling that this was due to her family owning a few homes rather than one. Her father told her that she would know the one that was her grandmother’s because all the artifacts she used as a Volna filled the space much like the place she lived in right now.
Only a couple more times did Irene glance towards the horizon, making sure she didn’t see the wyrm following her. That was as long as it took to find a door that said what she knew to be Litharion.