Ambrose slowly put his swords away and turned away from the two dead White Inquisitors.
‘I suppose I have grown stronger.’ He thought while remembering the humiliation he received at the hands of the White Inquisitors.
At his current state, he believed he would be able to defeat them.
He was still not confident about facing the Brown Inquisitors, but he felt like he wasn’t too far away.
After leaving the dead White Inquisitors behind, he stepped through the entrance of Yatagarasu, arriving at the desolate streets.
The buildings were razed to the ground, and smoke still lingered in the air.
It wasn’t raining, but the mist made visibility incredibly poor.
He could barely make out the faint outline of what used to be a bustling city.
Ambrose trotted into the mist, tapping his finger against the sword hilt while looking around the destroyed part of the city.
It was a heartbreaking sight, especially since he remembered how lively the most populated city was before.
Thud—Ambrose heard a distant thud coming from inside one of the destroyed shops.
Curiosity piqued, he cautiously made his way towards the source of the sound.
Inside the store, he saw a fallen shelf with an ugly-looking goblin trying to free itself from the debris.
It seemed to have accidentally caused the shelf to fall, trapping itself under it.
The goblin looked angry and desperate as it struggled to escape.
Then it stopped struggling and began sniffing the smoke-covered air.
Its ugly vertical eyes turned to the entrance of the store, where it saw a tasty treat in the form of a human.
“Kurahhh!” It streeched, biting the air in front of it like a rapid dog, desperately wanting to quench on the human flesh.
“…” Ambrose walked over to the goblin and stepped on its face.
The goblin tried to bite through the fabric of his boot, but to no avail.
“Where is Bella?” Ambrose asked and then chuckled. “What am I doing? They won’t understand me. Looking at this creature, there is not a single intelligent thought between its eyes.”
As if the goblin understood the human’s words, it began gnawing on a boot with greater intensity, its beady eyes glaring back at Ambrose with a mix of defiance and hunger.
Spurt—Ambrose stepped down, crushing the goblin’s skull like it were an overripe tomato.
The room fell silent as the goblin’s lifeless body slumped to the ground.
“I need a map.” Ambrose looked around the ruins of the store and believed there to be some kind of map.
He didn’t want to blindly move around the mist-covered city without any plan in mind.
He just wanted to visit the Whispering Page bookstore to see if there was anything there.
After stepping over debris that looked like it had once been a statue, he found a piece of parchment tucked away in the corner.
“It’s a map.” Ambrose unfolded it, but unfortunately, he couldn’t make any sense of the map.
It was basically useless, as there was also a big hole in the center.
“Cursed.” He looked around the store and didn’t think it would be worth spending the next couple of hours trying to find a map.
Emma would return from school in several hours, and he wished to be done with this by then.
After tossing the useless map away, he left the store, and instead of walking down the main street, he walked down an alleyway between two ruined buildings.
He soon reached another mist-covered street, which was called Alymnium Street, which was once a very popular blacksmithing street, but now it lay abandoned and derelict.
Thud—a garbage can was knocked over by a couple of players that rushed from a nearby alley, screaming.
‘Players?’ Ambrose’s eyes narrowed as he saw that those players were carrying large bags that seemed too big to fit inside inventories.
After the players stumbled out of the alley, they turned to Ambrose, shocked to see another player here.
‘They came here to plunder?’
“A player?” One of them whispered with a suspicious gaze.
The players looked at their plundered loot and planned to protect it at any cost!
“We have to go.” One of them whispered to their leader. “Those goblins will catch us shortly.”
Their leader nodded and ran towards the nearest alleyway.
However, as he and his friends were entering the alleyway, he caught the gaze of the black-haired young man and felt a chill run down his spine.
It was like he was looking straight at his soul.
After the players had run away, Ambrose continued walking and soon heard another set of footsteps coming from the alley.
He quickly hid inside a crumbling store and saw nearly a dozen goblins chasing after those players.
After the goblins had crossed the street and entered the same alleyway where players ran off to, Ambrose left the store and continued moving towards his destination.
After a while, he came across a worn-out public board with torn wanted posters.
The surrounding area started to look far more familiar.
‘The bookstore must be close.’ Ambrose ignored the public board and started moving quicker.
“Kyaa…”
He halted and turned to look back where he had come from.
He heard a scream coming from the direction of the players.
‘The goblins must’ve caught them. I wonder if they will survive.’
As he turned back to continue his journey, he saw a little bit of the wall of mist dissipating, and at the other side, there was a familiar bookstore with the sign “Whispering Pages” that was hanging loosely.
‘I found it!’ Ambrose walked through the mist and arrived at the bookstore.
The interior was dark, and the door had been broken apart.
All the bookshelves had been tipped over, and hundreds of books were strewn about.
Some pages were torn and scattered across the floor, while others were crumpled or waterlogged.
As Ambrose stepped inside the store, he spoke with a faint voice.
“Bella?”
His voice bounced across the walls.
However, once the voice faded away, silence returned. 𝗈𝚟xt.𝗇t
Ambrose unsheathed his sword and made his way over to the second floor.
There, he saw a wide open door and a messy room.
Creak—the floor creaked as he entered the room.
The room still had a sweet scent of flowers and vanilla, but there was also a mix of blood.
On the floor, there was dried-up blood, green in color.
‘Goblin blood.’ Ambrose crouched and touched it.
It was barely moist anymore, meaning it had been quite some time since the goblin had bled here.
‘I at least know that Bella might’ve been here and ended up fighting a goblin.’
He then looked at the bed and noticed that it was unmade, indicating that someone must’ve left in a hurry.
After looking away from the bed, he suddenly cracked a smile after seeing two wanted posters on the wall.
“They were collecting these?” Ambrose looked at his wanted posters and chuckled. “That is pretty cute.”
‘There is nothing left in here. She isn’t here, which means she is most likely back in reality.’ Ambrose thought so, but just in case, he wanted to make sure.
There was a certain ability he had recently acquired but hadn’t had the chance to use yet.
Soul Tracking!
He doubted Bella had learned to hide her soul scent.
Ambrose sat down on the ground and entered the world of souls.
As soon as he entered the frozen world, he commanded the soul to do the soul tracking procedure.
After it was completed, he saw all sorts of soul scents lingering in the air.
Three of them belonged to goblins, as they were green in color, but there were two blue-colored, faint scents.
‘One of them is Emma’s, but this one is Bella’s…’ Ambrose thought as he looked at one of the soul scents.
He then made his soul commence the soul tracking.
In the empty air in front of him, a holographic screen appeared.
The holographic screen began displaying a scene.
It meant that Bella was still online.
However, after seeing the scene, Ambrose’s eyes widened in shock.
The scene was very hazy, but he concluded a few things.
There was a dark cage, and inside there was a fragile-looking young woman, her limbs chained by shackles.
Ding, ding—a blade tapped against the metal bars of the cage.
An ugly goblin looked at the chained woman with a sickening grin.
“Kruh… You are…”
Bella’s fatigued eyes trembled in shock. “Y-you can speak?”
“Guhahaha!” The goblin laughed. “You are… today’s feast of Goblin Hour. Prepare to be eaten, filthy human!”
Bella trembled in fear, her heart pounding in her chest.
She visualized the goblin’s razor-sharp teeth tearing apart her limbs and devouring her body like she was nothing but an evening meal.
She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the inevitable horror that awaited her.
“H-help…”
The scene cracked like glass.
“How the fuck is this shit allowed?” Ambrose burst through the world of souls in instant rage, unable to comprehend the atrocities he was witnessing.
“She is going to be fucking eaten alive.” He grabbed his hair in frustration. “Think, Ambrose. Where the fuck was she?”
“There was darkness; the walls looked very dungeon-like, and there was clearly moistness in the ground.”
He then screamed and entered the world of souls once again.
His soul jumped out of his body.
“Find her, now!” Ambrose screamed angrily.
‘Got it… Ambrose.’ The soul replied, almost like he was speaking to another being right now, and then flew out of the bookstore, embarking on a journey to find the whereabouts of Bella.