It was a bright afternoon that day, as the rays of sunlight piercing through the cloudy sky giving their warmth to the forested field below.
The four of them were walking casually beside the river bank when Yuriko asked, "How far is this place? We've been travelling for a whole week."
Her stomach grumbled with intense hunger.
"Quit your whining, Yuriko," Izumi said, before his stomach too erupted in grumbles.
"Though I hate to say it but living off the land doesn't suit these two," Takae said to Miyuki while clutching onto the bags she was carrying on her back over her brown hooded cloak.
"How much further till we get there?"
Miyuki was holding an old beat-up map that she pointed to before saying, "To get to the mountain, we have to get past the Shion estuaries, which is still a week away."
"A whole week!" Yuriko cried. "There's no way I'll make it."
"Stop being melodramatic," Miyuki replied. "I didn't say that we had to go there directly."
"Oh, there's another way?" Izumi asked, his expression uplifting.
"Not another way per se, but a stop," she replied. "This region is pretty secluded so there is only one major settlement. We'll have to go there first and restock before we continue."
"Maybe we can stay there for a few days," Yuriko pleaded with false teary eyes.
"There's barely enough money for us to get food, Yuriko," Takae said. "We can't afford a place to stay."
"So it's another week of sleeping out in the cold," Izumi said, whatever uplifting spirit he had formed quickly draining away.
"There is a bright side to this," Miyuki said, catching their attention. "There is an old abandoned village nearby that we can stay at for the night."
"Abandoned?" Yuriko asked with her eyebrow raised.
"Yeah, according to the map it's classified as ruins," she replied.
"Where did you get that map again?" Izumi asked.
"From the chief," Miyuki said as she rolled it back up. "He said it was at least fifty years old, so that place must have been abandoned a long time ago."
"Fifty plus years is a long time," Takae said. "What was so different that it made them leave their homes and never come back once?"
"I bet it was an attack," Izumi noted, "just like what happened to our village and Shinrai village."
"Mhh, you might be right," Yuriko said as she picked up her pace after being left behind.
"I'm not so sure about going there though," Miyuki said. "Places like that are often cursed, so who knows what's lurking in there."
"Don't be such a coward, Miyuki," Yuriko said as she patted her shoulder, having caught up to the front where she was walking. "Things like that are just superstitions, none of it is true."
"You might be right," Takae replied, "but how much of our world has become supernatural as of late? This 'curse' thing wouldn't be the craziest thing that we've heard."
"No problem then," Yuriko said, patting her right bicep. "We'll just take it down if it tries anything."
"Guess I shouldn't have expected more from a muscle brain like you," Izumi said.
"Well do you expect us to bow down and let it possess us or something?" she shot back along with a rock that she hurled at him.
He dodged it effortlessly before turning back, only to be hit with an even larger rock.
"Your OMP (Omni-Directional Perception) needs work," Takae noted as he wiped blood from his nose.
"Noted," he said as he picked one up too. "Now let's test hers out too."
He tossed it at her, and it shot straight for her face, but she tilted it to the side just in time, though her hair lifted slightly from the breeze that followed.
"Too slow, lil bro," she said with a cocky smirk. "It seems you have a lot more you need to work on than just your shitty senses."
He clenched his fist tight and said, "You better sleep with one eye open!"
"Why should I?" she asked sarcastically. "I'm sure you'll still miss."
Miyuki and Takae chuckled at the comment, and Izumi started chasing her.
"Haha, too slow," she said as she looked behind while running.
Because of this, she didn't see the large mossy rock she was about to run into, and so she collided with it and found herself plunged into the side of the river.
Izumi burst out laughing before saying, "You aren't so high and mighty now, are you?"
"Just shut up and help me out of here," she said before he reached his hand out to pull her up.
"Damn stupid rock," she said as she kicked it. "Where did you even come from?"
A small crack was visible from where she had kicked it.
"This sure is mossy," Izumi noted.
"I guess no one has been here in a while," Miyuki said as she and Takae caught up to them. "I suppose the rest of the village is going to look like this too."
"You mean we're already here?" Yuriko asked.
"Yeah," she replied as she pointed ahead. "If I'm not wrong, then it's past that batch of trees up ahead."
"Yes, finally we can stop walking," Yuriko said along with a sigh.
"I'll dry off your robe and cloak once we get there," Takae said.
"Thanks," she replied.
"Now that I think of it, Vahir really is all that useful outside of fighting," Izumi said as they headed toward the trees. "We haven't had to manually do a lot of things like start a fire since we left."
"If you're so blown away, then maybe you can learn a spell or two," Miyuki said as the shadow cast by the trees started to take over.
"Maybe I would if I wasn't so bad at it," he replied nervously.
"Since there's a whole week of travelling ahead of us, maybe you can do some practice during our stops," Takae suggested.
The light past the shadow cast by the trees grew closer.
"No thanks, I'd much rather rest during our breaks than exert myself even more," he replied.
"And you wonder why you're so bad at it," Yuriko said in a low tone.
The image of what was ahead began taking shape.
"Says you of all people," he shot back. "The only thing you're good at is whining and tripping."
They stepped out of the shadows. She opened her mouth to say something back to Izumi but stopped once she caught sight of the view ahead.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Takae asked Miyuki.
"I'm sure," she replied.
"Honestly, she has no reason to doubt me," Miyuki thought, "because this place doesn't look like a village at all."
From their vantage point atop a slightly raised hill, they could see it all.
The stream that passed through the broken stone houses that were covered in moss and vines. The outlines of the pathways filled with so much grass that they were barely visible.
For a moment, there was silence as they all took it in.
"Let's go around and check for any wild animals, then we can find a place to set up camp," Miyuki said.
No one argued, so they all started walking down the hill with that same silence taking over again.
Once they were in the village, they couldn't help but stare at the broken stone walls filled with cobwebs, the bushes sprouting over the entrances to houses.
Whenever they encountered an animal, it was just a squirrel or a possum that quickly fled, so they circled around most of the ruined village without much trouble.
Once they were done, Yuriko said, "Maybe we should check past those trees if there are any more houses."
The three looked around with an odd sense of suspicion before nodding in agreement.
They then walked toward the trees. It only took a few meters of walking before they could see light ahead after going in.
Miyuki, who was walking ahead of Izumi, suddenly came to a stop, and he bumped into her.
"Hey, why did you stop all of a sudden?" he said, stepping back.
"Look there," she pointed ahead.
Sensing a shift in her tone, they couldn't help but look ahead immediately.
What they saw was the remains of a house sitting alone in the open field in front of them, but that wasn't what stood out.
Past the vine-filled rubble, they could make out a silhouette wearing black, kneeling down in front of something.
"It's a curse," Takae said as she hid behind Yuriko.
"Don't be so sure just yet," Izumi said. "It might be a traveler just like us."
"If you're so brave, then you go and talk to them," Yuriko said, shaking alongside Takae.
"Where is all that talk now?" he thought.
"Come on, let's just go and find out who they are together. We'll have a better chance if something comes up."
They hesitated for a moment before they slowly started walking toward them.
Whoever they were, they were still kneeling, with only the momentary shift in their posture.
As they approached carefully, Izumi found himself as the only one still walking anymore.
Looking behind him, he could see them ushering him forward, mouthing, "Go, we got your back."
He sighed before tiptoeing closer. Once he was close enough, he reached out his hand and put it over the black coat they were wearing, making note of the soft but dirty fabric of their hooded cloak.
"Hey, are you okay?" he said right off the bat. "Who are you? Are you lost?"
"I'm—" he said, turning around, the soft glimmer of his purple eyes catching Izumi's attention.
But he didn't finish his sentence. Once he looked at Izumi, he immediately shot up and reached into the back of his cloak.
His look turned from confused to furious, and he only said one sentence.
"It's you!"