Bound and Broken: An Isekai Adventure Dark Fantasy (Melas Book 1) by V.A. Lewis (autobiographies to read .TXT) 📕

My mind focused for a moment, as a connection was formed between two inane trains of thoughts: Adrian.

His birthday was a week before mine, and I just turned 11 years old. But he was a year older than me, so he was 12 now.

I remembered Walden telling me about how some really talented children in Villamcreek were sent to Rem’s Capital— Remheart— to study, at around the age of twelve. Adrian was quite smart. Well, not as smart as any kid his age in my world.

But who knew? Perhaps he was given the chance to do that this year. Although I was not sure whether he liked that— as far as I knew, he was pretty content just living in Villamcreek. And yet, without me, there was no other kid in the village as smart as he was. It was likely he would have been sent out of the village to further his education... unless he got in trouble with the Inquisitors for being associated with me.

The dark thought crossed my mind, and I quickly shook it away. Nah. I’m sure he’s fine! There’s no way he would get involved with the Church! I reassured myself. That would never happen. I was sure of it.

Right?

The wagon shook as it ran over another bump.

"What’s going on?"

I turned to Shang as he held his hands up to his ear, trying to listen as best he could. I looked up at the Dog Beastkin, and he shook his head.

"I’m not sure. I think... I think something happened to the town we were supposed to pass through."

"Nn, we’ve been stopped for over an hour! They would usually be giving us food by now!" Rin threw her legs up in the air, and slumped to the ground. "I’m so hungry!"

"Be quiet, Rin. I think I hear something," the Dog Beastkin snapped at the young woman. He leaned closer against the metal bars, pressing his droopy ears against the cloth wall of our wagon. "Sh. Someone’s coming."

I held my breath, and tried to listen in as well; footsteps came closer and closer, right until it stopped next to our wagon, and a man’s voice can be heard through the thin fabric separating us from them.

"So, the boss wants us to just continue then?" an unfamiliar voice spoke with uncertainty. It was immediately followed by a more familiar voice that clearly shouted ‘I’m a jerk!’ to anyone listening.

"Yes. Julian wants us to get a good ways away from here before we set up camp. And he wants us to move as fast as we can. Double—- no, triple time," the head guard of the Mancis Company said authoritatively.

"But the horses are tired! We can’t overwork them now, when we just stopped to rest!"

There was a sound of movement that I recognized as a shaking of the head, followed by more words that screamed ‘Hey, look at me! It’s me! A jerk!’.

"That’s too bad. If you’ve got a problem with it, take it up with Julian. His orders, not mine."

With that, Marcus walked away, and left the wagon driver alone; the man sighed to himself and cursed under his breath, before going to do his job.

After a minute, we were moving again, and I stared at Shang.

"What was that about?"

The Dog Beastkin just shrugged.

"I think I’ve got an idea. But we’ll find out soon enough."

Rin and I exchanged looks, and she just sat laid back down.

"Don’t look at me, I barely even know what he’s talking about most of the time."

Shang just sighed, and ignored her. But he was right, we did find out soon enough; less than five minutes after we started moving again, wind blew against the flap at the back of our wagon, and I looked outside.

It was evening, the sun was setting into the horizon, barely illuminating the barren landscape behind us, with dark clouds mostly obscuring it. No, not clouds. Smoke.

I blinked as I realized what I was looking at: it was the remains of what was once a village.

Wooden beams were collapsed on top of each other, and ash piled the ground where buildings once were; some smoke was still rising up from the blackened wood of destroyed houses, while dark red spots were scattered throughout the ground of the town in the distance.

Just one glimpse at this grim portrait, and I knew one thing was for sure:

No one survived.

Whatever it was that attacked the town, spared not a single person in it— to the point that there were no bodies; I remembered the conversations I heard in Boleria, and only a single conclusion came to my head.

"Monster attack," I whispered the words.

It only made sense to me at the moment. But when I turned back to Shang, I saw him shaking his head; he turned away from the devastation and faced me.

"No," he said the words certainly, as if he knew it for a fact. "It was not a Monster attack."

I tilted my head to the side and he answered the unspoken question.

"If it was a Monster attack, the Monsters would have at least stayed to make this town their temporary nest. If not— if it were just a hit and run— there should be survivors. But there are none. Not even any remains."

He brought his hands up, and raised one index finger towards the direction of the town.

"Look. There are no corpses. Monsters are not clean eaters, and if they really came for food, there should be at least some remains— bones, bodies, anything— but there are none," Shang said, shaking his head. "This was not a random attack. It was an extermination."

The last word hung in the air for almost a full minute after he said it. I turned