Both Ron and Ronnie hesitated a bit, but in the end, they still decided to come with us.
As we were following the river, I started falling into deep thought again.
If there was a horde of this size, why were there only minor reports that there were rotting plants in this area?
After all, undead required a body to create, so where would they have gotten all those corpses from?
If there were this many corpses being taken, someone should have noticed something…
So could it be that there was some kind of conspiracy?
At this, I suddenly stopped which surprised the other three.
Ronnie looked at me and asked, "What's wrong?"
I turned to Ron and asked, "You have a map of the surrounding area right?"
Ron was caught off guard by this and he turned to look at Ronnie. Seeing her give a nod in response, he took out the piece of paper that he took out before and said, "That's right, but it's not that accurate."
I shook my head and said, "It doesn't matter how accurate it is. I just want to know if there are any villages in the surrounding area."
"Villages?" Ron repeated, but he still looked down at the map to find the information that I wanted.
After a while, he said, "There are three villages in the surrounding area."
I gave a nod and said, "Where's the closest one?"
Ron looked back down at the map before looking around. Then he suddenly pointed in a certain direction before saying, "It should be over there."
I said with a nod, "Alright lead us there."
Ron was confused, but Ronnie was the one that asked, "What about the undead? Weren't we going to find where they came from?"
I said with another nod, "We're going to take a detour first to find something just as important."
Ronnie revealed a confused look when she heard this, but after thinking about everything that they had encountered, she fell silent. It seemed that she had already been silently convinced by the abilities that he had shown.
Even though Zwein didn't have any combat abilities, he had something else that was far more impressive which was his ability to find information. It was no wonder he was someone from Shadow Garden…
So their group quickly followed Ron and headed through the woods towards the village.
After around half an hour, we finally arrived.
But before we could enter the village, I suddenly raised my hand to stop our group.
I had us go into a few trees near the village before taking out a few pairs of binoculars for us.
Ron and Ronnie both took the binoculars offered to them without a word, but there was a confused look on their faces as they took them.
They followed our example and looked at the village like we did, but they didn't understand what we were looking for.
That is until Shaka suddenly said, "It seems like they're moving around in a daze there."
I nodded in agreement to this with a bit of appreciation for Shaka.
I hadn't said a thing, but Shaka had already figured it all out just based on the context clues. Of course, it helped since he had an understanding of what kind of magic the demons could use in the first place.
Ron and Ronnie both had confused looks on their faces until finally Ronnie couldn't help asking, "What is going on here?"
I didn't look at her as I kept looking at the village through the binoculars, but I did say, "Undead need corpses to be created, so where are those corpses coming from?"
Ron and Ronnie both revealed confused looks before a look of understanding suddenly appeared on Ronnie's face. She immediately turned back to look at the village through the binoculars as she said, "You're saying that they are coming from this village?"
I didn't say anything, but the silence was enough of an answer for her.
But then she asked, "How? How has none of this been reported back to the city? If such a thing happened in these villages, they should have immediately sent a report back to the city asking for help investigating this matter."
I gave a sigh and said, "The demons have something called mesmerizing magic. They can use that to control humans with weaker minds using this magic. A village like this filled with commoners is easy for a demon to take control of."
Ronnie knitted her brows, but she knew what he was talking about.
She had read about this in a book in the past, but she didn't think of this when she saw the situation in the village. After all, this was something that she had read by accident in the past and not something that she had even cared about.
This was the difference between her and Zwein and Shaka.
They had experience dealing with this matter and could easily think of the reason behind it, but someone like her who had no experience at all wouldn't be able to think of this unless she was guided.
At this, Ronnie started carefully looking over the village and she could see that the villagers were acting strange.
They were going about their lives, but it almost seemed like they were moving in a mechanical manner…almost as if they were being controlled like puppets.
At this, she deeply knitted her brows.
Ron had been silent the whole time, but it was clear by the look on his face that he was also disturbed by this.
Both Shaka and I ignored the two of them as we tried gathering as much information as we could, but then we couldn't ignore them anymore. It was all because of a simple order from Ronnie.
"Ron, go and take care of the villagers. Find the demons and cut them down." Ronnie said in a low and frustrated voice.
When he heard this, Ron drew out his sword without hesitation and was about to jump out of the tree.
But before he could, Shaka quickly came forward to grab him by the collar.