Since there was nothing else left here for me to investigate, I decided that it was time to move.
There were still two other villages that were in this area and I wanted to check them out before following the river to find the horde.
So after getting out of the tree, I turned to Ron to ask, "Where's the next nearest village?"
But both Ron and Ronnie had heavy looks on their faces as they didn't react to what I had said.
They had jumped out of the tree with us, but they were completely out of it.
So I walked over in front of them and suddenly clapped in front of their faces.
When they heard this clap, they immediately snapped out of their daze.
The two of them looked at me with strange looks before Ronnie said, "Shouldn't we go back to the city now? I think that we have more than enough information…plus we should do something for the people of this village as soon as possible."
But I just shook my head and said, "We need to be certain of everything or else we won't be able to give accurate information. For example, do you even know how big the horde of undead is?"
Ronnie opened her mouth, but she closed it and shook her head in the end.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down, but one could see a trace of red coming from the corner of her lips from where she was biting it.
It was clear that she was very anxious to help the people of this village.
I could admire her strong sense of justice, but foolishly throwing away one's life and the lives of others just because of it was not something that I could condone.
Still I didn't push her too far since this was clearly her first time seeing something like this firsthand, so it could be forgiven.
As for Ron…this shouldn't be his first time, so I wasn't as soft on him.
I turned to Ron and said, "Where's the next village?"
Ron was taken aback by the change in tone that I took with him, but he didn't say anything as he quickly looked at the map. Then after looking around a bit, he pointed in a certain direction.
I didn't waste any time talking to the two of them as I started heading in that direction.
The two of them stood there in a daze a bit before turning to look at each other and giving nods. After that, they started following me and Shaka.
The four of us just traveled in silence, but this time, it took us much less time to reach the village. It only took us around half an hour of traveling to reach it.
When we arrived, we did the same thing as before where we entered the trees outside of the village and used the binoculars to investigate the villagers.
Just like with the other village, we could see that the people of this village were also wandering around in a daze.
I didn't need to look at it any longer to figure out that the situation in the village was the same as the other village.
So I immediately turned my attention to the cemetery of this village.
Just like with the other village, there were graves that had been overturned and dug out. It was clear that they were also collecting corpses from this village as well.
I didn't waste any time as I started counting how many graves had been dug up.
When I was done, I turned to Ron and asked, "Where's the third village?"
But once again, both Ron and Ronnie had dark looks on their faces as they looked at the village.
So I said in a louder voice, "Where is the third village?"
At this, they snapped out of their daze and turned to look at me.
For once, Ronnie seemed to be looking at me with a look of disappointment as she asked, "You aren't feeling anything seeing the villagers being manipulated like this?"
I just calmly looked at her and said, "What can I do about it?"
Ronnie clenched her fists and said, "Why are we wasting our time like this then? Didn't you already see the situation of the first village? Shouldn't we be finding the masterminds behind this or at least reporting this back to the city? I know you said that we can't do anything, but at least we shouldn't be doing useless things like this."
I gave a sigh before saying, "Why do you think that this is useless?"
Ronnie was about to say something, but I cut her off, "Do you even know how many of the undead there are? Even if we kill the demons, what will happen to the undead? Will they just simply go away?"
Ronnie's mouth dropped down and she didn't know what to say.
I then said, "We've been checking the cemeteries of each village and seeing how many graves they've dug up. That will give us an estimate of how many corpses they have taken to create undead, which will give us an idea of how many undead there are."
Ronnie turned to look at the village again as if she was finally understanding what they were doing.
I shook my head when I saw this.
I had let her come along because separating now might cause too much noise that would alert the demons…but if she was going to act this way and keep letting her emotions get the best of her, it was better to send her back.
Ronnie could see the way that I was looking at her, so all of a sudden, she brought her hands up to her face and slapped her cheeks.
All of us were taken aback by this sudden move from her and we looked at her with looks of amazement.
She took a deep breath and said, "I'm sorry, but it's hard for me to control myself when I see all these people being hurt."
I just calmly said, "Then perhaps it's better for you to go back to the city."
Ronnie shook her head and said, "Let me come with you to the end, I promise that I will be helpful."
I couldn't help being doubtful of this, but seeing the look in her eyes…I knew that it was pointless to argue with her.
After all, she seemed like she would come along even if we did send her back.
If she was this adamant, it was better than sending her back just to have her sneak around and follow us. That would obviously create much more noise that would make it hard for us to do what we wanted.
So in the end, I said with a sigh, "Just control your emotions and stop acting so rash."
Ronnie gave a nod with a firm look in her eyes.
I didn't know how much I would regret this decision later…
Letting her come along with me like this was the worst decision that I had made for both me and Bright Water City.
But there was no medicine for regret.