Just as Saul continued deeper into Caugust’s inner city, which had become a dusty ruin, Keli, whom he had left in the uninhabited town, suddenly looked up from her magic book.

“I think I heard someone talking.” Two strands of red hair by Keli’s ears perked up like antennas receiving signals.

Agu, who was sitting beside Keli and occasionally answering her questions, paused slightly. “Ann just made a round of the town. This place has indeed been uninhabited for a long time. Could there be other people coming to rest here?”

Ann, who had been keeping watch on the rooftop, jumped down.

She again used her mental power to sense the surroundings but found nothing.

“Miss Keli, can you tell where the voices came from?”

Keli listened attentively for a while longer, her long red hair falling down. “There’s no sound now, but the voices just now seemed not far from us.”

This was even stranger. Ann had been monitoring the surroundings all along.

If Keli could directly hear people talking with just her ears, there was no reason she and Agu couldn’t hear it too.

But they really hadn’t detected even the slightest mental power fluctuation.

Keli wasn’t even second rank yet. Logically, her strength should be inferior to Ann’s, and her specialization didn’t involve spiritual bodies either, yet she had heard movement that both Ann and Agu had missed.

However, Ann didn’t dismiss Keli’s experience as hallucination just because she hadn’t discovered anything herself.

She directly transformed her lower body into a spider, climbed up the wall, and thoroughly inspected their temporary courtyard by moving along the walls and eaves.

But still, she found nothing.

“Strange.” Ann returned to her original spot in confusion, looking at the surrounding walls and houses on both sides. “Still nothing. Could someone have secretly approached and then left?”

Keli felt somewhat embarrassed. She tugged at her hair and said hesitantly, “Maybe I heard wrong.”

She looked down at the magic book spread across her lap. “It might be the influence of this book.”

Agu quickly said, “Miss Keli, you should rest for a while. If you really are being affected by this book, you should quickly recover your mental strength to avoid deeper influence. If not, you still need to restore your energy to deal with other abnormal situations.”

Keli reluctantly closed the book.

This book organized the knowledge related to Black Tide pollution that Saul and Byron had researched, including laboratory-level Inertization Formulas.

Keli was greatly shocked and quickly became absorbed in it.

If not for preventing abnormalities in her spiritual body, and Saul strictly limiting her reading time, Keli could have read for days and nights without closing her eyes.

“Actually, I’ve only been reading for less than ten minutes today…”

“…When I have money…”

Keli’s voice suddenly stopped.

Even Agu and Ann stood up alertly, looking around.

Yes, the voices had appeared again.

The sound was clearer this time.

And this time, both Agu and Ann heard it too.

“This voice is indeed very close.” Ann narrowed her eyes, her gaze finally settling on the house behind them.

“…I’ll go to Caugust too, but not now…”

The voice became increasingly clear.

Ann gestured to the others, then slowly approached the house behind her.

There were still voices coming from inside.

“…If I leave now, who will take care of you…”

Ann could already hear through the window that this was a boy’s voice, probably under 16 years old.

Her expression was grave, ready for battle at any moment.

When she had been conducting her inspection just now, she had clearly checked every house in this small courtyard.

There was clearly no one inside!

But how did a little boy suddenly appear?

Especially after clearly hearing several sentences, Ann still couldn’t locate the boy’s mental power.

It was as if there were only voices inside but no person.

But when Ann’s head was almost pressed against the window, she vaguely saw the silhouettes of two people.

However, both silhouettes seemed strange.

Keli released her protective barrier and also walked to Ann’s side.

“Just open it and see.” Keli had also noticed the abnormality.

Her expression was serious, but she still pushed open the window.

When the window was pushed open, both Ann and Agu tensed their non-existent muscles in an instant.

There were indeed two people behind the window.

But these two people… were actually caterpillars with human heads!

Both caterpillars were as thick as a male forearm.

Their chubby white bodies, segmented in rings, had black spots. Fine but very sharp thorn-like hairs covered their entire bodies, stopping only at the neck area.

It was also here that the white insect body gradually became dark skin, finally evolving into a boy’s head.

The boy’s neck and face weren’t large, about the same size as the insect body, as if his head had emerged from the caterpillar’s body.

Keli’s action of pushing the door didn’t disturb the boy, or rather the boy-caterpillar, nor did it startle his listener.

An elderly head with graying hair and a wrinkled face, also growing on a caterpillar body.

The boy-caterpillar was still talking.

“…Don’t try to persuade me. When I do a bit more work and prepare winter food for you all, I’ll go to the city to earn money…”

Keli pressed her lips together and exchanged glances with Ann beside her.

Then she gently closed the window.

“Is it an illusion?” Keli whispered.

Before finding the abnormal presence, they had been speaking in normal voices.

But Keli, shocked by what she had just seen and covered in goosebumps, instinctively communicated in the lowest possible voice.

As if afraid that the human-headed caterpillars in the house would hear their conversation and then wriggle their bodies to crawl out bit by bit.

“Doesn’t seem like it.” Ann’s face was also ugly. “But their mental power fluctuations are very weak, like two ordinary civilians.”

“If their heads weren’t growing on caterpillar necks, the old and young would seem like ordinary people.”

Such bizarre beings, yet only emanating the fluctuations of ordinary people.

This was hard to believe.

“Regardless, let’s leave this courtyard first.” Agu also lowered his voice like Keli.

The three of them tiptoed and silently left the courtyard where they had just settled.

Behind them, sounds of conversation could still be faintly heard.

It wasn’t until they closed the courtyard’s main gate that the sounds were completely cut off.

Keli rubbed her arms. “Let’s wait a while, then go back and look again.”

Ann looked at Keli incredulously. “We don’t need to go back in, do we?”

Thinking about it now, this small courtyard was very strange. As the warrior protecting Keli, Ann naturally didn’t want Keli to return to a courtyard of unknown depth and background.

“They didn’t show any aggression. The elemental particles here aren’t very active either.” Thinking of the Inertization Formula she had just read about in the book, Keli couldn’t wait to test it herself.

However, when they waited a moment and opened the gate again, they found the courtyard had become empty and silent once more, with no conversation at all.

Ann, as the vanguard, still went in first.

She headed straight for the innermost room. This time, when she pushed open the window, she didn’t see the human-faced caterpillars.

“They’re gone.” Ann stared blankly into the room.

The house was covered in dust.

There were no drag marks that should have been left by moving caterpillars.

(End of Chapter)

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