Chapter 178: The Secret of the Village of Tulog (1/2)
”How do you know that I've been looking for that crying voice?”
”You...”
”You've been following me?”
Calvin stared at the person with this smile on his face.
Seeing this smile, the person seemed to be a little bit flustered as it took him quite a while to reply.
”Yes, I did... But I followed you not to cause harm, but to help.”
”All right, so you want to help me... Why do you think would I believe your words so easily?” Calvin said with narrowed eyes.
The man replied, ”You do not have the obligation to believe me. I am scared of what is out there. I only came out because I was afraid that you'd be walking into your death.” The man spoke in a cold tone that when combined with his deformities, it made give off this terrifying vibe that could instantly make anyone who was listening to him shit their pants.
”What bold words...”
But Calvin was unfazed, ”You haven't answered my question, yet.”
”Are you human?”
”Or are you a monster?”
”Hahaha...” The man bitterly smiled, ”I've lost the right to call myself human ever since I turned a blind eye to that incident. But it is not a crime to dream.” The man's tone turned melancholic and strange, ”I wish to forget the past, but I doubt that my sin can be forgiven. It will always haunt me, making me unable to sleep at night...”
”I followed you because I saw you walking into certain death, and I want to save you.” The man said, straight to the point.
He sounded sincere, but Calvin was calling bullshit. He had experienced too many betrayals and plot twists in his previous life that he was now a firm believer of the adage that there was no free lunch in this world. In other words, he was denying the credibility of the man's words.
Calvin sneered, ”You followed me to save me?”
The sarcastic tone in his voice was thick and it didn't go unnoticed.
”I am saving myself by saving you. I know that my words are unbelievable, but if you do not escape this village tonight then you will certainly die...” The man didn't want to argue as he lowered his voice and humbled himself. There was this particular tinge of anxiety and fear in his voice as he continued, ”That man will return tonight... He always returns here every full moon, and tonight is a full moon.”
”He'll return here by daybreak and when he does, it will be all over for you... You'll become a part monster part human, no one will ever accept you since you will be a carrier of diseases. You will be the definition of a curse.” The man seemed to have gone mad as his eyes went bloodshot. His pus riddled body trembled as blood dripped out of the innumerable wounds on his body.
A disgusting stench also wafted out of the man's body, but Calvin remained calm and unfazed.
”What do you mean saving me is saving yourself? What does my safety have to do with you? And who is that man?” Calvin asked three questions at once. He was afraid that the man might suddenly lose his consciousness for Calvin could see the early signs of hypoxia from the man's fingers. Something inside his body was depriving him of oxygen, and if these tremors continued.
He might fall unconscious at any moment.
”Hahaha... You sure want to know a lot...” The man bitterly laughed, ”If I knew who that man was I would've already told you. All that I know is that he came here ten years ago and from now on. This village wasn't the same anymore. The Village Chief stumbled upon him unconscious on the riverside, and with how charitable and kind our Village Chief was—he carried the man over to our village so that he could recover.”
”But little did we know that this was the start of our nightmare...”
”That man was just too handsome.”
”The women in our village seemed to go into a trance the moment they laid their eyes onto his figure.”
”He was too handsome.”
”So sinfully handsome that the Village Chief decided to hide him away from the hides of the other villagers while he was recovering.”
”But that isolation didn't last long...”
”The winters are harsh for our Village, the smog carried by the textile and matchstick factories in Ashmelion are always blown over to our Village creating harsher winters with snow as black as charcoal. Whenever that snow appeared, we would almost certainly starve since it would bring with it the death of the nearby wild game that we need to survive.”
”Fortunately, just as the animals around us adapted to survive by mass migration whenever winter was about to arrive. Our Village also thrived by hunting these games while they were in the middle of their migration. But attacking those beasts mid-migration meant that our hunters would almost certainly face a group of boars, wolves, or even foxes at once.”
”Battles would always be fierce, and not a man was clean of blood when they return from their hunt.”
”Women would cry for their husbands, while children would cry for their fathers. The elderly would help carry those crippled and dead from the harsh hunt, but all of these changed when the young man spoke up, 'Death is not the end.' He said and with a flick of his hand, those that were crippled had instantly recovered...”
”Even missing limbs reappeared.”
”It was as if he was a Prophet send to us by the Goddess...”
”But his kindness wasn't without an exchange. Every time he would heal someone he needed the sacrifice of a virgin. But since we were a village that isolated itself from the outside world. We quickly ran out of sacrifice.”
”This was the start of everything...”
The man turned to look at Calvin.
Calvin's eyes widened in shock.
The man's story overlapped with Madame Liz's!
But...
”Are you guys... Are you guys not afraid of sacrificing yourself off to extinction?”
... Calvin just couldn't understand why they would sacrifice life for life.
”Hahaha...” The deformed man bitterly laughed, ”We will never run out of sacrifice... We are not supposed to run out of sacrifices. The Village Chief consoled and convinced us all to obey that man's instructions since he and the elders believed that the man was the blessing that their village needed to survive independently from the damned Joselian Kingdom who forced us the natives out of our own land...”
”That man needed the sacrifice of young virgins for his miracles, and we will never run out of them...”
”Aren't you curious as to why we haven't gone extinct and why is there such diversity when it comes to our technology and culture when compared to Ashmelion? You've seen how we built our fence, right? And you've also seen how we have oil lamps over our doors and the fact that we do not have stoves or any fire starters inside our houses as well as the fact that we sleep on stone beds instead of soft mattresses...”
Calvin's pupils constricted the moment he heard what the man had said.
Finally...
At this moment, he had discovered that these bunch of villagers from the Village of Tulog came from the Clan of Sinners!
The Dvalin Clan!
If that was the case, then it made sense for them to never run out of virgins.