Starting Life From Another Choice Than Zero

Chapter 9 - Kararagi Unveiled

"You sure you want me to just wait out here?"

Tresses of short grass were hastily pulverized, their grisly demise brought about by the sudden landing of feet. More met the sole end of shabby sport shoes, being scrunched about with little consideration as a pair of legs continues it march forward towards a dilapidated house.

"I'm sure, Kris. Just wait out there, don't move an inch, and I'll be back out in a jiffy." said Subaru, waving the back of his hand assuredly towards a carriage of little elegance, appearance-wise, standing idly by on a path paved with dirt.

Kris stood beside the carriage, eyeing the decrepit house with much intimidated uncertainty, his hands firmly clasping the reins of a tamed ground dragon, dragging its scaly leg across the ground with restless anticipation, scattering clouds of dust as a result of its channeling of restraint energy.

Meanwhile, the field of expansive green land remained barren of travelers and merchants, not strangely unusual, but still midly unsettling. The sun, now welcomed by the day, shone with little relent, consuming everything with its scorching rays of light. This, along with the desolation of human life, created an ambiance that Kris felt would be much better suited in an isolated cemetery.

"Don't take too long, then... it's hot out here." Kris called out after him.

Hours spent trudging down the same familiar path of dirt, entailed Subaru of even worse temperatures to come. The perspiration trickling down his brow, evoked his mind of thoughtless wonders, particularly regarding of the searing hot climate of Kararagi as it is, if it always had been this similar to the Sahara back on Earth.

Could fry an egg on the back of the cart, seriously...

Subaru stared with chiseled focus, scouring the land for more recent happenings since his departure of much befuddlement from the vicinity, but found absolutely none, excluding the drier and hotter air. His sight taken up mostly by the ruins that was once possibly a home.

The tiles on the roof, discolored into a shade of unsightly black, some missing in place, others resting in permanent residence on the ground, scattered among the tall grass that told a tale of long abandonment. A frameless window placed beside a door that stood slightly ajar, just as he had left it the day before, inviting in a shard of sunlight to plaster its light on the decaying floorboards deeper inside. A foreboding welcome back to an abode he never wanted to step back into ever again.

His feet halted their strut, inches away from the doorway that separated the soil from wood.

Time to solve this Sherlock Holmes mystery of a lifetime.

With a resolve both firm and reignited, he pushed the door wider inwards and began his thorough search through its empty walls.

Cobweb and dust were widespread in his search, only seeming to be what this decrepit building had to offer to him. The only piece of furniture being, as he turned towards it, the flimsy single bed placed off to the side of the room.

It was a strange thing to behold. This moth-eaten mattress, with its rusty metal grilles barely supporting its own weight. It was difficult to comprehend how such a feeble little object had evolved into being the current checkpoint from a death that was also just as ambiguous. For him, they were left as mysteries, ones without a trace nor clue, ones that he hoped would soon have some light shed onto it, no matter the unlikelihood of the chances.

Yet the reason why he returned here, was for a mystery that was far more simpler and within his capabilities to unmask. The sack that presumably contained the five metia he had supposedly gathered a week before.