Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

Chapter 474: Possibilities

Rain was unable to sleep that night waiting for Seara… his first thought was to head for the port town and then talk with Orcis and Lorene if something had happened. His home was connected to all the cities, towns, and villages in the kingdom and to the ocean too, so there was no reason for Seara to be late.

Fortunately, when the sun was rising, she arrived while yawning. It seemed that she had been working a lot lately. For convenience's sake, she began to work like a diplomat between the humans and the sea folk, and out of seven weekdays, she would have three days off. So, her job wasn't that hard, but it looked like something had happened in the last three days.

"Sorry, I am late," Seara said and then yawned again.

"What happened, it is unusual for you to be late," Rain said at the entrance of the underground path.

"Just a minor issue that happened when I was about to leave," Seara said while she was drying herself with some towels. "What? Did you miss me that much even though she was here during the whole time?"

"Of course, if it depended on me only, both of you would be with us all the time," Rain readily said.

"... I told you to be mindful when saying that kind of stuff out loud. It is embarrassing even for me," Seara looked away and crossed her arms.

"What happened?" Rain insisted.

"... I suppose when you are like this, it can't be helped. I messed up," Seara sighed. "No one get hurt. No one had to endure any unpleasantness. Isn't that enough to know?"

"No," Rain replied.

"You are impossible… in the last six months, some disappearances have been happening. We have been investigating that," Seara said. "I have been working with some of my people checking the coast for boats coming and leaving without the knowledge of Orcis and Lorene, but we didn't find anything.

Last week, one hundred people disappeared, and considering the total, around five thousand of them had vanished into thin air."

In the aftermath of the war, Rain had been prepared for many challenges. He expected the usual problems that come with a newly settled territory, like dealing with crimes, mediating disputes, and even minor clashes between various groups who had now coexisted in land.

These were all issues he had some experience handling. However, what genuinely perplexed him was the inexplicable vanishing of people. It was a phenomenon that didn't make much sense. The absence of a clear and discernible cause or pattern made it all the more mysterious and unsettling.

"Five thousand? That is a pretty large number… isn't that affecting the workforce of our country? Who are those that disappeared?" Rain asked.

"Until now, since they disappeared slowly, nothing serious happened, and people didn't miss those guys anyway," Seara said.

"Those guys…" Rain frowned.

"That is right, they are the survivors of the human army that you took after the end of the war," Seara said.

In the aftermath of the war three years ago, the survivors of the human army faced many challenges when they integrated into the newly established society in the human territory. While they had opportunities to find work rather swiftly, they were met with mixed sentiments from the population. Many residents of the territory were not welcoming towards the survivors for several reasons.

Firstly, during the war, the human army had placed significant demands on the local resources. Their presence had strained the region's supplies, which had affected the livelihoods of the locals, creating a sense of resentment.

Secondly, the human army's participation in the war had resulted in the loss of many forces. The perception that their presence had weakened the coalition of fighters further fueled the negative sentiments.

Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, there was a lack of clarity about the true events that transpired during the war. Most people were unaware that the king had taken his own life. Instead, the survivors were blamed for the king's death, despite not having the full picture. This misplaced blame added to the hostility they encountered while trying to rebuild their lives in the new territory.

"I can use my magic to try to track them," Rain said.

"We tried that already, your sisters helped, Asche and Liss helped and a lot of my people helped as well," Seara shrugged. "We were able to pull it off and check the whole country last night when you explained how the spell worked to make it rain in the whole country. We didn't find any traces of them."

Now that was concerning… they were still being watched, but it was a weird time for them to simply vanish. Nothing noteworthy happened lately to trigger that, and this time, Rain and his friends had real allies that could gather information for them, and they didn't know if anyone suspicious was making moves around to cause trouble.

"Anyway, I am going to sleep until dinner, so please wake me up," Seara yawned again and then went to her room.

Seara was trying to act like something like that was no big deal, but everyone knew that things could escalate. They didn't bother involving Rain on that because he was living a peaceful life with his family, and while he always survived in the end, he suffered too much during those conflicts… it was amazing that despite things, his body still wasn't falling apart.

In the end, Rain tried to act like usual during the day, but Terra knew him too much not to realize that something was in his mind.

"I guess something bothersome happened, huh?" Terra asked. "She is annoyingly considerate most of the time, so she tried to hide that from us?"

"Yes, you guessed it right," Rain said while he was spoon-feeding Danny and Annie. "It isn't something too large yet, but it could turn eventually. I want to deal with the issue before it snowballs, but..."