The Ones In The Masks

Back with Nox and the others, no one could think of anything to say after Aldan finished telling them about the missing people.

The group thought over his words and tried to locate any strange points they couldn't understand, or where they should begin to unravel the mystery of who or what was causing these people to disappear. There were the people who turned up in the village to talk to the Head, the mist that was suspended over the ground, and the villager who was heard arguing with someone before he disappeared.

"Is there anything notable about the people who spoke to the Head, or anything strange about them?" Eriladar broke the silence and asked the listless old woman. The conversation before, and the trek through the village, had taken a toll on her body, but she and the grandson were the only people they could ask about what was happening.

The old woman shifted in her seat and replied, "the villagers didn't have any interactions with the visitors, nor did we see them up close so there weren't many opportunities to see their appearance. But from what I remember, they were dressed in suits, with dark cloaks and covered heads. They seemed important and were treated with the utmost respect, and no one dared to approach them."

Sitting by her side, Aldan looked worried about his grandmother's health and struggled with answering their questions or telling her to go rest.

Nevertheless, he knew that finding the villagers was important, so he opened his mouth to say, "the last time they were here they passed by as I was tending to fields, and I glimpsed one of them. He seemed a little different to the others with him, more curious, and he stood at the fence for a while and looked at what I was doing. The others were already far ahead and one had to turn back to drag him away. What I saw of him..."

Aldan suppressed a shudder and said nothing else until Eriladar urged him to continue. "The man was small in stature and from what I could tell, he was only in his late teens, but that was all that could be perceived about him. Under the hooded cloak, his face was hidden by a white mask with a red line around it.

And through the eye slits, the eyes were... They differed from humans: they were pure black with a red snake-like pupil. His expression was unreadable, and the feeling it emanated when you looked at the mask was chilling. It was as if the mask could see through you, down to your soul."

A clatter sounded, startling the others, and they turned to see Nox standing up straight, his hands clenched by his sides and with a deep frown between his brows.

He had been silent all this while, and if it wasn't for his imposing aura from spending years as a Final Boss in a dungeon, they would've forgotten he was there with them. So they were a bit surprised to see his actions now. What was it that Aldan had said that had caused Nox to have such a reaction?

"Nox, what is it?" Out of everyone, Ashlyn was the closest person to Nox, so they took the initiative to ask him.

Nox controlled his expression and said, "after I left the dungeon, I wandered the game map for a while and only stayed in a town for a few days before moving on. One town I stayed in was small, like this village, and not much happened until they started having strange visitors. Just like the ones you saw."

"And what happened to that town?" Ashlyn asked curiously.

Nox looked at them with a serious glint in his eyes. "The town has disappeared from the game world. First, the people started disappearing, then the fog covered everything, and after that it was destroyed and no one could get to it anymore."

"How do you know it's gone?" Taegen listened to Nox with rapt interest.

"Later I tried to go back there, just to see how things were after I had left but..." He took a deep breath in and then continued, "when I got to the teleport array, the magic circle was broken and the light was gone.

The surrounding ground was dried out and dying plants surrounded the array: it seemed that anything within its vicinity would have no chance of survival, so I left and never returned there again. Later, when I discovered that the town had disappeared, and no one had heard of its existence, it was like it had never been a part of the game."

The group was all stunned and didn't speak, making the room sink into an unbearable silence. It was the grandmother and grandson who looked the most stricken, as what their village had experienced so far was the same as the one that had disappeared. It was like the direness of the situation was now sinking in, and they felt as though they were walking down a narrow path with no chance of turning back.

If no one did anything to change the outcome, they would get to the end of that path and face their deaths with no way to stop it.