Vergil marched alongside the other hunters, his posture rigid and his face strained with the same fear gripping the rest of the villagers.
Behind them, the mounted riders followed at a slow, steady trot, the rhythmic thudding of horse hooves pressing constantly against everyone’s nerves.
As he walked, Vergil’s thoughts churned rapidly.
This isn’t the way to the forest.
The location of the killings lay nowhere near this road.
Are they taking us to the Hill Family Estate in Rock Hill Town?
More importantly, how are they planning to investigate?
Vergil’s stomach twisted tightly.
Will they torture us?
His palms turned cold at the thought.
He knew himself well enough to understand the brutal truth.
He would not survive torture for long.
If they truly started breaking fingers, carving flesh, or crushing bones, he would almost certainly confess everything within minutes.
His eyes lowered toward the dirt road while the corners of his vision constantly scanned the surroundings.
Dense brush.
Open ground.
Distance between riders.
Direction of the forest line.
His muscles remained taut beneath his clothes, prepared to bolt at the slightest opportunity.
After nearly half an hour of walking, the narrow village trail finally connected to a much wider, packed-earth road.
Vergil immediately recognised the route.
To the left lay Rock Hill Town.
But instead of heading toward the town, one of the riders barked a sharp order.
“Turn right!”
The entire group shifted direction.
The coal mine?
Vergil frowned slightly.
He had visited the mines once years ago, back when his grandfather had still been alive.
The memory caused a brief sadness to surface in his eyes.
Thomas had not been his real grandfather by blood.
According to the old man, Vergil had been discovered floating down the Green Crystal River inside a woven basket, only a few weeks after birth.
Vergil himself remembered nothing from that period.
His memories only awakened when he was four years old, right after suffering a violent fever that nearly killed him.
That was the moment his Visualisation Skill had fully manifested.
From then on, forgetting became impossible.
More accurately, he possessed perfect photographic recall.
Every memory he experienced was stored within the Visualisation Skill Seed like files carved permanently into a vast, mental archive.
Whenever needed, those memories surfaced with absolute, flawless clarity.
As the group continued marching, another cluster of voices and heavy hoofbeats gradually echoed from farther down the road.
Soon, a second escort force emerged ahead of them.
Another group of armed riders.
Another line of frightened villagers.
They had clearly gathered hunters from a different border village as well.
The moment Vergil realised this, a quiet breath escaped his lungs.
Relief spread faintly through his chest.
The larger the pool of suspects became, the harder it would be to single him out among them.
The combined groups continued marching down the wide dirt road for nearly another hour before finally arriving at a barren field overlooking the coal mine.
Deep pits carved into the earth stretched across the landscape, while wooden ramps and crude elevators descended toward the dark tunnels below.
Thin smoke drifted from several furnaces near the processing area, mixing with the heavy scent of coal dust hanging in the air.
The moment Vergil’s group stopped, his eyes narrowed slightly.
The field was already crowded.
Hunters.
Dozens upon dozens of them.
Villagers from every settlement surrounding Rock Hill Town had been gathered here.
Even townspeople from Rock Hill Town itself stood among the crowd, closely guarded by armed riders.
Every single person present shared one thing in common.
They had entered the Green Crystal Forest yesterday.
Relief and alarm surfaced simultaneously inside Vergil’s chest.
Relief, because the sheer number of suspects made it vastly harder to isolate him.
And because no matter how powerful the Hill Family was, they could not simply slaughter this many people openly without severe consequences.
But the alarm lingered just as strongly.
This level of mobilisation meant the people he killed were extremely important.
Even if the Hill Family failed to uncover the truth today, they would not stop searching.
The investigation would continue.
Maybe for months.
Maybe for years.
As tension slowly spread through the gathered hunters, whispers began rising throughout the field.
A villager named Kevin scratched his beard nervously before speaking aloud.
“Why did the Hill Family gather so many people?”
He glanced toward the distant forest line.
“Did some treasure get unearthed in the forest yesterday?”
Another villager, Rick, immediately shook his head.
“If it were treasure, they would’ve searched our homes too.”
He frowned deeply.
“Not drag all of us here.”
An older hunter named Ham slowly crossed his arms.
“Maybe they’re organising another hunting expedition into the Green Crystal Mountains.”
Vergil’s eyes flashed slightly.
He silently prayed Ham was right.
Around them, more villagers from other settlements arrived at the same conclusion, causing the noise across the field to grow louder.
“An expedition?”
“Seriously?”
“Into the mountains?”
Sam quickly looked toward the older man.
“Senior Ham, I wasn’t born when the last expedition happened.”
His expression turned uneasy.
“But I heard it caused massive losses.”
Ham stared silently toward the distant outline of the Green Crystal Mountains before finally speaking.
“Twenty years ago.”
His weathered face tightened slightly.
“That was when the last expedition took place.”
A brief silence followed.
Then Ham spoke again.
“More than half the people who entered never returned.”
“It was a carnage.”
Vergil’s attention locked fully onto the old hunter.
Even the nearby conversations gradually quieted as more villagers listened in.
Rick swallowed before speaking again.
“I also heard Rock Hill Town itself was founded because of a treasure hidden somewhere inside the Green Crystal Mountains.”
Ham nodded slowly.
“The Heart of the Green Crystal Wyvern.”
Several nearby villagers inhaled sharply.
Ham continued in a low voice.
“Long ago, someone wandering the wilderness discovered a dying Wyvern.”
They used the power contained within its heart…
His eyes darkened slightly.
“And eventually rose to become a Duke.”
“A Duke…”
Whispers immediately spread through the crowd, filled with awe and longing.
Within the Kingdom of Lume, Dukes stood directly beneath the King himself.
Entire Duke Families ruled vast territories across the kingdom.
The Easton Family.
The Sherfield Family.
And the Valemont Family.
Before Ham could continue his story further, a booming voice suddenly thundered across the field.
“Everyone!”
Vergil immediately turned toward the source of the sound.
An elevated wooden platform overlooked the gathering from near the entrance of the coal mine.
Standing atop it was a middle-aged man dressed in expensive, dark combat attire trimmed with intricate silver patterns.
A longsword rested at his waist, its pommel embedded with a gleaming green gem.
The moment the surrounding riders lowered their heads in respectful salute, the crowd instantly understood his identity.
The man’s sharp, commanding gaze swept across the entire field before he spoke again.
“I am Gerald Hill, head of the Hill Family.”
Vergil’s pupils contracted slightly.
His thoughts immediately spiralled out of control.
Did I kill the Hill Family’s son?
Or is this truly about an expedition?
If it were their son, then why investigate so publicly?
Do they not know why he died?
Even if the girl had never reported the assault, the other boys had survived the encounter.
They should have explained exactly what happened to their leader.
Gerald Hill slowly turned his head toward the back of the platform.
“Lily.
Come up.”
A young girl slowly stepped forward into the light.
An older woman supported her carefully from behind, keeping a firm, restrictive grip on both her arms.
The girl’s eyes were swollen red from heavy crying, and her entire body looked incredibly tense and frightened.
Vergil narrowed his eyes, studying her silhouette.
Her figure looked strangely familiar.
Gerald Hill’s expression was filled with a deeply painted grief as he addressed the crowd.
“Yesterday, a terrible tragedy occurred.”
“My only son was murdered.”
A collective ripple of shock spread instantly throughout the field.
Vergil’s mind raced, trying to piece the clues together.
Another murder?
He could not understand why the Hill Family would bring a common girl onto the platform if this involved the same incident from yesterday.
Prestigious noble families protected their reputations above everything else.
They would never willingly expose a public scandal involving an attempted assault by one of their own bloodlines.
Gerald Hill gently looked down toward the trembling girl.
“Lily,” he said softly, his voice echoing over the silent field.
“Tell them what happened.”
The girl remained silent at first.
Tears streamed continuously down her pale face.
Gerald stepped closer and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.
Vergil noticed Lily flinch faintly beneath the touch, yet she could not retreat because of the older woman pinning her arms from behind.
The older woman leaned close, whispering something quietly and sharply into Lily’s ear.
A few agonising moments later, Lily finally began speaking through trembling, broken sobs.
“Yesterday…”
Her voice shook violently.
“Yesterday, I was walking near the outskirts of the Green Crystal Forest to collect herbs for my ailing father.”
Vergil’s eyes slowly widened in the crowd.
“Then…”
Lily’s breathing became ragged and uneven.
“Then a man suddenly grabbed me from the bushes and tried to force himself on me.”
An uproar of righteous fury instantly exploded throughout the gathered hunters and villagers.
Vergil stood completely frozen.
His thoughts blanked momentarily.
Is this the same girl?
Or did an identical incident happen somewhere else yesterday?
Lily continued speaking through her cascading tears, her voice amplified across the field.
“I was lucky… Mister Shawn Hill found me and saved me from him.”
“The attacker ran away into the trees…”
Her voice cracked completely, dissolving into pure panic.
“But later… later he ambushed us.
He shot and killed Mister Shawn with an arrow…”
She collapsed entirely into loud, hysterical sobbing.
Vergil’s mind shook violently, a cold sweat breaking out across his skin.
Then, Gerald Hill slowly raised a large, painted portrait for everyone in the field to see.
The face captured within the painting was instantly familiar.
It was the boy Vergil had shot through the neck.
Shock and utter disbelief crashed through Vergil’s chest like a physical blow.
They had completely reversed the narrative.
In a single, calculated speech, the Hill Family had transformed him from a hidden saviour into a vile rapist and craven murderer.
For one brief, terrifying moment, a violent urge surged through his veins.
He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs.
To expose the grotesque theatre.
To drag those fabricated lies into the open before everyone present.
But his deeply ingrained survival instinct kicked in, and the impulse vanished almost immediately.
Instead, Vergil forced his facial features to flawlessly mirror the surrounding villagers.
Shock.
Deep sympathy for the grieving father.
White-hot anger toward the unknown killer.
All while a cold, terrifying disbelief churned silently in the darkest corners of his soul.