My Wife and I Became Sages in Another World
Chapter 367: Searching for Survivors

Chapter 367: Searching for Survivors

The following morning, inside The Pit, Rio and Lampart took me to the first ring, where the warriors were getting ready to go out and look for more survivors.

They usually split into dozens of small groups and traveled opposite directions to cover more space. However, they were planning on going with large teams this time.

The main reason Rio and Lampart had to hide from the brainwashed soldiers was because they were a much larger group, and they were also being led by an Accursed Beast.

Still, if they were lucky enough to get attacked by the soldiers without any help from a beast, they believed they could capture them alive and bring them to the prison in The Pit.

While I was looking at all the warriors armoring themselves and choosing their weapons, I spotted Helena, the woman who showed me her memories of her husband being brainwashed.

"Are you going, too?" I asked as I approached her.

"If Isak-... my husband is out there, then I want to bring him here safely..." she muttered.

Rio and Lampart told me that, sometimes, they had no choice but to kill one or two brainwashed soldiers, or they would have gotten killed themselves.

It sort of reminded me of the war in Kalusia when we couldn’t save all of the beastkins who were turned into lesser demons.

From the memories of Helena that I witnessed, I could tell that she knew how to fight. In fact, when I focused on looking at her MP, I saw that she had the same coating around her body.

It turned out that Helena had also been trained in the Viking’s martial arts since she was young; she just never had a reason to use it.

I felt like I wanted to tell her to stay in The Pit with her daughter, but it wasn’t my place to tell her what to do.

She looked determined to look for her husband, and she wasn’t entirely an amateur when it came to fighting. Still, I would have felt awful if something happened to her while her daughter was waiting for her return.

So, I decided I was going to accompany Helena’s group. That way, I could protect her if it got too dangerous.

We had to wait for the alchemists to come up with a cure for the brainwashing, and we were also waiting for Melina to join us, which meant that we had some time to help her out.

Yoru and I were accompanying a dozen warriors, counting Helena, to a small settlement to the southeast. Meanwhile, I told Gina and Vespera to go with other groups and help them evacuate the people from the towns.

I could have brought my group with me, but I thought that if I had them protecting different teams, then there was a better chance for everyone to survive.

It’s not like these warriors were weak by any means, but it wasn’t easy to fight against people who were clearly not in control of their actions. And, in the case that they were attacked by an Accursed Beast or a greater demon, having my companions there would allow them to escape.

Fuego was staying at the base since I asked him to protect it. However, he left his egg with me, expressing my side of the deal where I had to help protect the egg.

I didn’t have any other choice but to take it with me, as Fuego said that if the base got attacked, then he would prioritize protecting the egg and not the people.

Fortunately, Vespera made a nice strap backpack for me where I could carry the egg comfortably. The inside was soft from the pelt she used as material, and she added a fire enchantment to keep the egg warm in the freezing cold of the north.

Once Helena gave her daughter a tight hug, she promised she would return, and we made our way out of the base.

Going down the mountain was much easier than climbing it, so we got to the bottom in less than an hour, where we started to move a bit faster toward the settlement.

All of the warriors had pretty good stamina, so even when we were jogging for more than half of the way, none of them showed any signs of being tired.

The plan was to reach the settlement and hide so we could check if there were any brainwashed soldiers walking around, as they wanted to avoid any confrontation with them, but that’s not what worried me.

’We gotta be careful with those eyes...’ I thought.

If we got spotted by a brainwashed person, then it was much easier to capture them before they could expose our location to anyone else. But if Baelzor’s eyes saw us, then the devil would know precisely where we were.

Even if we destroyed the eyes straight away, if it spotted us once, that information would reach the devil’s brain instantly.

I kept my "search" spell active during the entire jog to keep an eye out for anything strange happening around a hundred-meter diameter from my position, so I had good coverage of our team.

After traveling for a few hours, we stopped for a brief moment to eat and rest, as we were mere minutes from reaching the settlement.

I asked Yoru to scout the area from the shadows before we got there to make sure that it was clear, but when he returned, he told us that there were twenty soldiers stationed at the settlement.

Moreover, all of the villagers had chains around their necks, wrists, and ankles and were carrying stones into a wagon.

Helena explained that was the most common fate for all of the towns and settlements in the north, as the devil didn’t execute everyone on sight.

In fact, he preferred having them work diligently, which was why even some of the enslaved villagers were also brainwashed.

My companion confirmed that there was no eye monster nearby, which made me feel pretty relieved.

My plan was to stealthily take out the eyes with an invisibility potion, but knowing that there weren’t any, it didn’t truly matter how we approached the situation.

The warriors wanted to attack head-on and take the mind-controlled soldiers by surprise, and I didn’t see a reason why that wouldn’t work.

’Let’s do things their way, for now...’