Earth: The Second

What is Happened in the Mansion?

Neither Adma nor Roberto understands what is happening in the city right now.  the roads are filled with rioters and looters, barging through the door, and robbing everyone. no matter if they are part of the slums or other districts in the city. There is no single soldier in sight, instead, they heard the shout here and there.

“Soldiers come out of your hiding!”

“Kill every city soldier and their family!”

Corpses and bodies are starting to piling up in the street. Both Adma and Roberto sneaking past the alley and road, trying their best to not catching anyone’s attention.

“I understand now. They are hunting the remaining soldiers who are off duty,” said Roberto to Adma.

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t exactly know. But I’m sure that this has a connection with what happened in the mansion right now. Probably this is also why Feya wear ordinary clothes previously,” 

If what Roberto says is true, then every member of Roberto’s platoon is threatened.

Unfortunately for them, a roaring voice shouting from their back. It was one of the rioters who happens to wander in the empty streets, looking for prey.

“Stop, you bastard! Give me all of your belonging!” he shouted, with a knife in his hand.

 Adma simply punches his face, and that man is already gone cold on the floor.

“Let’s get to the mansion quickly before more of these people are appearing,” suggest Adma. Roberto replied with a nod.

Because they have to take a more complicated route, both of them need extra time to reach the mansion. Instead of thirty minutes of walking on the main road, now they have to take more than an hour, circling the districts.

But luckily for them, they successfully arrived.

On the quiet mansion lawn, they can see around 18 people, that wearing ordinary clothes. But as they realized that Roberto is coming their way, they quickly fixed their body posture. Standing straight, chest puffed out, and ready to receive an order.

“Salute!” Shouted one of the soldiers, placing his right fist on his right chest, followed by other members.

Roberto saluting back, and the soldiers automatically turned their posture at ease.

“I wanted to apologize for my carelessness next time, that makes me out of commission for a day. By just that time, something is happening, and I can not stay together with you to face the trouble. Because of that, I wanted to know the whole situation we are in right now. Joshua?”

One of the male soldiers moved forward, he looked decent for a soldier, and his body seems suitable for combat too.

“Pardon me, Sir! But is the civilian behind have the permission to being here?” he asked.

Roberto looked back to Adma, realizing that the man is still standing there, watching.

“Don’t mind him. He is from the village that saved my life. More importantly, the report!”

“Sir! A huge number of the corpse has been discovered in the mansion. The victims are ranged from the maid, butler, and other workers in this mansion, to the soldiers. Among the bodies, we found Christie, with her armor and sword intact,” reported that man.

“Are there any explanations of how does this happens?” 

“So far, we only know that all of them died from external injuries, such as stabbing, or an attack with a blunt object. We haven’t count the total, but from the information that we gathered, there is more than hundred body inside the mansion. Sir.”

Roberto going quiet, he’s petrified by how terrible that news is. What happened yesterday that makes the people in the mansion killing each other?

“Do the bodies have been taken off from the building yet?” asked Roberto.

“That’s…” the soldiers can’t answer, which apparently they haven’t done it. It can’t be helped, since there are only 18 of them.

“Let me see what is inside, get me a cover cloth!” asked Roberto. Feya who is in charge of medical supplies gets one out of her horse and hands it over to Roberto.

Roberto uses the cloth as a mask and walking through the door. he can smell the terrible rotting flesh inside of it.

It goes even worse after he opened the mansion door. What greeting him aren’t just the odor, but also the pile of dead bodies.

Flies are surrounding the whole mansion and rodents are eating part from the rotten flesh. Blood is painted all over the floor and wall, this scene looks like it was taken straight from hell.

The stench is so strong, that it makes Roberto’s eyes feel burned. He gives up and closed the mansion door, gasping for air.

“Good decision. Come in contact with the corpse will put you at risk of disease,” commented Adma. But instead, he is walking toward the mansion.

“What are you doing!? Don’t come inside, this is the soldier’s territory!” shouted Roberto.

“With a situation like this, It’s almost impossible to move all of the corpses or even inspecting the situation. But I’m different, just pretend that I was commissioned to help the investigation or something,” replied Adma. He doesn’t wait for the reply from Roberto to get inside the mansion.

***

Indeed Adma can smell the rotten flesh, blood, and another stench, but Navigator has calibrated his body to decrease the receptor of the bad odors.

“Am I still have the risk of being contaminated with disease, Navigator?” asked Adma.

“Technically no,” replied the voice of his head. “Your external body has completely modified as a machine. Although you look and feel like any other human, those are just to emulate all of the receptors that your brain has. In terms of disease, technically, viruses and bacteria won’t live long on a non-biological surface.”

Making use of his ability, Adma ventured to the whole mansion. No matter where he goes, he always sees corpses, blood, and every nasty thing that you can imagine.

At last, Adma arrived at one room, where the corpses are piling more than other places. Inside it, he sees a red skeleton stabbed into the wall with all of its organs are scattered toward the floor.

For some reason, he has a guess that the owner of the skeleton is the former Duke of Horundah.

Soon after that Adma finished his investigation and go out to meet Roberto. Instead, he sees that all those soldiers are already preparing their horses on the lawn.

“Adma! How is the situation?” asked Roberto.

“Terrible,” replied Adma quickly. “It’s too late to bury those bodies, and there are possibilities that this place will become a source of disease. The best thing you can do is to burn this building down.”

“I see... “ Roberto looked a bit gloomy, probably because he feels that he had failed his job.

“Where are you going now?” asked Adma, looking at the horse on Roberto’s back.

“Oh, this? We will be returned to the capital and asked for reinforcement. This city is at war now.”

“Not afraid of getting caught?”

“We will manage,” After Roberto said that, he climbed to the horse. All of the soldiers are reporting that they are ready to go, while he and Adma bid farewell to each other.

“If you come to get the army, please protect the village outside!” shouted Adma.

Roberto nodding. After all, he himself is in debt with the villagers that saved his life.

The captain then leads his subordinates to ride their horses out of the gate quickly. Adma looking at those soldiers from distance, until their horse has finally gone downhill.

Now alone, Adma decides to visit his friend in the merchant district.