Steven had anticipated that these people might try something against him, but he hadn't expected them to simply lock him up in such a place.
Did they think that with his abilities, escaping from here would be impossible? Or were they planning to keep him locked up for a while before interrogating him?
Frowning, Steven got up from the ground, only to be hit by an overpowering stench of blood—along with the unmistakable smell of something only produced when bodies are burned.
The underground granary was shrouded in complete darkness, with not even the faintest hint of light. Compared to this place, the mines of Ursus could almost be considered a paradise—at least there, work came with the possibility of food, and there was minimal lighting.
Here, there was only a deathly silence.
Fortunately, darkness was the least of Steven's concerns. Pulling a torch out of his pouch, he lit it, and as the orange-yellow glow illuminated the room, he finally saw what was hidden within this not-so-spacious granary.
The first thing that caught his eye was the thick layer of ash and sedimented Originium fragments covering the ground.
These weren't the pure Originium fragments Steven often encountered, nor were they raw Originium ore. With just one glance, Steven could tell these were fragments of activated Originium from Infected bodies, cooled down and then burned for some reason.
To put it bluntly, this stuff was essentially the cremated remains of individuals with Oripathy.
Judging by the deeply scarred and uneven ground, it was clear that far more than one or two corpses had been burned here. With such a level of buildup, it had to have taken years to accumulate to this extent.
In other words, the number of infected individuals who had died in this village likely numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands.
What could these villagers have possibly done to cause this?
Shaking his head, Steven turned his attention elsewhere—and that was when he found the answer to his question.
It was a wall, likely blocking the path to an exit. However, the wall had clearly been sealed off, and on its surface were countless bloody handprints of various sizes. Even with just a glance, Steven could sense the despair of those who had left them behind.
The dense cluster of bloody handprints covered the entire wall, even leaving dents and marks on the metal itself. What kind of hopelessness would drive someone to make such marks?
Looking up from the handprints, Steven's gaze landed on the iron door above—the very one through which he had been thrown moments earlier.
"...Tsk."
Rubbing his temples, Steven's sharp mind quickly pieced the clues together, reconstructing the events that had transpired here. The truth was painfully obvious, but the more he understood, the more uncomfortable he felt.
He had thought that, as a person of the new era with access to the internet, there wasn't much in the world that could shock or disturb him anymore. After all, he had seen all sorts of chaos and grotesque scenarios.
Yet now, after centuries of solitude, standing here amidst these signs of despair, he found himself unexpectedly shaken.
Yet, experiencing these events firsthand, witnessing this blood-soaked reality, Steven couldn't help but feel a tinge of discomfort.
The people in this village…
Steven thought for a long time but couldn't come up with the right words to describe them.
The answer was already clear: how so many Infected had died here, the villagers' cold and indescribable expressions as they looked at him, and the meaning behind the traces of burning.
Everyone in this village had participated in a grand massacre. They welcomed the Infected, even refugees from other villages.
However, what awaited these people wasn't sanctuary but something far worse. Like himself, they were stripped of their value and then thrown into this granary—more despairing than a prison.
Afterward, all the villagers had to do was wait for death to claim them. Sometimes, an infected individual's death might be accelerated by a violent explosion. Finally, the villagers would burn the bodies and wait for the next unsuspecting travelers to arrive.
To treat strangers with no previous grievances in this way... it was hard to imagine what was going through the minds of these villagers.
Steven had seen the villagers in Minecraft, those big-nosed NPCs who did nothing but dream of emeralds every day. He had also encountered the people of Iberia, who allied with Seaborns just to survive.
Even the elders in Alina's village were just overly nagging but otherwise simple and honest folk.
But these people? Their lives hadn't reached a point where harming others was a necessity for survival, yet they still committed such revolting acts. Steven had never seen villagers like this.
"Is human nature inherently evil?"
Letting out a sigh, Steven didn't let this shake his worldview. Spending so much time on the internet had its perks—he'd seen so many worldview-shattering things that he was long past the point of being surprised.
With so many people in the world, there's always the chance of encountering all kinds of individuals. The only thing Steven could control was himself.
Planting the torch into the ground, Steven turned his head away from the bloodstained wall. Just looking at it, he could almost hear the desperate cries of those people in their final moments. After all, he was human, and empathy was only natural.
So, his choice was simple—don't look.
"If Talulah were to see this, who knows how her ideals and worldview would shatter. This isn't just a conflict between ordinary people and the Infected anymore—it's like throwing her worldview into a grinder."
Steven knew very well the direction of Talulah's ideals and efforts. The world she envisioned was one where ordinary people and the Infected could coexist on equal footing—no more conflict, no more animosity.
In her eyes, whether it was the Infected or ordinary people, as long as they were oppressed and bullied, they were all deserving of her protection.
She firmly believed that if the barriers between the Infected and ordinary people could be broken, harmony would inevitably follow.
But clearly, the actions of these villagers were a brutal slap in the face to that naive girl.
These villagers were also the oppressed. They held no grudges or barriers against the Infected who were burned here. Yet, they still chose to imprison these Infected in such a place, leaving them to die in despair.
This is the complexity of humanity.
Steven didn't believe in the idea of "human nature being inherently evil," but he did believe that one mustn't idealize human nature too much.
Even without barriers, oppression, or those messy divisions, people would still have conflicts, wars, and opposition in countless forms.
That's just human nature.
While debating whether to recount the events of this village to Talulah—perhaps as a way to challenge the overly idealistic girl—Steven lowered his head and stumbled upon something even more intriguing.
It was a small, two-finger-wide hole, one he was all too familiar with.
He almost forgot—he was here to investigate this so-called "Collapsal," not to watch the villagers' twisted drama. From what the villagers had mentioned, Steven vaguely remembered that they had locked it in here as well.
And now, that thing had clearly burrowed its way out, no longer trapped in this dark granary.
The question now was: where would it turn up next? That thought genuinely piqued his interest.
A smirk crept onto Steven's face. He whistled leisurely, pulled a chair from his backpack, and sat comfortably in the spacious, despair-laden granary, looking up at the iron door near the ceiling.
Sometimes, things had an ironic way of unfolding. The people inside desperately wanted out, and the ones outside would never imagine that, one day, they might wish to be inside instead.
"By my estimate, that thing should be making its move right about now," Steven murmured to himself while loading bullets into his gun, one by one.
As if to confirm his words, a sudden, bloodcurdling scream rang out from behind the iron door. This was soon followed by chaotic footsteps and the sounds of a fierce struggle.
Then, the fighting noises faded, replaced only by desperate screams and wails of anguish.
Through it all, Steven remained calm, sitting in his chair, meticulously loading his weapon and polishing his arsenal of tools.
In reality, he was giving the villagers one last chance—a final opportunity.
If even a single one of them still possessed a shred of conscience and remembered that someone was locked in this granary, Steven wouldn't even expect them to try rescuing him. Just opening the iron door and taking a single glance at him would have sufficed. If they had done that, he would have willingly gone out to help them deal with the Collapsal that had escaped.
But no one came.
From beginning to end, not a single person showed up.
No footsteps approached the iron door.
"Well, that's that, then. They made their choice. There's no need for me to go after them—they're already reaping the bitter fruits of their actions," Steven muttered to himself.
Once the last scream from beyond the iron door faded into silence, Steven finally stood up and stowed away his chair.
Would the outcome have been different if this village had treated him kindly from the start?
With that thought lingering in his mind, Steven raised his gun and shot the locked iron door, blasting it open.
"Too bad there are no 'ifs' in life."
<+>
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