11 Inside The Dilapidated House

I put a finger over my mouth, signalling the girl to not make any sounds. A small nod from her calmed my stirring heart.

Straining my ears to hear every single detail outside, I concluded that the

necromancer either haven't moved a single bit or had already moved away from the spot.

I ain't gonna take any chances with the guy outside, that's why I ushered the girl deeper into the house.

The interior of the house itself is standard looking, as opposed to the supposedly poor slums area. It got some basic pieces of furniture like tables and chairs. The main problem is, there's a bookshelf inside full of cryptic books, the kinds with bloody pages and drawings of creatures I presumed had demonic origins.

I want to scream in indignance right now, but if I did that, the chances of us surviving through this encounter is slim. There's a necromancer outside, and we're inside a house where devil worship took place. And as a cherry on top, I have to reach the prison before they moved the prisoners to the public execution spot. I need to steel my b*lls if I want to live in this world, both morally and literally speaking.

"I will take a look outside, and you stay here and hide," I whispered.

The little girl had a look of affirmation and nodded her head.

With cold sweat on my forehead, I opened the door slowly, peeking left and right. The bits of flesh and bones, along with the damages to the cobbled alleyway is still there. But there's neither any sign of the necromancer nor the remains of the corpse. A conspiracy-like idea surfaced in my mind. Supposedly the necromancer is against the church and that he's someone similar to terrorists, that's why he prepared a bomb to attack something or someone.

I hurriedly went inside the devil worshipper's house again, thinking that if the necromancer is truly against the church, then what about the devil worshippers. It might be my skewed view of fantasy worlds but ain't devil worships usually banned? And thinking about it logically, if this kind of thing isn't banned, then why would they build a base-like place in the slums hidden from view? Is it to attract supporters from the oppressed? Or is it because sacrifices are easier to find here in the slums? The only place where people won't care if one or two families went missing overnight.

"Help me look for things like cloaks, masks, weapons, or emblems here. We don't have much time."

"Okay," replied the girl.

I ransacked the place, opened every nook and cranny to look for stuff we can use to safely navigate this alleyway full of devil worshippers. I think the two shady figures from before are also a part of this cult.

"I found something," The flower girl called.

She handed me a very big cloak of some sort and a full-faced masquerade mask with a very bizarre pattern that feels demonic.

We can use this, I thought. I can use the cloak while carrying the little girl on my back and tying the sack I brought in front of me. Of course, the demonic mask is off-limits. And we did just that.

The outfit truly works wonders. It masks my face with faint shadows and it's big enough to cover a man piggybacking a little girl with a sack on his front side.

With the little girl's whispered guidance, we managed to find the slum's exit that leads to the chapel. There are no troubles along the way, although there were some others that are using the demonic mask. It's pretty unnerving if you think about it.

After exiting the slum area, clamours created by the ongoing march reached my ears. Judging from the noise, it seems that the march is still far away from the chapel.

Time is still on our side.