"Thorn Bay" lay southwest of Kalas Mountain, about three hundred miles away. All the dead here had been hired from different villages near the bay. They had taken the train here to work, only to die here under mysterious circumstances.
The most useful information the dead could provide was their numbers and the timing. There had been twenty-three workers here in total, but Shade and Daniste had found only twelve bodies in this cave.
The twenty-three people had arrived one after another between the 3rd and 5th of the Month of Rising Winds in Year 1853, while these twelve had died on the night of the 16th.
"Isn't today the 16th of the Month of Rising Winds?"
Shade asked Daniste. The Sorceress nodded without commenting on the coincidence.
"This style of operation resembles that of [The Truth Society]. They hire ordinary people from far away, either to make them do hard labor or to trick them into becoming experimental materials."
"The Truth Society killed these people?"
"No. The Truth Society wouldn't be so crude, and it's obvious these dead people hadn't finished their work. The Truth Society wouldn't waste manpower like this."
Though both were curious about what had originally been excavated here, since The Truth Society's Ring Arcanists had not chosen to use spells for the digging, nor continued digging after the passage collapsed, Shade and Daniste did not extend the passage any further for the time being.
Still, since twelve out of the twenty-three had died here, perhaps the bodies of the remaining eleven were nearby as well. Someone among them might know more.
Daniste handled the examination of the bodies. Centering their search on the tower foundation atop the highest cliff, they found new corpses below the cliff at two in the morning. The bodies were not