When people were tormented by their emotions, the passage of time felt especially slow.
Zenith felt as though she had cried herself dry.
Her hair hung messily over her body, her face despondent, her eyes blankly fixed on the valley before her.
Figures moved everywhere.
Nearly every adult man in Buena Village had come to help dig through the snow. The terrible news had been brought back to Buena Village before midnight yesterday, and the operation had begun immediately.
Exterminating magical beasts had originally been the entire village's responsibility. With the magical beasts running rampant, everyone had been too frightened to properly clear them out while Paul was away, leaving behind this "root of disaster." Allen, Paul, and the others had risked themselves by entering the valley alone to eliminate the beasts, and every villager sincerely felt indebted to them.
Everyone had grabbed shovels from home and wooden forks used to kill magical beasts, then followed Paul into the forest under cover of night.
Yet strangely, there had initially been a few clusters of magical beasts around the forest's outskirts, but the closer they got to the valley, the fewer beasts they found. By the time they reached the valley entrance, they had been digging since late last night.
Not a single magical beast had appeared.
"Everyone, put some more strength into it!!"
Paul's hoarse voice came from ahead. His face was utterly exhausted, his beard unshaven, and dark circles nearly covered the area around his eyes. Even so, he continued digging with remarkable efficiency.
Yet even then, they had not cleared the snow blocking the valley entrance.
It had not snowed all day. The setting sun spilled down through the mountain pass onto Zenith's vacant face.
A full twenty-four hours had passed since Allen and Sylphy fell into the