Biblically Accurate Angel - High School DxD

Chapter 8

Author's Note: Starting today, if the Power Stone count reaches 100, I'll release an extra chapter as a bonus!

"Is this the place?" Moon asked Katu as he surveyed the surroundings, which were a sparse few trees and a few bushes that looked similar to a tumbleweed with not a single leaf visible, which he was not fond of. And the sparse few trees that were present weren't even full of leaves like the trees he used to see ever since he came here. Instead, it looked like the lower half of the tree's leaves were eaten by something, leaving the tree half naked. 

With the sun that radiated its intense heat without mercy, it made the surroundings even more desolate. The extreme lack of sound, whether from the insects or animals, only made it worse. Making the surroundings even more desolate than it was.

"Ummm, yes?" She answered after a second or two of indecision as if she wasn't sure this was the place where she lived most of her life, but in the end, she answered yes since she was sure that the route that they came on was right and some distinct landmarks all matched. 

"Ok, so where is the place that you said housed Alpha Peak or high alpha-low beings?" Moon asked, without voicing his concern about her hesitation.

"Right about there," she said as she pointed towards a mountain that was visible in the distance. With the top half of the mountain filled to the brim with snow, heck, it was even snowing there as they spoke despite the fact that in here it wasn't snowing.

"All right, let's go; no time to waste," Moon said as he turned a bit right and floated towards it. Katu just followed quietly from behind him, her eyes darting around as if confused about how it changed from the place that was in her memory into this.

()

It had been a few days since they started traveling towards Katu's birthplace, and the journey was surprisingly peaceful, with little to no trouble. Although they were attacked a few times by other animals, they were so weak that Moon did not count it as trouble since all it took for him to sweep them off was just one [Compact Holy Slash]. By noon of the fifth day, they came to Katu's birthplace, which had changed quite a bit for her if her reaction was anything to go by.

While they were traveling, they suddenly noticed quite a few footprints on a dirt road, small and humanlike with sharp nails, probably from goblins or anything similar. "Did few of your tribesmen remain when your tribe left this place?" Moon asked after a second of thought.

Katu shook her head in denial, but there was a hint of uncertainty hidden in it as if she had a theory but wasn't sure if it was true or not. "No, not from what I remember. At best, two goblins were left, but there are at least a dozen footprints in here."

"Mmmm, then any theory about who these footprints might belong to?" Moon inquired from her, a bit curious and fishing for information, not caring whenever it was just a tiny possibility since even if the theory was proven false, it wouldn't do much harm to him.

"I am not sure, but I have a theory. They might be from a tribe nearby from where I lived. They had a decent relationship with us in the past, but because of the food shortage, the relationship between my tribe and theirs became quite tense. With a few goblins getting killed every few weeks due to some small conflict." She said, her eyebrows furrowed while her eyelids tightened as she continued. "But they shouldn't be here, since my tribe and theirs had decided to move away from our birthplace to a new place at the same time as ours. With our tribe taking west and theirs taking east." His eyebrow at the end became tangled in confusion. Her eyes were a bit unfocused as if unsure.

"Do you want to investigate this before marching towards the snowy mountains?" Moon asked, noticing her hesitation and confusion. Thinking that a day or two of delay at the longest wouldn't cause much concern.

"Yes, thank you, Sir Moon," she said.

After that they started following in their footsteps, which was quite easy considering that it rained quite heavily last night, causing ground that was usually just a mass of dirt and rock to turn into a big mass of mud. Granted, there weren't mud puddles everywhere, but because of how intense the rain yesterday was, there was quite a lot. First, the footsteps were a mess with quite a few facing different directions, but after following the trail a bit,. 

It became better with most of them walking in one direction after a while. The footprints soon reached a crossroad with one of the trails going west towards the forest and the other east towards the river. When they reached the crossroad, Katu asked Moon. "Ummm, should we split?"

Moon, upon hearing her question, did not immediately answer; instead, he decided to think long and hard since he had the feeling that something was wrong. The footprints that were left in the mud were quite shallow compared to Katu's, with Katu's footprint leaving about a five- to six-centimeter-deep print, while the footprints that those goblins left were about two to three centimeters deep. And there is the fact that even since they came here, he did not see a single living animal; heck, he heard an insect only a handful of times since coming here, making Moon have a bad feeling. "No, we won't," Moon replied unconsciously, even though he was still thinking, but after he realized a second later what he said, he decided to stick to it, thinking nothing would go wrong.

"Ok," Katu replied, after which Moon took the lead in following the West route since about seven of the dozen or so goblins had gone this route. While the rest had gone the other way.

The black, stormy clouds slowly filled the whole sky, causing the world to plunge into darkness despite the fact that just an hour or two ago it was just a cloudy day with quite a bit of sunlight. A wind slowly started blowing from behind them, as if urging them to go faster towards their destination. The insect that they rarely heard since coming here started buzzing loudly as if they were in celebration of what was about to happen. 

"Umm, maybe we should stop." Katu, in a low voice, suggested, her arms fidgeting as if nervous while her complexion was a bit pale. Having a feeling that what was about to come wouldn't be something she would want to see.

But, although Moon felt the sky darken as if a bad thing was about to happen to them, he also had the feeling that he would evolve into a physical being if he persisted a bit longer, so he just answered. "Just a few minutes and we will be there."

After a few minutes, they did reach their destination, with the footsteps leading to a hut with quite a bit of wear and tear. It was once probably a feather-like white outer-layered hut, not brown and dirty, but now it was just plain brown with mud here and there visible; its surroundings probably once looked quite beautiful with nature everywhere, but it was just a desolate place with only a few tumbleweeds here and there. 

Moon and Katu surveyed the surroundings; they noted the half-fallen and decayed, probably, fence used to keep animals inside was empty with not a single footprint visible, while beside it lay a few things a bit similar to the hut that lay in ruins with most of them gone already decayed and grass growing on top of it. They slowly inched closer, slowly and steadily, and when they were about thirty meters away from the hut, a voice sounded from beside them. 

"WHO ARE YOU? IDENTIFY YOURSELF." A voice screamed, almost jolting Moon to unconsciously send in his [Compact Holy Slash] towards it. But he stopped himself at the last second, the small training that he had done helping him as he stopped himself before he killed whoever screamed it.

"Ummm, Pachu?" Katu, who was beside him, asked, uncertainty evident in her voice as she inquired. 

"Katu, is that you?" the owner of the voice, who was in a hood that completely covered his body from head to toe, asked, disbelief evident in his voice as he inched closer. A thin, small hand came out of his hood. But suddenly he stopped as if he remembered something; he quickly turned around and walked back. His footsteps were fast and hurried, but after walking a few steps, he turned around and motioned towards Katu. "We need to get out of here fast. Hurry!" he said.

Katu looked at Pachu, then slowly turned towards Moon, who just muttered. "Let's go," he whispered quietly in her ear so Pachu couldn't hear him, although he didn't know why he still hadn't addressed him since he was a floating goddamn orb of holy light radiating a considerable amount of light.

So they quietly followed after him, getting away from the hut as they followed him. Only the footsteps of Pachu and Katu and the fierce wind were the only sounds evident as they walked away. Turning left and right, following the river, then turning right and going towards a clearing. Soon, about twenty minutes of nonstop, fast-paced walking later, they reached a small cave.

Only then does Pachu, who was in front of them, relax as he exhales a deep breath. "We should be safe for now."

"What is happening, and why are you acting like this?" Katu, who had quietly kept her mouth shut for the past twenty minutes, immediately asked as soon as she noticed him relaxing.

"So straight to the point, huh? Uhhhhh," Pachu said as he walked towards a clean area and sat down. The hood still covered his body fully, not revealing the slightest bit of his appearance.

"Yes, straight from the beginning to the end."

"All right," Pachu said while leaning back slightly, with his back touching the wall. "It all began when our tribe had started traveling in seeking new land just like yours. At first, the journey wasn't hard or dangerous. We spent the night sleeping and the day traveling while using food that we had sparingly. Heck, we probably had almost two times the food your tribe had considering how bad your tribe was doing when you left." Pachu said, his voice calm and steady, but after saying that, he stopped for a few seconds. Causing the cave to fall into deep silence. "Then the disaster struck; most of the food was gone mysteriously in just one night, with none of the guards who were guarding it being aware despite all of them staying awake the whole night. And just a day after that, the chief was found dead in his hut, brutally murdered with all of his internal organs gone."

Pachu sighed heavily, but due to the obstruction caused by the hood, Moon and Katu only heard him sigh.

"Only if I had known at that time what would have happened, I would have run without turning back. The hell began after that, with the food gone and the chief dead; all hell was released, loose with everyone pointing at one another, accusing them of causing it, causing bloodshed to start at every turn, while the little food that was left was getting lower and lower; soon it all finished, finished with not a single bit left. The moment it did, the situation changed from bad to worse as they started to resort to cannibalism."

"First it was the elders who had no strength and no time left on their side; then it was kids and babies who, while having a future ahead of them, had no strength to keep it; finally, it was the weak ones' turn." Pachu started shaking rapidly with beads of sweat slowly falling into the ground as he shook. 

"Just as I thought things couldn't get worse, an unusually strong troll appeared one day and demanded food from us every day. Stating that if we couldn't find him food every day, he would hunt us down and eat us," Pachu said, his voice weak yet frantic as he continued but in a self-mocking tone. "The reason it made us look for food for it instead of killing us and eating us is probably not because it was smart or something. It probably did not like the taste of us Goblins, filled with filth and dirt."

Katu and Moon quietly sat beside him as he recounted what had transpired since they parted ways. The despair and anguish were visible in the air surrounding Pachu as he sat.

"Mmmm," Katu said, while turning towards Moon with a pleasing gaze, her eyelids dropping down and her mouth hanging low. And Moon understood what Katu meant with her gaze without needing to spell it out to him in words. "All right, I will help," Moon said, his deep and magnetic voice resounding in the cave as he said it.

Pachu, who sat beside them, jolted as if electricity coursed through him as he rapidly stood up and retreated. "WHO ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" Pachu screamed, and the scream and the sudden jolt caused the hood that had completely covered his body tightly to slightly loosen up, specifically the face area, revealing his face, which had both of its eyes dug out, explaining to Moon and Katu why he did not address him when they first met despite the fact that Moon was an orb of holy light that glowed intensely.

"I MUST, I MUST, NO, NO, NO, IT HASN'T..."

"QUITE," Moon shouted, instantly silencing Pachu, after which he turned to Katu and said to her, "Calm him down, Katu."

Katu, who was also startled into silence by Moon's shout, quietly nodded as she walked towards Pachu and started patting his back while muttering. "There, there, everything is fine. Sir Moon won't hurt you. He is nice."