Shota's Isekai NTR Adventure Chapter 2248: Contract (8)

With the abilities that the heroes possessed, there really wasn’t anything that the villagers could hide from them.

It turned out that the kid taken by the Black Tide had suffered quite a bit at the hands of the villagers.

In a village like this, there were all kinds of strange religious beliefs that could form.

There would be things like false gods that would rule over these villages.

This was one of those villages that worshipped a false god.

It turned out that the reason that the kid’s parents had died was because of their worship of the false god.

They had been the unlucky ones that had been sacrificed in the name of the false god, though they never knew about this until the very end. When they were being sacrificed, they had asked the villagers to let their son go.

However, the villagers had raised that kid to become the next sacrifice.

He had been told that his parents had died in an accident with a wild forest animal, which was why he had been raised by the village instead.

All of it was so he would be the next sacrifice for them.

"These heretics, we have to wipe them out." Ikki said in an indignant voice.

"Calm down. We’ll report this matter back to the Heroes Association and let them deal with it. There are those specialized in dealing with matters like this, there’s no need for us to deal with this ourselves."

Ikki was surprised that Percival didn’t seem bothered at all by this.

After all, Percival could be considered the most religious out of all them here.

For him to let this matter pass, there had to be something wrong or there had to be something much more important. In this case, it seemed to be the latter.

Taking out a book, Percival said, "All of this suddenly makes sense now."

Everyone was confused when they heard this as they looked at the book he took out with one brow raised.

Percival didn’t seem to care about how the others looked at him, the only thing that he cared about was what was written in the book.

Sneaking a peek, the other heroes realized what this was.

It was a diary.

But it wasn’t just any diary, it seemed to be the diary that belonged to the parents of the kid taken by the Black Tide.

It listed all of the things that had been done to them, but it didn’t give the full story. After all, it wasn’t as if they could write about themselves being sacrificed.

Only from this diary, one could easily guess what happened to them.

"Where did you find it?" Ikki asked Percival while he was still reading it.

"Where else could I have gotten it?" Percival asked back.

Even if he hadn’t answered, everyone could have already guessed where he got this based on what was written inside of this diary. There was only one place that he could have gotten this thing from.

"So after discovering the truth, he..."

Ikki didn’t finish what he was saying, but the implications of his words were clear. He didn’t have to finish what he was saying for everyone to know what he was thinking.

"How?" Percival said in response.

No one answered since they didn’t know how to answer this.

After all, no one really knew what had happened.

"Despair is the source of their power."

When they heard this, no one knew where it came from at first. But everyone that heard this voice knew that it wasn’t a normal voice.

This voice was filled with a grace and majesty that couldn’t be compared.

After a moment of silence, Percival took out his sword to find that it had been glowing. Only that glow seemed to be disappearing as if whatever had happened had suddenly stopped.

Seeing this, Percival just said, "You have all heard what his eminence has said."

No one doubted Percival when they heard this, but for most of them, it was their first time hearing this voice. Even though they were heroes, it wasn’t as if they had ever heard this voice before.

However, they still didn’t know what this message meant.

In the end, it was Ikki that said, "So does that mean that they look for those that are filled with despair? Since the source of the Black Tide is despair, does that mean that anyone that has enough despair is able to draw on its power?"

After he said this, everyone turned to look at the sword that was by Percival.

Only when they saw that there was no reaction from it, they couldn’t be certain of what to do next.

Percival just said with a sigh, "This is all that we know so far. If even his eminence doesn’t know anything, then there’s nothing that we can do. We’ll bring our findings back to the Heroes Association and let them decide."

"What about this village?"

"Leave it to the people from the Heroes Association, they know what to do." Percival said in a firm voice that brokered no argument.

Though from the looks on the faces of not just Ikki, but also several of the other heroes, it really seemed like they wanted to do something about this.

But in the end, they left this matter alone.

They knew why Percival was acting this way, but it still left a bad aftertaste in their mouth.

However, they also knew that he was right to act this way.

Compared to one village, the fate of all mankind was more important.

If they wanted to deal with this disaster, the first thing that they had to do was figure out what kind of contract the kid signed with the Black Tide.

But at the same time, there was something else that was confirmed because of this.

Just like how humanity was adapting to the Black Tide, the Black Tide itself was adapting to humanity. It was becoming stronger and more intelligent to be able to form this contract.

That was what the god wanted to warn them about.