Purifying Light

If a battle had happened all of a sudden due to various circumstances that were related to what Mallory had recently solved, the current situation in the village would only worsen the situation further and create more chances for Visa City to meet its end.

All it took was a big enough monster wave or an army to organise an attack when they were suffering from so many internal problems and could not manage their current supplies.

It could have been the dark elves that attacked first and many of the lives of the Seshat familia would have to be sacrificed to fend them off.

Even if the Seshat familia had succeeded in the war, the city guards would be greatly reduced along with the numbers the Seshat familia.

By then the major damage would have been done and it would be difficult to rebuild the city and gain sufficient supplies to do so or to support those that were suffering due to the war that had happened.

All it took from then was to have a single strong monster wave hit the city or for those that were involved in the plot to finally reveal themselves to finish off all that remained.

It was like a chaotic plan which was coming together all at once to crush the city on all sides.

So many pawns were set in place and would cause enough problems to damage the city, corrupt the people, cut off the trade, cut off other supplies, lure monsters, make people weak or sick, conduct illegal experiments, run criminal enterprises from within the city and even have high ranking officials of the city turn on their own leader.

The city that was built with a better image in mind by Seshat and those of her familia when she had first come from the place of the gods was slowly being corrupted and torn down.

Who was behind everything had not been revealed yet and they seemed to not be willing to show themselves either.

They used others to do their dirty work and then stepped back to watch on as they chaos unfolded.

It was almost like they knew Seshat well and probably had some hatred towards her or they simply saw the end of the Seshat familia and Visa City as a means to some end.

It was difficult to read the intentions of someone that little was known about them and Goddess Seshat had not chosen to tell Mallory any other details.

She was left to carry out the task on her own without knowing the complete story of why everything was happening as it had been and would continue to do so.

More people were visited and more names were given which had pointed Mallory in the right direction.

She had circled the names that appeared most often then stopped at one of them then turned to the village head. "You must know this name well right? Tell me about them. How had you not noticed anything strange? You must have known something right?"

She already knew enough from those she had interviewed but it was her turn to test the village head.

One incident may not seem strange but once they had started piling up, they would become awfully suspicious to anyone.

Although he did not interfere with her investigation, he did not help a great deal either.

All that he had done was keep quiet and follow her during the whole process while occasionally answering her questions.

If the village head was not involved then he had to have looked the other way as it was happening.

The village head let out a sigh. "There are so many things for me to manage and look over so I cannot oversee every matter. If someone is not meeting the requirements to grow a certain amount then that is due to their poor management of the land.

Who they sell it to after they have caused it to get to that state is not up to me to intervene in. Of course I know them, everyone does. They were one of the bigger families that own many locations in the village now but they have only done good for the village. Since they had bought up the land, they had improved it and helped those that had suffered."

He stated that he was too busy to spot anything and that he knew very little.

He put the responsibility on those that owned those lands and failed to meet the requirements for the crops grown rather than taking responsibility himself.

Even though he was the village head and could oversee most things happening in the village which could at times give him the right to intervene in certain matters, he had stated that he could not intervene in certain things.

He had clearly known what was happening within the village but did not step forward and instead had watched on the sidelines as others bought up those pieces of land.

He had shown an ugly side of himself to Mallory which had made her disgusted. 'He sounds like a boss that blames his subordinates when anything goes wrong and would never admit their own failures or apologise for them.'

The more that Mallory understood about him, the more she came to dislike and distrust him.

She continued to keep him around her even though he was a suspicious person and a potential suspect related to what was happening.

It was easier for him to slip up suddenly when they were together for so long and he had done so a couple of times.

In the eyes of Mallory, the village head was unworthy of his position and keeping him where he was would only cause similar things to happen once again in the future without any intervention being done by him.

Not a single report had been sent to Visa City to report such matters when the situation was worsening so it was more than enough to have him removed due to his negligence.

The documents that she had written were packed away and there were many gathered that followed behind then started following her instructions. "That is enough investigating for now."

Those that she had interviewed had stepped out of their homes and gathered together to assist Mallory to place down the talismans around their land then shouted the magical word many times that was in her native tongue. "Purify!"

So many radiant lights burst from the talismans and entered the soil once after another which had been followed by a strange dark energy that came from underneath the ground.

It rose upward and the light that had pushed it out had continued to purify it until it had completely dissipated.

The soil had not regained its original state or fertility but it was still salvageable with a little work from those that owned those lands.

The purification continued in many parts of the village and Mallory made some efforts to go around the village to set up some minor monster wards that were in the shape of some small wooden statues near the fences.

They were buried underground out of the sight of the villagers and then another event took place in the village once the sun had went down.

Many resources had been approved for it due to the request of Mallory and it helped to uplift the spirits of the villagers while it would help to increase their familiarity with her.

The atmosphere became more pleasant since Mallory arrived but the main issue had not yet been confronted or dealt with.

They were originally very sceptical towards the cat person who was very young who was supposed to be an official of the city, they had long lost their trust towards those from the city and believed that they were looked down on by the city people.

Their suffering meant nothing to the city folk but they were surprised to witness what Mallory had done for them and what she was doing to secure their livelihoods.