It was everyday that one was given the mission to search around the outer rims of a city for suspicious activity; especially not when the reports stated that the suspicious activity around the forest area was sightings of the living undead. Houren didn't particularly believe in things like that, at the very least he didn't think that people could suddenly rise from the dead of their own accord. Things like necromancy certainly did exist in this world and Houren had actually experienced such things firsthand. At the same time, necromancy was incomplete and provided the thing known as a ''soul'' could not be proven to exist, then it was merely injecting artificial life into an empty shell. So what if your friend, who has been gone and decaying six feet under for the past six years could walk around and fight again? It was pointless if he didn't retain his memories, if he wasn't able to speak and reminisce. If that was the case then Houren would much rather be dead than have his worthless body comfort his loved ones that were still living. At the same time, it went without saying that Houren had little desire to his loved ones that had already passed on unless it was truly ''them'', in that sense. Otherwise, if it was simply reanimating a corpse, then the Fairy Tail mage found it disrespectful.

The silver haired maverick was now outside the gates of Era, a report in his hand that had been drafted up by one Lieutenant Marwin. In it, he detailed and recounted the various rumors that were popular around these parts. For example, he wrote of ghost sightings deep in the forest, which some believed to actually genuinely be specters, while others attributed it to animals. Another popular rumor, of course, was that zombies liked to roam around the large forest late at night, and lately it has even been given a twist in the fact that these zombie sightings were directly related to a new and happening ''guild'', or cult as Lieutenant Marwin put it, in some way or form. Apparently, the good Lieutenant was under the suspicion that these cultists were practitioners of black magic, in particular necromancy which was pretty much frowned upon by most magical societies. Still they were just rumors and that is exactly how Houren perceived them to be. Besides, if such cults did actually hold rituals in the forest late night then someone would have discovered them way before he could have had a chance to. And even if they did exist somewhere out there in the forest late at night, Houren would probably never find them if the appropriate authorities had been unable to. That didn't really matter to Houren though; his job for today was simply to confirm whether Lieutenant Marwin's reports were true or not, if it turned out that they weren't, it wasn't as though they wouldn't pay him. In the end, it was impossible for Houren to conjure cultists out of thin air, and he was going to get his money regardless of whether the threat that the Rune Knights seemed to fear was real or fictional.

528/1000

The Fairy Tail mage continued to delve deeper and deeper into the heart of the forest, but all he got in exchange for his efforts were blisters on his feet and some animals snarling at him; a simple conjure of a flame or two easily scared them away, but he was afraid that a larger animal would eventually show up and actually call his bluff. Houren was a big guy, but that didn't mean he could contend with a grizzly, especially not one that easily topped at almost 3 meters. It wasn't as though he could use his Fire magic either, he could try and use it in an attempt to ward off potential attackers, but could he really utilize it in this forest area? If he tried, he could actually end up burning down the whole place, and that would be very, very bad for his reputation, and for the guild as well. He had to be cautious, in other words, and cautious he was. The Fairy Tail mage was close to giving up and calling the investigation a dead end, but decided not to, making a bet to himself that if this last kilometer did not yield any results, he would go back. He wanted to do his job honestly, but there was no point in searching for something that quite obviously wasn't there. He had already gone through a lot of trouble just to get this far into the forest, and no humans would bother going any further at this rate. In fact, he was already in a zone where most humans would never go, and he could genuinely see people dying around here. If there were really zombies in the vicinity, they wouldn't be that far from here.

Around 700m after he had made this declaration to himself, Houren was more or less set on not finding anything and reporting the bad news (or was it really good news?) to Lieutenant Marwin when he heard some whispers. The Dragon Slayer's keens senses told him that it wasn't a conversation that was being held, but it was something more akin to chanting. Entering a more stealthy mode, Houren walked over to a bush, observing the scene in front of him so that the rest of his body would not be visible, but so that he could still see the scene. It seemed like some people had completely uprooted a small section of the forest and had built a large pagan statue there and were surrounding it in worship. Houren watched intently, when he realized that the person who he had assumed was actually sleeping stood up again, but as a zombie, confirming the reports that the undead were walking again. Houren sighed, thinking this was a lot more troublesome than he had bargained for and retreated immediately back to Lieutenant Marwin. The journey to the cultist's base was long, but he reached Era before he knew it, confirming to Marwin that his suspicions were completely on point before receiving his reward.

1032/1000