The gruesome sight left Aiden speechless. There were white stone pieces everywhere, shattered parts that were left on the forest floor. Even the stone he sat on was actually a part of a torso that was turned to stone before being destroyed by the beast.
"A Gorgon of this scale must be powerful enough to wipe out an entire town," Aiden said. "But why didn't it destroy the smaller towns? Is it afraid of something?"
He surveyed the area for any clues, but as far as he could see, there was nothing left to help him. The Gorgon would turn the poor victims to stone and then destroy their bodies. It was like it was playing with its toys before killing them off after it got bored of them.
The area looked like it hadn't been touched in a while because some of the stones had mold on them. Some of the stones were latched on with vines and grass. The Gorgon must have moved somewhere else.
That place could be near the farmer's ranch because this place was too far from that place. The grounds were so deep into the forest that the Gorgon would need to travel for a longer period of time. It needed a quick path near its play store.
Unluckily for the Gorgon, he hasn't been paying. It was now time for it to pay for its debts.
"Hey!" A man screamed from a tree. Aiden looked up to see a large man with full armor on. He jumped to the ground right in front of Aiden, and he held out his hand. "My mame is Plutarch. I am an Adventurer from the Hero Scales guild. Did you come here for the beast too?"
Aiden slightly nodded, not sure how to respond. "I just joined a guild and thought that this was going to be an easy quest. Turns out, I landed on the hardest one."
"What a coincidence!" Plutarch gasped. "I just joined Hero Scales too! But my ratings are quite high, and I'm not like you. No offense, but you look like you belong on the sidelines. Let the real powerful handle things, okay? Don't get in my way."
Aiden wanted to slam Plutarch's face on the ground and continuously stomp on it. The man was a huge burden for Aiden's theories, and he acted all high and mighty. He sounded like he could confidently defeat the Gorgon, but Aiden wanted to check to see what would happen. He thought that it was the least that he would do considering that the quest was already taken from him.
"You're quite old for a newbie Adventurer," Plutarch pointed out. "Are you sure that you can handle this quest? If you don't help, I have to take all of the money."
"Yeah, I can handle it," Aiden said. He forgot that in Regal's body, he was already in his late twenties. Plutarch was only about the same age as his original body, yet the man achieved such great feats by joining a guild and becoming an Adventurer.
"Have you seen the beast, though?" Plutarch asked. "The nun told me that it took all of their sheep and some of the children. Poor woman."
"Sheep and children?" Aiden quirked his eyebrows up. "What do you mean by that? The person who requested help was a farmer, and he was a man."
Plutarch pursed his lips and took the poster from his pocket. "Read this, then."
Aiden took the poster and handed it to Plutarch. The two stared at each other, realizing that the Gorgon in the forest was terrorizing two different sets of people. It took its victims from a farm and an orphanage. No wonder there were so many petrified victims.
"So, what beast do you think could do all of these?" Plutarch asked Aiden. He opened his hands to show Aiden the damage that the Gorgon had left. Plutarch looked around, his eyes burning with passion and excitement. "Do you think it could be strong enough so its body would sell for a whole lot?"
Aiden was silent, realizing that Plutarch did not know of the Gorgon. What he knew was that the beast could turn its victims to stone, but he didn't know what it exactly was. Aiden has the upper hand right now, and although he wanted to share, he didn't.
Plutarch did not have those burning, passionate eyes before Aiden handed him the farmer's quest poster.
"I haven't heard of such things before," Aiden sighed as he looked around. He pretended to follow Plutarch as the man was raising his arms around, and Aiden followed them with his eyes to look clueless.
"Whatever this beast is, I don't think it would only stop in this general direction to petrify its victims," Plutarch said. "I came here earlier this morning because it attacked us last night. It took one sheep and almost took one of the children. The nun was too terrified, but she couldn't do anything about it. They have nowhere else to go."
"Doesn't the White Cloaks handle the orphanages?" Aiden asked. "They could ask for some help."
Plutarch sighed. "There were four White Cloaks that were sent here a while ago. They never came back."
"Four of them?!" Aiden gasped. "But each White Cloak has to be at least Level 20 each. They were all wiped out?"
"Do you really want me to answer that, old man?" Plutarch chuckled. "I understand if you want to bail out now. If four Level 20 Adventurers could not defeat this thing, I don't know if I will."
"Then why are you here?" Aiden asked, trying to see if he could juice out some information from Plutarch. The man stayed here to attempt to finish the quest when there were White Cloaks who failed.
"My mother is very sick right now. I have to buy her medicine. We're too poor, and my father is a drunkard," Plutarch muttered. "All the easier quests are done. There's only this, but I didn't expect it to go wrong. If I turn back now, I'll have to pay up for the penalty."
As sad as Plutarch's storytelling was, Aiden did not believe him for even one second. He claimed to be living a poor and miserable life, but he had high-quality equipment and trinkets that would add even more stats. Those items were only available to those who could afford a poor person's lifetime income.
Plutarch was a young and naive kid, but he was dangerously sociopathic. Aiden would not need a lightbulb above his head moment to figure out that Plutarch had a plan in his mind that involved killing him and taking all of the glory.
It was such a feat for a man to take down a beast that terrorized areas around a forest and killed several White Cloaks and even Adventurers. If Plutarch managed to kill Aiden, he would bask in all the glory. It was too bad that Aiden figured out his plans before he could even start them.
Hiss!
"It's here," Aiden was interrupted from his thoughts and whispered to Plutarch. He turned around and told the man to do the same. "Stay alert."
"It's a snake?" Plutarch asked. "How could it petrify its victims, though?"
Aiden was right. Plutarch had no idea that their enemy was not just any snake. It was a snake who could terrorize an entire town in a single night's visit. This snake was powerful enough to kill several White Cloaks.
This snake was the dark entity, and the two of them might be its next victims.