School Transmigration: I, Chosen as the Saint by Dragons at the Start-Chapter 129 --A Clear Picture

Abbott smacked his lips, speaking with a hint of emotion, "She claimed to be five or six months pregnant, but to us, she looked at least nine months along. Her belly was frighteningly large."

As he spoke, he gestured with his hands to emphasize the size.

"So when she left, we were actually relieved. How could a woman about to give birth stay here for long?"

Feldin asked again, "Where did she come from?"

"She claimed to be from Sea Transport Village, but I doubt it."

Everyone was confused.

They barely had a grasp of Novalia continent’s geography, let alone the specifics of the area around Coiled Dragon City thousands of years ago.

Owen chuckled inwardly.

Was Feldin really taking on the role of a detective so seriously?

And right now, they weren’t even wearing their school uniforms, so it was unclear which academy they belonged to.

Just then, Willow came running over, calling out to everyone, "Come here, I’ve found something!"

Owen followed her briskly to Mike’s house.

Mike, a miner, had been single for nearly thirty years and still lived in a wooden hut.

The room was a mess, littered with empty liquor bottles and jars.

The foulest item was a feather duvet.

Thankfully, the door was open; otherwise, one could only imagine the stench inside.

Willow leaped onto the roof of Mike’s house, beginning to rummage through the thatch.

"Look at this," she called out.

The roofs in the northwest, where the snow and wind are relentless, are steeply pitched, covered with thick layers of wood and thatch, woven and piled up.

Now, they were laden with a thick blanket of snow, resembling a person wearing a high hat.

The snow-covered roofs appeared heavy enough to collapse the houses beneath them.

Willow had already cleared away the snow and thatch, revealing more as she tore away at the layers.

The group gasped in surprise.

Hidden within was a person.

In this icy, snowy environment, with temperatures plummeting to minus fifty degrees, the body was frozen stiff.

Brawny lifted Abbott onto the roof, pointing at the face protruding from the straw, "Is this Mike?"

The corpse’s eyes were wide open in a deathly stare.

Abbott glanced at the face, quickly averting his eyes with a sigh of despair, "Yes, it’s him... it’s him, ugh!"

As he shifted his gaze, Abbott inadvertently caught sight of Mike’s torso and couldn’t help but retch.

Mike’s chest had been ripped open; his heart, liver, spleen, stomach, and kidneys were all missing, leaving only a few segments of intestines.

The red and yellow viscera were frozen solid.

Even the perpetrator seemed to find the scent here unappetizing.

Some of the academy students turned ashen, with several girls turning their heads away, unable to bear looking any longer, even using their arcanergy to suppress the queasiness rising within them.

After all, they were students, not accustomed to seeing such gruesome scenes.

The impact of this macabre sight was unsettling for them.

But in the presence of others, they did not want to show weakness and had to tough it out.

Owen, on the other hand, seemed indifferent, examining the scene closely.

Having seen ghosts, what was this in comparison?

The situation had become quite clear. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

On that night, Mike had walked only a few meters from his house when the perpetrator targeted him and hoisted him onto the roof.

This explained why the footprints in the snow only extended for several meters—the man-eating creature had been lurking on the roof all along, never touching the ground.

Willow suddenly pointed to Mike’s throat, "Mike died a slow death. He was eaten alive."

A dark bruise encircled Mike’s neck, and frozen blood clung to the corners of his mouth.

His face, contorted in agony at the time of death, seemed to be forever frozen in that expression.

The creature, feasting greedily, must have clamped down on his neck, preventing any screams for help.

In other words, Mike watched helplessly as the creature devoured him alive.

Owen glanced at Willow, noticing the lack of fear in this delicate-looking woman.

She seemed quite serious, evidently accustomed to such bloody scenes.

Willow’s background was likely not simple; perhaps she was a contingency plan set by the academy.

Indeed, no matter how well a student might understand historical texts, it was improbable for them to know details of history from thousands of years ago so precisely.

Willow might have been specially groomed by the academy.

Abbott, who had initially straightened up, visibly shrank again at the thought of this gruesome scene, hunching his back as if to find some sense of security in the posture.

Owen asked, "How did you find it?"

A body hidden in a rooftop and buried under heavy snow – without using his psychic abilities, Owen wouldn’t have been able to discover it.

"There was a smell," Willow sniffed, "I have a very sensitive nose."

"..."

"This creature eats people and then bothers to bury them," Feldin said, tugging at his mouth.

He then asked again, "On the morning of that day, did anyone in your town notice any strange footprints in the snow around here?"

"Uh... I didn’t see any, and maybe others did but didn’t report it. After all, there are many spellbeasts around the town, and it’s hard to distinguish their tracks," Abbott replied.

"So, after the pregnant woman left, Old Ding died?" Feldin continued.

"It was actually the other way around. After Old Ding died, that pregnant woman was so frightened she just packed up and left," Abbott squeezed out a bitter smile.

"Seeing her heavily pregnant and clumsy, who would have thought the murder had anything to do with her?"

"Where did the pregnant woman live?" Feldin quickly stepped into his detective role, incessantly asking questions.

The others were becoming visibly impatient, casting sidelong glances at Feldin, hoping he would move the story along and lead them into the mine.

Abbott led the group to a small house at the end of the street.

"She stayed here for several days. I even had someone bring her firewood and food."

Naturally, the house was empty.

The charcoal brazier was frosted over, and the thin blanket on the bed was frozen stiff, as rigid as a sheet of iron.

Owen scanned the room but found nothing unusual.

The furnishings were so simple that one glance was enough to see everything.

He lifted the blanket and discovered a bloodstain on the bedding.

"It looks like a paw print," Willow observed, placing her hand over it for comparison, "Only about half the size of my palm."

The size of the paw print, only as big as half of a woman’s palm, prompted a meaningful exchange of glances among the group.

They had a rough idea that the creature was likely the Devourer.

An old woman in the corner murmured, "Could it be a little demon? Was that woman carrying a demon child?"

"You’re right," a team member sneered, "Indeed, a demon child."

The utterance of these words seemed to lower the temperature in the room by a degree.

The old woman shivered, trembling as she said, "Could this little demon have crawled out of her belly?"

The academy students exchanged looks, not of fear, but of eagerness.

They were probably already aware of the River Crossing Demon Mother and knew that the mine was the Devourer’s lair.

It seemed that all the academies had been given some inside information.

After all, the selection of this secret realm was decided by the higher-ups of the four major academies, and naturally, each academy would have some insiders privy to the details.

Owen’s thoughts, however, drifted far away.

Thousands of years ago, had the guards come close to the truth as they were doing now, deducing the nature of the perpetrator without even knowing about the existence of the Devourer?

Yet, they still ventured into the mines, ultimately losing their lives.

Alas, before anyone could dwell on these thoughts, the old woman continued her muttering, "I always said there was something off about her. I felt inexplicably uneasy whenever I got close to her."

The group naturally paid no mind to the old woman’s hindsight remarks.

Willow, however, posed another question, "Did Mike have any grudge against that pregnant woman?"

Abbott started to respond but was cut off by Willow, who instead encouraged the old woman to continue.

"Of course, there was," the old woman sighed.

"Mike was a drunkard, with no one at home to care for him. The third day after the woman arrived, he banged on her door, loudly offering to be the godfather to her unborn child. The poor woman was so frightened she cried out, refusing to open the door. Mike then vomited right at her doorstep, and the next day he acted as if nothing had happened, though the mayor gave him a talking-to."

"Oh, and let me tell you something else," the old woman suddenly leaned in, whispering conspiratorially, "A few days ago, Ah Zhen’s egg-laying hen went missing.

The boy next door accused the woman of stealing it. But we all thought, how could she, with her belly so big that she could hardly bend over? Now, thinking back, it must have been her, especially since she was carrying a demon child."

A student wiped the table corner and pinched something between their fingers, "Is this incense ash?"

"Hmph, she was carrying a demon child, probably a gift from the Demon Mother," another team captain named Jiplin spoke up, "Ordinary people trying to contact deities can only resort to such lowly methods."

Jiplin’s comment seemed to articulate the thoughts of everyone present.

Their faces remained impassive, confirming that they all were indeed aware of the River Crossing Demon Mother.

Jonathan clapped his hands decisively, "It’s getting late. Let’s head to the mountain without further delay. We’ve already spent enough time here."

Everyone’s spirits lifted, anticipating the main event.

Without further ado, the group headed towards the mine.

The snow leopard, still perched on the rock, spoke to them, "The creature in the mine has attacked spellbeasts, and now no spellbeasts are willing to go near it. I have to supervise the work here, so I won’t be able to accompany you."

Owen looked at the snow leopard, a thought stirring in his mind, "Did this snow leopard say the same things to those guards all those years ago?"