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Page 4088

'Well, now what?' said Voreese after they'd all regathered.

A part of Hector was still unsatisfied. He wanted to find a second hospital to check, because there was a strong chance that this one had received preferential treatment by the manipulators due to its close proximity to Livingston. Everyone might've just been sent right on over to the castle, assuming there was enough room.

But he supposed he'd already gotten his answer, regardless. An evacuation had clearly been conducted here. That was all he needed to know at the moment; and moreover, there was still the more pressing question of why.

Hector had a responsibility here. Sure, their little group here might've been composed entirely of reapers and undead, but that didn't make them invincible. If some powerful Intarian was going to such lengths in order to evacuate civilians like this, then it was a fair bet that something dangerous was on the way.

Sticking around, therefore, would be playing with fire.

"Let's head over to the Cathedral District," said Hector.

And rather than exiting through the front entrance, they decided to head to the roof so that Hector could carry everyone but Roman up into the sky again. He wanted to get another good view of the city as they moved along, in part because Hector was now curious about what might be going on in the direction opposite of the Cathedral District.

If the manipulators hadn't been lying, then that particular district was probably pretty safe, which meant that the danger was expected to arrive from the other direction. Northwest of Livingston.

Hector asked for Loren's help along the way. He had the guy staring off into the distance like a hawk as they flew. But Loren was being very quiet, so Hector felt the further need to push a bit.

"Anything?" he asked after a while of hovering flight.

"No, sir," said Loren, sounding as calm and collected as could be.

Hmm. Hector had also been trying to pay special attention to this Lighteyes fellow the whole time they'd been here. The guy's aura seemed like it had quite a bit to say, though none of it was terribly clear. Hector was getting the impression that this dude was actually quite conflicted inside, despite how silent and professional he acted.

But one thing about him was obvious. He wasn't secretly hostile. Unless Hector was reading something wrong--which was always a possibility, of course--this man actually seemed to be quite curious about Hector.

Page 4087

The group soon departed for the hospital in question. Indeed, it wasn't very far at all, just as Nadim had said. He wondered if that was because of Livingston. The hospital looked similarly archaic in design compared to most of the buildings around it, so Hector wondered if it had been built to help support Livingston Grand Castle during medieval times.

Or even earlier, perhaps. Hector knew a bit of Livingston's history already. The core of the castle had been built nearly two thousand years ago, during the Golden Era of the Mohssian Empire, so there was a chance that this hospital was similarly ancient.

Hector was mindful of everything the Scarf could tell him as they approached the structure. He was mindful of the rather large cube floating around him, too. The Laughing Ceese that he'd captured inside of it was still there, of course, being quiet as could be, perhaps in the hope that Hector would forget about it, but the closer the group got to meeting normal, regularly-minded people, the more Hector was reminded of the weird creature that he had in his personal orbit.

As Voreese had said, if anyone saw it, they would probably freak out. But then again, given the strange state of the city, perhaps they wouldn't. Hector was beginning to wonder if he would ever meet any 'normal' people in Andeyal at all.

Because the hospital was indeed empty. Even without entering, he could sense from the air currents through the doors and windows that there were no human figures around. Maybe it wasn't even worth going inside to make sure, but they did, anyway. There could've always been people deeper in. There were plenty of rooms with no windows, after all.

It did ultimately end up being fruitless, though. After nearly twenty minutes of splitting up and checking almost every floor, they found not a single soul around. Unfortunately, even the reapers hadn't seemed entirely confident in their senses here, because many of the walls were apparently infused with soul power.

And while it certainly felt like a waste of time, it did at least provide Hector with the evidence that he'd been looking for. There was no sign of a struggle or any damage to the building, so it probably hadn't come under attack, which meant that it had probably been evacuated in a quite orderly manner.

He also noticed that many of the rooms seemed to be even emptier than expected. It wasn't just that the people were gone. There was a lot of equipment missing, too.