Saturday, May 2, 2026

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.