Domeron frowned as Red revealed this to him. “That can’t be a normal dagger. Look at everything that has been happening around it.”

“It wasn’t always like this.” Aurelia said. “It had plenty of remaining spirituality inside of it, but once the ghost inhabiting it died, that all dissipated. Now it’s useless.”

The woman still sounded bitter as she spoke of the dagger.

Red turned the weapon over in his hand and looked back at the man. “I think all the Spiritual Energy inside it is spent.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s just a normal dagger.” Domeron paused, deep in thought. “… Try hitting it.”

The youth was at a loss. “Why?”

“If it was made out of the bone of a cultivator near-ascension, then it must be sturdy enough at the very least.”

“What if it breaks?”

“Then it was just an useless piece of junk in the first place.” Domeron shrugged. “In that case, the bones of that skeleton will probably be more useful for us.”

Red frowned. No matter how he looked at the bone dagger, it seemed like it would crumble to dust with just a single strike of his sword. Yet he knew better than to trust external appearances in the cultivation world, and what the swordsman said was correct at the end of the day.

He held the bone dagger against a rock with one hand, and with his other, he grabbed his dark short-sword and hacked down against it without holding back. To his surprise, the weapon bounced off of the surface of the dagger and he felt his arm trembling from the rebound of the strike.

The bone weapon didn’t have even a mark on its surface once he looked back at it.

Domeron smiled. “Like I thought. Even if it’s not a magical treasure anymore, it still is just as strong as one on the outside.”

The youth was surprised by the dagger’s hardness, but that quickly faded away as he thought further upon it. “The only thing it has going for it is its toughness. It has no sharp edge, and it is too light to be used as a blunt weapon.”

“It can always be reforged.” The swordsman shrugged.

Red sighed. “This isn’t a metal. Neither me nor Goulth know how to forge proper weapons out of bones, much less from something this strong.”

This wasn’t to say it couldn’t be done, but it was neither of their specialties, and the most they could do was file down the bones into appropriate shapes. It was likely only a crafting master who already opened their Spiritual Sea could forge and manipulate a material like a bone without wasting any materials. Even then, it was up in the air whether they could do anything with this bone.

After all, there was a reason as to why one would rarely find treasures made out of bones, and it wasn’t just because metals were easier to manipulate. Some factions saw the practice as sacrilege, not to mention that weapons fashioned of bones would often produce spirits with undead tendencies.

Domeron, however, still looked unworried about this. “What we do with this doesn’t matter. What matters is that we now have something valuable we can use to exchange for whatever we need.”

Red frowned, looking over the dagger. “Is this really that valuable?”

“In the right hands, I’m sure it is.”

The swordsman’s implication were obvious. He probably wanted to sell it to some nefarious people, which left the youth somewhat worried.

“… If you want to keep the dagger, you can feel free to.” Domeron said. “We couldn’t have gotten it without your help, so it’s yours to do as you please.”

Red hesitated as he stared down at the bone dagger, which still had a skeletal hand attached to it.

Aurelia scoffed. “What are you even considering? It’s useless as it is, so might as well exchange it for something more valuable.”

This was what he felt too, but the more he looked at the dagger, the more a certain feeling arose in his mind. A sensation that he would regret giving away this weapon. There was no logic behind it, but the compulsion behind this feeling was so strong that Red just couldn’t ignore it.

He looked over at Domeron and nodded. “I will keep it for now, if you don’t mind.”

The swordsman looked somewhat surprised. “… You know, I don’t know if we will find a buyer so soon, but if we do, it wouldn’t be a problem to exchange this dagger for a Parting Sea Pill.”

The youth was silent for a while. “… I just want to keep it for a while. I feel like there is still something I can learn from it.”

He was being sincere. For one, Red still felt like there were a lot of mysteries behind the existence of this dagger that needed to be clarified before he could feel comfortable in giving it away, and those mysteries might be connected to the Moonstone Mines. Even if he couldn’t see anything from it now, he still felt it was worth it to investigate it in more depth once he was back in town.

Domeron nodded. “If you say so, I won’t stop you.”

Aurelia barked in his ears. “You are a stubborn fool! There’s nothing to see in this dagger - I checked it myself!”

Red ignored her, though he did find the last part of her sentence to be curious. Still, he couldn’t question her here.

With the matter of the dagger settles, the duo was left in a room full of zombified corpses.

“What do you want to do about this?” the youth asked.

Domeron frowned in thought. “We will warn the Baron through anonymous sources once we are back in town. He can deal with this and warn the families of the victims about what happened.”

“He will definitely not be fooled by that.”

The swordsman nodded. “He won’t, but what matters is to keep our nose out of whatever happens next. Even if others suspect us, the last thing we want is to give them a reason to come after us.”

“It might be too late for that.” Red said, thinking about the imperials who were likely behind the necromancer they just killed.

“Maybe, but it is best to be cautious in any case.”

The youth wouldn’t complain about that.

With their most immediate concerns settled, the duo searched through the room for anything else of interest. More specifically, they searched the skeleton holding the dagger and the previously zombified mercenaries.

They found nothing of interest. In fact, most of the mercenaries were carrying very little, and what they did have seemed to be partially rotten. Red wondered how he escaped this fate as he approached the dagger in the same manner as them, but maybe the Moonstone energy inside his body protected him from that much in the same way it protected him from undead infection.

The skeleton carrying the dagger didn’t have anything, either, which didn’t surprise him, considering what happened to the equipment of the mercenaries.

After they looked through the cave, the duo went outside, and the youth returned Domeron his sword.

The swordsman smiled at him. “We should probably get out of here before the imperials send someone after us. Still, I’d say this is a successful mission.”

Red frowned. “There are still a lot of things left unsolved.”

For one, there was the matter of the ghouls. The youth was sure he saw three ghoulish sets of footprints back then, and yet they had only found one of them. Then there were the mercenaries and the necromancer, whose attitudes still left them puzzled. Not to mention, there was still the message the peasant woman left in the village, which they weren’t any closer to figuring out.

This was all without including everything about that many-armed ghost and the illusion Red saw, which he didn’t tell to Domeron.

Too many loose threads that left the youth feeling rather uncomfortable.

The swordsman patted his shoulder and smiled. “We can investigate all those things in due time. For now, just be glad we got out of this with our lives.”

Red couldn’t disagree with his logic.

Without further delay, the two started to move again. This time, though, they decided to cross the river and make their trip back to town in a more roundabout way, all to lose anyone who could come looking for their tracks after the fact.

Crossing the river and its strong currents wasn’t an easy task, even for people like Red and Domeron. Still, after they moved towards an area where the river was thinner and the water was shallower, they managed to swim to the other side without any issues. The swordsman, to the youth’s surprise, managed to swim to the other side despite only having one arm, though his strange movements to compensate for it did make for a rather embarrassing image.

Finally, after crossing the water, they were back in the living part of the forest - without the air of oppression and death they had been breathing for most of the day. Now there was only the long trek back home, which would take even longer, considering they were trying to take a roundabout route to throw off any potential pursuers.

This also meant that, like Red feared, he would need to tackle the curse drainage during his trip back.

“We will need to make a stop in a few days.” the youth said to Domeron.

The swordsman frowned. “That is rather dangerous after what we did. Who knows what they will send after us?”

Red hesitated. “… I don’t have a choice.”

Domeron sighed. “We will do as you say, then.”

He was relieved the man didn’t press him on the matter, though at this point he was not surprised. Domeron had been more than accepting of his secrecy during his whole stay at the sect, and considering his own secrets, this was an understandable stance, to say the least.

Red also wished to speak with Aurelia and ask her questions about what happened, but after his confrontation with the skeletons back then, he didn’t have his notebook with him to ask questions any longer. The woman, for her own part, didn’t seem too interested in conversation either, remaining silent for the following hours, which left the youth even more uncomfortable.

He needed to speak to her, and yet how could he do so without alerting Domeron of her presence?

‘Maybe I can try that…’

An idea came to his mind. While he was walking, Red entered a meditative state, which he managed to maintain even while moving without issue. He checked his body, finding everything to be in order, with the crimson mist still sleeping, and, satisfied with what he saw, moved on to execute his plan.

He had just found out through that individual in the supposed Soul Realm that he could use his expanded awareness to communicate with others, something he could only do with the crimson mist before. He didn’t know if this type of communication only worked in that place, or if it could even reach Aurelia, but this was his opportunity to try.

Of course, the youth still couldn’t make this awareness leave his body, but maybe he didn’t need to do that for what he was planning.

His hand reached into his pouch, grabbing the Insectoid Core, which, to his surprise, was shining far stronger than it was before the confrontation with the many-armed ghost. He didn’t bring the crystal out into full view, but he kept a firm grip around it.

“What are you doing?” Aurelia asked in confusion.

Red didn’t say anything. Instead, he focused on his expanded awareness, moving it towards his hand that was in contact with the insectoid core. There was an evident barrier he felt once he reached the surface of his palm, but beyond that, as faint as it was, he also felt a connection to something else.

Another consciousness.

With some effort, Red tried to control his awareness to speak just as he had learned from that individual.

“Can… you hear me?” His voice came out sluggish, but still comprehensible.

“W-What?!” Aurelia’s shocked voice reached his mind. “Since when do you know how to do that?!”

For the first time since Red met her, the woman seemed truly taken aback.