Am I The Villain?

3. Humans! Finally! but They're Not Nice..

Filtered through the dancing green leaves, the sunlight acts as my tour guide on the dirt path within the woods. Elusive shadows cast unto the earth occasionally dance in tune with the howling of the wind. The road ahead of me riddled with roots and branches, but still reasonably navigable. I heaved and puffed as I clumsily grabbed unto a lone tree branch to climb a ledge. Using my oversized sleeves as a makeshift gloves, I directed my right hand toward said branch while my other hand goes outward to the side slightly angled toward the ground to balance myself.

At this point, the me from before would've simply give up and lay on the river bank until another person arrive or until I starve death. Being isolated in literal emptiness for a long time may have pulled out the adventurous side of me. I guess actually dying ironically made me more lively.

A pungent smell suddenly violated the inside of my nostril, ruining the peaceful nature walk I was starting to enjoy.

"Geh. What was that?" I pinched my nose.

Despite being revolted by the smell and against my better judgment, my spirit of adventure is set ablaze. Thus, I reluctantly unpinched my nose and followed my nose to where the scent propagate from.

It surprisingly took little time at all to find the source. Maybe like my vision, my sense of smell also got some kind of upgrade? 

Looking at the source, I'm regretting all the decisions I've made up until this point.

What lies on the ground is a mangled rotting corpse of... I don't know what it is. Some kind of horned animal the size of a large bull. A severe deep laceration run from the side of what seems to be its face down the neck and then diagonally into its rear left thigh. Dirt covered yellowed bones jut out from the darkened exposed flesh. Intestines spills like spaghetti onto the ground from its opened belly. Surrounding the corpse is a pool of blackened blood, drying on the dirt. Various insects swarm and desecrate the already mangled corpse, turning the flesh green with white circular marks spread sporadically. Repugnant odor waft into the surrounding, blanketing the area with the stench of death and rusted iron.

Unexpectedly, I didn't feel even slightly nauseated. How odd. I can handle my fair share of gore and violence, but I thought I would at least feel queasy. I guess not.

Now, with my feelings out of the way, Let's examine the carcass. I pulled up the collar of my pajamas just enough to cover my nose, and then grabbed a long stick to prod the carcass.

The laceration running from the head all the way to the rear legs seems to be continuous. Taking a closer look, I can see that it's an impressively clean cut. I'm not exactly a veterinarian, but I think I can safely conclude that this is the cause of death. Looking at the surrounding, there isn't any trace of struggle or fighting. It's as if something suddenly jumped in front of this animal and just cut it in half with one.. fell.. swoop...

...huh.

No, it can't be right? ...right?

"Be more careful, would you? We don't know if the Wraith is nearby or not," A voice resounded from behind me. I don't know why, but I instinctively hid myself behind some trees as soon as I heard it.

"It's already gone already, Mill. You know Wraiths don't last long. Calm down," another voice replied. A female voice this time.

"This ain't your ordinary Wraith, Nia. You've seen what happened to that village yourself. That Wraith is something special, I'm telling you."

"Well if it's so special, why haven't the Empress sent a proper army to sortie it out. Instead they just hired some adventurers like us."

"That's cus this time only a small village got attacked. The Empress got bigger fishes to fry rather than wasting her time babysitting some random backwater slum."