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The movement inside the house was very subtle.
Noah pressed his ear against the rough, cold wooden wall. The only thing he could catch was the slight 'crackling' of wood burning in the flames and a monotonous 'bubbling' sound of liquid being boiled.
Other than that, there was complete silence.
This silence was more unsettling than any clamor.
A house inhabited by a living person shouldn't be like this.
Leon S. Kennedy, positioned under the window on the other side, gave him a 'clear' signal and then silently mouthed: 'Go in?'
Noah nodded slowly.
Rather than guessing in the unknown darkness outside, it was better to enter the only source of light to see what was going on.
The two of them, one on the left and one on the right, moved silently to the front door of the wooden house.
The door was ajar, revealing a narrow crack. Dim yellow light and a strange smell—a mixture of wood smoke and an indescribable scent of decay—seeped out from the gap.
There was no lock on the door hinge, not even a proper latch.
Leon S. Kennedy gently pushed the wooden door inward with the muzzle of his gun.
"Creak—"
A long, piercing sound of friction seemed exceptionally clear in this deathly silent village.
The scene inside the house was fully presented before their eyes.
It was very simple.
The four walls exposed wooden planks blackened by smoke and fire.
In the center of the room was a fireplace haphazardly built with rough earthen bricks. Flames licked several thick pieces of wood inside; it was the only light source in the room.
The flickering firelight cast shadows of several rusty farm tools hanging on the wall—sickles, pitchforks, axes—onto the floor, stretching them into hideous, twisted monster shapes.
An elderly man was squatting in front of the fireplace with his back to the door.
He wore a dark, coarse cloth top full of grease and holes, and his figure was hunched.
He was slowly stirring an iron pot hanging over the flames with a wooden spoon.
"Glug... glug..."
A thick, dark red broth bubbled in the pot, with several pieces of meat from an unknown animal floating within.
The scent of decay emanated from here, making one's stomach churn.
Hearing the sound of the door being pushed open, the man's movements paused for a moment.
He didn't look back immediately but remained in that squatting posture as if judging the source of the sound.
A few seconds later, he finally put down the wooden spoon. With an extremely slow motion like a rusted machine, he propped himself up by his knees, stood up bit by bit, and then turned his head.
It was a face eroded by time and weather like withered bark; deep wrinkles, like knife carvings, covered his forehead and the corners of his eyes.
His hair was sparse and greasy, and his beard was a tangled mess.
But what truly made Noah and Leon S. Kennedy's hearts turn cold were his eyes.
They were a pair of cloudy eyes in which almost no trace of human emotion could be seen.
No curiosity, no surprise, and no fear.
Only a nearly dull, beast-like emptiness.
The firelight danced in the depths of his eyes, but it failed to ignite any spark of life.
Leon S. Kennedy calmly returned his handgun to the holster at his waist and took two steps forward, trying to make his voice sound gentle and harmless.
"Sorry for coming in without your permission," he said in fluent Spanish, while taking out Ashley Graham's photo from his coat and handing it over.
"We mean no harm, we're just looking for someone. A missing girl, blonde hair, about this tall. Have you seen her?"
In the photo, Ashley Graham was smiling brightly. That vitality belonging to a young life formed a striking contrast with this gloomy and oppressive room.
The old man's gaze slowly moved from Leon S. Kennedy's face to the photo.
There seemed to be a slight ripple in those hollow eyes.
His lips quivered, and the muscles on his face began to twitch uncontrollably.
A 'he-he' sound, like air leaking, came from his throat.
Suddenly, his dull expression was instantly replaced by an extreme rage!
"¡Hijo de puta! ¡Largo de aquí!" (You son of a bitch! Get away from me!)
A raspy and sharp roar exploded from deep within his throat.
It wasn't a normal angry outburst; it was more like a curse filled with malice and hatred.
Sputter and spit sprayed into the air along with his roar.
Leon S. Kennedy's expression darkened.
He was proficient in Spanish, so he naturally understood this extremely vicious curse.
But that wasn't the main point that made things difficult.
The point was the groundless, irrational hostility erupting from this man.
"Let's go," Leon S. Kennedy whispered to Noah behind him, frowning, prepared to withdraw from this eerie place first and then reconsider.
The moment Leon S. Kennedy prepared to turn around, the old man's movements were a world away from his previous slow and sluggish manner!
Like an enraged beast, he spun around, snatched an axe used for chopping wood from beside the fireplace, and then with a stride, swung it down towards Leon S. Kennedy, who was closest to him!
Whoosh—!
The heavy axe blade cut through the air, and the firelight from the fireplace pulled a deadly orange-red trajectory across the cold surface of the axe!
Leon S. Kennedy instinctively leaned back, while his right hand already reached for the Matilda at his waist like a flash of lightning!
But someone was faster than him.
Noah had never let down his guard.
From the moment the old man turned around and stared at them with those abnormal eyes, he had already adjusted all the muscles in his body to a state where they could explode at any time.
At the instant the old man swung the axe.
Noah's body sank slightly, and his right leg snapped forward!
A simple and direct front kick accurately struck the chest of the old man charging forward with the axe!
Bang!
A dull, tooth-aching loud thud!
The rage on the old man's face froze.
His cloudy eyes bulged out suddenly.
The axe in his hand flew out, landing on the floor with a 'clang,' while his entire hunched body, like a ragdoll hit head-on by a speeding truck, left the ground and flew backward!
Boom!
The old man's body slammed heavily against the wooden wall behind him, letting out a loud crash.
The fragile wooden planks even bulged outward from the impact, letting out a groan of being overtaxed.
A clear 'crack' of a bone breaking was heard.
The old man slid down the wall to the ground, his head drooping onto his shoulder at a bizarre angle. His body twitched twice, and then he was completely lifeless.
Those eyes that were once full of fanaticism and emptiness now turned into a pool of dead water.
Silence returned to the room once more, leaving only the burning wood in the fireplace and the faint smell of blood spreading through the air.
Leon S. Kennedy slowly straightened up, his right hand still in a position to grip his gun.
He glanced at the corpse on the floor and then at Noah's calm face, letting out a breath of turbid air.
"Are the Villager here... all this hospitable?" He pulled the corner of his mouth in self-deprecation. "They even skipped the 'welcome'."
Noah did not respond to his joke.
He walked slowly to the corpse, knelt down, and his gaze landed on the old man's neck, which was tilted to the side.
Due to the broken cervical vertebrae, a section of stark white bone shard pierced through the skin on the side of the neck, exposed to the air. A few drops of dark red blood were slowly seeping out from the wound.
"Leon," Noah's voice was very low, "look there."
Hearing this, Leon S. Kennedy also walked over and knelt down.
With the help of the flickering firelight from the fireplace, he looked carefully in the direction Noah was pointing.
Right next to that white bone shard protruding from the skin, a tentacle thinner than a toothpick and with a faint flesh color was slowly... emerging from the mangled wound.
It trembled slightly in the air, as if testing, or as if breathing.
That wasn't muscle tissue, not a nerve, and certainly not a blood vessel.
That was a living... thing, independently parasitic within the human body.
Leon S. Kennedy's expression completely changed the moment he saw that tentacle clearly.
In those blue eyes that always carried a hint of fatigue and cynicism, there was now only a look he himself was all too familiar with—a mixture of shock and disgust.
He thought of those monsters infected by viruses he encountered in the South American rainforest, and he thought of the walking dead in Raccoon City.
But this thing before him was different.
It was smaller, more hidden, and appeared even more... sinister.
"It seems," Leon S. Kennedy slowly stood up, his voice dry, "we've really run into big trouble this time."
In this village, there probably isn't a single normal person left.
"Let's search first and see if there's any valuable intelligence." Noah stood up and looked around the simple and eerie wooden house.
Impulsiveness doesn't solve problems, and anger is of no use.
The most critical thing now was to figure out what the enemy actually was and where Ashley was being held.
The two of them quickly conducted a swift search of the small wooden house.
The results were disappointing and even more unsettling.
Other than a few basic pieces of furniture and farm tools, there were no personal items in the house.
No spare clothes, no letters, no photos, not even an old book.
It was as if the one living here wasn't a flesh-and-blood human with memories at all, but just a 'thing' maintaining the bare minimum of survival needs.
While Leon S. Kennedy was checking the cupboard, Noah noticed an old animal hide used as a floor covering.
One corner of the hide was curled up unnaturally, and the color of the wooden floor underneath was newer than the surrounding area.
He walked over and lifted the hide.
A trapdoor appeared before their eyes.
There was no handle on the door, only a small round hole.
Noah inserted his tactical knife into the round hole and pried upward forcefully. With a sound of wood grinding, the trapdoor was opened.
A thick stench, a mixture of earth, mold, and fresh blood, wafted out from the dark entrance below.
That smell of blood was a hundred times stronger than the one emanating from the wound on the old man's neck earlier.
The two of them looked at each other, both seeing the solemnity in each other's eyes.
Noah took a flashlight out of his tactical backpack, turned it on, and a beam of strong light shot into the darkness below.
Where the light beam reached was a flight of simple stone steps leading underground.
"I'll go first." Noah did not hesitate. He held the flashlight in his mouth and, with both hands holding his desert eagle, was the first to walk down the steps.
Leon S. Kennedy followed closely behind.
The space in the basement wasn't large; it was a typical cellar used in European countryside to store miscellaneous items.
The air was cold and damp. Various farm tools hung on the walls: rusty sickles, shovels, and a hook that looked like it was used for slaughtering livestock.
A few sacks were piled in the corner. It was unknown what was inside, but dark red stains had already seeped through the surface.
As the flashlight beam swept across, dried or semi-dried blood splatters could be seen everywhere on the floor and walls.
And that intense smell of blood was coming from behind a tightly closed wooden door at the deepest part of the basement.
That door looked very heavy. From the cracks in the door planks, it seemed that a dark red liquid was slowly dripping out, drop by drop.
The two of them stopped in unison, holding their guns, and slowly approached the wooden door that was emanating the aura of death.
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