Chapter 393: Luan Wants Answer (2)

Roxanna knew that returning to the crime scene as soon as possible was important.

If there were any clues left behind, it would be better to find them before the wind, rain, or other demon beasts destroyed them.

However, she was also afraid that something terrible might happen to Luan if they rushed into the forest while he was still exhausted and confused.

Even so, once Luan was finally asleep, she asked Zeir and Calen to search the forest again.

"Please look around the place where you found the demon beasts," Roxanna told them. "There might be something you missed earlier. Anything strange, even if it seems unimportant, bring it back."

Zeir nodded without asking any questions, while Calen glanced toward the hut where Luan was sleeping.

"You think someone did something to him?" Calen asked.

"I don’t know," Roxanna admitted. "But Luan couldn’t remember anything, and that worries me. I just want to know if there’s anything in the forest that can explain what happened to him.

Calen nodded, and soon, the two of them left the settlement.

This time, Zeir and Calen searched much more carefully. Instead of only following the trail of dead demon beasts, they checked the ground, the trees, and even the bushes along the path Luan seemed to have taken the night before.

There was certainly no shortage of evidence that Luan had passed through the area.

Blood still stained the ground in several places, while broken branches and deep claw marks covered some of the trees.

The bodies of the demon beasts were scattered farther into the forest, making it clear that Luan had continued moving even after killing the first few creatures.

However, none of it explained why he had done it.

Calen crouched beside another patch of dried blood and looked around. "There’s nothing here."

Zeir did not answer immediately. His eyes slowly moved across the ground until something beneath a nearby bush caught his attention.

He walked toward it and pushed aside several leaves with his foot.

There was a small black stone underneath them.

At first glance, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary piece of dark rock, but when Zeir picked it up, he immediately noticed how smooth its surface was. It was obsidian, and there was a strange symbol carved into one side.

Three deep lines crossed its surface like claw marks. Zeir stared at the symbol for a few seconds and spoke, "Calen."

Calen immediately came over. "What did you find?"

Zeir held out the stone for him to see.

Calen frowned. "A rock?"

"Look closer." Zeir brought the stone closer to Calen so he could see the marks carved into its dark surface. "Don’t you remember? Luan gave Roxanna something like this before. An obsidian stone with claw marks. It was his wedding gift to her."

Calen stared at the stone again, this time paying more attention to the three claw marks carved into it.

For a moment, he could not remember what Zeir was talking about. Then the memory finally came back to him. He remembered the day they had each given Roxanna their wedding gifts.

"Oh, right. I remember now." Calen’s expression quickly turned serious. "But our wife always carries the things we gave her whenever she leaves the settlement. She keeps Luan’s obsidian stone and Cyrus’s feather together on her belt."

Zeir fell silent at those words.

If Roxanna still had the obsidian stone Luan had given her, then the one in his hand could not be the same stone.

Which meant there was another one.

Calen seemed to realize the same thing because his eyes slowly returned to the stone in Zeir’s palm.

"Then..." he murmured. "Where did this one come from?"

"Who knows?" Zeir shrugged. "We have to bring it back to him."

After all, Luan had once explained that in his tribe, the males would give this kind of stone to their females. There was a good chance that the obsidian stone belonged to another member of his old tribe.

If that was true, then its presence here was even stranger.

As far as they knew, Luan had not seen another member of his tribe in a very long time.

He had never mentioned anyone else living near the Vixeria Tribe either, so finding something connected to his people in the middle of the forest could not simply be ignored.

"Do you think someone from his tribe was here?" Calen asked.

"Maybe." Zeir turned the stone over in his hand, studying it one last time before slipping it into the small pouch hanging from his waist. "Luan might recognize the claw marks."

Calen glanced around the forest again. Suddenly, the trees surrounding them felt much more suspicious than they had a few moments ago.

"If someone from his tribe really came here, could they be the reason Luan disappeared last night?" he asked.

Zeir sighed. "That’s what we need to find out."

He looked down at the ground and carefully searched the area around where he had found the stone. Calen did the same, pushing aside leaves and checking behind the nearby bushes in case there was something else hidden there.

However, no matter how carefully they searched, they found nothing else that seemed unusual.

Eventually, Zeir straightened his back. "There’s nothing else. Let’s go back."

Calen nodded, and the two of them made their way back toward the settlement.

By the time they returned, several hours had passed since Luan had gone to sleep. Roxanna was sitting outside the hut, waiting for him to wake up, when she noticed them approaching.

She immediately stood. "Did you find anything?"

"Only one thing." Zeir reached into the pouch at his waist and pulled out the obsidian stone. "We found this near the place where Luan killed the demon beasts."

Roxanna’s eyes widened the moment she saw it.

Her hand moved instinctively toward her belt. She let out a sigh of relief when she found that the obsidian stone Luan had given her was still there, tied securely beside Cyrus’s feather.

[It really does look like Luan’s stone.]

Roxanna reached out and took the one Zeir had found. She placed it beside her own stone and carefully compared the two.

They were not exactly the same. The shape was slightly different, and the claw marks carved into them were not completely identical either. However, there was no mistaking how similar they were.

"Where exactly did you find this?" she asked.

"Under some leaves, not far from the blood trail," Zeir explained. "It could have been there for a while, but considering what happened to Luan last night, I don’t think we should assume that."