Upon his arrival to the town border he was greeted with a small gate around the size of a garage door. This place was where one would get in and out of the town and now it was his time to leave the town for the first time in his life through this very place.
"Reason for you leave?"
The guard asked Ash with a bored expression. Ash quickly pulled out the papers given to him by the church, and after checking everything the gates finally opened.
The moment the gates opened he was hit by a wave of hot air gushing in from the wasteland outside. This caught him by surprise as Ash didn't expect the barrier to also be keeping the desert heat out.
Having resolved himself he stepped out through the gates and was able to take a step outside.
The first thing he felt was his feet sinking in the sand and then his shoes promptly being filled with it.
'I should probably take these off'
Taking them off and stepping on the sand he could feel his feet burning, but it was at a passable level just a bit comfortable than having the shoes on.
'Atleast I have my socks on'
Being outside he started looking around searching for a large pillar which was meant to signal where the cemetary was.
After looking around for a bit he spotted it in the distance it was at a distance that he could cover in about 10-15 minutes. With no time to waste he started treking through the sand dunes towards his destination.
Soon as he arrived he could see what looked to be coffins laying all around the cemetery all of them looking to be placed there hurriedly with little concern for their placement. One would think that they would be running out of space by now with the way they were laid out, but there actually seemed to be enough space for many more such caskets to be placed.
Ash guessed it had something to do with the nature of the desert, but quickly stopped thinking about it as he realised his clock was ticking.
'I can understand why they would just place them here so quickly, the pressure can really be felt, even if not literally.'
He approached the middle of the cemetary a where the giant pillar was and in the middle of the pillar there was a small keyhole.
Quickly taking the key out and opening the compartment what welcomed him was a seemingly ordinary looking stone.
It didn't have any strange writting on it some ominous energy emitting from it it just looked like any stone one could find by the beach or pretty much anywhere.
In a sense this made the stone even more terrifying as one wouldn't even think to expect that such a thing could kill people in the span of a few hours.
Carefully picking up the stone Ash moved closer to examine it. At the orpanage he was told that he should be searching for cracks on the stone, or any other sign of scarring.
Looking at the stone Ash was dumbfounded.
'Umm aren't most stone kinda scarred and battered to begin with?'
But upon a closer look he was able to tell that the stone was probably fine, still he took a picture of it as instructed, and then quickly put it back in it's place.
Closing the compartment Ash was left with only one thought.
'This was super easy. Even easier than I expected, I thought it would take an hour atleast, but even accounting for travel time it seems I'll be able to wrap it up in about 40 minutes.'
Simply put it seems Ash had found his dream job; Cemetery Keeper.
With things being done Ash quickly left the area as despite everything he still had no intention of lingering in this place. Walking back to town to he could see something in the distance.
It was someone entering the town, and though it was somewhat far away from what he could tell it was someone unfamiliar.
'Someone from SCC? But..it's too early it has to be just some random traveller.'
Ash threw the word random traveller lighly as anyone travelling this wasteland alone was the furthest thing from a mere random traveller. The man that just entered had to either be a high level User or someone with a corporate background.
'Just what could someone like that be doing in the small town of Blackheart'
Blackheart wasn't really famous, it had decent ore deposits, but that's about all it had going for it, and even those mines were starting to run dry in recent years.
Figuring he would soon find out the identity of this mysterious traveller anyways, he decided to just focus on getting back to town.
Arriving in the town, he found himself no smarter, the guard wouldn't say anything and the people around town were seemingly too preoccupied with their own things to notice the stranger that had just entered the town.
'The church is bound to know something, guess I'll just go home, report the job as done and then ask around. At the very least that chatterbox is bound to know something.'
Arriving at the church to report his job as done. He was welcomed by a sight he wasn't expecting.
"Welcome great sir! It is of great honor to be in your presence!"
'What?'
The one speaking was Father Adam and the one he was talking to was the visitor Ash had been searching for. Just as Ash was about to question the situation he was spotted by Adam.
"Oh, Ash you are back. Can you wait outside a bit, I'll listen to your report after."
With the way things were looking Ash quickly realised that this visitor must have been quite the important person, still he couldn't supress his curiosity.
"Umm..who is thi..."
But before he could finish he saw the figure turn towards him, and what he saw made him question his life choices.
The man before him had no face, no it would be more accurate to say that his face was obstructed, but not by anything physical, it was like the man's face was unfinished. It gave the impression that even the man didn't know what his face looked like. The only decipherable feature of him was his mouth, but even that gave off an uncanny feeling. One thing was certain, the figure before him was bad news.
Noticing Ash's change in expression Adam was quick to ask.
"Is something wrong Ash? Did you see a ghost or something?"
Though normally he would have kept it to himself the shock of the situation didn't allow it and he unconsciously spoke.
"His...face..."
Adam realising the problem was quick to try and calm down the distressed Ash.
"Sir Floch's face is just scarred from the many subjugation missions he's been in, it's nothing to be that shocked about."
'Scars? No those aren't scars, whatever I'm seeing is different from what he's seeing. Whatever this thing is it's not human.'
Trying to hide his fear Ash quickly put himself together and tried to act as compossed as possible.
"I'm...sorry Sir...Floch it's just that I haven't seen people with scarred faces before, I hope you don't mind.
By the end of the sentence his speech has completely calmed down and though he was still in distress internally he was able to hide.
Then the figure who called himself Floch spoke up.
"No worries, I've gotten similiar reactions before, I know that some children aren't good with these things."
The tone he spoke with was tender and very calming, but as someone who has seen his true face Ash still couldn't find it in him to trust him. No, it actually further solidified his belief that whoever this was, was someone he should stay away from. He was reminded of the mermaids from stories that would lure people in with their singing, it felt like a way to lower people's guards.
"Well then, I'll be on my way...please have a pleasant conversation."
After excusing himself Ash left the church and headed for his cave as his sole place of comfort.
Arriving at the cave with nothing else to do Ash decided to escape reality the only way he could think of... sleeping.
...
Waking up he felt that a large amount of time has passed by. While it initially didn't bother him, as he started to become more aware of things he realised something.
'Wait, have I slept through lunch?'
This was a big problem, as their orphanage didn't have dinners, so with him having missed lunch, not only was he in for possible punishment, but he also had nothing to eat for the remainder of the day.
'I also completely forgot about the report.'
Clenching the tablet he used to make the pictures with, Ash realised that he had to get back ASAP. So with nothing to lose Ash headed back to the orphanage.