Three figures walked through the decimated town. Ash and flames swirled around them, but with their spells, they didn't care. The broken frames and shattered walls of the once-lively town was a stark contrast to how it usually looked—bustling crowds, dozens of street vendors, merchants, adventurers, and charlatans selling their wares.

  All gone.

  The whole place was as silent as a desecrated battlefield.

  The only thing that hinted at a town ever existing here was a fallen sign, reading "WELCOME TO LIGHTFALL!", but even that was swept away as one of the three crushed it under his boot.

  Brandishing a sort of hand cannon, the damned juggernaut fired at the skeletal remains of a crumbling house. The projectile faced little resistance as the whole thing fell to dust. "They're all gone? So fast?" He snorted. "I was hoping for a little action. I hate clean-up duty!" He was about to fire off another shot at another house, but a hand stopped him.

  "Don't fire when there's no enemies." Another figure appeared, stepping out of the ash. "You might hit a downed civilian." Her cloak billowed rather ominously in the wind.

  "Ahaha! We all know the Recovery System in this place is bullcrap! If their house is gone they're better off dead." The man with the gun pulled away, but he didn't try to fire again. "You still casting that divination spell?"

  "Yes. No survivors, as of yet."

  "As of ever."

  "Could you two shut up?" A boulder came flying over their head and landed with a minor shockwave beside them. A moment later, the source of the rock came floating up - a man with several smaller pieces of debris floating around it. "I hate it when I have to move stuff and listen to you two."

  "Says the Gravity user who got delegated to Search and Rescue." The man with the gun huffed. "Can't you two see? This isn't a rescue mission. This is a body-count job. Let's just flatten the place and be done with it. Might save the Earth users some energy." In a small flash of light, his gun switched from a hand cannon to a grenade launcher. "I bought a few scatter bomb shells with me today. Was hopin' to use them against the damn Villain, but they'll do just as well in clearing the place out."

  "Must you always be so brash?" The lady's eyes glowed blue in the shadow of her cloak as she cast another spell. There might be people alive here. You never know."

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  "Alive? No civilian can stay alive from an attack from Tyrinth! Especially now that some shady third party is backing him," he huffed. "We don't even know this place was attacked in the first place! No outpost, no heroes, no nothing was here!"

  The Gravity user turned around. "Guys-"

  "Oh yeah?" The lady ignored him. "What about Deathend? He was sent running with his polymorphed tail between his legs after the Tier 5's arrived!"

  "Hey, stop-"

  "Oh, you know how rare that is! It was a fluke that they were even in the city at that time-"

  "STOP!" The hovering man sent a spray of dust across the two bickering people. "I found someone."

  The two of them stopped to look over in the direction in which their debris-clearer pointed. At first, the fog blocked their view. But upon looking closer, they saw the crumbled remains of another house. In front of it was... The bodies of a family.

  The diviner quickly leaped forward to take a closer look. There were four: A middle-aged man and woman, a younger male, and a small girl, all resting peacefully in the ash. Twirling a spell in her hands, she passed it over the victims - before stopping and hanging her head. "They're gone."

  They all paused for a moment. Even the one holding the grenade launcher stopped. "Let's go."

  There was no argument.

  Nodding, the lady pulled the cowl of her cloak over her head and began to walk away. But just before she could begin the walk back to their base...

  "Wait." She looked at the runes hovering in front of her. They were glowing yellow, not blue.

  She turned back to the remains of the house. "There's someone else."

  Suddenly invigorated with a tiny spark of hope, they rushed back to the house and began searching.

  "Don't blow them up!" Called the gravity user.

  "Don't crush them!" Returned the gunslinger.

  Even with the gravity and divination magic, their progress proved to be painfully slow. But soon enough, throwing away another plank of wood, there appeared a body under the mess.

  "Found them!"

  The heroes gathered around the body. It was a teenage boy.

  But that wasn't the strangest part.

  Even though the entire house had fallen around him, not a single scratch could be seen on his skin. Around him, there wasn't a single broken stone or trashed block of rubble. Almost as if it was avoiding him.

  The diviner cast a quick spell and sighed with relief. "He's stable, thank God. How on Earth did he survive?"

  The gunslinger stood up. "I dunno, but he's got to be the luckiest kid in the world."

  "So it may seem. Any magic type?" Asked the hovering man.

  "Let me look..." She cast yet another spell, one for detecting magic, and stopped.

  The aura of the kid was... Strange. Storm magic? She thought. No, those are quite distinct... Air? But it looks so dark... Ink? No, they're only in rich places... She cocked her head. "I can't figure out what type. He's a magician, but I've never seen an aura like this one before. It's pretty dang weak, too." She took another look, before shaking her head. "Nope."

  The gunslinger stared incredulously. "What do you mean you 'don't know'? You have every magic type memorized! You even remember that wet dirt type!"

  "Mud. And yes, I do. Which makes this even weirder." She got up. "We should take him back to base and run a proper spell on him.

  Nodding, they collected the strange kid and walked into the smoke.