Harem Sync: Divine Edition-Chapter 55: The Monochromatic Village
The cart swayed along the dirt road, bouncing with every stone and pothole.
"Master, can you stop for a moment... I think I’m going to die..."
"Master..."
"Master..."
It was Kira complaining from inside, his voice weak and nauseated.
"Can you be quiet..." Haru replied from the roof of the carriage where he was sitting, enjoying the fresh air.
The guard driving looked ahead and announced: "We’ve arrived!"
They arrived at the village.
Compared to Ashvale, this one was larger and more prosperous, with well-built houses of stone and wood, streets paved with neatly arranged stones, visible commerce with open shops and people passing by. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺
It was situated between mountains and valleys, surrounded by greenery on all sides, with a small river cutting through the center.
Since it had rained the previous night, the air was fresh, smelling of damp earth and vegetation, and everything seemed clean and beautiful in the morning light.
The cart entered the village and slowly made its way through it, following the main street.
But Haru and the others immediately noticed something strange.
The people wore clothes of similar colors, all in a shade of white that wasn’t that creamy white, like the color of condensed milk or light vanilla.
Men, women, children, the elderly, everyone wore variations of this same color. Some in lighter fabrics, others darker, but always within that narrow palette.
This made Haru’s group stand out absurdly. Haru in dark clothes, the guards in metallic gray armor. They were splashes of vibrant color in the middle of a monochromatic sea.
People couldn’t stop looking at them. Not with direct hostility, but with intense curiosity mixed with something that seemed... discomfort, strangeness.
Children pointed, adults whispered amongst themselves, some even stopping what they were doing to watch the cart pass.
"Has it always been like this?" Haru asked the guard driving, looking around with increasing attention.
"No..." the guard replied, equally confused, "...I arrived here when I was a young man, about fifteen years ago. People dressed normally, in various colors like anywhere else."
"Strange village," the other guard added quietly, his hand instinctively going to his sword hilt even without a visible threat.
Yukihime, in Isabela’s lap, looked out the window with wide, curious eyes. "Mom, why are they all wearing the same color clothes?"
Isabela looked around too, frowning. "I don’t know either..."
Kira didn’t care about the village, the people, anything; she just wanted that cart to stop immediately. She was half-stretched out the window with her head hanging down, her face green with nausea, paying no attention whatsoever to the strange scenery around her.
The cart continued to move slowly down the main street while dozens of eyes followed their every move.
"Let me ask where we can find the village blacksmith," said the guard who wasn’t driving, standing up in the cart.
He called out to someone in the street. "Good morning, do you know where we can find a good blacksmith?"
No one answered.
People simply kept walking as if he hadn’t said anything, glancing but not stopping.
The other guard smiled slightly. "Hey, at least smile and speak normally when you ask..."
The driver tried himself, stopping the cart and leaning over with a friendly smile and natural tone. "Excuse me, friend, do you know where the blacksmith’s shop is in the village?"
Nothing.
The man he had asked looked directly at him, hesitated, then turned and continued walking without saying a word.
Haru and the guard who had asked first exchanged glances and smiled slightly, "I told you so."
It was Haru’s turn to try. He climbed down from the roof of the cart and approached a woman passing by with a shopping basket.
"Excuse me, ma’am, blacksmith?"
She looked at him, then at the others in the cart, then back at him... and nothing. She kept walking as if he were invisible.
They kept walking and asking various different people, merchants, children, the elderly, but people either pretended they weren’t there or visibly restrained themselves, opening their mouths as if to speak but closing them again and quickly walking away.
"I can already see where this is going..." Haru said, climbing back onto the roof of the cart, looking around with that expression of someone who had seen this movie before.
He banged on the roof, making a noise. "Let’s go back to the road. I’ll go to the blacksmith in the capital or the village ahead."
"But I only know the blacksmith here..."
"Don’t you know the way to where he works?" Haru asked.
"No, I don’t know," the guard driving replied, clearly reluctant. "He might give a discount, I’ve done business with him before..."
"Discount..."
The word was tempting for Haru, very tempting considering how much money he had spent in Ashvale. But he looked around the village again, all the people dressed alike, the strange silence, the refusal to interact with strangers.
"Nah! This smells like another one of those adventures..." he shook his head firmly. "Let’s go back."
The guards, who definitely didn’t want any more adventures after the dungeon, agreed immediately, already turning the cart around.
Isabela also agreed from inside. "That’s fine by me."
Even Yukihime nodded. "I want to leave here, Papa. The people are strange..."
Kira remained hanging out the window, green with nausea, and only murmured something incomprehensible that was probably agreement as well.
The cart began to turn to leave the village, and Haru looked back one last time, seeing dozens of people standing in the streets watching them leave in absolute silence.
"Yes, definitely the right choice..." he thought.
"Master, can we stop for a moment?"
Haru sighed deeply.
"We’ll stop at the entrance. We need to stretch our legs anyway."
A few minutes later they were already there, on their way to the village’s exit gate, when they saw something blocking the path ahead.
Men in long, hooded cloaks, with masks covering their entire faces, half white, half with small golden inscriptions engraved in patterns that looked like text in an ancient language. The edges of the cloaks and hoods were all golden, gleaming faintly in the sunlight.
There were six of them, standing in formation, completely blocking the gate.
The one in front, who seemed to be the leader but wearing exactly the same clothes as the others, raised his hand in a clear "stop" signal.
The guards looked pale as they stared at them, their tension immediately noticeable to Haru.
"What’s going on?" he asked quietly, turning to them.
"The symbol on the raised hand... it’s sacred..." the veteran guard replied in a tense voice, sweat beading on his forehead.
"Sacred!?" Haru looked closer and saw the golden symbol engraved on the glove of the leader’s raised hand, a circle with three lines, forming a pattern he didn’t recognize. "Wow, this smells like an adventure..."
He sighed heavily, then jumped off the cart.
"I’ll go talk to them."
"Be careful, Sir Haru!" the guard called out worriedly.
Haru walked towards the hooded men, stopping about three meters away. The leader slowly lowered his hand and stared at Haru through the mask without saying a word, just observing in heavy silence.
"Greetings, gentlemen." Haru tried to sound diplomatic. "I don’t know what’s going on, but I think it’s probably a misunderstanding and..."
He had barely finished speaking when the leader made a quick movement and threw something to Haru, a small spherical crystal that fit in the palm of his hand.
Haru instinctively caught it, seizing it in mid-air without thinking.
"Hmm?"
As soon as the crystal touched the skin of Haru’s palm, it emitted a very strong glow, an intense golden light that exploded in all directions, so bright that it blinded everyone within a ten-meter radius.
"WHAT..."
In the blink of an eye, Haru was knocked unconscious. One of the hooded men had appeared behind him and delivered a precise blow to the back of his neck, instantly cutting off his consciousness.
He was placed face down on the ground while another applied handcuffs to his wrists, not ordinary iron, but metal engraved with faintly glowing runes.
```
[MANA SUPPRESSION ACTIVE]
[All magical abilities: SEALED]
[System functions: LIMITED]
[...]
```
"What the hell is this!?" Haru managed to murmur before his consciousness began to completely fade, feeling his mana being sucked from his veins as if it had been drained.
The leader knelt beside him, inclined his head slightly, and spoke in a deep, ritualistic voice:
"By the Light that Reveals, by the Truth that Judges, by the Order that Purifies..."
He paused.
"We caught a possible Anomalous."
Haru grew increasingly dizzy, his vision blurring at the edges, his body becoming too heavy to move, and then...
He passed out.
The last thing he heard before complete darkness was Isabela shouting his name from afar, and Kira roaring furiously, trying to get out of the cart.
Then nothing.
Haru woke up tied to a simple wooden chair, shirtless.
He was in a small, completely white circular room; walls, ceiling, floor, everything in a pure white color that hurt his eyes because it was so clean.
Large golden runes covered the walls in circular patterns that pulsed faintly with their own light, forming texts in a language he couldn’t read.
There was a figure standing in front of him, the leader from before, still wearing his mask and cloak, motionless as a statue.
"Where am I?!" Haru asked, trying to move, but there were golden ropes binding him from head to toe, tight enough to cut off circulation if he strained too much.
He felt constant pressure on his navel, as if something heavy had been placed exactly there, pushing inward.
The system notified:
```
[WARNING: External Suppression Detected]
[Spiritual entities under pressure]
[Survival mode: Activating]
Host mana being more consumed
```
```
[ALERT: Spirits inhibiting mana flow to survive]
[Diverting all energy to self-preservation]
[Effect: Apparent power reduction]
```
Haru’s right eye activated on its own, pupil dilating, sclera turning completely black, and it began to bleed slowly, drops running down his cheek like red tears.
```
[RANK SUPPRESSION ACTIVE]
[Current Rank: Lower Maetro 1]
[Suppressing Rank...]
[Duration: Unknown]
```
"What the hell..." Haru thought, processing all the notifications at once, trying to understand what was happening.
The hooded figure finally spoke, a deep voice echoing through the circular room:
"The possible Anomalous is awakening. Time to begin the Truth Tests."
The room expanded, not physically, but the space between Haru and the walls seemed to grow, the room becoming two, three times larger than before even without the walls moving, a spatial illusion that made his head ache just looking at it.
The leader raised his hand, runes on the walls glowed brighter, and declared:
"First Test: Identity."
