When Adrea woke up the next morning, it was due to being poked by Naviya. As she groggily opened her eyes, Naviya let her know that the guards had come by a few minutes ago and had requested that they get ready. They would be escorted to the refectory, where they would be allowed to have breakfast. Adrea acknowledged this and got her clothes on.

It was as she was finishing dressing up that she came to a sudden realization. She had not eaten anything the previous day, and yet not only had she not felt hungry at any point during the day, she still did not feel particularly inclined to eat anything. The first time that it had happened, she had brushed it off, but she had not been half-aware yesterday, unlike the previous time. She was probably going to have to ask Naviya about what had actually happened...

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, memories resurfaced. She remembered the teeth, the demon's black eyes, the inescapable pain, the bits of herself being strewn across Naviya's room, the teeth, the pain, her parents...

They're dead, I should be dead, the demons killed everyone, they are going to kill everyone...

Naviya appeared in front her.

"Big sister, everything is fine, we're safe."

That somehow brought her back to reality. The memories were still there, but they were muted.

"Yes, you're right."

I don't really want to ask, but maybe now is actually a good moment...

She hesitated for a second.

"No, I have to know. Please tell me what you did to make me live. I barely feel any hunger even though I have not eating in almost two days."

Naviya did not seem particularly agitated by the question. Rather, it felt as though she had suddenly achieved peace of mind, as she spoke in an almost monotone voice.

"After what happened, I did not have much time to save you. If I did not do anything you would not have survived, so I created a temporary body for you. Currently, almost everything below you heart works like my own body. This was the only solution that I had, but it is temporary. In about two years, you will be fully human again."

After saying this, she seemed to snap out of whatever had come over her, but just as she was about to say something, someone knocked on the door. A guard had come to accompany them to the refectory. Adrea answered in the affirmative, and a few moments later, they exited the room.

The route they took to reach the refectory had clearly been planned to avoid civilian areas. It consisted primarily of staircases going up and down the city's wall. As they reached the mid-sized building, Adrea realized that it actually very close to the guard tower where they had spent the previous day, but the route they took was probably about three time longer than the direct one. It was also a very dull route, with only a couple of places where she could look outside.

Breakfast was also quite bland, consisting of a sour vegetable soup with bread. Once again, as soon as she began to eat Adrea was immediately assaulted by a sense of hunger, as her body suddenly remembered that it needed food to survive, but she managed to keep herself under control and eat at a regular pace. After that, she was still feeling ravenous and after explaining to the cooking staff that she had not eaten the day before, she got a one-time exception to have a second serving. Apparently, a rules of "one serving per person" had been introduced the day before due to expected shortages in the coming days. When she returned to her table, she noticed that indeed, quite a few of the guards seemed to be quite irritated. She even managed to overhear a few complaining about the new policy.

After they had eaten, Adrea asked their chaperone if it would be acceptable if they ventured onto the walls to get a better view of the city and its surroundings. The guard, whose name was Bert, had shrugged and stated that it did not matter to him as long as he knew where they were.

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They spent the next hours walking around the city along its walls. Bert was not particularly talkative, but he at least explained the general layout of the city to them. Meunheil was not particularly big, as far as provincial capitals went, with only about 20 to 30 thousand inhabitants, but it was still very impressive to Adrea. The city was separated into three parts called, rather unimaginatively inner, middle, and outer city, and were separated by the inner and outer walls, respectively. The outer city was actually outside of the city walls and was, apparently in the process of being evacuated. Bert was one of only a handful of guard that had been made aware of the exact nature of the thread, but it was clear to Adrea that he did not actually believe that it was real, so the way he explained the situation was quite irritating. She avoided speaking to the man for the rest of the tour, which he only seemed to appreciate, and as a result did not learn much about the city.

When they finally got back to the guard tower a bit after noon, Adrea had cooled down a bit and felt a bit of regret at not having asked some more questions. On the other hand, she did not like the guard, so she did not feel particularly bad about it. Being locked in the room once again, she decided to keep practicing her sword forms. She could not really tell if she was improving in any way, but at least in gave her something to do. At some point, she noticed that Naviya was a bit more quiet than usual, but when prompted, her younger sister simply stated that she was a bit tired after visiting the city. Considering what she knew, this did not make a lot of sense to Adrea, but she was certain that if it was something important, her sister would have told her, so she did not pry. Towards the end of the day, they were once again called out of the room, this time by a woman.

"I am sub-commander Yilse Nordraad, Tandraaf and superior to the blockhead that had to babysit you this morning."

She clearly was not particularly happy at the posting either.

"I have come to escort you to dinner, after which we will head to the baths. Also, I still don't know why Marteryaan gave you Griyete's room, but make sure you keep it clean."

"Yes, ma'am."

Do all the guards hate me?

They made their way to the refectory once again, using the same needlessly long path. On the way there, Yilse told them that they would be in her team's custody until demons reached the city walls. She briefly explained the hierarchy of the Meunheil guard, in which she was apparently high-ranked, and she made it very obvious that although she understood the captain's thought process, she was not happy with the consequences falling on her. She was convinced that having to look after two girls was below her. Any hope for conversation conversation ended with that.

Dinner consisted of grilled vegetables, of a type that Adrea had not yet seen before, with salmon and bread. It was a bit more filling that breakfast, and this time Adrea felt moderately full by the end of it. This gave her hope that she would be able to continue living a normal life.

Visiting the guards' communal baths was a novel experience. Back at home, they had mostly used a wooden bathtub or the river when it was warm enough, since the village was too small to accommodate public baths. Although Adrea had been quite enthusiastic at the idea in the beginning, this quickly faded as she had to endure Yilse's scornful face while older woman explained to her how she should store her clothes, that she had to wash herself before entering the bath itself, and that there was apparently a difference between hair soap and body soap. It was quite embarrassing, but thankfully the baths were mostly empty. She suspected that this was due to the baths being gender-specific and there not being many women who worked as guards, but considering her current situation, she could not really bring herself to ask more questions. Having her mood soured, she could not really enjoy the experience, and they left relatively quickly.

Back at the tower, once they were finally alone and about to go to sleep, Adrea suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to ask Naviya about what had happened to her body. This seemed to upset her younger sister.

"I'm really sorry that I did this to you. I'm trying my best to find a way to accelerate the process of restoring your body, but no matter what I try, it does not seem to work."

"It's okay, don't worry about it."

"But you want to be human right? It's my fault that you're like this! It seems like I messed up somehow, and ..."

"There, there, I'm okay. It's only a small thing, and it's not even permanent. You don't have to blame yourself so much."

At some point, her sister's face had reverted to the inexpressive appearance it had when she was distressed. That had been enough of a clue for Adrea to understand just how bad she must have been feeling.

"I'm just curious about it. I don't really blame you for it. You saved me."

Naviya's face regained some of its color.

"I tried my best to replicate the appearence, weight, and functions of your body. It should not have felt any different. But I did something wrong. I don't know what else I did wrong..."

It took a while before Adrea managed to console her sister. By that point, she was too tired to do anything but sleep.