"Of course!"

Nicola nodded and asked Cyra, "Have you got everything ready? If there's no problem, let's go to the city gate now to check out the situation!"

"I didn't have anything to prepare since I just crashed last night. But are you sure we can enter the city now?"

Cyra shrugged and headed towards the carriage.

"If we're just going to try, there's no harm in it..."

According to our plan, if the gates of Makalan were still closed the next morning, we would have to bypass the city and take a longer detour.

Although the guards at the gates said this situation would continue until noon, the specifics still depended on how things developed overnight. And after what happened late last night, the outcome was really hard to predict.

Could there really have been a big fire?

Recalling the situation when Kurnel and I left, only the inn had started burning, although the flames spread quickly. But it didn't seem to have affected other buildings on the street. And there were already quite a lot of onlookers gathered, so there probably wouldn't be too much more damage...right?

Okay, honestly I wasn't sure either. I could only guess. Of course I definitely hoped there wouldn't be a big fire as the prophecy said, but after what happened with Blanche, if the predetermined future couldn't be changed, then the predicted fire would be unavoidable too, unless the prophet who made the prediction wasn't skillful enough and was wrong.

But the odds of that were way too low. And the facts proved that was indeed the case...

When the carriage returned to Makalan's west gate, we found that a large number of people had already started queuing up to enter the city.

"I heard that the big fire in the city last night happened as predicted. Some people saw it as the result of an angel fighting a monster, which caused nearly half of the buildings in the city to burn down. But fortunately, thanks to the early prophecy, everyone was extra vigilant, so casualties weren't too serious."

Carl came back after gathering information and suddenly looked deeply at us.

"So the prophecy came true. The lockdown has been lifted early and we can pass through!"

Could he have figured out our identities? I suddenly had this thought, but it probably wouldn't matter much even if exposed. Angels were quite rare, but unlike monsters, at least they didn't have negative reputations.

Come to think of it, the three of us had been chatting freely with little restraint throughout the journey. Although the carriage was quite soundproof, it was inevitable that some words could be leaked.

"So there really was a fire..."

Hearing Carl's words, Nicola raised her eyebrows at me. As for Cyra, she just looked confused, especially when she heard the word "angel", and glanced peculiarly at Nicola and me.

"Come clean, was it related to you two? Which one of you ran into the monster?"

"Well, it's more complicated than that..."

Facing her whispered questioning, I could only force a wry smile and briefly recounted what happened last night. Although Nicola was taken away by Blanche and didn't know what happened afterwards, I had already told her on the flight back.

"Is fate really so mystical?"

After hearing about Blanche's ending, Cyra sighed deeply even though she'd never met Blanche.

"I still think it's too far-fetched. You just didn't know she would become like that. If you'd known what would happen earlier, it could definitely have been avoided!"

"Don't oversimplify things. If you deliberately try to change fate, you might inadvertently bring about the very outcome you wanted to avoid!"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Seeing that she was still unconvinced, I couldn't help reminding her.

Think about what happened last night. When I heard the strange noise from the kitchen, I initially went to investigate with the intention of preventing the fire. But it ended up escalating into a battle with the monster. That was completely unexpected at the beginning.

On the contrary, if I had flown away directly without checking out the kitchen, I wouldn't have found out Nicola was taken away. Naturally Kurnel wouldn't have shown up to intercept me either, and there wouldn't have been a fire.

Similar situations were kind of like that movie I watched before, what was it called... "Monkey" something? But it would be hard to say - without Kurnel's fireballs, might there have been some other ignition source I simply couldn't foresee?

"You never know without trying, right?"

But Cyra still refused to accept my view. After all, there were endless possibilities for how things could unfold. It would be hard for me to believe it too if I hadn't personally experienced it.

It was still early morning. After some wait, it was soon our turn to enter the city queue.

Makalan wasn't a big city. Not far from the gate area, we could already see the effects of the fire - the rows of houses lining the streets were blackened from smoke, many spots were burned to reveal the wooden frames, and some were even lightly smoking, clearly having just been put out not long ago.

The deeper we went, the greater the fire damage. By the time the carriage reached the city center, most of the buildings along the streets had been reduced to piles of rubble.

"How could it become like this..."

Even though I was mentally prepared, looking at the scene before me, I still could hardly believe it. It hadn't been that long, yet the whole of Makalan had changed. When we left last night, only the inn had caught fire!

The carriage slowly moved along the city streets.

Suddenly, through the window I noticed a familiar figure that I had seen just last night - the inn owner! He was currently sitting alone in the middle of a vacant lot, listlessly gazing around. I quickly opened the small window of the carriage and instructed the coachman:

"Carl, please stop for a bit...yes, on the right side of the street there!"

"This place..."

Nicola also felt the surroundings were familiar. After thinking for a moment, she remembered.

"Isn't this where the inn was last night?"

The carriage route happened to pass by the street in front of the inn. Except now, almost none of the buildings on the right side were intact. As for where the two-story inn building stood, only a pile of ruins remained, and would be hard to recognize without careful examination.

"With it burned down like this, why are you still going down there?"

"To take a look! After all, the fire started because of my fight with Kurnel. Although I didn't set the fire, you and I were still involved. I want to check out the situation..."

I rolled my eyes at her matter-of-fact.

When I got out of the carriage, I realized the inn owner was sitting exactly where the backyard space was last night!

Unfortunately, the surrounding structures that had blocked the view were now collapsed rubble and debris.

"You...aren't you guests from last night?"

Seeing us, the inn owner froze for a second, but recognizing my and Nicola's faces, he soon remembered.

"No, wait! You're that angel! This is all your fault! The fight with the monster left things in this state!"

"Uh, sorry! I'll do my best to compensate you, but I came specially to understand what happened..."

Seeing his finger pointing at me furiously, I hurried to placate him.

Luckily there weren't many people around now, otherwise it could easily stir up another commotion.

"Why did this happen? Shouldn't it only have been the inn on fire? How did it spread to this extent?"

Although she didn't witness it herself, Nicola helped ask the questions I wanted to know.

"What other reason could there be? If not for that damn prophecy!"

The inn owner sighed and answered, though his attitude did soften slightly hearing that we were willing to pay damages.

"Although some skeptical people like me didn't believe the prophecy, most thought the fire was inevitable, so they didn't want to get involved. Some even prevented others from helping, saying our firefighting efforts might unintentionally catalyze the spread, so no one was willing to help in the end."

"This is..."

Hearing this, I couldn't help glancing back at Cyra. We had just discussed whether fate should be actively changed. But who could have imagined that it was those onlooking crowds' pessimistic inaction, believing the prophecy, that allowed things to unfold as predicted?

"That's why I said you can't just resign yourself to fate!"

As expected, hearing this, Cyra immediately looked vindicated. The owner's words did prove her argument.

"It must be because you didn't resist destiny firmly enough last night and weren't careful enough in your actions, that's why the prophecy came true! Have you seen Final Destination? Just because the main characters in it weren't prudent enough, they all died in the end!"

While she had a point, were things really that simple?

I still believed future Nicola's words over Cyra's. At least according to her, the future couldn't be changed without observers! But I still didn't understand what these so-called observers were. I hadn't heard anyone, human or angel, mention them at all.

And if a similar situation happened again, should I still try to put out fires? I felt more and more confused...

"Was this the origin site of the fire? It looks to have been an inn before..."

While we were discussing compensation with the inn owner, several people suddenly walked over, murmuring to each other as they looked around the ruins.

There were both men and women, dressed much more lavishly than ordinary people. One young girl among them was clearly visually impaired, a stick in hand tapping the ground.