“We’re getting close to Aric. Once we get there, I’ll grab the horses from the house I left them at and we can continue on our journey.”

Cyril was a few steps ahead of Yuuki. The two had been walking since they left Sanum two nights prior. While both of their cloaks showed signs of struggle, Yuuki’s was in a far worse state. Most of it was shredded, with the entire right side of it being practically gone. Because of that, the bandages covering a wound on her right shoulder were clearly visible for all to see.

The monster that gave her the wound was being dragged on the ground behind her. A massive War Bird. It was a monster that was rarely seen near human civilization. Like Thornback Spiders, War Birds preferred to live with areas high in irradiation density. They got their names because they usually traveled in larger groups and would attack humans or demi-humans on sight.

During their travels that morning, the War Bird had appeared out of nowhere and attacked the traveling duo. Yuuki quickly dispatched the monster but was cut in return. Cyril’s healing magic quickly got rid of the physical wound, but Yuuki insisted on wrapping the area in bandages. For some reason she could not explain, her arm felt off. It was a weird sensation, almost like the arm itself was delayed by a few milliseconds in receiving her instructions for it.

“Got it. I’ll hang out around the town center, so just look for me there. I’ll make sure to pawn off this monster's corpse to anyone willing to take it.” There would be someone there who would buy the corpse off of Yuuki. The meat, while not great tasting, was still edible. Not to mention the extra materials that a dissection of the bird would wield. They would be useful to at least one person in the town.

It didn’t take much longer for an exquisite stone wall to come into view. Far too extravagant for a newly formed city-state, the wall stood out in the sea of trees all around them.

The guards standing in front of the entrance didn’t do anything to help Yuuki’s thoughts about the town's spending habits. The uniform they were wearing could barely be called leather. The weapons on their waists or in the hands were rusted and cracked. It seemed the city had spent all of its money on a wall rather than the guards who would actually protect it from attack.

“Halt! What’s your business in Aric?”

One of the poorly outfitted guards stopped Cyril and Yuuki as they approached. While the question was directed to Cyril, who was in front, the guard was eyeing the hooded Yuuki and the monster she was dragging with suspicion.

“We’re just passing through. We ran into this War Bird on our way here and felled it. Would you happen to know of a trader or tradesperson within your walls that would be willing to buy the corpse off of us?” Cyril sweetened his voice as he dropped the hood covering his face.

Two small racoon ears peered out from his short, flaxen hair. Pale skin and dark brown eyes contorted into what could only be described as a poor puppy face. The guard snorted as he saw Cyrils expression and moved to the side, letting them pass.

“Try Mr. Carnie. Ever since the kid healed him of his Irradiation Sickness, he’s been acting like the town trader. Gathers materials from those passing by and makes sure everyone in town gets what they need. His place is a little bit south of the Town Center. His wife sells flowers out of it so you shouldn’t miss it.”

Cyril thanked the guard and the two walked into the town. While they walked, Yuuki couldn’t stop thinking about what the guard said. “Ever since the kid healed him of his Irradiation Sickness.” Yuuki knew that Nic came from Aric and wondered if he was “the kid” the guard had mentioned. If it was, then that meant that Nic had been absorbing Irradiation for a time before he arrived in Sanum. Just how close had she been to Irradiation Sickness herself? For that matter, how close had Sarman and Sarah and Kiara been? And everyone else at the university?

“Hey, Yuukiiiii!”

Cyril was in Yuuki’s face, calling out her name. It took her a second to realize that he was trying to get her attention.

“Hmmm?”

“You go get that War Bird pawned off and I’ll get the horses, got it?”

“That was the plan already, wasn’t it?” Yuuki questioned why Cyril was asking something that they had already agreed upon before reaching the town.

“You were off in your own world so I was making sure you knew what you were doing!”

Without even waiting for a response, Cyril raced off towards a collection of buildings on the East side of the village. They easily dwarfed every other building in the town.

Taking note of her surroundings, Yuuki began looking for a building selling flowers. She hadn’t quite reached the town center yet so she first made sure to reach it. From there she found a main path leading south and walked down it. Eventually she saw a building with flowers out front and a massive sign hanging above the front porch.

“Carnie Flowers (and Trade Hub)” The second part was tacked onto the end of the sign, hanging out past the edge of the house. It seemed to have been added much later after the original was put up.

“He said to look for Mr. Carnie right?”

“Thanks for coming again!”

“No, thank you for the flowers. I’m sure Samuel and Wendy would’ve loved them.”

As Yuuki stood at the steps to the patio talking to herself, the door to the shop opened and two people walked out talking to each other. One was a Demi-Human like herself. Two floppy dog ears sat atop a head of long, graying brown hair. The clothes she was wearing looked self made, but they reminded Yuuki of the maids that lived in the Chapman estate.

The woman the Demi-Human was talking to was a normal Human with brown hair that ended just past her shoulders. When she turned to walk down the stairs, Yuuki came face to face with her.

Her breath caught itself in her throat.

The murky blue eyes the woman had were set in a face that Yuuki could only describe as eerily similar to a certain young boy she knew. The woman was wearing a black dress and held two bouquets of flowers in her arms. Yuuki could see a slight tinge of red within the woman’s eyes.

“Ummm… Excuse me…” The woman was trying to walk down the steps, but Yuuki was blocking her. When she realized that, Yuuki quickly stepped aside, pulling the corpse of the monster with her.

The Demi-Human eyed the monster corpse and sighed.

“You must be here for Dave right?”

“Umm… I was told by the guard at the gate to go to a Mr. Carnie in order to sell this monster corpse too.” Yuuki had no idea who Dave was. She had only gotten the man’s last name from the guard.

“Yea, that’s Dave. It’s his first name. Those guards really need to start giving people my husband’s first name as well.” The Demi-Human sighed as she yelled back into the building for her husband.

While she was doing that, the human woman looked between the monster's corpse and the sword on Yuuki’s back.

“Did you slay the monster?”

“Mhm.” Yuuki nodded to the woman. “It attacked while I was walking here from Sanum.”

“Sanum?!” The woman gave a startled shriek before realizing what she did and looking around nervously. When she saw that no one around them was looking at the pair, she leaned in and whispered to Yuuki. “Ummm… Do you know what happened there recently? I heard there was an attack…”

Yuuki sighed. Of course she knew what the woman was asking. Afterall, she had been very present at the fight itself.

“There was an attack by an ex-hunter. He was stopped by a trio of brave warriors and one foolish cat who didn’t know when to stop.”

The woman looked a bit sad after Yuuki gave her such a short explanation. She fidgeted a bit before asking Yuuki another question.

“Did the attack… involve irradiation…?”

Yuuki didn’t know how to answer the question. Just the fact that the woman knew about Irradiation, mixed with her similarities to Nic physically, meant that she most likely knew everything already. She was fishing for confirmation, and Yuuki didn’t know if she should’ve given it.

“It… did… But even that was taken care of by one of those brave warriors. So it shouldn’t be a problem going forward.” The woman sighed as she heard Yuuki’s statement and gave her a small smile.

“Thank you for telling me… No one has been willing to talk about it, so I’m glad to know what actually happened.”

As she was talking, another Demi-Person walked out of the house. Like the woman, he had two dog ears perched atop a head of graying brown hair. His own clothes looked far more refined, similar to traders who stayed in one spot for business. As he walked down the steps, he was eyeing the monster corpse that Yuuki had.

After hearing him coming, the human woman bowed her head to Yuuki and took a few steps back, letting the new demi-human arrive onto the street.

“So, that corpse for me, miss?”

His voice was completely different from what Yuuki had been expecting. While she had been expecting a deeper voice she commonly found older men to have, this demi-human was easily a high tenor still.

Yuuki nodded and held the end of the bird's feet out towards the demi-human.

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“I don’t really know what they are worth so anything you are willing to offer will work for me.”

The man looked at the monster for a second before reaching one of his hands into a pocket. Three silver coins clinked in his hand as he held them out for Yuuki.

“It’s a bit higher than normal rate for a War Bird. Since the death blow was clean, I’m willing to offer this since I can probably get more material out of the monster.”

Yuuki quickly took the 3 coins as the man took the War Bird. While she watched as the man slung the bird nearly as big as her over his shoulder like it was nothing, she rubbed her injured shoulder. She’d noticed it before, but she had lost some strength in that arm after the attack. She hadn’t been dragging the War Bird behind her for no reason. The man walked off to the back of the house.

As he left, it seemed like the human woman was going to say something else to Yuuki but the sound of horses hooves clanging against the stone street cut her off. Cyril came riding by on a horse with another one in tow behind him.

“Figured you were still down here. It’s time for us to go.” He motioned for Yuuki to get on the extra horse with his head.

Yuuki gave the human woman a small bow of her head before turning to get on the horse. She quickly bounded herself up onto its back, the hood of her cloak finally falling off while she did. Her cat ears wiggled in their newfound freedom.

Yuuki felt something in her chest. She looked back at the human and sighed. She wasn’t sure if this was the right thing for her to do, but she felt she had to do it.

“Oh, my name is Yuuki. Nice to meet you.”

The woman looked at Yuuki, surprised. She fumbled with her words a bit before finally responding.

“My name is Kayla. Kayla Healstry.”

Yuuki had seen it from the moment the woman’s face had become visible. Hearing the name was just confirmation for her. As Cyril and Yuuki left Aric on horseback through the southern gate, Yuuki thought about the boy she had spent so long tutoring in the art of the sword.

“Nic, your mom still worries about you…” She whispered to herself as the horses picked up speed. Cyril was none the wiser to what she was thinking about as he led the way.

Compared to walking, riding on horseback was much quicker. While it had taken them two days to travel on foot from Sanum to Aric, they were able to cover the same distance in about two thirds of a day. It only took two and a half days for a large castle to come into view. The two were on the other side of the forest that Aric lay in.

Contrary to Aric, the rad-town in front of Yuuki was much larger. It easily dwarfed the budding city-state by three or four times in land area alone. Like Aric, there was a large wall surrounding the entirety of the city. The wall was broken down, clearly showing its age. If a force of combatants tried to overrun the town, it would most likely not hold in the end.

“We’re here.” Cyril came to a stop a few hundred Mer away from the front gates to the city. Yuuki had her horse come to a stop beside him.

“This is it?”

“Mhm.” Cyril nodded. “The officials in Sanum call it S-086.”

“S-086?” Yuuki was familiar with the naming scheme. It was the same naming scheme that all rad-towns got. The first letter denoted the City-State or Nation in charge of watching over the rad-town. In this case, the “S” stood for “Sanum”. The numbers that follow designate the placement in time that the rad-town was formed in. Being number “086” meant that 85 other rad-towns were being watched by Sanum before this one.

“It’s a bland naming scheme. So we here in the rad-town have given it a name of our own.” Cyril kept talking about the city.

“What’s that name?” Yuuki was genuinely curious. She wasn’t sure if any other rad-towns gave themselves names for identification purposes.

“Crystalia.”

“Crystalia? That’s… an interesting name.” While Yuuki had never heard the word before, the inclusion of “crystal” within it led her to believe that it was chosen because they were important to the city somehow.

“You’ll understand why we named it that soon.”

With a light tap of his foot, Cyril lurched his horse forward to the entrance to the city. Yuuki followed behind, watching as figures began to pop up across the top of the town wall. They were far enough away that Yuuki couldn’t make out any noticeable details. They were probably scouts, and as such she wouldn’t be surprised if they had some sort of weapons on them.

As they grew closer, Yuuki heard a short from atop the wall. In an instant, the gate to the city was lowered.

“Glad to have you back, Commander Cyril! Seems your little trip was successful?” As the two riders passed through the gates, a demi-human ran up to Cyril and gave him a small salute as he spoke.

The newcomer had a pair of cat ears just like Yuuki’s sitting atop his head. His brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail and a long scar cut through his face, barely passing the light green eyes that were bouncing between Cyril and the hooded Yuuki.

“Yes it did. Has anything else happened here since I’ve been gone?” Cyril pulled his hood fully down and let his ears wiggle in the air as he talked. A small gesture of his hand towards Yuuki let her know that she could take her hood off as well.

Yuuki tuned out the conversation that the two of them were holding out as she got off the horse that Cyril had been lending her. As her feet hit the ground another person, this time a human with short black hair, came up and took the reins from Yuuki. The person then led the horse over to a stable nearby.

It didn’t take long for Cyril to finish talking with the Cat-Person. As he was leaving, the Cat-Person gave Yuuki a slight nod before heading back into an entrance into the wall surrounding the city.

“Come on, let’s start heading towards the castle.” Cyril began walking down what seemed like a main road. Shops lined the length of it, and as they walked through, people began poking their heads out of the doors. Once they saw the two people walking by, many seemed to recognize Cyril. It seemed that his presence told them that all was safe.

“Commander huh? It seems like the people of this city put a lot of trust in you.” As Yuuki talked, the street gradually filled.

There was a good mix of demi-humans, both members of the Beast Tribes and Elves, and regular humans. Yuuki counted a total of 17 different Beast of Elven tribe members.

“I guess that’s how people see me. I’m technically not a part of the defense force for this town. I’m actually… well I guess you could say that I’m the boss of the bosses of that defense force.” Cyril scratched his head as he tried to explain his positioning.

Yet the way he described it only garnered him a confused tilted head in response.

“Hmmm… In simpler terms, I’m a part of the administration team for this whole town. If I was to equate it to the government in Sanum, I'd be like one of their senators. Except that I actually do things around the city instead of sitting in a room or two all day debating others.”

The end of Cyrils comment cast the government of the city Yuuki had called home for so long in a bad light.

Yuuki couldn’t rebuke him. He was right. Aside from a few of the senators, Mr. Chapman was one of those few senators, most sat around and did nothing but debate all day. They rarely made appearances in the city that they were supposed to lead.

“I… see…”

A small Demi-Human child ran up to the two of them and hugged Cyril’s leg. Like Cyril he was a part of the Raccoon tribe. In fact, he looked like a mini-Cyril. There were a few differences, but they really were quite similar to each other.

When Cyril looked down to see what had latched itself onto him, a smile formed on his face. He reached down and patted the young demi-human on the head, garnering a small chuckle from the boy.

“Hee-hee-hee! Uncle Cyril! You’re back!” Hearing that the two were related made Yuuki give a small sigh of understanding. The image of a young boy in the clothes of her homeland flashed in Yuuki’s head.

She shook the image away and was left with a lingering feeling in her heart.

Yuuki left her family long ago.

“Who’re you, Miss?”

Yuuki’s eyes refocused on the boy. He had moved away from Cyril and was standing in front of Yuuki.

She looked over at Cyril, who simply gave her a smile and nodded to the boy.

It’s fine to tell him.

“Well…” Yuuki squatted and found herself face to face with the young child. She gave him a warm smile as she answered. “My name is Yuuki. I’m here because your Uncle here asked me to come.”

The boy’s eyes lit up as Yuuki introduced herself. He looked at her face, then behind her and gawked at something.

“That’s a sword on your back! Are you an adventurer!?” Yuuki knew of adventurers. They traveled between nations and city-states, culling monsters that were near towns. She heard that many rad-towns viewed the ones that saved them as heroes. Supposedly, they always wore battle-worn gear and prominently showed their weapons.

Given that description, Yuuki looked down at her own clothes and realized that she looked the part quite well at that point in time.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not.” Yuuki shook her head while answering the kid. Seeing his face grow sad as she answered, she tried to think of a way to make herself sound cool still. “You see I’m actually a… knight from a far off land!”

“A knight? And what far off land?”

If anything, the statement seemed to get the kids attention. He was more curious now than completely happy like he was before.

“Mhm. A knight is like… the guards that watch this town. I’m like them in a sense. As for the land I’m from…” Yuuki pulled the sword off of her back and showed the curved blade to the boy. He stared at it in awe. “There’s this island nation far to the East of here. It’s named Kyoku. That’s where I’m from. We use special blades like this one there.”

The boy went to reach out to touch the blade but pulled back at the last second.

“It’s fine, you can touch it.”

The boy looked at Yuuki surprised. It seemed he didn’t realize that his emotions were plastered on his face yet.

With Yuuki’s permission the boy gently put one of his fingers on the flat of the blade. Once he knew it was safe he gently swept his finger across it, giggling to himself as he did. After a few times, the boy finally pulled his hand away from the sword and looked at Yuuki’s face again.

“Miss, if you’re a knight… Are you here to help defend the city against the bad guys that are coming?”

“Huh?”

“Felix, where did you hear that?”

Yuuki responded to the question with confusion while Cyril panicked as he tried to find out how the kid had learned of the attack.

“Mom and dad were talking about it after dinner one night… Am I not supposed to say anything?”

The kid, Felix as Cyril called him, started to shake slightly as he looked between Yuuki and Cyril.

The kid was scared.

Scared of doing something wrong and making the adults mad at him.

Yuuki knew that fear.

She patted the top of his head. As she did, Felix’s ears pouted down.

“It’s alright. We’re not mad at you. It was just surprising to see you already know about that.”

“Really?”

Yuuki nodded.

“Now I need you to do something for me, Felix.”

“What’s that?”

Yuuki sharply inhaled and sharpened her gaze on the boy's eyes. She knew the fear he had been feeling. But she also knew that Cyril seemed to be hiding the truth from the general public in the town.

She had first tried to lessen the fear, but now she had to be strict.

“You can’t speak on this again to anyone but your Uncle and I, got it?” Felix visibly gulped as sweat began to form on his forehead. He nodded viciously. “And when the day of the attack comes, promise me you’ll hide? As well as you can so that no one, not even your uncle or I, can find you. Can you do that for me?”

Felix nodded again.

Yuuki looked up at Cyril to find a sad smile on his face. She stood up, patting Felix on the head again.

“What’s that look for?”

“Nothing. Felix, go ahead and head back to your parents.”

Felix turned to his uncle and nodded before running off. Yuuki hadn’t heard where his parents were at the beginning of their conversation, but Cyril seemed to know as he smiled at the back of his nephew.

“Seriously, what was that look for?”

Yuuki pouted as they began walking through the town again. She wanted to know what the look was for. Seeing her face, Cyril began to laugh which only caused Yuuki’s face to darken more.

“Sorry! Sorry! It’s just that you took my place too fast. But bravo for saying what you did to Felix. Thanks for that.”

The two continued down the main road. It took them a while, considering how large the town was, but they eventually made it to the castle gates. The guards let Cyril and Yuuki in without any fuss thanks to Cyril’s position in the city.

As Yuuki looked at the gates, she hesitated. Once she took a step in, her path for the next few weeks would be set in stone. There was no going back. Not when THAT person was involved.