“It’s hard to determine exactly how fast she’s moving, but based on the catkin’s words, she’ll reach the rabbitkin capital inside two days. If we continue on our current path, we’ll encounter her before she reaches it. If we go to the foxkin tribe, I can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to reach her in time, and if we don’t intercept her in time…” He let the words linger there.

“If we intercept her without knowing what we’re getting into, it’ll still work out the same way,” I responded.

“If she started there, it’s possible, no, likely, that everyone is dead. Right? If this is where Lady Death started, then this would have been ground zero for facing her wrath.” Their leader protested.

“You’re right,” I responded. “We might find nothing but long-dead bodies.”

I didn’t give him a counterargument. Even if there was nothing but dead bodies, I would still go. I had to see it for myself. I had to confirm it. I had to know if it was Miki. I didn’t want any more lives to be harmed, but I had my own way of doing things. The leader’s fierce predatory eyes matched my own. For a moment, the pair of us stood there staring at each other. He gave off a certain degree of pressure, his eyes like blades, but I didn’t flinch. My resolve had already been made. He looked away first.

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“We were ultimately ordered to follow your lead. I will go where you send us.”

I gave a nod. In animalkin terms, I had established myself as alpha of this pack. At the very least, their leader deferred to me on this. As for getting there in time, I still had the abilities of a Blue Mage. If I felt we couldn’t get there in time, then I would do what I had to do to stop Lady Death. However, call it instinct, but I had a feeling that I had to go to that foxkin village. I had to find out what happened.

We didn’t wait too much longer until we were riding out of the city. However, we were no longer following the path of Lady Death, but instead going to an area she hadn’t been in likely months. It was the village that Miki was born. It wasn’t the foxkin capital, but it was on the outskirts of Dioshin. It was a town nearly pushed out of the animalkin country, abandoned and forgotten.

It was only a half-day journey before we reached the village. As we drew closer, the frown on the leader’s face deepened. There was no one out on the street. He let out a bitter sigh. We had wasted half a day traveling, and this village was no different than any of the other villages. That was until we heard a door slam.

A man dodged into a door as soon as he saw us, closing it. A woman was walking nearby.

“Excuse…” One of the wolfkin tried to flag her down.

The woman quickened her pace, racing into an ally to avoid talking to us. The people here were very much alive, but it felt just as much like a ghost town as any of the other places we had visited. We had to get answers. The clock was ticking.