As they approached where Ronny thought Enzi would be, he decided to give them a warning, “Oh, by the way, I’m travelling with a companion. He’s a Demon.”

One of the group members responded, “A what? Sorry, I think I misheard you.”

“A Demon. I realize you guys probably dislike Demons, but in all honesty, that’s not my problem... And if you’re wondering, it’s too late to run away now.”

They were too scared of him to try anything.

Ronny called out to Enzi, and a little while later, he came out of a store with jewels in hand. Upon seeing Ronny and the clearly terrified people standing behind him, the Demon made his way over, “These are the guides?”

“Yeah. They should be able to help. Give them some food.”

“Sure,” he reached into the knapsack and fumbled around in it for a while. Eventually, he managed to dig out some bread, “Here.” Ronny took the loafs from his hands and gave them to their helpers.

“Alright people, what are some of this area’s biggest landmarks? Have any of you seen big fires in the past few days?”

The young woman answered, “Now that you mention it, I remember there being a lot of smoke coming from the City Hall a few days ago…”

She didn’t get to finish. Ronny cut her off, “Take us to the City Hall.”

“Uh, okay…” He was too decisive for her liking. She took started leading the group in its direction. It turned out that the Town Hall was located directly at the city’s center. Finding it was easy.

The building was a shadow of what it once was, but the remains were still more grand than anything surrounding it. There was an overgrown lawn surrounding it on all sides, and more than a few fallen statues buried in the grass. Broken stained-glass windows decorated the once great hall’s façade.

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Feeling good about his chances, Ronny dismissed the group, “Alright, thanks for your help. You guys can leave now. We’ll get other people to help us if this turns out to a dud.”

The group left as quickly as they could.

“This looks promising.” Enzi kicked the padlock holding the gate shut. It snapped like a twig. “Time to see if she’s here.”

♦

Theo sat against a cold brick wall, hiding as well as he could. Just an hour before, the monster had stomped down on his estate. The entire Thelza family mansion—and all the staff inside—turned to dust in an instant. The shockwave destroyed from the impact destroyed anything that the foot didn’t hit directly.

He’d only survived because he was lucky. He, and a few servants, had taken shelter in a wine cellar, which was far enough from the stomp to avoid caving in. The monster hadn’t noticed them hiding underground.

Nobody in the cellar knew what the monster was. Theo had banned them from going out and peeking at it, so only they’d heard its stomps. Even so, all of them knew that the city outside was dead. Barnock was over, and all that remained was rubble.

It had been almost a day since the monster appeared, and from they could tell, there were no signs of it slowing down. With their rations split between the staff, there was only enough food to last a few days. After that, they’d starve to death.

Despite being the youngest in the room, Theo was the calmest. It was odd to him, but the calamity had left him feeling more capable of logical thought than ever before. The fact that Alice was almost certainly dead didn’t bother him nearly as much as it should have, nor did the fact that almost everyone in Barnock was dead.

He spoke with an even tone, as though he was completely unphased by the ongoing disaster and his panicking employees, “There are too many people here. We’ll all die faster if we keep splitting resources like this. Some people will need to leave.”

One of the young house servants responded, “But Master! That’s the same as an execution! You can’t be serious.”

“I am. Any volunteers?”

Nobody responded.

He stood up, “That’s a shame. I realize that my control over you people is diminished now that my Estate is gone. I can’t risk you people turning on me. That’s a shame. I’ll go on my own then. You people are dead weight. It’s shameful that none of you are useful.” Theo walked to the ladder and without another word, disappeared into the evening light above.