A sliver of calming sunlight pierced through the window, directly onto Mia’s eyes. It’s yellow-tinge masqueraded the village's problems.

Her eyes somewhat closed, only beginning to open, as if a shopkeep were struggling to open the blinds.

“Ughhh”, Mia uttered groggily. She was never really a morning person so the sense of being practically dead was all too familiar.

She felt a tapping on her cheek… Poking perhaps. It was enough to be annoying and further her process of waking up.

Finally, she came to.

Mia slowly opened her eyes, immediately being blinded by the sunlight. To remedy this she shot her hand in front of her face to recover the bright shock.

The attack from the gigantic ball of fire lasted a moment and eventually ended when a cloud moved in front of it.

“Ugh, who’s poking me? I’m not opposed to hitting my superior this early. You can’t blame someone's early morning actions”, she said lazily. Mia turned to her side and was met with the wide eyes of Nomi, who was staring at her in wonder.

“Oh it’s just you Nomi, good morning”, Mia reached over and gently patted her on the head.

Nomi sat up, and adjusted her cat pattern pajamas. “Breakfast is ready, the man with the white hair and the glasses-guy made it. Oh! Oh! I also helped… I hope you like it… Big sister”, she twiddled her thumbs, hoping for approval.

“Bi-g sis-ter hm”, she paused for a second. “I’m fine with that”, Mia patted Nomi’s head once again and looked to the other side of the room… She saw Hikaru watching, with and aggressively envious look on his face.

A moment of tension passed.

“Alright, let’s see what you made”, Mia stood up and stumbled through the blankets. She walked over to the dining table, her mind remembering the heavenly dishes that Hikaru’s made before. Her mouth began to water while thinking about it.

“Eat up Mia, we have a lot of work ahead of us”, the Captain said with his back turned.

“Alri-”, she paused mid-word… In front of her… On the table… Was bread and jam.

“Hm”, she said while grasping her chin… She threw her finger up, “I must still be asleep”.

“You ain’t sleeping, it seems Alli packed us a bunch of bread and nothing else”, Captain Yakusuke angrily muttered. “Luckily enough, little Nomi here had some jam so we can do something with it”.

“I-I see”, Mia’s initial hopeful expression fell into despair.

“Nomi… How did you contribute to this?”, she asked, trying to keep a friendly and polite tone.

“I found the jam!”, she replied, her face screaming happy innocence.

Mia thought to herself, “I guess this is a relatively small village… So it’d make sense for them to be lacking in accommodations… Damn, what am I saying… To act greedy in this situation”. She walked over to the table and picked up two pieces of bread, and picked up a knife near them.

After completing her jam sandwich she took a bite, “mmm strawberry. Not too bad for these conditions”, she thought.

–

They’re breakfast went by smoothly. It seemed like an ordinary morning, but they all knew that after it they’d return to their investigation.

–

“Everyone done? Alright, let’s strategize and plan”, Captain Yakusuke said as he finished the last bite of his bread.

“You have a plan sir?” Mia replied, due to them only just arriving the day prior she assumed they’d all be in the dark.

“It’s rather simple. When we were arriving we saw a flying beast right? I imagine it was

watching for intruders or offerings. Also the first group of beasts that we saw, and the chained up villagers that were with them, I found that to be odd as well. Like I said back in Indra, it’s unheard of for beasts to just be calm with humans. You’d think they would be tearing them apart at first glance… But they weren’t. Do you two see what I’m getting at?”.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Mia looked confused, but beside her, Hikaru, had a concerned expression.

“They were bait”, Hikaru pushed up his glasses and dawned an obnoxious smile. “The beasts were using chained up villagers as bait for strong humans.

Mia looked more confused.

“You aren’t getting this are you Mia? Beasts kill and eat humans for two reasons. To satiate an internal hatred to humans and to evolve. Just like with that beast we met after getting out of the forest, it itself stated that it killed and consumed thousands of humans to evolve and grow stronger”. Hikaru looked at Mia, “with all that it can mean only one thing… There’s an evolved beast controlling all these lesser beasts as well as this village. They call us offerings but really we’re just a source of power for them”.

“That’s horrible”, the three stopped and looked to the end of the table. “How can anyone stop a bad guy like that?” Nomi looked down and balled her fists, “what can we do to stop something like that?”.

Captain Yakusuke stood up and walked to Nomi, he proceeded to bend down and rest his hand on her shoulder. “Trust in us Nomi, we’re strong, we’re gonna stop all the bad things here so you and your mama can live in peace”, he smiled and stood back up.

Mia looked down at her hands, “Strong huh”, she thought. “I hope I can be of use”.

A few minutes went past and a calming silence swept through the room.

“Wait!” Nomi yelled, suddenly she looked panicked.

“What’s up?” Mia said, she turned to Nomi with a puzzled expression. Both Hikaru and the Captain doing the same.

“The time… Oh no I forgot!” Nomi started pacing in circles, her face looked both frustrated and worried at the same time.

Mia ran to her, “what’s wrong? What happened?” she asked, panicked.

“You guys need to hide, please hurry behind the couch”, she shouted.

“Nomi what’re yo-” Hikaru was cut off.

“PLEASE!”

Mia, Hikaru and the Captain hurried behind the couch.

“Captain what’s happening?” Mia whispered.

“I have no idea, everything was fine a bit ago”.

WAAM!

Suddenly, the door bursts over, causing chunks of wood to litter the ground.

Three bipedal beasts walk in. The first, which is relatively small, about half the size of a wooden door, steps in. This beast’s face looked depressed, it had a fluffy coat of fur covering the upper half of its body, only stopping above its legs. As it walked in, its claws scraped the ground.

Behind the first beast was the second, this one however was a tad taller than the first. It had the lower part of its body covered in a thin coat of fur. This beast had two small horn-like protrusions coming from its head and a gruesome mouth with visible gums.

“I smell something delicious”, the second said as it sniffed around the entrance.

Finally, the third entered the room. This beast was as tall as an adult man, it had wolf-like traits from its long legs to its canine head. The only notable difference it had was its black humanoid hands and long tongue.

“Ah, the smell of humans. I haven’t killed one in so long that I've forgotten the smell of their blood”, the first beast said.

The beasts continue to make gruesome remarks to each other but soon move on.

The third beast walks further into the room, waving its tongue around, “brat, you were supposed to deliver three visitors yesterday… But you didn’t…” The beast walked closer and closer to Nomi. “Brat, you want to see your mommy again don’t you? You promised you’d give us three humans but yet you haven’t… Why is that?” The beast continued getting closer.

“I-I can get them… I promi-”

“NOT GOOD ENOUGH!” The beast roared as it moved faster towards Nomi.

WAM!

It grabbed her by the throat and bash pushed her against the wall, “maybe we’ll take you as an offering, i’ve heard that the boss doesn’t mind appetizers”, it said maniacally.

“Ple-ase. Don’t hur-t me”, Nomi pleaded but it seemed hopeless.

–

Behind the couch, a few minutes prior.

–

“Dammit beasts. Of course they’d show up now”, Hikaru whispered. He shifted and fidgeted, trying to ignore his desire to jump out. Hikaru knew they’d have to stay in place and listen in, but his sense of justice raged inside of him. “I know it’s hard but you have to hold back, we need all the information we can get”, the Captain whispered.

The two went back and forth for a moment.

Mia looked down and noticed her hands, shaking, out of anger perhaps? Or maybe a desire to protect Nomi. Her thoughts were a mess and she couldn’t think straight.

“Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it”, she repeated constantly… until…

“You damn ba-”

“YOU PIECES OF SHIT!” Hikaru yelled as he jumped out from behind the couch. In mid air he reached into his coat and retrieved his blutklinge. Using Bindestrich he shot towards the beast pinning Nomi and jabbed his blade through its head.

The beast's arms went limp and dropped down, releasing Nomi.

Hikaru pulled out his blade and a large splash of blood gushed from the beast's head, painting him and Nomi a bright shade of red.

“Ah damn it”, the Captain said as he jumped out from behind the couch. He reached down and grabbed a pillow, proceeding to fling it at one of the remaining beasts.

The pillow flew through the air and landed in the first beast's claws, it looked down at it, then back up only to see the shimmer of a blade coming down hard.

It took an instant for the Captain to split it in two.

The last beast stood there, almost in a daze. “YOU DAMN HUMANS!”, it yelled. The beast looked around, panicked. Finally, it cuts its losses and decides to bolt through the door, cursing them as it runs away.

Mia jumps out, her animosity apparent, “Where’d it go? Where’d it go? I’ll destroy it, rip it limb to limb-”

Suddenly, something grasps her. Mia looks down, to see Nomi hugging her tightly…

“Please don’t go”.