Author's note: This chapter doesn't follow the timeline of the regular chapters but is nonetheless part of the story, a little in the future. I just wanted to publish a chapter on valentines day, and this is what I came up with :)

It could be a little more messy because I wrote it while being with family and on a small tablet. Then, after I wrote and published it, I wanted to let it stay a Patreon-only chapter but saw that it had much more world-building and more critical information than I thought. As such, I publish it, which also means that there are 11 advanced chapters now on Patreon :)

...

North of Moorgrel, Dwarven Territory

Fearful screams, pleas of despair, and cries of anger were audibly heard from a forsaken remote village with at most fifty souls living there. Yet, they slowly died down as a young black-haired fox-kin girl sprinted through rows of desperate farmers who tried to defend themselves with their farming tools, only to experience a quick and merciless death, with the last thing they saw were reddish eyes gleaming in the dark.

Patricia dashed toward a dwarf cowering in fear, her spear readied. As she was about to cut its head off, an explosion resounded. Her instincts yelled at her, and she listened, jumping up only to see how a cannonball barely missed her feet but crashed into the house behind her.

As Patricia landed, she spun around once, gracefully swinging her spear in an arc that went through the dwarf's neck. When she saw that nobody was close to her, she put her feet down and stopped herself, focusing on her mana and making a construct. After her chant, her mana tightened up, creating a fireball before her, which flared up and roared aggressively toward where the cannonball came from. She jumped behind a tree without hesitation, only to hear an enormous explosion a moment later.

Boom!

A giant explosion resounded, blowing everything away. Pieces of metal, wood, and stone flew all around her, some even hitting the tree but luckily not penetrating it. After it died down, she came out from behind the tree and cautiously walked around the small village, trying to sniff out anyone hiding.

After half an hour of rummaging through the village, her nervousness slowly transformed into annoyance and then to boredom.

Patricia frowned, still tense because it was her first real fight against other sapient beings. Usually, she fought monsters and wild demons, but sapient beings felt differently to her when she cut through their bodies and sapped their experience with her demonic energy. It felt disgusting, but it could also be because they were mainly civilians she killed.

More bizarrely, she didn't feel too bad as those dwarves and gnomes seemed to have a military or fighting background since they had a cannon. It could also be that they built it themselves since they had a knack for crafting such things. As such, she was trying to sniff out the black powder, fearing that they stored it somewhere to ambush them with it.

Her future Grandmother-in-law as she came from behind, visibly bored, yawning, "Huam! Good job. Now to the boring part."

"Boring part? What do you mean?"

Scarlett walked into a hut, ripped the door out, and looked inside, being stoic, "Pups. They all like to hide them, but we need to kill them."

Suddenly, Patricia could also smell them and the disgusting herb, which was apparently used by many races to overwhelm her kin's sense of smell. However, Patricia could only think what Scarlett said, making her stomach turn, "I... don't want to kill them..."

Even though she hated dwarves and gnomes, killing their puppies was something she couldn't do. This also saw Scarlett, who sighed, "Well, follow me then. It is also a bit early for you..." She created five dog-sized spiders made out of her bloodlust aura and tyrannical energy, sending them into the hut.

When Patricia followed her away from the hut, she suddenly heard screams and pleas, only for them to stop shortly after as cracking and munching sounds were heard.

She clenched her fists and was, for the first time after the assassination attack, genuinely disturbed. Killing sapient races was very different for her, but she guessed there was a reason why they were suddenly raiding some remote village.

It was a little over a year when Patricia left the Leonandra estate with Scarlett as her teacher. At first, her training was what Alexander experienced. Her body was crushed and rebuilt, starting even before her legacy. After she got the slave crest, she could not even receive any experience or increase her levels. The only thing she could do was to gain new skills and improve their power.

Fortunately, Scarlett used Alexander's body modification methods, making her training last longer, but it was much more endurable- but not by much.

She woke up, and a new part of her body was destroyed, only to have a study or training session. Sometimes, she would go to a battlefield and fight against monsters, wild demons, or, like now, sapient races. In the evening, the same body part was destroyed and reconstructed again.

Her battlefields were mostly forests and other remote areas, where she helped out to clean them out. Because she was in the North, she could not visit Kratikal, but Scarlett's people caught some wild demons and brought them to her estate. Yet, they were much closer to enemy territory and, with that, to other sapient races she could fight against, at most a day or two away from their border.

However, when she looked around and saw the massacre she made, it was heartbreaking. Even though she hated dwarves and gnomes, it wasn't as if some poor farmers had anything to do with the whole war.

This made her remember Alexander's long and arduous lectures on how commoners had nothing to do with the nobility and their politicking. Most of the time, they were collateral damage, and she couldn't understand why they would even care about such a village.

Patricia frowned, "Is there a reason we need to raid this remote village with a couple dozen dwarves? I thought we were going to some small fort or something."

Scarlett shrugged, "This is my training, and you will know soon enough."

Patricia raised an eyebrow, "What is there to know? Is this some secret village of the Vulcanic Forge?"

Scarlett chuckled, "Oh, please..." But suddenly stopped before a house, "...the reason is in inside, go on."

Patricia sighed, not sensing anything, either by mana or smell from the outside. However, the moment she opened it, all her instincts rose to a massive degree.

Without hesitation, she sprinted through the small house and into the basement. The moment she opened the floor door, a rancid smell almost overwhelmed her, yet, between all this, she could smell something else.

Jumping down, she walked around in excrement and urine, not caring about it, only to find something that shook her awake, "Why..."

Two of her kin were chained to the wall- a feline and rodent-kin, without tails and ears. They were cut off and sloppily bandaged.

Dread slowly siffed into her mind, 'Why are they doing this?'

However, her instinct suddenly screamed at her, which made her duck, only to avoid what she would describe as a gnome who tried to cut her throat with a dagger.

She gained some distance and saw the fear on his face, but as she looked behind her, seeing her kin, barely alive and mutilated, her killing intent surged out, which made the gnome back away.

"##### ####, # ### ###!"

Patricia didn't know their language and didn't care. She dashed toward him, and even though he tried to defend himself, she sliced him quickly in two.

After that, she quickly turned around and ran toward her kin in chains. Fortunately, those were simple chains made of cheap metal, which she easily cracked open using only physical strength.

"Hey, are you all right?!"

After helping free the first one, she tried to pat them, but they didn't react. They were dead. Not literally, but they lost their will to live, sitting there, waiting for death. This sight broke her.

How could someone do something like this? Even after cutting their tail and ears off, there was no reason to let them suffer, "Why..."

From behind came a voice, full of stoicism, "You asked me why I brought you into this small village? This is why."

Patricia continued to break the chains of the other while answering, "What do you mean? We are here to save them?"

Scarlett sighed, "No, but many young soldiers and my trainees don't know the horror inside this territory. Beast-kin are nothing more than objects to be broken and thrown away."

After Patricia broke the last free, she immediately took the first and walked upwards to the house, with Scarlett helping and continuing to talk, "Beast-kin are too kind-hearted by nature even though we have a wild and bloodthirsty side to us. We would never believe that another sapient being, which feels love, builds families and..."

Distressed and shocked, Patricia interrupted her after they brought them to what seemed to be the living room and laid them on the floor, "Shut up! Help me clean them first and then give them first aid!"

Patricia immediately used the cleaning spell, and after they were clean, she smelled something she couldn't believe as their hormones slowly came through, "Puppies?"

While they were relatively small, they also looked malnourished and dehydrated, so she thought this was the reason for their height. Yet her nose was quickly invaded with a specific smell, a very fruity one. It smelled like unripe apples that were growing in the sun. Only puppies born outside of East Moorgrel had such a smell, which indicated that they had not even reached the age of ten.

Patricia started to clench her fangs as killing intent escaped her. It was too much. Even thinking that they would do something like this made her wrathful. It was unfathomable to her.

Scarlett audibly frowned while looking for healing potions in her spatial pouch, "Calm down."

Patricia ignored her emotions and concentrated on their injuries. She immediately started healing them with the first aid spell. However, Scarlett keeps lecturing, making her more uncomfortable.

"This is enslavement. An action only acted upon those whom they deemed unworthy of even the simplest of dignities- death. Instead of killing and harvesting us for materials, they chose to keep humiliating us and treat us worse than cattle. Did you see that their cows or chickens were treated the s..."

Patricia had problems using the first aid spell because she didn't train the construct much, thus interrupting her lesson, "Can you not help me?! I don't need a lecture now!"

Scarlett sighed while opening a healing potion, pouring over the rodent-kin, "You are lucky that my grandson sponsors and likes you."

Patricia ignored her quips. Scarlett was, besides her brutal nature, an actually good person. Her subjects, retainers, and army loved her. While sometimes aggressive in pushing everyone's potential, she never threw them away, always trying to find a position fitting their abilities.

However, she was sometimes persistent, ignoring what others went through, only wanting to clarify her point, "Let me be clear on something: What you see here, in a remote village, is not even close to what horrors I saw inside their cities..." Her tone became ice-cold, "...do you still think they are innocent?"

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Patricia knew what she meant and even more what she tried to do. It was to make her feel less empathy toward them, and it worked. It was brutal what they did, and if this was truly the norm, she couldn't imagine how many others of her kin were enslaved like that.

She started murmuring, her voice shaky while still healing, "Where is the honor? Dignity? Why not just kill them instead of all this humiliation... they can't even move anymore... how... why..."

Scarlett said nothing more and only moved over to the one Patricia was healing, pouring another healing potion on them. Yet, as she stopped, only sitting and staring at the feline-kin she tried to aid, what she should do became increasingly more complex to figure out.

However, Scarlett quickly interrupted her thoughts and looked down at her, "Done. Even though they are a bit poisoned, they will survive."

Patricia looked up at her while sitting on the floor and slowly patting the feline-kin, who stared blankly into nothingness, "What do we do with them?"

Scarlett sighed, "We bring them back, and with some luck, they will not kill themselves."

Patricia clenched her hands, "Alex."

Scarlett raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Send them to Alex. He has a charity which helps those who need it the most."

Scarlett was about to argue but stopped suddenly, sniffing the air, "Go down there and look around. There could be something else."

Patricia ran down the stairs again without hesitation while Scarlett lifted the rodent-kin up, bringing them toward the bed in the next room while murmuring angrily.

When Patricia went down, she looked around this disgusting place but couldn't find anything. However, after more searching, she noticed a middle-sized wooden box with some holes in it close to a pile of excrement. She immediately opened it in panic, 'You can't be serious!'

Even though she imagined far worse, what she witnessed was terrible enough. Inside, she saw a wolf puppy with white fur and a fox puppy with black fur, barely alive and cuddling at each other. Malnourished and clearly on the brink of death.

This scene reminded her of something that almost broke her heart. She carefully took them in her hands, noticing that they barely weighed anything, which made her bite her lower lip. At this moment, something inside her cracked as this became too much, but she didn't emit any killing intent or become angry. She only accepted it and knew which direction her life would go.

She went upstairs to treat them, only to get some weird glances from Scarlett, but Patricia didn't care. She immediately drank a mana potion so she could use more spells.

At first, she cleaned them thoroughly as they were full of their own excrement and urine. Next, she conjured some bread and water. She mixed them together and fed them slowly wet bread, as they were too weak to eat something more solid. Healing potions were also impossible as the poison would be too much for them.

They sounded weak but joyful as they, probably after a long time, ate for the first time.

"Wooo..."

"Kuuu..."

Scarlett squatted down beside Patricia, looking at them, "This is so lovely..." She turned to Patricia, smirking at her, "...it is so obvious why you saved them..." She suddenly tilted her head back to the fox and wolf, "...do you feel it?"

Patricia, though, didn't care. She kept holding them in her hands and slowly feeding them the wet bread. Though clearly anxious, they tried to cuddle closer to her while sometimes ignoring the food.

"Woo..."

"Kuu..."

Patricia patted them while trying to give them more food, "Don't worry, Mama is here to care for you."

Scarlett rolled her eyes, "Do you really not feel it?"

Patricia sighed, annoyed, "What? They are cute puppies."

Scarlett smirked, "They are puppy monsters, my dear."

Patricia looked first at Scarlett, who was still smirking, and then back at them, only now noticing that they had a slightly bitter smell, indicating that they were indeed monsters.

There was a distinctive difference between Monsters and Animals. Animals couldn't have energy, while monsters did, in most cases, when they grew up.

This brought a smile to her face, "It's perfect..."She didn't turn around and only kept feeding and patting them, "...but how are the other ones?"

Scarlett straightened up and looked behind her as they lay side by side on the bed, clearly awake but not moving, "Both of them are dead, at least only on the inside, and what I found else is rather disturbing, too. Fancy to know?"

Patricia shook her head, "No... I can imagine what Outer Circle they went through."

Scarlett sighed, "Listen, you can kill them and end their miserable life. You don't need to always think about Alex and how he would see you."

She shook her head, "I... I don't do this only because of him."

"Did you get soft too?"

Patricia rolled her eyes, "I don't like his idealism, but this doesn't mean I hate it fully. Without him, I would be dead or, if alive by some miracle, suffering alone..." She sighed, "...I can't save everyone and heal them, but I can give them to Alex, who will give them another chance."

"Don't you burden him a little too much?"

She shook her head, "He will obviously not directly help them but his retainers."

Scarlett wanted to say something but gave up, "Never mind, let me help you out a bit since his charity is doing great in my territory..."

She went over to both of them while taking a chair with her. She sat down beside the bed and started talking in a language Patricia couldn't understand. After some minutes, the void in their eyes slowly subsided, replaced with a little sparkle. After more time, they suddenly started crying and hugging each other.

When Scarlett gave him some bread and water, she returned but didn't tell Patricia what she had said. It was apparently a secret, but she said that it was a promise she had made.

Hours passed as Scarlett prepped up the feline- and rodent-kin while Patricia only looked after the wolf and fox puppy monsters. While it was a weird coincidence, it was one that she couldn't be happier about for many reasons, even though tragic.

In addition to the apparent reason, she could tame and bind them to her since she got a rare [Divinity Line]. Fortunately, she also got demonic energy, but it was one of the weakest when it came to potency.

The Nine-Fire household didn't have anyone with such a [Divinity Line], but Leonandra had one or two. Scarlett told her that the last records from who had such a [Divinity Line] were from hundreds of years ago when an ancestor tried to tame a Tier 5 demonic beast but never succeeded.

One would need to catch a young one and train them gradually. As such, having two was great, but Patricia only wanted one. The other would be a gift, 'Will Alexander like it?'

After she fed them, they became closer to her. She looked at them amiably, sensing that a bond was created between them, even though it was small.

Patricia looked at the snow-white wolf puppy, "Your name will be Lisop, as your fur is so pure and white like my favorite flowers..."

After hearing that, both their ears moved back, and they looked at Patricia in confusion. Through the weak bond, she could sense their confusion, but they could somewhat understand her.

"That's right. I am your Mama. Lisop will stay with me..." saying that made the Fox panic a little, cuddling even closer, but Patricia tried to calm it down, "... don't worry. I am your Mama, too, but you will become big and strong enough to protect Papa. Your name will be Charcoal, as you have almost the same fur as me."

They were both confused, but the bond which was created between them slowly strengthened. It was as if she slowly felt what they thought. Sadly, their household didn't have much information about taming, and the Temple couldn't help either since their ways differed. As such, she would need to figure everything out herself slowly.

Before finding them, she wanted to buy a monster or wild demon through a black market, but what she held in her hands was fate. She couldn't ask for a greater sign.

...

Hours Later

They slowly left the house while the pups followed Patricia, and the former slaves were behind Scarlett, who frowned all the time, obviously not liking the situation.

It was weird overall since she was rather lenient with her, which probably came from all the letters Alexander sent them, with information, gold, and many other things. They even expanded their charity into Scarlett's territory, which was doing very well. Sadly, Patricia had no time to look at Wolfstail, the capital in the northern Leonandra territory, as she was constantly training.

However, because of that, Scarlett was much more lenient with Patricia, probably not wanting to sour the relationship with Alexander. But her goodwill only extended so far as to tolerate Patricia's quirks and backtalk. Her training was as stringent as possible, and she wouldn't accept anything less.

Soon enough, Alexander would also join her as another trainee, being her junior, which made her blush a little, 'Well, he will listen to me, right? I am, in the end, his senior... hm...'

With such thoughts, with which she could ignore the horror she saw before, they walked from the village to their carriage and some servants, who waited a little farther away.

Yet, it shouldn't be peaceful, as Scarlett suddenly turned her head toward the direction of a small mountain, smiling viciously. Patricia, without hesitation, knew what was there and dashed in that direction while screaming, "Char, Liso, stay with Grandma. I will be right back!"

As she dashed through the forest for a minute, she suddenly could smell them, too. After another minute, she arrived at a small cave entrance. She casually walked forward and saw how gnomes and dwarves were on the lookout, armed with bows and arrows. Yet, the smell came not only from them but also from inside the cave.

They spotted her and immediately shot at her. Patricia, however, easily avoided the arrows and dashed toward them. Yet, her sense of danger irked her again, making her jump immediately against a tree, only to see how a cannonball flew where she was previously, 'How many cannons can such a small village produce?!'

Cannons were nothing unusual but barely used by beast-kin as they were too weak to do anything with them and too expensive to make. The Moorgrelian territory was plagued with giant monsters that could easily shrug them off, while some soldier newbies or mercenaries dispatched smaller monsters quickly.

Even though black powder was illegal to make, other substances could also produce an explosion strong enough to propel a cannonball.

However, as she landed horizontally on the tree trunks, she immediately pushed herself off, like a thunder flying toward the first archer, impaling him easily.

Patricia then ripped her spear out of the archer and dashed toward the next, who panicked and missed the shot. She, though, swung her spear precisely, cutting his head off.

After dispatching those two, she looked around, not sensing anyone else around, only to look confused inside the cave, 'They really fired from inside there.'

At first, she wanted to run inside but decided otherwise, as she always needed to remember that she had a better way to attack from afar against stationary targets.

She started to conjure a massive fireball one meter in diameter. After her chant, she heard panic from within the cave, but it was too late. The fireball was already rushing toward them.

Boom!

Another moment later, she heard an explosion, too big to be her fireball, which confused her a bit. Yet, she ignored it for now and saw how all the gnomes and dwarves were flown out, or rather parts of them.

Some, though, survived with minor injuries, walking outside while being visibly confused and coughing. Patricia dashed toward them, always considering what she saw in the basement.

Clenching her spear, she now also used her energy, which was part of the Leonandra household. The moment the energy conjured on the tip of her spear, she felt difficulty controlling the energy as it was too volatile, even going as far as slowly destroying her weapon.

Yet, when she swung it toward the dwarf and it touched them, their skin started to rip apart. As she continued, she tore apart the dwarf by slicing him.

They screamed and pleaded, which she couldn't understand, but she didn't care anymore as she swung her spear, killing one person, no, one monster with every swing. She couldn't see such beings as sapients anymore. They were monsters.

How much did her kin, who were humiliated and tortured inside the basement, scream and beg? What she was doing, in comparison, was merciful—killing them without them losing their dignity.

Everything that she learned from Alexander was broken. There was not a smidge of compassion or goodness inside them, which every sapient being should have. There was even no rationality. It was just cruel, as her kin were treated worse than cattle.

She swung her spear beautifully, with every hit killing either puppies, parents, friends, or lovers. It didn't matter anymore as they were monsters, part of the crime that made her kin suffer.

After she slaughtered all of them, she saw a single gnome pup crying over a corpse, probably his Mother, which had a giant hole in her chest. He suddenly looked at her, with a sparkle in his eyes, which she knew too well, "You monster! Why did you do this?!"

Patricia tilted her head, confused as she suddenly understood him, "What do you mean?"

The gnome looked around in horror and screamed at her while crying, "Can't you see how you killed us?! Why?!"

Patricia looked at him coldly, "What do you mean by why? Do you think we didn't find our kin in a basement, barely alive, mutilated, living in their excrement? What I did was merciful compared to what they lived through."

She was hypocritical since they attacked the village without even knowing this, but did it matter? Scarlett picked a random village to show her why they were fighting, as they didn't even see them as people. So, why should she do the same?

The gnome looked at her fearfully, only to get angrier, "You want to punish all of us because of some bad people?!"

She became more confused, "Punishment?"

"Jesus Christ, yes! What do you think it is what you are doing?! Are you just some mercenary sent to destroy villages?!"

She shook her head, ignoring the beginning since she didn't understand it, which was probably a problem with him not speaking correctly. However, she answered him stoically, "Punishments means that I want you to better yourselves, but I am only an exterminating pest that is against my kin, trying to kill us and use us as objects."

The gnome's fear intensified, seeing that she didn't care, only for him to smirk, "Okay, fine! Let's bet!"

She tilted her head, confused, "What can some pest give me who lives in a remote village?"

He became boisterous, "I have knowledge you can't even imagine! All I want is a chance to survive! If you can pinpoint where my head starts..." He suddenly stopped, being unsure, "...at the exact position, I will tell you wonders you wouldn't believe, and if not, you let me run away!"

Patricia smirked suddenly, knowing the story that Merlin once told to confuse his enemies and buy time, "Merlin's wager, huh? We can try."

When the gnome heard it, his face suddenly became pale white, only for Patricia to dash at him, cutting his head off for good. She went over, picking it up, to look at it more closely, only to frown as the cut was too low, "I guess you won..." she threw the head toward the body, "...you may run."

As Patricia stood between all the corpses, trying to find any survivor, her mind was confused. She thought what Alexander told her was true since everything he said was logical and rational. Yet, when she saw the horror, she knew it was only academic blabbering, an ideal not true for everyone.

'I need to change him.'

Patricia wanted to be perfect for Alexander since he appeared to be someone no one could reach. Now she saw his flaws better, 'He is too kind-hearted.'

She would describe him as a saint trying to better everyone's life while using his academic knowledge to see the best in a person. She needed to change this. He needed to know the horror she saw and act accordingly; otherwise, he would die.

It was her duty as his future wife to help him see the truth and change him into someone who wouldn't hesitate to eradicate this scum, 'I need to change him.'