21

Aftermath and Preparation

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The weight of what happened was enormous. Death and destruction surrounded the town square, these past few days everything had changed.

Through a combined effort of every survivor, they had managed to fortify the heart of the town. The church had become a place of refuge. Food, drinks, mattresses and blankets were all recovered as living necessities and useful equipment were transported inside.

Yet fear lingered through the town, the quiet after the storm was deafening. The shock of what happened was still being registered.

As the church was being filled with collected goods, the people naturally had to face reality. And this result was nowhere as clear as behind the church, where a silent graveyard stood.

It was in this place of mourning that the people gathered every deceased they came across. Retrieving them was no easy task. But the hardest was facing the reality they lived in. Mothers held their children as they had to say goodbye. Friends and family, everyone knew someone here, and more were still arriving.

While some broke down crying, others instinctively knew that the times had changed. Grief forced these people to face the future, with goodbyes in their hearts they hurried ahead. Hoping to hold on to the final lifeline.

But besides the deceased, there were also goblin bodies found within the ruined town. And a young man carried one of such creatures to a specific location.

Leon had been collecting Goblin bodies for an entire day now, yet his mind wandered further and further.

The weight of recent events had become too much for him. Everything he had dreamt of and studied for, his plans for the future, everything had just disappeared. His entire existence felt aimless. Not to mention his inability to adjust as fast as Alduin, someone he deemed his equal, hit him like a giant wave.

It wasn’t just Alduin. Ise, a woman he hadn’t interacted much with and only knew from her interactions with Alduin, had performed feats he deemed unimaginable.

The thought of her standing there, with a blade freshly pulled from the throat of the largest threat they had faced, still shocked him. Her eyes were colder than a goblin’s, a demonic knife in her hands and fresh dark-red blood unceasingly dripping down.

Ise’s red figure continued to assault him as he tried to adapt to this changed reality.

‘How? How did they do that?’ Only one thing echoed through his mind ever since he saw his friend lying there.

Leon didn’t know how to adapt to this changing world. Every time he looked up, he felt the light in the sky reflecting the chaos in his mind.

‘No, I know what to do.’ He once more dropped the goblin at the gathering point before he entered the building. The feeling of holding a shield still lingered in his hand.

If he was going to protect those he cared for, he had no choice but to move forward as fast as he could.

“You’re finally here,” A hoarse voice sounded out.

Three men stood around a table with gloves and a scarf around their faces.

“I’ve retrieved the last we could find,” Leon answered Alphons.

“Good, you did a good job.” Edward nodded at Leon. His aged face had hardened and vitality was slowly returning after that horrific night.

“Right, if you’re finished then carry one of those little shits inside,” a brusque voice spoke with anger. “And Edward, throw this one into the pit.”

Both men moved fast. A large butcher knife pointed at them as they followed command after command.

The voice came from a fat, burly man. His stature was rather small and if there was one word to describe him. It would be stout. With the front of his clothes covered in blood and wearing safety measures, the knife continuously dissected what laid in front of him.

“Ben,” Edward said, “How much have you learned?”

The burly man was quiet and hadn’t shared his findings yet. Nervousness painted the onlooker’s face as the mangled corpse of a larger dark green monster lay in front of them.

Three of them, in particular, stood out. A stature and build that was larger than the others they had collected. But it was the middle one that was exceptional.

The cuts on its body should have made it unrecognizable. But still, even with the amount of damage this one had sustained, its muscles were still clearly defined.

The two next to them had been cut open at several places as well. From the pile of blood surrounding them. It was clear what the three observers had to stomach.

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The silence was finally broken as all four stared at the table.

“They’re not from this world.” The words that everybody was thinking, were finally uttered.

The red sky with lightning-like roots granting them light made this sound even more ominous. The world had changed. Their entire reality had changed. The streaks of light became larger as they converged with each other. And even now, some of them seemed to descend toward the earth.

It was clear they had to prepare for what was coming.

Even still, Edward, Leon and Alphons were silent. The shock was too much.

Ben continued “There is no doubt about it. I don’t know anything more than that. But they are not from this world. I am certain” his hoarse voice gradually grew silent.

As if convincing himself of what he had seen, the years of skill he developed completely denied the existence of the creatures in front of them.

“How do you know?” Edward believed him but couldn’t help but ask. Besides the butcher in front of him, it was hard to find anyone in this village who knew more about the physiology of animals compared to him.

Ben pushed his hand forward. Inside it was a small gemstone. It was hard to recognize. It hadn’t become solid yet, but it wasn’t that flexible either.

Besides the texture, the shape and small size also threw them off.

“What is this?” Edward asked.

“It’s an organ. To be clear, it might be a vestigial organ. I have never seen anything like it,” Ben said. But looking at Edward, it was clear the significance of his findings hadn’t been clear. “This thing was found around the navel area of that creature. Not only that, each of these creatures had one.” Ben indicated the small box filled with gemstones.

Small black stones which could be confused with pebbles were the first of their findings.

Every gemstone in here was roughly the same size. But Ben was holding two more gemstones in his hands. These two had a brighter colour and albeit slightly, they were still visibly larger.

“Wasn’t Ise holding a stone similar to this one?” Leon broke the silence.

“Yes, although I don’t know where it is now. It does resemble them.” Edward pondered. “Although Ise’s was a sky blue colour. So I’m not sure.”

“Ise killed the big one?” Ben asked. “It’s the only one with this organ missing.”

Ben thought before he continued.

“This thing seemed rooted in their bodies, yet it didn’t have any blood flowing through it. The moment I cut it off they lost their flexibility and hardened into this shape,” Ben said, “It’s an organ that is nowhere present in the mammals on this planet.”

The butcher’s knife tapped the hardened gemstone.

“The final detail that made me certain was this.” Ben moved his knife back to the body of the creature, however this time it pointed lower.

“They are obviously mammals. Yet their bone structure is different and their lungs are way more interconnected. Most of them died because of burned lungs.” Ben continued, “They developed in the same humanoid body plan yet they have no relation to any known mammal.”

Everyone listened quietly. While they already had an idea, seeing the confirmation of this unknown life-form in front of them still brought shivers in their hearts.

Ben pulled out two more gemstones, they were slightly larger but were as dark as the small ones “These were pulled from the two wolves, my findings here are similar. They are more like hyena and wolf hybrids. Wolves like these can’t have evolved convergent to our wolves, from a completely different species without us finding out. ”

Silence filled the room once more. Life as they knew it now seemed like a distant past.

Alphons broke the silence as he addressed Edward.

“We’re keeping track of everything.” He pointed towards a notebook Ben was keeping as he explained to Edward.

“Good, find their weakness, the density of their skull, the location of their vital organs.” Edward emphasized his next words “Keep those gemstones close. Take every single one with you to the church.”

The four people here realized the significance of their findings. It wasn’t because they were nice to look at, these organs were the most telling difference compared to the mammals they know. There was bound to be a weakness they could exploit.

Edward was about to turn back before he asked.

“How were the other preparations?”

“Leon collected as much as we could find.” Alphons tapped his shoulder and smiled.

“How much do we have left?”

“We have around 107 useful bullets, I found one more rifle in Hendrik’s house, but…” Leon paused.

“He’s dead, I take it?” Edward brusquely asked.

“Yes, he had been murdered.” Leon spoke with glazed eyes, yet his frown showed his anger at the scene he had witnessed

“His workshop had nothing left?” Edward moved on quickly, yet his frustration showed clearly.

“No, the gunpowder itself had been ignited as well. The only bullets I could find were those from your, Alphons’ and Theo’s house.”

Edward looked with a grave expression towards Alphons who was even older than him. The loss of Hendrik might have changed their future.

“Even though it’s a large setback, the bullets we collected aren’t few. It could be worse,” Alphons said.

“Try and finish up quickly, the sooner we can complete our fortification, the better.” Edward turned around.

Alphons and Edward had known each other for an incredibly long time, so they both knew what their priorities were. Just from seeing the collection of primitive weapons their assailants had brought, Edward knew Alphons was thinking ahead as well.

‘He’s thinking of the boy as well.’ One last glance at Leon made Edward even more certain. Next to Alduin and Ise, this young man had been a key player in their defense, as well as the rapid recovery. It was unfortunate though, his friend and peer had achieved something exceptional. But the uncertain expression he had shown for the last few days was slowly disappearing.

Right now they had a single priority, that was to prevent a second assault from happening. And for that, they moved quickly.

Edward now walked towards a group of collectors. He saw people in the rubble coming and going in pairs, grabbing anything that seemed useful. Plenty of items had piled on in the town square. From there, old or injured people were sorting everything they could find and stocked them inside the church.

The inventory they had made seemed to have come quite a long way as well.

And then he smiled.

Besides living necessities there was another priority. The collection of alcohol and gas. Any flammable fluid available was collected in a separate area. From drained cars to bottles of spirit, any lifeline they could find was one they prepared.

And their preparation was about to pay off. With jerry-cans full of gas by his side, Edward looked in the direction of the museum. They had long since found the origin of these monsters and had started with their countermeasures.

In the span of a couple of days the entrance of the shrine that stood unchanged for ages would face multiple transformations.