The two of them started walking in the morning and without even noticing it, it was already night. Orou was disappointed by the lack of anyone trying to attack them during their travel, but that was likely to be expected. While there wasn’t a proper road that leads to Edum, Grizz had lived in Solus for long enough to know in which direction to go and in which towns to stay. They’ve met a few beastmen here and there while travelling here and there, but they seemed to be in a rush and none were willing to speak with Grizz.

Currently, they were staying in a small town by the name of Oein. Grizz had walked into an inn, wanting to find a place to stay, but after he saw the prices, he simply couldn't stay still. Grizz haggled with the innkeeper for several minutes, proclaiming how the prices were absolutely absurd and that they deserved a discount. The innkeeper relented after Grizz beckoned for Orou to lift his head and rise to his full length, seemingly intimidated by Orou’s sheer size. Grizz happily went off while tossing the few blood crystals he had saved in his hands, the innkeeper giving him an evil look as he did so.

“Usually you have to be careful with these kinds of things just to make sure the innkeeper doesn’t poison your meal in the future, but we’re heading off the first thing in the morning and I doubt that I will come back to this insignificant town ever again,” Grizz said as soon as he was out of the earshot of the innkeeper, teaching Orou how the way of life here was. Orou did his best in rolling his eyes, just like Grizz often did and followed him upstairs into a small but cosy inn room. A single window overlooked the town that was clad in darkness, though Grizz once again ruined the mood by complaining about how uncomfortable the bed was.

The night here was just like any regular night with Grizz sleeping and Orou practicing spells. He was very careful in casting the blood serpent spell, observing the black line within it very carefully for any signs of breaking free. Orou’s caution was unwarranted as the blood serpent simply did as Orou willed it, not showing any will of its own nor the black line doing anything suspicious. Although the black line made spellcasting that much more difficult, Orou found that he was having much better results by training under this constant pressure. It took more effort to stabilize the spirits and make sure they wouldn’t move and even though it took him a while to actually finish the spell, Orou wasn’t in any rush.

A few hours later, both Grizz’s sleep and Orou’s concentration was interrupted by loud shouting outside. Both of them were exceptionally angry at the thing that woke them up, but their anger faded as Grizz opened the window to take a look outside and see what was happening. A crowd of a few hundred people had formed near the inn, all of them holding some sort of weapon or farming tools in their hands. A beastman with brown fur was standing at the very front of the crowd, and as he raised the sword that was by his side into the air, he started shouting.

“Is there something wrong with feeling emotions, should we be punished for being happy when our child is born, are we wrong for being angry when we see injustice before us? Is there anything wrong with truly being feral?” The crowd quieted down to listen to what the beastman said before once more, exploding in a burst of emotions. All sorts of cries and yells about injustice, as well as oppression and even vague chants of “down with the king!”

The crowd eventually calmed down as the discussions died down, once more, the beastman with brown fur looked at the crowd and spoke: “How many people have died under the cruel tyranny of the king, those deemed useless and feral. Who truly knew if these people were truly feral, or if they simply spoke out against the king,” immediately after he said that, a beastman from the crowd yelled out: “My brother was brought away, never to be seen again.”

This seemed to provoke a reaction from the crowd, countless people yelling out about their relatives, chained by the king’s men to never be seen again. As the yelling got louder and louder, more and more people joined in, those that tried to defend the king quickly got silenced by the overwhelming noise from the crowd. Grizz quickly got dressed and sighed to himself, looking back to Orou and saying: “It’s never good to get in between a mob and what they’re after. Let’s leave before it turns out into a full-blown riot.”

Although Orou didn’t care, Grizz seemed to be in a rush to get out. The crowd kept clamoring outside of the building, and as they went downstairs, they found the innkeeper was nowhere to be seen. Both Orou and Grizz peered around the corner of the inn and the crowd seemed to have grown considerably. The beastman with the brown fur was continuing to instigate the crowd by saying: “What has the king ever done for us? Why should we continue to serve him like loyal puppets, listening to his every whim? Why should we be discriminated against, simply because we aren’t born in a noble family?”

Orou’s head turned towards the beastman with brown fur, wondering if the beastman had answers to his own proposed questions. Although Orou wanted to stick around for a bit longer, Grizz nudged him to move along and Orou begrudgingly followed him. It was getting a bit heated and as they started leaving, they got approached by two brutish looking beastmen, eyeing them up and down. The first one spat out something black that he was chewing on and motioned to Grizz.

“Where do you think you’re going, pretty boy. The main activity is over there, so how about you just turn around and don’t even think about leaving,” the beastman looked at Grizz and cracked his knuckles while the other partner circled around him, menacingly glaring at Grizz. He simply sighed and motioned over for Orou, pointing at the guy right next to him. With a quick motion, he took out a hidden dagger from his pocket and slashed at his legs while Orou charged forwards with his fangs. In almost no time at all, the two of them were quickly dispatched, standing no chance of even retaliating.

“Common thugs, most likely hired by the person behind this entire mess, though why you want to prevent anyone from leaving?” Grizz turned around to look at the gate, several more beastmen that looked similar to the ones they dispatched were standing near the gate, though all of them were looking in fear at both Orou and Grizz. They didn’t try to stop them from exiting the town, instead, they fled far away from the giant snake that had just murdered their friend.

Although Orou couldn’t properly hear it enough to make out the words, he heard the crowd chanting something, their voices growing louder each second. Grizz mumbled something about how he even got in this mess in the first place, ignoring the increasing havoc before them. Orou kept watching the town until it was no longer visible, but as he stared at it, he started getting a bit nervous, though he didn’t know why.