On the three following nights, the same dream kept coming back to haunt him. Diffuse, shrouded between clouds of mist drenched in a deep green, poison-like color, but still, the gathering of subsequent images made every dream just the same. Feet cold, standing atop a mountain, and below him an army that was too monstrous, too diverse to even try to comprehend. Behind his back an endless forest extended for miles, a fire roaring on the canopy of its archtrees, trying to scrape the skies with their branches.

Scenes jumped, his mind jumped with it. Images of the sky, underground, the ocean, tunnels and hundreds upon hundreds of villages burnt down and razed to nothing but ashes and crumbles. Those parts he could understand— occasional visages of war and decisive battles were not hard to make out, although in them he could see things that no human being could comprehend. It was a glance into a world of unknown, violent events, that in the end did not have any face plastered in any of its actors. Only a shrouded veil separated him from the identities of the valiant heroes that fought in his dream, and he was at the head, as a king, a revered existence even between monarchs. A pleasant, inspiring dream.

Comfort began to turn to despair once truly incomprehensible things began to be spout by the river of mouths he could hear. A council of sages explained to him in detail what the existence of the soul meant, his sword clashed against a shred of pain that rendered him unable to escape an altered image of the already-unknown world. Secrets of magic that went beyond the realm of humanity, colors that he had never seen. He gazed upon countless people suffering together with him and experienced inexplicable things, until finally, it all came to an end.

Vanished as his body split into pieces, his only wish was to return to that mysterious rose in the center of everything, and lay down to sleep. He swore to never stop hanging from the thread that reality had woven for him, hung him from the hook that kept everybody together. But soon, he faded.

Thom couldn't overlook those dreams that appeared like premonitions, yet they seemed so distant. However, as soon as his eyes were open, the thoughts vanished from his mind. Like normal, he stood up, and headed to the cauldron at a corner of the room to begin his day.

"You woke up earlier." Valta's cold hand touched the man's warmer shoulder. He showed her a smile while lighting the fire under the cauldron. Crackling accompanied the new heat that warmed up the room, hidden in the ashes of the fireplace.

"Yeah. I had some things to think about, and then there's the instructions I need to hand the hobs as. Will you be coming?"

He knew the answer was a nod. Checking was not necessary. His smile turned warm as the woman's other hand rested on his left shoulder. Using him as a place to support herself was not bothersome to the man, quite the contrary. He felt energized. And that reminded him of something.

"Hate to admit it but... I've really been feeling better since I started sleeping. Hadn't you made me do it, I'd still be taking care of the farm like a madman."

"Having helpers is good." The woman answered as she detracted herself from him, and begun retrieving vegetables from the barrels.

"Yeah... I taught them a few things, but they learned quick. They're at least good enough to take care of the crops while I'm sleeping." He scratched his neck and closed his eyes for a moment. "I should visit the pig dens first. We really are in need of pig blood for potions... If they're going to kill them anyway it'd be a shame that the blood goes to waste."

"Umu." Valta nodded.

"Even if we have the blood we'd still be out of herbs, hmm. Harr, vien and arthry. The Forest's Repertoire also mentions the use of anyyhidrada for those potions, but I haven't come into any. Have you?"

Valta shook her head, her hands gracefully cut up a pair of soft roots.

"Then about the others, can we get them somehow? I can guess they're not local since they're so expensive, but maybe there's a way to sneak into town and buy a few... Or steal a few, more likely. Urgh, but Miel would immediately detect any of us if we get a mile close to the walls. Should we send a hobgoblin, after all...?"

"A convoy." Valta whispered.

"Hm? Are you saying we should assault a convoy?" Thom's eyes lit up as if he had written a whole book with Valta's simple statement. "Right. That could work... but then again, we don't know their trade routes either. If they're coming from the north or east... it's still impossible."

"..." Valta didn't say a word.

Thom understood that as if she was either thinking or out of ideas. He sighed and stood up, only to hear a small whine coming from the woman's mouth. Quickly, he turned around expecting something grave, but he only found Valta looking dejected at the counter as she sucked on her finger. A small quantity of blood had dripped on the cutting board.

"Ah, ah!" Thom anxiously got closer to her and checked her hand. "Huff... Well, I guess you never really had to cut up vegetables too much."

"I was distracted..."

"It's fine. Since hunting always gives you meat you don't usually need such precise cutting." He gave her a smile and pressed lightly on her finger. "Wash it and patch it. I'll keep going."

The woman nodded and walked away from the knife. Thom merrily swept the blood away and grabbed the knife, then grabbed the half-cut roots with his knuckles. As if a contraption had been suddenly fired, Thom's hand moved precisely and quickly above the board, cutting it up in nothing but a few seconds. He turned the board around and repeated the process with other ingredients, then dropped it into the cauldron together with the other vegetables. Just as he was about to grab a few bones to add into the soup, a presence popped in his radar near him, someone running towards the treehouse while trying to gather their breath. Since it moved so hectically, he couldn't ignore it by any means.

A hob had just arrived at the couple's position and was about to scream their name, when the lord of the horde himself came out through the window. "What is it?" He asked with a worried tone.

"My lord, it's urgent!" The hobgoblin looked anxious as he waved his arms in the air. "Come to the plaza, quick! A massacre happened! We're just now gathering the corpses!"

Thom's heart skipped a beat. A massacre? Several of his soldiers had died in the forest, and he hadn't noticed? Was that somehow possible?

"Keep the people quiet. I'll be there in a minute."

Valta seemed to have overheard the few exchanged lines. She was already opening the door when Thom was pulling away from the window sill, her coat over her shoulders. The man grabbed his sword and stormed off just the same.

"Do you think it was Miel?" Thom quickly descended the stairs with the calm woman in front.

"Petyo, rather."

"Someone from his division, then. Shit, they already know where we are then. It took them three days to figure that out— no, probably two days to locate us and one to send assassins after us. Why attack the hobgoblins? Why not us?"

"Seriously?" Valta turned her face around as she walked away from Thom.

"Ah, right." He smiled as he followed. "I guess that would be putting their lives a bit too much in danger."

They walked at a fast pace to quickly arrive at the plaza on the black horde's side, but the place was already crowded before they got there. A multicolored mob kept its head down as it looked at their deceased, something Thom could not observe from his position. He clicked his tongue and announced himself from the far back, enough for people to notice him and quickly make way for him to pass. Although they had gotten a new power recently, they still dared not to disrespect him.

When he stepped through, the first thing he noted was the presence of four powerful hobs, a quartet composed of the two red hobs and the two black hobs. Second, he was met by the scene of close to a hundred lifeless bodies sprawled on the plaza, their faces looking up to the sun, terror deeply imprinted in their last gaze. Thom squinted his eyes, feeling disgust crawling up his stomach. His eyes searched for an escape route and found it on the right side of the plaza, where two desecrated human bodies had been nailed and attached to a pair of wooden totems, their flesh similar to a bloodied rag. Although their features were hard to make sense of, they still looked stereotypically Kuulkiam.

"Clung. Were they all from your jurisdiction?" Thom directed himself to the one he was the most familiar with.

"Ah, my lord! I'm pleased to find you uninjured." The black hobgoblin gently smiled and bowed his head. "Yes, none of Kulung's people have been injured. I fear it was my people who took the blow. Thankfully, we were having a bit of a late-night party with these two brothers, and they quickly disposed of the attacker."

Thom nodded. Judging by the state of the assassins' corpses, he doubted that Sulung and Slung had immediately killed them. Most probably, they had been captured and tortured until dawn, which Thom could not reproach.

"I see. You've done well. Those two would have probably put up a good fight with anyone else but you two." The man in charge gave them a smile, which put a grin on Slung's harsh face.

"Kek. It was nothing. They swept up Clung's people good because they were asleep, but as soon as they faced a real enemy their skill fell short." The red-fskinned man snorted and spat at the human's bodies with impressive accuracy. "I've been honing my body ever since you gave us that gift. No fucking dirty rat's gonna make me bleed."

Thom looked at Clung again. "Damage?"

"They were all trainees and younglings. The humans purposely targeted the young to lower our firepower, but since they chose our section of the horde, the decrease in power is barely noticeable. It would have been a different story if they had targeted the golden or red horde. We were lucky this time."

"... I see." Thom lowered his gaze and looked at the hundred death stares that pointed towards nowhere, that had nothing behind their eyes. No fire, no soul, just a carcass that had stopped it's fluttering. For a second, he couldn't help but notice they looked strangely, uncomfortably human. Why had he suddenly felt that? The same thing he felt when talking to Clung— that humanity, was it really hidden between a mass of dead monsters?

"What we doing with the bodies?" Kulung asked while crossing his arms, interrupting Thom's thoughts.

"...It's best to dispose of them quickly." Thom muttered. "Do we have space to bury so many?"

"We have it..." Clung looked to a side. "I'm sure we can find somewhere. But wouldn't that be a waste?"

"..." Thom lowered his eyes. Something in the monster's voice had revealed a malevolent intent, and it had come at a bad moment. He couldn't answer. Valta stepped in front and addressed the black hobgoblin with her steel voice instead.

"The pigs need food. Is that what you're implying?"

"Quick as always!" Clung lifted his arms with a smile. "Witty, that's how a queen should be, haha. You're right, lady Valta. The boars cannot eat from our crops or our hunt in the winter so they grow weak, and their bodies barely serve any purpose if they've died of hunger. Bones are not tasty... Not for too many meals. You understand what I'm saying, correct? A good army finds its power in meat! No muscle grows from the earth, lady Valta. We need to keep the horde alive and, well, after all... Many of these were born from a pig, so why not let nature continue the cycle?" A wicked smile formed on the mage's face as he suggested this.

A glance was enough for Valta to know that Thom had grown disgusted at those words. No expression was showing on his face, he seemed as calm as always, but his toes had gripped firmly to the ground. It was something only Suu and herself might have noticed.

She felt the shaking emotions of every hobgoblin staring at them from the crowd, waiting for the order to be given, hoping that they would not have to eat the meat of a beast that had feasted on their, somewhat, relatives. On the other hand, she could feel the four influential monsters awaiting that decisive answer, and if Thom decided to side with mercy, they would probably be disappointed.

She decided to take the arrow to her own ches, and stood in front of the man.

"Bury them." She declared. Thom opened his eyes wide as he heard her cold voice heading towards the others. "I won't repeat this. Don't make me." She squinted her eyes.

Clung showed a smile as he bowed in deep silence, then called for a couple of helpers to move the bodies away. As the crowd slowly dissolved itself as the bodies were slowly taken away, the former leaders disappeared together with them.

"Thank you..." Thom sighed. "That means I was finished no matter what I did, right?"

Valta nodded in response, then turned her body around as she pulled from Thom's arm to quickly leave. She immediately noticed that a hobgoblin from the crowd had tumbled her way towards them, and was now way too close to them. Someone seemed to have been pulling from her robes just moments before she began to walk.

Valta's sense of danger triggered immediately. She saw in the eyes of that hobgoblin woman something she had never seen before in the eyes of those beings— a pure, deep-rooted hatred that had suddenly come bursting out like a bomb. A dagger emerged from between her robes, a simple iron dagger, but mortal for a human nonetheless. It only took her half a second: Valta had already registered it as an extraordinary danger, without taking Thom's inhuman body into account.

The hob pounced on the man's unprotected back, but it was already too late for her. Valta had unsheathed Thom's replacement scimitar from his belt, and threw it right at the hob's hand. The blade smashed the black hand holding the dagger, but the monster still advanced, ready to stab straight at Thom's neck.

Clank!

Valta's eyes opened wide in worry for a split second— worry that had been unnecessary from the beginning.

Thom turned around and grabbed the monster by the arm, then smacked her across the face with a sounding slap that reverberated in the forest.

The dagger fell to the ground together with the body of the woman, her mouth spilling blood incessantly onto the dirt. Thom's face contorted and his frown turned into worry. He had reacted that way out of pure reflex, but he didn't mean to hurt her badly so. Nervously, he leaned forward to help the hob, but was pulled by the hand by the woman beside him. She stared intently at him. Words seemed to come out of her pupils, telling him to stay.

The fear from the surrounding crowd was clear. It had only been a slap, but her body now laid limp on the ground. Was she dead? He couldn't tell.

Another hobgoblin rushed to the woman's side and held her close. Judging by the relief on her face, it looked as if the attacker had survived Thom's blow— and that eased his heart slightly as he swallowed dry and turned away.

"You...!"

The man's eyes opened wide. Was that a female voice he had heard? His head followed the trail towards that monster behind him, and found tears rolling down the eyes of the one he had hit. Frail and weak, she loosened herself out of the other monster's grip, and fell to the ground. Then, her face drenched in blood, she crawled a few feet closer to Thom, almost spitting out her soul with a sharp scream.

"You killed my son, you pathetic monster...!"

What had she just said? He had never heard such words come from the mouth of the hobgoblins— never so structured, firm, and with such emotion. Never had he seen those fearful, hatred-filled eyes, and never had he noticed that in them, several human expressions were found.

"He was just a boy, but you had to get him into this! If you hadn't started this, he wouldn't have died! If you hadn't given me this, I wouldn't be grieving so much! Fuck you! Die, go die!"

She picked up a rock, and with all of her strength swung it at Thom. The man didn't bother to stop it, and instead, received it head-on. It bounced of his head, and fell to the ground, silent between the sobbing of the desolate woman.

"It's your fault...! It's all your fault! I didn't ask to care! I didn't ask for any of this, but you dragged us! If I just hadn't found out, if I just hadn't found out...!"

The woman buried her fingernails into her skull as she screeched incomprehensible words, making everyone's stomach churn in a moment. Thom was no different. He felt a hand made of grief grip his throat. Why was the monster— "... So human?" He babbled out.

Valta frowned slightly. She knew there was no time to deal with such things, and there was no need for doubt to take hold of Thom's heart. Against her wishes, she pointed at a group of men and commanded them.

"Grab this woman and take her to the crystal girl. See that her wounds are healed."

Four hobs quickly came by and grabbed the woman by her arms, then dragged her out of the arena as her legs and arms flailed around.

Valta put her hand on Thom's shoulder, which he immediately understood as a question. A sigh escaped his nose as he closed his eyes, and a loud sniff cleared the knot on his throat. He looked at her with a bitter smile, "I'm fine." He said. "I see now that... I'm the least affected from us all."

Valta didn't answer. She knew well that they had been placed in an advantageous position. There was no doubt about that, so she couldn't assure him by saying otherwise. Her usual silence had been enough to convey her meaning, so the man could only smile the bitter thoughts away.

"Only one month more." Those words came out as he trailed away. "That's all we need."