A startling hand came down upon Velis, shaking him awake and leaving him gasping for air as the morning sun rose. Over him was Aldweck who had a gentle smile and was trying to tell him it was time to go. Velis wiped his face and slowly pushed himself up to his feet, the rest of the group also marching toward Zubikai City which was nearing in sight. A strong urgency was in the group’s tired demeanor. They had already traveled through harsh conditions and faced fierce dark cultists, they wanted to preserve what energy they had left. Velis could see that.

A single large bird flew over the group, cawing, as they walked down the path begrudgingly. It wouldn’t be long after that the group saw Zubikai City up above. Walled off, there were few buildings that soared higher than the walls themselves. The one city that did rise above higher than the defensive walls was the castle keep that looked onward around all the hills and valleys that the city was tucked into. It seemed this city was built on a natural defensive, not that the Cariqueys had much competition in the southern hemisphere.

They arrived at the gate and looked up at the towering doors that had begun to open for them. The soldiers had to crank a device to make the two large doors start to open, but within a minute the gap was large enough for the party to pass through and enter Zubikai City.

The city was near barren. The houses were in ruin and the people who were outside looked homeless and dried up. As the group walked through, there was a clear disparity between those who were citizens and those who were soldiers. Rose-suit officers were abundant throughout the city, full of color and well-fed with happy grins as they chatted along the walkways. On the contrary, most of the locals looked at the group with a skeptical eye. Their untrusting nature saying something about the treatment of people here.

Erick approached one of the vendors who was wiping his statues with a cloth very delicately, “Sir, could you tell us a bit about this place?”

His eyes slowly looked up toward Erick before looking him up and down, his eyes once moving behind Erick to look at the large group that was behind Erick.

“I don’t want any trouble.” He said.

“We don’t mean any at all! We were just hoping you could tell some outsiders about this place?”

“Stick around long enough and you’ll find out.” His forehead wrinkled, placing the statue under the booth before peering back out to Erick, “I need you to leave. You’re going to hurt my business by drawing all this attention to me.”

The group began to move on when a voice resonated across the street and made the old man perk up and grit his teeth, “Hey, hey, Rizo. You got a big crowd today! What’s the deal with leaving us out of the fun?” A man with a rose-suited uniform, approached the group, a wooden club hanging from the side of his belt.

“Please, I don’t want any trouble, sir!” He said, waving his hands, slowly backing away from the approaching soldiers.

“Trouble? Hey, don’t you think you’re giving these guests the wrong idea about us?”

The soldier that had been talking had unlatched his club and thrown it over his shoulder. They were both grinning when Aldweck intercepted the path between them and the cowering old man who was now sobbing with tears in his hands.

“Huh? What do you want?” The soldier asked.

“Nothing in particular. I saw you pull your club out and that man is now crying out of fear, I can’t help but assume the worst.” Aldweck explained.

“See Rizo? You’ve made em’ think I’m a bad guy! How are you going to take responsibility for this?” The soldier seemed to talk over Aldweck who was standing in their way.

The soldier put his hand on Aldweck and tried to push him out of his path, “Get out of here man.”

Aldweck didn’t budge, and before he knew it, the man’s face was full of Aldweck’s fist. He was sent on his back to the ground, holding his broken nose.

“What the fuck are you thinking you’re doing!?” The other soldier began to unwrap his gun but was met with a punch in the gut by Aldweck, followed up with an uppercut to his jaw. It left him paralyzed on the ground as he looked up at Aldweck like a transforming monster. Aldweck took their guns off of them.

“Sometimes, when you’ve been through a lot of bad shit, you learn to take care of it before it becomes a problem.” Aldweck said to the soldiers before looking back at the group, “We need to tie them up and prevent them from drawing attention to our group. Got it?”

Erick nodded.

Rizo had started to run away when he was caught by Naomi, “I’ll split up with my group and have a stern talking to with this one. Chief Zaberdack, why don’t you go acquaint yourself with the city guard and do some reconnaissance?”

“I don’t take orders from you, but that sounds like a good plan to me. Come on, follow me.” He motioned to his group as the party split up. Steilart had begun tying the men up with rope, tying cloth into their mouths as the street had become virtually empty.

Velis and Steilart escorted them into an alleyway where they threw them down against the brick wall behind them.

Steilart took the gun from Aldweck and handed the other one to Velis, “Looks like you guys have been having a heyday every day.” Steilart said.

He inspected the gun while he began to talk, “Here’s how this is going to go. I ask you a question. You think long and hard about it and then Velis here pulls your cloth down.” He paused and looked at them with a smile before reloading the gun, “You scream, I hit you with the stock of this gun and smash all of your teeth in. You answer the questions without resistance then we will let you live and stay here until we are finished with this city. Okay?”

There was a brief pause where they took in all the information before nodding vigorously.

“What exactly is going on in this city?” Steilart asked, looking toward Velis to undo one of their cloths.

Velis undid the cloth with the soldier whose nose was not broken. He immediately screamed out for help, causing the entire group to get on edge. Steilart sent the stock of the gun into his mouth, shattering many of his teeth and smashing his head against the brick behind him, leaving him unconscious as the blood pooled from within his mouth and drooled down into his lap.

“I told you what I would do. Why would you be stupid enough to believe that it’s going to help you now?” Steilart cleaned the stock of his gun before his eyes darted to the man with the broken nose. His chest was rising and falling rapidly as he looked at Steilart with tears in his eyes.

Aldweck had looked away during all this to keep tabs on the city. Mitch had begun treating each situation a bit differently as he moved along through this journey. If he didn’t change how he treated the situation, he was sure to end up in bad situations like he had been for the duration of his time in this world. In reality, the desire to get home to Earth had reached critical mass, driving his violence and decision-making to new heights.

To Erick, this might have even looked like the old Aldweck he knew, but Erick knew that there was something more going on. Ever since the encounter with that penguin, he had known something was surely off about his master. That, he could not let go.

Chammie on the other hand had taken point on the street. He was keeping a lookout for other soldiers and had volunteered to distract them if they got too close to the alleyway. Zubikai was teeming with soldiers, and it was unlikely that they could go for long without getting caught. In their minds, this is why the soldier had screamed despite knowing the consequences of his actions.

Velis drew out the cloth from the other soldier’s mouth, he stuttered nervously, “W-W-What do you mean by going on in this city?” His voice whimpered as if he were asking for mercy.

“Why is there such a large disparity between the soldiers and the civilians? Hell, I haven’t seen one smiling person in this city that wasn’t a soldier. What’s up with that, huh?”

His eyes looked down and his chin dipped as he sighed, “Do I really have to spell it out? You already know what’s going on in this city. You just want confirmation…or something?”

“More or less,” Steilart said.

“Okay…fine. The soldiers here steal, kill, and abuse the locals. There are no punishments for crimes committed by Rose Soldiers. There…you happy? It’s underwhelming, but the truth.”

“Next question, you’re not done.” He squatted down and picked his head up, “Who is in charge of the Rose Soldiers here in Zubikai City?”

“C-Commander Blaire. He’s living in the castle keep. Why?”

“Because we’re going to drag his guts across the streets.”

“That’s suicide! You’ll never get to him. There are more soldiers in Zubikai City than there are in the other lesser islands combined! You really think your group of thirty stands an inkling of a chance?”

“I’m the one asking the questions here,” Steilart said.

“When’s the next time Commander Blaire is coming out of his castle?”

“I-I don’t know. He doesn’t have a schedule. He just does what he wants…” the soldier shook his head.

Steilart looked at Velis and then Velis put the cloth back in the man’s mouth, tying the slack out of it and tightening it within his mouth. He looked up and turned to Aldweck and Erick who were beside them, “Looks like this is the most we’re getting out of these guys. What should we do with them?”

Erick looked toward Aldweck as the leader of the group, “Leave them here. We need to regroup with the others and see what kind of things they have learned. By the time we hide these guys, it’ll be too late and our chance of opportunity may pass.”

Steilart nodded, “If you say so, Knight Aldweck.”

They piled out from the alleyway and motioned for Chammie to follow with, leaving his post. The group walked around the street as if no laws commanded them, drawing attention to themselves unintentionally. Many of the soldiers they walked by started chatting and scheming, but they hadn’t been harassed by any soldiers yet.

Instead, they saw soldiers running through the streets and screaming, “Did you hear? There are some intruders who have started a slaughter at the steps to the keep! It’s a bloodbath. Hurry! We don’t want Commander Blaire to reprimand us!”

“Fuck, I’m not getting those lashes!”

Aldweck and the others looked at each other with worried expressions as things began to heat up in the city. It was Chief Zaberdack’s group that had gone to the keep, and now they were apparently causing a slaughter up ahead.

“We need to hurry. There’s no way this can be good for them.”

The group busted out into a jog and ran around the corner, following the soldiers to the base of the keep. Without knowing the direction of the keep, they could only follow the soldiers in hopes of finding where this bloodbath was happening.

Mitch could only pray that things hadn’t already spun out of control to the point of containing it, but knowing how this world operated, things would never go according to plan. He gritted his teeth, feeling a sense of dread in his stomach.