Bren entered his apartment, in a building in the south west of the main square. In the distance, bells rang in a certain rhythm, informing the citizens that it was safe to go outside again. The beast threat had been dealt with.

“Bren!” Fae said as she hurried out of the living room to meet him. “What happened!? Did they beat them!?”

“Uh... yes, they did...”

“Did they really take Riala!?”

“Yes...”

“I wish I could’ve seen it! Tell me everything!”

“...”

“Bren...? What’s wrong?”

“I think I’m starting to lose my mind, Fae... Lilly is sitting outside the walls, happily chatting with a beast.”

“... what do you mean?”

“They’re just sitting there, talking! They even gave it a name! ... Maybe I’m sleeping? Am I dreaming? I... This makes no sense... I don’t understand what’s happening anymore... And that little girl... And—”

Suddenly, Fae slapped him across the face.

“Eh!? What are you doing!?” he said.

While a slap from Fae wouldn’t hurt him in any way, it was still somewhat irritating.

“Come out of it and tell me what happened!”

“Right, right...”

He recounted to her what he had witnessed from the walls. How Lilly and her followers had confronted the largest group of beasts anyone there had ever seen, how they had easily beaten them without anyone even getting injured, and how the little girl that was around them all the time had killed at least three beasts herself. That much was shocking enough already, but most of the onlookers trusted Lilly, and they had believed that they would come out on top. However, when one beast was still moving at the end, they didn’t finish it off. Instead, they started talking to it. He saw Lilly laughing, he saw both her and Riala petting the beast, and when Lilly did something to it, while sitting on its back, it changed somehow. It looked different afterwards, and it didn’t give off the eerie air of a beast anymore. It still felt peculiar, but not dangerous. The entire situation was surreal, yet the breaking point for Bren came afterwards. The beast suddenly got up, and for a fraction of a second he thought it would attack now, but when Lilly commanded it to sit down... it did...

“What is with this woman...?” he said. “This isn’t just abnormal anymore... This is... completely insane...”

“... Bren, why are you here right now?”

“Huh?”

“You’re telling me they’re still out there, talking to a beast, and you went home!?”

“Uhm... I was dismissed... Dad said it would take a while... And my next shift starts tonight... So...”

“... You’re hopeless. I got to see that. Later!”

“Uh... Fae?” he said, still in a daze, as she rushed out the door.

***

“The bells...” Berlotte said, listening to the muted ringing coming from outside. “The threat was dealt with...”

“That was pretty quick,” Hayla said. “It couldn’t have been these new beasts. They’re supposed to be stronger.”

“That’s right! And that means the normal beasts are back! Splendid!” Janyr said. “It’s just a matter of time until that Lilly gets chased away now! I told you, our time would come!”

“Ugh, will you shut up?” Hayla said. “You heard what the guards were talking about. They want to give people Callings of their choosing. Even if the beasts are back, they won’t suddenly ‘chase her away.’ Face the facts, it’s over. For all of us.”

“Nonsense. If they can’t even stop the beasts, how likely is it that they’ll be able to change people’s Callings?”

“He might be right, Hayla,” Berlotte said.

“Huh? Seriously?” she asked.

“Of course I am!” Janyr said.

“They have done absolutely nothing so far. Of course their promises sound enticing to the people, but if they can’t keep them, they’re just a bunch of kids. Maybe there’s a chance for Alarna after all...”

“Nope, I don’t see it,” Hayla said after thinking Berlotte’s words over for a moment. “What have we done for the people recently?”

“What did we do? Hayla, you know very well—”

“No, Berlotte, not what we actually did. I know we’ve been working hard, especially Hertar, but what did the people see us do? Think about it from the perspective of someone just living their life out there. They don’t care about us brokering a nice deal with Cerus for white stones, or increasing the work efficiency, to extend the wall more quickly. These improvements are marginal. Unless Lilly makes a real blunder, it will take months for the people to realize that she isn’t the better option, and it will be too late by then.”

“Hm... You’re sounding more like Hertar by the day... But I still believe this gives us a chance.”

“Hey!!”

A shout in the hallway outside their cell interrupted their conversation.

“Th— k—d —y —s!!”

They tried to listen to what was being said, but it was difficult to make it out through the thick door.

“W-what...?” Berlotte said, frozen, while Hayla and Janyr hurried to the door to hear better.

“What!? Twenty!?” they heard someone say.

“Just Lilly and her followers! And they even took one prisoner! A talking beast!!” another said.

“You’re messing with me...”

“I’m serious!!”

“Oh, come on! My shift ends in two hours! Couldn’t they have attacked a little later!?”

Hayla stepped away from the door, white as a sheet. “Did you hear that, Berlotte...?”

“They killed twenty beasts... Talking beasts...”

“How long did that take them...?” Hayla wondered. “From the first bell ring to the second... Twenty minutes? Thirty maybe?”

The average response time for beast attacks was twenty minutes, from the first sighting, until a squad made their way to the site of the attack, and finally dealt with the threat. Lilly’s time was on par, but instead of one or two beasts, they had dealt with twenty, and it was supposedly the stronger beast variant that everyone had been worried about. All their hopes of Lilly not being able to keep up her promises were crumbling to pieces at that moment.

“—ti!”

“What was that...?” Hayla asked, not having been able to make out the last sentence.

“T-they are talking about a beast that survived...” Janyr stammered. “Lilly is having a friendly chat with it... And she named it ‘Hati’...”

“She did what...?” Hayla said.

They kept listening, unbelieving, until one of the voices disappeared.

“Tsk... not once has something interesting happened while I was there,” the guard in the hallway complained.

Berlotte was quietly thinking about this new information. Not only hadn’t they heard anything about beasts reappearing, be it in or out of town, Lilly had now also beat the rumored talking beasts, and an impressive amount of them at that. They were also talking to the beasts, and learning more about what’s out there would fascinate the citizens. Not to mention that they might actually be able to control the Callings. There would always be those who doubted the stories about her, or questioned her motives, but all this was guaranteed to convince the vast majority of people that they had made the right choice.

“It’s over...” Berlotte said.

“Hm...” Hayla said.

“If they’re really that strong...” Janyr said. “What if...?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Berlotte said. “There’s no way.”

“Wait... Should we consider the possibility...?” Hayla asked.

“Now you’re listening to him? Not once have you ever agreed on anything.”

“Think about it, Berlotte,” Hayla said.

“Okay, hypothetically... It would change Alarna forever. But it wouldn’t be good for us... We alone put dozens of people to rest.”

“If we’re not going to be able to convince the citizens to follow us again though... what do we have to lose?”

“Our lives, Hayla.”

“Won’t that happen anyway? Even if we managed to flee, what exactly do you think our chances for survival would be out there? I know I don’t stand a chance against even a category two,” she said, raising her shirt a little, to reveal a scar caused by claws.

“I don’t know... I wish Hertar was here,” Berlotte said. “I wonder if he will hear about what happened today.”

“Maybe he will, but we can’t be sure. We have to make a decision. I think... we should reveal it. At least to Lilly.”

Berlotte thought their options through, but eventually she came to the conclusion that Hayla was right. They had been in this cell for several days already, and they didn’t know how much longer they would have to stay here. Not only did they have no plan for how to get out, they were also on a time limit. And if they somehow made it out, it was unclear what they were supposed to do then. Lilly seemed more and more like their best chance. Reluctantly, she agreed.

“Okay.”

***

In the forest south of Alarna, a wolf-type beast stood hidden behind a tree. He had watched the fight between the humans and the moderators from this position, and he watched on as the humans interrogated a survivor. He was shocked when one of them did something that transformed the other beast into something he didn’t recognize. It still had the form of a beast, but its mana and looks had changed considerably, and even from this distance, he felt like the beast had weakened somehow. As if it was squishy like a human.

After this display, and as the humans and their captive resumed talking, he turned away and ran through the woods, deeper and deeper, for a solid hour, until he eventually saw a cave in the distance. Two bears stood guard on either side of it, and as he came closer and slowed down, he simply walked past them.

The first few meters into the cave looked ordinary enough, but after a few turns, as it was getting dark enough inside that humans would have a hard time seeing anything, candles started illuminating the passageway, and after a few more turns, the beast reached a large, open space that didn’t fit the environment. It looked as if someone had tried their best to build a loft in here, with a bed, chairs, tables, and even rugs. If someone came here without knowing better, they might assume a human was living here.

The wolf came to a stop just centimeters before his paws would touch the rug that lay at the entrance to the “room,” and he waited patiently for its inhabitant to acknowledge him. After a few seconds, a wolf with silvery fur jumped off the bed it had been lying on and walked closer to the entrance, where it sat down.

“And?” it asked.

“They lost, Arax,” he said, and recounted what he had seen, while the silver wolf listened with curiosity.

It had given the moderators permission to hunt in its territory a total of three times, and every time, the situation had seemed to worsen. The first time, there had been two of them, which were found dead on the road to Cerus not long after. Something had also startled the wild ones in the area around Alarna, which had been quite irritating. Next, a group of ten asked permission, which was followed by the wild ones fleeing the area again, but in even larger droves than before. And finally, a group of twenty had wanted to head directly to Alarna.

While Arax wasn’t a fan of the moderators, and could have technically rejected their requests, doing so would’ve only led to more headaches down the road, especially if there was an anomaly running around. After two failed attempts to find and bring it down, however, the beast got curious about what they were up against exactly, and sent someone after them.

“Twenty one dead moderators... Four awakened humans... And a beast that was turned back into a wolf...” Arax mused. “This could get very interesting...”