The team had gone on down to the marketplace, although Javier had said that we already had most of the supplies. “We’re really just compensating for the additional member that’s joined the team. Some more food, some more camping materials. We already have the wagon, the tents, the horses— those are on loan from the workplace so do your utmost to defend them. Consider this another introduction to the city, Perry.”

The marketplace was filled with stalls, each hocking various wares. Food, trinkets, one with books locked under a display case, another one showing the fashion of the city. It felt like anything could be bought here if one just knew where to look.

Given I had only officially been on the team for less than a day, I was lacking in wages to purchase anything, meaning I could only watch as we went around the marketplace, the funds for the supplies coming from our team’s budget.

The streets were filled with even more people than they were in the prior night. If I sensed with my electroreception for even a moment, my head would spin from the overwhelming nature of the amount of people and signals within the city. Javier had noticed my painful face and advised that the next part of training that sense would be blocking out the vast noise to fixate on what was truly important. But that was for the future training, not the one we were about to have.

“Alright, that’s enough extra food and a bedroll for Perry. Back to the barracks. We have more training to do,” he said, crossing his arms. The team groaned, myself included, but we understood our brief foray out into the city was over. It was time to beat fighting competency into our bodies.

We were in the same enclosed field as before where we had been running our laps, behind the barracks against the outer wall of the city. Other members of the city guard could be seen doing their own exercise or training spread throughout, but we were up against the wall, as far from the others as we reasonably could be in the shared space.

“Alright, first things first, I want you to call your second tiers upon you. The faster you can summon those features, the better. If we’re ambushed in the middle of the night, you’ll be happy you’ve brought it down to a second instead of a few seconds.”

The others beast soul features superimposed upon their skin. Mia had wings sprout over her arms and a thin narrow beak over her lips, while Vera’s head was covered in giant curved horns, her legs terminating in furry hooves. Alain had manifested a winding tail and paws, while I stared down at my own form. My webbed appendages weren’t so hot for fighting on land. Only the spurs were meaningful. Nonetheless, Javier had said to manifest everything, so I felt my animal limbs come in, paws and all… albeit in a second compared to the other’s speed.

“We’ll have to see if we can trigger some other feature of your beast soul, Perry. Those paws don’t seem right for land battles. We need something else for the land other than your spurs. Perhaps your fur coat… do platypuses have a fur coat?”

I shrugged back at him. Wasn’t like I knew what a platypus fully was.

Tooltip: Platypuses do have fur coats.

“Evidently platypuses do have fur coats, per my notification box,” I said. Javier shrugged at my response.

“Doesn’t mean much if you don’t have it manifested yet. Continue working on manifesting your second tier over and over until you get it down to reflex nature, nonetheless. We’re going to be moving on from manifestation though. All of you come for me. It’s time for your combat practical.” He motioned for the others to come for him with a flick of his hands.

Vera acknowledged his offer, barreling forwards with her horns leading the way, legs gouging the earth with each mighty step she took. She leaped forwards, closing the gap between her and Javier in an instant, but he was already gone, having vanished into the air. She turned her head, frowning face searching for his presence when a tail appeared, slamming into her feet and careening her over.

“I thought I said for all of you to come. You aren’t going to get through solo,” Javier said, brows furrowed. “If you don’t attack to kill, I don’t think you’ll even hit me today.”

“Fine. Choke on your hubris, boss,” Mia said. Her wings fluttered rapidly, moving faster than my eyes could see, until her body shimmered and she stepped forward, moving even faster than Vera had albeit in many more smaller steps.

It was as though she had split in two, images of her body left behind by half a second as she accelerated towards where she thought Javier was. She was speed incarnate.

Alain’s tail flicked about, ears sprouted from his head that I hadn’t even noticed prior, body hunched over ready to pounce. I wished I could join them— I was certain I could find Javier with ease, but I was still relegated to the sidelines, working on mastering what little I had to work with.

The air shimmered next to Mia and she ducked, a thick club-like object piercing through her afterimage, destroying the copy, the second Mia shattering into nothing. In turn, Alain leapt from behind the source of the blunt weapon. I didn’t even notice him move from where he was, his presence so small, no bloodthirst at all in his attack. His face was gritted in grim concentration, everything in him focused on attacking Javier.

That didn’t account for much in the end. His body was flung back, thrown back by the unveiled tail slamming into his chest, Javier’s arms blocking Mia’s series of kicks. “Without your technique active, it’s simply not going to be enough, Mia.”

Javier’s face appeared and his tongue lashed out, smacking straight into Mia’s gut, her body crumpling over. All of the other trainees groaned, slowly rising from the ground, clutching their bruised bodies. “If that was a spike feeder you’d be lucky to get off with bruises. I was holding back on those attacks.”

“You were using third tier features, of course you beat us,” Mia said, panting. She was still hunched over, clutching her stomach.

“So what? You’re going to make excuses when you run into a spike feeder? Sometimes you have to find the way to victory in spite of the obvious answers…which includes you, Perry. When I said everyone, I meant everyone. I didn’t mean everyone minus Perry. I didn’t say that Perry who is focused on manifesting his second tier couldn’t participate in the attack.”

“But you didn’t name him, boss,” Vera interjected. “You told him he needed to work on manifesting his second tier more.”

“Perry was your out. I didn’t name any of you. I just asked for all of you to talk me. I admit it was more implicit, but you were supposed to find the other option. Perry here could have adequately sensed where I was, perhaps even opening me up further to an attack, based on what I’ve seen in his prior combat experience. Doesn’t matter though. Now you’ll always consider that as an option to think about, and I hope that lesson sticks with you. Again.”

Tier 2 Augmented: Fur Coat Awakened.

With my addition to the training, as meager as my relative fighting ability was in comparison to the rest of the team, we were able to force Javier to refrain from using his active camouflage and fight uncloaked… mostly. He still tactically hid parts of his body only to reveal them when the moment was apt. Even if we logically knew that there was something missing, the sudden appearance of it broke habits with fleeting instinct. The ability to hide one’s tells couldn’t be understated when it came to combat.

However, the training did bear fruit. I had awoken my fur coat, hair covering my entire midsection. I wondered if there was any notable elements to my fur, other than the obvious function of keeping me warm.

Tooltip: A platypus’s fur coat is insulated with a layer of air trapped underneath it.

With that insight in place, I tried to see if I could swell my fur with even more air than it would have by default, and then I puffed up, fur outrageously expanded around me. I looked ridiculous, but it seemed quite effective for absorbing Javier’s blows, cushioning me against their mighty blunt impact.

I also suspected that I could siphon off some of the air if I was underwater, a sort of reservoir for breathing that I was lacking before, but I didn’t want to get into the circumstances that would require me to test that. Not just yet.

Technique Codified: Swollen Pelt. Proficiency: 10%

In the end, I did feel more accomplished than I had when the day started, but there was still so much more room for me to grow. I almost felt encouraged. I had Electromuted Javier and he froze for a second, just long enough for Vera to slam into him with her horns. “That was dirty of you, Perry. Well done. On the battlefield there is no clean fighting. Only survival.”

If I could master my Electromute technique, perhaps that would be enough to subdue the more dangerous spike feeders and continue to prove my worth to the team.

After that we had broken up for dinner, yet another education session was thrust upon us, although this one was more informal than all of the others.

We had gathered in the classroom, the small space kept alight by the light of the candles spread along the wall, casting our shadows throughout the room. We were magnified in those shadows, but in the center of the room our regular, small selves, fixated on the subject of today’s speech.

“In preparation for our larger quest, we’re having some more theoretical classes today. There’s no right answers. There’s no correct answers. There’s nothing set. We’re trying to develop your minds both to understand the problem further and in preparation for any other circumstances we might come across,” Javier said, sitting upon his desk, wiry arms crossed against his taut chest.

“Today’s discussion— what do we think spike feeders are? Having an idea for this will provide a foundation for when we work with the researchers, and help give meaning to our fights. What is that we seek to kill? Are we proving merciful? Or are we attacking a natural beast? Who would like to begin with their hypothesis?”

Mia raised her hand, a smirk on her face. “You know, I’ve read a lot of materials on this. The current prevailing theory is that spike feeders are created by a similar means to our beast souls, but in reverse. The spike feeder soul infects regular animals, perverting them into an anthropomorphic form which is constantly suffering and desiring to eat and kill. Their progression is a twisted mirror of our own— they have their own first tier, it’s just never seen as those hide until they’re strong enough to hunt on their own.”

She stared at us, daring us to speak, her own self-evident truths lingering. But Alain was not one to be deterred. “That’s an interesting theory, Mia. Certainly it’s one that the government wants you to think. Wouldn’t want to make people panic if they were aware of other, differing thoughts on the origins of the spike feeders.”

“Oh here you go again, always postulating that the government is keeping us down. Grow up, Alain. They have better things to do than manipulate the public,” Mia replied.

I stared at Javier, wondering if he’d interject, but he seemed content to let the two fight it out. Vera, on the other hand, bit at her nails, unable to say a word. Her eyes twitched, flickering constantly between my other two teammates.

“I don’t know why you think it’s so unlikely that the government covers things up. There’s already a bias against prey beasts souls. You think that came entirely from the people? We both know that it was endorsed by the government as a mean of enforcing castes upon the general population, which then spilled over into the other villages. But that’s a different conversation, one that I’m sure Javier would prefer if I didn’t indulge any further right now.”

“You’re quite right there, Alain. Today we’re focused on the origins of spike feeders, not government conspiracies. Let’s stay on topic this time, and Mia, please don’t encourage him further. We only have so much time. Please continue, Alain.”

Alain scratched at his nose, smirking under his hand at Mia. “As I was saying before I was interrupted, the prevailing theory is sound, sure, but I have an inkling of my own idea. I think the spike feeders breed— wait, pause your thoughts there, Mia. That’s not the key point. You’re wondering how they still manage to get more? Simple. The people they kidnap, or others that are lost to the world are corrupted into additional spike feeders. I suspect it’s to do with eating another person’s flesh. Such a crime that goes against the world is then reflected upon the eater, and then they have the urge to keep doing so.”

“So you think that all spike feeders were once people?” I asked, curious as to where Alain was going with this.

“That’s right. Their beast souls were corrupted with them. That’s why they’re all humanoid.”

I shrugged, unable to comment more definitively on the answer. I hadn’t had the time to think about this before. Or rather, I had the time, but I didn’t have the cause. There was nothing driving me to think about their source, just how to be chosen to fight them. Now that I had less time, it was being used to evaluate the enemy. What irony.

“I think… I think the spike feeders are put among us as a punishment for our crimes that aren’t observed by others,” Vera said, hands pushed to her chest.

“You’re a believer in the doctrine?” Alain asked.

“I’m not a ‘believer’ of the doctrine, Alain. I have faith that it’s true.” Her gaze bore into Alain, and would have maimed him if she had learned a technique doing so.

“Excuse me, Vera, you follow the faith of the doctrine?”

Vera nodded in response, sporting a light smirk on her face at having gotten one over Alain. “When we put a spike feeder down, we purge the accumulated sins that have gathered in it. The spike feeders were created by someone in response to the evils of the world, solidifying our most carnal desires into physical form. The stronger the evils, the stronger the beast. That’s why we have to kill them, lest we become overtaken by their sins. They were created as a test, of course. Can we prevail against the evils of the world or will we crumple underneath them?”

I wasn’t familiar with this doctrine. In the village, we hadn’t had time for such beliefs. It was work or fight, with little in-between. Evidently Vera’s village had a little more liberty to believe in such things.

“Well? What do you think, Perry?”

I pursed my lips, reflecting on all that I’d heard already. But the answer continued to elude me. I wasn’t able to come up with something new, nor did any of the other answers seem right, at least, with what little I knew. “I don’t know. I would have to do more research on the matter to find out. Everyone’s said such interesting things, but interest alone doesn’t mean truth,” I said.

Javier laughed, leaping to his feet. “An excellent way to end this lecture. I hope what everyone has said has put the seeds of curiosity within you. We’re searching for the truth, so that we may put an end to it. While it’s good to have a hypothesis, be sure to be open to opposing viewpoints. Without conclusive proof of anything, it’s truly all speculation. Now go to bed. We’ve got a few more days of heavy training to make sure you’re earning your keep.”

He disappeared from our sight, the candles in the classroom dimming from a gust, leaving us in darkness. “Anyone know the way back?” I asked, feeling embarrassed at my lack of night vision.

“Follow me,” Alain said, grasping my hand in his, his eyes shining in the slight light filtering in through the window of the room.

“You’re part of the team. We don’t leave anyone behind, even if it’s just for matters such as these.” I felt reassured in his grasp. Even if I wasn’t strong enough yet, with everyone working with me, I could become strong. We were stronger together.