Andric awoke laying in a bed, staring up at a wooden ceiling. His head pulsed, and he shut his eyes as soon as he opened them. Then, a few seconds later, he remembered what happened before he passed out.

He felt anger unlike anything he had felt since his reincarnation, and he pulled mana from his skulls and wielded it like a gun. He was ready to lash out with his mana at any moment, but he eventually remembered how he killed the monster in his last second of consciousness, and he let his mana slowly retreat back into his skull.

While he manipulated his mana, Andric glanced at the speck of malevolent red mana that floated along with the passive blue mana, and he sighed. It had grown large since the last time he saw it, but the blue mana kept it at bay, overpowering whatever manipulative nature it contained.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked around the room he laid in, and he wasn’t alone. One both sides of him, injured people were laying in beds like his own and holding their wounds. On his left side, a child around his age had nearly his entire body covered in melted flesh. His face was mostly unharmed, but the rest of his body suffered tremendously. On his right side, another child sported the same sort of wounds.

Andric lifted his upper body off his bed and took a better look around. He laid in a long, shoddily constructed, wooden type of structure, where light could be seen from gaps in the walls and the roof, and support beams were needed in the center. The building had a much larger length than its width, and it had rows of beds against both walls with a row of chairs in the center.

Sitting in a chair, Wolter slept with his head hanging down. Though it was daytime and people occasionally walked past him, Wolter never moved in his sleep. Andric didn’t know how long he had been sleeping, but he knew it had to have been a while.

The blood that Andric covered himself with had already been washed off, and his ragged clothes were switched with a white tunic. All the people laying in beds had similar tunics, and Andric noticed a pattern stitched to the right sleeve of the person next to him.

Andric checked his own right sleeve, and he saw a different pattern from the child next to him. They weren’t words or letters, and he didn’t know what either of them meant. He had many questions, and thus he jumped off the bed that he laid on and walked next to Wolter. His legs ached, but he ignored them long enough to sit down on the chair next to Wolter and shake his arm.

Wolter gradually awoke from his heavy sleep, and Andric asked him, “Where are mom and Hedy?”

“Hey, um, ah, they, eh, you’re safe,” Wolter said many things, repeatedly thinking of new ways to begin talking, and finally chose to ignore the question. He looked at Andric and took a deep breath, then picked up Andric’s wrist with his hand and said, “They didn’t make it.”

For a moment, the ferocious mana in Andric’s brain surged, but the calm mana restrained it. He said to his father, “I killed it,” and went back to his designated bed to sleep.

Throughout Gallus Town, huge changes took place. Reinforcements arrived from the two cities closest to Gallus Town, and magicians flocked by the thousand. The number of wounded in Gallus Town was over a thousand, and healing magicians worked day and night to heal all the injuries that were sustained. Within five days, everyone who survived the monster and flames was fully healed.

Temporary shelter was constructed for those who had their home burn down, but the majority of Gallus Town’s previous population either died or decided to move away. Of the thousands who inhabited Gallus Town before the monster came, only a few hundred stayed.

The town guards were not held responsible for the destruction, but a small group of mages were shackled and walked through the rubble of the town. Citizens were allowed to throw stones at the mages as they liked, and news eventually spread that those mages had unknowingly chased the monster toward their town.

Within a day, the economy shifted almost entirely to bartering and donating. Because of the large stores of food that were burnt down, food became a precious commodity. Suddenly, it was the farmers who lived outside of Gallus Town that were the richest.

There was no shortage of people who came to exploit the tragedy. Thieves and robbers were quick to take whatever they could from the ashes, and merchants set outrageous prices for the families who had just lost their jobs and possessions. If not for the unceasing charity of many generous souls, riots would have broken out.

However, among those who selflessly helped, Andric stood alongside them. His magic healed dozens of people who lost skin or limbs, and he could even transmute organic mass into meat. Though it required much more mana, Andric could change water and wood into edible beef, which chefs would then cook in soups and distribute for free.

Susanna and Cato were given priority housing after the death of Heiko, who died trying to save a family from a burning building, and they moved into a new home in less than a month. Shortly after, they invite Wolter and Andric, and they all started living together under the same roof.

Slowly, things in Gallus Town gained a semblance of normal. Lieve, Hedy, and Heiko were gone, but life went on.