Walking slowly, I couldn’t help but grin at the moment.

We were about half way to the Bell Church, in the dense forests north of Lumen. There were two wagons, rather big ones, and nearly a dozen of us walking alongside them.

Light was sitting on one of the wagons behind me, and as such most of her people were there with her. Martin, the son not the father, was guiding the first wagon. He was oddly alone, which made me wonder if Light’s people didn’t like him much.

Though it might be our fault. We were walking right in front of his cart, a bit to the side of it but still within earshot of it.

“What do you think is so special about it?” Merit asked as she studied Vim’s spear.

I was walking a little behind her, so as to not get accidentally bumped or poked by it. Lilly though didn’t seem to care or worry, she was walking right up next to Merit as she too studied it. “It’s really sharp?” Lilly suggested.

“That doesn’t make it special, not really. Think of how strong monarchs are, or even gods? How does something just being sharp let you slay gods?” Merit asked.

“I don’t think that’s the right way of looking at it, myself,” I said.

The two glanced back at me with frowns. “What do you mean?” Lilly asked.

I gestured at the two. “I mean… we know Vim used it to slay gods and monarchs. But… he does that without it too? Are you sure it’s not just a tool he uses because it can withstand his strength? Maybe it’s not that the spear can kill monarchs and gods, but rather that it can survive Vim’s ridiculous abilities. It won’t break or snap when he uses it, thus why he wields it,” I reasoned.

The two slowed a bit as they glanced at each other… and then they both looked back at the spear Merit held. “That makes a lot of sense…” Merit mumbled.

I smirked at them as even Lilly nodded, seemingly agreeing with me.

“That means it might not really be much help against this supposed monarch, though,” Merit then said as she handed it off to Lilly.

Oh…

I paused a moment, frowning at that realization.

Right… Light had said the spear would help us kill the monarch which was supposed to attack us tomorrow. But… if the spear itself wasn’t really special, other than its sturdiness and sharpness, then…

Lilly spun the spear a bit, and then it came to a stop on her shoulder. She rested it there, point upward, as if she was just some random town’s guardsman on patrol.

Studying her, and how comfortable she was with such a weapon, I wondered if my earlier assumption was correct.

Glancing behind us, past the first wagon and Martin who looked tired, I noted the distant looks from hooded figures near the second wagon.

They were scared of Lilly.

Enough so to keep their distance from her.

Looking back ahead, I sighed a little.

I knew the reason they were slightly scared of her. Lilly was spoken of with a whisper even amongst the members here, on this land. So I could only imagine the kind of stories and rumors that were about her amongst the people who had left to the other land. To them she was someone to be wary of. To be on guard with.

Which was insulting, since she had joined as to help protect them.

And Merit wasn’t much better. She had shocked Mono, the young saint who had returned with Light, and now it seemed she was being treated with the same respect that Lilly was receiving. The type that didn’t feel like respect at all, that is. It wasn’t hard to fault them for putting up barriers, since I understood it from their perspectives. Lilly was a known troublemaker from the past. And so had Merit been. And then they find out that Lilly was banished from Lumen…? And Merit shocks a saint? Strongly enough to hurt her? Couldn’t blame them for being wary at all…

What to say or do about it, I wonder…? Merit and Lilly didn’t care if they were seen as friendly, but they also didn’t care if they were seen as dangerous either. It made me wonder if I was making some kind of mistake, or doing a disservice by not… keeping the peace between them all.

But…

“Renn?”

My ears shifted under my hat as I glanced at Merit, who had slowed a bit as to walk beside me. Lilly too was on my other side. Now that they weren’t messing with the spear, they didn’t mind drawing closer to me.

I smiled at my friends, and decided to just let it be. It didn’t seem to bother Merit or Lilly, so I suppose I shouldn’t let it bother me too much. Even if it did, deep down.

“What is it?” I asked, since the two seemed to just be staring at me.

“Tired?” Merit asked.

“Not really…?” I said with a shake of the head.

“She’s not been sleeping much,” Merit said to Lilly.

“Sap was the same,” Lilly whispered.

“You two act as if I was lazy before,” I said with a huff, and glanced at Martin. The man still looked bored, but I knew he could hear us.

The two noticed my glance, and they both sighed at me. “I guess it’s just us seeing her as a cat, because I guess she wasn’t, huh?” Merit said.

“I wouldn’t know…? I only got to spend a couple days with her back in the beginning, unlike you,” Lilly said.

“Who’s surprised over that? I’m way more fun,” Merit said.

“Fun…? Fun to throw maybe,” Lilly said with a scoff.

Smiling at the two as they went to bickering, I glanced around at the forest we were walking through.

It was midday, and thankfully not raining, but it was still wet. Cold. Damp. But not the kind I was used to back home up north. This wetness was cold, but not so bad it chilled bone. Instead it was just… annoying. I even felt a little too warm under my clothes, making me consider possibly taking a layer off in a little bit.

Though was that because it was actually warm… or was it because of the hearts I’ve now absorbed, I wonder?

Glancing down at myself, I touched my stomach and wondered if the small monarch heart I’d swallowed was absorbed or not yet. It worried me a little to think that I hadn’t done so fast enough… and well… lost it, I guess.

It was a strange thought, but I had to think of it. After all it was what happened after you ate something. Or did a heart somehow not get digested…?

“Now she looks hungry,” Merit commented.

I flinched. “I kind of am, to be honest…” I admitted.

“I’m not going to hunt. Last thing I need is to leave you all and for the monarch to show up. Vim would give me back my wings, and then tear them off again, if that happened,” Lilly said with a huff.

“We brought food, idiot. What do you think those wagons are carrying?” Merit asked with a gesture behind us.

“The weak?” Lilly said.

Merit smirked at that, and I heard some clothes shift nearby. I glanced out the corner of my eye, keeping my head still, and saw Martin shift uncomfortably on his seat.

He’d definitely heard that.

“Speaking of the monarch… are we so sure it’ll show up tomorrow and not today?” I asked.

“No. But it’s not like we can do anything about it. Just stay on guard,” Lilly said.

“We could have done something. We could have not come,” Merit said.

Glancing down at my small friend, I wondered just how serious her little comments were. She’s said such a thing a few times since we had left Lumen, though had not hesitated to join us once told of our task.

Would she have come had I not been involved, I wonder…? Merit was one of the main guards at Lumen, like Reatti, but did that mean she’d go out of her way to help protect Light and the rest…? I honestly wasn’t sure, and it was kind of upsetting that I didn’t know. Merit was a prickly person, but I didn’t think she was so cruel as to abandon others out of pure spite. Yet… could I blame or fault her for not wanting to risk her life against a monarch…? That was not some small task. It wasn’t as if we were going to be attacked by brigands… we were talking a monarch. An actual monarch.

“Letting Light get eaten would have been funny, but we’d still have to deal with it eventually,” Lilly said.

“Vim can’t be too far behind us. I’m worried the timing, what with this happening while he’s gone,” Merit said.

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“Then at least we know if we all die and get eaten here we’ll be avenged, yeah?” Lilly said simply.

“Go get eaten, bird. I refuse to be something’s snack,” Merit said.

“That’s all you’d be anyway. Just a snack,” Lilly said back.

Unable to contain it, I laughed… which made both Lilly and Merit glance at me. Thankfully neither looked offended, particularly Merit.

“Speaking of eating… has Vim ever cooked a monarch for you, Renn?” Lilly then asked.

My hat shifted a little as my ears squirmed. “Hm…? No. He’s uh… mentioned that before, though,” I said. I didn’t want to mention he had brought up the idea of eating Miss Beak’s tongue, though had decided against it for some reason.

“I’ve only eaten two. Vim’s weird about it,” Merit said.

“Wait what? Is this some kind of neat thing I’m missing out on?” I asked.

Lilly lifted her head, smirking proudly as she did. “I’ve eaten several.”

What!? “What do they taste like…?” I asked, fascinated.

I’d never thought of eating them. When Witch and I had hunted the few we’d chased down, she had treated them with such reverence the idea of eating them hadn’t even been a thought!

“They taste like normal animals, Renn. There’s nothing special about them,” Merit said.

“Hey! It’s still important!” Lilly argued.

Merit shrugged at her, as if she didn’t care if it was important or not.

“Important how…?” I asked. Vim’s said it was difficult to prepare a monarch’s flesh and bone, since they degraded so quickly after death. And I knew they were special, since I myself carried pouches made from such leather. The pouches were special; they were somehow able to hide things from knowing eyes. Such as a monarch’s heart from a saint. Yet Vim had never said if eating a monarch, in that way meant anything or did anything… but maybe it did…? If their skin, their leather, had such affects maybe so too did their flesh?

“It’s a sign of Vim’s trust!” Lilly though said, thumping her chest with a balled fist as she did.

Oh…? I see. She was seeing it not as important or special in a literal sense but a figurative one. It wasn’t what was being eaten, but the how and why.

“I see,” I said with a small nod.

“Nothing to see, Renn. Lilly just got lucky and was near him more than us during such moments. Nothing more,” Merit said.

“Just how many monarchs has Vim slain?”

I tilted my head as both Lilly and Merit did the same at me… and then we all turned to look at the speaker. Martin sat up straighter, looking slightly worried as we all stared at him.

“Um… well… I mean…” he began to stammer, panicking, and I couldn’t help but smile at him. At least he tried!

“You’re Martin’s son, right?” Lilly then asked.

“Huh!? I uh. Yes. I am…!” Martin nodded quickly.

“He had a spine. Why are you so on edge?” Lilly asked.

Merit scoffed and then laughed, rather boisterously, and I couldn’t help but smile too. Lilly was so… well, Lilly, sometimes!

“Um… Well!” Martin tried to speak, but seemed to not want to do so while Merit laughed like mad.

“I have no idea, Martin, and honestly I’m not sure how anyone could know. Though Light might have a good idea at least,” I said. She had said her mother had kept very good records of Vim’s achievements, even the ones before he joined the Society… and the ones he had tried to hide from them. She had said most of those records were at Telmik.

“Light…? How would Light know, Renn? She didn’t even join until the wars started, and all the monarch hunts were before that,” Lilly said, sounding almost offended I’d even say such a thing.

I frowned at her and shrugged. “Celine kept records, supposedly? Figured Light would know then.”

“Feh,” Lilly waved that off, as if it wasn’t worth even considering.

“The fact that you don’t know, Renn, tells us that no one does. It’s foolish to even try and assume. Vim’s been around a long time, and was hunting monarchs even before the Society was a thought in Celine’s dreams. The legends say there were more monarchs than people back during those times, so… well… do the math,” Merit said.

“More than us…?” Martin whispered.

“I don’t believe those legends. They also say the gods had huge kingdoms in the skies. Yet we’re also told there were only a handful? Why have huge kingdoms if there’s only a few of you? Waste of space,” Lilly said.

Oh! Vim had mentioned those floating kingdoms before…!

“You don’t believe what’s right in front of you either, doesn’t make a difference,” Merit said.

“So what do you believe then, Merit?” I asked.

She hesitated a moment, and Lilly snickered at her as she looked away from me… as if in shame. “It’s not that I believe in the same thing as her! I just know better! She’s too stupid to realize how she came to such a realization is all!” Merit said, defending herself.

Grinning at her, since she just admitted she had simply said such a thing as to make fun of Lilly and not because she believed otherwise was very hilarious to me. Why were they so at odds with each other, when in truth they were such good friends? It was like a game to them.

It made me want to play too.

“There weren’t any monarchs on the other world,” Martin then said.

The three of us slowed a bit as to glance at him. “Huh?”

He nodded and frowned at me. “It’s why we went there, I guess. There’s none left over there.”

“You mean the lands you went to,” Lilly clarified.

“Yeah. The other continent. Sorry, I just… call it that, I guess,” Martin quickly apologized. I wasn’t sure what to think of the difference in how I was treated compared to Lilly and Merit. A part of me was happy he wasn’t scared of me, yet another part of me felt a little insulted all the same.

“Wonder how that works. Wouldn’t you think it’d be this continent, the one Vim’s running all over on, that would be empty first?” Merit wondered.

“Maybe it’s tiny. Like an island,” Lilly said, making a good point.

“It’s not. It’s huge, though uh… I don’t know if it’s actually bigger than here or not,” Martin said quickly.

“Are there humans there too?” I asked. I’d heard there weren’t, but I wanted to make sure.

“Nope? Weren’t any of us either. We were the only things over there, other than the animals and bugs.”

“That’s weird. Maybe the place is sick or something and you all stupidly went to live on it. Cursed,” Lilly said, nodding as if her idea made perfect sense.

Martin looked upset, but he didn’t say anything as he glanced around… as if in hope to find someone to help him articulate why such a thing was ridiculous.

I wasn’t going to be the one to help him. “Maybe that’s why Vim took so long back then? He hunted them all?” I suggested.

Merit twitched, which I noticed Lilly noticed too. She glanced at me, and I gently nodded and flinched. Right. I shouldn’t have said that in such a way. Merit faulted them for the fall of her kingdom. And rightfully so. Vim could have helped her, helped them all, back then… and he had been missing.

“Vim didn’t linger at all…? In fact they tried to get him to stay, to help build the first city. He refused,” Martin though spoke up, dispelling such a thought.

“Oh…?” Merit turned and perked up at that, blinking large eyes up at the knight.

He nodded with a frown. “I wasn’t born then, of course, so… I could be wrong. But I remember hearing people complain about it,” he said, going into more detail.

Reaching over I gently nudged Merit on the shoulder. She glanced at me, and I smiled at her. She gave me a tiny smile back as she nodded and then looked forward again.

How wonderful. I knew hearing such a thing had likely really touched Merit’s heart. She, like I, knew what it meant for Vim to do such a thing. He had broken one of his own rules. He had chosen us over them, something he himself didn’t believe he should do. He had turned down their need for help as to hurry back here, to help those he had known he had left behind.

“I’ve always wondered what would have happened if we had all just gone with them,” Lilly mumbled.

“Would you have? Would you do it now, knowing what you do?” I asked.

“No. I’m just saying I’ve thought of it.”

“She’s a birdbrain, Renn. Her mind jumps all over the place, unable to focus on one thing long,” Merit said with a huff.

“For someone who was just smiling all cutely, you sure are quick to spit poison!” Lilly said.

“Don’t call me cute!”

“But you are!” I said, happily joining their little back and forth.

“Gah! Don’t become like her, Renn!” Merit shouted as she pointed at me, likely noticing how eager I had been to accompany their little game.

“Too late. Cats may eat fish, Merit, but they perch up in trees all the time like us owls. We’re more alike than you are!” Lilly said, happily teasing her.

Merit groaned and stepped away from us, as if we suddenly both stunk. “Vim said she’s a type of cat that likes to swim! And cats can’t and don’t fly!” Merit argued.

“Neither can I anymore, so there!” Lilly said with a point at her back.

My smile faltered a bit, but I knew she had said it in good nature. But Merit groaned at it and reached up to rub her head, tugging at her thick hair as she did.

About to say something, to join in the fun once again… I went still as I felt something odd.

Stopping, I tilted my head as I wondered what it was I was feeling. Was that a tingle…? It almost felt as if the left side of my body had just gone numb… or maybe warm? Was something wrong with me…?

The horses and wagon walked past me, as Merit and Lilly kept teasing each other… and I heard a mumbled Martin’s voice. He had asked what was wrong. But I ignored him as I turned and stared into the dense tree-line nearby.

Turning my body to face the trees, I realized the warm numbing sensation shifted. It went from my left side of the body… to the front. It was such a weird feeling, it was ticklish yet… oddly comforting all the same.

“It’s here!”

I flinched as Light’s scream echoed in my ears… and something roared in the distance. Something beyond sight, hidden in the forest… but close.

Too close.

And drawing closer.

“To arms!” Martin shouted as he jumped off the wagon… and I realized exactly what I was feeling.

This was what Vim said he felt. When he felt monarchs or saints, or those with hearts, wasn’t it? If I focused… I could almost feel the heat. My body wasn’t what was hot, or tingly, it was something else. My body was reacting to something before me. The feeling was akin to standing in front of a fire, or near a window covered in sleet and snow.

I turned as the feeling did. Following the tree-line, I searched for what I felt. What I knew was just beyond the trees. I could… sense it. Running. Circling us.

“Renn!” Merit shouted my name, and before I knew it she and Lilly were standing in front of me. A moment later, Martin was in front of them. He had a huge hammer looking weapon, and I couldn’t help but praise the man. Even though he seemed so meek in front of Lilly and Merit, he was now standing between them and a monster.

I wanted to tell them I could sense it. Likely just as how Light was, and had. I wanted to tell them that it was running north along our path, and would likely cross it and round behind us. But right as I took a breath, the world became loud.

Before I could say anything… before anyone could, a creature roared. Loud enough to scare the horses. To scare the people around them. Even Martin flinched.

And I knew no one would fault him for doing so. Because the roar hadn’t just been loud… it had been very understandable.

A loud declaration of intent. Of war. One telling us we were being hunted.

I hurriedly reached up to pull off my hat, though I didn’t need to. The roar had been loud enough that I had heard it clearly… and even if I hadn’t, it didn’t matter.

It had been unmistakable.

One a little too familiar.

“Knew this would happen…!” Lilly mumbled as she gripped Vim’s spear, readying herself.

“It’s coming!” I shouted, as the tingling sensation grew stronger… and then a flash of red darted out onto the road in front of us. The horses panicked, and behind us I heard shouts and screams of shock at the sight of it… but I had no time to think anything else, I didn’t even have time to properly register the creature because it ran straight towards us.

The monarch was here.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep