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Just like things were before they left.

It felt nice.

To be reunited.

If only there weren’t a thousand people crowding around them, trying to get a look at the "Savage of Areswood," it would have been perfect.

It flustered Tanya, but Mira wasn’t phased. She grabbed a handful of multicolored vials and yelled, "Gifts from Areswood!" before throwing them into the crowd, sending the participants into a feeding frenzy.

"They’re like sharks," Mira grinned.

"Are you trying to encourage them?" Doug asked.

She looked him in the eye and said, "I own this forest now. I need to teach people that somehow."

Doug was stunned into silence. Mira was confident—defiant even—speaking like a sailor, wearing beautiful makeup, and now she was speaking like a queen. It was inspiring at first, but the absurdity got too much and he burst into laughter.

"What?" Mira pouted.

"It’s just…" His eyes welled with tears. "Here I was, thinking you’d show up with… grisled features and hair patches ripped out, scarred up and amputated, or… something. Yet here you are, wearing makeup and talking like a queen."

Mira’s face reddened to the tip of her ears, and she looked away shyly.

"I gotta know," he pressed. "How did a few months in that forest—"

"Civilize her?" Tyler interrupted. "Yeah, me too. How did it civilize—"

"If you don’t shut up, I’ll demonstrate how to kill a grown beast with your bare hands," Mira warned.

"Mira!" Tanya said.

"What? He just called me uncivilized."

Tanya tried to retort but then realized how silly the whole thing was. Everyone cracked some awkward smiles, then shared some chuckles, letting it go.

"Let’s eat," Mira said. "It only takes an hour to get back. I got time."

Doug check the sky and found the sky bathed crimson under the sunset. At any moment, the sun would fall and cloak the world in darkness, leaving Mira to return to Areswood under moonlight. But she didn’t seem bothered. She just sat down and pulled out tubs of meat.

It tasted terrible, but its effects were addictive—drug-like euphoria and a feeling of energy and power.

Mira laughed when she saw Gatsby on the ground, thumping his tail listlessly. "Yep, it’s something else," she said. "Now if only it tasted good… Thank God I have real spices now… I don’t know what any of them are, but the traders gave me a cookbook."

"Only you would be worrying about spices," Tanya said.

They laughed about it for another thirty minutes before Mira gave Gatsby a double pat on the stomach and stood. "I gotta go," she said, stretching. Then her face turned grave when she remembered something.

"What’s wrong?" Doug asked.

She bit her lip and winced. "There’s something I need to tell you. And I don’t know how…"

"Just say it," Tanya said.

"That’s worse," Mira said.

"Just do it," Doug said.

His daughter bit her lip, and Tanya scoffed when she conceded, mumbling, "Always does it when you say it."

"Listen," Mira paused. "These Harvests… They’re terrible. This year, people were robbing and killing each other… or worse… and people tried burning down the forest. It’s bad news."

Doug gulped.

"And I decided to stand against it," she said. "To protect the forest and the good harvesters. So that’s what I did. Kline and I… took out the trash."

"What does that mean?" Tanya asked.

"We killed them.

Tanya’s eyes widened in terror and Doug felt a hot blade stab his intestines and twist.

"The unimportant ones," Mira clarified. "I’m not trying to make enemies.

Doug felt like she was living out crucial information, so he looked at Tyler, but his son turned away aggressively.

"I didn’t see it," Tyler said, "but I hope she did it with a hatchet. I fucking hate these people."

"Tyler!" Tanya snapped.

"What?" Tyler asked. "Someone broke Mira’s leg and threw her at a pack of giants and no one did a damn thing. The fact she’s chatting like this is a miracle."

Doug whirled to his daughter. "Mira…"

Mira took a frustrated breath. "Well, that happened, too. But that wasn’t the reason… No, that actually was the reason. It’s evidence of it. But I chose to do this—it wasn’t out of self-defense. Well… not all of them."

Tanya embraced her and started sobbing, but Doug had more trouble processing the situation. He would love his daughter if she was convicted of homicide. He would hide a criminal record, pick her up after a prison sentence, and then celebrate Christmas together as if nothing happened. Would he be disappointed? Absolutely. No one wants their daughter to be a criminal—but he would love her all the same.

This was no different.

But… he just didn’t understand why she did it. She went into the forest to love plants. Then, she came out wearing makeup, talking about how she proactively started killing people, living up to the bombshell threat she made to the entire world. Was there someone out in the forest brainwashing her into doing their bidding? Or was it…

"Mira…" Doug said.

Mira gazed at him intently.

"Your Guide… Did it tell you to do this?" he asked.

"No. But… I guess it kinda encourages it. If I asked my Guide to summarize this situation, he would probably say, You did the right thing, obviously. And your parents are reacting the way they’d obviously react. It just is what it is. Unless you’re an idiot. If you are, feel free to wallow in your misery. You’d be a perfect role model for sad philosophers who sacrifice themselves on the altar of duty."

Doug listened in amazement. She used an accent and an entire personality, proof that she had spoken with her Guide far more than he had his. It occurred to him then that maybe that’s all she spoke to. And that made him sad, so he just broke down and hugged Mira.

"As long as there’s a reason…" he whispered, repeating, "As long as there’s a reason…"

Mira finally broke down, crying and holding her dad, and many cheered in the greater audience. Then, Mira spoke with Tanya, who likewise said about the same sort of thing. And while they felt they should have dinner and spend the week thinking and speaking on it, the moon was rising, and there were only four more hours or so before the Bramble became a deathtrap again.

Mira knew that and nodded, standing up and dusting off her pants. "Next Harvest, I’ll pick you guys up. It’s completely safe in the safe zone and I got a barrier. We’ll spend a week together, kay?"

They nodded, and Mira looked at Tyler. Then she broke down and pulled out a container full of small bottles. "There’s nothing special here, but I’m sure it’s all expensive. It’s cleansing stuff, for your core." She pulled out another container. "And some meat."

"Really?" Tyler asked with glittering eyes.

"Yeah. Now practice nonstop. Next Harvest, I’ll load you up with all of the goods. Okay? By then, I’ll have a home, too. So we’ll be able to visit. So keep your head down and don’t start shit."

"Like you?" Tyler said.

"Like me," she said. "Unless you didn’t see what that got me."

Tyler sharply looked away.

"I gotta go, guys." She patted Gatsby one last time. "I’ll write soon. Maybe there’s a higher request with better uses. God knows I earned enough levels yesterday."

Tyler’s eyes widened. "Wait! How many did you get for killing that thing? What’d you get?"

Mira opened her guide, cocked her head, and said, "I don’t know."

2.

I stared at the screen in mild confusion. It read:

-

The status of Kal Melhan is unknown. Levels and rewards for the Harvest will be calculated once his condition is clear.

-

I see… I thought. It’ll probably give me more if he dies or wakes up brain-dead. Makes sense. I wonder what insane sort of reward I would get for wiping out a legacy troop…

"What do you mean you don’t know?" Tyler asked nervously.

"That’s my way of saying I’m not going to tell you," I said dryly. The last thing I needed was Tyler running his mouth and the Melhan confirming that I was responsible by virtue of my reward system.

"That’s no fair."

"Life’s not fair." I looked at the moon and then at the gate and all the people. "It’s time." Without further ceremony, I walked toward the gate, but before I got there, the man next to Hadrian said, "Wait," and walked up to me.

I paused and shivered at his overwhelming presence. It stole my voice and left me speechless for reasons that I couldn’t fully explain. Part of it was his aura. Hadrian was the strongest of the Harvest, or perhaps simply tied with Kalas, but this person, despite looking thirty, had a century or more on him. If one of Kal’s guards had that aura, I would’ve said, Thanks for the warning, have some free shit on me. And considering that Hadrian casually killed a torok, I was afraid of this man to my core.

"My name is Typhus Dante," he said with a strange bow.

"Mira Hill," I said, mirroring it. "May I help you?"

"Yes," he confirmed. "The Dante family was tasked with bringing you this." A ring on his finger glowed, and a sphere formed in the sky. He reached his hand through it, his arm disappearing into a void before returning with a small box.

"What… is it?" I asked.

"I’m unaware," he said with stone finality.

I ran my fingers over the arrays carved into the box, searching for the open point, but I found none.

He smiled slightly, a tempered version of the arrogant smirk Hadrian had learned so well, and said, "That is a magical lock. The sender will likely teach you the chant to unlock it."

"Oh…" I whispered, heart drumming. A memory of a reward screen flashed across my mind:

Soul Guardian (Eighth Evolution Seed). Grade: Legendary.

"Thank you," I said.

"Be careful with it. Personal deliveries like this attract unwanted attention."

I turned to the crowd and saw some of the middle family members staring at me like a hawk.

"Now go," he said. "I wouldn’t want my son’s latest interest to die over short term gain."

I nodded and waved to my family and walked toward the gate.

"Mira!" Brexton yelled.

My face twitched, but I remembered that he saved my brother from permanent blindness, so I reluctantly whirled around.

"Wh~at?" I smacked.

"Forgive my intrusion, but I do believe that you wanted to make some sort of message, did you not?" Brexton looked at Kline. "I’ve asked everyone to wait."

My lips curved into an awkward smile. "There’s no need. Come on, Kline, let’s go."

I waved to Aiden, who stood with the Claustra, then turned around. Kline jumped off my shoulder and turned into his panther form—sparking an explosive reaction.

"I-It’s true!" a harvester yelled. "That’s the cat that killed the torok!"

"No way!"

"Yeah. I watched it happen!"

"Shut up. You were back at camp. There’s no way—what?"

Kline’s body dissolved with Active Camouflage, and the rest of the crowd devolved into a feeding frenzy of crazed speculation. Some people were yelling, "It’s the Rawkan!" and another said, "That’s the cat! You killed Casla!"

I considered turning around and saying something like, "Should’ve followed the rules," but the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that giving a grand reveal without saying anything was some chilling mobster shit, so I just walked down the path, listening to them freak out, revel and squeal about it until their voices became distant and I was alone once more.

The lurvine were waiting for me when I returned. They had killed another few dozen beasts looking to feast on the torok, and they were acting like normal canines, waving their tails—

—waiting for their rewards.

I smiled and petted Sina’s snout, and said, "Come on. Let’s feast."

As of that moment, I was living in that area until the torok meat stopped working. And there was probably twenty-five to fifty tons worth to work through. It was time to eat.

3.

I had forgotten about the torok’s cores, and to my surprise, two of them still had them—the one I shot and the one that Kline killed. It seemed that Hadrian and the legacies left the ones that were ours and took the rest. As for the scavengers, they were too weak to even penetrate the hide of the torok, let alone rip a baseball-sized mana core out of its spine.

I held it in awe. It was a sunrise core, blue and orange, like a marble formed from two colors of molten glass. It radiated with power as I rolled it in my palm. I had a feeling it would feed me all winter.

Or at least a couple days.

Only time would tell.

In the meantime, I had time to eat as much of the meat as I could and load the rest in backpacks I’d tie to the lurvines. With any luck, it would be all I ate all winter, so by spring, I would be twice as strong.

Game plan.

Nice.

I spent two weeks camping, lounging, and eating the torok before the wind got chilly, and I remembered that I still had to move multiple crates worth of goods to a home I had yet to build—and snow would probably start falling in eight weeks or less. So I reluctantly loaded up supplies onto the lurvine with the help of the tarp, some rope, and all the gravity backpacks worth of supplies.

Then we packed off to the Diktyo, lurvines guiding me to the equipment I left with them and Aiden.

I’m not sure when I started to feel something was off, but I found myself checking my Wood Wide Web obsessively near the mountain—but no one showed up.

Then I approached my stuff, expecting it to be plundered and burned, but found something else had happened.

Basic survival gear’s missing, I thought, rummaging through the pallet of tools and equipment. But she didn’t burn it. Is that a message? Or…

I didn’t know what it meant—if anything. Was it a truce? Or to let my guard down? Maybe she planned to track me down and kill me later, and it was better to inherit all the equipment elsewhere.

I wasn’t sure what would happen, but it was clear that she wasn’t a problem for now. She would probably lick her wounds and get stronger before facing me or just stay down south, where she knew the plants and landscape.

Whatever the reason or rationale, she wasn’t stopping me from getting my stuff, so I packed up as much of the equipment as I could on the three massive foxes and then rode north.

I worked so damn hard to set up my home and live my life, and I had a whole year with Thorvel, the Drokai, or harvesters to mess with me.

Those were my thoughts as I filled up containers with Diktyo Water and turned north. It was time to make a home.