The first thought Aries had, standing in the rubble of what used to be a wall, was extremely practical.

’The landlord is going to charge us for this.’

The second arrived immediately after.

’No... actually they’ll probably throw us out first and then charge.’

He opened his mouth. "I can expla—"

"What kind of coward attacks an inn room from outside."

’Heh?’

Drelan stepped past him entirely, jaw set, eyes sweeping the circular hole with the focused expression of a man already building a formal complaint. He braced both hands on the crumbled edge and leaned out to check the exterior.

"No concern at all for whether someone was inside," he muttered. "Absolute cowards."

Aries’s brain stopped working.

...Outside?

"Althea." Drelan straightened and turned. "Take Aries downstairs. I’ll speak to the landlord — someone needs to be told before another room gets hit."

"Of course." Althea pulled Aries close without hesitating, one hand pressing gently against the back of his head. "You poor thing. You must have been absolutely terrified."

"I — yeah," Aries managed. "Very. Very scared."

’I cannot believe this is working without me getting involved in it.’

Dizziness hit him as he moved. That sphere had drained him far more than he’d realized.

Behind them, Mirielle hadn’t moved.

She stood near the debris with her arms loose at her sides, eyes on the floor. Not hole, the floor. She crouched slowly, picked up a fragment of broken stone, turned it once, set it back down.

Mana residue. Clinging to the shattered edges near the center of the blast, spreading outward from a single point in the middle of the room.

It wasn’t from the wall or outside.

It was from here.

Her eyes moved to Aries, standing in the doorway looking pale and drained in a way that had nothing to do with fright.

’...Did he awaken?’

She killed the thought immediately.

’Him. The same idiot who couldn’t make the awakening sphere flicker for half a second... Maybe I’m overthinking.’

She grabbed her bag and walked past both of them without a word.

The landlord turned out to be more worried about the inn’s reputation for safety than the cost of a wall.

____

The vendor road had fully come alive by the time they were back on the street with their luggage. Merchants shouted over each other from both sides, stalls crammed into every gap between buildings, the crowd moving with zero interest in making space for anyone.

Aries fell behind almost immediately.

A creature the size of a small building moved down a side road with crates stacked across its back. A merchant passed leading something fox-shaped on a rope — except it had three tails and its ears were faintly glowing. He was busy staring when he walked directly into something solid.

"Ow—!"

A deer looked at him.

Roughly a deer. The shape was deer. The coat shifted between deep blue and violet, faint light tracing softly along the edges of its fur.

It stared at him with the flat, unimpressed look of an animal that had decided to take this personally.

Its ears pinned back.

"I’m sorry—" Aries raised both hands. "I wasn’t looking, I didn’t mean to—"

"Easy, Kivi."

A man stood a short distance back. Bronze hair, emerald eyes. He rested a hand along the deer’s neck. "He’s just a kid."

"Professor!" A girl’s voice cut through from further down the street. "We’re late — we need to reach Kaelenor before tonight, remember?!"

"Aries!" Althea’s hand went up above the crowd several stalls ahead.

He glanced back at the man once. "Sorry about Kivi."

"Travel safely, kid." A short nod.

Aries jogged to catch up and didn’t look back again.

____

The carriage settled into an easy rhythm, wheels on packed dirt, trees gradually replacing buildings outside the window until the buildings stopped appearing entirely.

Aries sat with his elbow against the frame and watched the treeline go past.

’How do I actually get back to Earth.’

The question had been sitting under everything since he’d opened his eyes in this body.

Across from him, Drelan glanced at Mirielle. "Back to Spire duty tomorrow?"

"What else would I do." She kept her eyes on the dark outside.

Drelan let that sit without pushing it.

Aries turned the word over quietly. The Spire — an organization running across multiple kingdoms, open to both mages and knights, handling everything from dungeon clearance to monster suppression to full emergency response.

He was still thinking about whether someone who’d awakened less than a day ago could even register when the carriage lurched.

Not a bump. A full, violent jerk that threw everyone forward at once. Aries grabbed the window frame. Althea caught the seat edge before she was thrown off it.

"The hell was that?" Mirielle said, due to the sudden stop.

"Why did you stop like that?" Drelan called toward the driver’s opening.

The driver’s voice came back quietly in the way voices get when someone is working very hard to stay calm.

"S-Sir... I think you need to look at the road."

Drelan leaned forward and looked.

His jaw locked. "...Dranox."

The word dropped into the carriage like a stone.

Aries stood by the window before the memories caught up to him. Mana-corrupted creatures with bodies bent into shapes nature would never deliberately choose. They were monsters created simply by Dravetian mana.

What he saw through the glass was worse than anything the memories had prepared him for.

The road ahead was buried under shapes moving between the trees. Some crouched low. Others stood taller than anything should, their silhouettes cutting hard across the road, eyes catching the last of the fading light in colors that weren’t right.

The sounds layering out from the treeline had more sources than he could count.

He checked the rear window.

The road behind them was gone too. Dark shapes filled it edge to edge, perfectly still.

Drelan had his sword out before the carriage door finished opening. He dropped onto the dirt road, blade coming free clean, eyes already reading the shadows between trees before his boots fully settled.

Mirielle landed right behind him in a low crouch, one hand resting loose on her hilt.

"How many?" Drelan asked.

Mirielle’s eyes tracked shapes moving through the dark between trunks. "A dozen. Maybe two. D+ rank."

"Manageable?"

She drew her blade in one smooth motion and a short laugh escaped before she could stop it.

"Don’t insult me, Father."

She was already moving before the words finished.

Her steps barely made sound on the dirt. White light threaded along her blade in thin, precise lines as she closed the distance. The first Dranox didn’t register her until she was already through its chest. The second lunged with jaws open the same instant and she twisted mid-step without slowing, her blade tracing a pale arc that opened its neck cleanly on the way through. She came out of the movement already turning toward the next one. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Drelan came in heavier from the other side. Wide swings that used his full weight rather than footwork, years of experience telling his body where the space was before his eyes confirmed it. Steel met claw with a harsh screech, he shoved the creature back and drove his blade through its shoulder in the same motion.

Outside the carriage door, Althea pulled Aries close against her side without realizing she’d done it.

"Don’t worry," she said softly, though her grip didn’t loosen. "They’re strong. They’ll get us through this."

Aries wasn’t worried. He was watching.

Minutes passed. Then Drelan’s voice came through, quieter now, almost to himself.

"They just don’t stop coming."

Then movement from the right. A Dranox, faster than the others, launching from the treeline straight for Drelan’s exposed back.

"Father — behind you!"

Drelan turned, it was too close, he didn’t have enough time to dodge or defend himself.

A flash of silver-white crossed the air and the Dranox’s head hit the road before its body finished falling.

Mirielle landed in front of Drelan in a low crouch, one knee down, blade resting at her side. She looked back at him over her shoulder.

"I’ve got your back, Dad." A short breath. "Still enough mana left to carry you if you start slowing down."

Drelan let out a slow exhale. "That’s my girl."

The relief didn’t last.

"Something’s wrong." His eyes moved carefully across the treeline. "We’ve been at this long enough. The numbers should be dropping by now."

Mirielle landed beside him with a short skid, flicking dark blood from her blade. "I know," she said. "There weren’t nearly this many when they first appeared."

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

Then the forest opened up.

Shapes poured out from the dark between the trees — not one or two but dozens, wave after wave, glowing eyes lighting up in the shadows like lanterns being lit one after another down an endless corridor.

Mirielle’s boot scraped back half a step on instinct, grip tightening on her sword.

"That wasn’t all of them," she said, almost to herself.

"Damn it." Drelan’s eyes swept the road behind them, then forward again. His voice came out flat with the certainty of someone who has recognized a mistake too late to fix it. "This was a trap."

Before the words finished settling, a Dranox he’d already put down stirred at Mirielle’s feet — a blackened hand shooting out and locking around her ankle. She looked down at it, half its skull already gone, brought her blade down once and pulled her foot free without flinching.

She looked at the wave still coming.

"What do we do, Father?"

"Retreat." His eyes moved to the thinner group blocking the road behind them. "Fewer are blocking that way. We clear through the smaller group first and get—"

A claw came from the side.

It caught Drelan across the shoulder and spun his whole body sideways, the word dying in his throat, his sword nearly leaving his grip.

"ARGH—!"

"Dad—!" Mirielle, sharp.

"Honey—!" Althea from the carriage door.

"Damn it.." He caught himself with one hand pressed against other going to his shoulder. Blood moved fast between his fingers.

Drelan forced himself upright. Another Dranox stepped from the trees to his left. Another from the right. The wave behind them was still coming, and the numbers hadn’t been in their favor for a while now.