She got up early in the morning and stretched her legs.

  Vernisha looked over at Katie's bed—she wasn't on it. She was kneeling on the blue carpet, eyes closed.

  And she stayed like that for a long while.

  It reminded Vernisha of when Ferzan was making contact with Wanda.

  Then Katie muttered, "May your star light shine on my future, First Mother."

  Vernisha was surprised that she did the Starlight stuff since she wasn't a Vlandos. When people thought of starlight, they basically thought of special Vlandos—children of a Mortal God.

  Katie’s eyes slowly opened, and she stood up with an empty look.

  Vernisha said, "I would ask if I'm supposed to do that every morning, but I'm guessing this is a Starlight tradition."

  Katie snapped toward her with an embarrassed look. "You saw everything?"

  "Some of it. Is it really supposed to be that private?" Vernisha asked.

  "To show respect, yes. For us anyway."

  The us clearly didn’t include her. So Vernisha just nodded. "So, does she also talk to you, or nah?"

  "Sometimes."

  That got Vernisha’s interest. She asked, "So like, you pray, and she just—boom—answers after a short while?"

  "Rarely. She's always busy."

  "Busy...?" Vernisha wanted to know what these Mortal Gods were up to.

  "Protecting the world from big threats, obviously." Katie yawned and stretched her arms, tiptoeing slightly. "Why are you up already?"

  Protecting the world? From who? Vernisha was about to ask those questions when Katie suddenly turned towards the door.

  "Come in," Katie said.

  The door opened, and Tarnisha entered with a box of puzzles. "I got thirty minutes. Let's hurry."

  After playing with them, Vernisha spent the morning in the library—mainly so she could think without distractions.

  She did ask Katie who those threats were, but Katie gave her a vague, “Don’t know. Super evil stuff.”

  That aside…

  Ferzan. Vernisha wondered if she should've told him more about the stalker. With his power, the situation was nothing.

  But she was worried that Yanson had information on her. Information he could reveal to Ferzan.

  She wasn’t sure how much he knew about her, but she didn’t want to rely on what he should’ve known.

  Hmm.

  Vernisha thought about who Yanson could be. For one, he was most definitely part of Law Enforcement. How else would he have access to the bugged wall relays?

  But why would he be working by himself? Reveal himself like some dumbass? Talk about exterminating her instead of arresting her? Wasn’t there enough reasonable suspicion to connect her to the massacre? So why wasn’t she in a jail cell?

  Perhaps he was a cop that had too much of an ego. But he was a vlandos—he couldn't be a cop.

  Someone associated with them? A private investigator that had some righteous bones in his body?

  Hmmm…

  Vernisha decided to entertain those ideas for a bit.

  If she were stalking someone—watching them in silence, gathering information on them so she might eventually bring them in—what would she do?

  She tapped the wooden table, deep in thought. She would’ve brought them in for questioning.

  The only reason she wouldn’t do that was if she were trying to gather more evidence so that, when the trial began, there’d be no doubt her target would be executed.

  She wasn’t an expert on law enforcement, but she had watched a couple of police shows when she was younger. Her mother liked them, especially The Wire.

  What did they do in that show, Vernisha?

  She frowned as she thought. They wiretapped the target’s phones. Stationed men to take pictures of them selling drugs. Tried to get snitches.

  And how did the dealers counter that?

  They immediately stopped selling drugs, using phones, or doing anything illegal.

  Fortunately for her, she hadn’t been up to any illegal activities.

  Except… having levels and monsters.

  While thinking about that, Vernisha had a certain realization.

  The Knights were probably aware she was a vlandos.

  With the power of [Inspect], she could determine if someone was a vlandos. Of course, it wasn’t completely accurate. A vlandos could have no levels.

  Anyway, she hadn’t tested it yet, but [Inspect] probably put a strain on the mind when overused. That, or it just got extremely tiring doing the same thing over and over. Maybe that’s why the Knights didn’t check her level the day she first entered Sundawn.

  The reason they didn’t act afterwards was probably because of her connection to Abella through her kids.

  Vernisha’s frown deepened, and she started mumbling swear words under her breath.

  Terrafall was a World Power. A damn world power.

  Why was that important? How could a powerful nation be truly great if it wasn’t even aware of the fleas in its own hide?

  They most definitely had a vlandos file on her. And here she thought she was super sneaky. She had to be more careful in the future. While it was true her connections were basically saving her ass, that didn’t mean she could do whatever she wanted.

  Rather, she had to be more careful. You don’t get special privileges without seeding envy and ‘righteous anger’ in others.

  She sighed. It almost seemed like the concept of freedom was unnatural.

  As she thought about all this, her finger tapped crudely on a newspaper, a few weeks old. It reported that the Vumion and Holvious oil mining companies had still failed to find any worthwhile oil deposits in Terrafall.

  Yanson.

  He couldn’t know anything Ferzan didn’t already know. And even if he did, why would Ferzan trust him?

  She told Ferzan she had a stalker. She went to the city for that reason. If anything suspicious came up, she could easily lie and sway him to her side.

  You believe him?! When I went to Sundawn because I had a stalker—when I asked you for Mon—who do you think I found? Him, Ferzan! He's obviously lying to you.

  Something like that would work.

  Vernisha sighed, got up, and went to look for Ferzan.

  She couldn’t find him, and when she asked around, she was told he went to Wanda’s Reverence. Apparently, he always did that after making a Divine Request from her.

  Vernisha wondered if that was why he called her troublesome.

  Perhaps.

  She decided on the next best option.

  But of course, she had to wait three hours for Katie’s morning class to end. She spent the time in the library, reading through a bunch of old newspapers and taking breaks with history books.

  But my god, so many of them were boring.

  Then she would come upon a page that would introduce some conflict.

  Once those three hours were up, Vernisha met Katie walking down the third-floor stairs.

  For some reason, Katie was busy styling her hair into a bunch of buns. She had a lot of hair, so it worked.

  Vernisha told her, "I want to go to Sundawn. There's a person I want to talk to."

  "Oh?" Katie paused her styling and looked at her with surprise.

  "I don’t really want to say much about it—it wouldn’t sound like a big deal. But it’s very important."

  Katie smiled. "You like someone there?”

  She was surely teasing. They had never had this kind of conversation before, and Vernisha hoped it would stay that way. “Nope.”

  “Secrets? Cool. Sure, let's go."

  At Sundawn’s Gate, a lot of carriages pulled by Green Lizards were lined up. A man with a thick white headscarf stood in front of the gate, visibly frustrated.

  As Vernisha and Katie walked past the long line of carriages, Vernisha looked inside them, noticing they were all loaded with wooden boxes.

  A merchant. Probably middle-class, judging by the number of Green Lizards he had, a slave (they had the triangular metal earring), and security at each one.

  Each guard wore chainmail armor, had a sword in a scabbard, and carried a bow and arrows on their back.

  Could he not afford a pyramid communicator? He could've gotten word that Sundawn was closed. But perhaps he had invested almost everything into his business.

  Vernisha assumed getting turned away from the gates happened often. It just seemed she usually came after they’d already been turned away.

  The merchant practically screamed, "Five days!"

  His arm trembled, and spit flew from his mouth. "I traveled for five fucking days! D’you know how much that costs? Do you?!"

  One of the Knights—the taller one—said, "That’s unfortunate. However, every city and major town was informed through Pyramid communication. Even if you came from a poor town, I find it hard to believe that a Messenger Cat wouldn’t have informed your town. Even if you had left before one reached your town, you must have come across a relay station."

  When Vernisha had traveled to Sundawn, she didn’t see a relay station. But it was dark for most of the trip, so there was that.

  If she had been back at the village when the incident took place, a twin-tailed cat trained as a messenger would’ve come to their village and repeated what it was told. If it had a red cracked circle branded on its chest, it was legit.

  The merchant seethed and turned away, muttering, "Bullshit... such bullshit."

  Katie said, almost under her breath, "Those loans are going to kill him."

  Vernisha eyed her, wondering how she knew that. "You know him?"

  "No. But he most definitely knew Sundawn was on lockdown. He must’ve been so desperate he thought he could be the exception."

  Hmm…

  "A noble? Never saw one before."

  "Well, he’s not being arrested, so no. He’s probably just some guy that needs money really fast."

  "Arrested?"

  "Can’t be noble and have a business."

  Vernisha didn’t know nobles couldn’t have businesses and was shocked.

  Wait a second... That meant their entire existence was subsidized by our money!

  That made her wonder. "Does Terrafall give you guys money?"

  "Yeah. Though it’s bronzes compared to what Yellowbrim gives my mother, which is silvers compared to my dad’s GoldenSurface revenue." Katie noticed Vernisha was clueless and added, "They deal with concrete. Everything related to it."

  Vernisha doubted the concrete was actually golden.

  "Is it massive?"

  "He had a monopoly in it for years, but it's not that interesting. He has stocks in EtherFuture. I think that’s cool."

  Vernisha stopped in her tracks and stared at her. "What’s that?"

  "They make Ether batteries and Ether tech in general."

  Interesting. He’s rich rich.

  Katie added, "He also owns The Golden Bank. So yeah—one of the richest men in Terrafall."

  Gold again?

  Katie thought for a moment. "Well, not actually own. His Goldencloud company owns his companies and manages his stocks."

  He surely likes the sound of his name. Gold this, gold that. If he were to have a strip club, he would probably call it the Golden Gaze.

  Not the image Vernisha had of their dad.

  She sighed.

  It was amazing how different people’s lives could be.

  Vernisha really wanted money.

  When this whole thing was over, she had to find a way to get quick capital—then use her knowledge from Earth to invent some industry-changing bullshit. Before that, she’d have to learn the laws, patent the hell out of whatever she invented, and gain an absolute monopoly in that field.

  A steam-powered engine? Maybe Terrafall skipped that stage during their industrialization.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  It wasn’t impossible.

  Sure, vehicles existed, but only the wealthy could afford anything Ether-related (exceptions were possible. Loans existed). If she could lower the barrier to entry...

  She’d be swimming in bloody cash.

  The damn nation would be licking her feet because of how much employment she’d create.

  There was only one issue—she barely knew how engines of any kind worked.

  God damn it.

  What could she do? Go to an engineer, tell him her idea, and have him laugh in her face, saying, "Why would we make something as inefficient as that?!"

  Or he could just steal it and claim it as his.

  Damn.

  What could Vernisha do? She was thinking big. When creating a business, you had to find a need—or engineer one.

  But alas, such worries were for another time.

  What if I became a weapons manufacturer?

  She had a little idea of a business, but it meant learning more about the laws involving monsters and vlandos.

  Anyway, soon after, Katie and Vernisha approached the Knights.

  Long story short, the gates were opened for them, and the merchant began screaming at them.

  "May the Stars never shine on your future! May the Stars shine on your road to ruin! You useless guards! Useless, dumb, fucking children!"

  He dropped to the ground, head bowed, chanting, "Starworth... May they have no worth... Starbright, please blind their fucking paths..."

  And he went on.

  Freaking hell, dude.

  One of the Knights scowled.

  Before they went in, Vernisha studied their helmets for a second and wondered something.

  Yanson said his name was fake. But she wondered what avenues he could’ve used to gain information on her other than stalking.

  She thought about those police shows again, and what policemen always did in cases.

  They asked questions—people who might have info.

  Yanson could’ve gone to the Knights to find out who she entered the city with and what they knew.

  But she couldn't imagine they’d give information so freely.

  To test it, she asked, "Can I see this dude’s file? If it’s anything interesting?"

  The Knight shook his head. "Become a Knight first."

  He was making it known he knew she was a vlandos.

  Ha… I was right.

  "That sounds amazing," Vernisha said warmly, smiling. "But that aside, did anyone ever ask for mine?"

  She doubted that would work.

  But—

  The other Knight, the taller one, said, "Oh, you're that kid..."

  He sighed and shook his head. "If you're going to report it, report Terlin, not me. I had nothing to do with it."

  So the fucker did get information from them.

  Vernisha said, "I don't really want to do that. But..." She thought hard about her next words. "It’d probably be better if I asked why. Maybe if he apologizes... I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a big deal, but I hear it is."

  "Oh. Hm. He lives at Tomlock’s 19th street. On the right side. A tall blue concrete-and-wood house."

  He pointed to the main road. "The sixth road on the right is Tomlock."

  "Thank you," Vernisha said.

  As they walked in, Katie asked, "You need me for anything?"

  Vernisha shook her head. "Not sure, but thank you. Really."

  In Sundawn, life went on like usual. Buildings and streets affected by her mutated father and brothers were being repaired and rebuilt from scratch by men in bright red and yellow reflective overalls and hard red caps.

  In the middle of their backs was the symbol of a golden bubble.

  As expected, it was incredibly loud. Most of the noise was probably coming from the concrete mixers, which were blending sand, stone, and green dust.

  Was Ether also powering them? The machines' rotation seemed too slow for that to be the case. Although the machine could simply be designed so, but that sounded inefficient.

  Vernisha didn’t know too much about concrete work, but her dad's friend did construction and always got her involved in their small personal projects because the fucker liked free labour, no matter how inefficient.

  Nonetheless, she asked Katie about their power source.

  "It's Wasui. A thigmonastic plant. Push it, it pushes back harder. Using it in engines is actually recent. I have some stocks in Newreigns—they're modifying them to store more energy, so they can generate greater kickback from lesser stimuli."

  Damn me.

  Vernisha asked, "You also take business classes? How often?"

  "Nine days of the week. My father managed to get my mother to give us a day off.” Katie looked around for no particular reason.

  She nudged Vernisha and gestured at a Silyuk staring at the construction site. "Her thighs are insane."

  So was her forehead, which was oiled. The way daylight glistened on her white forehead reminded Vernisha of when she used to put Vaseline on her face in elementary school.

  She had thought it would make her prettier.

  Vernisha asked, "You like girls?"

  "And dudes," Katie clarified. "Girly dudes. Like Silyuk dudes."

  "I see." Vernisha supposed they were polar opposites. "I'm not sure they'd like being called girly."

  "Hm. I'll just say it in my mind."

  Her interest in them would stay there too—there were no Silyuk Starlights.

  As they walked, Vernisha heard angry grumblings from people. Some were holding newspapers.

  Even the sidewalk newspaper dispenser was down to a single copy.

  An old man mumbled, "This bullshit is getting out of hand..."

  An older woman dressed in green sighed. "Oh my days. Imagine what the children will think—seeing them walking around with such things."

  "I know, mama. The Senate is losing their damn mind," a middle-aged man responded. “And the king is too stupid to do anything.”

  Another man said to a young kid, "You’re gonna see them walking around with monster flesh. Don’t let that scare you, 'ight? Know what your grandfather used to do when they used to dress like that? Stand his damn ground."

  Of course they didn’t like this decision. And without any sort of democratic system, the people's voice wouldn't be as strong.

  Kinda.

  Vernisha knew politics was more complicated than that, but she didn’t have time to dwell on such things.

  Lu'Jol is not in range.

  That was different. But it wasn’t necessarily good news. She wanted to warn him about Yanson—he might try to get information from him. Not that Lu’Jol knew anything more than Ferzan or Katie.

  But that crazy man could torture him for information.

  She didn’t want that.

  Someone who helped her so much didn’t deserve to suffer because of her. And she couldn’t live with that on her conscience.

  She tried contacting him again.

  Same damn response.

  Vernisha stopped and thought about what she knew of adventurers. They traveled far—to any part of Terrafall to do their missions.

  They could be gone for days. But they also had Pyramid communicators because of the Guild.

  She asked Katie, "Is there really only a single Guild in Sundawn?"

  "Technically, yeah. There are Minor Adventurer Guilds. Why?"

  "How do they work? The minor ones?"

  "Relay centers, mainly.”

  Vernisha supposed the limited number of vlandos made having a single station for adventurers the best choice.

  Station, guild—it was the same. Words could mean anything in the hands of politicians.

  But she didn’t understand the point of having a relay center when the guild was in the same city. It wasn't like they were the police, responding to crime scenes in the city.

  So she asked, and Katie replied, "It has something to do with improving the clarity and speed of communication from outside.”

  That was great for her.

  "Okay. Good enough. I need to go to one."

  "There should be one on Reverend. Hm... I want to buy something at one of the markets. You’ll be okay?"

  "Some science stuff?"

  "Ice cream." Katie grinned.

  "May Starlight shine on your destination."

  "Future. Its future."

  And so, she walked off.

  Vernisha was certain she could use destination...

  It took Vernisha a short while, but eventually she found the Minor Guild on Reverend 11th Street.

  She wondered if there were other civic buildings mixed in with the commercial ones—but that wasn’t important.

  The guild featured statues of the three Mortal Gods on the blue-grass yard.

  Not holograms? Cheapskates.

  It had a decent size—silver up to the hemisphere-red roof. The rectangular pillars were massive and visibly extended from the concrete wall.

  Wooden pillars, for some reason. She assumed it was actually concrete.

  Hm.

  Vernisha wasn’t going to enter. At least the Knights knew she had a connection to the Star kids. And even if there was a file on her, what were the odds some random, [Inspect]-happy guy in there wouldn’t react negatively?

  So she stood at the elevated concrete sidewalk and looked around.

  Near a paint store, she saw a kid loitering. He was definitely a few years younger than her.

  His eyes held little passion or purpose, and he was on the skinny side. Not homeless—his clothes were in decent condition.

  I guess that could work.

  Vernisha approached the child, startling him.

  "Hi," she said with the gentlest smile she could manage.

  "H-Hello?" He looked confused.

  "What’s your name?"

  "C-Carson... Why?"

  "I thought you had beautiful eyes!" Vernisha pointed at her own for comparison. "Mine aren’t anywhere near as nice."

  His eyes were a common dark grey, but that didn’t matter. The mind could convince an ugly duckling that it was a beautiful swan. Someone as superficial as Vernisha would know that.

  His eyes widened in shock and disbelief. "O-oh, thank you," he said, beginning to blush.

  Vernisha asked, "Can you do me a favor? Please? It would mean the world to me."

  He looked at her face, her cotton-gloved hands, her blue-and-black Terrafallen dress, and nodded like his neck was a broken spring. "What’s that?"

  She pointed at the Minor Guild.

  "Go inside, ask for Lo’Jul. Then ask where he lives—street, house color. If it’s an apartment, the ID. When they ask why, say he was supposed to bring medicine for his niece’s heart issue. And she’s outside."

  Immediately, he recoiled in fear. He looked at the Guild, then back at her smile.

  Come on... If I had money, this would be faster. Damn it.

  Vernisha thought about trading her gloves, but she really didn’t want to.

  She added, "I would do it, but I'm really scared of grown-ups."

  She sighed and frowned before looking back at him with hope. "But you look brave. Super, super brave. Please help me."

  Those words somehow empowered him. He took a deep breath and nodded.

  He asked, "Okay... What's your name?"

  Yes.

  "Nelle."

  The little boy straightened up, puffed out his chest, and marched to the building. But his false bravado did little to conceal the trembling of his fists.

  After about five minutes—which Vernisha spent leaning against the paint store, ignoring those entering and leaving with tin cans—he came outside holding a small green pyramid-shaped device.

  He came over and said, "They said he's on the line. And be quick with it."

  Vernisha took it from him. "This is Lo'Jul?"

  The voice that responded was garbled and poorly modulated.

  They either needed to improve these devices or get better reception towers, or something.

  Anyway, to confirm it was him, Vernisha asked, "Are you jealous of how close I am?"

  There wasn’t a response for a while. Then he muttered with exasperation, “What…. Do… Www…waaant.”

  It was him.

  Vernisha said seriously, "Where are you?"

  …

  "I see. Then listen to me closely. You're going to need to..."

  When she was done, she gave the boy back the communicator and left.

  It took her about half an hour to reach Tomlock Street. There were mostly residential homes, with the occasional small shops here and there.

  A small number of them were on the house’s first floor.

  As Vernisha walked toward the blue house, she observed the spacious green yards that almost all the buildings had.

  On a bench, a man sat reading a newspaper. He was dressed in white, with golden lines on the sleeves and collar.

  Balash educator’s attire.

  In his eyes was a controlled anger. "Killed by monsters..."

  He then shouted to someone inside, "Jee! You hear what happened in Vaera?"

  Vernisha stopped in her tracks, immediately thinking of what she did a few days ago.

  "Yeah, sad stuff, man. Hoping they find the person."

  She pressed forward, not thinking about it. Not wanting to.

  After a few more blocks, she finally reached 19th Street, according to the sign embedded in the sidewalk.

  The blue house was mostly made of wood, and in the front yard stood tall statues of Knights.

  Since there was no fence, Vernisha walked to the door, careful not to slip on the wet concrete path.

  She assumed he was cleaning it, since the road and house were dry.

  She went up the stairs and knocked on the wooden door. It took a while, but eventually she heard footsteps approaching.

  Then it opened.

  A tall man stood there with a white glass in hand—grey steam wafting above it.

  He fixed the last button on the collar of his odd black jumpsuit, which reached up to the base of his skull. "Yes? How can I help you?"

  Vernisha had already ruined her posture, appearing timid and weak. "I-I was told you gave someone information about me? Resident profiles?"

  He groaned in distress, then tilted his head up and muttered, "Fuck."

  He looked back at her. "Okay, sorry about that. But... we don't really have to talk about this. Seeing you're actually a Vlandos and all. And you were in that Monster Zone. There’s a recording of you. And that's illega—"

  "I know. It's not about that, sir." Vernisha hadn’t known about the Monster Zone part.

  Damn it!

  "Abella told me not to worry about it..."

  He squinted at her, trying his best to hide his distaste. "So what is it?"

  Of course you believe me.

  Vernisha squeezed her fists and took shallow breaths, appearing like a tragic victim. "Someone's been stalking me!"

  She said it in one breath, then took another deep one. "A-and he told me a Knight gave him the thumbs-up to do so! Why... why would you do that?!"

  To say he was shocked would be an understatement. He went from suppressing his glare to being a statue.

  "What...?"

  "You did. You did!"

  "Rael? Rael Leger? You're talking about him?"

  So that was the fucker's actual name?

  He continued, slightly confused, "Wait a second..." He thought hard. "Isn’t he your relative? You're his aunt’s niece or something?"

  Excuse me?

  And he called her a demon. Ironic. But this was good—Vernisha could twist this against him.

  She nodded. "It sounds like him... but I’m not sure. It’s been a while. I forgot he was a Law Enforcer."

  "No. He’s a Vanquisher now. Can't be a vlandos and a Law Enforcer… I guess he lied to you?”

  He's a what?!

  A Vanquisher. Vernisha had read about them in the Terrafall history books.

  When they weren't in the light, functioning as a vlandos police force, they did the government’s dirty work. Anything unwanted—they got rid of it. Faking suicides. Making deaths appear natural or completely unrelated to them.

  But why only one? Why him? Why did he personally ask for her file? Why not their intelligence department? And why did the Knights basically admit he broke a law?

  It wasn’t hard to piece together. This dude was working alone but became aware of her through his occupation.

  Vernisha made her words tremble. "It’s him for sure. But why... why didn’t you make him go away?"

  Confused, he asked, "He’s not your relative? And what’s wrong? I mean... You’re a little child. I was being sympathetic."

  His hands clenched as he came to a chilling realization. "He was lying..."

  Vernisha stared at him, observing his reaction, dwelling on his words.

  Yes, indeed. She was nothing more than a little girl. Sympathetic. Vulnerable. And this was a cruel world, filled with predators in many shapes and forms.

  So what if he knew about her level? Levels be damned—image triumphed all.

  Always judge a book by its cover.

  Vernisha immediately started thinking of the monsters she’d seen tearing villagers apart. How they killed kids.

  The EPOs she ate, ripping their foul flesh apart and forcing them down her throat.

  The dead bodies in the streets when Caren went on a rampage.

  Her stomach churned. A wave of disgust and sorrow rose.

  The little girl was still for a while, then suddenly her hands violently grasped her stomach like something foreign inside was threatening to tear its way out.

  Her neck jolted repeatedly in a gagging motion, then yellow liquid—mixed with fragmented fruit, fig, and meat—spewed from her mouth.

  The wretched smell quickly hit Terlin’s nose. He would’ve stepped back, if not for her sudden tears.

  "He's lying!"

  The words came with spittle and specks of vomit. "He’s no relative of mine! My mama told him to leave us alone. To leave me!"

  She pointed at herself aggressively, her finger trembling with distress. "To leave me alooooooone!"

  Terlin wasn’t sure what to do. But he acted fast, almost on instinct. "What... what did he do?"

  He’d seen things like this throughout his life. Perhaps not this expressive—but crying? Breaking down?

  He’d seen it.

  And it was hard to ignore—borderline impossible.

  The world was filled with dangerous people. Even if he was supposed to turn a blind eye to some cases—legally—it was almost impossible for him to.

  He wanted to help people. Especially kids. After all, he had desperately prayed for help when he was just a boy.

  He saw his friends bethroned to people who looked like their grandparents. The next day, their parents received a carriage full of supplies. Sometimes they left the village for a decent-sized town.

  Suddenly, they had decent job offers.

  His friends rarely left happily. You could see the anxiousness in their eyes. Like they were told to suck it up.

  Be tough. Don’t embarrass us.

  The girl vomited again and hunched over. More tears streamed down her chin as she wrapped her arms tightly around her chest.

  She slowly shook her head. "He... he..." She dry coughed. "I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to. I don’t want to!"

  Of course... Rael. You played me like a fool?

  So you could continue your disgusting ways—you manipulated me?

  You said you knew how seriously Knights took promises. You said all that... and yet!

  Yet... you used me to continue harming kids?

  The anger building up in Terlin’s gut wanted out. Badly. So badly it ached for release.

  But he had to control it.

  He took a deep breath, doing his best to calm the rising fury, then exhaled.

  He placed a hand on her shoulder.

  She flinched.

  Oh.

  He quickly withdrew his hand and crouched low.

  He looked her in the eye. "Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about him."

  Her trembling lips and eyes didn’t trust his words. He couldn’t blame her.

  Terlin placed a fist on his chest, then dragged it down to the pit of his stomach. "A Knight is making you a promise. He won’t hurt you again."

  Suddenly, her eyes widened. He could feel the trust in her growing—but then it staggered. "T-thank you... but..."

  She swallowed back a snort and did her best not to stutter. "I wanted to be strong on my own. So I wouldn’t have to worry about him. I leveled a bunch, you know? I was scared... I wanted to be strong!"

  Her words came out in bursts between wet coughs. "So I level and I level, and I... and..."

  Oh... So that was why. Damn.

  Terlin was angry at himself for judging her. He thought it was unfair a Vlandos could get away with such strict laws just because they were close to Abella’s kids.

  But they were Star Children. So he didn’t want to let such treacherous feelings fester in his heart.

  But that aside, this reminded him of what his father always said: don't be quick with your judgment.

  In her situation, wouldn’t anyone have done the same?

  "Hey. Don't worry," Terlin told her, truly meaning those words. "Go back to your friends. And enjoy your day. I'll fix this."

  "What... what are you going to do? I'm scared that if you make him angry, or let him know I told you this... he... he'll find me and kill me for talking about it."

  Terlin’s fists tightened, but he kept that hidden. He locked his negative emotions behind a door.

  "I'll... make him go a very, very far place. So far, he'll never be able to reach you."

  Then she truly looked him in the eyes for a long while. Her crying dwindled, along with her trembling. "You mean that...?"

  "A Knight always keeps his promises."

  To be a Knight is to promise to put the citizens first. To protect them. To protect the kingdom. To run into danger headfirst. Because we're Knights —the first and last defense.

  "I... trust you." She tried to straighten her posture. "But how would I be sure you're going to warn the right person?"

  Terlin stood up. "Green eyes. High cheekbones? Dark hair? Shoulder-length?"

  She answered, lips trembling, "Yes... I thought he would have changed it."

  "He didn't."

  Then she turned and left, still crying—but not as much as before. "Thank you, sir."

  Perhaps I had judged Knights too harshly. Mister Terlin, thank you… and sorry for lying to you.

  Vernisha left Tomlock and met up with Katie. She was eating blue ice cream in a rush. That made Vernisha wonder if the cardboard container got soggy after a while.

  When Katie saw her, she stuck the wooden spoon into the ice cream and said, "You did your stuff?"

  Vernisha smiled at her. "And more."

  Then she asked, "You got another park for us to go to?"

  She was in a happy mood. And she enjoyed spending time with Katie and Ferzan.

  "Yeah. But that's boring. There's a river a little distance behind home. Want to check it out? A couple of miles after is a small monster zone too. I'll keep it a secret from my mom."

  Vernisha thought about it for a short while.

  It was tempting, but… the only reason she’d go to a monster zone would be to prepare for anything—like that mysterious brown-haired woman. Or Yanson, but he was solved.

  And second, for the joy of the system.

  But…

  Katie was fun. It couldn’t hurt to spend more time with her.

  It was merely a small break.

  "The river is good enough. No monsters. Is Ferzan coming?"

  “I could ask him.”

  “Let's go then..”

  On a nearby roof, a black cat stared at Vernisha.