Natsuko woke up feeling strange. Rested, even. Was this how most people woke up? No pounding head? No acidic stomach? Nothing? Just… normal? It felt wrong.

  “Cock-a-doodle-soooooup!” Sofiane crowed, waking Shuixing up beside Natsuko. She had dark, baggy circles under her eyes and looked weary with existence itself. It was as though she and Natsuko had traded places.

  “You look like a crusty mess," Natsu said.

  “The interior matches the exterior,” Shuixing replied, pushing her wide, round glasses onto her face.

  “Time to seize the day! Isn’t that what you're always telling me?”

  Shuixing yanked the blanket away from Natsuko and swaddled herself in it. “I’ll never say it again as long as I live.”

  Natsuko shuddered. “Agh! Cold! Cold!”

  She shot out of their tent and started doing jumping jacks to warm herself up.

  “Did you use a fire ability under your own ass?” Sofiane asked, swathed in a white fur coat that made him look like a polar bear cub.

  “No, but I can light one under yours if you want,” she replied.

  He chuckled. “Don’t hate me cuz I’m beautiful, Natsu. Maybe if you got rid of that old 1st gen-looking outfit you’d get your Use-Numbers back.”

  While the two snipped at each other, Daisy sat on a tree stump snacking on a salmon croquette and some piping hot tea. The porcelain teapot at her feet was almost translucent white and gilded with gold. Compared to the drab forest floor around it, the pot looked almost magical.

  “Mind if I grab some tea?” Natsuko asked.

  Daisy glanced at her over her cup and saucer and raised her eyebrows. “Oh... sure.”

  The abrupt lack of spunk from Daisy was disconcerting. Everyone was jumbling their personalities now for some reason, like they had all gotten stirred up in a soup pot together. Natsuko almost felt like going back to being a sour, depressed alcoholic for the sake of consistency.

  “I don’t have to have any if you don’t want me to,” Natsuko said.

  “What? Oh, no, do have some tea! Really, I’m just slow in the morning, that’s all,” Daisy replied, setting down her cup and saucer to pass the pot to Natsuko. The scalding pot radiated warmth in Natsuko’s hands.

  “Do be careful, Natsu,” Daisy said. “It’s mighty hot still.”

  Sloshing some into another of Daisy’s dainty tea cups, Natsuko looked up and said, “I’m a Fire Elemental. The heat’s nothin’ to me.”

  Then she took a large swig and spat it out over the ground while screaming obscenities about how hot it was. Daisy giggled while Natsuko packed dirty ground frost onto her tongue to quench it. By then, Pechorin was emerging from Sofiane’s tent and trying to look brooding and angsty despite a reinvigorating night’s sleep and desperate urge to yawn, since only the sane and un-tormented yawned.

  “Would you like some tea too, Pech?” Daisy asked, holding out the pot.

  “The warmth of tea cannot thaw the cold revenge I seek.”

  “Oh, okay. It has caffeine too. How about you, Sofi?”

  Sofiane shook his head and stared wistfully to the West, in the direction of the Lanbaoshi Roadhouse. “I fear I may ruin my liquid appetite if I imbibe.”

  “Liquid appetite?” Natsuko said with a raised eyebrow.

  “For future soup,” he explained.

  After a reluctant Shuixing joined them, they were back out on the road. After a couple more hours of travel, the Duftenderwald Forest came to an abrupt end at a grassy slope down towards a sandbar. For miles and miles ahead there lay a long, narrow isthmus, less than a few hundred yards at its widest. This was the land-bridge connecting Tianzhou and Verm?genburgh. Across the sandy expanse they could make out a boxy wooden structure built over the sand: The Lanbaoshi Roadhouse.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Shuixing said to Natsu, her voice soft and quiet.

  “Since we were last in Tianzhou? Shit, it's gotta be what, three years ago now?” Natsuko said.

  "It feels like a different life. Like something someone else lived."

  Natsuko looked up at the clear blue sky and tried to figure out if she had anything to say and then decided she didn't. Being on her feet, going on an adventure again had her feeling something, but she couldn't tell whether it was new or just a return to her old form.

  Seeing that Natsu and Shui wanted to be left alone, Daisy moved over to Sofiane and asked, “What’s your favorite kind of soup?”

  “Crab bisque,” Sofiane answered with no hesitation.

  This evolved into a long, drawn out conversation about soup dominated by Sofiane's strong opinions which defied the polluting influences of 'subjective taste' or 'differing opinions.' At the core of his philosophy was that soup opinions said much about one's character. The absolute bottom of the barrel was Pechorin's answer of, “I eat only to sustain my body.” Even Natsuko’s, “eh, I’m whatever about soup,” clocked in as more correct opinion, though crab bisque was still the most correct.

  After an hour of walking along the sand they arrived at the Roadhouse. Lanbaoshi—the town and the restaurant—was a single wooden structure built over both sides of the road like some teetering goliath of wooden boxes. In other words, an entire town built vertically with a tunnel through the middle. In that tunnel a large crowd of Non-Heroes had gathered at their approach.

  “That’s not good,” Sofiane said.

  “What do you mean?” Natsuko said, having the same feeling without knowing why.

  “Non-Heroes don’t randomly congregate unless it’s a Special Event, and as far as I’m aware, there’s no Special Event,” Sofiane replied.

  The tone of the crowd was anxious. Hushed whispers and apprehensive speculation radiated from it like heat off a bonfire. As Team Natsuko drew closer, they heard these whispers and speculations.

  “...the third time this week!”

  “Nothing left behind…”

  “Why are they doing this?”

  “...don’t want to be next…”

  Sofiane tapped on the shoulder of one of the gathered Non-Heroes. “Pardon me, sir, could you tell us what's going on?”

  The man jumped at the touch. The crowd of Non-Heroes turned around and seemed as frightened as the man. Rather than supporting him, the herd backed up, leaving him to be devoured by predators. Daisy gave Natsuko and Shuixing a confused look, as though expecting them to know how Non-Heroes thought after living in Verm?genburgh for so long, but they were as lost as Daisy. Pechorin was the only one unfazed.

  “Is there an Non-Hero killer around?” Pechorin asked.

  Natsuko squinted. “A what? Pech what—”

  “Yes!” said a portly woman Natsuko recognized as Minhua, the wife of the owner of Lanbaoshi Roadhouse. “They kill us at night so we don’t know who it is other than…” Minhua turned away in embarrassment. 'A Hero' was the unspoken end of that sentence. Natsuko wondered why she refused to say so.

  “A Hero killing Non-Heroes? Why?” Natsuko asked.

  Minhua shuddered. “We don't know. Each time they take their victim out of the town but close enough we can hear their screams. It’s… it’s…”

  “Killing for pleasure,” Pechorin said.

  She choked back a sob. “Please… y-you’re Heroes too, so if you can find them and tell them to stop we could… we have Ying! We’ll give you all of it! But we can’t keep living like this, being murdered and coming back the next day to be murdered again. We’re going insane!”

  Natsuko frowned. Her own Non-Hero friends back in Verm?genburgh were on her mind as Minhua begged them for help. Walking on was not an option, even with Shui's research on the line.

  “We'll find them," Natsuko said. "I promise you that. Then we'll beat the piss out of them until they agree to stop killing you all. We’ve got Daisy here so it should be no big deal. It's probably so no-name loser anyway."

  Sofiane and Daisy looked at each other as Natsuko said this.

  “Oh shit... You two ae gonna say no, aren’t you?” Natsuko said.

  The crestfallen inhabitants of the Lanbaoshi Roadhouse arrived at the same conclusion.

  Sofiane deflated. “Natsu, we don’t have the time to get distracted. We need those papers back asap. Every second we dilly-dally with little side-quests is another second Yuna has to copy Shuixing’s work. We're talking about Heroes permanently dying here. Not Non-Heroes being mildly inconvenienced.”

  Natsuko folded her arms. “Brutal murder is not a minor inconvenience. Not that it matters. You two can run off ahead and the three of us will handle it."

  Sofiane threw his arms up. “Fine! Screw around here with these useless Non-Heroes, and we’ll go deal with the enormous, apocalyptic problem you helped create.”

  With that he stomped off westward, passing into the sunlight on the other side of the Roadhouse without stopping for soup. Daisy mouthed an apology and followed Sofiane.

  “Ugh, whatever. There are still three of us and one killer, and I haven’t drank in at least 36 hours so I’m in prime fighting condition. Let’s go guys,” Natsuko said.

  Shuixing’s face was the portrait of guilt. “Natsu, I’m sorry…”

  “Et tu, Shuixing?” Natsuko said, physically wincing.

  “The forced dimension-jumping was all my fault and I have a moral obligation to clean up my mess. I think Sofiane was a little wrong by dismissing them, b-but we really don’t have time to waste…”

  Natsuko watched blankly as Shuixing jogged to catch up to the other two. Somehow, Shui single-handedly doused the bonfire of excitement that had been burning away in Natsuko’s stomach since their fight with Yuna.

  Pechorin cleared his throat. “On the honor of my decimated clan, I offer you my aid—”

  Natsuko punched him in the arm.

  Statistics: