Eres barged through the door of the apothecary for the second time, startling the old woman just as much as before.

  “Low grade balms, ointments, and pills.” Eres listed her orders.

  “...I have none to sell.” Gurda replied warily.

  “Yes…” The sharp look in Eres’ eyes remained unchanged. “I heard about your strange deal with that slumlord. Everything, was it? Why would a slumlord want everything you make?”

  “Why should I tell you anything?” The old herbalist spat.

  “Because we’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  Banda lunged with Eres’ words. Gurda frantically managed to put a wall of aura between them in time, but it didn’t matter. Banda shattered it with a single punch and a second swipe of his clawed hand stopped just short of her eyes.

  “I-I sell because she pays more than they’re worth!” Gurda stammered out in a panic. “I don’t know why! Doesn’t pay to ask too many questions in this town.”

  “Is she only buying medicine?” Eres asked another question.

  “I don’t-” Banda raised his clawed hand as the herbalist started her response. “Herbs! She doesn’t want medicine. Just the herbs. Low grade. Mid grade. Anything I can get. That’s all I know!”

  “Let’s go.” Eres dropped her inquisition and left as quickly as she entered. So suddenly, the old woman didn’t even realize Banda had followed until he passed through the open door.

  “Why do you care about this?” Banda asked.

  “When people drastically change how they act, it’s usually because they’ve obtained something. And maybe that something is beneficial for us.” Eres explained. “That said, it is a slumlord we’re dealing with, and your soul hasn’t healed yet. We should hold off until it has. Besides, we have a whole Manastone to get before the end of the day.”

  “That isn’t our fault.” Banda scowled. The thin human was meant to give them three.

  “Is that what you plan to tell Otto?” Eres gave him a look.

  Banda’s frown soured more. He would have forced the slumlord to surrender the other one, but Eres had shown no intent to do so. He may be constrained to the normal limits of Feral Form, but he was still confident against a weak rank 2 slumlord.

  He was certain they were weaker than the rank 2 harpy matriarch. And more importantly, that would be easier than hunting. The low grade monsters of the Misty Forest were no threat, but it would require hordes of them to make a single Manastone.

  It was not something he could manage with the time they had left, and the greater harvests of the mountain range were too much of a risk to take.

  Eres was not stupid enough to not realize this. That was Banda’s impression of her, at least. Which meant she must have a plan in mind. More human lies to give.

  She led him not to the gate, but to the bazaar. And to Banda’s diminishing confidence in her, she began buying things they did not need.

  Eres spent loudly and freely, for many to see. Banda did not like the attention she was drawing to them either. He was almost about to put a stop to this lunacy, until Eres intentionally bumped into a large bald man in a sleeveless tunic.

  “Watch where you’re going, you lout!” She shouted at him.

  “Do you wanna die, whore?!” The man roared back, and Eres struck him in the chest with her Palm Blast technique. The man crashed into a wooden stalled and fell limp, his torso bruised and slightly bleeding.

  Banda’s eyes narrowed. Injuries of that extent were far too light, and the flow of aura in her hand had looked strange. She had deliberately used her art poorly, but to what reason, Banda didn’t know.

  Eres clicked her teeth in derision and walked on. Without warning she led them down a secluded alley, and Banda finally realized her intentions. They were being followed. By many, at that. Their prey. This was hunting in reverse.

  The two slowly continued down the twisting narrow roads. Neither their posture nor their intent gave anything away.

  Banda spun around in Feral Form and swatted an arrow. A man wrapped in dark cloth jumped from the roof above, but Eres was waiting. Her palm glowed as she thrust it, shooting out dense aura in the shape of her hand that caved in the assailant’s chest.

  Aura swirled in her other palm as she turned to her left. Honing in from the turn of that direction was a frail woman with a twisted smile, channelling the same art as Eres.

  A mocking smile crept on Eres’ face as they both unleashed their Palm Blasts. The auras clashed and Eres’ stood firmer. The frail woman was struck with the recoil before she even realized what happened. She smashed back into the wall behind her and fell limp.

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  Before anyone else could attack, Banda sundered the ground with a stomp and mauled the broken cobblestone down the alley. The attackers yelled as the barrage of stone shattered bones and destroyed the walls of the houses, leaving only a path of wretched whimpers and dying agony.

  In the display of such destruction, the survivors fled. Gone were the thoughts of plundering the weak. Now they thought only of saving their own hides.

  “Take the right!” Eres shouted at him as she took off left, equipping a shield from one of the corpses as she ran.

  Banda hesitated for a moment at the thought of leaving the side of his biggest vulnerability, but only for a moment. She could at least manage prey like this.

  He sped off on all fours like a beast. His hand tightened with strength, his claws sharpened, and he began to hunt.

  He tore and ripped through the humans as he bounded through. Every lash of his hands carved through flesh, painting the stone town in blood and guts.

  It was easy. These humans were weak. This was his element. His place in this world. One day he would regain his strength, and the prey within his sight would be strong once more. And they would die just the same.

  Banda thurst his clawed hand, and stopped just short of a man’s face cowering against a wall. Blond hair with dark skin, he wore a cloak with a hood that partially concealed his face, but Banda saw enough to determine him youthful. Perhaps around the same as Eres.

  He seemed too weak to be one of the attackers, and his intent matched the thought. Banda guessed he was simply unlucky to be down this path at this time. But none of that was what caught his attention.

  The reason he stayed his hand was due to the leather covered book the man clutched against his chest, as if he valued it as much as his own life. That led Banda to believe it might be beneficial to him.

  Banda snatched the book from his hands, and knocked him back against the wall hard when he tried to reach for it, as a warning.

  He held up the book by one end, and let the pages fall down to the other. It was thicker than the martial books he had used, each page filled with squiggled lines and drawings.

  “What is this?” Banda asked, though it was not a request. The hooded man stalled his answer, so Banda punched through the stone wall near his head. His second warning, and would be his last.

  “It’s a Runebook! Runeforging guide! It, it teaches you how to carve runes.” The man answered quickly this time.

  Banda started at the human then back to the book, and tried to pour his aura in. But nothing happened.

  “It does not teach.” Banda accused. He wondered if the book was not something beneficial after all. Though he would sooner believe human tricks were at play. “Make it teach.”

  “I… It’s a book. You have to read it…” Cedal explained.

  “What is read?” Banda started to grow impatient.

  Cedal opened and closed his mouth, as though figuring out how to word his response. “...Those lines, on the pages. They’re words. When you look at the words, you can hear them in your mind. As if the book is speaking to you.”

  Banda stared at the unfamiliar lines closely but not one of them spoke to him. “You lie.”

  “No, no!” Cedal stammers out in fear of the sinking atmosphere surrounding the violent savage.

  A storm of thoughts ran wild in his mind before something clicked and he frantically ambled for a stone on the ground, and used it to carve white marks into the tan stone of the wall behind.

  “Look, look. See these words here. This one means ‘creation’. This means ‘are’. ‘Runes.’ ‘Words.’ ‘The.’ ‘Of.’” Cedal pointed to each of them as he assigned a name to them. “Now, now look at the third page of the book. Look at the first line set of lines on the page. Say those sounds in your head as you look at them.”

  Banda eyed the man doubtfully, but did as he urged. He looked at the jumbled mass of lines with rising annoyance and found the first one.

  “Runes… are… the… Words… of… Creation.”

  Banda’s eyes widened. The lines he thought meaningless now sounded out clearly in his head. In his own voice at that. And together he understood them as though they spoke to him.

  “How can I use this trick without the circle?” Banda interrogated, with genuine interest.

  “Trick…?” Cedal said, a bit confused. “It’s a skill. Like... building a house or making a clay pot.”

  Banda used one of his nails to copy the lines on the page in the cobblestone street at his feet, and read them again. He paid close attention this time, and confirmed for himself that none of his aura was used.

  Cedal watched Banda with renewed anxiety, the focus on the savage’s sharp claws reminding him of where exactly he stood. He hoped that the savage would understand the value of reading, and that introducing it to him would be enough to pay for his life.

  “Reading is a… useful thing to have. It-”

  “Did you make this?” Banda interrupted, holding the book out slightly.

  “Huh? Oh, ah… No. It had to be someone capable. Maybe an Adept.” Cedal replied on reflex.

  “Where?”

  “W-where…?” Cedal stammered out in confusion. “The author, you mean? I don’t know. The book is pretty old. They might be long dead by now.”

  “Will this book turn to dust if I read it?” Banda asked

  “No. The book will remain. You can read it countless times. That’s what’s so great about re-”

  “If I learn this human trick,” Banda’s presence grew denser and focused. “I can hear the words of dead men who will teach me power.”

  Cedal felt his heart sink. The savage understood the value of reading deeply, and in a way that only a savage would. He felt as though he stood before a monstrous beast with an inhuman mind. He felt like a fool for even humoring the possibility of surviving such an encounter.

  “...yes.” The word slipped from Cedal’s mouth out of the sheer instinct to live, though he put no weight in it, nor hope.

  Banda vanished in the blink of an eye, down the path he had come. At least that was what Cedal assumed. His eyes were not fast enough to be sure. It took him a few hazy moments until he realized he was still alive.

  Banda stopped by Eres’ side in a blur, who stood with her arms crossed at the place in the alley where they are separated.

  “What took you so long?” She asked with clear annoyance. Though her ill temper partially gave way to interest at the most unusual sight of her feral champion carrying a book. “What is that?”

  “Something beneficial.”

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