---

Aurum and Arianwen had already cleared out most of the city, now focusing on eradicating the remnants of the monsters' invasion. Of course, along the way,  helping to save the rest of the villagers was also one of their jobs.

Aurum was still as reluctant as before, though after hearing Arianwen's words, she helped without complaint or visible disgust.

Of course, the villager's words of thanks to her still fell completely on deaf ears. She was conflicted, but her mind had not changed towards how she thought of these people after what they'd done to her and Thomas.

The master-student duo prowled through the streets of Aureal, keeping open all senses for anything that caught their attention.

What - or more precisely, who they soon found, was beyond what both of them expected.

"Footsteps. They sound human-like." 

Arianwen warned Aurum, with the younger girl going on full alert immediately. Human-like footsteps were good, but Aurum had been taught that those could be anything. There were many monsters that had humanoid appearances, after all.

They headed towards the sound, moving through an alley. In a split second, they erupted from the alley, ready to fight or secure as need be.

In the middle of the street was...

In the middle of the street, leading a group of injured, barely-alive people with her was Pearl.

Her beautiful white, frilly clothing was torn into shreds, and there were cuts marring her body. Her ears looked like they had been bit into and were bleeding, a wound that was far too vicious for her gentle face.

The only untouched item on her body was the blue scarf around her neck, which her hands clung to. The Treasure which kept her alive through suffering all those wounds.

Her expression was absentminded, but the ethereal glow of mana flowing through her scarf was unmistakable. She had definitely been using it recently.

There was also a guard traveling with their group that didn't look too good, either. His armor was dented with many blunt impacts that caved in the metal towards his chest.

At the spot of some of those hits, there were holes clearly pierced through the plating with a tremendous amount of force, yet there was no visible blood.

"Pearl...P-Pearlie!" 

Aurum's voice faltered. Staring at Pearl, she felt her already weakened resolve faltering even further. She knew Thomas was strong, but Pearl was just a support...no, was she demeaning her by thinking like that? Aurum's usual confidence was found nowhere within her thoughts.

On instinct she rushed over to Pearl while Arianwen followed, looking around with a bit more caution. 

"Pearlie, what...what happened to you?" Aurum asked, gently laying her hands on Pearl's shoulders. Even then, Pearl still winced, and looked up in confusion. With her damaged ears, the chaos of the situation, and tiredness overwhelming her, she hadn't even noticed Aurum, nor her desperate shout.

What got to her was the sudden sensation of touch on her shoulders.

"A-Aur...?" She said uncertainly, her eyes finally focusing on her friend. Noticing just how badly she was hurt, Aurum didn't even bother pressing her for more, just gently hugging her friend. The two girls spoke in hushed voices, while Arianwen approached the guard.

"I'm glad to see you still alive and moving, Eric. But still, I didn't think you'd be this badly hurt by a pack of demon boars." Arianwen looked over the many dents in his armor, where presumably, the tusks of the monsters had pierced through. "Not to mention...why are you the only one escorting these civilians?"

"Neither did I, cap'n." The guard named Eric chuckled, his gauntlet-covered fingers moving over the places on his armor that had been stabbed into. "But these monsters, they're not regular...those bastards were tough. Tougher than any demon boar I've ever seen. It's weird enough that they've undergone demonification without any demons nearby, but man..."

Arianwen nodded at his explanation. "That's fine, I understand." To her and Aurum, master and student, working together in sync, any of these monsters were just fodder. But for a regular guard, even for her well-trained guards, these things were probably living nightmares. After all, Aureal guards were trained to deal with Aureal-level threats...not something of this scale. "However, you still didn't answer the other question."

"Ahhh...my apologies, cap'n." He bowed his head, looking back to the villagers, some of them injured and afraid, yet not too grievously wounded or with any life-threatening injuries. "The truth is, I detached from my unit. The others are still back there, but they told me to escort this girl and the civilians out of the battle."

Arianwen turned her gaze towards the injured girl, who was still being fussed over by her student She stared at her for a bit longer than she meant to, noting her pure white hair, and the cat ears that sat atop it.

'...so this is her after all. I guess I may as well take the chance to become familiar with her personality.' 

That was her first thought. She had so much to question, but decided to leave it alone. This girl was a part of the "deal" Arianwen had made with the Crown Princess, a deal that nobody would know the details of until much later. Not even she fully understood the intricacies of it. Her strength was fine swordsmanship, not diplomacy.

Instead of thinking about something she'd probably never understand, Arianwen focused on hearing out the rest of Eric's tale.

"This girl...we actually found her fighting off a horde of those boar bastards all on her own. Would you believe it? She was battling them away, buffing the villagers, buffing herself, then fighting again...it was crazy. Hard to believe she's just a kid." The guard rubbed the back of his metal-plated neck. "We stepped in to help her, and unanimously made the decision to bring her and the civvies she was with to the town center, where the others are. These guys, especially her, need treatment from the healers."

Arianwen didn't show surprise on her face, but her eyebrows shifted, ever-so-slightly. Aurum's reaction was a lot more pronounced, revealing that she had been eavesdropping the whole time.

Her whole body tensed up, her eyes shaking and body trembling with barely restrained rage. She turned her gaze towards the villagers, who instinctively sensed that their beloved Lady Dragonling was furious. With each step, the aura of her treasure swirled around her, the brilliant, shimmering gold marred by a deep black.

To the faithful villagers, it must have seemed like a spiteful demigod was preparing to smite them.

"W-What?! Pearlie, y-you did all of that yourself? For these guys? You did-!"

"No, Aur!"

Arianwen was going to interrupt, but Pearl stepped in, her lucidity fully returning. She stepped in front of Aurum, causing her to stop.

"I-I..." Pearl took a deep breath, steeling herself, before continuing with a steady, firm tone. "I didn't do it just to save people." She was quick to dismiss that foolish idea. 

"Then why the hell did you?! Why would you even bother hurting yourself so much for this waste?!" Aurum snapped back immediately, taking a step towards Pearl. 

Aurum wasn't having it. Her mixed feelings - her wavering emotions - her anger - her worry, all of them were stirring into a nasty mix inside of her mind. The only one that could stop her wasn't here - and for all Aurum knew, he was suffering a fate even worse than Pearl.

All because of these villagers. All because these weak people, who were so flimsy, needed saving like the parasites they were. Aurum's mind was dangerously close to being made up on what she wanted to do, were it not for Pearl.

Pearl didn't step back. She opened her mouth - wanting to explain herself someway, anyway, but even with the courage she had to stand before Aurum's anger, the right words just couldn't come out. How could they? It had been so easy when she opened her heart to both Aurum and Thomas, atop that picturesque mountain, but now it felt impossible.

Arianwen watched with a complicated expression, unsure of just what to do or say, herself. The villagers, and Eric, just stood there, paralyzed with fear. As fate would have it, nobody there would bear witness to the conclusion of this sudden confrontation.

"Captain."

A voice suddenly revealed itself, as one of Arianwen's elite guards appeared from seemingly nowhere. The only thing that indicated any sort of movement was that they had a light trail of dust rising up from below their feet, indicating that they had jumped all the way down here. Like the rest of her Elite, they wore a cloaked robe, showing no clear form or distinguishable look.

Everyone, minus Arianwen was taken off-guard at the cloaked figure's appearance. Arianwen turned to them casually, though she had a sinking feeling deep within her chest, for some reason.

"What is it?" She asked dispassionately.

"The monsters are retreating from the village." There was no celebration for these words, only silence, as the Elite Guard continued. "Most have been exterminated, and almost all - " The person turned for a second, looking at the villagers with the small group. "-it seems that all villagers have been located, for now. There have, however been some casualties."

The mood was somber. The villagers behind Pearl were no longer controlled by fear, but instead, destroyed by sadness, despair, and anxiety. Who knew if those among the number of the dead were their own family, friends, or lovers? 

This village, the village of "Golden Beginnings" just seemed to exist to endlessly take from them. Yet it was the only place they could live.

Seeing their despondency, and instinctively understanding the seriousness of things, Aurum shrunk back. Yet, the smoldering fire in her gaze showed that her rage was far from completely suppressed.

Still, even learning that they had lost so many people, and so many of their homes had been once again destroyed, they had all yet to learn the worst of the news.

"However, there is one issue." The Elite Guard member vaguely turned towards the direction of the forest. "From the direction of the forest, a horde of Hellslimes has been spotted approaching. And..."

'-they were blights - a pest capable of destroying entire cities from the outside in, if in large enough numbers.'

"They seem to be combining, in an attempt to self-destruct and destroy the village."

---

Everything else took an immediate backseat, as the village went into overdrive. Every village and city around the world had certain procedures in place for the monsters in their area, including their possible variants. Some, like the capital city of the Kingdom, didn't need them.

For Aureal, the reason they were able to take care of monsters so efficiently was because they were a city used to dealing with large amounts of monsters. Not to mention, they had already created efficient methods of dispatching monster invasions. While the monsters near their cities attacked in large numbers, they were weak. Proper tactics, training, and readiness, was enough for this small village to survive almost everything.

Even without Arianwen, it wouldn't be far-fetched to say that Aureal could survive the most dire of monster-related situations.

However...

"Dear Tenebi..." 

Eric was the one to speak first for the group that was overlooking the perimeter of the village. Now atop the walls that were supposed to protect the village, Arianwen, Pearl, Aurum, and the Elite Guard all stared on at the horrific threat slowly building up outside them.

Just outside the gate, tens of hundreds, if not thousands of small, orange-glowing slimes combined, flowing like sticky magma into each other. One by one they combined, forming a large blob of fiery, explosive mass that just grew even more by the second.

Hellslimes combining was a rare event. And even more so, combining in this large of a number. It was only when they were steadily produced that they could ever reach this number. 

None of them would ever know it, but this was the final "present" from Echidna's Cradle - an unbelievable amount of Hellslimes meant to destroy the village entirely.

With Echidna dead, the slimes had nothing to control them...in ordinary circumstances, they may have just retreated, like the other monsters. However, they instead chose death. A fiery, destructive death, one that would destroy as many humans as possible - the ultimate end goal of the majority of the unnamed demonic monsters.

"...you've already evacuated the villagers, correct?" 

Arianwen was the next to speak, looking at her Elite Guard. They nodded in response to her question, and Arianwen took a deep breath. 

"Aurum, with me, to find Thomas. Eric, you go with my Guard and help to evacuate the citizens, along with this other child." 

Everyone's eyes widened the moment Arianwen spoke. Her words were as smooth and calm as ever, but the true meaning was not lost on any of them.

'Abandon the village. It's beyond saving. Gather who you can and run.'

That's essentially what the kingdom's strongest knight was telling them to do right now.

It was the toughest order she had ever given, but there was nothing else she could do. A blast like that couldn't be contained with her swordsmanship. Maybe if it was by some of the more inhumanly strong ones she had heard of, but though she was once the strongest, Arianwen was a knight of an old generation.

Her strength would not be enough to stop this explosion, and there were no magicians around with the capacity to resist it. 

"Yes, Cap'n."

"Yes. ma'am."

Both Eric and Aurum replied.

Eric's voice was solemn, his gaze lowered. It was understandable - like most guards of the village, he was born, raised, and trained here. He dedicated his life to learning tactics, leveling up, and upgrading his skills just to protect Aureal. It was everything to him.

Meanwhile, Aurum seemed entirely unaffected. The only thing on her mind was looking for Thomas, so she could grab him and Pearl, and make sure they were out of range. 

The village would be destroyed? Good. At least that would mean Aurum wouldn't have to feel these nasty conflicting feelings about the eyesore of a place.

The Elite Guard was silent, and Aria's gaze was complicated. After all, she was a native, too. And she had much history here, with her deceased husband, Thomas, and Aurum. She silently grasped her sword tighter, her apathetic gaze wavering for a moment.

It was a moment that none of them would possibly ever be able to forget, for different reasons.

Right here, right now, the village of Aureal would be destroyed.

"Umm..."

Pearl's timid voice broke the silence, her small footsteps echoing as she walked towards the edge of the wall, turning around to face everyone there. Her next words were ridiculous. More ridiculous than anything that had happened over the past two hours.

"I...I think I can stop it."