Mia somewhat regretted not having her Familiar summoned, but she could only lament her lack of foresight. She’d have to do things on her own … and with Carmilla.

  “Want me to handle them?” The vampiress whispered into her ear, and the eagerness in her voice spoke of how many bones would be broken before she was done ‘handling’ them. A lot.

  “Let’s be gentle,” Mia whispered back, flicking off a blunted Bolt towards the man closest to the foxkin. “They are just low levelled humans.”

  The man she targeted got hit by the human-sized projectile right as he was on one foot. Which meant he had no hope of resisting the sudden force sending him rolling and crashing into the asphalt.

  Mia winced, that must have hurt. Still, he was groaning and cursing, which meant he was fine.

  “You be careful,” Carmilla said, then shot off. A moment later she was throwing a man twice her size over her shoulder and slamming him into the ground.

  Mia took in a quick breath, watching as the foxkin fought off two men at once like a wild animal pushed into a corner. He kicked, scratched and bit.

  Sending one of his attackers flying with another blunted Bolt, Mia eyed the few men eyeing her in turn with murderous glares. She also paid attention to the dozens of them who stood to the side, seemingly having extracted themselves from the fight when Mia showed up.

  Five of the murderous ones ran at Mia and she had a moment of panic as collectively half a ton of muscle and hate rushed at her. Then reality reasserted itself, and she felt stupid for feeling even a smidge of fear. She’d stared down monsters twice the size of these men and walked over their corpses. Compared to that, these five are … nothing.

  Compared to the hateful, malicious gaze of a monster, the anger and fear she’d seen in these people’s eyes was cute at best.

  Thinking of weaker people as ‘lesser’ or as ‘nothing’ was a dangerous thought, she knew, but it was what she felt all the same and it helped her keep calm and weave out of their way with a few fluttering steps back.

  With a bit of mana from her wand, she fired off three blunted Bolts in quick succession, managing to take down four of them when one of the guys she hit crashed into the guy behind him.

  Mia winced as the back of one man’s skull broke the nose of another, but she didn’t feel too bad about it. They’d tried to do … she didn’t even want to know what to her. Beat her up? Mug her? Kill her? Or something even worse?

  Well, they were now collapsed on the ground with a handful of broken bones, so she’d never know. Good riddance.

  The last man stumbled, shocked at how quickly his comrades had been beaten down by what looked to be a harmless little girl. Well, Mia was technically fully into womanhood, but being tiny, having fluffy hot pink hair and a soft face made her look younger by at least five years.

  Not that she’d realised that herself just yet, still thinking that her smiles could make children cry and her glares terrorise them.

  “What will it be?” Mia asked, glee clear in her voice. “Want to end up like them, or will you go scuttling back home?”

  “Bitch,” the man bit out, a vengeful glare on his face. He hesitated, but seeing that she just rolled her eyes at him, he crouched down next to one of his groaning friends.

  Mia glance over him, already having put him out of her mind. Carmilla was walking back over, dusting off her palms with a satisfied grin on her face while a pile of humans behind her groaned and moaned in pain. She also had the jumpy foxkin man trailing behind her, eying the lot who stood to the side warily.

  “Well, that’s that I guess,” Mia said, casting her gaze over the group to the side. There had to be at least thirty of them there, men and women, mostly in their thirties. Some looked at her like she was an unsolvable puzzle, some glared hatefully, while others yet just looked on in mild wonder.

  The last of which, likely due to her ostentatious magic. Blunted Bolt variants looked like fluffy pink clouds after all, so seeing them send grown men flying was weird as hell even for Mia.

  “Shouldn’t we say something?” Carmilla asked, whispering into Mia’s ears. “I’m pretty sure we just look like bullies right now. I don’t really mind, but I don’t think that was your intention.”

  “Right,” Mia said under her breath, a tingle running down her spine as she felt the vampire’s breath on her sensitive ear. Focus. “As I’ve said, I think we have enough problems as it is. Monsters are streaming out of Rifts, trying to eat us and yes, there is a gang of beastkin who’ve thought it was a good idea to go raid us to sustain themselves, but that doesn’t mean you have to lynch one of the few of them who resisted the Call and stayed behind.”

  As far as speeches went, that was still pretty damned bad. Mia wasn’t made for this sort of thing. She wasn’t a leader, or a natural orator. It was a miracle her hands weren’t trembling from just having that many people staring at her.

  “Don’t we have enough problems already without turning on each other?” Mia asked, it was a rhetoric question, but someone answered anyway.

  “Those animals started it,” one younger man said, petulantly glaring at Mia.

  “One, they are called beastkin, not animals, would you like to be called a furless gorilla?” Mia asked. “Second, I’m sure this beastkin behind me was not part of the raid on your food supplies. Look at him. He is barely anything more than skin and bones. Does he look like he looted all of your fridges?”

  The foxkin squirmed under the score of examining gazes, but Mia’s words, while exaggerated, rang true. The man was lanky, ribs clearly showing and his cheeks sunken like a skeleton. He was still in a state miles better than how Mia’d found Carmilla, but that wasn’t saying much. Carmilla was only one step out of the grave, perilously close to stumbling right back into it.

  The crowd grumbled a bit, but most looked ashamed. Mia let out a sigh of relief at that. She didn’t know what else to say, beyond that they were all fucking stupid. Beastkin were obviously not monsters. They were just hungry and alone, broken in a way no one else could understand.

  And that bastard ‘Werewolf King’ made use of that. He exploited their weakness to rope them into his ‘Pack’. Mia’s jaws tightened a bit at the thought. It was like a cult, preying on weak, vulnerable people and then making those people prey on the ever weaker and even more vulnerable. It was all a horrible pyramid scheme. All these idiots are doing is pushing the few beastkin who resisted the Call into joining the Werewolf for protection and food.

  “I know you are all afraid,” Mia said, deciding to finish up quickly now that the crowd didn’t look like they’d be looking for the closest beastkin to murder the moment Mia left them alone. “But … we’d all been humans just weeks ago. Even if we all look different now. Don’t let the chaos turn you into monsters, please?”

  Mia winced a little as some of the glares heated up at that, but her little monologue worked on a few too at least who looked even more ashamed. Likely, Mia wasn’t tilting anyone’s opinions the other direction, but she was tilting them all further down the way they were already tilting.

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  For some, that was guilt while for others it was …

  “Easy for you to say, elven bitch!” One man shouted, earning a round of agreeing cheers as he stomped out of the crowd. “You got fancy magic to protect yourself with, and what did we get? I’m an Accountant. That’s my Class. The fuck’s that going to do when the monsters overrun those incompetent morons calling themselves an army? Will that protect my five year old daughter from the goblins, huh, will it?”

  Mia wilted under the collective glares for the first time. They were right. She was lucky, astronomically super lucky that she had the Affinity for Arcane magic she had.

  I’d be a helpless Chef Apprentice without it. Mia winced. Pure luck was all that separated her from the group of angry, and downright terrified people before her. The end of the world is here and they can't do squat. I’d be lashing out too at the first thing I could.

  “You stand there,” the man continued, his voice rising in power as he did. “Speaking of equality. You? To us? With your elven ears and magic? Just how thick can your skin be to spout that bullshit with a straight face?”

  “I-“ Mia started, trying to come up with something to say that didn’t sound like a lie and failing when Carmilla stepped in front of her.

  The vampiress strode up to the taller man without fear and stared up into his eyes. The larger man shut his mouth instantly, taking a step back as he saw something in the depths of those ruby eyes.

  “Carmilla?” Mia asked, sounding uncertain. “Don’t do anything rash. Please.”

  “I won’t do anything ‘rash’,” the vampire said with a glacial smile on her lips. “I’m calm, aren’t I? Perfectly calm.”

  “Uhuh,” Mia mumbled, unconvinced.

  “Now listen here you little shit,” Carmilla said to the man half a head taller than her with a straight face. “Mia back there had used her magic to hunt monsters from practically day one of the integration. Her monster kill count is closing in on the four digits. Can you honestly say you would have been even half as helpful to the community around you than she was if you had her power?”

  “Of course!” The man said, face twitching from anger.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Carmilla said, and it was like the words smashed the air out of the man’s lung, making him stumble and gasp. “What rarity is your class?”

  “C-common,” the man wheezed.

  “Then you could have earned Attribute Points and gotten stronger by levelling up,” Carmilla stated. “What have you done instead? Looked for someone weaker than you to take out your anger on. Have you gotten even a single Base Attribute point? Do you even know what that is?”

  “I- “ the man groaned, glaring up at Carmilla as he tried to straighten up from his hunched pose.

  “Go home,” Carmilla said. “The pathetic lot of you. Scram. If you had even the tiniest fragment of the spine Mia has, you would be out there fighting monsters with sticks and stones if you had to. Get out of my sight and take that broken clump of disappointments along with you.”

  Mia squirmed under the praise the vampire sent her way seemingly without even thinking of it. It made her feel warm inside, but also scared that she wasn’t really what Carmilla thought her to be.

  Spine? In Mia? Courage avoided her like a plague and bravery was a new concept to her, one she only started grasping at with her slowly improving Will.

  She called me kind, gentle and caring too, didn’t she? Mia gulped, worry gripping her heart and sending her spiralling as she watched the group pick up their beaten-up neighbours and acquaintances before ambling off.

  Was she any of those things? She was trying to be, but more often than not, she was just straight up selfish. Generosity was something for the rich, like saving people from monsters was something only for the powerful.

  “Hey, don’t let those idiots put you down!” The foxkin man said, staring at Mia intensely from a few steps away. “They aren’t worth the shit on your boots.”

  “Didn’t one of them give you food?” Mia asked dryly, feeling like this foxkin might be more slimy than she’d originally thought.

  “Yeah,“ the man snorted. “He gave me a bunch of mouldy, rotten food after I begged him with my forehead in the dirt. Prick.”

  “He’s right,” Carmilla said, gently squeezing Mia’s shoulder. “I think so anyway. They don’t know it, but you likely did more for them just by hunting monsters than almost anyone else in the city. They are just angry, fearful little men who can’t see that. Ignore them.”

  “I just killed monsters for the levels though,” Mia mumbled, though most of her worries were quickly fading. Carmilla thought she was doing something good, and while the vampire didn’t have the greatest of moral compasses, it still meant a lot to Mia.

  “Dead monsters don’t kill people.” Carmilla shrugged. “Doesn’t matter why you killed them in the long run, does it? Plus, we even destroyed a Rift. That’s pretty huge.”

  “Guess so,” Mia said, now smiling. Her gaze stayed on Carmilla’s face for a moment, just enjoying that warm look coming her way before she glanced over at the foxkin man. “What are we supposed to do with him, won’t he just get beaten up again if we leave him be?”

  “Not really our problem,” Carmilla said, shrugging. “But it’s your choice. I just don’t think we have nearly enough food to feed another mouth.”

  If only we had more Nature mages like that old lady in Jeff’s building. Mia thought ruefully, but returned to the present quickly. “Do you think you’ll get lynched if we leave you alone?”

  “Maybe?” The foxkin shrugged, looking nonchalant. “Thanks for the save by the way, I forgot to say. You were pretty cool.”

  Mia nodded at him, then shrugged. “Well, good luck out there.”

  “Wait!” The man shouted as Mia turned to leave and continue her run with Carmilla. “Can I do something to thank you? Maybe invite you over for a drink? I still have some old wines hidden in my basement.”

  Mia almost fell on her face as she whirled around, jaw slightly ajar as she looked at the grinning foxkin. She looked him over again, finding that he looked to be at most 26 and had an athletic form to him along with a grin that was likely supposed to make most girls’ hearts melt.

  That’s flirting, isn’t it? Staring at the man, ugly memories tried to burrow to the surface as she watched him saunter after her with far too much confidence. He just invited me out on a date. Nope. Nope. Nope.

  “Not interested,” Mia said, then turned and fled.

  “I’m Noah by the way!” The man shouted after her. “I live down the street if you change your mind!”

  Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Leave me alone.

  “Want me to kill him?” Carmilla asked, running backwards next to Mia as she stared back at the distant form of the foxkin.

  “Please don’t kill people,” Mia sighed, slowing to a jog once that foxkin was out of her ears’ range. “I just … nope. Let’s forget he even exists, or that ever happened. Nope. Today was … urgh. He ruined my mood.”

  “Can I kill him?” Carmilla asked, now sounding like her question wasn’t just a jest anymore. Or maybe it never was. Mia couldn’t be sure what was going through Carmilla’s head when she went into vampire-mode.

  “A kiss would work better for getting my spirits up,” Mia said, sending a coy glance over at the vampire. It surprised her a bit that the flirt came to her so naturally, but knowing that Carmilla wasn’t averse to dating her lit the fire under her butt and emboldened her like nothing else.

  “You promised not to tease,” Carmilla said whiny, making Mia laugh. The contrast between ice cold ‘can I kill him?’ and the whine was just too much.

  “A peck then, on the cheeks?” Mia said, tilting her head at the vampiress who has a faint rosiness on her cheeks.

  “Stop it,” Carmilla said, shaking her head and Mia decided to leave it for now. Teasing someone was only fun while the recipient was also enjoying it, and she felt Carmilla was close to that limit.

  “Alright then,” Mia sang, looking around as they ran. People were walking around, running up and down and bartering with each other.

  In a way, this suburban part of Graz was the liveliest it had been in a long time. Mia even saw a family of cat beastkin walking down the street and talking with a family that was a mix of dwarves and something even smaller.

  Not everyone was like those idiots, some people could actually work together to get through this hardship.

  It was good to see. Mia really didn’t want to lose this, lose how things used to be. The world wouldn’t be the same again, but it didn’t have to be broken down to bits and remade either.

  It was just … another one of those big events that rewrote world history. Like the Bronze Age Collapse, the fall of the Western Roman Empire or World War 2. The ‘Awakening’ could join the end of that list.

  “What do you think they’ll call the Awakening in the history books?” Mia mused, not straining her throat to shout over the wind since Carmilla would hear her either way.

  “System Integration?” Carmilla said. “Or something with a bit more gravitas … the Apocalypse maybe?”

  The two continued chatting, just enjoying a bit of small talk as the world sped by them and their muscles started to grow pleasantly sore … Well, Mia’s muscles were going sore, anyway. Carmilla apparently healed her muscles back up the moment their cells tore. So no soreness for her.

  A haggard-looking soldier, with his uniform jacket half hanging off of him, jumped out on the street before them. Mia was going to go around the man, but as she and Carmilla came closer, he shouted at them.

  “The Colonel wants to speak with you two. It’s urgent! An emergency! Please come with me.”