The only light down there was the gas lamp that Eivor was holding, making the other buildings eerily dark. Even though it was still midday for us, it was quite dark below.

  "It's abandoned," Samsara observed. “Otherwise, other people would be here.”

  “Maybe it’s not abandoned,” I commented. “Rather it’s like one of those bunkers. Everyone in Lateo can flee down here if necessary.”

  “That makes a lot more sense,” Samsara agreed with me. “Hopefully, with our protection and the stealth field generators, they won’t need to flee down here.”

  I smirked. “If only we could hide down there too.”

  “Sadly, they don’t build bunkers for Kaijus,” Samsara giggled. “Why would Kaijus like us even need them anyways?”

  “Who knows, maybe we might need to hide from an even bigger Kaiju.”

  “I don’t think any bunker is going to stop that,” Samsara said. “The best we can do is evolve quickly so we never need to worry about Kaijus bigger than us ever again.”

  “Agreed.”

  Eivor and Halinka walked past the silent, ghostly homes. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the subterranean space below. The air smelled stale and dry through Eivor and Halinka’s noses.

  Eventually, the path ended at a flat, unremarkable stone slab of a wall. To the untrained eye, it was a dead end. I did notice a small discoloration to the side.

  "I’ll do it," Eivor said, her voice wheezing slightly.

  She stepped up to the rock face, pressing her free hand against a specific discoloration in the stone. The rock dipped in with a mechanical click.

  A seam appeared in the wall, and the heavy stone slab slid sideways with the grinding sound of hidden gears.

  “A secret entrance?” Samsara asked.

  “Not surprising,” I said. “If they have the technology to make a stealth field generator, then surely they would have the technology to make a moving door.”

  Eivor entered, while Halinka, still carrying the generator effortlessly, followed Eivor inside.

  They entered a large, circular chamber. In the center sat the twin of the device we had just dug up: a matte black dish connected to a pulsing blue cube.

  I cross-referenced their position with my internal soul map.

  It turns out the two elders were telling the truth. They were directly under the river, although by a few hundreds meters or so.

  We watched as Halinka set the spare generator down next to the active one. Eivor began inspecting the wires, her hands shaking slightly from exertion. That trip must have taken a lot from her.

  "We need to calibrate it," Eivor wheezed, leaning heavily against the cold stone wall. "The field frequency has to match the surface geometry."

  "I’ll handle it," Halinka said softly, stepping forward. "You know you can't shape the energy."

  I felt Halinka [Focus], channeling her mana into the black cube. She made a complicated five ring spell, with four different long [Incantations].

  Eivor watched with a bitter expression. "I wish I kept that old Enhancer. Pretty sure the conduit cracked years ago." She paused, looking at her trembling hands. "Either that, or I should have just let myself turn into a monster girl."

  "No," Halinka said sharply, not looking up from her work. "It’s too dangerous to be near a Rift. It's safer this way. I will take care of you."

  "Thanks, Hali," Eivor whispered. She wrapped the fox girl in a tight hug, but the moment was ruined when Eivor doubled over, hacking out a wet, rattling cough.

  Halinka frowned, her ears flattening against her head. She effortlessly scooped Eivor into a princess carry. "I’m carrying you all the way back up."

  "Put me down," Eivor managed to say between breaths. "I'm not a princess."

  "No," Halinka smiled sadly. "But you are my best friend."

  “What would you do if I was a human?” Samsara said, clearing referencing Eivor and Halinka’s relationship.

  “I’d still take care of you,” I said firmly, wrapping her in a hug. Unlike Eivor, I didn’t cough or wheeze. “Our friendship isn’t based on if we are monster girls or not. We were friends when we were humans, and we were friends when we were monster girls.”

  We sat in silence as Eivor and Halinka slowly came back up.

  “Today was… a lot,” I thought, replaying the events. “We attacked a hidden base, fought an Aberration, dug up a stealth generator, and fought flying mechs.”

  Samsara nodded. “It’s wild. Plus, we managed to get another evolution along with three mutations. That’s not even including the fact we found Lucia, who will hopefully be able to fix Aisling.”

  "Those airships irritate me," I grumbled. “We had to let them go. I hate letting prey escape like that.”

  “Agreed.”

  "We need to get stronger," I decided firmly. “We need to grow so tall that the blimps would be like flies to us.”

  “Definitely,” Samsara said. “We need more souls and mana.”

  "Then let’s head out to eat," I said, looking toward the Wild Lands beyond Lateo.

  A few days passed. Unfortunately, we didn’t run into any Kaijus, and we weren’t willing to go anywhere near that Rift. Either the humans would have sealed it up, or even more dangerous Aberrations would have come out. So, we were simply left Kaiju hunting.

  On the positive side, we did increase our soul count up to 6,010 and our excess mana to 12,500. We just needed about 14,000 more souls to evolve again.

  While we were exploring one of the forests, Seraphina was on her phone again reading a story. It was different from the poisonous frog one—this one featured a group of teenagers finding a sentient piece of armor. It kind of reminded me of a mech. Except, human-sized. Also, mechs themselves aren’t sentient.

  “This is a bad thing to read before a funeral,” Seraphina mentioned. She talked about Azar as well as the names of the mech pilots I ate. I didn’t care enough to remember each pilot’s names. They were just pilot food to me.

  The screen on Seraphina’s phone went black as she folded it shut. She shoved the device into the pocket of her golden bodysuit.

  “Finally,” I thought. “She’s moving.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Samsara and I had been wandering for a while, looking for something to eat, but the forest was annoyingly quiet today. This was the forest where we fought the Kaiju cat girl. Maybe we should have gone to the one closer to Utlond instead.

  My ears twitched, but I heard nothing but the rustle of leaves in the wind.

  “It’s wild how nothing is out here,” Samsara mentally said.

  “You could say it’s wild in the Wild Lands,” I said.

  “Booo!” Samsara cried out. My best friend was not impressed.

  “Hey, it’s a great pun,” I responded, folding my arms.

  Sadly, our small talk could only keep us distracted from the bareness of the wilderness right now. I shifted my attention back to the soul link.

  Back in the village, Lucia, Nilo, Atgo, and Kanes were huddled around the salvaged parts of Mech Sparkles, as well as some technology that Halinka had gathered up from the underground chamber beneath the river. They were speaking in gibberish. I wasn’t sure if Lucia was even speaking the Unified language since she kept squawking about “neural synapse re-alignment protocols” and “thaumic augmented cognition”.

  “Blah, blah, blah,” I thought, tuning them out. It sounded like gibberish.

  “As long as they fix Aisling and help the rest of the village out, then they can speak all the science jargon they want,” Samsara said. “I don’t care what fancy words they use.”

  Seraphina stepped out of her building. The air at Outpost OU-M-7 was crisp and smelled fresh.

  She joined a stream of people heading toward a large tower near the center of the base. Most of them wore the gray dress uniforms of the Monster Purifiers, while others wore lab coats.

  "Seraphina!" a voice called out.

  Seraphina flinched. A woman with dark skin and glasses jogged up to her. It was Tawna, the woman from the cafeteria back at OU-U-1. She looked surprisingly energetic, her ponytail bouncing as she stopped in front of Seraphina.

  "Hi!" Tawna breathed, adjusting her glasses. "I'm so glad you're here. I knew you survived, but I haven’t seen or heard from you. I tried contacting you, but didn’t get a response.”

  Seraphina stopped walking, her voice stuttering. “Hey… Tawna. Yeah… I’m alive.”

  “Thankfully, I can see that,” Tawna said.

  “You’re… alive?” Seraphina asked.

  “Well duh,” she said, folding her arms. “What do you think I am? A ghost? Boo!”

  Seraphina flinched again.

  “Damn, didn’t mean to scare you,” Tawna said, putting her hands on Seraphina’s shoulders. “A bunch of us managed to cram onto the last airships just before the Kaiju… well you know what happened.”

  “Yeah, that’s why… I’m here,” she said. “The funeral.”

  "We barely made it out," Tawna continued, lowering her voice. “All the labs got completely wiped, but a lot of scientists managed to escape. Plus, we managed to upload all of our important data so the other sites can access it. Isn’t that great?”

  No. We would need to destroy every outpost now.

  Seraphina stared at her. “Yes…”

  “That’s what I thought too,” Tawna nodded, oblivious to the dead tone in Seraphina’s voice. “Anyway, how are you holding up? Did the debriefing go okay?”

  “Not well,” Seraphina said. “I still miss Azar.”

  Tawna winced. “Yeah. I bet. It’s… it’s a lot. I miss him too. As well as everyone else that was lost. I wish they were here. I can’t imagine what it would be like for them.”

  “I saw it all,” Seraphina said. “The Kaiju ate everyone and everything.”

  Silence continued for a few seconds.

  “Hey look on the bright side, at least the weather is nice for the service. And the catering drones are using a new premium synthesis algorithm.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Seraphina cut her off. Both of them started walking, following the others in front of them. They were quiet.

  It was quite wild how different Tawna’s reactions were to Seraphina’s. Tawna was way more happy and enthusiastic about this.

  “Maybe she’s just happy she didn’t get eaten,” Samsara reasoned. “Escaping on a blimp probably makes you feel lucky. Seraphina had to watch us eat everyone.”

  I disagreed. I don’t think she would feel like a normal person would talk like this at a funeral.

  They entered the building, heading through multiple hallways until they entered a stage room. It was massive, draped in black banners with the Bevor Vambrace logo in silver. Rows of chairs filled the carpeted floor. At the front, a raised podium stood under a spotlight. A man in a sharp black tuxedo stood behind it, adjusting a microphone. Behind him, a massive holographic screen displayed the words “Outpost OU-U-1 Memorial Service.”

  Seraphina and Tawna found seats near the middle. The ambient chatter died down as the man in the tuxedo cleared his throat.

  “Thank you for coming today,” the man began, his voice amplified by speakers that echoed throughout the stage room’s walls. “Both the in-person attendees and the virtual members of other outposts and sites.

  “We gather today to honor the brave men and women of Outpost OU-U-1. They stood as the shield against the darkness. They gave their lives so that the Empire might endure.”

  The holographic screen shifted. Faces began to scroll by, accompanied with names. I didn’t care to recognize most of them. However, I did pay attention to one of them.

  Azar Wellhar (Lancelot)

  Seraphina let out a small, choked sound.

  "They faced a threat unlike any other," the man continued, his voice mimicking somberness. "A Kaiju of unprecedented aggression. But they did not falter. They held the line."

  “They didn’t hold anything,” I scoffed. “We ate them all.”

  “And they weren’t brave,” Samsara added. “They were torturing monster girls. They were trying to turn Aisling into a battery. They had it coming.”

  I watched the screen. Azar’s face lingered for a moment longer than the others.

  Tears welled up in Seraphina’s eyes. I felt nothing for them. These people built machines to hunt us. Every face on that screen was someone who would have happily put a bullet in Samsara’s head or turned me into a meat blob.

  The speaker continued speaking platitudes for several more minutes.

  "We will not let their sacrifice be in vain," the speaker concluded. "We will rebuild. We will purify the Wild Lands. And we will avenge them. I will now honor each fallen life by speaking their name."

  Eventually, the sermon finished, and the crowd began to disperse. The silence broke into low murmurs. Seraphina remained sated for a moment, wiping her face with her sleeve. Tawna stood up, waiting for her.

  "Come on," Tawna said gently. "Let's get out of here."

  Seraphina stood up, her legs wobbly. She scanned the VIP section near the front of the stage.

  “Where is she?” Seraphina whispered.

  "Who?" Tawna asked.

  "Director Quinta," Seraphina said, frowning. "She said she would be here. She told me it was important for morale."

  Tawna blinked. “Oh. I actually talked to her yesterday to review one of my proposals. She told me she couldn’t make it today since she was visiting another outpost on urgent news.”

  Seraphina stopped. She looked at the empty VIP chairs.

  "Oh," she said. Her voice was flat.

  Just then, a thud vibrated through the ground of the forest far away. It sounded soft, so there were probably no Kaijus. I activated [Color Camouflage II] just in case.

  A sharp, cool scent hit my nose. Mint. Strong, fresh mint.

  “Food,” I told Samsara. “Let’s go after it.”

  As Seraphina traveled back to her apartment, we traversed the forest, pursuing the scent of our prey. We came into a small clearing. Ahead, a herd of feral rhino girls gathered into a group. They were bulky, with gray, leathery skin and massive horns jutting from their foreheads. They didn’t have any clothes, so they were definitely feral.

  I dropped [Color Camouflage II]. They noticed us. I counted ten of them.

  Most of them charged us, while two of them fled. My hair tentacles quickly wrapped around their torsos, each of them squealing as I lifted them effortlessly into the air.

  One of my tentacles brought a struggling rhino girl up to my face. She smelled intensely of peppermint. I plopped her into my mouth and began to chew.

  The taste exploded in my mouth. The outer layer tasted distinctly like sour cream. Tangy and rich. But her blood and muscles tasted like sweet, cool mint ice cream. The kind that Mom got us for us on the weekends a couple of times.

  "Sour cream and mint?" I chewed thoughtfully. "Weird combo."

  "I want some," Samsara said.

  I passed the second rhino girl to Samsara’s hair snakes. She engulfed the squirming prey, paralyzing her with venom before swallowing her whole.

  We continued eating the rest of the rhino girls. Their blood and flesh cooled my throat on the way down. Pretty refreshing.

  “Let’s go chase the other two,” I said.

  As we found and ate the last of the rhino girls, Seraphina returned to her room.

  She walked over to the mirror, staring at her own reflection.

  "She wasn't even there," Seraphina whispered to her reflection. “Did she really have to leave to go to another outpost?”

  She walked over to the bed and sat down, staring at the wall.

  "If I died," she murmured, her voice barely audible, "would she even be at my funeral?"

  https://discord.gg/yJMtfvTDuB