Each house was bigger than Lith's and surrounded by a small garden filled with seasonal and fruit trees that spread a sweet scent.

'You're right. Beasts are heartless monsters. How could they force people to live in such a dump?' Lith thought while the others had a hard time believing they were still in Reghia.

'Okay, fine. I stand corrected. This place is wonderful and those people are likely to be ungrateful assholes.' Phloria said.

The group decided to follow Solus's advice and split up. Each one of them went to a different house, yet they all received the same treatment.

"What do you want, filthy Grenian? I've got no food to share with a savage." A woman in her mid-thirties with bronze skin said to Tista.

The woman looked at Tista's light olive-colored skin with spite, mistaking her for a citizen of the Gren Democracy with which her people had a centuries-long enmity.

"I'm not a Grenian and I don't need food. Aren, the leader of Reghia, sent me here to teach you the language of my continent, Garlen. Can you please bring here-" Not even Tista's best smile kept her host from cutting her short.

"I should have known you're not from around here. Too much meat on those bones and too many smiles. There's nothing to be happy about in Reghia. Not only those beasts let my husband die like a dog, but they also force me to work like a slave and my children to live surrounded by enemies.

"Tell that overgrown snake that I refuse to give up on the traditions that my forefathers gave their lives to protect and uphold and learn a foreign language. If he wants people to start acting civilized, then he should make everyone learn the Paclean instead of your gibberish."

The woman slammed the door in Tista's face, hurting her nose a bit.

Neither Lith nor Phloria had better luck with their respective marks.

"Where were you Garlen scum while our Gren Democracy died because of the plague spread by those Paclean murderers? You've got guts to come to my home and order me around. Maybe you're used to blindly follow your tyrant's order like a good soldier, but my people have rights!" A man in his mid-twenties yelled in Lith's face.

"And where were you pompous idiots when the Griffon Kingdom almost got destroyed by a plague?" Lith scoffed, holding the door open with his superior strength.

"Here, spouting bullshit as always I presume. I, instead, worked my ass off to save my country. Can you say the same or do you only know how to blame others for your uselessness?

"As for my so-called tyrant, the Royals kept us at peace for centuries and we're in civil relations with our neighbors, whereas only the plague stopped the wars on your continent. As for your rights, you have none.

"This isn't Gren anymore, Toto. This is Reghia. I'll make sure to report your behavior and have your food rations halved. We'll see if your nationalism can withstand hunger or if you're being arrogant only because you're sated."

Then Lith slammed the door with enough strength that the man who was still clenching the handle smashed his face against the wood and then landed ass-first on the floor, trying to stop the nosebleed.

"First, they mistook me for something called a Vargharian and blamed my alleged people for the plague. Then, when I explained I come from Garlen, they asked me to fuck myself." Phloria said. "How did it go for you?"

"Same." Lith snarled while shapeshifting into his hybrid form again. "I'm done with those jackasses. I'll go ask for another assignment. After all, I have to experience how it feels living like a beast and taking care of humans is not part of the job description."

"I'm sorry, Phloria, but I'm with Lith on this." Tista looked back at the house of the Paclean woman with anger.

"You can't be serious." Phloria said. "They are just traumatized from seeing their entire villages die and then be uprooted from their homes. Those people need our help and understanding, not our judgment."

"You would be right if the plague happened yesterday and not months ago." Tista shook her head.

"These people have everything they need, yet they just waste their time pointing fingers and bantering about their superiority over the others, calling them 'barbarians'.

"That's not grief but blind pride. Lith and I had much less when we were kids so I can't empathize with their foolish behavior."

She pointed at the kids playing outside with their magical beast friends. Unlike their parents, the children had no problem hanging out together and even tried to learn how to communicate with each other.

"Aren is right. If just having food and a roof makes them so arrogant, then it's better not to give them any magical commodity. Until the humans of Reghia set aside their pride and realize that they have to start from scratch, we'd be just wasting our time."

Lith and Tista went back to Reghia's command center to receive new assignments while Phloria visited one house at a time. Aside from the people whose entire family had been saved by an Emperor Beast, the others didn't even bother talking to her.

Even those who acted friendly and were willing to learn the language of the Garlen continent refused to leave the human district. They were too afraid of the beasts and of their own neighbors, trusting no one but the members of their own country.

Learning a language would have been a fool's errand if her students had no one to practice it with and kept talking their native idiom.

By the time she had run out of doors that could be slammed in her face, Phloria understood that the situation of humans on Jiera wasn't as bad as how Aren had described it.

It was much worse.

***

Blood Desert, inside the Rezar's Fringe.

Meanwhile, Nalrond crash-landed after the shock from discovering that his people might still be alive, the rest of the group ignored his outburst and kept staring at their surroundings in awe.

In front of them, there were grasslands as far as the eye could see and at the horizon woods so big that they dwarfed the Trawn woods. Yet behind them there was nothing but the silvery fog that separated the Fringe from the rest of Mogar.

It formed a dome that became visible only when up close. Even from a few meters of distance, the fog reflected its surroundings like a mirror, giving the Fringe the impression to be boundless.

The thick mist was comprised of pure world energy that allowed the distorted space to remain stable, no matter what happened both inside and outside the dome.

"This place is amazing. The amount of world energy is so great that the hair on my neck is standing up." Friya used first magic to conjure a small flame on her right forefinger, yet her entire hand turned into a scorching flame.

"What the heck? I just used first magic, yet the spell has a power similar to a tier one."

Quylla and Morok tried as well, confirming her findings. Every spell they cast had its effect raised by one tier thanks to the abundant world energy boosting all kinds of elemental magic.