When she was born, her parents cared for her. She thought so anyway. Now, she doesn’t exactly know what to think about them.

No. She knows what she thinks about them. She hates them. She hates them more than anything else in the world. They sold her off.

She remembers being in a village called Vastae.

She remembers her father and mother. They were nice to her, weren’t they? For her entire life they loved her, didn’t they? She did love them too. She did. After all, why would she feel so betrayed if she didn’t love her father and mother.

She had brothers and sisters too. She was actually the eldest of her family. She was beloved by them and she loved them.

She was a young girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen. A man came to visit her family. He was someone famous in Vastae. She didn’t know what he did for a living but her parents were deferential to him. They treated him with hospitality as a guest to their home.

With fear, they served him.

He was above them. Above her.

After that visit, the man didn’t return. Her parents however took her somewhere. A secluded place in the wilderness alone, just the three of them. Her parents were fearful of the location. There were animal attacks in the area and her father told her never to leave the village barriers.

They came to a clearing in this wilderness where a carriage was. The carriage was being pulled by one Miella. The young girl had seen Miellas before in her village, thick furred, six legged creatures. Eyes that were oddly multifaceted. Fur white as snow.

It was here, watching a beautiful creature like this, on that bright sunny day that her parents abandoned her to the cruel world.

The girl lived in new places of sadness and despair until finally, she was put in a place that was meant to break her forever. Harbouring hatred for her parents, thinking about the day that she would find them and kill them, she lived there for three hellish days.

“What are you thinking about?”

“...”

“You’re not going to answer me? Rude…”

“...”

“Well, didn’t you enjoy that though? I mean, you wanted that to happen, right?”

“...”

“How did I feel? Was I good at it?”

“...”

“Sigh. Yeah, I probably suck, right? I mean, I’m not very athletic or strong. I didn’t even want to come here, my dad gave me you as a birthday present and told me to have fun. Putting me on the spot like that, what a shithead… I mean, I just turned twenty three, I can find women on my own, you know…”

“...”

“I’m not like the other men you’ve seen, you know? I’m gentle to my women. I didn’t hurt you, right? I mean, I didn’t hit you, I didn’t do anything violent to you. I’m a gentleman after all.”

“...”

The woman gritted her teeth. She bit her lips to force herself not to speak in anger towards this man.

The woman truly hated this man. She knew that there were men unlike him.

There were many men who would simply lay their hands on her while she was in this dungeon as an enslaved woman with vulgar expressions on their faces the whole time, with no compunctions about their violent behaviour towards her.

Men who knew exactly what she was. They treated her like an object and did vile things to her without remorse.

This man… he does the exact same thing but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. If he were truly on her side, he wouldn’t have raped her. He wouldn’t have harmed her in any way. He might have even tried to save her. In the end, he treated her as an object just the same.

She hated him even more than the other men. She remained quiet. If a man like this lost all pretense, she would only end up being reprimanded by the men who administrate her services.

A night of cruel torture was not to her liking, although her treatment has already been quite cruel.

She lies on her back staring at the ceiling covered by a blanket. The man looks at her as if he’s looking at a doll he admires.

His gaze disgusts her.

“You know, if you want, I can try to buy you for myself. How’s that? Wouldn’t it be better that way instead of living here?”

“...”

“You would be something less than a concubine, but you would still be fairly comfortable. I’d try to satisfy you everyday even! You’re quite a stunning beauty for a beastkin…”

“...”

“Let’s be honest. What are your other options? My father told me this is a brothel where the women here meet their ends. I was hoping to find someone who shouldn’t die here, who could serve me in this life.”

“...”

“I’ll take that as a--”

“Wow, isn’t he such a nice guy?”

“...Huh?”

The woman stopped staring at the ceiling and looked over to the new voice to her left. It was a voice she never heard before and it came from another woman. She stares at this new intruder. She clambers to her feet, attempting to hide her nudity with her blanket.

“Are you alright?”

This intruder is quite beautiful herself. Chestnut hair, beautiful figure, tall… it couldn’t be one of the other girls in this place, could it? A human… A human couldn’t be her salvation, could it?

“...who are you? How did you get in here?”

“Ah, my name is Shaula, I’m nobody, don’t worry about me. Oh, you’re a beastkin too.”

The woman, Shaula, noticed her fox-like light-blue furred ears on the top of her head.

The woman stares at Shaula in amazement. Not only because of Shaula’s sudden intrusion but because she is seeing Shaula, a tall, beautiful human woman, holding the other human man who was just prattling on, in her hand, by his neck.

He couldn’t even speak. He was still conscious but he was struggling to breathe. He attempts to speak, perhaps not considering how that action is only forcing air out of his lungs and shortening his remaining life.

“...Wh… Who are…”

“Shut up. I didn’t ask you to exist.”

Shaula raised the man by his neck until his feet weren’t even touching the ground. He tries as hard as he can to pull her hands off his face but his hands soon let go suddenly. The woman sees burns develop on his hands out of nowhere.

Did her skin burn him like that?

Shaula was about to kill this man. Regardless of what the woman did, Shaula would kill this man.

“W-Wait!”

“...Hm? What is it?”

“Can you… Can you let me…”

“Let you what?”

“...”

“Oh… Of course.”

Shaula drops the man to the ground. He feels elation as his lungs start weakly inhaling air. His vocal cords are bruised from Shaula’s hand on his throat. He speaks with a slightly raspy voice.

“Th-Thank you! Thank you! I--”

Crack!

Shaula observes this young woman as she stomps with the full force of her right leg onto this man’s right hip bone.

“AA--”

Shaula crouches and covers the man’s mouth so his screams won’t escape this room. She would not allow anyone to interrupt this woman’s revenge.

The man’s eyes darted towards Shaula in panic. They dart back to the woman in confusion.

“You… you piece of shit… You didn’t see this coming? You… you thought that…”

The woman stomps on his right shin.

Crack!

“You thought that… that you were doing me a favour? You scum… You…”

The woman stomps on his ribcage on the left side. The man’s left lung punctures.

Crunch!

The man wheezes as his lung deflates.

“I hate you. I hate all of you who used me like… like a fucking toy! Why? What is it about me!? Cause I’m a beastkin!? Well…”

The woman stomps on the man’s pelvis. The man falls unconscious from the pain of his genitals being crushed.

“Fuck you!”

The woman then steps on the man’s head. She stomps over and over again, as blood rushes from his broken nose, as the skin on his face tears, as his face breaks and caves in, as his skull breaks open.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you! Die, motherfucker!

The woman stops her stomping. With this act of violence, a bit of her hatred fell away. All the pain she felt in her life until this moment. It wasn’t gone.

“Fucking die…”

Shaula is surprised. The woman knew at the moment of Shaula’s appearance before her that no salvation was coming for this man. She took the opportunity. Would a normal person have been so quick, so focused, so… interesting?

“Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting this…”

“I-I’m sorry, I just… I didn’t mean to--”

“No need to apologize, I was just… no, nevermind. What’s your name?”

“A-Ah, right, i-it’s Adelhyde, Adelhyde Stamutus.”

“And that’s basically how I met Shaula.”

Adelhyde is currently sitting down on a bed in the room of Kyre, Laun and Dona. She was explaining a little of her life story to the three of them.

“Wow. Seriously, Laun, how fucking cool is Shaula? What a monster…”

“...Is that the takeaway you got from this?”

“I mean… yeah? Shaula basically saved her from being disposed of in that place. Like… like livestock. She is seriously just so cool… I mean, you think so too, don’t you, Adelhyde?”

“Well… I can’t deny that Shaula is incredible. I… I want to trust her but… humans have been…”

“No need to say any more, I’m sure Shaula understands too.”

“Yeah, I mean, someone like her… she has friends for sure, but she doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion except Ajax’s anyways… You’re not going to offend her by being cautious. Just don’t do anything wrong in the house and you won’t have to worry.”

“R-Right…”

Dona sat silently right next to Adelhyde. Adelhyde had been talking to Kyre and Laun but what was up with this blonde-haired beastkin? She had no expression, she didn’t say anything, she… perhaps that man wanted Adelhyde to be as doll-like as this?

“Your friend here…”

“Ah, you mean Dona? She doesn’t speak but we love her anyway. She was… why is it exactly that she's unable to speak?”

“Kyre, come on. It’s because of Dead Snow that she’s like that…”

“Oh, yeah… Were you ever hooked on that, Adel?”

“No… uh, Adel?”

“Oh, you don’t like that? Adelhyde seems a bit too clunky for my tastes, I was just trying to give you a nickname, that’s all.”

“What’s wrong with you, Kyre? Isn’t it a bit rude to say someone’s name is too ‘clunky’?”

“Ah, hehe, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, Adelhyde.”

“No, no! It’s alright! I just… would you mind calling me Heidi?”

“Heidi? Yeah, sure, I like that!”

Adelhyde smiles. Still, she wasn’t expecting Dona to have those kinds of circumstances. She looks over at Dona. Dona looks at her with the same expression as she looks at most everyone. Heidi feels… comforted by it.

She doesn’t know how, she wasn’t expecting it at all, but she’s here. She’s somewhere safe now. She’s… she’s free. She’s free.

~

Shaula leaves the room where Plenty and Oitra are sleeping. She does some stretching of her joints. It doesn’t really make her physical condition any looser, it’s just a force of habit from when she was still merely human.

She returns to her room. She retrieves the items of interest from her room and places it somewhere else. These include the books, the money, the purple gem of Ajax’s. She stores them somewhere she feels they’ll be secure.

She has the scents of each new person memorized so if something disappears, it’s not going to be gone for long. Then, she introduces Lanov and the other girls to her bedroom (as well as the Orda shell). They take to the room well, certainly it is a huge improvement from earlier.

With that done, she waits. Ajax hasn’t returned yet. Currently, she is sitting on the roof of the house.

She decides to read Azazelin’s Holy Gospel. In this red moonlight, she can hardly make out any words and, as far as she knows, she can’t see in the dark. However, she rectifies this by creating a small flame right between her eyes to illuminate the Gospel.

She has been reading this tome off and on since she first laid eyes on it. Sometimes, she goes through a chapter or two with Jelli to help her learn how to read better. She continues reading it tonight as well.

So far, it’s standard religious literature with some quite interesting history underpinning it… It certainly was different from the stories she’s heard from the girls below her in the house.

She also listens as little by little, the people in the house fall asleep. Dawn hasn’t arrived just yet. She wishes she could sleep just like them but right now being awake with no feeling of sleepiness or exhaustion is an unbeatable feeling.

“Ah, you’re reading that still?”

“Hey! You’re back!”

Somewhere in the distance, a voice speaks softly. Shaula picks it up with no difficulty. In a few seconds, a man wearing armour made of pure white ice lands on the roof next to where she’s sitting. She doesn’t ask him how she knew what she was reading from that distance away.

He does know her after all. He is her best friend. Shaula rises to her feet and burns off the ice on his face and in his hair.

“You know, don’t you think you’re being a little weird with this whole armour get-up?”

“Huh!? This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done with this power!”

“You look like a cartoon character…”

“Ooh, yeah, maybe I look like an anime guy like one of those evan--”

“Not really like that.”

“...Aw. Still though, it looks pretty sick.”

“Did you have fun showing your get-up to Arthur, then?”

“...”

Ajax has an odd expression on his face. He is slightly disappointed, it seems.

“So… what happened?”

“Hm.”

With that, Ajax explains to Shaula what transpired in that dark red night. He explains his disappointment seeing what they’re doing to the heroes, the corrupt Linis enforcers, the struggling citizens of the city. He explains how he encountered them. And, he explains…

“Huh.”

“...Yeah.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

Ajax explains to Shaula the rest of the details of that night. Nothing can be done about it right now.

~

Later that morning, Plenty and Oitra awaken together. They cry together. They confirm to each other what their bond meant to them. They were friends, they are friends. They love each other, they’re sisters together.

Oitra returns to Shaula and thanks her. Shaula doesn’t truly understand the depth of Oitra’s gratitude. Ajax, back in his street clothes, smiles at the heartwarming sight. The new women in the home each talk to Ajax and Shaula individually.

Shaula gives them the option to leave with their money. None of them take that route. They understand that they will be targeted because of how they escaped that place in the noble district. They know that there are some powerful people tied to that place.

In the end, life resumes its own quiet pace. For now, things are peaceful for Ajax and Shaula. They do have to prepare though.

Shaula and Ajax know the consequential time is approaching and they wish to prepare. Shaula feels wrapped up in hatred thinking about that day. Little by little, her emotions boil. The festival of blood approaches, a testament to the hatred of this world.

The Bloodshed is coming.