A hundred monsters marched away from Illuna. The number didn’t represent absolutely every monster that had arrived at Illuna roughly a month ago. Some, like Iona, had decided to stay behind. Not many. Five, perhaps. Ones who had been treated well by the humans and found something worth sticking around for. Inversely, a few dozen humans went with the marching monsters, bolstering the number.

The march was much more of an energetic thing now than it had been on the way to Illuna. Everyone was in much higher spirits. There was hope in every step. Their destination, which Alyssa estimated to be about five miles north of Illuna, was green pastures. New land set up by Martin and Illuna. Close enough to be under Illuna’s shadow but far enough to hopefully keep any possible incidents and tensions low.

According to Brakkt, his father had authorized the loaning of the land. It was royally sanctioned. Anyone seeking to disturb the monsters would be acting directly against Lyrian interests, which should offer them an additional measure of protection beyond merely being considered a pet project of Illuna.

Despite the assurances of their protection, Alyssa still wanted to go with them as they traveled. Just to ensure that nobody tried to ambush them while they were en route. It didn’t make much sense to ambush them on the way. They were all grouped up and there were the humans marching alongside them. Wagons hauled the tents, cots, and other supplies that they had used for their camp, along with a fair bounty of food that should last until they could start hunting and foraging en mass, which should last until their first crops bore fruit… or grain. Once they arrived, however, the group would split up to do said food gathering. And to gather lumber. And other things. It was likely that they would spread out a whole lot more than they had at the camp if only to offer themselves a measure of privacy among themselves that they lacked over the last while. After their arrival but before they could get properly set up would end up being the optimal time to attack, in Alyssa’s opinion.

In actuality, her reason for being here wasn’t so much to stop an attack—though she obviously would help out in the unlikely case that something disastrous happened—and more to get a break from a certain entwined pair of souls.

“Aren’t they helping?”

“No,” Alyssa said firmly, shooting a look at Kasita.

The mimic had the audacity to giggle. She was enjoying this a bit too much. There was a time when Irulon had been interested in poking and prodding at Kasita. During that time, Kasita had taken great pains to avoid Irulon or simply distract her with something else. She knew what Alyssa was going through, but she just sat there with a grin on her face, enjoying the turnabout.

The poking and prodding wasn’t painful. It wasn’t literal poking. Irulon and Companion weren’t trying to cause harm. Though Alyssa was fairly sure that carpal tunnel was starting to set in. Being asked to extend her hand, craft a miracle, and clench her fist over a thousand times had her feeling a bit numb from her elbow down. And that was just one of the experiments they desired. A thousand times! What could they possibly learn on the eight hundredth thirty-first attempt that they hadn’t learned on the five hundredth eighty-third? And that was just one of them. With two of them hovering around her, they frequently tried to get her to do two things at once. While she was stretching Tenebrael’s power for Companion, Irulon had her pulsing light like they were at some kind of rave. They both kept casting various spells to try to discern what was going on at various times in addition to using Companion’s eyes to observe everything, but…

Alyssa needed a break. It had been two days and yet she felt like she had been in their grasp for a month.

Yes. They could go analyze everything they learned—if they learned anything at all. Alyssa was officially on vacation. It was well deserved anyway. If not for how work-minded Irulon and Companion were, she probably would have started her vacation the day of the ritual instead of a few days after.

It probably said something about her that she would much prefer to put herself into potential danger than subject herself to safe experiments. Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. This was purely an excuse. She was hoping that nothing would happen.

Though conjuring up a punching bag to relieve a little stress might not be the worst of all her ideas. In fact, with her ability to create things, she could probably replicate her local gym almost completely. Making a note of that for later, Alyssa decided to simply relax for now.

Kasita, apparently deciding to not pursue the teasing, followed suit. She leaned back as she walked alongside Alyssa, looking around at her fellow monsters.

Alyssa was walking as well. Most of the monsters were too. Only the elderly and those who couldn’t walk were on the wagons and horses. Everything else was being used for storage. Even Izsha, Dasca, and Ensou had volunteered as cargo carriers. Musca had escaped that fate—not that the draken seemed to mind—thanks to it still being with Irulon.

Five miles was a fair distance. Assuming she kept up a light power walk, Alyssa could probably have made it there in two and a half hours, including a short break halfway. A jog might have gotten her there in half that time, but would have worn her out completely. With such a large group, however, they were going at a fairly languid pace. It had already been about five hours. The monsters’ stamina was keeping up quite well, and it shouldn’t be much further, but they had taken a brief break for a half hour earlier. But it shouldn’t be far now.

Soon enough, they should be able to see a small outpost. A single building mostly made from wood but with some bricks. The area that the monsters were being directed to was a former fort, built to warn Illuna of incoming threats from the north. It was still in use, but was falling into disrepair. It would still be in use after the monsters started setting up, it would just be surrounded by monsters.

There wasn’t exactly a road leading up there. There were no proper towns anywhere close enough to the north to need or have formed a regular path. That would probably change in the coming weeks or months as Illuna and this as of yet unnamed monster village interacted.

“They’ll be alright. Right? There’s no way this is going to blow up in everyone’s faces.”

Alyssa glanced to Kasita, raising an eyebrow for a long moment before realizing just what she was talking about.

“Hard to say. Especially if Yora was behind Volta’s kidnapping. But I think it needs to be done anyway. The world is going to get a lot smaller if Jason’s technological advancements come to fruition. Monsters and humans are going to have to get along a whole lot sooner than they would have naturally.”

Jason had sent her a picture a few days ago. It was a monstrosity. A treaded contraption belching a cloud of grey steam into the sky above the smithy. Great arms stretched out from the main bulk, ready to reap anything they came into contact with. Conveyor belts would haul the wheat into the main structure where it would apparently be threshed, removing the grain from the chaff according to the large wall of text that he had sent along with the photo. Useful bits would be kept, less useful would be bailed up and deposited in the fields for later collection as animal feed or whatever else it could be used for. An attachment at the back would apparently mulch and till the land, getting everything ready for the next crop of plants.

Alyssa first thought that it was just a small thing with the main body being around the size of a regular tractor. Then she had noticed that Guillem was standing atop, waving from what Alyssa assumed to be the control area. After that, Alyssa had to revise her opinion on just how large it was as well as just how insane elven construction was. Jason had mentioned finding an investor, or whatever this time period’s equivalent was, quite a few weeks ago that had allowed them to expand beyond what their original plan was, but the machine could probably take out a forest without much trouble.

She had to wonder how quickly it would move. Though, even if it moved at a snail’s pace, it would probably be more than enough to replace dozens of manual laborers simply because of how much work it could do at once—cutting, threshing, storing, and tilling. Alyssa didn’t know what his plans were at the moment. Presumably he and Guillem would make a few more—maybe improving them as they went—before jumping to a completely new project like trains. Assuming they didn’t just make some kind of massive land-destroying roving machine, trains would require infrastructure to be laid down first. That more than anything would delay how soon various cities could be connected.

But it was definitely coming.

Of course, Alyssa was already planning on making portals at least between Illuna and Lyria. Maybe one between this monster village and Illuna as well. She could technically go further than that and make portals everywhere. But even if she did go and make a portal network connecting all major cities, she doubted it would slow down the development of trains all that much. Relying on infrastructure that required a single irreplaceable person was foolish beyond foolish. Alyssa wasn’t planning on being around forever. And not just in the sense that she would eventually die. She still wanted to get back to Earth on a semi-permanent basis—though it would be nice to be able to travel between worlds—and would probably not be available to make new portals when that happened. And growing towns and cities would probably want to be connected to each other. If Lyria and the Juno Federation ever decided to play nicely with each other, expanding rail lines north would help.

And south, should it ever become necessary to connect the Fortress of Pandora to something down there.

“The world is shrinking?”

Blinking, Alyssa turned to find that Brakkt had appeared at her side at some point. He had been walking with Fezzik. Now, he just looked alarmed.

“Not literally,” Alyssa said, suppressing a smile. “I’m just talking about how connected the world is going to become. It was likely going to happen anyway based on the history of my own world, but Jason is trying to jump start industry it seems.”

There were some good things about him doing that to this world. Magic, for one. Burning coal was disgusting—her grandfather used to have a coal stove and it was always nasty and covered in tar—yet thankfully wouldn’t be necessary here because of magic. It might be important to start screening almost everyone for magical potential though. Operating and maintaining a beast like the machine he had made could probably be done by anyone, but powering it likely required an arcanist. The same would be true for trains and whatever other vehicles he thought would work well in this world.

Brakkt just hummed at her response, looking a little more relaxed. “We should be nearing our destination,” he said after a long few minutes of silent walking.

“You won’t see me complaining about that.” Five miles wasn’t all that much to walk on a treadmill or a public park, but it sure felt like a whole lot further when the terrain was rough and up and down and all over the place. Alyssa intended to help set up a few tents, stay in one of her own, one from Earth that she hadn’t had the opportunity to use in quite some time, and probably leave in the morning. Assuming, of course, that everything went well.

Though right now, things did not look like they were going well.

The forward march was slowing to a crawl. Alyssa, being at the back of the group, couldn’t see what they were stopping for. Her eyes flicked to the horizon above the crowd, fearing a column of smoke that might be coming from the outpost. But there was nothing.

Brakkt, sensing something wrong as well, started forward in a light jog. Alyssa followed with all due haste. There wasn’t any shouting or cries of panic, so the caravan didn’t seem to be under attack. Still, her spell cards were in her hand. Brakkt had his sword at his side, but his armor was on Ensou. He just wore a fairly light outfit of cloth, much as Alyssa did.

It was too hot for heavier gear.

Arriving at the front of the group, Alyssa didn’t immediately notice anything wrong. There were no advancing armies or brigands approaching. No natural disasters that might swallow the group whole such as a landslide. Really, everything looked fairly calm. She could even see a small tower jutting out from a brown and green hill. That had to be part of the outpost, though it was smaller than she would have expected. In fact, wasn’t it supposed to have at least a few buildings around the watchtower?

Frowning, Alyssa quickly glanced around. It wasn’t the monsters who were stopping. Or rather, they had stopped, but they looked just as confused as Alyssa. Rather, it was the humans at the fore of the group who had been leading everyone to the outpost that had stopped, some arguing and others pointing toward the watchtower.

Looking back to the watchtower, Alyssa’s frown deepened. It looked… familiar. Even though she was positive that she had never been out this way before. It wasn’t even the structure that looked familiar, but rather the hill. A dirt brown hill with dark green… stripes of grass? Except the green of the grass was too dark for real grass. And…

The hill moved. A ripple ran along it before the stripes started moving.

Brakkt gasped at the exact same moment that Alyssa realized what she was looking at. The nuclear green eyes coming around from the far side of the hill only sealed the deal.

“It’s beautiful…”

Alyssa shot a look to Brakkt. After a moment, she cleared her throat in the hopes that a bit of outside stimulus would get that dopey-eyed look off his face; it just didn’t suit him. The cough didn’t help.

“Alright,” Alyssa called out, deciding that if the slack-jawed lizard-lover wasn’t going to take charge, she would have to step up to the plate. She had to clap her hands a few times to get people’s attention off Lueta and onto her. “Let’s keep moving. It’s not going to hurt us.”

“You know—” one of the human guards started.

He didn’t get to finish before a monster shouted. “It’s Lueta!”

“Lueta?”

“Lueta!”

A ripple of excited half-murmured half-shouted exclamations tore through the crowd of monsters as they quickly recognized just who it was up ahead. In an instant, there was an almost electrical charge in the crowd of monsters. A certain joy at seeing a long-thought-lost companion of theirs.

Unfortunately, their rousing morale didn’t seem to calm the humans who could only see a massive snake wrapped around the outpost. If anything, it had the opposite effect. The humans here were all ones who had responded well to the monsters, either through guarding the camp or interacting with them in town—the monsters apparently lacked a good carpenter and architect so a few humans had volunteered to come start a whole new town—and yet she could see nerves rising.

Grabbing Brakkt by the arm, she dragged him up to the main group of humans. “Lueta, the giant snake over there, is an old companion of these monsters. They got separated after their original settlement was attacked.”

Captain Lancer, the man assigned to lead the humans among monsters, stepped forward almost immediately. “You know this… creature? You knew it would be here?”

“The former, yes. The latter, no.” It would have been nice had Volta offered a word of warning. The dumb doppelganger had seen the group off earlier in the morning. This had to have been planned. Alyssa supposed that Volta could have sent a Message to Lueta after they had left, suggesting the great snake go meet up at the outpost, but even if she hadn’t thought it up before everyone set off, Alyssa still would have expected a Message. She had to wonder if she had done something to annoy the doppelganger to deserve this surprise. Or maybe she thought it would be a fun surprise for Brakkt and the monsters.

Continuing, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice, Alyssa said, “I’ve met and even talked with the apophis before. We decided to not get near the city for fear that a giant snake might spark a panic. Her name is Lueta and while I expected her to show up someday, I was not expecting today to be that day.”

The mention of the snake on the horizon being an apophis sent a small murmur among the crowd. Not everyone seemed to know what one was, but those who did or had heard of one before were clearly surprised. Brakkt had seemed surprised as well back when Rokien first mentioned their community’s hunters, now that she thought about it. Apophis weren’t supposed to be north of Pandora.

But one was.

There wasn’t much they could do about it unless they decided to fight.

Wanting a bit of backup before they actually thought that, Alyssa poked Brakkt in the side. He had hardly been paying attention. Although she had dragged him in front of the group, between them and the outpost, he was half turned away from the gathered humans to keep watching Lueta.

At being poked, he turned back, blinked twice like he wasn’t quite sure where they were, then put on a bright smile. “Right. As she said,” he said, resting a hand on Alyssa’s shoulder. He gave her a light squeeze before letting the arm drop. Shortly after, he turned away and started walking. “So let’s go say hello!”

Alyssa stared after him, hardly believing that this was the same Brakkt that she knew. But… this must have been what he had been like when he found the dragon. Or even the draken. It was a new side of him, one that was clearly rare. But it wasn’t a bad side of him. He had a spring in his step as he walked.

Actually, she was surprised that he hadn’t whistled for Ensou, dropped the supplies on the ground, and rode on ahead just to be the first one there.

Rolling her eyes, she started following. Although his intentions might be incorrect, he was technically leading by example. She would lead the rest of them as well.

Sure enough, the caravan started moving once again, though this time, there was a strange mix of trepidation and excitement, roughly split between the humans and the monsters.