Melody let out a loud burp. "That was really good."

Loghain laughed. They were currently wandering around the camp at Melody's request. The Nano-Swarm wouldn't be done for another half an hour. She had given roughly ten times the amount of stuff to assimilate compared to when it was just the slate. She could feel how long it was going to take for everything to be finished, but the clock running in her head didn't differentiate between the three Beasts. Considering everything she had seen up to this point, that was probably something she would have to buy.

"Are you having fun, little miss?"

"Hmm? Yeah! You should let me ride on your shoulder more often. This is great!" Melody smiled happily. Being this high up was a very different experience. They had started this little walk with her following along behind Loghain as he made a path through the crowd. The camp didn't cover much area, so everyone was packed in tight. That had quickly changed. Melody hadn't realized how uncomfortable being in a crowd would be. Within minutes she had asked to be carried. Sitting on Loghain's shoulder was much better.

"Hmph, I didn't realize I'd been demoted to personal transport." Loghain teased.

"Yup. Your job is to carry me around from now on." Melody shot back, poking the hand Loghain was using to hold her in place. He had removed his gauntlets when they stopped to eat and hadn't put them back on.

"I'm sure your father would be very sad to hear that. I thought I was doing a good job as your bodyguard." Loghain replied with an over-exaggerated pout. Melody giggled and smacked his helmet, which got a chuckle out of the big man. They bantered back and forth. Loghain continued to get laughs from Melody and vice versa as they waited for the Nano-Swarm to finish its process. When Melody felt the timer roll over, they made their way back to the disassembly hall.

Melody hadn't paid much attention to the front room before, but it was set up like a shop, with a counter and a register. Now she saw why. Henry was at the counter, just like before, but this time he was talking to a dirty, rough-looking man. The man appeared to be trying to sell a few smaller Beast carcasses. Unsuccessfully.

"-can't just take anything! They're so damaged, we wouldn't get anything out of them! I'm sorry." Henry was saying as they walked in. Melody took a closer look. They appeared to be some sort of mammal, but that's all she could tell. They were almost ripped apart.

"C'mon, I'm not asking full price, just somethin'. You can't take 'em at all?" The dirty man practically whined. Henry just shook his head, looking genuinely sorry. An idea sparked in Melody's head.

"I'll take 'em! She shouted.

"What?" Everyone in the room replied in stereo.

"Melody, what do you want with them?" Loghain followed.

"Who are you?" The dirty man asked, practically on top of Loghain's words.

Ignoring the man, Melody responded to Loghain. "The condition of the Beast doesn't matter. Actually, stuff that can't be used otherwise is kinda perfect."

Loghain looked at her. "Buy it from him. In fact, I'll get the word out to the teams. Any damaged carcasses can be brought in. Make sure to set them aside."

"Yes, sir."

"Alright, we have more to do, right little miss?"

Melody nodded, walking around the counter and into the disassembly area while Loghain retrieved the pair of damaged carcasses from a much happier-looking man. She made a beeline for the tables at the back, which were covered in a different assortment of Beasts from last time. Those that were here before must have been taken apart while they were gone. Melody called up the Interface, which looked much the same as before. There was nowhere that indicated how many more nanites she had to work with. Probably something I can buy.

"That thing is part of your Calling?"

Melody started before glaring at Loghain. "Class, but yes. Stop sneaking up on me!" He just laughed. Melody sighed; He was incorrigible. "Do we have any living Beasts?"

"A few, yes. They're some rare and expensive varieties."

"Oh."

"What?"

"Well, I need to kill some Beasts."

"...Yeah, we're not using the ones we have now."

"That's what I thought."

Loghain sighed. "I'm sure I can get some of the outgoing crews to grab some live Beasts. Do you need anything in particular?"

Melody shook her head. "Just whatever. But it'll have to be something I could kill, so probably weak ones?"

Looking at her critically, Loghain nodded before walking over to one of the workbenches and relaying some orders to the woman working there before she ran off. "Alright, that's handled. It'll be a while, though."

Melody sighed, frowning. "Yeah, that seems to be a lot of what I'm going to be doing for a bit. Dang it."

{}

Several hours later, Melody finally got what she wanted. While they waited, Melody had set her Nano-Swarm to finally harvest some resources. It turned out that the disassembly hall had a wide array of Beast remains that either weren't worth processing or were too damaged to be worthwhile. She had the Nano-Swarm absorb it all. The Resource tab on the Interface was rapidly filling with various types of resources. So far, she couldn't find any kind of pattern to what resources she received, and the Interface wasn't helping. All it told her was what she had, not what came from where or what they could be used to buy. She was hoping to fix that soon.

While they had been waiting, Loghain had managed to find a few board games for them to play, and they ate supper at one point. Arainell had joined them for the meal, asking questions about what they had done so far. Melody was mildly upset when she was so openly relieved that they had barely done anything at all. Still, here they were, with a few men bringing in several small cages. Melody could hardly contain her excitement. She would finally get some experience! She could start building up her class!

"Here." Loghain tapped her on the shoulder. He was holding a knife.

"Oh, yeah." Melody took hold of it. It was bigger than any silverware she had ever used. Heavier too. "This feels weird."

"Yeah, I bet. Your mom's Beast instincts are probably making this easier than it would be for any other kid your age."

"Is that why all this," She waved the knife around the disassembly area, "Feels… Normal?"

"Yeah. Your mother mentioned it to me. She thought you being her heir would make your instincts pretty intense."

"I…I don't know how I feel. I'm gonna kill stuff. And that feels normal. But everyone always said killing is hard. So I feel…Weird." Melody was staring at the knife, frowning.

Getting down on a knee, Loghain tapped his charge's chin so that she looked at him. "If you don't want to, you don't have to. You never have to use your Calling at all."

"It's a class. And I do want to! Really! It just…Feels weird." Melody's frown intensified.

"Do you want me to make it easier?"

She nodded.

Loghain walked over to one of the cages. Swiftly, he opened it and reached inside, pulling out a struggling creature. It was some kind of lizard, with dark scaly skin. "Let me show you." he pointed at a spot on the creature's neck as it wiggled in his iron grip. "Shove the knife right in here. It'll be dead almost instantly."

Melody took a deep breath.

And thrust.

There was a spray of blood as she pulled the knife out, getting all over her. Like Loghain said, the Beast went limp in a fraction of a second. Melody stared at the once-living creature she had just killed. She felt nothing. Actually, she felt good, like this was an achievement to be proud of, which made her extremely uncomfortable. Then she felt the sticky, warm blood start running down her face.

"Eww. This is super gross." She frowned and went to wipe the blood off, only to realize it was all over her hands, too. Loghain laughed and handed her a rag. "Thanks." Quickly, she went about cleaning herself up. Luckily, she was wearing clothes she didn't care about. Something her mother had suggested before they left.

"Are you alright, Melody?" She could see the concern in Loghain's eye.

"Yeah! I-is that weird?" That uncomfortable feeling returned.

"No. If you were pure human, it would be. But you're your mother's heir. Killing that Beast felt good, didn't it?"

She nodded.

"Of course it did. That's your Beast instincts kicking in. After all, Beasts kill to survive, often less than a year after they are born. If they felt bad about it, they wouldn't survive very long."

Melody wasn't sure that made her feel better, but it sounded like something she couldn't really change. "Ok."

"Are you ready for the next one?"

"...Yeah."

"That's the spirit."

{}

All told, twenty beasts were brought in. Only two of them were second tier, the rest just first tier, which ended up being a good thing since Melody's Strength was a pitiful Least 15. She couldn't get the knife through the mana-infused skin of the two second tiers. The first one she tried it on, a monkey with some feathers along its arms, actually looked like it was laughing as she tried. Ultimately, those two went back in cages until Melody figured out how to kill them on her own.

After the first one, Melody had the Interface out. She watched the experience counter as she went through the Beasts. All of them gave close to the same amount, somewhere around two hundred to four hundred. Considering the things she wanted to buy were starting in the thousands, it wasn't a massive amount. She ended up with a little over five thousand. That was enough to get her first upgrade.

There were so many things Melody wanted to purchase from the Interface tab, but most of them had other upgrades she needed first. Luckily, most of the simple ones were locked behind one upgrade to the Nano-Swarm. 'Computation Increase 1' cost 3,500 experience and 20 Math. After absorbing something like 50 Beasts, Melody had 10 Math. She didn't know where that was coming from, but it was there.

Another 45 carcasses later, she had exactly what she needed. Finally, she purchased her very first upgrade. Not sure what to expect, Melody pressed the button. The Interface rippled slightly, and that was it. Slightly underwhelmed, Melody went back to the Interface tab. Sure enough, she could buy several upgrades now. The first two she was looking at were to add a sorting function to all the tabs, and the second was a simple calculator. The sorter, which was labeled 'Interface sorting 1', was another 3000 experience, so she'd have to wait on that. The calculator was only a thousand though., so she bought that.

A small symbol of a box with a plus and minus in it was added to the Interface up by the experience counter. Clinking it, a calculator popped out, just as the upgrade stated. It would make exact calculations for what she could buy much, much easier later on when she was dealing with more than a few thousand experience. Some of the Shop items ran into the millions. That left Melody with 712 experience exactly. Shifting through the tabs, Melody looked for anything useful in that range.

The Shop actually had a lot of things that cost practically nothing at all. Just a dozen experience or so. The problem was, all of it seemed useless. Why would she want to make a club or a stick? Not a weapon or anything, like a straight-up twig. She wasn't sure why that was even an option. The Shop was full of random junk like that. It was part of the reason why she wanted the sorting function.

Giving up on the Shop, Melody moved on to the Nano-Swarm. She had spent most of her time waiting for the Swarm to absorb those extra carcasses she needed looking through the Interface tab, so she felt like she had a pretty good grasp of what was on offer there. Sifting through the list, Melody found that all the basic speed upgrades for absorbing, assimilating, and constructing started at 1000. So much for that. Everything else that caught her interest was similarly priced or required resources she didn't have yet.

Out of curiosity, Melody tapped on the level indicator. "...500? Really? I thought that would be more." She mumbled. With a shrug, she bought it. Why not? She would have to get it eventually. Immediately, the option to purchase 'Computation Increase 2' popped up. "So that's how that works!" At least that didn't have any extra requirements. She checked the next level. 1000 experience. "If that keeps doubling, it's gonna get really high, really fast."

"Melody!" Her mother's voice calling from across the room jerked her out of her musing.

"Over here, Mom!"

"Oh, there-Why is there blood all over you!" Arainell's voice went from casual to distressed in an instant.

"I killed some Beasts. It got a bit messy." Melody looked down at her clothes. Both her shirt and pants were actually pretty soaked at this point. She had just started to ignore it after a while.

Arianell sighed. "Well, it's getting late. It's time for a bath and bed."

"Oh, ok! Just let me get this started." Melody quickly dismissed the Interface and started the Swarm working on another batch of destroyed carcasses. It turned out that a lot of the Beast's killed, or at least part of them, wasn't used for anything. Usually, the Harvester teams would take the scraps out with them for other Beasts to eat so that they didn't go to waste. Now, all of it was coming to her. Melody set the Swarm to absorb the lot of it. Just because she was sleeping was no reason for the Swarm to stop after all.