After barely over an hour, David and Bert returned from the forest. It was still early, but they found Aura resting by a small fire. She was keeping watch over the cart.

  “You’re back already?” She asked. “So many mossers!” Her eyes widened.

  They both put the carcasses down by the fire. It didn’t feel heavy at first, but after walking so long, David’s arms ached.

  “Yeah, Marco did great!” Bert said as he rolled his shoulders. “He found a colony of mossers and tracked them, all on his own.”

  The mana sight finally proved useful beyond making me paranoid.

  Aura slowly moved toward the carcasses, a tempo which was a compromise between her wounds and her excitement.

  “Thank you, dear.” She leaned in to kiss Bert on the cheek.

  “It’s nothing. How are you feeling?” Bert asked.

  Aura clenched and unclenched her hands. “Better. Maybe a week more and I'll be back to normal.” She paused. “Though I tried earlier, I am still getting a bad reaction to mana.”

  “Still? It’s been days.” Worry fell over Bert’s face like a shadow. “What if it doesn’t get better?”

  Ever since the time she summoned the fire elemental, her body had been reacting strongly to mana-filled medicine. It looked almost as if she grew allergic to it.

  “It will get better.” Aura’s voice was firm, but tense. She turned to grab a mosser off the ground “Come Marco. I’ll show you how to skin them.”

  David nodded and stepped forward. Aura grabbed her knife and settled a pot nearby. Bert turned around and walked back toward the forest.

  “Where’s Sophie?” David asked, suddenly a bit worried.

  “Oh she’s just trying to gather herbs, maybe some wild vegetables.”

  David sighed in relief. Even after all of that, she’s keeping it together. Helping us.

  If Sophie had a superpower, it was her gathering skills. Or her resilience. Maybe she had two superpowers, David mused.

  In the meantime, Aura had raised the mosser’s corpse over the pot and started to cut.

  Her knife severed the mossy coating connected with the animal’s main body. The large lump of moss fell to the side, and dark blood started flowing out, right into the pot.

  “Can we use the moss, somehow?” David asked, stabbing his finger into the frothy greenery.

  “It’s a great seasoning - or we could separate different strands growing. Some of them are good for tinctures.” Aura said. “Grab a knife and follow my lead.”

  David repeated her movements, slicing off the mosser’s cover and letting the blood flow into the pot. Are we making a blood soup?

  Aura placed her carcass between her legs and started to cut under the skin, peeling it off in slow, methodical movements.

  David sat by her side and tried to do the same - only to immediately damage the skin as his knife slid. This is much harder than it looks.

  “Take it slow, Marco.” Aura smiled at him. A beautiful smile that completely eclipsed the burns on her face. “Try your best with this mosser, but don’t worry if you mess up.”

  Some of the tension left his body. He continued cutting.

  By the time he was done skinning the animal, his arms were a bloody mess and his fingers were cramping up.

  In the meantime, Bert had come back with firewood and Aura had finished the other 3 mossers and had already passed them to Bert for butchering.

  A rustle.

  Everyone turned to the forest.

  Aura grabbed her knife.

  It was Sophie. Everyone breathed out.

  Unaware of the tension she had just put everyone through, Sophie walked up to the cart and started unpacking her satchel.

  Three wild boraks. A bit of voel. And a whole bunch of what looked like oversized yellow peas. Yup, definitely a superpower.

  “Thanks for your hard work, Sophie.” Aura smiled at her.

  Sophie smiled back and nodded, but there was some tension in her. David felt like she was holding back tears.

  Was she really? Or did he just imagine that?

  All back together, they started cooking for real. David brought a bucket of water from the nearby river. Sophie cut the vegetables. Aura and Bert finished cleaning out the mosser carcasses.

  Bert dug a hole and buried the intestines and other parts they didn’t want to deal with, while Aura poured the water into the pot.

  The blood mixed with water as she placed the pot over the fire.

  Sophie dumped the meat in and started stirring as the rest of the family went to the river to wash the blood off themselves.

  By the time they were back, the sun was high up in the sky and the ground was all dried up.

  They sat down around the fire. Aura scented the food with some herbs from her various pouches, then poured the meat soup into bowls. Sophie added the pea-like vegetables raw– apparently they were called talups.

  David accepted the bowl with gratitude. With all the effort he had to put in since the early morning, he was starving.

  Despite that, he was a bit apprehensive. The soup was dark in color and made with blood. Not exactly something he used to eat.

  He took a spoonful, and all the worry evaporated.

  The soup was intensely savoury and thick, but not overpowering. The strong herbs added a little freshness and spice, which complemented the taste greatly. The meat was tender and soft.

  One of the yellow peas found its way onto his spoon, and the surprises kept on coming.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  From the looks of it, he had expected something like a young tomato, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. It had a nutty, earthly flavor that fit really nicely with the intense meal.

  It wasn’t three star cooking. It wasn’t even the best goulash-adjacent thing he had ever had. But hunger was the best spice. So was exhaustion.

  The warm food they had all worked together to make was deeply satisfying, both for his body and his soul.

  David felt content, at odds with their current situation as refugees.

  Maybe it was just that damned village. Since they had left, things had been looking up for them.

  Once they ate, they cleaned the bowls and closed the pot with a lid, planning to re-heat the remaining soup over the day.

  Just like that, they got up. Bert rolled the cart and they all started walking. Another day in their journey. One of many to come until they could reach their destination.

  Ki-Elico, the city of the arcane.

  It was the third week of their travels, when they got up, early as ever. For a few days they had been traveling by a cobbled road, a clear sign they were almost there.

  They had been hunting and gathering every other day. Exhaustion was building up, but the familial atmosphere prevailed.

  After all, what was a lack of comfort in the face of the doom they faced not so long ago.

  The road before them meandered up a hill - They ate the last of their dry rations and started to walk.

  It took a while, but once they reached the top of the hill, the view forced them to stop again.

  In front of them the hill sloped gently downward, revealing vast plains stretching out before them. In the distance, where the morning light met the horizon, a giant formation of rock and stone protruded from the ground.

  Are those… walls? David’s eyes widened.

  The stone barrier loomed impossibly high, completely out of place in the surrounding grasslands. It was as if someone defied nature and transported a mountain here to serve as the fortification for the city.

  From between the rocky shell, elegant spires peeked out. Buildings of smooth stone and carved reliefs.

  But even those majestic structures paled in comparison to the giant building that emerged from deeper in the city.

  It looked like a castle… No, a grand cathedral with towers reaching the sky. Between the towers weaved floating bridges, another element that seemed to make a joke of physics.

  David had goosebumps. It was nothing like Grainwick’s wooden palisades. Bah, even the modern cities he used to live in would be jealous of such splendor and scale. And he was there to experience it all.

  ‘Do you see it too?’ He tugged at Sophie’s arm. But there was no response. He looked at her face and saw unfiltered awe. A rare sight, and a very welcome one.

  “Feels like home, doesn’t it, dear?” Aura leaned on Bert.

  “Damn right it does.” He hugged her. “We’ve made it.”

  Having stared to their hearts’ content, they moved on.

  As the family descended down the hill, the rocky walls of the city gradually eclipsed the horizon. The closer they got, the better they could see the comparatively tiny gates at the end of the road.

  A fortress; a promise of safety.

  As they came closer and closer, David saw a sea of shapes at the gates. Two giant slabs of metal were already ajar, and in between them, stood lines of people.

  In fact, the whole area in front of the walls was filled with tents. The sight worried David. What if they don’t let outsiders in?

  He crept closer to Aura and grabbed her hand as he walked.

  Her condition was much more stable already, and her mana allergy was letting up, but the burn marks persisted. Her hair had only just started to regrow properly.

  “What is it, Marco?” She squeezed his hand, but her eyes were focused on the sea of people. “Are you tired?”

  “Will they let us in, mom?” David asked.

  “Of course!” Aura tensed a little, but tried her best not to let him notice. “Papa and I both used to live here.”

  David looked up. Her worry-stricken face didn’t make her argument sound convincing.

  They kept walking. The closer they got, the worse David’s anxiety became.

  Before the gates stood a giant refugee camp with hundreds, if not thousands of people.

  Their cart rolled down the paved road, eliciting looks from the refugees sitting all around them.

  Many were lacking limbs, some had eyes completely devoid of life. All of them were famished.

  So much despair, so much hurt. David had only ever seen such things in war-zone photos.

  Sophie was looking between the people as well. But not with pity, like he did. David couldn't quite name her complicated expression. Grief? Guilt?

  Did she see herself responsible for their plight? Ridiculous. He scoffed.

  He couldn't quite say it out loud.

  The cart stopped as the family reached the end of the queue. The survivors around them outnumbered even the full population of Grainwick. Something bad was happening around the world, everyone could feel it.

  There's nothing I can do for them. David’s eyes bore a hole in the ground.

  Heavy, rhythmical thuds broke through the subdued chatter. Everyone in the queue ahead of them moved to the side, revealing a stone construct in the distance.

  It was vaguely humanoid, taller than the average adult, and had a thick rope draped around its neck.

  David quickly forgot about the plight surrounding him. “Mom, what's that?” he asked, his tone excited.

  “Just a golem, Marco.” Aura's eyes were still on the refugees. “They’re good at carrying supplies.”

  The closer it got, the louder its footsteps echoed. Being made of stone, It must have weighed a ton… and yet, it moved fluidly.

  Golems? Like, robots? Are there automated assembly lines in this city, maybe?

  Eventually, the construct made a sharp turn, revealing the large cart it was pulling. It left the road and made its way toward the nearby forest, leaving deep prints in the ground.

  David stared after it in awe. How do they work? What do they run on? Can I have one?

  A million questions occupied his mind as the queue crawled forward.

  The gates grew closer with each step. The walls were even more imposing the closer they got.

  Once they were almost to the front, a shriek tore David out of his thoughts and back to the present.

  “You can't do this to us!” A woman was screaming at the guards just ahead of him.

  Three young children kept tight clasps on her patchwork dress.

  “I don't make the rules. Scram.” a stern voice resounded.

  The woman was about to raise her voice again, but a thump of wood on the stone silenced her.

  David was getting seriously worried. Did this treatment await them too?

  The woman hung her head and led the children into the sea of tents. And just like that, their time in the queue was over.

  “Next!” A man in expensive looking clothes called out.

  He was sitting at a small wooden table, surrounded by heavily armored guards.

  Bert and Aura stepped forward.

  The man looked them over, scowling at Aura's wounds. “You have reached the South gate control point. State your purpose.” His voice was tired, mechanical.

  Bert took a deep breath and spoke.

  “We wish to enter the-”

  “No shit.” The official interrupted him. “Where from?” he looked back down to his documents.

  Bert flinched, but held back a response. He stayed polite. “Grainwick, sir.”

  “So, refugees? City's full. Go away or wait for orders to change.” The man didn't even look up as he delivered what could just as well be a death sentence.

  David's head was growing hot with anger, but he had to trust in Bert.

  “I’m a blacksmith, and she…” he pointed to Aura “Is a graduate alchemist. Surely we can work something out.”

  And for the first time, the official raised his head. He seemed like a shark smelling blood in the water.

  “A graduate, you say?” He turned to Aura. “If you can pass assessment, we'll give you communal housing and provide basic necessities for your work.”

  David's eyes widened. That was fast.

  Aura nodded, but the man wasn't done. He looked at Sophie, then at David. “Workers?”

  Bert shook his head. “Only the two of us.”

  The man jotted something down, smirked and turned to one of the guards. “Hito, take them to the examination room.”

  Hito turned around and started walking toward the gates.

  Aura and Bert stood there, dumbfounded.

  “Are you deaf?” the official’s harsh tone spurred them on. “Go. The cart will wait here.”

  Bert grumbled something, but didn’t argue. They followed the guard, into the promised safe haven.

  Only Sophie looked back, staring at the refugees for the last time.