I now had four sets of vision.

  It hit me all at once with no warning, no gradual shift, just the sudden, jarring awareness of quadruple sight layered over one another like mismatched transparencies. One view saw Samsara’s enormous finger, moving away from Irene’s body after the [Sacrificial Mana Transfer] skill. Another saw Irene herself, tiny, battered, curled in the grass. A third saw Samsara from the side, along with the three tiny monster girls near her. The last saw me with my own red ink-slick hands, my own breathing chest as if something perched behind Samsara was watching.

  My stomach lurched as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. The four views were Irene’s vision, Samsara’s vision, my vision, and the vision of Samsara’s hair snake. The pink-scaled serpent head jutting out of Samsara’s hair blinked once, unperturbed by our new pair of eyes.

  The four angles meshed into each other chaotically: Each perspective was superimposed onto the other, just like with Devotio. Yet somehow, it felt normal.

  Irene didn’t react. Her expression stayed still, tired, hollow. No telepathic thoughts came from her at all. No little emotional ripples. No half-formed mental words. Nothing.

  But the moment her eyes drifted to Nara, her breath hitched. Her lower lip trembled. “…N-Nara?”

  Nara gasped loudly and bear hugged her. Irene’s body seized up as the motion startled her. I could feel her surprise, like I could with Samsara’s emotions. But Irene’s emotions felt more… what’s the correct word? Distant. It felt distant.

  “Irene!” Nara sobbed. “You… you’re okay. You’re okay.”

  Irene’s arms slowly came up and hugged her back, confusion etched all over her small face.

  “What… happened?” she asked, still hugging onto Nara. I could feel Irene’s feathery hands holding onto Nara’s dress.

  Samsara leaned closer, her voice soft but heavy. “You were kidnapped by the Monster Purifiers. Ramona and I found you. We brought you here.”

  Irene blinked hard. Her pupils dilated. “…Kidnapped?”

  Nara pulled back just enough to cup her face. “I thought when you disappeared… I thought you flew off because you were scared. But the Purifiers… they took you?”

  Irene’s shoulders slumped. “…I tried to find the missing girls. The ones who never made it home these past few weeks.” She swallowed. “I thought maybe they were scattered in the Wild Lands. Maybe I could follow them. But something shot me out of the sky. I… I’m sorry, Nara. I broke curfew. I didn’t listen. I’m… I’m so sorry.”

  Nara hugged her again, firmer this time, but gentler too. “None of that matters. None of it. You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

  Irene turned her head, finally registering the still form lying a few meters away. The chimera girl with three heads, mismatched limbs, and a scaly tail ending in a snake girl’s body was still unconscious from whatever the Purifiers had injected into her.

  “Um… who’s that?” Irene asked.

  Samsara shrugged her shoulders. “Not sure yet.”

  “I can try waking her up,” Samsara added, glancing down at her hands.

  Irene looked up at her, eyebrows rising slightly. “You can do that?”

  Samsara smiled. “Well, how did you think you woke up?”

  “Oh,” Irene said, realization dawning on her face. Samsara giggled.

  Samsara’s clawed finger moved over to the chimera girl’s chest. I noticed patches of dirt all over her lab coat. As the clawed tip made contact with the coat, Samsara focused her mana on making the [Incantation] for [Sacrificial Soul Transfer]. We both winced as pain spiked in our Cores. I [Tracked] our souls and saw they had decreased from 2,942 to 2,939. I was so going to make them worship us after that.

  Samsara then activated [Sacrificial Mana Transfer].

  The chimera girl gasped awake, her three heads inhaling at once in a violent, confused chorus.

  And instantly, three more visions crashed into me.

  Everything went sharp. Like someone cranked the contrast. Colors bled into unnatural saturation. Her mind filtered motion differently, too, each movement leaving a faint smearing trail my eyes weren’t used to. It took a few seconds for my mind to calm down. Perhaps this was another reason not to use [Sacrificial Soul Transfer].

  “It’s only uncomfortable for a few seconds,” Samsara pointed out. “If we’re able to completely wake people from those mana blockers, then I’ll take it.”

  The chimera girl scrambled backward, lion head baring teeth, goat head staggering, and snake head on her tail rising defensively.

  “Wha… what the… WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!” the lion head screamed, staring straight at Samsara’s giant finger.

  From her perspective, it was the size of a tree trunk.

  Samsara awkwardly lifted the finger in question and wiggled it. “Um. Hello.”

  “…What,” the lion head whispered. I didn’t just share her sense of sight, but also her sense of touch and hearing. I was surprised my brain was able to keep all the sounds straight.

  “You were captured by the Monster Purifiers,” Samsara explained gently. “We pulled you out of one of their Juggernauts, the giant vehicles.” Technically, they were like toy fire trucks for us.

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  The lion head rubbed her forehead. “Okay… I remember running from the sound of an engine. I remember a bright blue light. And then nothing.” She looked around wildly. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Lateo village,” Nara said softly.

  The chimera’s lion head squinted at her. “Lateo? Never heard of it.”

  We had never heard that name before, either. Probably would have been a good thing to ask when we got here. Although, why would the village need a name if it’s hidden? Not like they need other people to know about it.

  “That’s the point,” Nara replied with a small, tired smile. “The entire village is invisible from the outside. Completely hidden unless someone from the inside guides you through the boundary. It keeps us safe.”

  Then Nara’s expression softened as she looked at the chimera girl. “What about you? Where did you all come from?”

  The goat head spoke first, her voice quiet and strangely steady. “We lived at Bos. A company town that was owned by Caro Innovations.”

  “Never heard of it,” Nara said, echoing my thoughts.

  The lion head snorted. “Wouldn’t be surprised. Caro’s a food processing company that also owns many farms.”

  “So you were a farmer?” Nara asked.

  “You don’t look like a farmer,” Samsara said, shaking her head. “You’re wearing a lab coat.”

  “Yeah, a dirty and messed-up one,” the lion's head said. Her hands tried to dust off the stains. Emphasis on tried. “Worked as a biological and agricultural engineer.” Do engineers wear lab coats?

  “I have no idea what any of those words mean,” Nara said, tilting her head.

  “Don’t worry, they can explain it afterward,” Samsara said. “Also, what are your names? In my head, I’m just referring to you all as lion girl, goat girl, and snake girl, which I feel is kind of rude.”

  “Nilo,” the lion's head said curtly.

  “My name’s Atgo,” the goat head said.

  “And I am Kanes”, the snake girl said. She did a little bow.

  “I’m Samsara,” Samsara said, and she introduced both Nara and me. I simply waved my hand. This was getting pretty cumbersome to track. So we’ve met Aisling and Nara. Then we saved Irene, the falcon girl. Plus, the chimera girl had three names: Nilo, Atgo, and Kanes. They were for the lion head, the goat head, and the snake body, respectively. Oh, and I almost forgot about the elders: Halinka and Eivor. That’s too many names. Hopefully, we won’t have to memorize anymore. Actually, I was just going to refer to these people by their monster parts. That would be way easier.

  “That’s just rude,” Samsara said.

  “Is it really, though, if it’s just in my mind?” I asked.

  “What if someone just thought of you as a squid girl?” Samsara asked. “How would that make you feel if you were reduced to that instead of Ramona?”

  “I don’t care what other people feel about me,” I mentally shrugged.

  Samsara’s mind tried to come up with a response, but Atgo interrupted her thoughts.

  “I see your village also has a chimera,” Atgo said, looking up at us. “And you two are a Kaiju as well. Umm… how was it when you were combined by a Dungeon Rift?”

  “Oh, we didn’t become a chimera that way,” Samsara said, shaking her head.

  “What?” all three heads on the chimera girl said in unison.

  “Yeah, we only fused together after eating a Kaiju Core together,” Samsara explained, looking back at me. I nodded.

  “That can happen?” Atgo asked.

  “Apparently.”

  “Interesting,” Atgo said. She stood up, her eyes looking straight into Samsara’s eyes.

  “How did you get fused?” Samsara asked.

  Nilo’s lion ears flattened. “…A Dungeon Rift opened in our storage bay. Big as a whole train. Reality tore open as someone clawed through a painting. You could still… see something on the other side. But nothing made sense.”

  Atgo’s head shivered. “We were together at the time. Our bodies began to fuse together. We screamed in pain as our bodies merged. I lost my legs. Nilo lost her arms. And then we started growing all these animal features.” Atgo rolled her head around, her eyes sweeping over her own body.

  “And we’ve been on the run ever since,” Kanes finished. “The Monster Purifiers were eventually called. We managed to escape them for a couple of weeks. But I guess we got knocked out, and you saved us. Thanks, by the way.”

  “You’re welcome!” Samsara beamed.

  I was surprised by how friendly they were with us. Was this a result of [Sacrificial Soul Transfer]? Or were they just very trusting of other monster girls?

  “Maybe we could just bring the topic up to them?” Samsara thought.

  “I’m also glad you haven’t been too shy with us,” Samsara said. She looked at Nara. “Nara was previously very shy, but she’s opening up.” Nara nodded.

  “Yeah, we thought you weren’t going to be a threat since you could have killed us already if you wanted to,” Nilo bluntly said.

  “I’m still getting used to this… mind sharing thing,” Kanes hissed.

  “Well, I’m getting used to it with Ramona,” Samsara said, pointing at me. “Even if I don’t always agree with her.”

  “Sometimes it just feels wrong sharing thoughts with other people,” Kanes sighed. “I liked my privacy.”

  “Well, it wasn’t my choice either,” Nilo said. “I’d separate us if I could. But none of us are surgeons. Actually, does this village have any surgeons?”

  “What’s a surgeon?” Nara asked.

  “Never mind.”

  Footsteps approached quickly behind us.

  Irene and the chimera girl swung toward the movement. The effect was quite eerie. I saw Eivor and Halinka through six pairs of eyes. Two of them showed them as tiny, and the other four showed her as the same size as me. And then Samsara’s hair snake turned around, and I saw them from seven pairs of eyes. This vision stuff was really wacky. At least Samsara and her hair snake eyes were about the same size as mine.

  Eivor and Halinka strode along the river, both carrying a gas lamp that flickered orange across their faces. Eivor held it high, squinting at us. Halinka’s fox ears stood up firmly on her head and weren’t drooping. They stopped about 10 meters away from us. A lot closer than last time.

  “Did you succeed?” Eivor asked, her body still stiff around us.

  Her eyes swept across Irene, now awake, held by Nara. Then, to the chimera girl sitting up in shock.

  “I see you saved Irene,” Eivor said, her eyes lighting up. It was as if she didn’t believe we would save her. Actually, I didn’t believe we would save her, so that was probably a fair reaction.

  “We managed to save Irene and some chimera girl,” Samsara explained. “But the Monster Purifiers captured Aisling on one of their airships. We’re going to get them back!”

  “Do you have a plan?” Eivor asked.

  “Not yet,” Samsara said. “But we’ll search the whole Wild Lands if we have to.”

  “Oh, okay,” Eivor said, looking a bit worried. She balled her fists and looked away.

  “Ugh. This is why we made the rules. Even trying to save Irene just lost us Aisling instead.” She must have thought we couldn’t hear her because she was muttering.

  Wait a minute. An idea formed in my mind for how to quickly save Aisling.