On the sixteenth day, at two in the morning, of the ninth month during the year 2543 of the Olivander calendar, two days after Lucilla and the others raided the Cathrendor estate, the people of 'Prosperty' all but knew what happened that night. Cristina and Adrian used their connections to make sure the information from the Cathrendor estate spread as far and wide as possible. Much to the dismay to Drakove and his son who desperately wanted to control how much information the citizens learned.
In particular the information regarding Lucilla's role in the whole ordeal. Most people assumed she did such a good deed for something nefarious. What that was, who knew, but they were told she was dangerous and why should they doubt that. An entire town was wiped from the map when she and the Hero clashed after all.
Yet there were a few out there that didn't hold such biases and were willing to give the Monster woman a chance, whatever her motives might've been. After all her actions still resulted in a net positive in the end. She managed to help stop the culprit kidnapping and running inhuman experiments on people. Though these people were in the minority.
One such group of people were the female adventuring party, Kate Cath the Human, Solana Yesdi the Elf, Beast-kin Ayah Kattan, and Ginn Graveltoe the Dwarf. Thanks to their friend Ayah they tended to be less judgmental of others. While Prosperty City was better than most places in the Human territories, there was still a lot of discrimination found within the city. As a result, this group tended to take the public's opinion on others with a grain of salt until they could personally gain more information themselves.
As far as they were concerned Lucilla was no more of a threat to society than a normal person. It's not like she's going around robbing people. Matter of fact this was the first time since her weird performance she's even showed herself. For a person that was said to do great harm - according to the church anyway - she didn't bring a lot of attention to herself.
That didn't mean they will go out of their way to be friendly to Lucilla if they ever cross paths. but at the very least they wouldn't attack her on sight. They'll most likely just pretend not to see her and go about their day like normal. Until Lucilla does something that proves she's the as dangerous as she said to be they'll withhold their judgment for another day.
On the other side of the spectrum was people like Freddy. While there are those that seem to hold a hatred for Lucilla, most people didn't give it much thought. For the few extremists that hate her on sight no matter what they here, most of it isn't coming from any basis of fact. No, only one person seems to hold a grudge against her for reasons other than, because she's the bad guy. It was Freddy, the friendly Hunter she met back in Verland, the same person she had assaulted.
For him Lucilla was in fact just as the Church told it. A person with malicious intent with the abilities of a monster. Lucilla wasn't a person in his eyes, just another monster for him to hunt down and eliminate. He couldn't help but suspect some plot of some kind. Whatever it was he was sure that Ruby chick was a part of it somehow.
"I don't see why we even let that Ruby girl run around free. I feel like it's much safer to lock her up. Guilty till proven innocent and all that." Freddy said to his party as he drank his third beer, his face flushed red.
The memory of a Raven-haired girl with golden brown eyes standing over him played in his head. He remembered how the blackness of her hair slowly melted away to reveal a gleaming silver reflecting the moonlight. How her brown skin turned pale and her golden eyes turned into piercing Crimson. The memory made him shudder, he really thought he was going to die that day. The mask on her face kept him from recognizing who attacked him and all that he could see were those damn eyes. Eyes that felt like they would tear through him if he breathed wrong.
A week later he saw someone that looked to be the same woman that attacked him. Her raven hair, Golden like eyes, and light brown skin made his skin crawl. The moment her saw her he knew that was the same person. He immediately informed someone about it, but in the end, they hadn't been able to catch her before she left. He didn't know who they were, so he gave up on trying to pursue them.
Then he came here. About a month after his arrival, give or take, A woman named Ruby walked in. He recognized her as that girl who had attack him in the Guild back in Verland. It wasn't unprovoked so he didn't hold it against her but seeing her now, he had a weird feeling he recognized her from somewhere else. At this point he put the who midnight attack behind him plus the it wasn't like he would assume every raven haired and Brown-eyed girl was the monster woman.
Thats what he thought up to the point he saw both Ruby and Lucilla in at the same time. He voiced his concerns to the Guild Master here, but he didn't listen to him. Freddy didn't trust Ruby, and that extended to the rest of her party. He didn't have any evidence back up his claim though, so unfortunately the only thing he can do is wallow in his own regret.
"There he goes again." Sitting not too far away from Freddy and his group was Kate and her party. Ginn scoffed at the drunk man, her own large glass of beer in hand, a little red can be seen on her cheeks. Though unlike him the short stature woman wasn't even close to wasted.
"He's been like this since Ruby came back. Is he okay?" Kate asked looking at him.
"I don't like the way he looks at Ruby, Yuki, Morella, and Judieth." Ayah said as she took another sip of her alcohol. Over half a dozen empty glasses was next to her yet she didn't even seem tipsy. Even Ginn who was a Dwarf, known for their tolerance for alcohol couldn't drink that many without feeling at least something. Whatever was going on inside the Wolf woman it was not normal.
Solana just shook her head in exasperation, she brought her cup of water to her mouth to drink it. She knew Freddy, he was a friendly helpful guy, so to see him so worked up over one person like this confused her. Whatever the reason it wasn't for her to get in the middle of whatever conflict he was having with Ruby. Shaking her head she decided to think of something else.
She then glanced over at Ayah and grimaced. The fact this moderately sized woman was able to drink that much alcohol without getting drunk was always a sight to behold. It was also impressive she was able to even drink that much in general. The amount of liquid she consumed should've had her feeling ill, but this Beast-kin was still drinking like she didn't already drink multiple gallons worth of beer.
"Hmm." looking lost in thought Kate hummed to herself absent minded.
"What's on your mind?" Solana asked her.
"Well despite us not really agreeing with him on some points, it's not that far-fetched to think there might be some kind of connection between them, right?" Kate said, voicing her thoughts out loud.
"So what? Ruby and the others haven't really done anything bad themselves." Ayah spoke up. Out of the four of them, she was arguably the closest to Ruby. "Even if it turned out Ruby was this Lucilla person like drunkard Mcgee over there thinks, does that really matter to us?"
"I mean I'll still feel a little betrayed lied, but I guess it doesn't matter as long as they stay clean and not go about causing trouble." Ginn said. "I'm happy to support them in whatever they are doing, but if it turns out they are in fact criminals that deserve what's coming to them, they're on their own."
"Obviously, we might be friends but that hardly means we're willing to shield them from the law." Solana said, nodding her head in agreement.
"I would still like to hear their side of the story before anything else though." Ayah said with a bitter look. She's been falsely accused multiple times in her life. It's the price one had to pay for living within the Human territories.
She would like to get mad at the people here for being racist. It wasn't as bad here in 'Prosperty' but in the Theocracy the discrimination against Beast-kin was highest in the continent. It was a stark contrast to the Empire and Prosperty who out right band enslaving Beast-kin. So, it wasn't bad everywhere.
The reason she couldn't really start accusing human as racist was because the Beast kingdom wasn't all that much better in its own discrimination against Humans within its own borders. As a result, her thought process was a simple, 'Everyone sucks I guess.' She has gone her entire life experiencing people getting punished for things they didn't do. So, her faith in Ruby and the others will remain unshaken till shown otherwise.
"It's getting late guys; I think it's time we head back to the Inn." Kate said standing up as she looked over to the clock on one of the walls.
"Aye, aye." Ginn saluted with a small laugh.
"Sure." Ayah agreed as she too stood up.
Solana nodded and silently got up from her seat.
The four of them left the tavern connected to the Hunters Guild. The clear night sky and the Silver moon overlooking them felt peaceful. They could've never have known that in only a short amount of time they would witness something that would change the fate of many.