"A full consumption? How are you even standing?" Alexandra asked, her fingers still prodding my face like I was some kind of science experiment.
I heard her mutter "Chubby" under her breath, which, rude much?
I blinked at her, resisting the urge to swat her hand away. Why was I letting her touch my face? Simple: she was stronger than me, and I had a feeling that trying to stop her wouldn't end well. Turns out, she was a rank above me—whatever that meant—and was some kind of Beastwalker.
"I told you already," I grumbled, shifting uncomfortably under her gaze, "I don't know how I survived."
"Still, full consumption?" She looked over at Kyle, her brow furrowed. "Kyle, how many Devourers survive those?"
Kyle shrugged casually, as if he wasn't talking about something completely insane. "One in a few thousand, if I remember correctly."
Great. So not only had I eaten an entire monster, but I'd also beaten some crazy odds to survive it. Perfect.
Alexandra's eyes flashed with something between amusement and concern. "You don't get it, do you? The more vital organs you consume, the more of the beast's abilities you can gain. But there's a catch—the more you eat, the deeper you go into the beast's mind during the memory phase, the more you risk losing yourself. If you lose your rationality…"
"Boom," Kyle said, making an exaggerated explosion gesture with his hands. "Guts on the ground."
Lovely. Exactly what I wanted to hear.
"I only ate the lungs, heart, and pancreas from my first beast," Alexandra said, leaning back slightly. "It's not about how much you eat, it's about how much you can handle. The more you eat, the more dangerous it gets. Bel here," she nodded toward Isabel, who was hovering nearby, her face twitching like she was mentally scrubbing something, "she consumed the most out of all of us before you came along. Almost everything except the brain and the small intestine."
Isabel's head bobbed in agreement, her blonde hair bouncing as she nodded vigorously. "I would have eaten more, but they were dirty, and I didn't have time to clean them. It's not my fault."
Alexandra chuckled and, with one final squeeze, released my cheeks, turning her attention to Isabel's instead. "Don't worry, Bel. You're still our neat freak elemental."
Isabel grumbled but didn't resist the cheek-mushing. I wasn't sure what I had gotten myself into with these people.
Kyle, apparently deciding it was time for a change of subject, pulled a set of keys from his pocket and jingled them in the air. He nodded toward a metal door at the end of the hallway. "We're heading downstairs."
I glanced at the door, frowning. "Why? What's down there?"
Kyle shot me a grin. "You asked how the electricity works, right? Well, let me show you."
He turned and started toward the door, with the rest of us following behind. The stairs beyond the door were made of the same suspiciously silent material as everything else in this place. No creaks, no groans. Just the faint, unsettling sound of our footsteps in the quiet.
When we reached the bottom, the basement opened up into a massive, dimly lit space. It was surprisingly clean, like everything else, but the real focus was on the two enormous beasts locked up in cages at the far end of the room.
One was an ox, about four meters tall, with massive horns that twisted outward like tree branches. The other was a bear, covered in intricate markings that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light. Both of them looked feral, dangerous, and… tired.
The smell hit me next. It was the same raw, wild scent that all beasts had, but beneath that, I could sense something else—their heartbeats. They were strong, weathered, but slowing down bit by bit. It was subtle, but it was there.
"These are the beasts we caught a few days ago," Kyle said, approaching the cages with a sense of pride. "They help power the house when curfew hits. But since they're only feral rank, they don't have much energy left in them."
I looked closer and noticed the wires running from the cages, ending in claws that dug into the beasts' sides. "So you're… siphoning their energy?"
Kyle nodded, grinning as he gestured to the setup. "Yep. We drain a little bit at a time, but like I said, they're too weak to power the house by themselves. Luckily, the main beast in the city grid provides energy during curfew hours."
Alexandra watched with the same gleam of fascination in her eyes. Isabel, meanwhile, kept her distance, her face scrunched up like she was disgusted by the whole thing but didn't want to admit it.
Kyle turned to me, his grin still plastered on his face. "What do you think? Pretty neat, huh?"
I shrugged, not entirely sure how I felt about the whole situation. "Neat, I guess. What's next?"
Alexandra stepped forward, the same mischievous smile Kyle had creeping across her face. "Next, we go on a hunt. We need more meat, and maybe we can snag another feral to power this place for a while."
She clapped her hands together, her excitement almost contagious. "Oh, and we'll buy you a beast weapon while we're at it. You're going to need one, those fang palms of yours are way too rough around the edges."
I nodded, though my mind was still half-focused on the beasts in the cages. I wondered why the main beast couldn't give energy out to Section 3, why they had to live struggling to survive and why they gave out beast meat from the wall if they knew what beast meat alone did to people.
As we headed back up the stairs, I glanced over at the cages one last time, noting the other empty cells lined up beside them. Four more cages, just waiting to be filled.
"So," I said, breaking the silence as we reached the top of the stairs, "what kind of beasts are we hunting?"
Alexandra glanced over her shoulder, grinning. "No clue, when we find one, we kill it, simple as that."
"Great," I muttered. "Looking forward to it."
-------------------------------------------
We left the house, after everyone suited up with a black battle suit ingrained with the logo of the League of Intrigue on our chests. Alexandra had a giant sword that looked like it could slice through concrete, which it most likely could.
Kyle had a heavy mace strapped on his back. Isabel, meanwhile, had throwing knives strapped all over her chest and legs, inspecting each one with the intensity of a germaphobe or a neat freak in this case.
We then stopped at a place called "Beastly Blades," which made me realize that almost every place in Section 2 either rhymed or began with the same letter, what was up with that?
"Welcome to Beastly Blades!" a booming voice greeted us. The shopkeeper looked like he could wrestle a bear and win, which, given what I'd seen so far, was probably a requirement for the job.
"We need to kit out our newbie," Alexandra announced, jerking a thumb in my direction.
Alexandra dragged me towards a display of swords. "Let's find you something that won't get you killed on your first hunt."
After what felt like hours of swinging various weapons (and nearly decapitating myself more times than I'd like to admit), Alexandra finally nodded in approval. "These," she said, handing me two double edged swords with a rectangle hilt, "are perfect for you."
"They're called spadroons," the shopkeeper explained. "Forged from the bones of a behemoth class, savage rank beast. Light enough for quick movements, but strong enough to slice through most savage ranked beasts."
As soon as I gripped the handles, I felt a strange tingle run up my arms. They fit nicely in my hands, I slashed both of them wildly, they were perfect.
"We'll take them," Alexandra declared, slapping down some paper slips with the numbers 50 in one side and a slitted eye on the other side.
As we left the shop, my new gear in tow, I couldn't help but feel a mix of excitement and dread. I still felt bad about leaving my bow and arrows in my room, but they would do nothing against beasts, the one thing I was wearing on my belt was the sheathed knife from Tommy.
I heard Alexandra say something beside me, "Now you really look like a Devourer."
I could see her as my vision covered everything around me. "Thanks. Where are we going now?"
Alexandra's eyes gleamed with anticipation. "To the leaving tunnel, it'll bring us to a beast plagued zone."
"Right," I muttered. "I know what those are."