(25.3) One Month Later

What would normally be a roughly two hour walk was doubled since Aki kept getting pulled in different directions by people in need of help. She can't help but crack a smile as her head aches glossing over missing memories.

"Side quests, huh?"

Yet her detours helped her grasp the situation of the common folk within the city, trying to rebuild their home, care for the displaced, and even the security of the walls. Much of New Pinacca was in ruins but as opposed to before, much of the rubble was piled up to clear roads and paths winding through the city.

The canal that runs through the centre, splitting the city too, was seeing more inner city use to transport materials from one end to the other as well.

Only the walls of the city were in the closest state to full repair due to their importance. Since the skyports were one of the first things to be destroyed, the gatehouses were constantly open since relief forces from other parts of the country had to land their airships at a newly made clearing some distance from the city.

"My father's in there! I need to make sure he's okay!" A particularly aggressive vibrash woman shouts at the sapian guardsman.

Her features are strikingly pretty, even with the mud and foliage she's covered in.

"For security reasons, anyone not on a manifest specifically for relief aid is held over outside the walls until their background can be verified. I'm sorry miss, but you may not enter." He responds mechanically. 

Aki had been assisting a shipment of medicine when she overheard the dispute. Just as expected, another guardsman, an otherwise normal cat save for the fact it is bipedal and wearing armour called a sith, approaches her with an apologetic look in his eyes.

"Excuse me, miss Acolyte... uh, hello. It's me again." The sith guard says sheepishly. Even for the brazen sith people, perhaps asking for help every day was bound to be embarrassing.

"As soon as you can, I request your presence to help quell the sudden flood of visitors. Thank you."

Before she can respond, the workers she was helping give her thanks and let her free to assist.

"S-sure."

***

Aki wipes the sweat from her brow and pats the stone tower, one of the stone towers Phoebe built that somehow still stands, thankful for the shade it gives. The sun is high in the sky now.

Aki gathers her bearings. "That took longer than I wanted but less than I expected." She leans forward and cups her face, sneakily glancing through her bangs at the street.

Rubble and ruin far worse than the main part of the city is to be expected. After all, the East side of New Pinacca is also the poorest despite the various warehouses and general professions that line the streets. Relief efforts are targeted more at the main part of New Pinacca alongside medical wards and export businesses.

Luckily for her, that also means finding a guild building would be easier since it stands out against its neighbours.

"...she's definitely an otherworlder." A loud voice says from the other side of the street. "Think if I report them, I'll get a reward?"

Aki tenses, her heart practically leaping into her throat when another, steady voice responds. "Mind yourself, what if the Old Guard really are here?"

Relaxing slightly, Aki adjusts her position to recline against the tower wall. Through her bangs, she sees a tall and muscular sapien man with rugged features carrying wood planks talking to another man. Or perhaps a woman? The second's face is as androgynous as their voice and wears healer's robes while their friend wears workman's attire.

Neither are looking at her but at the towering figure of Phoebe's creation.

"You worry too much. The Old Guard only care about killing otherworlders, so why would they come here where people need help?" The taller man stops and leans the boards against a pile of stones to catch his breath. 

"That's… well perhaps that may well be, yet how could you consider flocking the Old Guard with fatuous rumours to your fellow man?" the healer frowns, holding up a bundle of papers and pointing out damages to record for one reason or another.

The workman's features are stony for a moment before he breaks into a smile and a short but loud laugh. "Eh, rumours are the least of it… but human? There's no way a human could make those things. She - or it - was definitely a monster." He slings the boards back over his shoulders and motions for his friend to keep going.

Aki clenches her fist, about to go and tell him off but lets go before she's even taken a step. For all his words, the fear that trembled beneath his meaning was far too genuine to be someone simply spouting nonsense.

She looks up at the tower after the two round a corner. "Making just one of these in the middle of a battlefield would be monstrous, huh?"

Kicking off from the wall, Aki continues down the street in search of the Hunter's Guild, lost in thought.

"If I remember what Shur told me, magic needs imagination, a strong will, powerful emotions, and a strong understanding of what's going to happen all at the same time just for a spell to work." Aki rubs the nail of her forefinger against her temple in contemplation. "But magic always fades. So for Phoebe to make 113 towers across the entire city and save me too…"

She stops in her tracks as an old woman with matted grey hair and twitching wolf ears and tails carrying heavy bags crosses the street in front of her.

The woman nods in greeting and Aki sighs. "Ma'am? Here, let me help you. Where are you heading?"

"Oh my, thank you." The woman's ears perk up as Aki easily takes the bulk of bags from her shoulder and strides forward. "Not too far, just down that road."

***

The late afternoon sun hangs lazily behind the light layer of clouds overhead just as Aki steps in front of a tall, three-storey building with a blue roof.

A gaping hole piercing all three floors on its right side makes the building look lopsided. The windows it has are either boarded up or blown out, glass completely gone. Its sign too is as lopsided in the opposite direction of the roof and unreadable.

Were it not for the wood panel reclined against its door roughly painted with the words 'Hunter's Guild', Aki would have been suspect to what it was.

"At least I found it… ahh… why do I feel compelled to help everyone that asks for it? The moment our eyes meet, it's like I have no choice but… it's not that I don't want to help but it's burning me out." Aki sighs, closing her eyes as she pushes open the rickety doors to the Hunter's Guild. "Seriously, this world is too RPG-like at the weirdest times."

"Well, well! If it isn't the rumoured Crown of Salvation!"

"Huh?" Her eyes snap open and her feet freeze in place. A surprising sensation since Aki is certain she can hear her heart beating a million times a second. "What?? I thought it was being kept secret? Did someone – no, it was probably me, right? Ahhh!! What did I do?"