"Mhm." Jyuzou slowly nodded.

Atomu's eyebrows twitched.

"You're much more of an ass than usual, Jyuzou!" Morio shouted.

Atomu blinked a few times, surprised by his choice of words. 

"He's as stupid as Mirillians get," Jyuzou muttered. "That's what the book said, and I'm trusting a Shimori library, way more than I'd trust anything made by people like you. It answered all my questions." he smiled.

Atomu clenched his fist, turning.

"Jyuzou?! Come on!" Morio yelled out.

Chyuuichi looked to the side for a moment. "Man! Then it must've been written by some glassy-eyed Tributal idiot!" he pointed.

"There's a reason they call most Tributals royalty." Jyuzou smiled. "Glad that you're willing to admit that."

"I..." Chyuuichi gasped, looking down.

"Cut it out already!" Atomu raised his voice, followed by an unsure gasp. "Thought you were the mature one here."

"Well, I'm just saying!" he raised both books. "Everything awful that happened since was because of him!"

"You're as much of an issue now!" Morio shook his shoulder.

"Who are you to say that, Morio?" Jyuzou turned. "What, are you in on him with all that? Maybe you wanted to get us killed in the first place, huh?!"

"What is your fucking problem, Jyuzou?!" Morio lashed out, pushing the other Morian into the snow.

Everyone else stared at him for a few seconds.

"G-Guys?" Atomu's eyes widened, as a sinking feeling of stress surrounded his entire body. "Oh, my." He played with a strand of hair and Morio clenched both fists, before sitting back down. 

Jyuzou looked down, picking at the snow. He then stood up and started walking away somewhere, holding the book in his hands.

***

Whilst Morio and Chyuuichi enjoyed the stew Jyuzou prepared, Atomu stepped to the side, vowing to search for the Morian.

"I swear I've heard their words, then their drunken songs!" Chyuuichi raised his voice. "Dragons! DRAGONS!"

"DRAGONS?!" Morio leaned in.

"YEAH! They kept singing about these majestical, winged creatures that created all these mountains surrounding us, with just a tip of their breath! They could fly above into the clouds, and even reach the space above!"

"Oh, Shin!" Morio clenched his fists in excitement.

Jyuzou flipped through the many pages of the book, reading a few of the first words in each chapter, then rejecting it, moving on to the next. He bit his nails, before spotting a puddle of black ink, right in the middle of a page.

He stopped, with a small gulp.

"Serpigo," he read in his mind. "Creatures unrelated to demons, humans or any other animals." he traced the words with his finger. "Coated in darkness, and seemingly a coat made out of their innards." he made a disgusted expression, before fixing his glasses and squinting. "Most of the details here are left out," he muttered to himself, as his fingertip found itself placed on some text written in red ink.

He gulped, before speaking out again. "I don't know if anyone else has seen it. If so, I'm hoping there's a way to get rid of that thing."

Jyuzou breathed out, before closing the book and turning to its cover. There was no title, except a few words just generally detailing stuff about the basic knowledge of Errarion. Furthermore, the author's name was simply abbreviated to R.S., and he couldn't recall any other writer who went by those same initials.

After a few blinks, he stood up, stuffing it into his backpack, when, out of the blue, something sounded to his right. A branch cracked in the distance, and the Morian looked up, alerted.

He peaked out from behind the tree and spotted... nothing, meeting him on the other side.

He immediately turned back, covering both eyes, shaking, hearing a loud, loose and deaf groan in the distance, followed by footsteps. He was sure that it grew closer. Maybe it was that Serpigo, following him again, or something else entirely.

His eyes were still closed, however, and a heavy breath followed right by.

"Jyuzou?" Atomu asked, putting a hand on his shoulder, and Jyuzou yelled out. His eyes widened, as he looked at the tall figure.

"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost... or worse." Atomu's voice was a bit shaky.

Jyuzou breathed out. "It was nothing," he said. "I thought something else other than one of you was coming. It's a relief, in all honesty."

"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that." Atomu shook his head. "...and maybe I should've said something when Morio lashed out."

Jyuzou sighed, trying to pull his hand away from Atomu's grasp. The Paladian stared at a wound on his finger.

"What happened here?" he asked.

"I could ask the same thing about your hand. Your palm was bleeding the last time I saw it." Jyuzou gulped.

"It was s-shallow," Atomu answered. "Nothing serious." he chuckled. "Yours though, it's-"

"Bleeding," Jyuzou muttered. "It still does that."

"Oh, um."

"Then, Victoria was lying!" Jyuzou uttered.

"Victoria? Is that another person you'll direct your hate towards?" he asked, with an unsure smile.

"I don't hate anyone!" he stood up. "It's just!" he put his hands on his face, frustrated, before kicking some snow to the side. "Everything happens so damn fast that I'm not sure if I'm catching up! That Chyuuichi guy, too! You're all going to become Demonears in Magna and here I am, just barely scraping by. Then, when I want to say something, it's that idiot that interrupts me and..."

He stared at Atomu, who kept blinking at him, over and over again.

The Morian stepped back, gulping, before shaking his head.

"That's one way to put it." Atomu laughed. "So, you were just frustrated?"

"I don't know." Jyuzou shrugged, before sliding down a nearby conifer tree. He stared at the distant night lights for a bit, with a white mountain extending over a few of the orange torches placed right where a few steps led to something in the distance. "Guess I'm just flawed."

"You could say we all are." The Paladian strutted up to him, crouching down. "That's what separates us and them, though."

"Huh?" Jyuzou raised a brow.

"The demons. You could say they're all flaws, and I-I'd have to agree." he looked to the side, for a second. "I feel like all of this could've been easily avoided if you just spoke out about how you're feeling, Jyuzou."

"I'm not sure what I'm feeling. Anger?"

"Or maybe you want to be like Morio too?" he asked. "I thought that you were going to Magna to become a Demonear as well."

"I'm not..." he put his hands together. "Grghh!" he yelled into his palms, before looking up again, fixing his glasses.

"It's like a snowball." Atomu sat on the other side of the tree. "If you let small things like these affect the course of the entire journey, then the future might be stained as well. I'd know." he nodded.

Jyuzou looked down. "I'm sorry," he admitted. "I feel bad. I d-don't know why I said all those things to him."

"Apologize to Chyuuichi, not me," he said. "He's been hurt."

Jyuzou gulped. It seemed like he wanted to add something, but stopped himself.

"No one here is perfect enough to let insults fly over their heads," Atomu added. "Even someone as seemingly comedic as that Mirillian might have a deeper end to them."

"Like all stories do." Jyuzou stood up, fixing his glasses. "O-Okay. I'll apologize."

***

"So, why are ya heading to the Demonear exam?" Chyuuichi asked, snacking on some seeds, spitting them out, too sour for his liking.

"To kill demons!" Morio replied.

"Bah, there must be more than that!" Chyuuichi added.

"Did Bruno tell you that too?"

"Nope, first time hearing that name in my life!" Chyuuichi answered, throwing another seed into his mouth. "I figured since ya seem relentless and a pain in the schwarf!" he spat the seed out. Again.

"Pff! I have lots and lots of goals. One of them is seeing everything this world has to offer!" Morio beamed. "I want to go as far as possible, then mark everything down on these maps! Here!" he took one out of his pocket, sticking his tongue out. Chyuuichi unfolded it and put it on the snow. He lay down, kicking his legs up and down in excitement.

"Woow. WOW! WOOWOWOW!" Chyuuichi yelled out, checking the map of Shimori. "One question, Morin! The sinkhole, where's the sinkhole?"

"The what?" Morio asked, smiling.

"Sinkhole! Sink. Hole."

"Ah." Morio looked around the map. "What even is that?"

"Let me show it to ya." Chyuuichi stood up, taking off the rope that he used as his pants' belt. He swung it, and it wrapped around a tree's thick branch. "There. Ya see all that snow below, right?" he pointed.

"Mhm!"

"Boom!" Chyuuichi let go, as sleet fell, revealing its dark brown wood, crashing down onto the drift below. The two essentially bounced back one another, creating an empty circle of dark green. "...and just like that! A massive hole appeared." He went back to the map. "Morio, charcoal, truna!"

"Truna?"

"Charcoal!" Chyuuichi raised his voice.

Besides charcoal, Mirillians used the mineral truna, to make thick black writing on the walls or to draw around the rocks.

Chyuuichi scribbled something on the map. "There! Lot Thúrum or whatever ya call it! It leads to Mirillis and Soban, my land, my home!" he put his hand on his heart. "I think."

"If you're from over there, how did you find yourself in Wendigo?" Morio asked, tracing around the map.

"O. Sometimes things don't seem to have answers in my mind! Ya live yer life and wait for it to show you its gifts, day by day! I might connect the dots sometime soon, who knows?" he shrugged. "Not today, though. Haha."

"You seriously don't remember?" Morio smiled, still rather shocked.

"Nope! Just that I'm Chyuuichi and I'm heading to the Demonear exam! Some things stay in my brain, though. Like yer name! Morin!"

"Huh!" Morio jumped up. "But isn't that bad..?" he asked worriedly.

"Ahahaha!" Chyuuichi laughed. "I'm still kicking, as smart as ever!" Chyuuichi uttered. Morio recalled what happened the night before. Chyuuichi was not smart. "But I'll wreck all the competition on the Demonear exam, trust me on that one!"

As their joys echoed in and out, something cracked in the distance. The two turned, in shock.

***

"I've read some stuff in the book in the meantime," Jyuzou said.

"I don't mean to be that way but isn't this book kind of..." he stopped. "Weird?" Atomu asked. "Who wrote it?"

"There are two letters on the cover. R and S."

"Can't recall..." Atomu furrowed his eyebrows.

"Well... it does have strange depictions of races. When I read about Morians it focused only on our negative traits. I never knew that people considered us to be... haughty?"

Atomu coughed. "What does it say about Paladians?"

"Um..." Jyuzou opened the book.

"Actually, I don't wanna know. Don't read it." Atomu said.

Jyuzou smirked a bit, before covering his mouth.

"Sorry, I'm getting off-track here. I've learned that there are many types of demons out there. T-To be expected, but not in the way I thought. Some are smarter than the others, some dumber, but they all seem to have that one primary goal in mind." Jyuzou explained.

"To k-kill any human they find, yeah?" Atomu turned. "That's what Bruno said."

"There's much more to it, though. It talked about smaller types, imps, devils, and those who fly or are twice the size of Paladians. There used to be lots of hierarchies as well, with the biggest one speaking of Shi Hon's army."

"Yeah." Atomu gulped. "You could figure that out."

"Not much is detailed, though. One thing it talks about the most is demons pretending to be other creatures or even humans. They seem to act like them in every way possible, too. Even to the smallest of details, and they think the same way we do. The smarter they are, the greater their impression of humans. Rich personalities, interests, hobbies, favourite things, and stuff they hate. But... that doesn't make sense. Would you still want to kill someone else if you were just like them?" he asked. "If you were someone like that, what would you do?"

Atomu stopped for a moment, thinking. "I d-don't know. It's something I'd rather not think about."

"Then anyone else. What if one of us turned out to be something so wretched?" he shook his head. "Would you still kill it?"

Atomu bit his lip in stress. "Only one comes out at the top. Either the first to strike with their sword or the one who let them get controlled by that... objective." he looked into Jyuzou's eyes.

"It's different when they act and behave like mindless creatures. You wouldn't be able to kill a human, right? Then, how about something so close to one, that it's..."

"Scary. That it makes you scared." Atomu muttered.

Jyuzou whispered. "Yeah."

Atomu put his hand on his forehead. "I think I'm starting to hate how smart you are for your age. Kids like you always ask so many questions but yours are different, though. I don't like that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jyuzou asked.

"Uh, sorry." Atomu played around with his hair. "It sounded like I was trying to take a jab at you. I'm not much with wisdom."

"Wisdom or not, screw that." he shook his head. "Morio would be the same in that department."

"Really?"

"It might just be me being jealous again." he chuckled. "I'd think he'd be as much of a nuisance as I just was if you gave him a chance."

Atomu snickered. "I'd rather not, then."

"OI, OI!" Chyuuichi yelled out, as Morio ran around the lake's edges. "Let's go, you guys!"

"The lake's unfrozen!" Morio added.

The night lights shone bright.