Muasin.
Long, long ago, when humans ruled the realm and mana was plentiful, they thrived to elevate to even higher levels of power. And to reach those new heights they used monsters, spirit animals, bound to their heart and essence.
The spirit snake was one of those. Bred to be adaptative to a fault. Their very nature was magical, made for potency and sometimes reliability, consumption be damned. Meaning spirit animals had been wiped clean when the mana drain ravaged the lands.
Not a single one should have survived and yet, by now I could not help but suspect that Muasin was one of them.
A nightmare from the past, peerless.
That monstrosity had run out of places to hide. I was ready to leave this morning knowing this hunt would be its last. And with the new armor ready I would collect it on my way and crush it!
Pacification? Oh no. There would be no pacification for that devil.
The ship was hanging on shallow water, its keels hitting the ground from time to time when the level got too low. On the deck, wilted petals abounded. I looked back at the superstructure. The human would not leave anymore.
The human spent her time confined in those cramped cabins, pretending to be happy.
She was getting weaker faster than I feared.
On the deck, the sky lynx was waiting for me. Maybe it knew about today's hunt, or maybe it had felt the dying meadow. I approached it.
"You should stay with her." It told me.
I looked at it, that fluffy bear-cat hanging uncomfortably on two legs, its tail of little help. It looked at me, the clay golem wearing a silly badger mask.
"The village is restless." It continued. "Everyone is getting more violent."
"What about you." I made him cower before me.
"If I..." The lynx looked for a word. "If I go savage, will you kill me?"
"No." And I seized it by the scruff. "I want to see. I want to know what the free monster will do. If your thoughts where the delusions of a prisoner or genuine."
"As long as you protect Yuitsu." It winced. "Whatever I am inside, as long as she lives!"
I released my grasp. It fell on its four and panted.
"Go fetch my armor."
So much for my hunt. I wished I could say there was a boiling fire in me that refused to let my sworn enemy escape, but I was a golem. The human took priority, it was that simple.
Down the ramp, another beast was waiting for the lynx. It was that magnal, now bigger with horns on its head plate and lengthy whiskers.
"He hurt you!" It complained once they were together.
"He is just worried for Yuitsu, that's all." The lynx answered. "Come on, let's go."
They ran away like thieves in the early morning. The whole village was waking up. Its grassy streets mostly empty. Hanging huts creaking in the wind.
All of my calculations had been slightly off. Then again, the system was an unknown: how much mana did it take to keep the pacification going? How much for relationships? It felt like the meadow was dying faster than my mistress.
Had I bothered, I could have mapped the mana flow. Just an hypothesis, but her slaves, her pacified beasts, probably fed her magic and as a result, weakened with her.
Or it was just that this meadow was a petrified forest that should not even have existed in the dry desert.
Inside, the human had lain under the lounge table. She had added a heavy blanket to it, with only her head emerging.
"You're back?" She called. "Welcome home. Did you forget something?"
"It may not be safe to leave you anymore."
"What about the newcomers? Are monsters still coming to the oasis?"
Still coming. What looked like a decaying nature and fearful populace was for them a haven of peace. But the human would not pacify them anymore. Would not heal them anymore.
Nobody would let her waste energy on any of that.
"Don't worry about that."
So they lingered in the meadow and in turn the pacified beasts were getting restless. Danger compounded danger. Without any effort to share what little the hamlet had left, they were feeding the monsters they feared. The monsters they were.
Was I going to just stand there, on the ship, waiting for it all to play out? Yes, yes I was.
"What do humans do in your world, when they are stuck inside?" She wondered.
"They were way too powerful to be stuck inside. But, if they didn't feel like going out..." I mused. I was probably going to make it up. "Well they had a racetrack in the basement."
"What, with the jockeys and everything?"
"Their runners, yes. But if they were stuck in a cramped prison like this..." And no magic at disposal. "They would play alquerque, tables, chess, or just play some flute."
"I am terrible at all of this! Next!"
"What have you done this whole time?"
"Drinking." She pouted. "When you are gone, Sora comes and keeps me company. But now even he isn't visiting anymore."
She pushed the blanket away, dragged herself out of it and got up, a bit dizzy. The large portholes bathed her in early sunlight.
Cooking! I brought her with me to show her more tricks. Of course, that wasted magic, but in the grand scheme of things it was alchemy, it was negligible. And her cheeks were starting to sink again.
So we tried eggs. Then fish. Then I taught her first aid and then back to fish.
None of that helped anyone. The human knew it just as well. But as long as she refused to leave the meadow, as long as this ship was moored then, really, nothing helped.
All I could do was make her happy.
In the end she made rice balls filled with tuna and ordered me to taste them, so I did. The food decomposed against the end of my faceless head. Tasted like nothing.
"Could use grilling." Is all I found to say.
After that she went to bathe while I stayed behind to carve a flute. She spent the rest of the morning listening to my mediocre talent lay back under her table.
By early afternoon, after an actual meal she was stuck at the window, trying to decipher what was going on outside. Nothing prevented her from just walking on the deck but she stubbornly just held her head against the glass to glance.
What was happening were clashes. Monsters and pacified beasts vying for territory. A monster would approach, be met by a crowd and flee after the clash. Or fall there.
By now the rule not to kill was unraveling.
The human wanted to paint. She didn't know what but she wanted to paint and so I went to the lower deck, then back with brushes and a canvas, as well as accompanied by the terrified legged rapt that had been hiding down there this whole time.
The moment it met the woman, they almost hugged each other and the mood shifted.
Suddenly, the human had a child to play with, an insatiable friend that protested the moment it got bored. They literally played tag. Then poked me to play with them.
Outside, there were clashes between pacified beasts. They were short, but by now they were avoiding each other. Still, the enslavement held. It would probably for another two days or so.
So no, I did not feel like playing with them.
I felt like going out and on the deck, to let them have a nice time. A clay golem was ruining the fun.
And I wanted to better feel the vibrations all around.
All I could feel was a few hundred meters away but with better sight I could now tell that monsters were also fighting each other on the meadow's edges. Those parts were falling back into wilderness. They had not yet blackened; it would come.
And yet the daylight still felt so bright!
Then, I saw a monster approach, followed by a pacified beast. I knew them. They noticed me but kept going, the monster ahead, as if chasing each other. I only intercepted them once they left the ramp for the ship's deck.
That was the sky lynx. The actual sky lynx. A sick dotted pattern, claws like talons and a maw stretched to the neck. It finally saw me and froze, then growled.
I had no armor, no weapon and could still easily kill it.
But the pacified beast got in front of it to stop me. That magnal from the morning. "Stop!" It warned. "Don't hurt him!"
"Stay away from him!" The monster roared.
"He can be pacified again!" The beast insisted, tensing for a fight as well. "You don't have to fight!"
"I don't want to be pacified!"
"Where is the armor."
Both creatures jolted at those words. The monster stepped back, almost to the ship's edge.
"I... left it behind." It finally admitted.
"Bring the armor back."
Before it could answer, the ship's door had slammed open. The human ran all the way, passed me and I did not stop her, passed the beast that did not stop her to hug the monster and cry.
"Sora!" She forced a smile despite her tears. "I was so worried for you!"
Sora was not the monster's name but it let it slide.
"I am sorry. I broke free."
"It's for the best!" She hugged him tighter. "I should never have forced you to do all those things in the first place! You are not hurt? You should stay here, it's safer!"
"What's... happening?" The pacified beast almost panicked. "Why isn't she pacifying him?"
"I am done pacifying!" The woman turned to her. "From now on I want to be friends in earnest!"
"Yuitsu..."
The creature carefully approached her and as it did, it slowly morphed again. Rose up, its scales breaking in two crests separated by a red line of fur. The shell on its face was curving as well. It stood there on two legs before its mistress.
"... you? You will free me too?"
"Yes!" She shouted in answer. "I will do it right now!"
"No!" The beast recoiled. "I could... hurt you..."
"Eh. You." I called the legged rapt that had once more hidden behind my legs. "Go fetch the armor."
Eventually, that's all there was to it.
The pacification system had always been a trap. In a high-mana environment, surely, the human would have got her beastmen or more. But deprived as it was, the better the relation the stronger the monster, the easier to break free.
Yet it still brainwashed those beasts well enough to keep them obedient afterward. Because no slave could forgive its jailer.
"Let's leave!" The human proposed. "You, and Daishi, and Kinako..."
"No!" The sky lynx let out. "We need to protect the oasis! If we do nothing, everyone will die!"
"The oasis is lost." They turned to me. "I give pacification two days, three at most. After that, another three to four days for the grass to vanish. No one will survive."
"You are wrong!" It would not let go. "You were wrong about me, you are wrong about the oasis! We can still fight for it, we can still achieve soulmate!"
The human got up to wipe her tears.
"But I have not unlocked it." She confessed.
"Then we'll be the ones to do so! We will find soulmate and we will keep the oasis alive! I refuse to give up, I won't abandon the others, not after all we have done!"
She wanted to keep her free pet, tried more words that fell on deaf ears. The monster turned back and left, followed by its pacified companion.
"Let's go!" The legged rapt cheered as the beasts left. "I like him, he is like big brother. But not?"
It was a monster that had chosen doom over survival. And I could believe that this realm did miracles, I had seen a few but the mana drain was relentless.
My hand was clutching the beads hard.