As I wake up, I begin to slowly spread out my perception. Thanks to enhanced perception it doesn't take me long to realize that more than a few people joined the settlement overnight. Most of whom are starting to rethink that decision. Especially after witnessing what, from their perspective, must seem like a giant head popping out of the ground randomly. Even those that have been with me for about a day now seemed startled at first. Probably having convinced themselves they hallucinated the events of yesterday. Fortunately, it doesn't take to long for them to calm down and begin to help calm the others that are just now officially meting me.

  I wish I could say that I knew everyone on my back personally. However, it has long since gotten past the point of being able to even remember all of their names. I still do my best to reassure them that I am not like the creatures they were fleeing from. It takes some convincing, but I think the fact that I'm talking to them and haven't attacked them yet definitely helps. Still there are those that express the desire to continue heading towards the city I just left yesterday. They seem genuinely surprised when I allow it and make no move to stop them. I'll not hold anyone against their will though.

  Now that that's settled, I slowly begin to get to my feet. Only then do the newcomers realize how big I truly am. to their credit though none of them change their mind about joining me. I still intend to walk south as long as we are picking up stragglers from the evacuations further south. Surprisingly though after nearly a full day I've only encountered five small groups of people. Three of them were humans, however one was a group of fox kin and another was a group of cat kin.

  They looked about how I expected they would look. They were small almost childlike in appearance. The fox kin were slightly larger looking more like human teenagers than small children. They also had a much fluffier looking tail compared to the cat kin. Not to suggest that the cat kin didn't also have fluffy looking tails. Just that compared to the fox kin a cat kin's tail was almost boney. The fox kin also had a slightly more pronounced snout than the cat kin. The fox kin's ears were also much larger than the catkins ears though neither had anything even remotely close to human ears. What surprised me was even the males looked like that with only a few obvious differences between male and female.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Of those five groups only one of the human groups joined me however both of the beast kin groups joined me. One thing that really stood out to me was the number of injuries between all the various groups, or rather the complete lack of injuries. I would have assumed the reason it took so long for them to make it this far was because of some injury or illness. It turns out they were just reluctant to leave their homes. As a result, they waited until the last possible second to escape. Unfortunately, I also learned through talking to them that some of their neighbors may have waited until it was too late to escape. The gates were on the verge of being breached when they left.

  It's at this point that I decide to turn and head back in a northeasterly direction. As much as I'm curious about what exactly is happening further south, I don't see any way that I can fight against the sun dying, even with magic. There has to be something I can do but until I figure it out there's no reason for me to fight my way further south. I'm still curious about what's happening down there. Just not curious enough to risk my life needlessly. Something tells me I've already gotten all the help I'm going to get from that goddess or spirit or whatever it was. Which means whatever I'm meant to do I need to figure it out on my own.

  As I travel, I do run across more cities. Earning more passengers each time. One thing to note though is that the further east I go the more beast kin I run into. As I ponder the reason for this Yuna helpfully informs me that we have just crossed the border into a beast kin kingdom. The kingdoms of human and beast kin have been at peace for so long that the cities near the border are usually made of a mix of both. With one side being more prevalent the closer you get to their respective kingdom's capital. While fascinating this information doesn't really help me. I can see why crossing the border would seem important to humans and beast kin though.

  Eventually, after weeks of travel I find myself standing on the coast. Nobody seems to know what may lay beyond the coast. There are theories of course but the creatures in the ocean are apparently to big and aggressive to make ocean travel viable. The question is do I risk it. On the one hand it would be nice to have something to test my strength against, it has been a while since I've been in a fight with anything that could actually go one on one with me. On the other hand, I have more than just myself to worry about. Besides the whole point of the communities on my back is so that I don't need to fight.

  Speaking of which, while I had hoped they would blend together there are currently four distinct communities. Even if the rattling community has only four sapient members with the rest simply carrying the gene for sapience. Not that they understand genetics, but those other rats are still family despite their lack of intellect. I do wish there was a way I could help. I'd hate to watch a sapient species simply fad away before it can even really get established.