Chapter 22: The Preparations

“Everyone, please settle down! We can’t panic now!” Old Man Jine’s voice cracked as he raised both arms, cane trembling in his hand. His attempt at authority was betrayed by the slight tremble in his voice, but it was enough to draw the restless villagers into silence for a brief moment

A woman near the front spoke first. “But sir, how could there be two beasts in the same year?” Her voice carried a mix of fear and disbelief, a tone echoed in the murmurs that followed.

“That’s right!” another man shouted, his face red from anger and fear. “This is insane! What will we do? Who can stop them?”

The air grew thick with dread. Mothers hugged their children closer, and the younger men exchanged uneasy glances, itching to speak but not daring to. No matter what they said, it wasn't like the mountain beast would just disappear.

Old Man Jine struck the floor with his cane, the dull thud echoing through the hall like a drum. “Hunter Gen has already gone to Branvar Hold to request aid,” he reminded them, his tone firm, though sweat trickled down the side of his wrinkled face. “Just like before, we’ll wait for them to come help.”

That reassurance did little to soothe. Instead, a new voice rose, sharp with bitterness. “But won’t they want another feast? Can we even afford another one?”

This brought murmurs of agreement from the others.This sparked a low rumble of agreement, voices overlapping until it swelled into open protest.

“They bled us dry the last time.”

“We gave them our grain reserves!”

“We’re still hungry even now!”

The memory of that time stung like a reopened wound.

Old Man Jine’s face paled as if all color had drained from him. He had completely forgotten about the feast until now. His gnarled fingers tightened on the cane, knuckles white, and his lips pressed thin with shame. It was true. Every time the military was summoned in the past to eradicate the beasts, there was always a feast afterward, a celebration demanded as much as offered.

Back when the harvests were full and the wells brimmed, such feasts were no burden. The villagers had roasted whole oxen, lined tables with steaming bread and sweetmeats, and poured ale until the soldiers staggered back to their fort fat and merry. They had paraded through the streets, banners fluttering in triumph, children laughing as though the world were safe.

But now? Now the land cracked under drought, fields of grain shriveled to husks, and bellies went empty more often than not. Who had the strength or the means to host such a feast now? And worse, who would dare send the soldiers home without one? To do so would be seen as an insult, as ingratitude. And what would happen then?

From the back of the crowd, an older man barked bitterly. “Wasn’t this exactly why the former village chief chose to migrate?”

Another voice shot back immediately. “They migrated because there was no water in the wells.”

“That was just an excuse!” the first retorted, jabbing a finger toward the gathering. “I’m telling you, the chief and the elders were already planning it before the last well went dry. Old Jine was there. Ask him!”

All eyes turned to Old Man Jine.

Old Man Jine’s throat tightened. He bit his lip, words sticking like thorns. The truth pressed against him like a weight. It was true, he was there, sitting in those hushed meetings when whispers of migration to the west first stirred. Beyond the capital, they had said, all the way to the fertile coasts where rains fell more often, where the soil was rich and the seas plentiful. Even before Rinia and Hunter Gen had seen the first beast, even before dread had a name, those old men had spoken of leaving

He lowered his gaze, unable to meet the eyes of those who demanded an answer.

“Everyone,” he said at last, voice heavy with weariness, “let’s just wait for Gen to return with news. If they ask for a feast… we will think of something then.” His tone held finality, though no true comfort. With that, he rapped the cane once more, calling the meeting to adjourn until Hunter Gen came home.

The villagers slowly dispersed, some muttering, some silent. Their faces bore the lines of hunger and fear, the knowledge that their survival was a bargain measured in feasts and blood.

Aina lingered at the edge of the crowd, her fists clenched tight against her sides. She felt no relief from Jine’s words, only a cold hollowness in her chest. She had listened to the soldier before, had read the truth between his careful pauses and downcast eyes. The military already had their hands full just keeping the Gurns in check. They had lost two pilots in the last skirmish alone. They were two men in machines more powerful than anything the village could hope to field.

She remembered the soldier’s tone when he mentioned it, the way his voice dipped, the way his body tensed. Even without numbers, Aina knew. To lose two pilots was not some small setback. It was a wound the garrison could scarcely afford.

So why would they send aid here? Why would they bleed for a starving village at the edge of nowhere, when they could barely hold their own front?

Aina’s jaw tightened. She could not wait for them. Even if the military agreed to help, who knew when they would come or if they would come at all?

No. If they did nothing, the village would be ashes before aid ever arrived.

She would not stand by and watch it happen. She had to take action now.

And thus Aina went back to the site of her former home. Her sons had scavenged the broken building and placed everything that they could find on the table of their former kitchen. She looked at the scraps of food, broken but still edible. She touched the knife that was sharpened so much to the point that only a thin strip of iron was left. And then her eyes fell on the crossbow, the one weapon she made meant to hunt a deer or other game, but ended up being useless because there were no more game animals to be hunted.

With the crossbow in hand, Aina went to see Uncle Nuan, who was at his former home. Together with Uncle Enkun, they were the village’s carpenters. While Uncle Enkun specialized in building homes, Uncle Nuan was known more for making furniture. Unfortunately, Uncle Enkun left the village with the migration group, so Aina didn’t have any choice but to find Uncle Nuan

“Uncle Nuan,” Aina called, knocking on a fallen piece of wood with her crossbow.

Uncle Nuan looked up from the desk and felt apprehension. To be honest, he never liked Rinia Virell, ever since her husband died. She was just another village girl in the years before, when she had just moved into the village. But the day her husband died, it was like she was possessed by a demon!

She picked fights with everyone, screamed for no reason and insults flowed like water from her pretty lips. He had also been on the receiving end of her sharp tongue several times. He could handle it, he could simply ignore her and go on with his life. But when she insulted his wife to the point that she came home crying, he simply couldn’t stop himself.

That day he went to her home with an axe. He wasn’t really thinking about anything, he just wanted her to apologize. But that night he saw her whipping her sons Irek and Varn while her baby Tallo was crying on her back. She had whipped them without mercy.

He too had whipped his son, usually when he did something wrong, but he had never whipped his son this hard.

And he had never whipped his son while crying.

He felt like a cold water fell on his head. His axe hung limply on his side, as he looked at them from afar. He didn’t know what to do. Should he intervene and stop her? What right did he have when he too whipped his son? What right did he have when he didn’t help a single mother who had just lost her husband, her sole breadwinner?

Nuan hated her, but he wasn’t sure why he hated her. Did he hate her because she was a shrew, always picking fights with everyone? Did he hate her because she beat her own children? Or did he hate her because she reminded him of his own hypocrisy?

Since that day, his eyes were inexplicably drawn to her. It had nothing to do with lust or infatuation, but he himself wasn’t sure what it was at the time. Only years later, as he looked at her from afar did he realize why.

It was sympathy. He pitied her, a weak woman with no support and having to carry out her life raising four children on her own. No parents, no in-laws, no husband to depend on, while having small children too young to be her support. And at just twenty-five summers, she herself was simply too young to take on such responsibilities on her own.

When he saw her squatting on the ground alone after beating her children, sobbing alone in the corner of her home while begging for forgiveness, he almost cried himself. He truly didn’t understand. If hurting her children truly hurt her, why did she do it?

Why hurt her children if she had to apologize alone afterward? That scene of her crying alone, saying “I’m sorry” over and over left a mark in his mind. He simply didn’t understand what drove her to do it if it hurt her so much from doing it. Was it the same madness that turned her into a shrew? Was it the same contradiction that made her hang herself under the rafters, only to come back to life shortly after?

“Uncle Nuan, hello?” Aina knocked on the piece of wood with the crossbow again. She was sure that Uncle Nuan heard her, but for some reason he decided to ignore her.

He didn’t understand anything. Maybe that was why he hated her. She made him feel ugly, stupid. Ugly for being a useless hypocrite, and stupid for being unable to understand anything.

“What do you want?” He realized that those words came out a little harsh, but words uttered could not be taken back. You could only live with the aftermath. If she decided to scold him because of that, he would just take it and try not to escalate it further.

Luckily, Aina was used to it since taking over Rinia’s body and didn’t mind his tone.

“Can you make this, but bigger?” Aina placed the crossbow on his work table, an old piece of furniture that had seen better days.

“What is it?” Nuan asked as he picked it up, examining it from every angle.

“It’s a hunting tool, like a bow, but easier to use.” Aina said as she demonstrated its usage on a piece of broken plank in his yard.

“Impressive! With this you don’t really need as much upper body strength. You can pull the string and just let the catch hold the string instead of expending energy to hold the string.until release.”

“Yes, with it, an army of sharpshooters can be trained quickly.”

Nuan looked at Aina, then at the crossbow, then at Aina again. “Are you trying to rebel or something? If you want to be the village chief so much, why didn’t you just volunteer last time?”

“I’m NOT trying to be the village chief! And I’m not planning to rebel. This is for fighting the mountain beast!”

“Oh!” Nuan looked at the crossbow, turning it to the other side and then looking at it from the sides, he said, “I don’t think this can penetrate their thick hide. They were like half a foot thick!”

Aina groaned in exasperation. “That’s why you need to make it bigger! At least it should be able to lob a rock the size of… that!” Aina said as she pointed at the log of timber that Nuan had been using as a makeshift stool after his home was destroyed.

“A rock of that size? I thought this shoots arrows?”

Nuan’s voice carried a note of genuine confusion. His brow creased with the kind of worry that had been settling on everyone’s faces these last weeks. He set the saw down and wiped his hands on a rag, wiping off the wood dust that looked like flour on the back of his hand. The cart of half-cut planks behind him creaked as someone shifted, the entire little shop smelling of resin and smoke.

“It can shoot arrows too, but see this part here. If you put rocks on this thing, it can lob rocks just as well as it can shoot arrows,” Aina explained before her eyes caught a movement at the edge of her vision. “By the way, who’s that? Never seen him before.”

At the back of the house, there was a man who seemed to be in his forties wearing dirt-covered clothes splitting a log with a couple of men that Aina recalled were Uncle Nuan’s sons. The oldest was already married and living separately but the younger one apprenticed under Old Hunter Gen instead of inheriting his father’s carpentry skills.

Nuan looked behind him, realizing that Aina was talking about the dirt-covered homeless man, he turned to her and said, “No clue. Found him wandering around in the fields. Didn’t seem to know his own name, either. He had said he would help me out for a meal, so I was thinking of taking him to Uncle Jine later.”

“Ah, I see,” Aina replied, already losing her interest in the homeless man. “So can you do it?”

She turned back to Nuan, running through a checklist in her head: beam length, winch strength, rope quantity, bow stave curvature. Her voice calmed into the practical cadence of someone building to a deadline.

“How big are we talking about here?” Nuan rubbed his short beard.

He leaned forward, measuring with his eyes the height of a man, the span of an arm. The youngest son, listening, spat a sawdust-laced curse and picked up a chisel, ready.

“The beam would be the length of… your eldest son. The bow part would be twice the length of your wife.”

Nuan’s eyes widened at the scale. “That’s very big!”

“It has to be at least that big. Nothing smaller would be of any threat to the mountain beasts. I’ve seen them once, they’re huge!”

The urgency in her voice made the air heavier. People nearby shifted, imagining the size of the creature, something that made the very notion of a ‘big’ ballista seem small by comparison. Old Hunter Gen’s apprentice looked away, fingers tightening on the wedge.

“You don’t need to say it, I’ve seen it too! Very well, I’ll take care of it. Maybe I can ask the Kurns for-”

Nuan’s reply was quick with an attempt at optimism; he was already thinking of borrowed tools, of asking the Kurn clan for a spare block and tackle or extra hands. His mind skipped to barter and favors, the old currency of survival here.

“You will need to complete everything by tomorrow afternoon. Build two.”

The words fell like cold stones. Aina’s tone was flat and unyielding. There was no rhetoric in her words, only necessity. She pictured two of the machines standing on the ridge to hurl rocks at the titan. Simply two crude engines to shape fate, manned by starving villagers. Her gaze flicked over the pile of rough rope, the handful of iron clamps they had scavenged, the single winch with a cracked drum that someone had promised to mend.

Nuan’s jaw dropped. He glanced to his sons, then at the stranger at the back, then at the scattered parts, then back at Aina as if searching for some hidden seam of hope.

“Are you insane?!!!”