Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 43: Aftermath

The work of sorting life from death finally reached its conclusion. The last of the survivors were evacuated to safer grounds, and the recovered bodies were laid to rest in a collective ceremony.

Peace settled over the valley. Of course, not quite a joy. Just the gratitude of those who had stared into the abyss and been allowed to step back. Smiles finally began to reappear.

The Arctic Wolves bid their farewell with their tails tucked between their legs. Their alpha, Dorian, clearly planned a long, loud, and unpleasant conversation with his son Nikolas upon his return.

A new kind of commotion began to ripple through the aid camps and the surrounding territories. Word spread of the astonishing recovery rate among the survivors.

Broken bones that should have taken moons to mend were stable in days... wounds resisted infection and closed with remarkable speed. The credit was unanimously given to a curious, shimmering potion distributed by the Dawnoro werewolves.

The mystery of the potion became the favorite topic of a hush-hush speculation. Everyone knew the source. The blonde-haired lady. But where had she gotten them? A stash of such potent, life-saving elixirs would be a kingdom’s treasure, not something carried casually into an ash-choked hellscape.

The werewolves, usually boastful or at least pragmatic, were infuriatingly tight-lipped. It was unclear whether this was a matter of sworn secrecy, or if they themselves were genuinely uncertain of her full nature. Perhaps both.

Their alpha’s behavior only deepened the mystery. Arkai Dawnoro placed the woman in such high regard it bordered on veneration. He watched over her, his gaze sharp enough to flay any man who dared breathe too heavily in her direction.

His pack understood the command, though. She is under the Wolf King’s guard. Do not question. Do not approach.

They had their own theories, of course. If they weren’t mistaken, on that terrifying night of the second eruption, they had seen a vast, white shadow blot out the hell-glow of the mountain. A wingspan of impossible scale, moving with speed that defied the laws of beasts before vanishing into the volcanic plume.

The lady... and the misty grey-eyed man constantly at her side...

One of them had to be the dragon.

Then again, when one party could conjure life-saving miracles from thin air, and the other could match their alpha stride for stride in strength and endurance while scouring the valley... who was to say?

Perhaps they were both dragons.

It was impossible to tell. Their scents were refined to near-nothingness, perhaps proving a power so absolute it had no need to announce itself.

"Lord Father, you don’t seem well for a while now," Rinne’s young voice piped up, cutting through his father’s heavy silence.

Arkai turned his head, his black eyes meeting the boy’s concerned gaze. He held it for a moment, then looked back to the long road stretching ahead of them.

He wasn’t ignoring him. Some burdens weren’t worth explaining to a son. Some... realizations, about family, about desire, about the beast lurking in one’s own blood...

Should be a weight a father had to carry alone.

"You sent something so urgently to Uncle Anton. Are you planning on meeting him?" Rinne asked, unsure. "Rumors said... the Vasilievs were ready to come and ’take over’ too, until the news that you were alright spread."

The boy nervously raised his face, seeking confirmation in his father’s stormy profile. "Are we... going to war after all?"

Ah.

So that’s what the boy thought. That the tension in his jaw, the distant fury in his eyes, was the sweat of a king over politics and territory. If only it were that simple.

"Are you... angry at Older Cousin Arzhen?" Rinne ventured carefully.

Arkai’s gaze snapped to his son. "Don’t call that bastard your older cousin anymore," he said. "And you better not tell him a single thing about anything. Anything, boy. Never again speak to him."

Rinne flinched at the intensity in his father’s eyes. This look... he’d seen it only once before.

The first time was last year, when a prophecy from the previous Saintess had arrived. His father had read it, his expression had hardened into this same unyielding granite, and he had immediately begun packing.

Burning letters before Rinne could even glimpse them, he mobilized his most trusted men, and vanished south without a word of explanation.

And now, this look has returned.

"What... did he do...?" Rinne whispered.

"He’s a monster," Arkai answered. "He did such bad things I can’t even tell you what they are." He met his son’s wide eyes, willing him to understand the gravity. "I will tell you in the future. But all you need to know now is that he has betrayed us all. He’s a despicable man, and you will see him as such."

Rinne was conflicted. But he understood more than his father probably realized.

Growing up around Arzhen had never been... pleasant. Rinne knew his own place. Or lack thereof.

He was adopted. The son of a woman who’d borne him out of wedlock to a father he’d never known and cared nothing for. He was seen as a courtesy, not an heir.

Arzhen had never truly seen him as blood. Their interactions were staged solely for Arkai’s benefit. But of course Arzhen was never blatantly cruel, no.

It was subtler.

A faint curl of the lip, a dismissive shift of the eyes, a tone that always placed Rinne just slightly beneath. The Weretiger Prince’s quiet disgust had been a lesson Rinne learned young.

At first, Rinne hadn’t understood. He hadn’t even wanted the title of ’prince’. He’d just wanted a friend, a brother in arms if not by blood. But the more he was treated as lesser, the more the childish desire curdled into frustration and needed to be seen as an equal.

Sometimes, he wanted to blame his mother and the shadow of his biological father. But that man meant nothing. His father, the only one who mattered, was Arkai Dawnoro.

"Okay, Father," Rinne nodded. "I never liked him in the first place anyway."

The immediate, unquestioning allegiance... the simple, fierce loyalty, cut through the dark fog around Arkai’s heart. A proud amused scoff escaped him. "Good boy." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Ah... Dad smiled.

Pride bloomed in Rinne’s chest. He was right. Nothing else mattered. His father was his sun. His entire world. The mere thought of losing him, of that prophecy being true, even for a moment—

That new saintess...

Rinne’s eyes narrowed, his gaze dropping to the rough ground beneath their feet, but his pupils contracted to sharp points. Hatred settled in his young heart. If he ever saw that woman, that liar who had declared his father dead and sent vultures to pick at his kingdom, he’d rip through her throat himself.

The journey back to their fortress-city was not as daunting. Their purpose was to escort the survivors, to offer them a haven and a chance to rebuild. The plan was to host them in the Northern capital, Winter’s Keep, providing healing and homes, with the hope that many would choose to stay for good.

And many should. Some, after watching rescuers chip at frozen earth to bury their families... couldn’t leave.

But Arkai insisted on evacuation for all. He refused to witness the same tragedy play out in another sixty years. The previous eruption, he’d been a young lad then, full of fire but lacking the political weight to move thousands of stubborn, grieving people.

The survivors of that era, more numerous and vocal than today’s, had dug their heels into the ashen ground, clinging to memory and pride.

The town’s location was practical. A perfect nexus between rich mineral veins and fertile valleys. It was a hard argument to counter.

So now, Arkai had brokered a compromise. He allowed them to return, to rebuild, but only under a stern covenant that they could not reside there permanently. They were to heed the mountain’s warnings, abandoning homes and belongings during the dangerous seasonal windows he dictated, based on the old Saintess’s forecasts.

He was even prepared to codify it into law. A unique edict for one unique, defiant place.

Rinne listened, absorbing his father’s wisdom. This moment, this balance of ruthlessness and care, of enforcing survival upon the survivors, was etching itself into his soul as a core memory of what true lordship meant.

The boy was lost in this deep contemplation when a presence approached. A man with long, straight white hair approached them. Rinne’s hair stood on end. The dragon!

Arkai acknowledged the man with a dip of his chin, his tone carrying a respect Rinne rarely heard him use. "Sir."

Oh. He called him ’sir.’

"Lord Dawnoro," the man nodded back, his grey eyes grave. "We need to talk."