The campfire rises, and a peculiar team begins to prepare dinner next to the ruins of Turbidity Town. The members of the squad, who surrounded the flames, were men, women, human-like and inhuman, and furry inhuman. When the pot on the campfire began to boil, Elsa began to divide the vegetable soup in wooden bowls, and although there were many people present, the only one who could make enough food for everyone to eat with the small amount of preserved vegetables and dried meat in the carriage and the wild grass from the local source was enough for everyone to enjoy.

"It's fun, it's so much fun. Cheese tore the dough from his hand and tossed it into the soup to soften while his eyes remained on Jerry, who was sitting next to Clarus. It was as if he was looking at some kind of beautiful work of art, which made the mouse man uncomfortable.

"You've been watching him all afternoon, do you have to cut him open to show you the inner structure to satisfy you?" said Elsa, with some dissatisfaction, knowing how attentive the mage was when it came to something of interest, and she could still dream of accompanying Cheese to dissect the early victims of the rat-man plague. But this is not the time it used to be, there is not so much time for Cheese to squander his curiosity, and every second of delay puts more people in danger.

"No, how could I be willing to cut him open. He's the most perfect person I've ever seen, don't you realize how special he is, look, he's eating vegetables!" The mage didn't hear Elsa's displeasure, and said to himself, he put down the wooden bowl and raised his hand to Jerry, who was taking a sip of vegetable soup, causing the latter to freeze in place.

"I know that not being picky eaters is important for a child's development, just like I hated carrots when I was a kid. However, I don't see anything worthy of such a reaction. Jack said with a frown, as puzzled by Cheese's words as Elsa.

"No, no, no, you don't understand. The mage stood up as he walked around the campfire to Jerry's side, put his hands on the mouse-man's shoulders, and said in a very serious tone, "It's not a matter of picking on whether you're a picky eater or not. The problem is that he, Jerry, our new friend, is an out-and-out, unquestionable, nezumi-man. And as far as I know, proto-nezumi aside, even our friends in Vale, even Gloria, the first patient I saved, had a hard time overcoming their instinct to eat anything other than meat. But look at our little friend, he can eat without burden, don't you understand what that means?"

"You mean, the nezumi instinct in him has been removed?" said Kolante, somewhat uncertain, having heard Cheese talk about the mutant nezumi in Vale.

"It's not as simple as elimination. Cheese nodded, a look of relief, someone among his companions could finally keep up with his thoughts, albeit only slightly, "Compare Jerry to the average mutant rat and you can see that there is a huge gap between them." Let's not talk about the physical abilities that the crow gave to the child, but in terms of traits alone, Jerry and the mutant are different in at least three ways. Omnivorous, just one of them. ”

"What about the other two?" The Demon Spawn was also interested, after all, it was about his apprentice, and he also wanted to know what secrets Jerry was hiding in him.

"The second difference is that Jerry can't control the proto-nezumi like a mutant does. The mage looked at the others, this time even Koranti couldn't keep up with his train of thought, "Don't think it's a bad thing! Actually, it's a great thing, you know? Mutants can control the natives, Gloria can't control the protonezumi, but she won't be attacked by them." But Jerry, Jerry is no different from humans in the eyes of those proto-nezumi. This means that if the previous rat people had a relationship similar to that of ants or bees, the subordinate individuals would instinctively submit to the superior individuals. By analogy, combined with recent siege battles, it is not difficult to guess that all nezumi must follow some kind of final will. At this point, Cheese pointed to the sky, "But Jerry's presence shows that this instinctive submission can be changed." Being attacked by other nezumi proves that he is not part of that huge network of superiors and subordinates. We have a chance to make the rat people truly free. ”

"That cursed raven guy can do good things once in a while, he proves that the nezumi are a race that can be unenslaved! You understand Elsa, we can save them!" The mage's eyes sparkled with excitement, and he was really happy about it, because Cheese had always felt guilty about the humans who had turned into nezumi, and he felt that he had no way to save them from this curse, and at most he could reduce the number of victims by throwing medicine into Dragon's Blood Creek. But now, he saw in Jerry the light of day to restore the sanity of all the nezumi.

But to the mage's surprise, the proprietress didn't jump as excited as he thought, and Elsa frowned, trying to think about what Cheese meant. "You're saying we can find a way to make the nezumi sane?"

"Yes, to be precise, they will lose some of their memories, but they will remember what they experienced as humans. Cheese nodded.

"But they can't turn back into humans, can they?" said Elsa, confused, as she thought it would be useless to help the nezumi regain their senses, because their lives had been stripped of by the plague, and what survived, what woke up from that shell, was not who it once was.

The sparkle in Cheese's eyes dimmed, and he looked around and noticed that the expressions on the faces of the others seemed to indicate that their views were similar to those of the proprietress . But he still didn't want to give up and convince them, "It's not a big deal if you can't turn back into a human, their consciousness is that it's enough to be human, isn't it?"

This is not true for them. Jack said suddenly, he stood up and looked at the mage, "Like me, am I human? If I become a wolf, I dare say no one cares if I have a mind or not, they just think of me as a monster." You won't want to know what those soldiers called me when we were in the royal capital? ”

Hearing Wolfwalker's words, the two witches and even Kalus had an expression of agreement on their faces, knowing that not only humans, but all species in the world would judge whether they were the same kind or not by their appearance. Witches might be fine, at least as long as they don't show magic, they look like humans, but the Demons and Werewolves aren't so lucky.

"That's different, the nezumi aren't as different as the wolfwalkers, they can be treated as some kind of special people, as long as people..."

"No one will forgive them, believe me, after all that has been going through, people just can't wait to kill them like real rats. Even if they can talk. Lothar said in a deep voice, shaking his head, as one of the most warlike lords in the kingdom, he knew very well how hatred would work.

Mage, there was silence. He suddenly found that he still didn't know his race as he had imagined, or that he still didn't understand secular society. He wanted to say that the blood debt in the hands of the nezumi should not be borne by them, because they could not think then. But he knew, Lothar knew about it, Jack knew it, his companions knew......

"I see, sorry, gaffe. Cheese whispered, turned and walked alone into the ruins of the turbidity stream, "I need to think about it alone, don't come to me." ”