Determining the difference

The people working nearby were shocked when they discovered the creature running in their direction.

It wasn't something new in the area. The area was just too far away from any other city. Besides, the city was located near an uncontrolled territory. So, the people weren't flustered just rather annoyed that their work would go to waste again. They'd get paid but they had to start again once the creature was taken down. The one who noticed it first pulled out an emergency signal flare and shot it in the sky. After all, they weren't fighters, just builders.

Still, if they wanted to survive, they needed to run, they needed fast legs and great stamina. The settlement was close by but not that close. The older people could hide in the few basements they have built but the younger generation had to run. The ones who stumbled and didn't look at where they were running, ended up falling to the creature. Some, who saw that, learned from those mistakes and watched where they were running. Most got clear and entered the city walls. Just before the creature got near the gate was shut and the creature was left to rage at the gate.

The people on the city wall were ready and prepared for the assault. They attacked it with their weapons.

All this time Liam had calmly walked after the raging creature. Haru was beside him. He was rather stunned by the choice of their architecture.

It was a bloody castle.

And now the weapons they were using were much more modern.

He observed how both men and women were on top of the wall. Shooting the creature with energy weapons that look a lot like guns. His eyesight was much better than normal humans and he could see that the weapon was somehow powered by a crystal embedded into it.

He was watching all the commotion from a distant tree, he was rubbing Haru's head as he watched them kill the beast.

He didn't feel much when he saw the creature killing without mercy. It didn't even take a bite out of them, it just sliced them with the blades that were attached to its forearms.

Liam mostly wanted to observe the people here. This time he discovered two differences with most of the people here.

Their hair was curly, skin tone and everything else varied. Like the ethnicity didn't matter here. He liked that but the second thing he observed was that the people hear had ... Horns.

He recalled that the builders who ran away didn't have them. But up, on that wall, was it a man or a woman, both had horns.

'Is it somehow related to power? Or status?'

Liam looked at the settlement walls that were over three stories high. He had to give it to those people, they were prepared. Those walls looked sturdy. They even looked to have built the wall from huge rocks.

A stray thought wondered in, 'How did they move those rocks?'

He looked at those weapons and was astonished by their genius. 'How did they come up with something like this?'

He was itching to get into the city and take a look at those things. But he had made up his mind that he would wait till tomorrow when the gates are opened.

He decided to return to the forest for the time being. On his way back he decided to take a closer look at those corpses. He looked around but no one seemed to be nearby or at least no one seemed to have come out of their hiding places.

Sure enough, this man also had curly hair but no hint of horns. Liam mostly wanted to know if they carry some kind of identification tokens or something like that. Maybe make his life a little bit easier when he entered the place the next day. He didn't find a token but a tattoo on his wrist. Would that be identification? He huffed at that.

There was a solution to everything, even that.

Just in case he checked all the other bodies that were littered around the area where the beast had run through. All the people there had their tattoos on the same arm. He recalled that the gate of the city had the same symbol on them. It was a leaf of a maple tree.

Come to think of it, wasn't the settlement's name on a board above the gate.

Huh? I'm so dumb!

Either way, he went into the forest just barely an hour before the sun rose. He chewed a few leaves on his way back. He felt the sleep coming over him just a minute after he reached a safe location. Upon a tree, where Haru had guided him.

Liam of course woke before Haru again, but on this morning he had no chores. Liam waited until Haru woke up and then explained to her what he was going to do this day and that Haru should just rest here. That he would come back as soon as he could.

Haru didn't like it much, but she couldn't stop Liam. She could only watch as he made his way to the settlement pretending to haul that large pack of skins. He even thought that it was a bit too much to go to this place with all those skins. They might even try to rob him of his loot. He would be very wrong once he finds a shop that can buy them but yes they would try to rob him blind if they knew what he was carrying.