The bells rang far and wide throughout Dyersburge. From the northern gate of the town all the way to the southern gate once the first bell rang all of the others quickly followed creating a sonorous cacophony that every person in the town could hear. As the bells were not ringing in time with one another, if you didn't know what the purpose of the bells were, then you could say that it was more grating noise than anything else.

The people of the city started cheering loudly. These cheers also started at the northern gate and spread faster than a wildfire through the streets. It didn't take long before a festive and raucous environment was created throughout the entire town. From a distance, anyone could hear the cheering and chanting going on. However, not a single person could tell what they were cheering or chanting for due to how out of time it was. There didn't seem to be any concerted attempt to have their cheers and chants catch on by everyone. They all seemed to want to be the ones to start a rhythmic tune.

Soon, there wasn't anyone in the town that wasn't joining along with the crowd. Even those who were traveling merchants from afar couldn't help but join in, despite not knowing the purpose of the bells or why everyone was suddenly cheering. The mood of the town seemed to pick everyone up and lift them into the festive mood and no one tried to resist for long.

Be it a man, woman, or child, none of them could resist. Everyone in the town was soon celebrating for some reason that a good chunk of them didn't even know about. It was like they were waiting for a chance to drink and celebrate out in the open. Those that were working ended up stopping their work with the exception of two occupations: the food stalls and drink vendors.

They were sure that they would make a good amount of coin because of today.

None of this mattered to Altair, who was walking through an alley alone. The noise from the rest of the town seemed to slip in one of her ears and out the other. She seemed completely unaffected by it as she walked in a daze through the alley with her brows tightly together.

The sorrow she felt earlier had faded by now. It wasn't as abrupt as the change yesterday and felt more natural to her, despite not putting any thoughts towards either change even right then. The only thing she felt was an overwhelming amount of regret that weighed heavily upon her.

'Could it have been different if I was there?' she asked herself for the nth time since she stood up. 'Would I have been able to turn the tide of battle? Would I have just been caught and executed like the others? Would anything be different today?'

Those thoughts went around in her head in a seemingly never ending circle. Once one question was asked to herself, the next would immediately start and she wouldn't even think about the answer. She didn't' seem to mind the endless circle in her mind as she dazedly walked in the direction of where Sief's home was.

She continued to do so until she heard a dark whisper from the depths of her mind, 'Something's not right.'

That whisper in her mind that was so quiet it could be easily missed in a dark and silent forest caused Altair to stop walking forward and her eyes to narrow. "Something's not right?" She asked herself out loud while tilting her head slightly.

She immediately thought about everything that had happened in the recent days after she said that. She didn't know why she was putting so much credence to the whisper in her mind but her heart was telling her to completely trust it.

Many issues immediately jumped to the forefront of her mind as soon as she came across them. She pushed them to the side to examine more thoroughly when they became obvious and continued to gather more strange events. It didn't take long at all for her to gather a pile of them and she began to look over them in her mind while thinking that something was wrong.

The first thing that seemed off was the most recent. She shouldn't have been completely unmotivated to take revenge and she should have felt sad for longer than she had been. It was quite strange to her and she tucked that information to the side and examined the next problem.

It was her abrupt and sudden change of mood in Sief's house. It was like a wet blanket was tossed in a small fire that was threatening to go out of control. Her emotions were completely doused at the time. It created an obvious pattern to her.

'That's.. strange,' she thought to herself as she moved to the next thing she saw as a problem.

She would never have sat down to talk with her brother in the past, more so when there were unknown Humans nearby, like Sief's wife and her niece. Just because they were family didn't mean that she would trust them that much. Even if she was caught the way she was caught she couldn't imagine herself doing that in the past. She also would never have admitted to leaving money for her family to them right before their eyes nor would she have given the money to them directly.

'Ok,' she admitted to her herself, 'Something is wrong. Why would I do such things?' Oddly, she didn't feel worried about the things she did. It didn't cause any feelings of shock or unease to spread through her. She felt completely indifferent to it.

If she hadn't learned all that she had learned in the Marnithok mansion by now, then she probably wouldn't have even though it was strange.

She didn't feel the need to go back any further as she had already come to the conclusion that something was wrong with her. With what she had learned about the body she knew that it had something to do with her mind. She didn't know what was causing it though. The injury she sustained at the hands of Joshua came to the forefront of her mind but she immediately dismissed it.

'Liam didn't mention that there would be anything wrong with my emotions,' she justified the dismissal to herself, 'so that is unlikely to be the cause.'

However, nothing else came to her mind as the possible cause. This resulted in her frowning deeply as she considered, 'Perhaps I should ask Renald about this later. Maybe he would know something.'

The voice at the corner of her mind immediately whispered in response to her thought, 'Cannot trust.'

Concern did not flood into Altair when she heard that. She continued to feel indifferent to the voice that told her that, however she knew that it would be wise to trust it in this instance as well. 'If I can't trust Renald, then I can trust no one in the Empire.'

She looked up into the distance, 'If that's the case, then I'm on my own for this problem.' She continued to walk through the alley at that point. 'I will need to learn more about how the mind works in order to figure it out.'

Since she wouldn't be able to make any progress from here until she got back and studied more at the Empire, Altair decided to push this problem a bit to the side and focus more on getting back to Sief's home. Once she got her satchel back she would leave the Kingdom with her Teleportation Magic and move on from there.

As soon as she made this decision, Altair finally noticed the roar of the crowd of people on either side of the alley she was walking in. It drowned out the bells that were still ringing from all corners of the town despite there being a bell at the Holy Church nearby. All that she could hear was a deafening roar of people and Altair had no idea what was happening.

'How did I ignore this?'

She walked faster through the alley as she figured something important was happening. She wanted to know exactly what it was as surprises could be dangerous in her experience. With such a huge crowd of people doing something extremely noisy, it was bound to be important to the town.

'Did they find another Demi-Human and are planning to execute them?' Under that thought, Altair quickly ran to the nearest street she could find.

The people in the street were dancing and singing while openly drinking from mugs. The ale in the cups was splashing across the ground as they moved. They all had genuine smiles of joy and looks of reverie across all of their faces. Even the children joined in as they celebrated something to a tune that didn't exist.

Altair's brows knit together as she observed them for a short time. They didn't seem to care about anything right now. They were fully absorbed in their merrymaking and didn't bother to stop for even a moment.

'Is this how they react when a Demi-Human is brought to be executed?' Altair felt a pit in her stomach open as she observed them. However, that feeling was quickly quelled and it caused her to frown.

She walked towards a child of around ten years of age who was dancing with a girl who was slightly taller than him. Their steps were out of time and they danced without a care for how goofy they looked.

Altair grabbed the boy by the arm and roughly pulled him away from the girl who only gave her a strange look. The boy also gave her a strange look as she pulled the boy close. Altair then asked, "Why is everyone celebrating?"

The boy looked at her like she was an idiot and replied, "Because God's Hero has come to town so we're all getting a reward from the Holy Church."