The snow crunching under Lemony's boots was the only sound in the frozen waste of the Peak of the First Rib. He gripped the strap of his tattered bag hard to the point his knuckles were white against the dark fabric. Light blue frost coated his thick, grayish-brown fur. He looked like an overgrown, grumpy cat walking on two legs, a trait of the Pale-Mantle Manuls. In the Veridian Kingdom, his kind was known for two things, being weak and having a permanent scowl.
His red coat and scarf were filled with melted snow, and even more, each step felt heavier than the last. Finally, his legs buckled and he thudded face-first into a drift. He didn't even try to get up. He just lay there, cheek pressed against the biting cold.
They set me up. They definitely set me up.
His mind drifted back to the Pamon mansion. He had been scrubing the floors late into the shift. He remembered the heavy scent of noble perfume and the flicker of candlelight in the hallway. Then, there were the raised voices.
Lemony had peeked around a corner and saw the House Master's son, a young Sunmane Leon with a golden mane, arguing with someone. But the other guy didn't look like any feline Lemony had ever seen. In a mansion where every guard and servant was some kind of cat, this person was just weird.
Who the hell was that guy?
By sunrise, the mansion was a mess of screaming and weeping. The young master was dead in his bed. And so, the guards had dragged Lemony out of his servant quarters before he could even blink. He was the easy target. A trash feline who didn't value much, obviously they would've picked him.
Even the old Master, the man who had fed him for ten years, didn't look him in the eyes. He just signed the papers and handed Lemony over to the Veridian Royal Guard.
Now, he was here. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the swirling gray sky.
Across the kingdom, giant shimmering rifts tore through the landscape. These Beastwar Portals were the lifeblood of the kingdom, by sacrificing creatures to an ancient beast named Malphas. If they wanted to keep the gears of the kingdom turning, the court used a simple solution. They rounded up thieves, rebels, and useless people, and shoved them through the one-way rifts.
Lemony was just the latest meal for Malphas, the ancient beast that ruled this frozen pocket dimension.
He let out a shaky breath, watching the steam vanish into the air.
I am actually going to get eaten by a monster...
He forced himself to sit up and hugged his knees. He couldn't just sit here and freeze before the beast even found him. But I suppose, there was nothing he could do in this moment.
Without any other choices left, Lemony continued to lay flat on his back. He didn't bother brushing the snows off. And above him, a pale moon hung in the sky, cold and indifferent from what he felt right now.
What am I even supposed to do?
He was just a piece of meat being tossed to a monster. He stared at the moon and ran his full name through his head.
Lemony Xaphan Pamon.
He got the first name when his parents traded him to a traveling merchant for a crate of lemons. Just a kid, swapped for a pile of sour fruit. From that day on, he was raised to be a tool. He scrubbed floors, hauled crates, and ran errands until his paws bled. He did it because he had to. It didn't make him sad or angry. He was just empty.
Xaphan was the name on his old paperwork, the only scrap of his past before the merchant sold him to the Pamon family. Not that it mattered. The servants at the mansion just laughed and called him Lemon.
He blinked as snowflakes landed on his eyelashes.
Lemons are bitter. He thought, closing his eyes.
Lemons are sour.
Lemons get squeezed until there is nothing left but the rind, and then they get thrown into the trash.
He let the snow pile up over his chest. His breathing slowed. He was just going to lie here and let the cold take him before the beast did.
Hours drifted by. The cold turned into a heavy, numb weight.
Then, the wind changed. A sharp, rhythmic flapping cut through the silence.
"There's someone here!" a girl's voice shouted.
Heavy boots crunched the snow right next to his head. Suddenly, Lemony felt a pair of hands grab him under his armpits. His feet dragged along the frozen ground, and then, the ground vanished. He was being pulled up into the air.
"Hey! Can you hear me? Wake up!"
Lemony didn't answer. He didn't open his eyes. He just let his head loll to the side, listening to the heavy panting of the person carrying him. The wind rushed past his ears, and then he heard muffled voices and footsteps on wooden floorboards.
"Over ten people were just dropped in the sector, sir!" the girl yelled to someone else, her voice strained from exertion.
The girl ran down a hallway, still dragging him along. She finally dropped him onto a mattress. The springy, soft surface was a shock after the frozen dirt.
Before he could process the warmth, a sharp sting exploded across his cheek.
Slap!
Lemony's eyes snapped open. He bolted upright, rubbing his face.
"Ugh, what the hell?"
"Oh, good. You are alive," the girl said, wiping sweat from her forehead.
Lemony blinked, trying to clear his blurry vision. The girl standing over him was strange. She had a delicate, human-like face, but her long, dark hair flowed down her back and seamlessly merged into massive, insect-like wings.
"Where is this? And who are you?" Lemony muttered, his voice raspy.
She put her hands on her hips, her dark wings fluttering slightly.
"You are at the Peak of the First Rib hidden base. And you, my grumpy friend, are going to be staying here for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not."
Lemony looked around the wooden room. It was warm, lit by a small hearth.
"The portal... the beast?"
"Oh, Malphas is very real," she said, pulling up a wooden stool and sitting down.
"He roams every part of this mountain every night. But, we built a little sanctuary. So, if you go outside at night, you are a dead body. If you stay in here, you work, you eat, and you don't die."
Lemony frowned, pulling his red scarf tight.
"You save everyone the kingdom throws away here?"
"We try! But you are a heavy one, mister cat. I think I pulled a muscle in my wing lifting you."
She leaned forward, poking his furry arm.
"You're a Pale-Mantle Manul, right? You guys always look like you just swallowed something foul."
"It's just my face," Lemony grumbled.
"Well, it's a great face for scaring away the birds," she giggled, extending a hand toward him.
"I'm Sissy Suzlal! Welcome to the Leftovers."
"Leftovers?"
The word felt heavy on his tongue.
Sissy nodded, her dark wings giving a soft rustle against the wood floor.
"The kingdom dumps its trash through that rift, and we scrape it up. We're all former slaves, criminals, and rejects. We built this place to survive. Forever, hopefully."
Lemony pulled his knees to his chest. He looked at the flickering fire with his face blank.
"Wouldn't it be better to just die?"
The bright smile slid right off Sissy's face. The cheerful bounce in her wings died, and her shoulders slumped. She looked down at her hands... quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was much softer.
"Maybe for some. But I can't just lose hope. Not after getting this far."
She took a breath, shaking off the heavy mood and slapping her cheeks.
"Anyway! No time for doom and gloom. Let's figure out what you're good at. Can you farm? Build walls? Fight?"
Lemony leaned his head back against the wall.
"I was a servant in a noble house. I did whatever they told me to."
"A house servant, huh? I see. That's pretty common around here. Well, that settles it. You're joining the cleaning unit of the Leftovers."
Leftovers. Lemony thought. He didn't even have the energy to sigh.
"Can you stand up?" she asked.
Lemony pushed himself off the mattress. His legs were still a bit shaky, but they held.
"Yeah."
"Great. Follow me."
Sissy led him out of the warm room and into a long, winding tunnel. Lemony blinked, tilting his head up. The ceiling wasn't made of rock or wood. Massive, curved white pillars arched high over their heads, vanishing into the shadows of the ceiling. It looked like they were walking inside the ribcage of some dead, impossible god.
The scale of it was breathtaking.
The tunnel opened up into a massive cavern carved right into the bone. Hundreds of creatures were bustling about. He saw lizard-folk carrying lumber, feathered bird-men sewing canvas, and insect-kin hammering away at iron. It was a massive, living hive hidden inside a mountain of bone.
Sissy led him into a side chamber and pointed at a rack of worn-out wooden brooms, mops, and heavy iron buckets.
"Here we are. The supply room. Grab what you need."
Lemony stared at the bristles of a broom.
I'm back to being a servant.
He gripped the wooden handle of a broom. It felt all too familiar in his paws. He looked over at Sissy, who was watching him.
"Is there any actual happiness in this place?" Lemony asked.
Sissy paused. She looked straight into his eyes, seeing the deep, dull emptiness swimming in them. It wasn't just physical tiredness. He looked completely hollowed out.
Her expression softened, but then she puffed out her chest, a confident smirk returning to her lips.
"There is. You just have to look for it. Or make it yourself."
She stepped back toward the doorway, giving him a energetic wave. "I've got to check on the other new arrivals. Don't slack off, or the boss will have your tail!"
With a flutter of her dark hair-wings, she vanished into the busy hallway.
Lemony stood alone in the quiet room, leaning his chin on the top of the broom handle.
Lemony pulled off his red coat and looked down at his chest. There was a mark there that looked like a cracked, brown seal. It was his crest. In this world, the Great Beastiary decided everyone's fate based on these things.
A brown, cracked crest meant he was a Rank 0, a Faulty Crest. It was basically a sign that he was nobody.
Most people around here had brown crests too. It meant they were just civilians who didn't really matter to the world. But Lemony was staring at his for a different reason. If a crest started to crumble away, the person would just disappear. Nobody knew where they went, but everyone agreed it was way worse than just dying.
Part of him wanted to just get it over with and die now, but then a bunch of screaming started outside the room.
Lemony pulled his red coat back on, leaving it open as he stepped out into the massive bone cavern.
The chaos had instantly died into a suffocating silence. Tens of lizard-kin, bird-men, and insect-creatures were dropping to their knees. They bowed their heads low, foreheads pressing against the hard, white bone floor, clearing a wide path down the center of the cavern.
Lemony blinked, gripping his broom.
Nobody was looking at him. Nobody was telling him to get down. He felt like a king walking through a sea of subjects.
He started walking down the cleared path. His boots thudded loudly against the bone floor.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
He passed rows and rows of kneeling people. Up close, they were shaking. Sweat dripped from their snouts and antennae. Their eyes were squeezed shut as their faces were pale with pure, paralyzing terror.
The air grew hefty. It felt comparable to walking through deep, cold water, as a heavy pressure pressed against Lemony's chest, making it hard to draw a full breath. The aura got heavier with every step he took toward the tunnel exit.
But, clearly, he didn't stop. He pushed through the heavy wooden doors at the end of the tunnel and stepped out onto the snowy precipice.
The freezing wind whipped his red scarf into his face. He squinted against the whiteout, and that was when the pressure slammed into him like a physical wall.
The thing was perched on a massive spire of bone just a few yards away.
It was easily the size of a three-story mansion. It had the body of a sleek, muscular beast covered in feathers the color alike the snow. Giant, leathery wings were tucked tight against its sides. But its head was a nightmare. It had a long, curved beak identical to a predatory bird, but crowning its skull were massive horns that spiraled toward the sky.
Lemony's grip loosened. His broom fell into the snow.
There was no mistake. This was Malphas.
The ancient beast shifted its weight on the bone spire. The entire mountain seemed to shudder under its claws. It lowered its massive, horned head, with those terrifying eyes locking directly onto the tiny, gray feline standing in the doorway.
After a moment, the giant crow monster turned its head and walked off into the snow, its movements slow and surprisingly careful for something so big.
Lemony heard heavy footsteps behind him. He turned around to see Sissy Suzlal and a massive gorilla with four eyes standing there.
"What were you doing? How did you even survive that?" Sissy shouted. She looked like she was about to have a heart attack.
Lemony was just as confused as she was.
"How did I survive what?"
The four-eyed gorilla, whose name was Koro, stepped forward. He looked Lemony up and down with all four of his eyes.
Koro grunted.
"That beast gives off enough pressure to crush a normal person's heart. Why weren't you even fazed by it?"
Lemony tilted his head, and then said...
"Am I supposed to be?"
Both of them looked at him with genuine worry. They didn't really know what to say to that, so they just told him to get back inside immediately. They walked back into the bone base, and Sissy followed Lemony all the way into his small room.
"What even happened out there?" Lemony asked as he sat down.
Sissy was pacing back and forth, her wings twitching with nervous energy. She looked angry, but it was mostly because she was scared.
"Malphas should have killed you! Being that close and making eye contact with an Ancient Beast is a death sentence. Nobody does that and lives!"
Lemony didn't look worried at all.
He just sighed and pulled off his red coat again. As he did, his chest started to glow with a faint brown light. He looked down and realized the cracks on his crest were gone. The brown surface was smooth and solid now.
Suddenly, a strange wind blew through the closed room. Lemony looked past Sissy's shoulder and saw glowing words floating in the air.
"Deed Of The Unwanted Completed!"
The words hung there for a second before they flickered and changed.
"Rank 0: Common Paws"
Lemony stared at it in shock.
He had been stuck as a Faulty Crest his entire life. Now, after seventeen years of being a nobody, he had finally risen a rank.