Meeting an Old Acquaintance in a Foreign Land... Horse!
Maybe the few mouse archers who fled from the village entrance had warned the others ahead of time, and the rat demons in the village knew they were outmatched, so they'd all hidden in advance?
Or...
Perhaps there hadn't been many rat demons in the village to begin with, and after the commotion at the entrance, the few who lived there had fled along with the rest?
Whatever the reason, by the time Annie wandered into Shamen Village, she couldn't see a single rat demon moving anywhere in sight.
"Hmm hmm hmm..."
But Annie didn't care about any of that!
She just bounced along through the chaotic village in the barren desert, following the road deeper inside.
"..."
As they walked, Tibbers suddenly shared one of his thoughts.
Of course, he couldn't speak. Instead, he conveyed it clearly through the bond between his soul and that of his troublesome little mistress.
"Oh!"
After catching Tibbers' meaning, Annie waved a hand indifferently and said:
"Tibbers, don't worry about whether that rat was a good person or a bad person before it turned into a rat. And you don't need to think too hard about how they changed, either. Just remember that they're not good people!"
"We've seen it for ourselves on the way here. What do you think happened to those bones by the roadside?"
(ψ｀▽′)o
"You smelled that stink too, didn't you?"
(﹏)
"And look over there. Those heads drying on the stakes—some of them belong to demons, but not all of them, do they?"
"Those rats don't just eat demons. They eat people, too!"
"Maybe they used to be good people, and they were still human back then. But so many years have passed now—it's hard to say what they