“Why. Won’t. You. DIE!?”

Liam screamed, his knife plunging into the purple chitin of the oversized bug, his body completely splattered in the strange multi-colored oozes pouring out of the many injuries. Underneath him was a bug, a centipede roughly the size of a horse, wriggling, coiling, lashing out with its needle-like legs. The creature couldn’t escape, not from the crushing weight that had been dropped on its body, but it could still thrash like a needle-enhanced eel.

And then, it stopped, going completely limp. Was it dead? He hoped it was dead.

Liam heaved the moist air, wiping his face off of the things he’d rather not think about, every inch of his body sticky with only God knew what.

“Don’t pull the knife out,” Bunny grumbled from her little corner from where she had been watching everything unfold. She had, somehow, found a carrot and was currently halfway through it.

“Wuh… what?” He struggled for air.

“It stopped because you cut the nerves connecting the brain with the rest of the body. Pull the knife out and it’ll reconnect in a few minutes.”

“Its internal organs are external now, how the hell is it still alive?” He grunted, trying to find some way to crush the bug’s brain but finding his legs and arms were failing him.

“It will die if you wait it out. But it might take a few days.” Bunny gave him a dirty look, taking another bite out of her carrot. Where had she even gotten that thing? “Insectoids are rude and refuse to die easily.”

Liam scowled. “This isn’t an insectoid, it’s a bug-animal.”

“Potato, potato.” The lagomorph let out an indignant huff. “They’re both the same as far as I’m concerned.”

“Not the same.” He grumbled, wondering if maybe he was currently mildly poisoned. “Insectoids are hard to kill because they were made with strong undead affinity. Bug-animals are hard to kill because, fuck if I know, biology?” It was a bit hard to think right now, feeling like he was about to collapse from exhaustion even though it had been barely a fight a handful of minutes long. “Thinking about it, bug-animals were initially created-”

“Don’t care.” Bunny harshly bit out.

“Is this because-”

“Because you used me as bait!” She decried.

“There’s nothing tastier available.” It was true, as an aspect of a Goddess, her body was practically condensed mana, Bunny should have been the perfect magnet for monsters. Yet thus far the only thing they had encountered were mutant animals. Impressive and deadly, but entirely devoid of magical powers.

Progress through the Twilight jungle was… horrid. Whatever mileage they had managed to cover, apparently it hadn’t been enough that monsters started to pop up. Bunny was meant to be his guide, but her “expertise” so far was having a mild sense of direction and some of the geography. Most of her aid was really in knowing what was edible, which was a literal Goddess-send since not many things were human-digestion friendly.

“Be that as it may, a delicate woman like myself should not be treated in this manner.”

Liam was pretty sure that the worst consequences Bunny would have had to experience would be getting a free trip through the creature’s digestive tract. But that was probably seen as worse than actually dying.

“I’ll provide an hour-long scritches session.”

“Make that two.” She capitulated instantly, proceeding to make a dismissive gesture with her ears. “Now let’s get you into the river.”

“The bug-ooze is toxic, isn’t it?” He sighed.

“This is the Twilight jungle, everything is toxic.”

He glanced at the almost-dead bug and the knife that was embedded in the back of its head. “Can I even eat this thing?”

“Not unless you’d like a slow and painful death.”

A grimace. “Can I at least get my knife back?”

“I’d wait until after the dip.”

Liam’s shoulders sagged. “God dammit.”

The trap had taken the better part of a day to set up, too.

It seemed that dinner would be jungle-rat.

Again.

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“Why are you even looking for a monster anyway?” Bunny sat on the crown of his head as he carefully scrubbed his body in the cold river. Liam didn’t quite like her being there when he was entirely naked, but the river wasn’t a safe place, and she was the lookout.

“To fix my body.” He splashed some water on his face. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not the athletic sort.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Sure, I just thought it was mostly that you grew up locked in a library or something.” Her foot tapped his head twice, and he stopped moving, waiting for her all-clear. “So, it’s not just something exercise will fix?”

“I was very sickly as a kid… wait, you have Goddess vision, can’t you just look me over?”

Bunny didn’t answer for a minute, until she tapped twice more. “The big bitch patched you up every time you overstrained yourself, which was most days. Her power hasn’t fully dissipated, so it’s not as clear.” With a huff, she shifted slightly. “So how does this fixing work?”

“The great and mighty Bunny, the aspect who’s been alive for over a million years, doesn’t know?” He teased, splashing a little water at the creature currently perched atop his head. “I guess it’d make sense, it’s a method used from a few Ages before your Origin was born. And it’s something that’ll get discovered and properly perfected in the near future.”

“After the aether meteor.”

“Yup.”

“Hm…” Bunny shifted slightly, then tensed. “You wouldn’t happen to be trying to do something crazy like forcefully engraving mana circuits into your body… right?” Her voice held an edge of concern. “If that’s your goal, you could just ask the bitch lady to be your full-time patron, become her ch-”

“No.”

“Look, you might still be angry at her, but-”

“It’s not that. As a principle, I’m not going to be stepping into any deity’s sanctum anytime soon. It’s something I won’t do.” He cut her off brusquely. “This whole monster business was my plan from before getting air-dropped by that elf asshole, and it’s-”

Bunny yanked at his hair.

“Ow!” He tried to swat her off, to no avail. The lagomorph was firmly rooted in place; he’d sooner scalp himself than forcefully remove her. “Stop it!” Seeing how she wasn’t giving up, he bent over and thrust his head into the water.

She stopped cold, tapping his head four times.

Liam bolted for the shore, arms and legs flailing against the water and the muddy riverbed as he surged out and straight towards the biggest tree within reach. Not a moment later, the river exploded, a glittering blue fish the size of a bus breaking out, its maw gaping at the spot Liam had occupied barely a few seconds ago.

“Oh-”

“Quiet!” Bunny hissed, tightening her hold on his hair.

A bright blue light surged from deep underneath the water, every hair on Liam’s body stood on its end as the air crackled and buzzed. Sparks danced along the surface of the river, the air thick with the scent of ozone. The fish appeared to realize something was terribly wrong, yet it froze in place, entirely unable to move.

Lightning struck.

The flash of light was accompanied by a sudden sense of weakness surging through Liam’s body. His legs failed, arms going limp, his whole body collapsed as, for a split second, he could’ve sworn he’d lost consciousness. Yet the boom of thunder struck right there and then, a deafening roar that left his ears ringing.

Atop his head, Bunny was frantically yanking at his hair, urging him further away from the river. He could only stumble and drag himself with limbs that tingled with the static noise of every nerve waking up from the electric blast.

Yet his eyes remained on the bubbling, crackling water, on the now dead monster fish, and on the creature that rose from the depths of the river to take a bite out of it.

The creature was akin to an alligator, with its snout being stubby, and its body covered in dark green scales tipped in crystal blue glass. It was the size of a minivan, smaller than the fish it had just fried, yet it tore into the dead animal with a ravenous appetite. The monster’s maw had several rows of teeth, each one sharper and smaller than the last, curved into wicked daggers meant to grab hold of prey and never let go.

“Crobo.” Liam hissed under his breath, ears ringing too loudly to hear his own voice.

It was a monster, a true and proper monster. This one had not been created by Gods but evolved on their own right within an environment that no longer existed. It had been a tree the size of a mountain, caught within a permanent barrage of magical lightning that took a handful of million years to die down.

The tree and its storm might be gone, but the crobo had survived.

The monster’s gaze met the human’s. Beady blue reptile eyes with nothing within save an inexhaustible hunger and predatory intent. It was a creature meant to murder and eat anything that got within its range, built like a tank and with electric magic that could turn one into a puddle of bubbling metal.

Liam’s ears drowned out the sound of his own heart, its beat had turned into a wild drum, every fiber of his being filled with a hot surge of adrenaline, breath short, eyes widening, and a toothy smile growing ever wider.

The crobo could’ve killed him, then and there, barely a squeeze of magic and the human would’ve been fried to a crisp.

Yet it didn’t hold so much as a shred of interest, it bit down into its meal and dragged it under the surface, the only proof of its passing the bloody bits and pieces of fish drifting down the river for weaker beasts to feast on.

He knew, then and there, he’d just found his target.

----------------------------------------

“No, absolutely not.” Bunny, being a bunny rabbit, shouldn’t have been able to convey the glare, yet her amber eyes had an angry fire within them, her voice carrying a treble of… threat.

It was weird, yet cute. Liam couldn’t help but reach out and pat the fluffball’s head.

“Stop scratching me!” She whined, instantly losing some of the fire, using her ear to whack his hand away. “I will not be bribed; this is insanity!”

“I’m very much aware it looks that way,” he admitted, returning to his work packing everything up. “Look, I’m not dumb enough to try putting my life at risk through a procedure I’m not an expert of. The worst thing that can happen is that I lose my arm for a while.”

“I’m talking about you even thinking you can hunt that crobo.”

Liam let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, that? Yeah, that’s… yeah.” His hands were shaking a little at the idea; it was a terrifying thought all around. He didn’t stand a chance against the thing, not under normal circumstances. “But I’m going to try.”

“WHY!?” Bunny demanded in exasperation, stomping her foot against the ground and deepening the glare. “There are weaker monsters out there; I’m sure we can find something more manageable. Maybe a grass-fly would be more up your speed.”

“A what now?”

“Grass-fly, roughly my size, shoots wood-thorns that grow roots into the flesh of the target.”

“They’re called gabs,” Liam shuddered. “And if I’m going to try and get some circuits, it’s not going to be from a parasite.”

She rolled her bunny eyes at him. “What I’m hearing is that if you’d stumbled onto a gab and gotten that shudder, you would be thinking of hunting one of them instead.”

“If I’d spotted a gab doing something awesome, I just might have chosen it,” he gave a wry smile. “But gabs swarm defenseless prey, and then lay eggs in them. Not saying bugs can’t be awesome, but fuck that.”

“Your admittance of the whimsical nature of your target selection is baffling,” Bunny proclaimed in a deadpan. “Particularly when you’d shown such incredible reluctance for hunting in general.”

“I'm not much of a guy that enjoys going around getting into fights I don't need to get into,” he freely admitted, not denying the allegations, yet his grin grew feral. “But what I do know is that if I have to pick a monster, then I pick lightning alligator.”