While everyone on the ship slept, Arachnophobia went out for her nightly stroll, she heard the scratching on the deck alerting her to the presence of the creature once more.
JohnWillStab technically never got tired, though he mastered the art of forcing himself to fall asleep, as such he was now "sleeping" with his back against the wall and his arms crossed.
The quiet creaking of the ship almost sounding melodic to everyone at this point, mixed with the sound of crashing waves.
After some stretching, Arachnophobia decided to head out onto the deck, much like John she was able to see in the dark.
"He's persistent..." she thought.
On her way she spotted Jordan sleeping, he was smoking an imaginary cigarette in his sleep.
"MmmMMmMmmm... where am I?" he talked in his sleep.
She ignored him.
Alex was blushing heavily in his sleep.
"Nah... nah... it's not that big..." he too kept mumbling in his sleep.
"Mmm... yes... a very sizable sword... it can talk too..."
She continued her stroll seeing a few more crew members before finally reaching the deck.
That's when she saw it, like every night before, the large beast never too far from John.
It was the size of a cow and the shape of a wolf, a long-beaked snout with black, leathery skin and patches of scales.
While it lacked eyes it had dozens of holes covering its face.
Jagged teeth that pointed in every direction and a black tongue what split in two towards the tip.
The monster sat illuminated by moonlight but didn't cast a shadow.
Earlier...
"You mean you had more people below the ship?" asked Olivionion with a look of shock.
"Yeah! You slaughtered them, you monster! Is life worth so little to you that you don't remember killing them!?" demanded the captain.
"No, I mean... I didn't kill the people in the ship, I went after people through the windows and on the deck, nowhere else!" he exclaimed.
"W-wait! Are you saying there's another killer on the ship?!" Alex asked looking at the crew, he eyed each one suspiciously.
"How'd the rest of the crew die, any weapon marks?" asked Olivionion.
"Let's go check..." said John heading towards the door and the stairs leading down.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Meanwhile...
"It's you again..." the beast said, its voice sounding like several bursts of sound, it was guttural, deep and sounded wet.
"..."
"My master wanted your master dead... a cat won't stop me..." said the beast as Arachnophobia started licking her paw, she didn't even look the beasts way, it was following them ever since the second day in the game.
"..."
The stare-down continued as the black-haired man with a ponytail appeared, he looked visible drunk, clutching a bottle of booze in one hand.
He walked onto the deck and looked at both Arachnophobia and the beast.
"Oh, shit, what is that?" asked the man looking at the monster.
"HE CAN SEE ME?!" demanded the monster.
"A chimaera?" thought the man.
The monster charged at the man before anyone could react, it buried its fangs in the man's shoulder and tore out a chunk of flesh the size of a watermelon.
"FUCK! I got too careless!" thought Arachnophobia as she looked over to the man.
A steady stream of blood was pouring from his wound, it dripped onto the deck as the man dropped his bottle.
"This is some marvellous work..." he remarked closely inspecting the chimaera's head, holding the head with both hands.
"There aren't even any stitches... just mana fusion-marks..." he said poking the monster.
"WHAT THE HELL!?" demanded the monster.
It let go of the man's shoulder and swiped at his gut causing his intestines to literally spew out all around the place.
"Hah!" laughed the creature.
"Nice clothes!" exclaimed the man as he leaned in to look at the monster more closely.
"A swamp-hound... a grimbeak... and some sort of magic beetle... I guess that's what you are made from..." guessed the man.
"You can see me human... Why!?" demanded the monster.
"Well... I mean... it's nothing too fancy, my eyes are perfectly healthy."
He gestured to his gut which was now in perfect health, even his clothes.
"I guess your magic-beetle parts use eye-spazzing magic, but my eyes are just always healthy," explained the man.
"What the hell?!" Arachnophobia took a step back.
"Anyway, don't mind me, I'm just here to take a piss," he assured them.
"I'm Malagmus by the way," he introduced himself before walking up to the railing and unzipping his trousers.
The two listened to the quiet trickle for a solid two seconds in awkward silence.
"No humanoids can see the beast... how can this guy see them!?" thought Arachnophobia.
After finishing, Malagmus spun around and sat down on the railing.
"Alright, you can continue,"
"I'm... getting really sick of this bastard!" cried the monster before charging at him.
As the monster drew closer Malagmus planted a single slap on it and it exploded into bits.
By "it" I mean Malagmus' arm.
"HIS ARM!" cried Arachnophobia.
Moments later it was back to normal.
"Hmm... yeah... it was worth a shot," sighed Malagmus.
"W... what the hell was that supposed to be?" asked the monster.
Malagmus tapped his right hand and showed the monster his stats.
Dexterity: -12
Perception: 0
Stamina: -211
Athletics: -112
Strength: -881
Weapon skill: -122
Magic: -2
Intelligence: 0
Luck: -10
Charisma: -15
"The admins banned me from the game for having some fun, any banned account gets a permanent debuff... let's just say I got a fair few debuffs over the years..." he shrugged.
"HA! SO YOU ARE JUST A WEAKLING!" roared the monster as it swiped at him, separating him in half.
"Yeah... except I also got another thing to carry over," sighed Malagmus.
He flipped his hand and showed his auxiliary class.
"Unkown#001" read the class.
The monster continued slashing at Malagmus as his wounds simply closed after every hit.
"You see, I discovered a potion of immortality!" he exclaimed.
"Granted, it's more like... the one-hundred potions and elixirs that together make an immortality potion for a human of my size... but still." he shrugged.
"Anyway, I filled a barrel with it and left my character AFK for a month, I left a bot to move the mouse around every few minutes so I wouldn't get disconnected."
"And now I'm here..." he gestured towards the massive hole in his face.
"Though the minus-stats are a pain..." he sighed flicking the monster on the head causing his entire right-half to fall apart with a massive explosion of blood.
"You see, I quite enjoyed not being alive... I don't appreciate being dragged here of all places..." he sighed.
At that moment, Arachnophobia went in for the hit, she swiped her claw at the beast only for it to move out of the way just in time.
The monster landed a single hit on her with his tail sending her overboard.
Malagmus watched the cat fly over the edge of the ship and into the water with a splash.
"Well, damn..." he said scratching his chin.
"My bets were on the cat," he sighed.
"Now then... what should I do with you?" asked the monster walking up to him.
Malagmus remained silent for a bit before yawning.
"...I'm going back to sleep..." he said making his way back over to the stairs leading down, he picked his bottle back up and drank from it.
"Like hell you will!" the monster slashed at Malagmus to no avail.
Malagmus continued his way down nonchalantly and laid down in his bed, the monster continuously beating on him until he woke up the next morning.