Faolandan took Sitting Bull and dragged him on himself. They jumped over hummocks, ran over rocks, overcame stumps. When they got there, some sat down in the bushes, others hid behind the Hessataule. They saw a monster under three meters high in front of them. The body of a tiger, wide orange wings, and an eagle face. It fought with the orcs, tore off their heads, flew to the back rows, reflecting magic spells. Ona saw a few cubs in the nest a little further away, very small and defenseless.

"We need to help it," said Faolandan, gently placing Sitting Bull on the ground and running forward without waiting for an answer.

Ona and Latludious followed him, and Ronnie walked up to the Indian, sat down next to him, looked into his purple eyes, and asked:

"Should I give you a gun?"

Sitting Bull stared at him for a minute. Both heard the first muffled shots of Degtyaryov's light machine gun, cutting wind spells and bullet ricochets.

"No."

"Then hold on to me."

Ronnie held out his palm, Sitting Bull grabbed with a clap. The sniper jerked him up, put his right hand on his neck, and dragged the tracker of the group forward. When they reached the place of slaughter, none of the orcs were left alive. The forest creature jumped to its children and covered them with wings and watched the people’s actions.

"Don't move!" Latludious shouted and spread his arms to the sides with his palms up. His eyes darted around, he counted about fifteen curse traps nearby in the first ten seconds. The others saw them too, as did the short totem behind the monster. His appearance was different from the previous one. The heart was missing in its central part, in its place a living eye moved with a vile smacking sound - a red white with black ovals around the entire diameter and a blue pupil in the form of a Slavic sun sign.

"How beautiful are they," Faolandan said and was touched by the sight of the little monster cubs. "I'd take a couple for myself."

"Another totem ..." said Ona, horrified by its disgusting appearance. "How many of them are there in the forest?"

"You're asking questions that no one has the answers to," the magician said.

"Look, it's injured," Faolandan said, pointing at the flying creature, "we need to help it."

One grabbed the restoring syringe, and the monster, wounded and cut, turned its eagle head and stared at Sitting Bull and growled.

"We have to go," Latludious continued. "Leave it alone."

Everyone agreed and, without unnecessary movements, slowly walked on. Ronnie was motionless.

"AI."

"At your service."

"Do you have any information about this monster?"

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Please wait, I’m conducting a search… The search is completed. This species is absent from the bestiary."

"I knew it."

Ronnie took the Barrett off his shoulder, flicked the safety off the rifle with a slight movement of his thumb, and pulled the bolt. Latludious froze when he heard the rumble of the return spring. He turned around at the sound, his eyes shone, a spell of the element "wind" began to form in his hands. However, the magician did not have time. He saw how a 12.7 x 99 mm bullet pierced the flesh of a magical creature and went through and took two more lives of small cubs.

As soon as Ronnie saw his experience streak increase by 3%, he felt a burning pain in his left side, and then flew off a couple of meters and fell, hitting his head on a bump. Ona saw the bloody body of a forest dweller, his blood bubbling and spreading on the ground. The little cubs screamed in a plaintive and heart-rending squeak. She took out a flamethrower and pointed it at the sniper and said:

"You're gonna burn, fucking bastard. But don't think that your death will be quick."

Faolandan was taken aback and fell to his knees, like a warrior mourning his fellow soldiers on the battlefield. Barahu growled at the magician, and then ran up to Ronnie and stood up for him. Sitting Bull lowered his head and said:

“When we show our respect for other living things, they respond with respect for us.”

"Why the fuck did you do it, you soulless bastard?" Ona shouted.

Ronnie stood up like a dead man from the grave and said, looking at her from under his brows:

"The forces from above ordered me to do it."

Ona almost pulled the trigger of her flamethrower, but Latludious pulled the weapon out of her hands with the help of magic in time. She turned to look at him, her face filled with anger and grief.

"What if it was the only representative of its species in the game?" Faolandan said in a plaintive voice and got to his feet.

"There are still a couple of cubs left. You just wanted to take them for yourself. Now no one stops you."

"Your heart is filled with darkness."

Ronnie picked up the rifle, put the safety back on, slung it over his shoulder, and said:

"It's a game. Don't get attached to digital models. You want to be the first, reach the top, ready to betray the guild alliance, real people. You're not doing any better than me."

"You killed a creature that didn't do anything to you!" Ona screamed, and tears flowed from her eyes. "Killed it. Defenseless! You son of a bitch!"

"Unlike you, I don't pretend to be kind."

"What?" she whined in response and her lips trembled. "What are you talking about?"

"Tell me, Ona, what is the difference between this monster and the dragon that you showered with machine-gun fire? Maybe it has cubs too. Or it itself was still young and green. You tell everyone that you are protecting species that are not being revived, but if your life is in danger, you open fire without a twinge of conscience, without the slightest hesitation. You're a hypocrite. And you're angry because you see your true reflection in me."

Ronnie went up to the dead monster and took a scanner out of his backpack and stuck it into the flesh, and did the same with the killed cub. He threw the second dead chick at Barahu's feet, and he swallowed the carcass in two gulps without promptly.

Faolandan came up to Ronnie at arm's length and despite him squatted down and began stroking the little cubs on the head, saying: "What will happen to you now?"

Sitting Bull leaned back against a tree and slid to the ground, he breathed as if he had run a ten-kilometer marathon. The fingers barely obeyed the orders of the brain. His legs were weak. He could feel his internal organs failing. The sensations were too painful, too real.

Ronnie looked at the symbols on the trees, did not approach, but noticed that there seemed to be fewer letters. It's all too strange, he thought. The sniper approached the Indian, squatted down opposite him, and said:

"You're probably going to die. I advise you to start killing the same way I do. Maybe you'll get lucky, and you'll have time to get to the twenty-fifth level before you turn into a ghost."

“Our first teacher is our own heart.”

"Yeah. You're right."

After a few minutes, Latludious urged everyone to move on. Nevertheless, as soon as they got together, the magician noticed how the red symbols on the trees disappeared.

"What the hell is going on here?" he asked a rhetorical question and looked around.