The sun rose somewhere in the east, yet the dark shadow of the cube still loomed heavy over Rosedale. The place looked like a drunk tornado had gone right through it, creating a meandering line of devastation from one end of the village and out through the other.

If things looked bad after the Swarm, now it was much worse. Half the houses and shops were completely destroyed, while the remaining were in need of fixing. People mulled around the remains, pulling items out of the debris, and some were weeping.

A lingering headache was throbbing behind my eyes. I didn’t know if it was because of the mind assault I had received yesterday at the hands of the eldritch horror, or the lack of sleep. I asked about it, but nobody saw anything resembling a giant eyeball floating over the lake. I didn’t know if I was crazy, or it was yet another thing that [Keen Eye] was showing that others couldn’t see, same as with Gregor.

I walked with Amelia surveying the damage in the village. Villagers’ reaction to me had changed. If I had a reputation before, after last night it had most definitely grown into something much more. Maybe it was my vanity talking, but I loved the stares, and the whispers too.

At the remains of the inn, Darya was busy making eyeball soup. That was their way of extracting the gold. They had pulled up a large cauldron, filled it to the brim with water and eyeballs, and set it boiling. Earlier, Ivy had taken her share of golden eyes and vanished back into the swamp, saying to visit her when we had time for a battleground.

“Things could have gone far worse,” I said. “Nobody died.”

“Great Mother be praised for that,” Amelia said. “In these parts so close to the Cube, a Brutalorg is a troubling reality, though more of a distant menace, and a faint possibility. One hadn’t gotten so close in decades, and this was the first time it was seen.”

I was almost certain that the eldritch horror had lured the Brutalorg to attack the village, but the bug had somehow managed to snap out of its vile control. The entire event haunted me.

“I’m going to kill it,” I said.

Amelia looked at me incredulously. “What? You can’t be serious.”

“This was way too close for comfort. If that thing had veered just a few meters to the left, everyone would be dead now.”

“I-I .. sure, but that thing is a-a .. you can’t kill it. It’s impossible.”

“Not today, and probably not tomorrow, but soon. We’ll rebuild the inn, and I’ll hang its stupid head over the mantel.” And the eldritch eyeball too.

Amelia chuckled. “The inn would need to be much larger to fit the size of that head.”

“Even better. Whatever it takes.”

After the Brutalorg had come and gone, Darya, Ivy and I had spent the rest of the night shooting bugs. The gruesome harvest of golden eyeballs was massive, many times more than this village had ever seen. It would have been an incredible night if not for the devastation in the village.

“Where will they live now?” I asked.

Amelia sighed. “It’ll be tough for a couple of months, but they’ll need to double up with other families until we build new homes.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

My backpack was bulging out with loot from last night. I had received an assortment of fifteen [t1] dungeon orbs and a thick coil of rope. Why the gods deemed it necessary to give me this rope was beyond me, but I wasn’t going to say no. Maybe it was all just random, just like the steel fork I got, or maybe they had a grand scheme in mind. However, I thought it was more likely that they were messing with me, or that it was all just a random outcome churned out by a mindless computer that controlled this video game-like world.

Most importantly, I had also received a [t1] Leap skill tome, which I immediately learned. I was eager to use it, but decided to get outside the village because I didn’t want to fall down on some villager by accident and crush them to death.

* [t1] Leap [Movement]

* Distance: 6 meters

* Cost: 50 mana

* Cooldown: 3 seconds

* Affected by [Agility]

As we walked, I opened the status screen and allocated the new attribute points equally among the five attributes. I figured it was a good way to reduce the effect of [Measured Savagery] while it was inactive. While it made sense to focus my attributes into just strength and agility alone, I didn’t want to ignore my defenses, perception and mana.

For skill points, I decided to hold off and test my Leap skill first before allocating them. For passive points, I placed four of them into increasing [Measured Savagery] by yet another twelve minutes. Every minute mattered, and could mean completing an extra dungeon.

Amelia went on to speak with a family scrounging through the rubble of their home. I walked off to see Darya at the remains of the wrecked inn. In the crumbled hearth, fire burned hot underneath the cauldron. Nearby, several men were popping out the golden eyes from the insect carapace under careful supervision of the chief.

A crowd had gathered to watch as the stew bubbled in the cauldron, sending up steam. As the eyeballs turned to mush, the heavy gold separated out and sunk to the bottom. More and more eyeballs were being added to the stewing concoction, while gelatinous goop was scooped out and set aside in a different pot. It looked disgusting, and the stench was unbearable, yet everyone standing around was in a great mood. Except for Frank, the innkeeper.

“Cheer up, Frank,’ I told him. “We’ll rebuild it, bigger and better than before.”

He sighed, yet a glimmer of hope shone in his eyes. “Ya promise?”

“Well of course. How else will I get my free food? Not in this rubble, that’s for sure.”

He chuckled at that. Darya sunk the ladle low into the cauldron, scraped the bottom and brought up what looked like glistening sand. Cheers went up at the sight of pure gold.

I had a dilemma on my hands. On a typical Dark Night, the village would be lucky to get a hundred dead bugs. I added some six-hundred alone, or close to that much in gold coins -- a fortune. A lot of that gold was mine. I had killed so many that dead bugs were piled up high in a large circle all around the fort.

So, do I insist on my entire share and be a selfish dick, or not? How did they split the gold anyway? Did they have a system in place to track who had contributed and by how much?

On the other hand, I had a lot to be thankful for, and especially to them. For one, if they hadn’t built that fort and knew how to survive the Dark Night, I’d be dead. And to be fair, they’d be dead too. Also, if it wasn’t for this village I would have likely died on that first cold night alone in the woods.

A chill wind gusted down the street, reminding me that it hasn’t gotten any warmer. However, now I had my wool poncho tucked in underneath the breastplate. Dressed this way, I probably looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. It kept me warm, and the armor protected me.

My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten anything since waking up. I just couldn’t eat anything at the abbey with how low their food stocks were. It didn’t help that I ate as much as five or more kids.

The situation was grim. Short on food, destroyed homes, damaged palisade, and monsters all around. I knew nothing about building a house, and especially in the way they built them. So, I couldn’t really help them with that, but something needed to be done, and I knew exactly what.

“We need to go to Kittrell,” I told Darya.

“As soon as the gold is ready,” she replied.