The sun rose somewhere in the east, yet the dark shadow of the Cube still loomed heavy over Moorhaven. 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.

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. Half the houses and a few shops were completely destroyed, while the remaining were in need of fixing.

I was walking with Amelia, surveying the damage in the village. She’d stop and listen to what the villagers had to say. Many mulled around the rubble, pulling items out of the debris, and some were weeping.

“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.”

The villagers sounded defeated and were certain that they would all perish during the next Dark Night. They were sure that the Brutalorg would return to finish destroying the place.

“I think it’s going to come back as well,” I told Amelia.

Amelia had a grim look on her face. “You think so too?”

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. The troublesome images had left me puzzled. What could they mean? Were the bugs on the move or something?

I had probed around lightly to check if anyone else saw the giant eyeball over the lake. However, nobody saw anything of the sort during the night. Was I crazy, or it was yet another thing that [Keen Eye] was showing me that others couldn’t see? Like Gregor?

Some of the ones that lost their houses were planning to take their belongings and leave for Kittrell. I couldn’t blame them. Maybe we were the insane ones deciding to stay?

“I fear that we might need to evacuate,” Amelia said.

“But it’s still another thirty days until the next Dark Night, right?”

“Twenty six. Why? What are you thinking?”

It felt like the eldritch horror had lured the Brutalorg to attack the village. The encounter with it still haunted me. Then it hit me. The eyeball had to be some kind of a hive lord. It was controlling them, and if I were to kill it then maybe the bugs would stop attacking outside the Cube. Maybe there wouldn’t be another Dark Night again.

“I’m going to kill it,” I said.

“Kill what?”

“The eyeb- .. I mean, the Brutalorg.”

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

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

I couldn’t understand why it had stopped abruptly and veered away from the fort. It could have killed everyone. Was there some kind of a miscommunication or disconnect between the Brutalorg and the eyeball hive lord?

“I-I .. sure, but that thing is 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 eyeball too.

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

“Whatever it takes. For now, let’s not alarm everyone and get them fleeing just yet.”

My mission was a crazy one, but we needed to fight fire with fire. To kill a monster like that, we needed a bigger, stronger monster.

Me.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Still, a nagging question lingered in my mind. Why were the bugs attacking this village in the first place? There wasn’t all that much to eat out here. I had asked the villagers before, but everyone had a different, wild answer. Maybe something changed with the bugs recently? I turned and faced the massive Cube. It didn’t look like it had much for windows.

“The bugs stay in the Cube because it’s dark there during the day?”

Amelia nodded. “That’s what everyone thinks.”

Were the bugs planning to expand outside the Cube? To where? It would need to be somewhere dark. Somewhere underground?

“What’s under the village?” I asked Amelia.

“What do you mean?”

“Any caves? Mines? Tunnels? Anything of-”

“Just the catacombs under the chapel.”

“Ah-hah.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ll need to check if any burrowers got inside.”

Amelia shrugged. “We never had any issues there before.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

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.

Most importantly, I had also received a [t2] 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 slam down on a villager by accident and crush them to death.

* [t2] Leap [Movement]

* Distance: 6 yards (22 yards)

* Cost: 50 mana

* Cooldown: 3 seconds

* Affected by [Agility]

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 the attribute bonus of [Measured Savagery] by another twenty percent, raising it to 160.

At the remains of the inn, we stopped to see how the gold extraction was coming along. Darya and Ivy were busy making eyeball soup. They had pulled up a large cauldron, filled it to the brim with water and eyeballs, and set it boiling. Nearby, several men were popping out the golden eyes from the insect carapace under careful supervision of the village 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’d killed so many bugs that the corpses were piled up high in a large circle 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?

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, but 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, reminding me I hadn’t eaten anything. I just couldn’t eat anything at the abbey with how low their food stocks were. It didn’t help that I ate the same amount of food as five or more kids.

The situation was grim. Short on food, destroyed homes, damaged village walls, 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.

With twenty-six days until the next Dark Night, I needed to get a hell of a lot more powerful. I needed to run as many dungeons as I could, and not just when [Measured Savagery] was active. I needed custom armor made, and fortunately, Karl’s smithy wasn’t destroyed. I needed many more levels to get more attributes, passives and new skills. And if I was a nasty looking monster, I might as well put some effort in getting more evolution points anyway.

“It’s going to take a few hours to extract all the gold,” Darya said. “Later we’ll send someone to Kittrell to get supplies. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Good,” I said. “Get some rest, you and I will be very busy tonight.”

Instantly, more than a few heads turned and their eyebrows went up.

“Dungeons!” I quickly added. “Running dungeons, okay?”