POV: Lo’jul

The shafeline lays on the ground, half dead, bloodied. It’s making screeches like a dying bird trying its best to hang onto life, but they are so weak that anyone except for us probably can’t hear it.

Jer pulls a spear from her pocket space (watery air eclipse—inventory) and drives it into its throat.

Jim tells her, “Sorry we came so late.”

She spits on the ground and responds, "There are still little monsters around."

I ask her, "What about survivors?"

"Check." She says as she looks around for something.

"You lost something?”

"Help me look for the kid. She’s a vlandos," she says before walking off.

Jim asks, “She is…? Oh… that makes sense. But what about the survivors and the little monsters?”

She dashes away before she can verbally answer him. Before I follow her, I turn back and tell him, “Look around, man!”

He shakes his head, annoyed, and takes out a mark-stone, a rectangular device, basically a portable touch interactive computer.

He takes a picture of the monster's corpse to send to the operator to confirm the mission's completion.

I forgot about that. It’s a good thing he remembered since I was appointed team captain for this mission. I barely functioned as the captain anyway.

Jer-kal-thuli-mal fairy is soaring high in the sky, scouting. I too send out my Goryu(the dog-gorilla-shark-like monster) to look for her, while also paying attention to any monsters.

Goryu makes a map of everything around it in a large range. I can smell everyone here, not a single monster is alive.

Wait…

There is a foreign smell. Not human, nothing I can recognize

*You’re familiar with it?*

The growl Goryu makes shows it isn’t sure. Damn…

I stop moving and make my monster get a better hang on that smell. It’s strong, but it’s like it only appeared for a second then disappeared.

But I can’t even determine where—

“Oh, she is safe. T-that’s good to see. I am glad she is safe.”

I turn to see Jer talking to Natasha who has a sleeping but very bloodied Vernisha in her hands.

She is unharmed and doesn’t even seem fazed, despite all the killings that were going on here.

Maybe she has experience with this kind of gore?

‘Move your fucking ass! These survivors ain’t going to help themselves!’ I get Jim’s loud ass system’s call.

‘Give me a break,' I reply.

I guess it's a waste of my time and thoughts to care about whatever strange thing that’s going on here. I have more important things to deal with, like giving Nub’ol an excuse for why the hell I couldn’t make it for the date.

Fucking hell. Things were supposed to be different.

Everything I had planned for tonight is all gone.

Whatever. Time to look for survivors.

**

POV: Lo’jul partner, Nub’ol

Men and women move up and down in the luxurious restaurant, guided by employees dressed in all white.

Of course, almost everyone here is a human, except for two elf employees. I respect their ability to adapt. They are hard workers. You can always see an elf at almost every job.

Anyway, I have spent most of my time requesting wine whenever the waiter showed up to ask if I was ready to order.

The green beverage that sits in my glass right now is hot garbage compared to the alcohol back at home. Even if I drank a barrel of this ‘Jumbie’, I wouldn’t feel tipsy.

These guys need to start ordering some Mal’quisha. Probably would kill lots of them, but the taste would feel like godhood to them. Or plain poison. I don’t know.

…

I tap on the edge of the glass. I think I have reached the limit of entertaining myself.

Ugh… Where the hell is that man?

I look at my watch, it’s thirty minutes to 14:00 in the day.

Sigh. On the day I took a work leave...

I guess he got caught up with work again, like always.

Sometimes work is slow for him. Those days are the best. Even if we don’t fuck like rabbits like when we were younger, it feels good to cook breakfast and lunch together. Go in the garden and get disappointed that the birds stole the fruits that were ripening and… just being around each other.

Not talking, not doing anything. Just sitting near each other, with my legs resting on his chest or lap of course.

But when work is busy, work is busy. He’ll be gone for days. When he is extra unlucky, weeks.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

It isn’t any better when you hear how many cheating scandals these adventurers get into.

You don't hear, ‘Hey, your man might cheat on you when he’s deployed.’

It’s: ‘Oh, what does he do for a living?’

‘He’s an adventurer.’

They would appear surprised and have a look of pity. Then they would say in the nicest way, ‘From a woman to another:’

- ‘He’s definitely going to cheat on you.’

- ‘Think about it, they are gone for days, weeks, sometimes months, with only four people. At least one of them is going to be a woman, and you know no one *really* is turning down a goddamn vlandos. So, it’s going to be some flirting. Some joking. Some bonding moments, then… oops, some fucking.’

- 'There are stats on it. They fuck a lot, all the time. Shit, even more than those in the military.’

It’s enough shit to drive you insane. To make you double-think everything. But sometimes, you just gotta say, ‘No, my man is different.’ Despite being insecure as FUCK on the inside. It feels worse I remember vlandos women are all insanely beautiful and oftentimes, fucking bitches…

If you are regular and your partner is a vlandos, it’s like a hot target is placed on their head, and the reason for the sexual attempts(and pictures of them on the bed, naked, with the guy/gyal(target) being asleep) is to break the relationship, not because they want the individual but because: ‘He’s messing with a regular person.’

Like, sorry, I believe in him. But even diamonds can crack under pressure.

I miss when I was in my teens---before I saw how common such behaviors were. Before I understood why people did it.

But damn, here I go overthinking again.

A waiter comes to my table. “Miss, I think an hour has passed…”

I sit up. “You are right. Sorry for wasting your time.”

“Hopefully you will again. Maybe buying an extra hour will be to your husband’s better interest.”

I adjust the gem-spotted white fur coat around my shoulders and tell her. “I will tell him that.”

I am pissed, annoyed and embarrassed. Everyone just saw me sitting there, waiting forever, like an elderly lady who lost her husband and visits their old favorite spot to reminisce.

But it’s whatever. it’s not like he is at fault. I know if he could, he would be there. I am sure he’s thinking of ways to make it up to me.

There are the thoughts of, ‘What if he is with another woman right now’, but I kick those thoughts away.

“As I make my way towards the exit, some people’s attention is drawn to my unique piece of jewelry - a nose chain. This is a gold chain that encircles the crown of my head, and at its center, it features the part of the chain that extends to my nose and holds an emerald.

Hm.

I take in a deep breath and ignore all the thoughts people have tried to put in my head, and my own insecurities that I try to keep buried as deep in my heart as possible.

I hope he’s alive and the mission is going smoothly.

**

POV: Lo’jul

Me and Jim found all the survivors. Just twenty of them. Five men, eight kids, and remaining women. Only one of them didn’t have a family. The kids explained that their fathers were often first to die because he would try to give them time to run, then the mother would die, then the older siblings.

It was a total shit show. These guys will need their minds wiped, all of them. I wonder how many would be against that.

What choice do they have anyway? Go to a therapist instead? With what money? The hospitals wouldn’t pay for it if mind erasing is still on the table, especially when the guild is paying for it.

There is a little boy who is no older than eight, his fingers can’t help but tremble. But they are not as bad as his father’s. He’s frightened by the sounds of everything.

I feel for him. Trauma isn’t anythin’ to play about with. I never experienced anything traumatic as a kid, or as a teen, so I guess I got lucky.

Maybe my parents divorce? Or how my mother’s mother always treated my father because he wasn’t wealthy?

I had a good enough upbringing for those things to be the most ‘traumatizing’ things I have experienced.

The first time I saw shit like this—the first time I fought a monster as an adventurer I concluded that there surely existed devils, evil gods, whatever you want to call it.

I just knew it. Because as cruel as nature is, it never could have birthed monsters. I said it before, and I will always say it, every time I see shit like this, I start to believe in that mother of monsters myth.

It had to be some truly nefarious person that thought, ‘I am going to create these evil fucks because I just hate people with a passion.’

I get it, it’s punishment for the sins humans have committed, but get off my fucking dick.

Every living being had to pay for what humans did? Isn’t that, I don’t know, fucking crazy?

These monsters can know when you are new to the job and will target you. Dismember you, eat you alive, just for the fuck of it.

Being an adventurer either gives you balls of steel or sends you to an early grave, or a shell of your former self.

Sometimes the fear can’t be wiped out. The body remembers it. Probably because of some monster skill, I don’t know.

I know when I met a monster for the first time, I immediately wanted to run. I knew no amount of money was worth that shit.

Anyway, I leave Jim to attend to the survivors. I did the best I could, but I am a punchio, it’s better for them to get ‘comfort’ from someone they can relate more to.

Once I reach Natasha, I see Vernisha. There are blood marks on the sides of her face. Her ears must have been bleeding.

I ask, “How’s she doing?”

“Alive,” she says without much expression or emotion.

She is definitely stressed. Nub’ol always acts the same way when she’s bothered.

“Sorry we couldn’t keep her safe,” I tell her.

“As long as she is alive, I am happy.” She turns towards Jer. “Thank you, again.”

“Yes, of course. I am grateful to Vernisha too. She saved my life.”

“She did, huh? That’s good to hear.”

I leave the two to continue talking. Then I remember they came with others.

“Where are your other friends?” I ask her.

She looks in the distance, where the dense grass and trees are. “One is alive.”

I go to it. The foreign smell was mainly there. Damn, I was planning on avoiding it, but whatever.

I walk between the massive trees and step over wild vines and random dead branches. Then… I come across… What the hell?

The trees in one direction are completely gone. The soil doesn’t have any leaves on them, or anything to make it seem aged. It’s like something blew it all out and replaced it.

I see a person unconscious, but alive. I approach him and wake him up.

He seems confused and tired. I want to ask, ‘What the hell happened here?’

But then I think, do I really want to deal with this shit? To get less time to spend with my wife? To get less time to just… do nothing. Fuck off or whatever.

I don’t want to deal with it, but leaving this unchecked could come back to bite the asses of others. I am already here, anyway.

I ask him what went on. He tried to form words, but he couldn’t. He gives up, seeming incapable of remembering anything, “I don’t know. Can’t remember anything. Julus!”

He forces himself and looks around, worried. “Julus!”

I am guessing that’s one of his dead friends. Maybe his son since he seems a bit up in age.

I gesture at the three corpses. Their stomachs are hanging out, and half of the body has been eaten.

When the man sees it, he is shocked. I don’t say anything to him.

He doesn’t break down and cry or anything. He just stares.

How strange, he just miraculously can’t remember what went on. And somehow this strange activity only happened here. Since he’s alive and three ain’t. Whatever it was must want to protect him, or he got saved by the unknown thing killing the monster for unknown reasons.

I try to gain any kind of clues, but there isn’t any.

Asking him questions is pointless. My monster can’t detect anything else related to the unknown smell or the strangeness here.

Maybe I really shouldn’t press further in this matter. This is… kinda risky. I will report it to the guild.

I return to the others. I brought the man with me of course.

Jer is still standing near the woman and the little girl, and Jim isn’t talking to the survivors. Honestly, they probably don’t want to talk at all.

The wind blows and the air whistles. The mission is done.

Usually, I would call Nub’ol and tell her I would be home in a certain amount of hours. But I forgot my personal pyramid communicator at home.

So for a while, I just stood there. Then Jer looks up at me.

‘Take the family to the capital,’ she tells me without moving her lips.