A stream of compressed air lanced through the side of its huge head and blew out the other side in an explosion of brain and bone.

The tentacles dropped from the air and the body went limp.

+3390 xp for defeating Octopodal Chimera [Summon small monster] has inherited the xp in your place. 2340/3200 xp Level Up! Sapphire improves her abilities.

“Ha.. haha….hahahahah. Thank god.” Drew slumped back into the ground and stared up into the sky.

The ground trembled as the body smashed into the soft mud and blood slurry. The bird collapsed onto the body of its titanic opponent and became completely motionless.

“Sapphire, you beautiful beautiful creature! You killed it. We won.” He sat up and looked up for his plushy friend. She was nowhere to be seen. He walked over to the opposite side of the brain explosion and searched in the underbrush.

“Under here master. “ A meek voice called out to his side. He rushed over and moved the leaves out of the way.

A drained looking elephant sat on the ground in a disheveled state. Her trunk was shriveled up and the little parasite looking appendage was a pale pink instead of the vibrant red.

“Oh my god. Are you dying?” He lifted the fragile looking creature up and cradled her in his arms.

“I am just very drained. I had been charging that blast up since the moment you left me.”

A sloshing noise made him glance back at the pile of bodies. The slime from the dead creature was slowly covering the chimera’s body and left what appeared to be a large dinosaur creature that had been hidden underneath the goo.

“We should go, master. I believe the slime is transferring bodies to the newly deceased monster from its old host.” The elephant had not lost any of her analytical abilities in her sad state.

Drew watched the slime encase the tentacles and begin to pour into the beast's mouth. He stood up and made his way through the forest using the line of destruction.

The way back was plagued by undue paranoia. The faint noises in the distance were magnified into roars of unknown monsters and the breaking of twigs underfoot was a trap springing its deadly payload.

They broke through the treeline to the pond they called home and looked at the carnage that befell it in their absence. The bodies of many salamander creatures laid about the bank.

Birds picking at the corpses took off once they got close enough and circled in the air. Drew ignored the new guests and followed the trail up to their base of operations.

He cooked some meat and offered the plushy a bite to recuperate some energy. She greedily devoured it whole like some glutton at a buffet.

“I didn’t really think about it before, but you can eat meat even though you look like an elephant?” The pieces clicked in his head as he thought about their dietary situation.

Not only had he just fed her random meat, Nurgle and him had only been eating meat since they arrived. That had to have some horrible consequences beyond bad gas.

“I am carnivorous, master. The appearance is deceptive but my teeth are definitely made to shred flesh.” Sapphire opened wide and showed off her razor blade teeth to Drew.

That only left him needing a varied diet of some kind. He would need to get fruits somehow but he had been avoiding them like the plague in fear of being poisoned to death.

They sat together, enjoying the calm that overtook them now that danger had finally left them alone.

The day was nearing its end so they went to sleep and waited for morning to come again.

Drew slipped into a restless dream of horror. Gone was the meaningless imagination of someone who had yet to experience the fear of death. Violent nightmares chased him through his mind for what felt like days.

Zombies flooded the dungeon and cornered him before tearing him into innumerable pieces. Leaches the size of footballs drained him of life. Frogs swallowed him whole while running from other dangerous beasts.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

They finally ended with massive gorillas throwing rocks at him while he was strung up against a wall, laughing while slowly crushing him.

Birds chirping in the distance startled him awake as the sun barely crested the cliff. His heart pounded in his chest from the horrible dreams he experienced but failed to escape.

“This world is horrendous.” His musings awoke his small companion to his side.

She appeared rejuvenated compared to her shriveled state earlier.

“So how did you kill that chimera yesterday? Why couldn’t you do that to the parasite?” Drew interrogated the plushy who used her trunk to rub her eyes clear.

“Good morning to you as well master. I hope you slept well.”

“I didn’t, please answer my questions.” He deflated at the mention of his dreams

“Well I am able to charge my shots given the stability and time to do so. Rarely is there such a lapse in combat to allow for charging shots to such a degree as what happened yesterday.”

“Then why didn’t you use it to help Nurgle?” He continued to struggle with the thought of his death, trying to find ways to have prevented it.

“That was a lesson for all of us. None of us expected the events of that time so I was unprepared for the events that came to be. I assumed too much at the moment and was not ready to act out of turn at the time.” Sapphire rattled off her defense and stared up at her master.

He looked down at the plushy and nodded his head before turning away. He knew she was right. It didn’t make it hurt any less. It wasn’t her fault any more than it was Nurgle’s that he died.

It was his job to protect his new family. It was his inaction that left them in this state.

Drew stood up and brushed himself off from the restless night and the rough topic.

“Let’s try to find some fruit to eat. I have a craving and I really don't want scurvy.”

“I believe the turtles are herbivores. We can dissect them and observe their stomach contents to see what type of fruit is edible.” The ever helpful elephant offered a solution to his goal which just so happened to include earning experience and flesh at the same time.

They proceeded down the path to the turtles and located the remaining beasts. A half dozen of them dotted the banks. They appeared to have grown in number since their last fight.

They were out of Sapphire's range from so far away which forced them into closer proximity to secure a one hit kill.

They watched the watering hole as they descended down. The salamanders appeared to have been picked clean by the scavengers overnight leaving the turtles as the largest and scariest thing visible from afar.

A small blessing that he would gladly take in his time of need. The stilt turtles loitered around the shore unmoving. The foliage that grew on their shells swayed in the breeze, adding to the camouflage.

The pair advanced on them and got close to the shortest turtle in the group. It held its head up to the sun to take in the rays completely unaware or unconcerned of the predators below.

Sapphire sucked in air and aimed her parasitic trunk at the stationary reptile. With a few seconds of intake, she released her shot and blew its lower jaw clean off along with the front of its face.

It dropped like a bag of rocks.

+70 xp for defeating Shell Stilter [Summon small monster] has inherited the xp in your place. 2410/3200 xp

With no predator to swoop in and take their kill, they had all the time in the world to dissect the large beast. Its insides turned out to be a mess. Drew had to drag out all of its organs to find the stomach because of its sturdyshell.

His ax struggled to put a dent in the rock hard material leaving shell fisting as his only option.

The stomach was somewhat easy to find but determining what the contents were was another issue altogether.

A lot of it was just leaves and seeds. The only intact fruit was rubbery in texture and smelt of bile. It was definitely not his idea of a sweet treat. This left him with seeds and half a clue to show for his hard work.

He planted them along the cliff side and went jungle diving in hopes of finding this random fruit.

The pair walked for hours searching for any sign of the fruit when they finally spotted one at the top of some small trees. It turned out that finding a green fruit in a sea of green foliage was kind of hard.

“Shoot one down for me, Sapphire.” The thought of the fruit made his mouth water despite the stomach’s contents. To have something other than meat was a surprisingly deep desire for him.

The fruits splattered each time she tried knocking them down which only left Drew to climb the “small” tree.

He grabbed the smooth bark and started inching his way up with a shimmying motion. The tree bent and swayed with each foot he climbed. After sliding down multiple times, he succeeded in finally reaching the peak.

He reached for his green prize with drool at the sides of his mouth.

+95 xp for defeating Monkey Mob Member [Summon small monster] has inherited the xp in your place. 2505/3200 xp

He looked below him at his plushy friend and saw the inactive creature looking right back up at him. She hadn’t done a thing.

“......what?”