Being shaken awake by Sally, I get up, grab my sack and move towards the entrance way to keep watch. Looking back, I see Gray and Elizabeth sleeping. In the end I just let her do what she wanted. Alice flaps over onto my head from Sally’s. Sitting down on the rock near the entrance, I’m about to reach in my sack to grab the Tome of Basic Knowledge when I hear scraping coming from up the cave entrance. Quickly jumping up and kicking up my wind magic, I hear Sally draw her sword. Knowing she’d wake up Gray, I keep an eye on the door as the scraping and scratching noise gets louder and louder. A low, gurgling growl enters my ears as a foul, burning acid smell floats in so strong that it nearly overwhelms me. Jumping back as quietly as I can, I arrive next to the alert Sally and Gray. Watching the entrance way as the sound got closer, the growling never stopping, we finally saw it.
[Level 19 Mutated Chimeric Monstrosity]
Level 19…looking at this monster gave me the creeps, sending a chill down my spine. With teeth too big for its mouth sticking out from top and bottom, a ruptured eye that blankly stares at us as the working eye twitches around the place. Its face was twisted, where once was a nose is now a gaping hole, with twist marks around it like something just twisted this thing's nose off. Thick, void black arms seem to have sprouted from its back, six of them in total, two gripping the roof of the entrance and four latched on the walls either side of it. It had a humanoid body, the arms and legs of it were just dangling there, unused. The entire monstrosity was constantly twitching, the gurgling growl never stopping as a strange drool dropped from its mouth. I felt a weakness overcome me as this thing appeared in our sights, along with a fear deep within me.
[You have been afflicted by Deep Instinctual Fear. All Stat ranks reduced by 1, Stats have been adjusted. Death has arrived.]
The creature all of a sudden snaps its working eye at us and the growl grows louder. Opening its horrifying mouth, it screeches at us, a piercing screech that echoed through the cave. I can’t move, my body, muscles or even my eyes won’t listen to me. Feeling my muscles tremble, I watch as this monstrosity moves quickly, landing on four arms and charges right towards Gray first. In horror, I see it grab Gray with one arm and slam him into the ground, not even a sound from Gray. I can’t turn to look at him. The creature snaps its attention to me, and watching in slow motion I watch as one of its arms shoots out right towards my head.
“ALISHA!”
Unable to turn back to see who screamed my name, I felt a force move right past my side as a sword was swung and parried the black arm away. Not losing momentum, the figure swings again, this time aiming at the face of the monstrosity, swinging the sword diagonally upwards. Cutting through, a slash mark appears on its face and the creature roars in anger. Losing control of my legs, I collapse in a heap, not even landing on my knees. All I can do is watch, my body refuses to listen to me, I don’t know how Gray is, Sally is also silent. Watching as Elizabeth keeps attacking the monstrosity, I can’t help feeling grateful that we didn’t reject or kill her.
As she dodges another attack from the creature, she swings upwards again and cuts the attacking arm off. Roaring in anger, the creature uses two arms this time to grab at Elizabeth. Ducking quickly, she kicks off the ground slightly forward, dodging the arms and spins with her sword, slicing through two of the arms. She was only level 18, yet she was beating something that we couldn’t even lift a finger against. With half of its arms cut off, the monstrosity started backing away from Elizabeth. Seeing a chance, she moves in, swinging her sword with both hands and cleaves its body down the middle, a strong acid smelling liquid sprays out of the wound, Elizabeth crosses her arms and crouches, sword in front protecting her from most of the spray. With a gurgling sound, the monster collapses. Keeping her guard up, she stares at it, but it’s dead right? However, she doesn’t let her guard down and continues watching its corpse.
[Emergency! Mutated Chimeric Monstrosity is mutating!]
Working in horror, spikes shoot out all over its body, dripping with the same smelling acid, its remaining arms bulk in size, doubling in size, its skin goes a deep dark red. Soon, it’s getting back up, and just as it does so, it collapses into a heap again, no longer moving.
[Mutated Chimeric Monstrosity failed to mutate due to severe injuries.]
I’m too terrified to move. I need to check on Gray but I’m terrified. That body still terrifies me. Seeing Elizabeth run past me towards Gray, my eyes stay on the monster laying there. Was that what appeared at night? Could we even fight something like that, it weakened us before we could even do anything. Camp outside, set up a place out there? What a joke. Feeling my body clamp up, I grab my arms, shaking. This was reality, things like that were everywhere out there. I feel my heart beating faster, my breathing is loud, the smell is overwhelming. I grab my hair, forgetting that Alice was there.
“Alisha! Snap out of it!” Feeling a strike on my face, I move my head up and see Elizabeth looking at me, concern covering her face. I can smell burning flesh from her, and fear in her eyes. “Gray’s okay, Sally’s okay, everything is over, it’s dead. Everything is okay.” Speaking softly, Elizabeth informs me about the others. Unable to react to her words, I feel her pick me up and carry me to the room with the pond, away from the monster. Turning around, she leaves my vision, and likely the room, the smell from that monster still lingering strongly, even here.
[Elizabeth’s PoV]
What in the living fuck was that. That was the creepiest monster I've ever seen. That thing was not normal, no night monster is like that. It gave me no experience either, I’ve never seen or heard of that before. Checking my Status, I see there was no change either.
----------------------------------------
Elizabeth
Human
Level 18
Health: 900
Mana: 100 (Locked)
Experience: 5,500/28,000
Class: None
Class Level: Not Available
Experience: Ineligible
Skills: None
Magic: None
----------------------------------------
Stats:
Strength: D+ Agility: F
Intelligence: D- Toughness: F
----------------------------------------
Those children did not wake me when it came in, I was instead awakened by its roar. I was too late to help Gray, but thankfully I got it before it grabbed Alisha. Leaving Alisha in the room with the pond, I move back into the main room and see Gray with a broken arm and leg, still trembling but otherwise fine. Sally was in the best condition, she recovered as soon as the monster died. But Alisha…that look in her eye, she was still absolutely terrified. She wasn’t reacting and her raven, Alice, was in the same state. Looking at Sally, I say without expecting a response “Alisha isn’t responding, the same goes for Alice. Something is wrong with both of them.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
With some fear, Sally speaks “The smell. It’s overwhelming even for me, for her it’s a lot worse. Need to remove the body and smell.” Looking at Sally, I wonder why it's worse for Alisha. Was her sense of smell stronger than normal? In fact, why were they frozen in fear? Asking this of Sally, she explains that when the creature came in she had received a notification about being inflicted with a Deep Instinctual Fear, and it went away once I killed the blasted thing. Perhaps Alisha still had yet to be freed from that fear because of the smell.
Thinking this, I look over at the corpse and move quickly. Grabbing its head, the only thing free of spikes, I drag it outside. Hissing in pain because of the blood burning my palms and arms when I blocked it hitting me, I dragged the corpse outside. Stepping into the moonless night, I look around and see no monsters nearby.
Setting off towards the river, I stick to the shadows, seeing monsters roaming around most are above level 15. There are dozens of monsters, a lot of them fighting each other over food, or to eat each other for food. Not wanting to draw attention, I creep forward until I stop within throwing distance of the river and fling the corpse as far as I can, before carefully returning back to the cave, keeping a hand on my sword and distracting myself from the burning of my palm and arms. Arriving back in the cave, I step around the pool of acid blood and head to the storage room and grab the whisky I brought. Running back out, I poured as much of it over the blood as I could, and using a flint and steel, I lit the mixed liquids on fire, which burns fast with very little smoke. Stepping back, the fire quickly went out, the smell still lingered but not as bad. Running back into the storage room, I grab a second bottle and head back to the used to be blood pool. Pouring half the alcohol over it, I use my foot to spread it evenly. This would have to do. Looking at Sally, I ask if she’d be okay tending to Gray while I check on Alisha and seeing her nod I go back to the pond room.
Arriving, I can see Alisha no longer looks as terrified. Jumping on hearing me enter, she quickly looks away, still a bit scared. It resembled Sally’s fear, thankfully it seems she’d be okay for now. Sitting down next to her, I drink a gulp of whisky, and without a word pass the bottle to Alisha. Taking it, she does the same thing. We continue this until the bottle is empty, when Alisha speaks up.
“Are your wounds okay? The smell of burning is coming from you.”
Looking down at my arms, while there were blotches that were as small as a fingernail, some were as big as a peddle. My right palm however was in worse shape. The burning has stopped, but it was badly burnt. It’ll take a while, but it’ll be fine after a few hours if I needed to use it, it’d just be painful. Smiling at Alisha, I reply “It’s fine, just some minor burns, I’ve had worse. What matters is you’re all safe. Get some rest, I’ll keep watch for the rest of the night.”
Getting up, I move back to the storage room and grab a medical kit. Walking out with it in plain sight for Sally to see, I told her that I would keep watch. Nodding, she turns her attention to Gray, who has fallen asleep, or passed out due to the pain. Sitting near the entrance, I put up with the leftover smell while I treated my burns, holding back the screams of pain I desperately wanted to release, I treated the worst of the burns. As long as those children were okay this is nothing.
***
After a few hours, I hear footsteps approaching me. Looking up, I see Gray nervously moving towards me. Hybrids have amazing healing, even though it was still broken, it’d be healed within half a day. My burns would take another few days to fully recover, so even if I could use it now it’ll hurt like hell. Stumbling to me, Gray slowly sits next to me in silence and doesn’t say anything. This boy has always been nervous around others, a trait rarely seen with hybrids. After a few minutes of silence between us, Gray finally speaks up. “I-is Alisha okay?”
Looking at him I smile and nod, “She’ll be okay. Alisha was just a bit spooked out about everything. Are you okay? You should be resting, that was a heavy hit you took.” Keeping it light with my words, I reach over and ruffle Gray’s violet hair. He doesn’t move away or shrink away, he’s used to me doing this since he was first placed under me. Once again without speaking, we sat there in silence until about dawn. I knew these kids wanted to head up to the Temple of the Blood God today, but I’m not honestly not sure if they can handle the trip today. Gray’s leg would slow us down, Alisha hasn’t come out of the room and only Sally seems to have recovered, what a tough girl. Getting up, I pick up Gray without a word, and he accepts the help as I carry him to the back of the room. Putting him down next to Sally who was eating, I went to check in on Alisha.
Entering the pond room, I see Alisha sitting while holding her legs with her raven, Alice, sitting on her knees. Looking at me when I enter, I see she’s calmed down a lot, and nods to me. Scooping up Alice and placing the raven on her head, she walks over and stands in front of me.
“T-thank you for saving us, I’m s-sorry I couldn’t help.”
Reaching out, I pat Alisha on the shoulder, thinking of what to say in this situation, I just give her what she needs now, encouragement. “Just focus on getting stronger with Gray and Sally okay? You don’t need to trust me, I know that’s asking too much thanks to how human society treated you, I just want you to know I came here to help you guys, it’s truly what I want to do. Next time, wake me up when something unexpected like that happens.”
Looking at me, she purses her lips and looks down. Mumbling, she asks me “What was that monster, are all night monsters like that?” I see, she hasn’t experienced the outside at night.
“No, that thing was…abnormal, I don’t know what it was. It’s possible it wandered here from an unexplored region, there aren’t any records on a monster like that.” After I say this, Alisha snaps her head back up and looks at me. “Really, that thing isn’t normal at night?!” Nodding, she looks almost relieved. Ah, I misunderstood slightly, she was scared that things like that were normal at night.
“Monsters come out in droves, last night there were dozens of monsters at level 15 around the area, but nothing like this. You have nothing to fear, nothing like this should show up ever again.” Hopefully…“Did you still want to leave today? We have time, we don’t need to head out right away.”
Frowning, Alisha shakes her head and says “It’s best to leave now. Last night made me realise we’re trapped here if something like that comes again. I know it’s not normal, but if it happened once it could happen again, right?” Unable to fault her logic on this, I nod and let her continue. “I’m much better now, our things are already packed. How are Sally and Gray?”
“Gray’s arm and leg are still broken, with a bit more rest his natural healing will fix it, within the next day I’d say. Sally is fine, like nothing happened.”
“Can we carry Gray, will he be okay with that?”
“I’d say so, I’m not trained specifically on medical care and you guys are different from humans. It would slow us down a fair amount, we can reach a resting spot I know, but we’ll be tight on time..”
Tapping her cheek and thinking for a while, she finally says “We should ask the others and see what they say.” Nodding, I let her take the lead, I’ll give them advice or my thoughts, but I would not try to overrule them, even if I believed a course of action would be better. This was their path, not mine. I was simply along for the journey at this point.
[Alisha’s PoV]
Walking out, my eyes immediately snapped to where the corpse of that thing was laying. Seeing nothing there but a pool of liquid, I notice the smell is nearly gone from it. Guessing that the body was dragged out and something done to remove the smell, I look at Elizabeth again. If it’s only turning day now, she must’ve gone out at night to take that thing away from here. Feeling an appreciation deep down, I feel like I can trust her a bit. No, I should trust her a lot more, she risked herself to help us and saved me. After the smell left, the fear I felt disappeared, and so did the changes to my stats. I still feel some lingering fear towards that thing, but knowing that it was abnormal even to Elizabeth, I could be a bit more at ease.
Arriving in the main room, I see Gray for the first time since the attack. His arm and leg were heavily bandaged but otherwise he looked okay. Sally had the same stoic face as usual and was eating…so it seemed but she wasn’t eating much, I knew she was still afraid, like I was. Sitting down with them and hearing Elizabeth sit further away, I look once more at Gray. Elizabeth was right, it would be best to wait till Gray’s leg had healed, otherwise we’d have to carry him. I’ll leave the decision to him though.
“Should we stay until you’re healed Gray or do we leave now?” Looking at Gray, he nods with no hesitation.
“L-lets leave today, I-I might need to be carried f-for a bit, but we c-can’t stay here.” Saying so with a bit of fear, he gets up slowly. About to help him, Elizabeth speaks behind me.
“Leave carrying Gray to me, it’s the least I can do.” Turning to look at her, I nod. I think we should trust her a little bit more, and looking at Sally she also seems to be okay with the arrangement. As we move to grab our gear and the sacks we’ve packed, Elizabeth picks up Gray and carries him with one arm under his knees and one under his back. “It’ll be a bit rough, but as long as we’re quick we should make it near the swamp before nightfall. I know a place near there that will allow us to rest until daylight.”
Shaking off the suspicious thoughts in mind and deciding to trust Elizabeth to guide us, I smile at her while accepting the offer. With no further words, we head out with me trailing behind, using my wind magic to cover our tracks. And just like that, we start our journey towards our next destination, the Temple of the Blood God.