“Are you kidding?!” Kevin—forties, police officer, wife sick in hotel, normally jovial but on edge this morning—shouted.

Wyatt frowned. Did I say something weird?

He didn’t think so. All he’d suggested was that they cut open the ahuitzotl to see if it had loot.

“Think of it like a game. It might have loot.”

“You already shoved your hand up its ass!”

“Well I wasn’t looking for loot.”

Kevin threw up his hands.

Akira approached, holding out a knife. Camila had cleaned and bandaged his arms with supplies from a first aid kit she’d brought along. “You can use this.”

Wyatt nodded and took it, not bothering to ask why he hadn’t shared it before.

Akira’s blood had looked a little strange to Wyatt, almost metallic against his faded tattoos, but Camila hadn’t seemed to notice so he didn’t comment on this either.

It did make him wonder about his own blood. If he could smell monsters, who’s to say there hadn’t been other changes as well.

But he wasn’t quite to the point where he’d willingly cut himself open to find out, and the scrapes the ahuitzotl had inflicted hadn’t drawn any blood.

He also wanted to know what Emma’s skill had done to the monster.

But first, loot.

He knelt down next to the ahuitzotl’s corpse. I should have waited to clean off. Jasmine doesn’t have unlimited wet wipes, and now I’m just going to get dirty again.

Not that he was all that clean. There was only so much wet wipes could manage. His shirt and boxers were still filthy with the monster’s fluids.

Wyatt wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt the strong compulsion to loot the monster. It was like when he’d smelled it before seeing it. Except this time there wasn’t any text, just a feeling of something being inside the monster.

He wasn’t sure if it was a real feeling, or just some remnant from video games.

Either way it couldn’t hurt to check.

As Kevin said, he had already had his hand inside it. If it was poisonous, he was already poisoned.

They hadn’t gotten experience or anything like it for killing it, which just felt… wrong. Again, he didn’t know if it was a real sense or illusory, but he aimed to find out.

The corpse was on its side already, so Wyatt lifted one of its legs.

“Someone else grab the other one.”

No one moved.

He looked up. “I need a hand free to use the knife. Someone needs to help.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“It’s an ahuitzotl,” tour-guide Camila said

“I know.”

“From myth.”

“Yeah. Aztec myth. Also called a water dog. It was on our first test. Not something I’ll soon forget.” Though he had forgotten or never been told the part about it having a hand on its tail. He gestured at Dave, his professor. “He’s a taskmaster.”

Dave smiled. “What’s the point of learning something if you’re only going to forget it? Make them remember it the first time, that’s my motto.”

Wyatt liked Dave. In addition to having the name Dave David, which Wyatt particularly liked for reasons he couldn’t articulate, Dave was laidback, and an entertaining lecturer. He made the class interesting. Which was saying something for a GE requirement. He wasn’t actually a taskmaster. Wyatt didn’t have to study at all for the class. But people liked it when you mock-insulted them for some reason. It had taken Wyatt years to get the tone right, but now that he had, he tried to use it at every opportunity.

“I don’t care!” Camila spat. “Qué coño! We have fucking monsters from myth and you’re acting like it’s no big deal, like we’re in a fucking video game!” She threw up her hands. “You want to fucking loot it!”

She’s swearing a lot. She must be upset.

Wyatt made his voice softer, taking the same tone she’d taken when they first appeared and she was trying to organize everyone. “Look, I know it’s a lot. But we need every advantage.” He gestured with the knife at the corpse. “This just might be that advantage.”

Camila’s shoulders slumped and she rubbed her face, shaking her head.

But she didn’t say anything, which meant she was basically agreeing with him.

Oh, it worked. That’s good to know. It’s not just women and old men it works for.

“Do we really need to cut it open?” Jasmine asked.

“Yes. It might have weapons or magic or other loot. Unless you figured out some other way to check.” He’d tried everything he could think of with his message interface, but nothing had yielded any results.

She sighed. “Did you feel anything inside when you…” She trailed off, unable to bring herself to say it.

Since when did she get squeamish about butt stuff? She was making endless jokes about it last night. Was it only because she was intoxicated?

Wyatt shrugged. “Maybe. Now take that leg and lift it up.”

With a grimace, she did.

Wyatt nodded at her, gave her a half-smile, which she hesitantly returned. It was forced, but at least she was helping.

“No genitals,” he noted absently, then stabbed the knife into its stomach.

🞠

Wyatt was no butcher, and by the time he was finished eviscerating the monster, he was utterly soaked in blood and gore. Weirdly there wasn’t any smell.

He looked insane with his wild smile, but everyone was too distracted by the item he held aloft to take notice.

⦗Augment Orb, Level 1⦘

It was a reflective orb about the size of a golfball that swirled with red and blue. It had been connected to the ahuitzotl’s spine, but had come free almost eagerly.

It felt… delicious. His stomach growled just looking at it.

This isn’t a normal response. Maybe my appetite was altered along with my sense of smell?

“What does it do?” David asked.

“Can’t you feel it?” Wyatt replied.

“You have to eat it?” Tyler suggested hesitantly.

Several people grimaced, but only Kevin spoke. “We are not eating that thing.”

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah, that probably wouldn’t work.” He popped it into his mouth and swallowed.

It went down easy, and a jolt of something shivered up his spine.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Kevin shouted at him. “You can’t just take power for yourself!”

“You said yourself we couldn’t split it.”

Kevin glared at him, jaw working.

Wyatt realized he’d misinterpreted the man.

He still struggled with that. He’d assumed Kevin had meant they weren’t going to split it up. Which was obvious, since breaking it to divide up might simply destroy it. But people often stated the obvious.

Now Wyatt realized he’d actually just been saying something without thinking. Which people also did a lot.

Oh well.

I wonder if he has one of these orbs inside him.

“Bro,” Tyler said. “Uncool. We didn’t even roshambo for it.”

“What did it get you?” Brandon asked eagerly.

Wyatt frowned. The ahuitzotl’s Energy? I feel stronger in a way. It was attached to the spine, and I felt it in my spine. Is that where Energy is stored? Does that mean that it’s related to Nervous System or Hard Tissue? Would increasing those improve my ability with using it?

He caught himself and made himself speak his thoughts. “I feel it. It did something, but I don’t know what. I’m going to look at my stats.”