“Derek, we should talk.”

“If it’s about Happy, please, not right now. We can’t kill him and unless you’ve figured out a way, we're stuck on that spot.”

I really didn’t want to talk about Happy right now. I had practically fled away from him at his intense gaze. He was crazy. He only cared about his entertainment and would damn everyone else for it. Worse, he’d honed in on the literal only way I knew to devastate the planet. God damn it. No way was this a coincidence. Or maybe it was. I don’t know! I had worried that in the wrong hands the Gems could probably be used to put everyone, everyone, into hell but that had been a more of a panic-in-the-dark type of case. A thing you’re scared of but would never actually be real. Like skeletons coming out from under your bed.

Only to find out that my fear had been 100% on point. Happy wanted to ‘open’ the Gems. Best case scenario, that simply opened a portal to Hell. The ‘real’(?) Hell.

But would Happy be satisfied with just that?

God, he had to die.

“...we’ll talk about him later then. But that was not all I wanted to talk about. Your ability to feel the strength of others. I believe it is an Ability.”

I looked at her and nodded after a moment.

“I don’t really know what an Ability is.”

Her face cramped a little but she was used to my massive holes in knowledge at this point.

“An Ability is exactly as it says. Something people are able to do, often unique to them. Vanessa seemed to have one and Happy seems to as well. They could be likened to innate powers one just has naturally. They can be developed and trained but are incredibly rare.”

Alright, this world has superpowers. Sure. And I had one to tell how strong people were. Well, kinda. It wasn’t quite that simple because ‘strength’ wasn’t quite that simple but sure. Konohora looked at me, like she was expecting me to say something.

“Alright, sure. I call my Ability my ‘Power Gauge’ at least in my head. It lets me tell how strong someone is. I was told strong people had it and especially demons but… it seems a bit too detailed for that. And I’ve had it since I got here.”

“What’s it like?”

“Hmm. It’s like, waves of pressure. Force, almost. When I first felt things, it had been like a… inverted force. I didn’t understand till I realized I was feeling that people were weaker than me. So weak I almost couldn’t notice them. Then you guys showed up and…” I shivered. I still remembered that feeling, like imminent doom was approaching. I had chosen to reveal all my cards, show my belly, and essentially pray for mercy because everything in me was telling me ‘you try any tricks and you’re going to die’. It had… kinda worked but that just goes to show how much my feelings then had influenced me.

“It was like I was suddenly dipped into the deep sea. Predators lurking about, being crushed under the water, with the absolute innate assurity that each of you three could kill me individually. I felt that way for over a week while we traveled and it was… it definitely didn’t make the trip any easier.”

“Then I felt Vanessa’s presence. That had been… like being bathed in the sun. Blasted, more like. It felt like the force of a star was trying to annihilate me. It was just… so much strength. It destroyed my understanding of power completely. I felt like an insect before a God. I knew in my bones, at that very moment, that we were all going to die. It… it helped me? I had been… am… not mentally well. But feeling that… it was like every single moment I continued to survive in the face of it was a miracle like no other. It made me appreciate my life and the amazing existence it was, when something so powerful like that could snuff it out at any moment.”

“Then there’s happy…”

“How strong is he?” Konohora immediately asked.

I shook my head.

“Doesn’t work like that. It gives me ranges but… I only learned recently that it’s really really complicated to judge strength and power sometimes. Happy felt, feels… unfathomable. Complicated. Beyond my understanding. Like I’d need at least a decade of careful study and paying attention to him to even begin to parse him apart. Like trying to understand the base elements of reality itself when you’ve only just begun to learn math.”

“And then finally, is this freaking Jungle. The things that attacked the Giantess, the Giantess themself, more and more, it’s really been showing my Ability new things. My power has felt like it’s been calculating stuff it had never even considered before. Like I was almost practically able to see that invisible tornado that attacked me and its weak point.”

“Weak point?” Konohora asked.

“Oh. Yeah. All the ‘elementals’ or whatever they are have a single condensed point in them. If you break that, they die. I am speaking from personal experience on that last one.”

“So that’s how you did it.” Konohora nodded.

Odd, did we never talk about how I survived a tornado that was trying to kill me? Seemed like it should’ve been brought up by now.

“That’s a very powerful Ability.” Konohora said.

“Maybe. I can see it. But I’d take a few dozen other things to be honest. I can see the weak point thing becoming useful but it might be hard to find in the middle of a fight. And it’s not like it’s usually a mystery. Go for the eyes or heart or etc on most things.”

Konohora hummed and I laid down beside her, underneath the tent. We hadn’t really talked about staying in one tent, it just seemed the logical thing to do with all the threats outside. I sighed. This was a pretty shitty adventure.

“Happy…” Konohora started.

God damn it.

“What about him?”

“You seem to have a strong urgency towards him. To kill him.”

“Konohora, I feel like that’s not exactly a surprise. I mean, he brought us here and only a few hours ago summoned that snake on us.”

“It’s more than that.” She said and simply stared at me.

I sighed again.

“I don’t know if I can tell you. You’re kinda the poster child for ‘poor information security.’ Basically though… I think he’s going to cause a calamity. A potential apocalypse. Maybe worse.”

It wasn’t like I wanted to hide the fact that there were four more gems, that I and Happy had one, or that Happy wanted to ‘open them up’ to see what would happen. But telling someone important information that can’t keep it was stupid. What would a Kingdom or that Empire do if they knew about Happy? Hell, even if they just knew about the Gems? They must already know something since apparently all the Hero teams are searching for them.

Things were going to get really complicated, really fast. I still remembered what Selve had said when I suggested just burying the damn thing in the ground. That things like this don’t go away just like that. I was starting to see that. There was… some kind of momentum behind things.

Konohora immediately gaped at me as I got done speaking.

Stolen novel; please report.

“A potential… apocalypse? Worse, than an apocalypse?”

“Yeah. So he has to die. But we can do that tomorrow. For now, I just want to sleep.”

I laid to the side and it was honestly almost too easy to fall asleep. I was utterly exhausted by my whole life at this point. Today in particular.

Sleep took me.

****

A new day, a new journey, a new traveling companion.

And it wasn’t even Happy this time!

“I am… confused.” Konohora said.

“It’s probably Happy’s fault somehow.” I said.

Konohora frowned.

“Are we to assume all events are now a result of his Power?”

“All the strange ones at least. If the Giantesses find us or we’re attacked by like, giant spiders or something, I feel it’s safe to assume it’s not him.”

What we were talking about was a monkey. There were apparently still regular animals in this jungle. It formed a pretty neat ecosystem to watch really. I’d seen a few bugs bigger than my whole body, a bee the size of a minivan, some birds that looked like the size of one story buildings, and more. But before all of that, when I had woken up today, I had awoken to a strance presence on my shoulder.

A monkey. A small monkey that was resting on my shoulder. I had stared at, it had stared at me, and as I felt it wasn’t some sorta horrible abomination or Super Monkey with my power, I’d merely shrugged and moved on. Whatever. It was a jungle, it was Hot and Damp, and it had monkeys.

But even as I rose, it had stayed on my shoulder. Just sitting there, like some kinda parrot. It leaned on my head but was content to just kinda hang around. We’d begun our journey, namely just happening to chance upon a small creek and some fruit. Happy had a dues ex machina aura around him at all times. Great ally, horrible enemy. Which really was going to suck.

I’d given the monkey some fruit and it had run off, but came back every once in a while, climbing around me. It honestly brought a smile to my face. It was just… fun. Simple, pure, fun.

“It likes you!” Happy said.

I threw a piece of fruit at him. The monkey, I decided to call him Bob, copied me. Both pieces seemed to collide in mid air and miss him completely.

“We’ll get him next time Bob.”

Bob screeched in agreement. At least I assumed it was an agreement.

The next thing of note was that Happy had finally put on some god damn clothes. Seeing his naked grey ass all the time was putting way too much pressure on all of us. No one should be that god damn beautiful and handsome. Of course I doubted he’d made the things himself. A passing fucking wizard probably spawned them out of thin air for him, seeing as they seemed like a professional tailor had made them. Still made out of leaves, at least, I guess.

“How long until we reach the temple?” Konohora asked.

“Who knows!” Happy replied.

“Happy. It’s a big jungle. I really want to know whether it’ll be tomorrow or next year that we reach the stupid thing.” I said.

“Hmm. A week maybe?” Happy said and my heart froze.

“Happy. Please. I want to go home, you evil bastard.”

He looked at me and I felt myself nearly take a step back at his look.

“Home? I think that may be a little more difficult.” He chuckled.

I squinted at him.

“Happy you-”

Suddenly I stopped dead as I felt presences. A lot of presences. My Power Gauge could feel for quite a long ways away but the jungle was full of life. I had basically entirely tuned it out. I had to. There wasn’t only too much, it was all too potent. We passed a few mushrooms that could kill us if we ate them, and my power had gone ballistic. So it was a massive blur in the background.

A blur that had suddenly felt like sharks were tearing their way through it at a breakneck pace. They had been observing, close but not too close, blending in with the rest of everything. Escaping my notice by simply not being strong enough or plentiful enough.

Now they popped out of the trees, immediately throwing a net at us. Happy gasped in Joy while I snapped out my tail, cutting the net in half before it could entangle us.

All around us stood… people. Not giant monolithic titans of people, but normal people! Well… except for their choice of clothing.

“Cannibals!” Happy said, happily.

God I hoped he was wrong but they were wearing bones. A lot of bones. Bones clearly designed in the form of rough armor.

Human bones, judging by the looks of them. Great.

They were all wielding spears, pointing them at us. I flexed my claws. Honestly, they were decently powerful. Upper D-Rank, with a few even at early C-Rank. I judged quickly whether I and Konohora could beat them. We still weren’t at our 100%. It’d be a really tough fight and if reinforcements came, we’d have to run away.

The choice was, however, ripped away as the leader of the ambush team seemed to call out.

“You are coming with us.”

My jaw dropped. That was a language I actually understood! There was definitely a heavy accent in it that reminded me of the Giantesses strangely, but it was english. Or, well, Common? Whatever.

“Who are you people?” Konohora asked, fists raised. I frowned. Right, I had natural weapons, Konohora did not besides her fists. She was strong but she’d definitely get hurt a lot more without a weapon.

The leader slammed his spear into the ground, causing a loud noise, and then pointed it at us threateningly.

“You will come with us. Now.”

Well, damn. Alright then.

“Derek. What do you think?”

Ah. Right.

“...I’d prefer if we didn’t fight them. Going with them though…”

If their leader was like the leader of the tribe of Giantesses, we’d be in trouble. But on the other hand… it’d be nice to hopefully get at least basic directions and supplies. We had become far too reliant on Happy for finding this temple and Gem and we were not allies. He could get up and leave at any moment, go find the temple and Gem, and leave us stranded here.

“...We can always fight our way out if things go south.”

One of the weaker… cannibals? Stepped forward and stabbed at me slightly. Clearly just a threat and not an attack. My tail still cut the head off the spear.

Tensions raised and they looked much more willing to attack while the Cannibal scrambled backwards.

I looked at Konohora who nodded. Happy was still busy gushing over the fact that he was apparently getting to meet Cannibals in a jungle.

“We’ll go with you… but attack us and we’ll kill you all.”

The fact that I meant that unnerved me greatly. I didn’t know if that was the demon in me or just me. Then again, getting a bunch of spears pointed at my face was rapidly pissing me off.

Either way, the leader nodded and the Cannibals surrounded us, leading us forward.

“...is this Happy too?” Konohora asked, dismayed.

I looked around.

“Honestly… this is probably just me. I seem to have bad luck.”

This fantasy world fucking sucked.

We walked for a while, Bob relaxing on my shoulder. Alright Bob, you were pretty okay. I’ll keep ya safe good buddy.

“Derek. I had a question.” Konohora said.

“Hmm? What is it?”

“You mentioned ‘Giant Spiders’ earlier. What’s a spider?”

I blinked. What.

“What?”

“You mentioned it earlier, off hand. I have been curious of what that is.”

“Uh. You know. Eight legs, eight eyes, horrible, awful, creepy, scary bug like thing. A spider.”

Konohora looked at me with disgust on her face.

“I have never heard of any such insect.”

“It’s not really an insect, it’s more a- Wait. Are you telling me… there’s no spiders in Ero?”

Konohora shook her head.

“Not in The Heart at the very least.”

A spark of pure joy filtered through me. Alright, fine, maybe this fantasy world wasn’t all bad.

Even as the Cannibals led us forward, possibly to be eaten, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

Today was going to great day, I could already feel it.