[Stamina: 12/500]

I am so tired of having to cure both Cake and Kiwi of any leftover radiation that massive tsunami spread across the wasteland.

I haven’t heard any more honks either since that first one I heard in the distance from what I presume to be Gothalyn due to GagOs’s comment.

I am unsure if I should try to go away from the sound or toward it due to my weird relationship with Gothalyn. One moment she will be helping me and the next she will be trying to put me in a cage. I don’t know whether to be scared of her or leap into her arms.

Gothalyn could be a massive boon in this new world, though. If I am going to try and live amongst humans. I will need someone to help me adjust to this world and who better than a natural inhabitant, like Gothalyn. Gothalyn also seems to like me even if she expresses it in a very strange way. GagOs also told me that Gothalyn’s opinion of me is being slightly adjusted to be more “positive”, due to her fondness toward my species and my little escapade into her brain. I’m just gonna go out on a limb and say that Gothalyn is just an extreme weird-o for thinking tentacle monsters such as myself as cute, but to each their own, I guess.

GagOs could have lied about that comment, but I doubt it because of my experiences with Gothalyn in that underground cave, she would consistently try to pet me and even acted a little clingy toward me and I can’t imagine any non-crazy person being clingy toward a tentacle monster.

Hmm...I guess if I had to have someone help me with my new life...it would be Gothalyn. Gothalyn also doesn’t seem the sciency type to start dissecting any weird monster’s she finds out in the wild. Also when we were doing rock communication back then, I was able to make something out about her being unemployed or betrayed or something along those lines.

So, at least that means I don't have to worry about being sent to the dissection table.

I’ll trust a crazy goth girl before I ever roll into a doctor’s office.

What is the doctor gonna do...cure me?!

Ah Yes, I do believe that you have a mild case of tentacle monster-ification but have no fear I can fix you right up. Now if you’ll just follow me back here to a more suitable location.

Nope! I’m not gonna fall for that trick. You need to convince me with more than just empty promises...like for example a slightly insane and slightly brain blasted Goth Girl that has magic rock abilities.

Now that is someone I can trust with my full being...okay maybe not my full being. Since, I don’t even have full control over my soul anymore I quite literally can’t trust anyone with my full being but that’s besides the point. What I’m trying to say is that I can at least trust Gothalyn enough to not kill or torture me and that is more than I could say about any of the humans I’ve known on Earth. If any of them saw me they would probably bring out the nukes.

Does this world have nukes? I’m not sure but with a slightly mind tweaked Gothalyn by my side I’m sure I’ll have no problems figuring out the answers.

Now which direction did that horn come from?

‘Cake, Do you remember where that horn came from?‘

‘Meister, I’m sorry but I don’t know what a horn is?’

Ahh, well, I guess that makes sense for a monster trapped in a cave.

‘It sounds like BREEEEE!’ I try to mentally mimic the truck horn.

‘Ah! It is that way Meister,’ Cake looks toward her right before saying, ‘...but for own safety I think that you should avoid going near the monster that made that noise.’

MONSTER?! Is it an actual monster or is Cake just confused about what a truck is?

‘Can you describe what the monster looks like?’ I mentally ask Cake.

‘It has no legs but instead moves on black circles and it has shiny skin that looks to be even harder than my shell and it kills other monsters by stampeding over them and has that one human creature locked inside of its see-through head. It really is a disturbing monster.’

‘Cake...that’s not a monster that’s called a truck.’

‘I apologize for my mistake. I will from now on call that creature a “truck”.’

‘Cake, it’s not a creature either. It’s just a truck.’

‘I apologize. I will from now on call that thing a truck.’

Whatever, as long as Cake knows that trucks aren’t alive. That should be good enough.

‘Just go toward it, I promise it won’t hurt us.’

*snip*

Cake gives an agreeing snip and starts to move toward our right. My vision isn’t able to pick up the truck, but I trust Cake to follow my directions. Cake also said that Gothalyn was rolling over some monsters using that truck but I have faith in Gothalyn’s ability as a monster exterminator so I doubt it will be an issue.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

‘Zzz-Itchy-Zzz’ Kiwi says half asleep from inside of Cake’s shell.

Ugh, just when I was starting to recover my stamina.

[Stamina: 28/500]

===

Brooklyn arrived back at the volcano using the truck she stole from that dead truck driver, who tried to call the heroes on her.

However, she arrived at a particularly poor time and was able to witness the sheer power behind a gaseous volcano. She was about 20 miles from the volcano, and she still had to turn around and drive in the other direction to avoid the gas.

She did reach far enough away from the gas and it didn’t end up harming her but she is still quite mad at the volcano’s inopportune moment of eruption since that means she will have to spend more time without Puffball. That humanoid-crab thing called Cake, as well as that mantis the creature got; both possibly died in that explosion but atleast Puffball should still be alive due to that creature’s immunity to the gas. That doesn’t make her any less angry though, since it means she won’t be able to drive the truck through all that gas for possibly a month to find Puffball.

“Damn it,” Brooklyn smashed her fist into the wheel in anger, hitting the horn.

*HONK!*

The loud horn echoed far off into the distance, which caused some monsters that were fleeing from the gas to start to move toward the noise. Brooklyn decided to let off some steam on those pesky monsters. Most of them were annoying fodder and could do nothing but chase the truck around trying to catch up to it while they were slowly being crushed underneath the tires and slammed against the bloody rusted out grille. There were also some speedy monsters that were a little bit of a challenge to hit but it’s not like they could do a whole lot against a 10 ton truck.

While Brooklyn was steam rolling monsters, she noticed someone...or something that she never thought to see all the way out here.

“Cake?” Brooklyn says aloud, while using a toad as a speed bump.

Brooklyn realized that if that creature named Cake is here then Puffball must be here, as well. Brooklyn’s mouth curved up into a vicious smile at the thought and she gripped the wheel harder and turned toward Cake bringing all the monster’s along with her.

===

“The truck is coming toward us,’ Cake says.

Oh! It looks like Gothalyn spotted us. That’s good that means we don’t have to keep going toward her or mostly Cake since she has been doing all the walking...wait a minute haven’t I been using Cake as a pack mule this entire time?

Well, she did get that one ability to store stuff inside of her shell so it makes sense that she would carry Kiwi, and I have also been having to get rid of any radiation off them so I need to be as close as possible, she probably also likes me touching her shell so I guess it’s...fine? Yeah, nevermind the fact that she only likes me due to that parasite...wait a minute is Cake really a crab or is it a parasite, like when I’m speaking to Cake mentally am I talking to a crab girl that’s being mind controlled or to the parasite in a crab girl's body that absorbed some of its tastes.

‘Hey, Cake is…’ I stop before I ask the question.

‘Yes, Meister?’ Cake says prepared to answer any question.

‘Nevermind, I just had a thought, it’s not that important anyway, so don’t worry about it,’ I say to Cake.

“Whatever you want, Meister,’ Cake mentally replies.

It doesn’t matter if Cake is a parasite that was born from me or an actual crab girl. Cake is Cake, and I’ll leave it at that and throw that thought down into the mental blender.

Ah! Would you look at that; I can finally see Gothalyn’s truck and boy is it one trashy truck, it does not look like the type of vehicle a somewhat young goth girl would be driving to deliver a tentacle monster back to civilization but I won’t judge we all have weird tastes in cars. My personal favorite types of car are the small ones; people always want the fastest car but never the smallest. Do you know how many times I have dodged a car accident simply due to the fact that my car was the size of a dumpster, it’s more than once alright!

As I’m debating the best type of car in my head. I spot a small rat monster chasing after Gothalyn’s truck.

Haha! Those are the monster’s Gothalyn was wasting her time trying to kill, honestly why even bother trying to kill something that weak.

I watch as that small rat gets picked up and chewed apart in the jaws of a blind wolf.

Ah, now that’s more my style! Come get it wolves I’ll show you the power sight has over smell.

I watch as that wolf gets its head torn clean off in one quick swipe of a large razor sharp claw.

I have never seen that creature before, and it just decimated a wolf in one hit! If I had any doubts left in my head about leaving with a crazed Gothalyn, they were gone after seeing the alternative of staying here, which is definitely death!

I watch as Gothalyn takes three grenades out of her jacket and unpins them before throwing them toward the monsters following her truck.

Those grenades pummel into the bodies of the monsters but also have a secondary effect of kicking up all the gas that settled onto the ground causing some of the weaker monsters to start to itch themselves while the stronger ones decide to stop following the truck and instead try to eat the weak ones.

Gothalyn stops the truck in front of us and gets out with that same deranged smirk she sometimes has but overall looks much nicer than when I last saw her.

“Come. With. Me. Please?” Gothalyn says asking a little bit nicer than last time.

“Just open up the back, and we’ll get in,” Cake says for me.

“...” I can tell Gothalyn didn’t expect it to be that easy to convince me after attempting to trap me in a cage.

“Puffball. Sit. Front?” Gothalyn asks me if I want to sit in front with her.

Is she really okay with that? Either she is trying to gain my trust by showing me that we aren’t going to be taken to be killed, or she is just weird and she wants to pet me or something.

I’m going with option number two, but I would still feel safer if I was in the front instead of in the back even if she does try to pet me.

“Okay,” I say through Cake.

Gothalyn looks absolutely ecstatic at that word and quickly opens up the back for Cake and Kiwi to enter.

I’m able to peer into the back with my vision to make sure that it’s safe for Kiwi and Cake to enter and there isn’t anything back there except one empty box with a little bit of glowing rock in the bottom. There is even a small window that connects the front to the back, so I’ll be able to watch Cake and Kiwi from the front.

I pull the handle on the truck and open up the door and crawl in and Gothalyn does the same on the driver’s side and Gothalyn quickly hits the accelerant and sets off to human civilization.

The journey quickly gets quite boring, and I open up the window to the back to ask some questions to Gothalyn through Cake.

“Can I ask you a question?” Cake asks for me.

“Pet?” Gothalyn says it as if she will only answer if she pets me.

Yeah, sure this question is definitely worth losing some of my dignity over.

“Okay,” Cake says for me, and I scoot next to Gothalyn.

Gothalyn’s face tweaks up into another one of those weird slightly creepy smiles and she starts to slide her hand across my tendril.

Okay, now it is time for the question that I need to know about this world.

“Do you know what a nuke is?”

“No?” Gothalyn replies, confused.

YESSSSSSSSSS!