Cloud watched us leave from his spot in the grass with little interest. I paused briefly to take a deep breath before stepping outside the safety of our little homestead. The car was only 300 meters away, but we walked slowly, keeping our eyes open to potential threats, our weapons ready.

We made it there without any issues, but my encounter with the Crowling left a mark on my psyche and I kept scanning the air and the woods around us. The car looked the same as I last left it, the driver's door opened and the windshield was a mess of glass on the dirt floor.

"We should push it back to the cabin, " Laura suggested.

I nodded. "Watch my back. "

I brushed the broken glass from the driver's seat and saw that the keys were still in the ignition. Sitting down, I gave it a token attempt to turn it on, but it only gave me a slight hiccup of a sound in return. I sighed and pulled up the handbrake.

"Tobi, you and I will push it back there. Laura, you keep an eye out. "

They followed my instructions without comment, getting into our positions; Tobi and I at the front side of my little Suzuki, Laura behind us, her slingshot at the ready.

We pushed and the car moved easily down the slight slope towards the cabin. I quickly realised how stupid this move was because the car accelerated and was heading straight at the garden beds.

"Fuck," I let out, but it was too late to stop it.

Suddenly, a flash of iridescent fur jumped in the way of the car before it could slam into my days of work, stopping the vehicle in its tracks.

"Cloud!" Tobi screamed next to me and started sprinting straight, his voice filled with panic. Laura and I were close behind him.

The alien sheep stepped away from the car, clearly unharmed. He had a slightly annoyed look on his face, which I didn't think possible for a sheep to have, and gave us an equally annoyed bleat. He didn't seem to be injured, only put out by our stupidity. Tobi rushed at him, and threw his hands around the Skymbala's neck, burying his head in the lush coat.

I went to check out the car's trunk and stopped in my tracks. There was a decent-sized dent where the alien had collided with my Suzuki. I made a mental note to never piss off Cloud, if possible. Just what level is Cloud? Why can't we see his level? He's not a monster but surely should be able to see it.

I filed these thoughts as something to think about later and turned to the now less annoyed alien who was leaning into Tobi's hand as he petted him.

"Thank you for saving my garden, Cloud, " I said and approached him to join in on petting his technicolour wool.

"Bleeugh," he said, obviously enjoying the attention.

"Uh, Dee?" Laura said. I turned to the woman and saw that colour had drained from her face. She was pointing at a bright orange shape at the edge of the forest wood. It seems our loud voices had attracted something. The monster was definitely coming towards us, but its movements were erratic and slow, almost like the one of a man stumbling out of a pub after having one too many to drink.

Soon I was able to see it more clearly. It had a general shape of a fox, only it was double the size of any I had seen before and it had two thin tails that kept twisting and untwisting around each other. Its head also sported two different snouts that were alternating in snapping at the air. The sight was extremely unsettling, but I remembered what we set out to do.

"We need to step away from the boundary. We can't attack it anywhere near it, because it will initiate a breach. "

"What do you mean?" Tobi whispered like the monster hadn't spotted us yet.

I whipped the hatchet out of my inventory and firmed my grip on the weapon. "I mean that if we attack while still inside, the safe zone will go on a timeout. I don't want to have to defend the cabin. "

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They both seemed to comprehend my words and readied their weapons. Taking a deep breath, I started walking towards the fox, hoping that we come out of this encounter without too much damage. None of us were fighters but we would have to become one.

The monster had already made it halfway, even with its slow hobble, and we were closing the gap quickly. We were perhaps 20 meters away when the description box appeared.

Vulparx, level 3

This unfortunate creature is a result of some rather unethical scientific experiments. Its creator, Bulthar Malvek, wanted to engineer a perfect specimen to honour the image of a god. Unfortunately, her test subjects had escaped her lab and multiplied.

"Laura, shoot it!" I yelled, making the woman stumble. However, she recovered quickly and shot at the monster repeatedly, until she ran out of ammo. She missed several times, but each time her aim flew true the Vulparx yelped in pain. Its voice sounded a little too human.

Once she ran out of ammo, I moved quickly, swinging my hatchet back and forth. I absentmindedly noticed that I had much more control over the weapon than I previously did. The hatchet's edge made contact with the monster and it let out a unison of blood-curdling screams from both of its throats. It retaliated with both of its tails that slashed me across my face like whips.

Something sticky flowed down my cheeks, but I ignored it, swinging again and missing. This time one of the monster's jaws snapped and bit down hard on my left arm. I punched its other snout with my right fist which was still holding my weapon.

I felt a sharp pain on my chest as Laura's pellets missed the Vulparx and hit me.

"What the hell, Laura!" I managed to yell out.

I didn't see her reaction as I was a bit preoccupied, but the barrage stopped, and my HP going down didn't. The beast let go of my arm and whipped its tails at me again. This time it pulled me to the ground and wrestled me until it was on top of me. I pulled my arms up to shield my face and it kept dealing damage to my forearms with every bite.

The rain of pellets came again and the monster turned around to see its other attacker. I tried to get up and shake it off of me but it had me firmly fixed in the dirt. My arms were a bloody mess and I finally dropped my weapon after I received another bite.

"Can someone please help me out a little?" I screamed as I felt sheer panic envelop me. What the hell were those two doing?

Somehow I kept lucid enough to pull out a knife out of my inventory and make a stab at the monster on top of me. Nobody was more surprised than me when I managed to hit the monster right in the eye.

Unfortunately, this wasn't enough to kill it outright, but it did jump off me and I took the opportunity to roll away from it. Laura's bullets wooshed again through the air, dealing some damage to the beast.

"Tobi!" the boy turned towards me at the sound of his name. He was shaking and just stood locked in place. "Use your goddamned spear! Aim for the head!"

I didn't know it was possible to shake as much as he did and still stay on his feet, but he still approached the beast that was rolling on the floor in pain, my knife still in its head. He hesitated for a second too long and one of the tails snapped towards him, but ultimately missed him. That seemed to give him some courage as he steadied his hand and aimed the now less shitty spear at the monster's head.

The Vulparx let out its last scream, sounding more like a crying child than it did before.

We all just stared at its body, trying to catch our breaths. Laura's face was still pale and Tobi looked like he was going to be sick. I was still on the floor, but I felt my arms bleeding less as whatever healing power was kicking in.

You defeated a Vulprax level 3. 20 exp gained.

"Can someone please loot the body?" I said, my voice small and breathy. The mother and son duo turned to me at the same time, a silent question on both of their faces. "Just approach it and accept the prompt. "

Laura did as I instructed and Tobi helped me get up, trying to avoid antagonising the wounds on my arms.

All of a sudden we heard something, something all three of us knew very well, something that made every hair on my body stand up straight.

A chorus of Rabidasher screeching was approaching us and it was approaching us fast. And there were many of them.

We are so fucked.

Name: Diana Mond

Age: 25

Class: Homesteader

Level: 1, 90/200 exp

Strength: 4

Constitution: 6

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 4

HP: 33/60

Energy: 9/60

Points to distribute: 0