Peck.... Peck.......... Peck Peck Peck Pec-.
"WHAT IS DOING THAT."
Joey awakes furious due to the continuous pecking that is being done to his face. He hears a small bird flapping away after he flails his arms around to stop the annoying pecking. He sits up in confusion.
"Wait..... Where am I?"
Joey looks around since this is not the place he remembers falling asleep at. The area around him looks like a flat grassland, or he guesses it would be called "a plain". He looks around to find the nuisance of a bird that was pecking his face. There was something off though. It only had...... One eye?! 'What am I looking at?' Joey thought. Joey has never seen anything like this before in his life, he is so surprised that he notices his mouth has been wide open the whole time he was looking at it.
"My guess is that this is a breed of bird that correlates with a breed of cyclops."
Joey quickly spins around to see a good friend of his, Nathan. Nathan was lying down on his chest and is looking up to where Joey and the bird is.
"Do you know anything about where we are?!"
Joey is talking rapidly as to show that he is slightly frightened by his surroundings and the new creature he has just witnessed.
"My guess is we are in a different world." "Man I have always wished this would happen, but I never expected it to."
Joey listens to Nathan, who was mumbling but Joey can't really hear what he is saying. An intense surge of panic went through Joey's spine as he realizes something important to him is missing.
"Where is Bree!"
Joey quickly searches the area looking for Bree, but she is nowhere to be seen.
"I don't even know how we got here, let alone know where Bree is or even if she is here."
Nathan stands up after seeing the worry on Joey's face, and he decides to help him search the area.
"I don't care how we got here, but we have to search around to make sure she is safe. With seeing that.... monster, we don't know what else can be out there." Joey says.
They continue to search the area of the plains, and soon they found what looks like a small village. They find a group of rocks and decide to hide behind them as they make sure the town isn't infested with things unknown to them. Unfortunately, it seems what they fear is the reality of their situation. At first glance, Joey sees what looks like is a small village of humans, but Nathan soon points out that they, as well as the bird, only have one eye.
Nathan thinks of all the manga and light novels he has read and he hasn't really read about any humanoid creatures like this. They aren't as big as the cyclops in the books, in fact, they are rather short. He doesn't know if he can communicate with them so he is immediately against confronting them, but then he hears one of them yell.
"What is a human doing in our village, did they break the treaty that was promised to our kind?!"
Being only 30 feet away from the outskirts of the village, Joey and Nathan easily hear the creatures and were able to understand what they are saying. Upon hearing what they said though, Joey's heart sinks to the bottom of his chest. He can hear the malicious intent of the cyclops man and tries to think of a way to see this human they speak of. He turns around to talk about what to do and Nathan isn't there.
Joey tries to find Nathan in the rock formation they are in, but can't find him anywhere so he turns back to the village to make sure he hasn't been spotted. He notices a tall figure sneaking behind a building, and he realizes it is Nathan. Nathan has decided as soon as he heard the cyclops speak that he is going to see who they were talking about. So he goes closer to the center of the village. Nathan realizes he was sneaking behind a building that sells weapons, but the weapons they sell are a medieval style of weaponry. The closest weapons to him is that of a short sword and its scabbard. The short sword is about 20 inches long and Nathan decides to steal it just in case. Joey, who had noticed what Nathan was doing, soon catches up to him without being seen.
"What are you doing, that's stealing!!"
"Yeah, and if that's Bree and those cyclops are hostile, then we have to be ready to fight," Nathan says with a stern voice. "Here, take this."
Nathan hands Joey a massive battle axe and a holster for it that attaches to the back. Joey agrees with what Nathan is saying and quickly takes the battle axe and attaches the holster to his back.
"Now we can't approach with our weapons drawn so put away the axe for now."
Joey nods his head and puts the axe away even though it took some time at first since he has never used a battle axe before in his life. it is about 4 feet long and is pretty heavy on top of that, but since Joey has trained his muscles, it doesn't bother him too much.
"It has been decided, since this woman has breached the treaty and does not tell us the reason why, she will be executed by hanging!"
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When Joey hears the loud yelling of the cyclops in the middle of the town, he quickly stands up to see if he could identify the human's face but to no avail. Knowing that Bree's life could be in danger, Joey decides to act on his own free will.
"I don't think so."
Joey says this with a harsh voice as he approaches the group of about 30 cyclops, and they all turn towards him. Joey is scared since all of them were armed and they have a malicious intent in their eyes. As soon as they see what Joey was wearing though, the malicious intent soon turns into a panicked looked and all of their faces go pale.
"Those clothes, I've never seen them before." "That must mean he is a noble or even royalty." "What is someone so exotic doing out here?"
These are all mumbles that the cyclops say which Joey can here. Joey thinks about it and soon he realizes that he really did stand out. He is wearing a pair of shorts and a shirt that said "Bahama Mama". The shirt was something Nathan had bought everyone in the Bahamas so they could have something to sleep in. Nathan realizes that the cyclops are in fact scared so he too shows up and stands beside Joey.
While looking at the Cyclops, Nathan's guess is that they are only about 5'1 at max, and taking it that Nathan is 6'4 and Joey is 6' even, they tower over these tiny creatures.
"Another one has appeared, this is not a good situation." "What if they can use magic, then we are all doomed!" "They even have weapons, maybe the treaty has been broken." "Hide the children!"
The mumblings soon grow louder and more frequent as Nathan shows his face.
"Let us see the human and no harm will be done to your village, I do not wish to use my magic."
Joey turns to look at Nathan who said that, and Nathan is looking at them as if they are lower creatures.
"What are you doing, they are armed!"
Joey is practically shouting in Nathan's ear, but luckily the cyclops are in a state of panic so they did not hear him.
"It was a bluff, humans seem to be strong in this world so I am using it to our advantage, just play along." Nathan whispers into Joey's ear.
Joey realizes what Nathan is doing, and actually agrees with his methods, so Joey puts on a face that is menacing to scare the cyclops even further.
"We wish no quarrel, just someone of your kind wandered into our village and tried to steal some food. When we caught her, she would not explain why or where she was from, but she just looked at us as if she is dumbfounded."
A cyclops with a long white beard and a cane came forth to explain the situation to Joey and Nathan, but he too is also hardly able to keep his composure due to the nasty looks coming from Nathan and Joey.
"We wish to see her, she might be the girl that we lost in our caravan."
Nathan decides to keep up with the bluff and tries to persuade what looked like the village elder to let them see the girl. The village elder quickly goes over to the middle of the group and taps his cane on the head of the girl. Now that she is in sight, Joey can easily tell that this is not Bree and he becomes more worried.
"Wake up, someone is here to see you."
The girl, who is tied up, has long blonde hair, opposed to Bree who has red hair. She stands up and the two got a full view of her. She looks to be around 5'6 and has blue eyes. She looks at Joey and Nathan with an expression of someone who is being picked up from school by a stranger.
"Who are you?"
The girl asks this question while slightly tilting her head to the side.
"It is me, your cousin. You were travelling with us to your Auntie's house but then you disappeared."
Joey looks at Nathan with a surprised expression since he knows it is a bold faced lie, but he decides to play along with it too.
"We came looking for you since your mom would have our heads if we were to lose you." Joey says with a convincing look on his face.
The girl just looks at them with complete surprise as if she doesn't understand that they are trying to save her. Nathan approaches her and she takes a step backwards. The cyclops people look at Nathan curiously and start to think the two humans are suspicious.
"Come on now, no time to lose, we need to make it home by sundown."
Nathan quickly grabs the girl by the arm and proceeds to drag her out of the village with Joey right behind them. The cyclops people follow them out without saying a word and the blonde haired girl looks very confused. Nathan keeps dragging her without letting a second for her to speak. When they finally get out of sight of the villagers they all stop and look at each other.
"I'm sorry for lying, but it was the only way we could've saved your life, you seemed to be in a lot of danger back there."
The girl just nods at Nathan's remark. Nathan and Joey just look at each other with a worriedly.
"Alright look, we have no idea where we are or even what is in this world, we saved your life so we would like to know some useful information."
Joey looks at the girl in the eyes as he said this to make it more convincing that he is dead serious. The girl just stares at them dumbfounded. Joey realizes how crazy what he said truly sounded like. It sounded crazy since if someone were to say the same to him, he would probably just ignore them. Joey puts his hand on the girl's shoulder.
"Look, we have no idea what is going on, we don't even know how to use these weapons, please help us."
Joey, who hopes appealing to her with sadness will work, looks at her with gentle eyes. The girl looks up at Joey, and she gives him a dangerous smile. Joey lets out a slight gasp and removes his hand from her shoulder. The girl quickly starts laughing like a maniac. Joey retreats back beside Nathan, who has drawn his short sword.
"I appreciate the help back there, but....."
She hungrily stares at the two and licks her lips. It frightens Nathan and he quickly averts his gaze away from the woman. Joey, on the other hand, is confused and decides to draw his weapon too.
"I am not what you think I am, and now knowing you're not as strong as your presence puts off, I think I'll turn you both into a little snack."
The girl starts convulsing and soon spider-like arms sprout from her back. The skin from her face begins to melt away and as the two sees this they become completely horrified. Her body twists and turns in ways it shouldn't. Her clothes rip as if they are just paper and her body expands. The creature soon starts to reveal itself even further. A spider-like body keeps sprouting from the back and soon the human portion expanded so much that it explodes. Flesh, bones, ligaments, blood, everything you can think is inside of a human body is sent flying at both Nathan and Joey. They are completely covered in blood. Nathan, who is the most horrified, felt something churn inside of his stomach and quickly threw up what was inside. Joey just looks at Nathan with a blank expression, wondering what is going on right now. He slowly turns to see the creature... What he sees traumatizes him. It is like a massive black widow spider that has a melted face of a human on it. It is still covered in blood after the explosions of its original body and intestines hang on its legs like it is decorations. Joey, who is just staring at it, falls down and lands on his hands and butt. The spider seems to be about 6 feet long and about 7 feet wide from leg tip to leg tip.
"Now... Be good boys and DIE!"