Rae woke up to the sound of a male voice calling her – Hey little girl, do you think this is a hotel? You made yourself awfully at home, didn’t you? – Rae quickly opened her eyes and stared surprised to the owner of that voice. Rae didn’t know for how long she had been asleep but considering that it was still night time outside, it was unlikely that the 16 hours have passed while she was asleep. The faint light coming from the pedestal confirmed her suspicion. This person could not be who she had been waiting for; furthermore, this person in front of her had horns coming from his head. Rae took a few steps back and took another look at this mysterious being. Besides the long and thin horns at his head; his legs didn’t seem human either but instead they were more akin to the legs of a goat. The horns that looked on shape like a gazelle’s horns were of a pale green color; similarly the goat legs were of the same color and the fur had a feeling to be stiff. The fur didn’t have the flow that normal hair would have; instead it had the feeling of being made of something more solid like metal wire. This was not a human.
Rae took the knife out of her back holder. Knives were not her favorite weapon but unfortunately grabbing her equipment would take too much time. She sensed she was in danger. Without hesitation she moved her arm in an arc to slash the face of the monster that keep staring at her with his head tilted while he smiled. She had aimed the slash to eye level to blind him; hopefully that would buy enough time so she could grab her equipment and put up a proper fight. Rae’s knife hit a hard surface. The monster in front of her had slightly lowered his head, intercepting Rae’s knife with one of his horns. Rae jumped back to gain some distance, she knew this would be a troublesome opponent. Failing the first attack, she knew she was now in disadvantage; not only surprise attacks wouldn’t work anymore but she was ill equipped for this fight. The future looked grim for her.
– Aren’t you awfully rude little girl? Not only you break into my home, fall asleep on your own without waiting for me, and to top it all off, the first thing you do after waking up is attacking me. I’m in a bad mood now. –
Rae was surprised. The monster had not followed up with an attack as she had predicted but instead it was complaining about her rude behavior. Also, it had said it was his home. Does that mean that it had killed the previous owner and made this its home? Or had the previous owner abandoned it before they met? There were so many questions swirling on Rae’s mind. For now her priorities were: Getting out of this alive, retrieving her equipment and gather information. With this on mind she asked:
– Who are you? What do you want?
– Are the roles reversed? Usually it is I, as the genie, the one that should be doing those questions. Did you happen to spend too much time on the desert that it fried your brain?
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Rae was annoyed; this monster was clearing mocking her. There were two problems with its reply. First, it had referred itself as a genie, the same term used by the weird inscription. That would mean that she had summoned it here. Second, Rae had never heard of a monster that would grant wishes to humans, in fact most of them wouldn’t even bother to try to communicate with humans. This was a completely unknown situation for Rae. For now, the best she could do was to keep the conversation going.
– My name is Rae. I was sent here to look for Sophos. Do you happen to know what happened to him?
– Sophos? Only one person has called me by that name before. Did Avangeline send you?
Rae was surprised; the name of her friend had been mentioned. That would mean that this monster was the person she had been looking for. Rae silently cursed Ava for setting her up. Rae originally had asked Ava to help her beat level 36 but she had declined saying it was beyond her; that if she wanted to reach level 37 with very few loses she should look for his teacher Sophos. After that Ava had told her how to reach him. Ava never mentioned that Sophos was a monster and thus Rae had assumed that it was another human.
– Yes. Ava told me that you could help me
– That is strange. Why didn’t Avangeline come to make the request herself? If she needs something from me she should come and ask on person, don’t you think?
– The request is not from her but from me instead. I asked Ava for help and she said it was beyond her capabilities; that I should look for you.
– Huh? Something that Ava can’t beat, that sounds interesting. Fine rude girl, you picked my curiosity; I will listen to your story. But first let me turn off the alarm, is starting to get on my nerves.
The monster named Sophos started to walk towards the pedestal. Why was it calling it an alarm if it was obviously a summoning item? Rae was interested on the technology behind it if it had been made by a human: but now knowing it was made by a monster, it made more sense. They had access to technology humans were not capable of reproducing.
– Hey little girl, did you happen to fight something on here?
– No, I didn’t and like I told you my name is Rae – she replied wondering what have made you reach that conclusion
– If that is the case, would you mind explaining me why is there blood on my phone? – Said Sophos pointing at the pedestal.
– Phone? There is summoning circle on top of it. I thought it was a summoning item.
– Is common knowledge that summoning circles only work with the signature energy of the one that drew it. Why would I leave a summoning circle as a way to contact me if no one but me would be able to use it?
– I thought it was a new kind. The inscription said hearts and souls…
– So you used blood. That is disgusting. Please clean it up.
Rae took an old rag from her bag and used it to clean the dried blood from the pedestal. Afterwards Sophos put its hand on it and the pedestal stopped shinning. Rae was still wary of this monster but the prior conversation had drained all her energy; and thus, keeping her hostility was hard.