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WE PUT THE BODIES of the failed hunters into their boat that same night and sent it out to the mercy of the river. I decided not to take their weapons or stuff. Back in Lakeside, if someone saw us with them, it might lead to questions. I’m sure when the Chief sent his people out to kill us, he did so in secret. Let’s keep it that way.
We didn’t find any money in their pockets either. I should note that they packed very light. They must have been expecting to dispatch us quickly. Their traveling bags didn’t even contain any food as such. And why should they have? They figured they’d cut us down then eat our food.
For the next half day, Badger was gloomy and silent. He answered my questions despite himself and monosyllabically. I had an approximate idea of what he was going through, so I didn’t ask too many questions. Let him come to terms with this at his own pace. We would have more time to talk later.
Whereas my buddy’s heart was dominated by the Goddess Apathy, I was consumed by indignation. I was upset by the harsh injustice of it all. I had been doing nothing but swinging a machete, shooting arrows and rowing for the last few days. In my world, that would be guaranteed to yield tablets and esses. But here for some reason the Great System wasn’t noticing my “deeds.” What was the reason?
I had one theory that sounded close to the truth. The basic idea was that the Great System was not in fact able to see my actions. Because despite what our priests had established about its unlimited power, this world didn’t belong to it. It is nothing but an interloper here. The items from this world do not contain its spirit, nor do the actions I undertake with them.
I don’t know how far my conclusions may have reached if Badger hadn’t piped up:
“How do you feel when you kill?” His question caught me off guard. But that didn’t stop me from answering honestly.
“Afraid.”
“Afraid?” he asked in surprise. Seemingly, that was not what he was expecting to hear.
“Yes, afraid of being killed,” I answered. “I’ll be honest with you. If you could have seen me six months ago, you wouldn’t recognize me. Since that time, I’ve come to appreciate one basic thing ― I don’t want to die.”
Badger considered it.
“I know what’s going through your head,” I continued. “You witnessed the death of several people you’ve known since childhood tonight. They probably didn’t have anything against you personally. They even had a decent relationship with you while your father was still alive.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Badger nodded gloomily. “Fox was friendly with my father. He had come to our house several times. Carp and Beetle too. I never would have thought...”
“Well now you have a great chance to think things through. For example, if they had won, your body would be crawfish food on the bottom of the river right now. And your sister would be all alone in this world. Defenseless. The only thing you should be thinking about now is how to kill a mutant as quickly as possible so you can bring its head back home before it’s too late...”
* * *
“DO YOU SEE SOMETHING?” Badger asked in a whisper.
It was probably the tenth time he was asking me that question.
“Nope...” I answered patiently got back to watching.
A few hours ago, after a seven-day boat journey, we reached the outskirts of the City of Shadows. After the first night, no one came after us. We didn’t run into anyone else on the river either. The dead city was not exactly a popular destination for Lakesiders.
Over the last few days, we hadn’t seen a single mutant near the dead city. And mutants aside... The ancient ruins seemed totally deserted! On my last visit, they were positively teeming with life!
There was something eerie afoot... So eerie that, every so often, a chill ran down my spine. Some unseen entity was watching me. And it was very mad and very hungry.
We got set up on the tenth story of one of the buildings. From there, we had a great view of the river and the outskirts of the city. Furthermore, the top of the building was linked to a different building by a huge structure that looked like a massive gutter. That meant, if we found ourselves in danger, we had a backup escape route.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Badger whispered, as if he could hear my grim thoughts. “I can’t even hear birds.”
Making sure he wouldn’t notice, I was occasionally sniffing the air as Fox had done on the night I defeated him. Yes, that’s right. After studying the alteration crystals dropped by the morph assassin, I activated them. Now I had Blazefox’s Senses. With half a point per crystal, I had two and a half points in total.
I should also note that, after the transformation, I felt like I was seeing this world for the first time. And it sharpened three whole senses, improving my smell, hearing and vision. It was like a thick dusty bag had finally been taken off my head. And that was just two and a half points. What if I could get it up to ten? Fox got lucky with this skill. He had clearly eaten the right mutant.
Beyond that, it felt like the overall flow of information entering my brain had gotten larger, and I didn’t really know how to process it all yet. There were smells, sounds and objects I had never noticed before. For example, I could see animal tracks now, and plants looked more saturated in color.
Among the large number of smells, one in particular stood out. It was the most ubiquitous and, for some reason, distantly familiar. There was an image bouncing around in my head, but I just couldn’t work it free from the depths of my memory.
On top of that, the higher we went, the stronger the smell became.
“Maybe the creatures left because something scared them off,” I said what both of us were thinking.
“Mutants?”
“Can you see any?”
Badger shook his head.
“Me neither... I’m afraid we’re dealing with something that has scared off even the mutants. I think the quicker we get out of here the better.”
Badger was in complete agreement.
Said and done. We quickly gathered our things and started going down. An agonizing beastly cry mixed with several other creatures squealing came in from outside just when we hit the fifth floor.
At the same time, without a word, we both pressed ourselves up against a wall and froze. Badger’s chest was heaving. Sweat was pouring off him. His face was beet red. Eyes like saucers.
“Sit down and keep quiet,” I whispered and, ducking down, headed over to a huge hole in the wall.
Slowly sticking my neck out, I looked outside. What I saw down below made me freeze like a stone statue. Staring dumbfounded at the ground, I felt my mouth fill with bitter saliva.
There, at the edge of a patch of vegetation that stretched all the way to the ancient building’s wall, a big huge winged creature was tearing a large hyena to shreds. The rest of its pack meanwhile, howling and squealing in fear, was running for the hills.
“What’s that?” I heard Badger’s trembling whisper to my right.
“That?” I asked angrily. “That is a dark otherworldly creature. You call them possessed.”
Badger started shaking hard.
“That isn’t all, take a look over there,” I nodded at the sky. “See those? There’s a couple little dark dots on the horizon.”
Badger squinted then nodded.
“As you’ve probably realized that creature is not alone here.”
Badger was struck by how easily the monster tore chunks of flesh off the dead hyena. He looked catatonic. Just what I needed.
Squeezing Badger’s shoulder hard, I drew his attention.
“Can you hear me?”
Wincing and hissing in pain, he nodded.
“That’s more like it,” I whispered approvingly. “I need the pissed-off Badger now. Take out your bow and arrows. When the time comes, I need you to cover me. Aim for the eyes. That’s its weak spot.”
“You’re going to fight that monster?!”
“You got a better idea?” I asked.
“Of course!” Badger looked at me as if I were mentally unstable.
“Such as?” I enquired.
“Such as, without wasting time on idle chitchat, we run away while the creature is still busy eating.”
I nodded and asked seriously:
“And what next?”
“Next we run to the river, get down in the boat and...”
Badger suddenly fell silent midword... It must have hit him.
“Imagine how happy these monsters will be to see us floating down the middle of the river,” I said and added: “I still can’t figure out how we managed to get here in the first place without any trouble. After all, this must not be their first day ruling the roost out here.”
“So what’s your idea?” Badger asked.
“Look at that thing,” I started explaining eagerly. “Do you see how big its wings are? How it folds them on its back? It’s too big to easily make it through the hallways of this building. It has an advantage in the sky. But we have an advantage in close quarters.”
“You want to attack it first?!” it finally started to reach Badger.
“Yes.”
“You’re even crazier than I thought!”
Ignoring his outburst, I continued:
“Keep in mind ― you’ll have to do exactly as I say. Only then will we have a chance to survive.”
Badger nodded in silence. He was still shivering, but the panic I saw earlier was gone.
“Let’s go down a few floors,” I commanded. “There’s lots of vegetation there. Cramped spaces are our ally right now.”
While we went down, I hurriedly laid out my defense plan. We would lure the brute into a trap. If I told Badger now that I was glad to see the otherworldly monster, he definitely would have written me off as a lunatic.
But I really was. He couldn’t understand what it was like to have jumped into a foreign world that followed its own laws with no clear way back where you came from. The very fact this winged fiend was here gave me hope. It meant there must have been more portals somewhere. And Bug works in mysterious ways. Maybe there would also be Places of Power next to them.
Beyond that, despite its murderous and discouraging appearance, the level of the monster the Great System called a blackwing was not all that high. Just eight. Gaining experience in this world is a big hassle. Levels go up slowly. But there are mutants. And otherworldly brutes that eat their flesh can transform into something more dangerous, even at level eight.
We decided to set up our trap on the second floor. All the windows, holes, halls and rooms were overgrown with dense knots of vine. In that cramped labyrinth, the monster wouldn’t be able to maneuver at all. All we had to do was lure it over. But that wouldn’t be a problem. After all, ever since I became a Vanquisher of Darkness, I attracted fiends like this one with my mere presence.
Walking up to a wide window frame, I used the machete to hack down the vines. I needed to clear a bit of space so the blackwing would come through the specific window I wanted.
I did it flagrantly, without hiding, which quickly attracted the winged monstrosity’s attention. Pulling up from its feast, it turned its bloodied beak toward me. Tilting its flat head to the side, it stared at me like a bird.
It took the blackwing a few seconds to realize what exactly it was looking at. With a whole-body shudder, it stretched out its long neck and squealed.
“Come on, you ugly freak!” I encouraged it loudly. “Let’s get this over with!”
As if the brute understood my every word, it took a few clumsy hops, spread its wings and flew off in my direction.
Stepping back from the vines, I dashed back deep into the building.
“Badger, on my mark!” I shouted, throwing Blots around me as I ran.
My companion was standing at the wall pale as chalk but holding his bow at the ready.
Meanwhile, the blackwing, tearing the vines and scratching the stone with its claws, had broken a hole in the wall.
“Shoot!” I shouted and loosed my first arrow.
Hitting a monster in the eye from twenty steps away while it struggles with prickly vines is quite the challenge. No surprise that we missed. However, none of the dozen arrows we fired completely failed to make contact with the monster’s body. To be honest though, those glancing blows didn’t do much. The arrows of this world didn’t deal a lot of damage. They just pissed the fiend off even more.
Finally, it broke through the green cables and started jostling its way inside. Its black eyes were trained on me.
“Took you long enough!” I shouted. “Come on!”
The blackwing took one step, then another. The bony spikes on its wings left deep scratches in the stone walls with a vile crunching sound. And just then it ran full force into a Blot, then another. I then tossed a third one right under its last step. Its energy totally sapped, the blackwing reeled and fell to the ground, sending a cloud of dust and rotten filth into the air.
“Don’t shoot!” I shouted at Badger and lunged forward.
Taking out Dragonfly as I ran, I dashed into the dust cloud. The blackwing was lying motionless with its neck extended awkwardly, its black tongue lolling out of its beak.
Without giving it much thought, I ran up to its head and stabbed it with my knife first in one eye, then the other. I kept stabbing even after a victory notification from the system appeared before my eyes.
Breathing heavily, all caked in the monster’s blood, I took a step back then fell to the floor like a ton of bricks.
— You have killed Blackwing (8).
— Congratulations! You receive:
— Experience essence (1600).
— Silver tablet (2).
— Monster Hunter Token (10).
― Large Orb of Darkness (1).
When the dust settled, I saw Badger standing with his mouth agape. He was staring at the slain monster’s head, which my stabbing had transformed into a bloodied piece of raw meat.
“Are you alright?” I asked him.
Badger didn’t have time to answer. A chorus of animal cries from somewhere up above made us both fall silent. I listened closer. Some of the cries were getting further away, some were coming closer. Our blackwing’s relatives were coming to pay us a visit. Based on the noise, they were circling somewhere around the tenth floor. They must have been wondering what happened to their buddy. He was just devouring that hyena just a second ago, but now he was gone.
The short feisty cries gave way to longer impatient ones. Then they started flying away.
“They’re gone,” I told Badger, who was holding his breath.
He just gave a fitful nod, then his stomach turned inside out. After puking his guts out, Badger groaned, leaned his back up against a wall and slowly slid down to the floor.
“That wasn’t the first possessed creature you’ve killed, was it?” he asked quietly.
“Not the most dangerous either,” I nodded, slapping the dead blackwing on the neck. “To be honest, I always had help from my best friend though.”
Remembering Gorgie made me feel depressed.
“Where is he now?” Badger asked compassionately. “Is he dead?”
I mechanically felt for the harn shaped amulet and shook my head.
“N-no. He’s just fine. It’s just that we can’t be together right now. I just have one more important issue to settle. But as soon as I do, you’ll be able to meet him. I’m sure he’ll make an unforgettable impression on you.”
After saying that, I chuckled. I was imagining the scene. With Gorgie’s appearance, he could make an impression on anyone. A panic would probably sweep Lakeside.
By the way...
I glanced at my brother in arms and asked jokingly:
“What do you think? If we bring the head of a possessed creature instead of a mutant, will your Chief finally leave you and your sister alone?”
