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Chapter 53: Mine’s Bigger
🕑 Added 2025-05-05 08:40:26 +0000 UTCEdith is enjoying a relaxing breakfast at the inn. She was socializing, laughing, enjoying the fact that she wasn’t stuck in the woods with only me as company, and now that she didn’t even need to keep up appearances too hard, she was back in the working dress. She has basically all our silver and copper on her, I am carrying only gold, gems and jewelry. Even the red ring she got, she gave to me because I’ll need it more.
I merely slept the night off, gathering mana until I was truly full, while she needs the more common money in order to fill up on things she’ll need for the road. Clothes and armor for her size, bedding for the road, whatever toiletries and medicine she can get, and even food rations, though those will be bought tomorrow.
Before I left her side, after making sure she was going to be alright, I noticed that there were people keeping their eyes on her. Baron likely wanted to make sure she doesn’t jump town. I told her as much, but she seemed to not care. Well, this worked in our favor, somewhat. Glozko will think she’s just wasting her time, enjoying the place, while he thinks of his daughter and son and how they could be killed at any moment. Let the thought ruin his days and eat away at his mind. Maybe if he had been forward with it, we would have agreed to save them and for a more meager reward.
He could learn a thing or two from that bee… speaking of, I couldn’t help but think of the little critter, so I took a little detour and visited her. I see that the hive almost sealed the hole, but my presence causes them to be quite active. The queen comes out and flaps her wings threateningly. Getting another third of their honey is out of the question, clearly. At that point there’d be no reason for the hive to survive if she thinks I’ll come back every day and eat the whole place anyways. She might as well hurt me for my greed, before she dies.
Thankfully for her, I am not here to be greedy. The winter is coming, the bees will need to consume a lot of honey to stay warm enough to not freeze… So I chip away the rough fire crystal that I have on me, knowing we’re getting a second one anyways, and approach slowly, extending the fragment of magical rock to her. Her hive gets agitated but she seems to remember how I paid with the coin before, and simply stays away, watching. I push the gem in through the still open hole, get a bit of honey on my claws, then step away. The queen inspects the gem, beats her antennae my way, then does a happy dance that calms her hive. I lick the honey off my claw, satisfying my cravings. It’s strange that sugary things are still sweet to my tongue, but I don’t question it. With all this done, I can go about my work.
I manage to get to a cave that smells a different kind of fishy than the river that’s next to it. It seems very humid and I can see some scratches and footsteps that are simply not human, as well as some signs of things being dragged. Yeap, I’m helping anyways. As much as Edith now firmly hated Glozko, she did not want some kids and who knows who else dying just because of that. She’s a good girl in the end, and I don’t think I could live with myself for long if I left innocent people to die.
Before, the idea was to spend two days learning what we can, then spend the third fighting the fish people. But that was when we thought there’ll be no people hurt from delaying. Now we had to do this as quickly as possible without being rash, so I rested, filled up on mana, then came here to kill some fish. I hide the bag in some bushes, not keen on having it slow me down, then make my way in. A damp tunnel, amphibious terrain, a horrible place for anyone to explore.
Any human that is. No wonder Jan didn’t want to brave this place, it would be a pain to handle, especially without the light lamps mother had. A torch would probably extinguish itself just from the moisture in the air, not to mention the muddy floor and the pits of water all over. I even get to the first of likely many dips in the tunnel where the only way forward is to swim.
Luckily I am a cheater. Huge lung capacity, quick speed in land and water, mud does nothing thanks to how stable having six legs makes me and I even have my wings for extra maneuverability. If the issue was just terrain, I would have a perfect clear on my hands. However, the issue wasn’t just the cave, or how the path split every so often. It was the anglers. And while I could be quick and maneuverable normally, being stealthy or agile in such a small space is impossible, so the first I encountered knew I was coming before I even could notice it.
It looked like someone slapped a lanternless angler fish on the body of a man, gave it huge black eyes to stare into your soul, replaced the thin and sparse teeth exclusively with bear canines and then gave it claws at the end of its three fingers just to be sure. No opposable thumbs at least, so no tools coming my way. It had a bit of water, flesh and bone mana, but small enough amounts to not be scary. It was also the size of a man, which meant that I was as tall as it.
It did not attack me at first, instead it made a hissing, bubbling sound as it got out of the water, then it got loud enough to send echoes down the tunnels. Clearly it allerted others about me, but it didn’t really matter. Seeing that I would not back down with that pathetic threat display, it opened its mouth widely, much like the fish it emulates, and looked just about ready to chomp on my neck with a single lunge. It felt funny in a macabre way that the fishman was met with a larger mouth biting down on its whole head.
Glozko was right. These things are not harder to kill than the songstress. The fact that this time I am close to my target is even better since biting a head off is always easier than casting a spell. I eat the core of the monster and find a fragment of an idea. Nothing concrete, nothing strong, nothing I can use. At least I got my meal plan figured out for a while. These will be quite filling.
My left tail hurts, so I snap with the other two, blades cutting through flesh, but it’s not enough. Problem, the tunnels are wide enough for me to go in, but not wide enough for me to turn around easily. I see one of the anglers, bleeding from its right hand, which is sadly not fatal. A bit behind I see another one coming out of a puddle which seemed to actually have a whole tiny tunnel in it.
Thankfully my thinner than normal build lets me use the wall to gain extra room and spin around enough to get my mouth pointed at them. The one that just came out seems to register the danger and slips back down to the slight surprise of the wounded one. I don’t give it time to think and kill the wounded one by jumping on it and crushing its head against the ground, eating its core.
I blink for a moment, then realize something. I just kind of destroyed two heads already… while we’re being paid by the head. Shit. Well, it’s not like I can go back and forth if I want to finish today, so I decided to eat the evidence for now, then be more careful in the future. I check on the damage to my tail, and while the monsters did get through my scales since I didn’t allow my defences to flare up, the bite itself isn’t bad. As always, the pain is muted. I will just endure the bites for now, I don’t want to whittle down my reserves on defense when I can tank these bites so easily.
It’s nice to deal with a mediocre monster. The beasts I would hunt were too easy, while the songstress had her mind manipulation which made her a real threat. These things can hurt me so they’re not boring, but they don’t have weird tricks that could fuck me over, so I can afford to have some fun while rescuing people. There’s something to be said about having fun slaughtering things that can’t kill me, but I am way past that.
Plus, they’re tasty, if a bit too fishy.
I turn around, laughing to myself, and continue following the scent. Now that I know this is a hostage situation, I aim for them first instead of being a completionist. This isn’t a game where I can spend hours combing a location while ignoring “imminent danger”, here if I dally too long someone will likely die. That’s why I am following all the marks of humans down a tunnel. Cattle kept improperly don't last long, and I doubt the fish guys know how to keep a human alive and healthy.
I get a few heads here and there, with them jumping out of the water at me only to get smashed down by my wings, some attempting to throw rocks my way but whiffing. I just enjoy my march of death.
I don’t run at them though, since I don’t want to fall in some primitive trap, but I am not too slow either. My eyes focus on each and every puddle. I do find a way to light up my way, even without using the percentage of a percentage of light mana in me. Focusing on my claw and on willingly activating my defenses causes chaos mana to be consumed to shine and expel any sort of dust particle that tries to touch my claw. It’s not too costly and it works to quickly check up places so I know when I can expect a fish… to bite my leg. Damnit.
I shake it off, flashing a bit of mana to explosively send it away, but it just goes right back into its hole. These things are fast inside the water. Outside they move like hunched back grannies, but inside it’s like they have jets. I frown and sit at the hole, waiting to see if it comes back, but it doesn’t. They have rudimentary intelligence at least. So far they are exactly like witchbeasts, just too distinct to be mutated animals.
I keep on moving, keeping an eye out for disturbances, but my split attention is simply not enough. I enter a large chamber, with many puddles around, and not enough eyes to keep focused on all of them. I try using my middle one to pinpoint mana sources, but to my annoyance the water itself seems to have some magic in it, so it dampens my sight. Suddenly a bubble of air makes my head snap towards a more distant puddle and I almost leap at it, but it was a trick. One bite to my back leg, another to my side, two are trying to hold my tails while three anglers fall from the ceiling, pinning me down. There’s too many at once and more are bursting out. My neck, my wings, they’re swarming me and my perception isn’t slowing down. I panic for a bit as I fear I might end up dying to a thousand cuts, but some kind of bubbling hate keeps me grounded.
Jan was a liar and a cheat, but I doubt he lied about one thing. These bastards hate heat and being dry, or else they wouldn’t be so stuck to water. I feel mana stir in me, but I don’t have the room to pull it out and shape it. I also don’t have Ice readily available, but chaos should make do.
“IGNMOTGLA!”
Magic is torn out of me. The moisture in the air is pushed away by an arid wind as I force the spell to its limit. The heat transference rune, once a meager and slow thing, proves to be quite dangerous if you stop caring about being mana efficient and upscale it five times. I feel pain worse than their bites as the spell siphons its Ice from my chaos reserves, rather than using the chaos itself. Better for my magic being consistent, worse for my sanity as the feeling of having a cat with zoomies inside my lungs makes me dread keeping this up.
At least the spell does what it needs to do. Even through the pain I hold focus and target the puddles with ice, turning them into blocades that don’t allow them to escape, while the area around my body instantly becomes hot enough to make my own breathing heavy. At first the air itself was dry from the burst of heat, but now the moisture mixed in and the entire chamber is turning into a pressure cooker.
The bites stopped, the fishmen are trying to run away but they slip as their webbed, scaled feet were made for walking on mud, not on dry rock or hard ice. They struggle, gasping for air, or in this case water, but they don’t get to escape me. Blade after blade severs their spines. I pile up their heads, devour their cores, there’s nothing but bloodshed left in my wake. The fun little adventure in the caves I pictured quickly blows off like a mirage. I’m facing witty monsters. I can’t afford to let my guard down just because they can’t instantly murder me like many of my opponents until now could.
I sigh as I stop the spell, pulling in what I can from the ambient mana and devouring all their cores. It’s hardly enough to make up for my consumption, but it’s something. I almost leave the room when I notice there’s a big lake in the middle that was just barely out of my range. Not only that, but as I approach, I see a bit of light at the bottom of it. I was wondering how I could still see for the most part since there’s no light at all in here and even night vision has limits. I try to figure out if there’s a light crystal somewhere down there, but I see the light more like a string that pulses. I slap the water and it shines. Now I get why the water had mana. There’s probably some bioluminescent bacteria running on it. I get a few gulps of water, hoping to fix up my reserves a bit, then move on.
It’s interesting. The fish men have a way to not trigger the light unless they want to. I wonder if it’s what they use their mana on. Either way, this is clearly not a week old base. I’m starting to think that these creatures have been around for a while and either they were discovered recently or the whole request happened only to save his children. Jan has a lot to answer for once I am done here…
For now I need to… oh I’m getting woozy… I shake my head and ignore the feeling, focusing more on getting to where the humans are kept. I wander long enough that I need to start putting on suspenseful music just to keep myself alert. It is at least a break from the sloshing of ankle high water and mud. No other big attack comes, just the occasional angler that looks surprised, then tries to shout only to get silenced by me cutting its cords. I am not risking another attack like that, so I am not letting them do anything like that again. Each death makes the splashing water spark up, but it’s not enough to give me away any more than I already am as my feet spark up light..
I eat my fill, I claim a head, I move on. There’s no spark of joy coming from this anymore. Whatever push of endorphins came from my instincts before has completely died down. This is now firmly a chore.
A fish bursts out, but I already have my mouth pointed its way and I send out a burst of flames that blinds it and almost cooks it alive. It still moves, but it’s so sluggish that I just push it down and crush its chest, then rip out the core. I shake away my exhaustion, moving my limbs so they stop falling asleep on me, then continue on. The smell of human becomes stronger. I am almost there. I hear voices, strained and tired, but there are voices. I almost collapse at the entrance of a large space as I form my general sound spell. I do however modify it to sound as much like Edith as possible.
“Hello..? Anyone here…?” The accent slips a bit, but it doesn’t matter. It’s close enough.
“W-what?” “Over here!” “Oh gods above, help actually came!” “Mommy!? Daddy!?” “Please help us!”
My head pounds with the thunderous voices. I narrow my eyes as I see a bit of light. I see the features of a young girl illuminated by spontaneous arcs of lightning. She’s hugging a boy that looks similar enough to her, and then there’s… twelve people? Thirteen? Thirty…. I shake my head, slipping and falling to the ground as things get blurry. I almost curse, but I need to keep up appearances. Luckily someone silences them for me.
“Wait! If you are here for us, then you must work for Lord Glozko. I am Sir Hemwick, knight and guard of the young Lord Arnold and Lady Anka!” He coughs out and spits blood. I smell it, this place reeks of it. “If you got this far, it means you managed to kill the large one? I have a debt to repay to that bastard…”
I don’t even get to answer as I see a flash of light to the side of the humans. A blurry yet burly figure gets up from a makeshift chair carved in stone, its mouth opens wide and it starts hissing as it looks my way. This time I curse, letting my inhuman voice come through. The bastard was so still I thought it was a rock, but now I am looking at a three meters tall fish thing with a lot of muscles to its name and a breath that stinks of death and human flesh.
And that mouth… It might actually bite through my neck…
Comments
Ironfist95
Fun
The Black Reaper
Thorn is supposed to be torn. Week is correct, because Jan said the fishmen showed up recently which is clearly false.
Cody Jones
Hopefully Edith knows where Heart went to. It seems like a job for multiple people. By the way here is two edit suggestions. Magic is thorn (thrown) out of me. Either way, this is clearly not a week (weak) old base.
