Chapter 14: Chapter 13 – The Monster – Part 1

Upon opening my eyes, the first thing I see is a long row of sharp teeth looking down at me.
"You sleep like the dead girl, you feeling alright?" Dora asked.
"I'm fine Dora... what time is it? I didn't know you'd personally be waking me up."
"I wasn't told to do this, that is correct. It's not often we get guests though! If there is need for the guild, the retired veterans who live here can handle it with ease. For some reason this mission was saved for you... the veterans are going to want to talk to you after you took their job." Dora said, turning around and leaving the room.
Well that's fine I suppose... ugh, I'm still so tired. So much for the excitement overcoming me or the walk here being easy, my legs feel sore as hell.
Forcing myself out of bed, I go to the table where I dropped Angela's pack last night. Riffling through it I find several nice pairs of white tunics and black trousers. I've never worn clothes like this before Angela gave me some. Back in the compound I had to wear the same five dresses all year round. Everything Angela's given me so far has all been a little big on me, but that's no big deal. Better than being too tight on me that's for sure.
It's just now hitting me, but bra's weren't even a thing till this year. Suddenly the other weavers were making them while I still worked on dresses. The timing on that lines up with the visit from those elf people. Coincidence maybe... but I doubt it.
After putting on my new clothes, I noticed something I've been wanting to see for weeks now.
"A mirror!"
Finally I can get a good look at Eris. Standing in front of it I can't help but admire this girl. I'm still not sure if I killed her, or maybe she's been watching in horror this entire time... okay, not the time for me to be horrifying myself like this.
"Alright Eris, I can see why Perla was thirsting for you." Her face is a mix of cute and beautiful, I'm really not sure how else to describe it. She also has the same deep set blue eyes as Hera... the more I compare them, the more I realize Eris is like a blonde Hera. Wavy blonde hair instead of straight red hair is the only difference, kind of bizarre now that I've noticed it.
In the distance I could hear a low bell ringing. Thirty minutes it seems, plenty of time to eat and get ready to leave. I'll take some of the jerky Angela gave me and the canteen, should be enough to hold me over till I come back tonight.
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Five minutes later I was down in the lobby eating in complete silence. The food is damn good including the peanuts that somehow get better every time I eat them. I'm starting to wonder if they added something to them to get people addicted.
Dora said she wouldn't be here, but what about those angry veterans? I guess they'll be accosting me later because they're nowhere to be seen.
She made way too much for me so I carried the leftover up to my room to eat when I get back. She asked me to please finish it all, but she didn't say when... I think?
Heading out of the guild I can't help but find the whole scene eerie. I thought there would be people everywhere as Gaia lit up, but somehow there is nobody around. Do the people of Viseux wake up later or what?
Walking through the gate was just as strange. Two guards and no priests, they didn't even look at me just like yesterday with the crowd coming in.

The forty minute walk to the village was peaceful and made for a great prologue to what I'm about to do. Greg was expecting me to be slow it seems, I can reach the village in forty minutes going slow like this. At a normal walking speed thirty minutes would be easy. He thought it'd take me an hour?
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Upon reaching the village I'm happy to hear the sounds of life everywhere again. The peaceful walk was great, but that town being dead silent was bizarre. Just as I reached the gates, people began exiting the village in big groups heading past me towards Viseux. So it must be 9:30 or 10:00, somewhere in that range is when Viseux finally wakes up.
... There's no point in me going through the entire village.
The guards literally just changed shift right before I reached the gate, and yet the one I called out to looks like he's ready to pass out already. Not surprising in the least, I doubt any of the gates near Viseux have ever seen combat or danger on any level.
"Sir, excuse me! Can I walk around the village towards the east gate? I need to reach the side road over there."
One thing that nobody warned me about, was how green the area is near Viseux. I thought all the trees in this world were done for, but there is plenty of grass and trees all over the landscape here between these villages and Viseux. How they survive the freezing cold blackout is beyond me, but there's no birds or critters of any kind here. While it definitely feels good to be seeing a green world again, it's kind of creepy how dead the entire area feels.
"Oh there's no problem with you walking through the fields Miss. Were you worried it'd look suspicious? Must be new around here huh! However I'm sorry to inform you that the side road heading east is closed. We've had a few disappearances there and it's closed until the MHG or Viseux guards find the cause."
MHG... Monster Hunting Guild? In that case, "No problem there then, I'm the one that was dispatched from the MHG to make sure there isn't a monster involved."
Contrary to my expectations, he didn't deride me at all. "Is that so? Not sure why you'd want to be a scout at your age... I can't imagine my daughter going out alone looking for monsters."
Ha... what a sweet Father. I wonder what it's like to have others worry about you like that?
"You know about Scouts? I'm specifically designed for the position I've been told, so I'm giving it a try. But yeah I'll head on around the village then and go check it out now. Thanks for the info!"
I waved to the man and began walking in the other direction along the high wooden walls. Grass up to my knees on a warm day, and not a single bug in sight. Not that I like bugs, but it's just so jarring how alive yet somehow dead everything here feels.
These inner villages are pretty big, however going around like this should cut down on travel time by quite a bit now that I'm not slowly weaving between massive groups of people and stalls.
Not too long after I found myself at the east side gate, finally on the side road that I... hmm. Hard to describe how I'm feeling right now. The guards are looking at me sideways but I really want to enjoy this moment. Assuming this scouting thing becomes something I'm going to do from here on out till I leave this moon, then everything starts right here.
"You need something, Miss?"
... Preferably peace and quiet while I take in this moment.
"No, I'm the scout sent from the Guild to check out this road. Anything you can tell me before I get started?"
This guard gave me the same look as the last one, I should probably get use to that if the average scout looks like Cid. Not that I have any other reference to work off of yet.
The other guard spoke up first, "Glad to finally have someone from the MHG looking into this! I was part of one of the groups sent out to comb the road looking for clues, but unfortunately, we found nothing. I'm sorry to inform you that the other three groups who were sent out found nothing as well." He continued. "It's awfully mysterious... we keep having to turn people away from the road, leading to the townspeople becoming more and more worried with each passing day. The time between blackouts is supposed to be a time of relief for us, and yet..." The guard trails off, looking out towards the trees where the road leads to.
The report said they found nothing but to actually hear it from someone directly involved hits differently. They know this area, hell they watch the very gate the road comes in from... and yet they found nothing?
"I see... thanks for telling me. I'll be heading out now. Here's hoping I find something then!"
I began to leave when a guard yelled out at me, stopping me in my tracks. "You're going alone?! Where is your guards?"
Guards?? What is he talking about?
"I'm sorry sir, but what do you mean 'guards'? I'm not a noble. Uh, are scouts normally in prestigious positions?"
The two guards shared an incredulous look.
"Miss... I'm assuming you're new, especially at your age, but scouts have local guards assist them at their destinations. Your local office told you nothing about this? Even a non-member like myself knows this. Guards are told we can be, and will be, conscripted by scouts from the MHG so long as there is sufficient cause."
.............. This is the first I'm hearing about this. If one person forgot to tell me, well, mistakes happen. But there was Cid, Greg, the whole damn hall was listening in. Dora said nothing as well. Is this something I was just supposed to know by default? That can't be right... they must have wanted me to do this alone for some reason. There is only one reason I can think of... my invisibility spell. It's probably not a good thing for local guards near Rai'ga to learn that I can go invisible.
"Hmm there must be a good reason they didn't want me to have guards along on my trial mission. Thanks for informing me, but I think I'm going to go solo, as was my original intention anyways."
"I see... Well, good luck Miss. Don't become missing person number four please."
This time I really did say goodbye to them and began my trek down the road. Shortly after I was surrounded by trees on both sides. A beautiful sight but it's more foreboding than comforting right now, this is obviously a good spot to be ambushed in with all this tall vegetation and large trees around me. The branches are tall and hanging over the road so I could probably go invisible... some light is still hitting here and there though. I really don't want to end up with low ether as I run into a monster or brigand.
According to the notes, this road is about eleven miles long, that's a lot of ground to comb over. The guards would've noticed obvious signs of blood or drag marks, which means it's going to be something subtle...
I make my way forward, slowly walking along the road, keeping my ears peeled for any local sounds at all.
The town behind me is already sounding like a very distant ambient noise. Thanks to nothing being alive here, any nearby sound is going to be an obvious sign of danger. Unless there is a random villager or guard who pops up on this off-limits road, but my reaction will be the same regardless, to immediately turn invisible upon hearing something other than my feet on this dirt road.
Well... that's not the only noise. My heart is beating harder than it ever has before. It wasn't this bad when I woke up in that cave, hearing only the sounds of monsters nearby. Half of it is fear of the unknown and sudden death, with the other half being excitement for......... I'm not even sure at this point. All I know is that part of me loves this abnormal situation.
At some point I could no longer hear the town behind me. When the wind stops it's deathly silent, which is way more oppressive than I thought it could be. The fear to excitement ratio was even before, but now it's far more frightening than exciting. How the hell do normal people walk these side roads even without people going missing? Without the other half of me spurring me on, I think I'd of ran back towards the western village already.
Nothing in the tall grass.
The overbearing lifeless trees.
The dirt road with tracks all over them also tells me nothing. It's all human boots, sandals, donkey hooves, or wheels from small carts.
I feel like this is going to be a long mission. Hopefully my heart gets better at handling this dead silence, not that the sounds of wind through this forest is any better.
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Suddenly I could vaguely hear the sounds of life from ahead of me.

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... No way I already made it to the other village? It's a little over eleven miles away they said! Wow, did I really walk that far already? It barely felt like thirty minutes, but was closer to four hours probably.
I doubt whatever is the cause of these disappearances is so close to one of the villages, but I keep my pace the same just in case. No point in getting careless just because I can hear a bunch of voices in the distance.
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And sure enough, there is the gate with two bored looking guards staring out at me.
I run the rest of the way to the gate, informing the guards of the current situation.
"So that's how it is. I'm gonna do one more walk back and hope to see something this time. Honestly, I realize it's more like I'm using myself as bait, which is a horrible idea no matter how I think about it. What else can I do though?"
"You're the first to make it through that path so far since the blackout, so maybe whatever it was has already moved on?"
That's some super hopeful thinking Mr.Guard. I guess I can't blame him though... from his point of view the only other options involve me going missing, or finding a monster hidden in the woods. There's still criminal activity as a possibility, but I'm not too worried about a human jumping out at me. That would be way less deadly than a rampaging monster... maybe. I didn't consider the fact that invisibility will only get me so far with high foliage everywhere. My footprints in the road or the foliage moving around are going to give me away quite easily. Still better than a monster I guess?
Saying goodbye to the guards I head back towards the way I came. According to the bell I heard it's about 2 P.M., so it's been five hours roughly. Yeah I'll be back to Viseux with an hour to spare if I find nothing again.
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It's hard to stop your mind from wandering in a place like this. I don't mean daydreaming, I mean imagining some of the worst case scenarios and scaring yourself more than necessary. Although at the same time, it also led to me realizing there is one way they could disappear without leaving any traces of a struggle on the road.
Looking up to check again, "Those branches really do seem small..." I whisper, which comes across as loud in this atmosphere.
How light would something need to be for those branches to stay intact? I just can't imagine something over fifteen pounds sitting on those branches without them snapping. So far it's the only thing that's stood out as a possibility to me after one full trek between the villages.
The other option is the people in question willingly left the road... but what the hell kind of monster would make them do that? For starters, they'd need to be at the edge of the road to begin with, all three of them in fact. Otherwise me and the guards would've seen signs of someone running across the road towards the woods. I find it unlikely but I guess it's not impossible. I have no choice but to search the woods after today anyways. Walking up and down this road is only going to get me so far, at least in the woods I can be invisible most the time. That will be good for my heart too which is not going to last if I have to travel this road every day for a week.
Something light in the trees... I need to talk to Dora after I get back. She's a bookkeeper if I remember correctly, she'll know if there have been small monsters like that in the past that somehow lifted up adult humans while leaving no trace. Still seems ridiculous to me, but might as well check.
Oh right... I could kill these people without leaving a trace, couldn't I? If I waited while invisible in the middle of the road, I could easily kill people in this region as they walk right up to me completely unaware of my presence.
Again, another possibility, but I'm not really entertaining the idea of something invisible being the culprit. Plenty of monsters are the darkness element, but almost none of them can turn invisible.
And just like that... I felt it.
This feeling of my blood running cold again... just like with the Wendigo.
Without hesitation I hit the ground in the middle of the dirt road, turning invisible at the same time. Fortunately no light is hitting me where I am so I can stay here for awhile if need be.
It's not just the fear hitting me, there is something else to this... maybe the Wendigo was the wrong reference. This is more like the sleeping gas incident. Alarms were going off in my head because I could feel something on my body messing with my mind... the same thing is happening right now. There's a smell coming from the side of the road that is making my mouth water. I've never felt this hungry this fast in all my life.
I'm not sure what to make of this, but I feel compelled to go in that direction to discover the source of this smell.
... I don't remember what the first victim James did for a living, but Genji was a merchant who also sold food I believe. Meanwhile Sarah strictly dealt in selling and transporting ingredients.
I suppose even if he didn't deal with food, James would want to know what could possibly smell this good. Lord Rai'ga is nearby, there's been no alerts about monsters in the area, the blackout was weeks away... I can see how none of them were able to fight off the curiosity that would drive you to find the source of this smell. Not only that, but I swear this smell is messing with my mind in other deeper ways.
My heart is still going a million miles an hour, it seems laying here isn't going to calm me down no matter how long I wait. Plus whatever did this clearly did it with me in mind, it has to be wondering what happened to me.
Slowly... ever so slowly, I begin crawling over the road towards the bushes. Despite the fact that I shouldn't be able to tell where this smell is coming from, somehow, I know exactly where I should be heading... this has to be intentional. It's still possible this is a human spell I know nothing about, but the other half of me is screaming 'monster'. I've had my soul sense back on this entire trip, yet I feel nothing... even now.
This whole forest was already way too eerie, but now I feel absolutely sick with how quiet it is. The contrast between this disgusting forest and that delicious smell is making me nauseous. It only got worse when I reached the bushes... there's no helping it, I have to push through them to find the location of this smell. I got up into a crawling pose low to the ground, but high enough to just barely see over the tall grass behind the bushes in front of me.
Pushing the bushes apart while trying to make as little noise as possible, I spot what I've been looking for this entire time.
Bootprints.
Sarah was wearing sandals, with the other two wearing boots. So one of the first two victims definitely came this way.
The bushes made way more noise than I hoped, but the grass I'm managing to slip through with minimal sound effects announcing my presence to whatever is waiting for me.
It's not far... but it's not close either. How the hell do I know exactly where it is? I really need to spend at least a week just reading through as many known spells as I can, then maybe I wouldn't be so surprised by a spell that seems to be luring me towards an ambush.
Slowly circle around a tree...
More bootprints...
More tall grass to push through...
After I moved around one last tree in the way, I could see it... a small cave entrance that would be impossible to see from the road. No, even if you moved thirty meters in this direction from the road you probably still wouldn't see it till you got this close.
Only a little more grass between me and the ground in front of the cave. It's all moss so it shouldn't make too much noise, also, I'll be applying the sound nullification part to my aura from here on out. While my aura has greatly improved over time, the sound dampening effect drains me just as much as it did on day one. Maybe I should find Steward's apprentice and pull whatever information I can out of her, by any means necessary. I doubt anyone who works for him is a wonderful person that is open to dialogue.
The smell at the mouth of the cave appears to be magnified by several amounts. Good thing I ate Angela's food before heading back down this road. The sound dampener only drains me on any sound I make, so if my stomach was rumbling every twenty seconds I'd be screwed.
Sneaking inside I let my eyes adjust for a bit before seeing I'm in a twenty meter tunnel that seems to open up at the end. At least I think it does? I can't see past there yet.
About one minute later I reached the end of the tunnel, and sure enough, it opened up to medium-sized cave. I see no other way out of here other... just this entrance and the slight crack in the roof that's letting barely enough light inside for me to make out the interior of this place.
The one spot my eyes settle on that truly gives me pause, is the bodies in the back right side of the cave that look like they were tossed there haphazardly.
... I can barely see them, but they look way too intact to be victims of something eating them.
Not moving my body an inch, I move my eyes bit by bit over every inch of the cave, trying to spot the monster in the darkness. I must have been doing this for fifteen or twenty minutes now, I can't see anything... is it really invisible?
It could just be blending into the environment... it is really dark after all.
For now I moved to the left side of the cave, about three feet from the wall there is a spot in the ground here that is pure rock. There is so much moss all over, I kept dipping in ether preventing every little damned noise from the moss.
I can't stay here for much longer. Taking into account how long it will take me to sneak back out of here, I should reach the gates just in time before they close. Besides, I know the location of the monsters nest now, at this point I just need to show the veterans back at the guild where the beast is staying. I guess playing the role of bait worked out for me, it tried enticing me and thanks to that I found its location in the first day. The group of guards must have been seen as too risky for the monster to try tempting them.
Yeah I guess there was no point to me moving to this rock, I should head back now and let the guild take care of this. I really wanted to eat this thing but without knowing where it is, the only other option is to show myself and let it ambush me. Even the other half of me has zero interest in attempting that despite the fact that I can clearly feel a mildly-strong soul somewhere in here. It feels like it's everywhere in this damn cave, yet I can't pinpoint it at all.
I had barely lifted one foot off the rock, when I suddenly heard the sounds of grass rustling outside of the cave.
Shit, was it outside and that's why I didn't see it?! It waited for me to enter and then it cut off my escape...? But Master said while I have my aura up he couldn't sense my soul at all, monsters should be the same.
While I'm panicking, the sounds of sandals clapping on the cave floor can be heard heading this way.
........... Sandals? That is sandals right?
Sure enough, within moments I could see a middle-aged woman walk into this part of the cave, moving her head from side to side as if looking for something.
I... don't know how to handle this situation. Is she the culprit looking for me? Or is she another victim looking for the source of the smell? The road is off-limits though, so it has to be---
In one swift motion, something about eight feet tall dropped from the ceiling of the cave and latched on the woman in a bear hug with dozens of long centipede-like forcipules, squeezing her tight while something cylindrical on its face moved over the woman's eyes making a loud sucking noise, followed shortly by a 'popping' noise. As the creature's mouth moved from eye to eye, I could see both her eyes were gone. The screams from the woman nearly made me piss myself right there and then.
They didn't last long though... the organic tube on its face moved deep into her eye-socked and began sucking again, which shut the woman up within seconds. After another twenty seconds of the creature sucking at her eye sockets and deep down her throat, it tossed her to the same corner where the other three bodies were currently laying. Finally it skittered across the ground, climbing the wall before settling back into the same spot it was hiding before I assume. Even now despite knowing it's up there, I can't see it.
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There... is no way I can eat this thing. The fear and disgust alone from what I just witnessed has me locked into place, unable to leave this wretched place.
Now I know why the bodies in the corner are so intact, it's only interested in what's inside of people.
... Oh god I'm gonna throw up. Don't do it Eve, not here, you'll be next.
Damnit I need to leave! Returning to the guild as fast as possible is my priority right now. Hopefully the veterans will have a good idea on how to handle this... thing.

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