Chapter 20: Chapter 20: Land Beast

The festival continued for another two days before it ended.The speeches and ceremonies all took place at the start of the festival, so the rest of the festival was just relaxing, dancing, and singing. Sallia, Felix and I toured around the festival, eating food and enjoying ourselves as much as we could. All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend a few days after the months locked indoors.

After the days of celebration ended, the villagers gathered again for a different ceremony. All of the children would officially begin their adulthood ceremonies right after the festival was over. The festival period was a time of celebration, for most of the adults and children of the island, but it was also a time for those turning six or sixteen to scout out fishing boats or hunting groups to take them along for their adulthood ceremonies. It was a decision that might change whether they lived or died, so people had taken the search for a group of hunters or fishermen very seriously.

Now, everyone had finished finalizing their groups. The villagers lined up near the outskirts of the village, near the wooden fence that separated us from the island’s forests as we looked at the groups of children and adults preparing for their ceremony.

The village chief stood at the front of the villagers, looking over the people who had gathered here, before he began to speak with the same characteristic nervousness he had displayed last time he was in front of a crowd.

“Over the next week, many of you will take your first or last steps into adulthood. Those of you who are just turning six, I hope you have chosen well when finding a fishing group. Those of you who are turning sixteen this year, I hope that you’ve also chosen well, for your trial will be far more dangerous. For the fishermen or hunters who have taken in one of the children for this ceremony, I thank you for your help in guiding the children of our village as they take their next steps towards growing up. I’ve already said most of what I wanted to say at the start of the festival, but I’ll reiterate one thing a final time.

“While some injuries or deaths are common, take care of yourselves as best you can. All of you are important members of this village, and while failing to complete your hunt may mean you need to flee and try again, you won’t be able to try again if you die. Your adulthood ceremony is important, but your lives are more important. Take care of yourselves. And if you are one of the adults helping children in this ceremony, take care of the children under your protection as well.” The village chief gave everyone a solemn stare, and I heard a few children and adults say “Yes chief” in the background. Then, with the chief’s speech over, the hunters began preparing their various bone weapons while the fishermen began walking towards their fishing boats.

I took one last look at the six year olds walking behind the fishermen, as well as the sixteen year olds walking behind the hunters, and wondered what they would experience during their adulthood ceremonies. Unfortunately, I was still too young, so the adulthood ceremonies of the people here had nothing to do with me yet. Felix and I would need to wait another year before we could start our adulthood ceremony, and Sallia would need to wait two years.

Just as I was wondering what adulthood ceremonies were like, I saw the village chief, as well as most of the hunters, suddenly turn towards the forest at the same time.

Huh? I frowned. Why had all of the hunters and the village chief watching the forest? I looked at the forest as well, wondering if I was missing something. Sadly, my Perception was clearly much lower than the hunters and village chief. With my Grade 5 Perception, I couldn’t make out what the hunters of the village were looking at yet.

A few more moments passed, before Sallia’s head snapped towards a specific spot in the distance, and she frowned. “I hear something,” she said, loudly enough for Felix and I to hear her, but quietly enough others wouldn’t. “It’s pretty faint, even though I have 126 Perception, but I can definitely pick up something weird at the edge of my hearing.”

“What does it sound like?” Felix asked, frowning. Since he only had grade four perception, he was the most confused of the three of us.

Sallia frowned. “It sounds like someone… breathing really heavily. And rocks grating agains each other? It almost sounds like words, though. I can’t quite make out what it is. It sets my nerves on edge…”

After a few more seconds, I finally heard what Sallia and the Hunters were picking up. At the edge of my hearing, just outside of my understanding, was a series garbled ravings. Whatever was making the strange sound didn’t sound like a human at all, though. Instead, it sounded like a pile of stones grating against each other, making sounds that were almost words, but weren’t actually comprehensible language. Mixed into this series of grating noises was a distinctly more human sound. It was the noise someone made when breathing deeply before sighing, over and over again.

I turned my head towards the source of the cacophony, frowning, before the village chief suddenly turned pale.

“Get the children away from the forest! Someone else notify the households with children too young to leave their buildings and tell them a creature has left the forest! The type of landbeast is unknown, but it should be strong. Hunters, gather near me and prepare to fight. With any luck, the scouts at the edge of the forest should have already realized they can’t fight back on their own, and retreated a safe distance. We’ll need to reorganize -”

The village chief never finished what he was about to say, because all normal sounds in the area suddenly disappeared. I could still hear the grinding murmuring at the edge of my hearing, as well as the heavy sighing sounds, but any other sounds vanished into thin air. The village chief kept opening and closing his mouth, trying to talk, before he realized no sounds were coming out of his mouth.

My father’s eyes widened as unnatural silence fell throughout the gathering of villagers. He grabbed my mother’s hand, then grabbed mine, and began trying to retreat away from the creature. I saw many other families also start to group up and prepare to retreat, while a few hunters began running towards houses in the village to alert more vulnerable families. However, since they couldn’t talk, I doubted their efforts would prove useful. The teenagers who were supposed to start their adulthood ceremony stood at the edges of the scattering crowd, looking confused, while the hunter teams began to make hand gestures at each other. They sprang into motion, getting into formation to meet the horror from the forest. The villagers, having heard the village chief’s words, began to stare at the edge of the forest as they started backing away from the trees.

A moment later, something dashed out of the woods and ran towards the village at full speed. The creature looked like a floating set of human hearts, each of which hovered almost three meters above the ground. The hearts were disconnected from the rest of the creature’s body, and beat in midair like foul mockeries of real human biology. The creature’s limbs were made of floating bits of paper and sand, with strange limbs spread around its heart at unnatural angles and strange geometries. The creature’s head resembled a cheap plastic mask one might find in a convenience store, and was completely expressionless. Its eyes were floating black beads, located just behind its face. The beady eyes were the only parts of the creature’s face that moved, and they darted from left to right as they eyed the village.

The creature didn’t care about the presence of the hunters. After exiting the treeline, it simply continued charging towards the village as quickly as it could move. However, the whispered murmurs at the edge of my hearing started to change as the creature approached. At first, I had simply thought the sound was strange, but as the sounds grew louder and closer, I had a stronger and stronger desire to run towards the creature. The garbled murmuring no longer sounded like stones grating against each other - instead, they started to resemble human voices more and more effectively, until I could have sworn the creature’s voice was mimicking Sallia’s and Felix’s voice nearly perfectly. Thanks to my high Willpower, the effect of the sounds were easy to shrug off, but they still made me feel uneasy as I listened to a twisted mockery of my friend’s voice ask me to stand in front of the land beast.

I felt a surge of terror as I looked for the real Sallia and Felix. Felix had adopted a strange, glazed expression as he looked towards the creature, but he still seemed to be holding on well enough. Sallia, however, was already trying to wriggle away from her parents and sprint towards the creature. Her expression was completely glazed over, and her parents also seemed to be struggling to hold on as their attention wandered towards the creature.

I slipped out of my father’s hands, and as his eyes widened in panic, I made my way to Sallia. I grabbed her, and helped her parents drag her away from the creature, before I ducked into the crowds of villagers who were scattering away from the land beast.

Meanwhile, the hunters of the village started to light up with runes. The first thing I noticed was that the sand around us was beginning to surge towards the sky. The sand rapidly formed into large numbers of fist-sized spearpoints, before freezing in midair. The sand-manipulating hunters stopped, while another group of hunters raised their hands towards the floating lumps of sand. Instantly, the sand began to ripple, like before it started transforming from sand into stone. With the magic spearpoints formed, a third group of hunters used wind abilities to send the spearpoints flying towards the creature at speeds I couldn’t track with my eyes.

Many of the spearpoints missed, but a few of them connected, tearing two of the hearts into shreds and ripping up some of the papery limbs of the creature’s body. The creature shuddered for a moment, but otherwise didn’t react to the attacks of the hunters. 

The creature continued charging forward, before it finally reached the fence separating the village from the forest. Suddenly, a leg made of paper appeared out of thin air, hovering near the creature’s floating hearts, before it kicked the fence. The wooden fence protecting the village turned into chips of wood with a single blow.

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The village chief leapt in front of the creature, and his eleven runes lit up. Winds started to whip around, rivaling the winds of the storm season, and the village chief used the winds he had created to hold himself in midair. Then, he began flying towards the creature’s face. At the same time, I noticed mana start to gather around the rest of his body, especially his right hand. In a moment, the mana near his hands formed into a glowing set of golden claws.

Then, the village chief suddenly sped up. One moment, he was still several meters away from the creature, and then he appeared right in front of the creature’s face a moment later. He tried to cut the creature’s mask apart with his glowing set of claws, burning the mana in his body to strengthen himself as much as possible for one deadly blow.

The claw cut into the creature’s face, and I heard a screeching sound like nails on chalkboard. The creature stumbled backwards, and gray blood began to trickle out of its mask. Unlike the spear points, the chief’s attacks seemed to have actually injured the creature. I could see four grooves along the creature’s face, nearly a centimeter deep. One of the creature’s beady eyes had turned into a pile of mush, and its mad dash for the village had been completely stopped. For a moment, I thought the village chief had killed the creature in one blow.

However, after the creature finished reeling, it quickly rebounded. Strangely, the creature still didn’t seem to care about the village chief’s presence. After it got back to its feet, it immediately began charging towards the village again. It didn’t counterattack the village chief, or even try to dodge out of the way as the hunters began bombarding it with more projectiles, arrows, and bone weapons. It was as if it didn’t care about being injured.

Jets of wind whirled towards the creature. Blood droplets controlled by runes drilled through its body, devouring its hearts and shredding its limbs into nothing. Stone spear points riddled its limbs with wounds. Hunters who were closer began using their bone weapons, dodging in and out of the creature’s vicinity as they cut, shot, and stabbed the creature and tried to halt its advance. Bits of destroyed fence wove themselves back together, turning into cords of wood that wrapped around the creature’s limbs and tried to stop its advance. Despite all of this, the creature ignored the hunters.

It charged into the outskirts of the village. I expected the creature to start slaughtering the weaker villagers nearby, and prepared to knock Sallia unconscious so that I could flee more quickly and keep her safe. People were still scattering in all directions, with a few children being physically restrained by their parents as they tried to leap towards the creature. 

The creature caught one of the slower groups of people. Just as I expected to see them get killed, the creature ran right past them.

The creature was still ignoring its surroundings. Apart from destroying the fence, the creature had yet to inflict any damage on the village. It simply charged through the village, totally ignoring the hunters trying to kill it. The village chief also hounded it, clawing at its face and desperately trying to drop the creature. 

Then, the creature rammed through a house, turning it into a pile of rubble in a fraction of a second. I finally realized the rest of the creature’s body did exist - I just couldn’t see it. However, as it ran, something I couldn’t see crashed into the houses in the creature’s surroundings, crushing houses underfoot and tearing away walls as the creature ran. If it stepped on a villager, they would probably be crushed, even if they had all 3 physical runes. Luckily, it was still ignoring everyone.

I felt a breath of relief, as I realized that the creature wasn’t about to slaughter the villagers. Most of the villagers had come to see the children and teenagers of the village set off for their adulthood ceremonies, so as long as the creature didn’t attack us, the damage this thing inflicted on the village would be limited to property damage. 

Then, the creature’s body rammed through another house. Inside of the house, I could see a family of four. A seven year old girl sat inside of the building, her hands over her ears as she tried not to listen to the creature’s murmurings. Her mother stood next to her, holding her hands over a toddler’s ears while the father covered his own ears in the background.

After the wall caved in, the two year old child looked curiously at the newly made hole in the wall of her house. She took one, curious look outside… and saw the ocean.

Suddenly, her expression warped, turning into an expression of pure desire as she stared at the rippling water beyond the village. The creature quickly ran past the building, its interest nonexistent, but the girl inside of the house was staring at the ocean with rapt attention. 

The creature rammed through another house, and I saw red liquid spurt out of a corner of the building. I sucked in a breath of air as I realized that my assumptions were misplaced, because I had forgotten something. Families with children too young to see the ocean hadn’t left their houses. They were still sitting inside of their houses, unaware of the strange creature tearing through the village, because nobody could make noise and tell people to evacuate. I looked into the distance, hoping that the red liquid wasn’t blood, or perhaps that the person was still alive. Instead, I saw two crushed toddlers and a nearly dead father. The front half of his body was a soup of white and red substances, and held almost no resemblance to a human body anymore.

Uncaring of the damage it caused, the creature continued charging through the village, until it reached the ocean. Then, it leapt into the water and began frantically swimming downwards. In moments, it disappeared, sinking beneath the waves as the grating whispers at the edge of my hearing slowly faded away. The land beast was gone. The village chief, who had been desperately trying to kill the creature, finally gave up when the creature sank into the ocean. There was no reason to pursue it anymore.

However, while the creature had disappeared, the damage caused by its sprint into the ocean remained. Two children had died, a male villager was very nearly dead, and another toddler was now desperately trying to run towards the ocean. And that wasn’t including the deaths I hadn’t seen. 

I took in another deep breath, feeling Sallia finally relax as I stared at the ruined houses of the village. Even though none of my friends or family members had died this time, I suddenly felt how fragile human life could be in this world. I had hoped that this world was a safe haven for the three of us - that as long as we stayed in the village, we could safely work on condensing more runes as we grew up and explored our surroundings. But I was wrong. Even though the dangers here were less numerous than those of the Market, there was no guarantee that the three of us were safe here. Even though we were only children, we might die horrible and unexpected deaths at any time - not just in this world, but in any world we encountered in the future. I had felt so safe and peaceful since coming here that I had forgotten the fact that I had no clue what we would encounter, but after seeing the land beast tear through the village, I realized that every single world had its own dangers the three of us would need to deal with. The land beast from the forest had appeared like a bolt of lightning, wholly unexpected, and had carved its way through the village in less than two minutes with almost no forewarning at all. I had managed to get Sallia out of the way and dodge the creature’s path in time, and Felix had managed to keep himself safe due to his mature mindset and decent Willpower stat, but that was more a matter of luck than any real preparation or skill on our part.

Would the three of us be as lucky next time? I frowned, before shaking my head. I didn’t want to leave my survival and the survival of my friends up to chance. We were alive for now, but I realized that I needed to treat this world with the respect an unknown, possibly dangerous dimension deserved. We only had five lives, and we had no clue how to restock them. We needed to make every life count while we farmed as much Achievement as we could manage - or else we might die, not just in this world or the next world we visited, but permanently. And to stay alive, I needed to change my mentality. I took in a deep breath, letting my thoughts and realizations sink in as the village chief slowly floated back towards the crowds of villagers who had started to regroup near the ruined fence. 

The village chief looked over those who had survived the flight of the land beast, before he gave a sorrowful sigh.

“Those who are able, gather around me. We need to assess damages and deal with the aftermath of this event,” he said, his tone taking a solemnness I hadn’t seen from him before. As he looked over the ruined houses, corpses, and damaged fence, he gave a deep sigh, before he took a few more steps and stood back in front of the crowd of villagers. Now that the sudden attack of the land beast had ended, it was time to deal with the aftermath.