14 - Black Soup

In my eyes I had taken on the first request for Silver Bounty.

I assured the old man I would find his granddaughter no matter what, and he wept and squeezed my hand so tightly I almost teared up myself.

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, back to the shop to get Toast. He'd never been much for tracking but I might run into monsters. 

Who's turn is it at the shop today? I think Kana mentioned going to the market. Maybe Maja should come too? If the girl is injured we could use her healing. 

I burst through the door and quickly tried to explain the situation to Maja while gasping for breath. Toast was barking wildly at me, I probably scared him coming in so aggressively, and he seemed to have strong feelings about the bell above the door. I don't know if it was love or hate but he definitely wanted to get at that bell. 

Maja didn't need to hear much else after a child needing help, and she quickly ushered me back outside, almost closing the door on her own tail in her haste. I liked seeing this determined side of her. The dandere opens up!

Toast ran ahead of us the whole way. I wonder if he felt the tension. I briefly remembered how close to getting telepathy we were, and how handy it would have been at a time like this, if it really did what I was hoping it would.

We made our way to the wall of the city in the northwest, where the man said there would be an old unused road. Someone had boarded up the exit, but it was clear others had pulled away some boards to slip through. We did the same and found ourselves in a dense and overgrown forest, though there was in fact a road cutting through it. 

There are definitely going to be monsters here, I'd live here if I was a monster. I don't have a good feeling about finding that girl.

Maja had never been in a battle before either so I needed to play it cautiously. We got to work, checking bushes and underbrush, calling out to see if anyone responded. 

After what I'm sure was a couple hours, I was getting worried about how deep we were going into the forest as it was getting harder to see the wall of the city. Maja was getting more frantic and I wondered if it was a good idea to involve her in this. If we didn't find the child she might fall apart.

Toast was acting strangely too. He started out the same way as he always had, sniffing around and peeing where he saw fit, needing to be carried, but now he was on alert. His ears pointed forward and flicked in different directions like radar. Maja's were doing the same and if the situation wasn't dire I might have laughed at the charm of it.

Suddenly, Toast took off, and we took chase. Regardless if he found something or not, I couldn't lose him in a place like this so I pushed myself to stay close.

I pressed myself through some thick branches and found him. Toast looked back at me and behind him I thought I saw pixels, but my eyes focused and it was a young girl. She was lying in the dirt, barely conscious. Her cheeks were sunken in and she was just as thin and sickly as the old man. Toast started to lick her and a green glow shone around his tongue, so I ran to him and shouted "No!", lifting him up. He growled at me.

"It's okay buddy, that's what Maja is here for, you need to be careful using heal."

Maja pushed me aside and fell to her knees beside the girl. She raised both of her hands and said "Heal", but a green light flashed and nothing happened.

"Great Heal"

A brighter green flash, and nothing happened.

She looked back at me, then back at the girl and started chanting an incantation. 

A low green light spread over the girl's body, and Maja let out a small gasp, but continued her spell.

After a few minutes, some colour returned to the girl's cheeks and she opened her eyes.

She was startled at first, and scooched back away from us, but Maja gently offered her a hand, much like Pinnea had done for Toast. She spoke so softly I almost didn't hear her.

"Let's go see your Grandpa, shall we?"

The small girl took Maja's hand and stood up slowly. The healing had not helped with her vitality. She was still rake thin and had likely been starving. We walked carefully at her pace through the woods, and at one point Maja had tried to pick her up to carry her but was shoved away. 

I was glad this ordeal hadn't had any major tragedies, but no sooner had I finished that sentiment than a loud rumbling surrounded us and shook the trees. I looked all around me and saw nothing, but the rumbling grew more intense, like something was coming towards us at a rapid pace.

Maja pulled the child close to her, but the girl seemed unbothered by what was happening. Toast shrunk behind my legs, ever wary of loud noises.

Then, like a shot, an immensely gigantic creature appeared before us. I'd call it a wolf but it looked distorted and had strange features. It had black shaggy fur with white legs as thick as the trees themselves, but they were short compared to its stocky body. Its ears looked like that of a bat, maybe even similar to the shape of Maja's, and it had three monstrous eyes with slitted pupils that bore holes into us. It stared and we dared not move. 

I couldn't bring myself to break eye contact with it, and in doing so Toast had wandered out from his hiding place behind me, and cautiously approached the massive beast.

I tried to call out for him to come back, but still my gaze was locked, like this thing had trapped me with a spell.

Toast began to sniff its mighty paw, double his size. The creature shifted its leg back, and blood poured from under its mane.

Unexpectedly, Toast flashed with a white light, and jumped two stories into the air, landing square on the monster's snout. Its eyes focused on him and I felt myself able to move again, but I stood frozen anyway, worried if I moved the wrong way this thing might attack.

Toast plunged his nose into the fur of the monster, and started sniffing his way up. He wobbled and struggled to climb up its head, and disappeared behind one of its colossal ears. I heard his small bark, and I found the courage to action my body to get him back in my line of sight. I slowly shifted myself around to the side of the monster, gesturing for Maja to wait there. As I came around and Toast came partially back into view, I saw a green light. Toast had his head buried in the thick black fur where below that a trail of blood had matted down the coarse hair.

He was using heal on this thing. 

Why?! He'll make himself sick again!

Against my better judgement, I yelled at the top of my lungs.

"TOAST. GET DOWN, NOW!"

Toast perked his head up and grumbled at me, and the beast reacted to my voice and shook its great form. Toast half leapt down, half fell, and I ran forward to catch him. I was about to call out to Maja to take the child and run, but the monster took off with even greater speed than it had when it arrived.

Maja ran over to me and scooped Toast from my arms, already chanting a spell. I hadn't noticed but Toast was fast asleep from the moment I'd caught him. I thanked Maja and we tried to process what had just happened, but it was getting dark and we needed to get the girl home. I was put off by how indifferent she'd been the whole time. Was she just traumatized?

Maja held toast over her shoulder with one arm, and led the girl with the other. I felt useless and admired how capable she was.

As we approached the city again and the wall was within our sights, she finished restoring Toast's MP at great cost to herself, and was starting to wobble as we walked. I took Toast from her and supported her from the side.

We saw the entrance come into view and the old man was waiting there. He knelt down and opened his arms, and the girl ran ahead and fell into a hug. He cried and held her, and we sent them off shortly after. I told the man if they were ever in dire straits again to come right to our shop, Maja added that we wouldn't charge them a thing.

We walked ourselves home slowly, Toast snored in my arms and Maja used my shoulder to support herself. We were too exhausted to talk about the monster we had seen.

"She's not human."

"What?"

"Heal and great heal wouldn't work. I had to use the spell I curated for monsters. She's a Moroza."

I was reminded of a book I once read that said sometimes animals will hide themselves when they know they're going to die.

I didn't know what else to say. I had too much to think about so I simply replied with;

"I see."