The First Monster

“Wait, how are you here? This is Huoguo.” Zhuque asked. She knew it better than anyone; this was still ten years ago. The engagement between her and the prince of Watatsumi hadn’t happened yet, and so, for a boy of its descendent to be found within Huoguo’s territory would be nothing short of an act of invasion.

“Ah… Busted, aren’t I?” On the other hand, the boy only smiled. Even if he was quite a few heads shorter than his previous reincarnation, his odd half-white-half-black hair was the most definitive proof – it was Zerohito Ryuuhan, in the flesh.

“Tell me, Princess, how did you know my name?” He continued.

Only after he spoke did Zhuque realize her mistake – the two had never met before in this new life, after all.

“I… have my sources,” she reluctantly answered, shifting her eyes sideways. “You shouldn’t underestimate a princess of Huoguo.”

“Then it’s my mistake,” answered the boy. “I didn’t think that you’d personally go to this uncharted area just to check for suspicious individuals. But tell me, how did you know I’d be here of all places?”

“Isn’t it obvious? A tower suddenly appearing out of nowhere like this would attract anyone. And while Huoguo is still organizing its resources, other nations found this the best opportunity to call in their own investigation, right?”

In truth, it was Ryuuhan’s own words in the previous life that brought a hint to the young princess. It was naught but conjecture, yet Zhuque was bold enough to place her bet, or rather, her belief in the same boy, in this situation.

And this time, it had paid off.

Clapping his hands, Ryuuhan chuckled. “Bravo Princess. Nothing gets over your eyes. Now, whatever shall I do with you, who knows a bit too much for your own good…”

“Oh, please, you wouldn’t hurt me,” Zhuque confidently answered in return.

“Oh? And to what do I owe this confidence to?”

“Think about it; am I really going in this place alone without any guards? What would the rest of Huoguo do when they realize their princess has disappeared? And worse of all, what if they discovered your traces? Do you think that Watatsumi would be safe if words came out?”

Even though their conversation was brief, Zhuque had a grasp at what kind of person Ryuuhan was. Facing him required her to be confident, not only in herself, but in her opponent as well. It was a bluff that only those who’d had faith in his intelligence and capabilities would make.

Once again, she was correct. “Alright, you got me,” raising his hands to the sky, the young Ryuuhan answered.

“Don’t worry, I have no reasons to report you yet,” Zhuque answered. “Since we’re in this together for now, how about a truce? We can share the info we get, and everyone leaves in peace. Deal?” The princess raised her hand for a shake.

“Deal.” Ryuuhan responded in kind, his mouth curled into a smirk. “I must say, you impress me, Princess.”

“Save the flattery,” Zhuque smugly replied.

And thus began the two’s unlikely cooperation. It was a different time, a different body, but somehow to the princess, it was a strangely nostalgic feeling. Her impression towards the strange boy remained unchanged – he had his own baggage to take care of, but he was undoubtedly a trustworthy ally. Though she couldn’t help but notice the extra snark that Ryuuhan had now that he was a kid – perhaps time had done a larger number on him than she had expected.

“This is odd; it’s awfully quiet here,” Ryuuhan struck up a conversation after a while of walking around. “You think that the monsters have all gone outside?”

“Watch your mouth!” Zhuque hissed at the attempt at a joke. “Huoguo is still very safe, thank you very much!”

However, the princess had noticed the strange presence herself. In all of her previous records, the tower was always filled with monsters in all corners. For it to be this quiet, even as they ventured further inside, meant that something was up.

Mummies, for instance, were dangerous but dumb in nature. They behaved more like a mob of insects, attacking anything that moved and wouldn’t bother setting up an ambush. High-tier mummies could, but those were not a common occurrence. Supposed that this was the tower’s first floor, then Zhuque had expected that it was teeming with them the moment she set foot outside.

Before she could answer that question, however, a sudden cry shocked Zhuque and Ryuuhan into reality.

“Duat! Duat!”

“That sound… It’s a Ba!” Zhuque exclaimed.

That high-pitched shrill which sounded like nails scraping on a board, there was no mistake about it. The signature cry of a Ba – the answer for the bird symbol on the wall in the previous room.

As if to affirm her claim, descending from the dark ceiling above was a flock of bird-like creatures, but their distinctive feature of a masked humanoid face made them unmistakable from the regular avian lifeform. The faces themselves lacked any distinctive traits like personalities, but all shared the same hollowed black eye sockets and detailed lips, along with hat-like ornaments around their tops to further accentuate their out-of-nature appearance. Even the faces themselves didn’t look like flesh – with how they occasionally shone amidst the glowing light, there would be more implications that they were made of rock or metal than regular skin and bones.

Before the two had realized, they were already surrounded by this flock of Ba. They weren’t aggressive for the time being, but Zhuque knew better than to approach them with reckless abandon.

Meanwhile, there was only one Ba that separated itself from the rest of the flock, flying towards the center of the circle formation.

“Duat!” It cried out, spreading its wings and tilting its face up the sky in a sign of intimidation.

“I think… it wants a duel,” Ryuuhan said. “Is that what ‘duat’ means?”

“Not exactly,” Zhuque shook her head. “‘Duat’ only means ‘being’, but there were records that equated it with the word ‘duel’. Nonetheless, I don’t think we could get out without a fight.”

A single Ba might have been harmless in nature, but there was no telling what a whole flock would be capable of. They were nice enough to suggest a one-on-one duel, but there was no indication of what they would do if their request was to be denied.

“Then allow me, Princess,” Ryuuhan let out a confident smile.

“No, I’ll do it,” Zhuque shook her head. “I have more knowledge on this thing than you do, and I’m more than capable of handling things on my own. You cover for me in case these things retract their offer.”

Even if they had just met not long ago, Ryuuhan could feel the fire within Zhuque right now. Perhaps it was her guilt, or her thirst for glory, but one thing the boy knew – this princess was certainly not a damsel in distress. There was no indication that she would lose given the care and confidence she held, but even so, there was a nagging feeling within him. Something that he, as a retainer to a royal figure, had instinctively developed in his time.

“... Fine. But I’m stepping in as long as anything goes wrong.”

It was his compromise, the same that he had offered his prince for more times than he could count. And as he expected, that was enough for the young princess as well.

“Got it,” Zhuque nodded, preparing herself for her duel.

Of course, Zhuque knew it as well. In the end, she couldn’t risk the chance by giving it to another pair of hands. This was her second chance. She didn’t know how her current self worked, and she certainly wouldn’t dare to find out now.

“Duat!” The Ba let out a deafening shriek, before gliding towards Zhuque at a blistering speed, akin to a bird of prey diving to catch its unfortunate victim. The Ba had the same idea, confident that its talons were enough to rip the princess’s organs apart.

However, Zhuque’s words weren’t for show. She had battle experience. Even with the sudden increase in speed, the Ba couldn’t escape her prying eyes, and once the edge of surprise wasn’t present, outmaneuvering the creature was child’s play.

She still carried the dagger she had as a good luck charm since she was a child. She still remembered the lessons that she was drilled in, both in martial arts and in swordplay. Even if her body was only a ten-year-old’s, the memories remained.

Taking a deep breath, Zhuque waited until her opponent was only inches away from her chest. When the instance came, it was an easy strike.

“Hah!”

It was an upper slash, fast as lightning. Zhuque’s dagger glided through the Ba square in the face without any resistance. Her hand could feel the shattering sensation of stone, but more than that, she knew that it meant the Ba’s face was broken, and with it, the strange creature had surely perished.

The bird-like creature’s body skipped a few times on the stone-hard floor, before sliding a long way outside the ring of Bas surrounding the two. Yet, none of the other Bas made a move before the supposed death of its comrade, neither attacking for vengeance nor running away with their lives.

“Du-at!”

The shriek became a deep roar, sending a sound wave across the cave along with a chilling feeling of the dead towards the royals.

And that could only mean one thing.

“Ryuuhan/Princess! Run, now!” Both of them sounded at the same time.

That cry they heard just now was not one of the Bas. Zhuque knew this. Ryuuhan might not have known it, but with his instincts, he had an idea of it.

Then the question turned out to be: what was that cry?

From the supposed dead Ba, a cloud of violet haze oozed out. Along with it was the buzzing sound of insects, as if a thousand pairs of wings were beating at the same time. The mask, which had broken up due to Zhuque’s attack, floated in the air, stitching itself one piece at a time with the help of the strange smoke. In the end, the mask returned to its original state, while discarding its avian body for something formless, and much more sinister.

“A Ka? No way!” Zhuque exclaimed in shock. “So the two were one and the same!”

The third type of monster to appear in the tower’s first floor – Ka. Depicted as a mask in a formless haze, accompanied by the sound of a thousand bugs, the Ka was the rarest monster the raid army could find. There were no documents on how to defeat it, however, since none of them could find a way to destroy its ethereal body, while attacking the mask resulted in nothing.

In other words, once the army encountered a Ka, either they made it back alive with no results, or they died on the spot.

“Du-at!”

“Ryuuhan!”

The formless haze covered the young retainer in a flash, without giving him a chance to fight. In a split second, Ryuuhan had repeated history – the princess’s life was the priority for him. And so, before the haze could engulf his entire body, he had used every ounce of his strength to push Zhuque out of the way as much as he could, just like before. And this time, instead of being swarmed by mummies, the princess’s scream of pain and terror was the last thing he heard before getting swallowed by the abyss.

However, at that moment, the truth was also clear to the young princess. Only when she had witnessed its terror up close and escaped its demise did she realize what the Ka actually was.

Locusts! That’s a swarm of black locusts! Her mind raced in countless thoughts.

But that wasn’t all.

Once the swarm had consumed Ryuuhan, it wasted no time to retreat to its original position. And along with it, the second, much more disturbing truth revealed itself.

Everything happened in a flash. There wasn’t a shred of clothing, not even a piece of flesh left. What remained of Ryuuhan was only a skeleton, no more, no less. In fact, if there was no one else present at the incident, no one would have been able to recognize the former young retainer.

But even then, there was still more to come.

“Duat!”

All of the Bas cried in unison, their eye sockets glowing a bright gold. Their mouths finally opened, and from each of them, a piece of cloth flew in the air, wrapping itself around Ryuuhan’s skeleton. Within that golden light, a rotten stench arose, while blackened, bruised flesh slowly formed his body again, stitched in place by the bandages that had spawned. His skull grew the same black-and-white hair again, while his face was filled up with the same grotesque sludge that barely resembled human muscles.

As the reanimated corpse stood up once more, everything had pieced together perfectly.

There was no such thing as a “mummy” in the tower. The mummy was a monster born because of the tower, not from it. The Ba challenged people to a duel. The Ka appeared when the Ba was defeated. And after the Ka devoured the corpse, the Ba created the mummy from what remained. What was assumed to be the most abundant monster in the tower was just the bodies of countless victims that had fallen, with the raid army being none the wiser about it.

And now, that perpetual loop had found its mark on its second prey.

“Du-at!”