Are You Deaf When You Hear the Season’s Call? (3)

"Shuji. Shuji."

He shook his head, snapping out of his thoughts. By now the fish that had taken the bait had escaped, of course. Being called by name in such a casual manner was still a bit awkward, but she couldn't know that. It seemed to be that this was a world without Japanese people or an equivalent of their culture, after all.

"What were you thinking?"

"I was relaxing," he replied with perhaps his most blatant lie to date. "Wasn't that what you wanted?"

He was sure she would respond with: And that's true? Or something like that. Something along those lines. Instead, she nodded pensively.

A fish, maybe the same one, maybe another, jumped up, breaking through the surface of the water. For a moment, hovering in the air as it flapped, it looked as if it might fly. Then it fell back into the depths where it belonged.

——

"Are you nervous?"

How deep was this cavern? Shuji didn't have an exact sense of how long it had been since they had passed through the entrance. It could have been seconds, it could have been hours. In any case, there seemed to be no end to the darkness and the stone walls.

It was supposed to be a cavern full of dangers. Otherwise, they wouldn't be here in the first place. They were a group of adventurers who had been paid to exterminate the monsters in this cave. Paid a lot. It was hard to be glad that the pay was going up when at the same time the danger was.

Still, they hadn't encountered any monsters yet. He supposed he had to feel happy about that. He wasn't. The darkness, which the torches could barely penetrate, and the silence only fueled his paranoia.

Anything could come out of the darkness at any moment. He was prepared. As prepared as he could be, but he was afraid. Of course he was afraid.

"Don't be," he continued. "Actually, this mission is beneath us as a group. There shouldn't be any problem. At night we'll be drinking and laughing about how boring it was."

Shuji looked at the man's back. He was ahead of everyone, literally and figuratively. In other words, he was the leader. It looked like a reliable back to him. Though maybe it was because he was desperate to depend on anything other than his fragile self.

People claimed to pursue individuality. To shout "I" at the heart of the world. But when push came to shove, everyone wanted someone or something to tell them what to do. What to think. To take the weight off their shoulders.

That's what he thought, at least.

"I'm fine," Shuji said, aware that his voice didn't inspire much confidence. "I can do it."

Someone patted him on the back. Well, more like a good slap. The mage in the group looked thin and rather small, but she had no control over her strength. Sometimes she took his breath away doing that to him.

She looked like that. Mage. Like in the rpgs of old. The classic staff and hat. To be really like a classic, the hat should have been yellow, but it was fine.

"And if you're not, I'll protect you. Easy there."

He wouldn't suffer from stupid male pride or anything like that. If he had to, he would hide behind a woman without a second thought. But he didn't like her saying it like that either. Shuji replied with a weak smile.

"Well, we'll see." More mumbling. Great.

He was really making a good impression on them.

It wasn't the first or second time they'd hunted monsters together, but it hadn't gone much further, either. Shuji felt like he needed this to work. For the sake of his sanity. And his hopes.

After a while, the mage (he was pretty sure it was her) gasped. Shuji turned his head without feeling in danger at all, just wondering what he would have seen, what would have surprised him.

In time to see some sort of tentacle coiling around her throat, very tightly, and dragging him upwards.

Towards the stalactites on the ceiling?

In any case, it was good that Shuji wasn't paralyzed by surprise and horror. It was good that he only noticed the tentacle, what he thought was a tentacle, and didn't see the creature. Otherwise he would not have been able to react in time.

With a quick swing of the ax, cutting the "tentacle" and saving her. A black, viscous liquid splashed onto his clothes and neck, in the process. Its blood.

His hands were shaking and he still hadn't processed what had happened, what had been about to happen. But he helped the mage up as well. Perhaps because he was in no hurry to look, to see.

The thing was crawling along the walls and ceiling. The tentacle thing.

Tentacles, as he verified as soon as he dared to look up. Tentacles that were actually a tangle of snakes, surrounding the head of a scaly woman. The first word that came to mind was gorgon.

She clearly wasn't turning them to stone with her gaze, but she looked similar enough. It was plenty for him.

"What's that?

One of them said, in a voice that resembled that of a small child. He didn't remember which one of them said that. Just as he preferred not to remember names or faces.

He preferred was the code word.

Shuji's reaction was to take a few steps back, holding the ax with both hands in front of him as if it were a kind of shield. And panic. The most real panic since he had realized he wasn't in Kansas anymore.

What's that?

What?

They didn't even know what that monster's name was? They were screwed, weren't they? They were...

The creature, whatever its name was, screamed.

The motherfucker screamed, bone-chilling, and then it jumped. The stalactites shook, but none fell. For the moment.

More importantly, however, it pounced precisely on him.

That was what he thought at the time. Why precisely him? It was obvious, though. Animals, humans included, were all the same. He had hurt the creature and now it wanted to take revenge. It was as simple as that.

The creature ran over him. It grabbed him in its small arms, full of disproportionate strength, and moved on.

Smashing him against the wall. The pain was like the tide. For a few seconds he was convinced that something had actually pierced his chest, but it was just the pain.

Shuji thought he was going to die there. That he wouldn't even have time to lift his head before that thing killed him.

By biting his head off or whatever, the point is that he was as good as dead.

Then, the monster was surrounded by a white"colored energy. And it was dragged, no, pushed away from him. The mage had returned the favor. Almost too late, but only almost.

Shuji looked at her. He held up his thumb, smiling, still surely looking scared to death. He wasn't sure if it had the same meaning in this world or any at all, as he had never seen it, come to think of it.

What's done is done.

One of the others lunged at the monster with a sword.

But it couldn't even make a move to attack, much less hurt it. One of the snakes struck him in the chest like a whip. The force of the impact sent him up. For a moment Shuji thought he was going to see him impaled on the stalactites, but instead of piercing the man, they broke. Resilient.

Still, after reaching the ceiling he immediately fell. A double whammy. He wondered if he would recover from that. Because they were screwed, because they clearly needed help.

A few snakes spat out something green.

What was that, poison? It made sense, but Shuji was wrong. The substance simply slammed one of them against the ground and a wall. After that, it didn't start devouring his skin and flesh, so it couldn't be that. But it left him paralyzed no matter how much he resisted. That was almost as bad. Someone would have to help him get out of there.

Paralyzed, huh?

Maybe he wasn't so far off base with the gorgon thing.

The leader stepped forward. Shuji wanted to rely on him. Now, more than ever, he needed to depend on someone. So he wished with all his might that he had reason to appear so confident.

He reached out a hand, setting off an explosion that launched the monster away from him and all of them. It sent it flying through the air almost to the other end of the room.

But that was all. He didn't give it a scratch, and it immediately charged back after recovering from the fall.

He was the strongest of them all. After all, he had been named leader for a reason. However, that explosion had done nothing. It was too soon to give up and run with his tail between his legs.

But he was so, so afraid.

Now his hands weren't the only thing shaking.

The gorgon grabbed the swordsman, who was still on the ground, writhing as he tried to get up. Robbing him of the opportunity to do so.

It wasn't the only thing it stole from him, of course.

All of them could do nothing but look on in horror.