"So, southwest, huh..." Sirus muttered, squinting at his surroundings. To be frank, he was lost.
"Lost. Tch. I hope this wasn't some half-baked scheme to ditch me. Whatever—according to this map, it's just a few kilometers away. All the way up there." He sighed and looked up toward a looming, menacing mountain.
"Isn't an ogre just an evolved goblin? If memory serves me right, I read somewhere that goblins evolve into hobgoblins, then ogres? So... is ogre the final form? But the mayor mentioned a red ogre. What makes it different?"
Muttering to himself, Sirus continued across the rough terrain—leaping over roaring rivers, dodging horned rabbit ambushes, darting from tree to tree. The monster forest lived up to its name.
"As expected..." he mumbled. "Been two days since I left Kurts. Hopefully the cave's at the base of the mountain—not halfway up the damn thing."
Night had fallen. With his back to a stone and a flickering fire casting shadows, Sirus skewered one of the horned rabbits he'd slain earlier. He turned the stick slowly, roasting the meat to golden perfection.
"These things are surprisingly tasty," he said to no one. "Take it off the flame just before it's done, and the juice inside is divine."
He tilted his head toward the stars—only to freeze. In the distance, he heard the creak of wheels.
"A carriage? All the way out here?" He sniffed the air. "Humans... but something else. Beast-like."
Narrowing his eyes, he stood—still chewing a mouthful of rabbit.
Might as well see what they're hauling. Traveling at night, with that strange scent? Something's off. Smells like... human and beast in one?
"A demihuman," he concluded aloud, a grin creeping across his face. In a blur, he vanished into the trees, darting toward the convoy.
…
"Is it really safe to be traveling at night?" the younger adventurer whispered.
"The monsters are more active after dark, so no," his older partner replied, walking beside the convoy. "But it's not up to us. If they wanna push through, we follow orders. We'll be home soon—Kurts ain't far now."
"I don't like this mission. We're escorting a... a slave. A rare one at that."
"Hush, man!" the older one hissed. "We're getting paid to shut up and walk. No questions. But yeah... if I'd known it was a demihuman from the snow leopard tribe, I'd have passed too."
His partner glanced at the wagon. "Is that what we're escorting? I didn't know it was that serious. You know anything about them?"
Just as he opened his mouth to explain—
A shadow darted overhead.
[Swoosh]
The horses pulling the convoy suddenly collapsed, their heads lopped clean off. Their bodies crashed to the ground with a sickening thud.
The two adventurers at the front turned back toward the convoy, dread tightening in their chests.
"W-what the hell was that?!" the younger adventurer cried, whipping his head toward his partner. But as he did, his eyes widened—he stumbled back and fell, his trembling hand pointing past his companion.
"Wh-what are you d-doing?" the older adventurer asked, turning stiffly. He followed the direction of his partner's finger—just in time to glimpse a pair of glowing red eyes staring into his very soul.
[Thud]
Time slowed. The young adventurer watched in horror as his partner's head slid cleanly from his shoulders.
He gasped, blood gushing from his mouth. His eyes dropped to his chest—a fist-sized hole had been punched straight through it. He collapsed to the side, blood trickling past his lips.
In his final moments, he saw it. The glowing red eyes. The razor-sharp fangs. A wide, cruel grin.
A monster.
The creature turned its back and strode toward the convoy, uncaring. Behind it, bodies littered the earth like broken dolls.
What… a monster, the young adventurer thought, as death took him—eyes frozen wide in terror.
…
The convoy lies still. Broken wheels. Blood in the mud. Smoke curling like lost souls.
Sirus stands at the edge of a wreckage. His red eyes savouring at the destruction, crimson tipped claws with someone else's end. Oil from the lanterns set the wreckage on fire, bursting into flames.
A sound catches his ears, his ears flick in the direction. Soft, shifting. Ragged breathing.
He turns.
A cage, half crushed, half hidden beneath a shattered cart. Inside a girl. White hair tangled. Clothes in tatters. A young demihuman with pale, almost snow white skin, marked with old bruises and a pair of ears flattened against her skull.
She's watching him. Not Crying. Not Begging.
Just watching.
"Are you here to finish the job?" She says, her voice ragged, dry. " Go on, then. I bite"
Sirus doesn't answer. He kneels-slow, deliberate-and tears the cage door with one hand. No flourish, just necessity.
The girl stares at the twisted metal, then at him.
"You're not human."
He tilts his head. "Neither are you."
She crawls out, wincing, and rises shakily to her feet. Standing up to his chest, eyeing him like a raging storm.
"You're just a big shadow," she mutters. "All teeth and fire. What do I call you-Ashfang?"
Sirus doesn't move. A slight fearsome smile. But there's a flicker in his red glowing red eyes. Like coal stirred by wind.
"Call me whatever you want." Sirus replies.
She scoffs. "Fine. Big shadow. Ashfang. Creepy horned red eyed freak. I'm Selvynee. You gonna eat me or not?"
He stands with his brows raised. "No?"
A pause.
"You're free."
She tilts her head as she blinks.
"That's a stupid thing to say."
She stumbles forward, mud squished under her furred feet.
She looks down with disgust then back at him.
"First of all, ew. Second of all. I don't got anywhere to go. You're the one who broke my cage, so you're stuck with me now, Ashfang."
He raises a brow. "How you come up with Ashfang?"
The girl shrugs her shoulders as she looks at the destruction around her, then turns back to him.
"It suits your freaky mouth."
…
And just like that, the demon keeps walking, and the leopard girl limps behind him, two shadows. Heading towards something neither of them understands yet.
'What's wrong with my mouth?'