Creatures Lurking in the Dark

*Slash*

 

*Kiiiieeehh*

 

In the forest depth, where no non-combatants dare to trek, two women were fighting a horde of kobolds.

 

Kobolds were humanoid monsters with a dog head. They often hunted in groups, capable of tracking their prey, and manufactured crude weapons to use.

 

However, These group hunters became the hunted the moment they attacked the two women.

 

The woman with a green ponytail, Jenna, was dancing a mesmerizing yet deadly dance.

 

Whenever her sword flashed, a kobold fell to the ground and lay motionless.

 

There was little these monsters could do, as they would be reaped of their lives once they got into her range.

 

And just a short distance away, the redhead girl watched in awe.

 

"A-amazing! I can't believe how strong Lady Jenna is. And she didn't even use magic at all. Her sword skill is so beautiful."  Sara's eyes couldn't leave the figure of Jenna.

 

When the two first encountered this horde of kobolds, she planned to split up with Jenna and each take on half of the horde.

 

That was what Sara thought, as by the time she took down two, she saw Jenna had already killed five without breaking a sweat.

 

The difference between their skills was like day and night.

 

In less than fifteen minutes, more than ten kobolds now became corpses.

 

*Rumbling... rumbling*

 

The earth suddenly shook.

 

"Be careful! Something big is coming."  Jenna directed her eyes in front of her.

 

"Y-yes!"  Sara said as she gripped her sword tightly.

 

*BAM*

 

And then, in front of them, three meters, a one-eye cyclops appeared as it knocked down a tree with its club.

 

"L-lady Jenna! It's a Cy-cyclops!"  Sara could feel her back damped with sweat.

 

A cyclops was a giant with blue skin as hard as a rock. Even if one managed to penetrate its skin, its high regenerative ability meant that the strike had to either destroy its heart or brain; otherwise, it would be back to square one. Moreover, although slow, a single hit by its massive arm was enough to send anyone to the afterlife.

 

A platoon of knights was needed to guarantee a bare minimum of injury to fight a troll.

 

This enemy was, by no means, something that Sara and Jenna could take on their own.

 

Was what Sara thought as she heard Jenna say. "It's ok, Sara. I'll handle it."

 

Contrary to Sara's anxiety with this encounter, Jenna's face remained calm as she took one step forward.

 

The cyclops let out a thundering growl as it looked menacingly at Jenna.

 

It lifted up the club it carried overhead and swung down.

 

Jenna didn't move until the last second; she took a single step to the side, causing the club to hit the empty ground, creating a big hole.

 

She then sharply stabbed her sword under the fingernail of its thumb.

 

The Cyclops screamed due to the pain. It flinched and pulled its arm back, creating a gap.

 

Jenna didn't miss it. She immediately took off for a dash and jumped up.

 

Due to its posture, the Cyclops couldn't react in time.

 

Jenna put all the inertia of her jumping into one thrust of her sword, which easily pierced through the Cyclops' chest, stabbing through its heart and pulling out.

 

It was so fast that Sara couldn't see the strike. The only reason she knew it was a stab was because of the visible hole on the Cyclops' chest from which dark blue blood spilled out.

 

Normally, this would have sealed the monster's fate, but Jenna wasn't finished yet.

 

Using the monster's belly as a foothold, she kicked up for another jump and once again stabbed the Cyclops, this time through its eye and destroying its brain.

 

The Cyclops slowly fell down to its knee and collapsed to the ground.

 

It couldn't stand a chance against Jenna. The only reason it could attack was because Jenna allowed it to move first. Even then, she could easily dodge it and went for a counter.

 

"WOW! THAT WAS SO BADASS! Lady Jenna is so strong. What did you do to become so strong?"  Sara burst out in cheers.

 

"Hm? You can reach this level if you never skip your daily training. You are still young, so you can achieve it easily."  Jenna said as she cooly sheathed her Estoc sword.

 

No one hate being praised; even Jenna smiled a little when Sara admired her skill.

 

She's proud that her daily training had paid off as she was now the goal for new knights.

 

"If you want, I can help with your training."  (Jenna)

 

"REALLY!? Please teach me your secret!"  Sara's outburst surprised Jenna, making her smile wryly.

 

"Yes, how about the next monster we face, I will show you the way I fight."  (Jenna)

 

"Thank you very much, lady Jenna!"  (Sara)

 

For Sara, Jenna was the ideal figure of a knight. In her eyes, she was so strong and beautiful, and she carried herself with elegance. Her swordsmanship was like a dance. Despite her thin arms and legs, she could quickly dispatch a Cyclops with minimum movements.

 

While listening to Jenna's lectures on how to train in her free time, the two moved the monster corpses to burn them down, or else they would become undead or attract other carnivore monsters.

 

When they were done with their task, they resumed moving deeper into the forest.

 

The location Jenna had on her mind was near the central area of this forest. It would take them more than half a day to get there.

 

About an hour later, the two encounter an Orc monster- A bipedal pig face monster. They tended to capture females from the races to breed with them. As a result, they were hostile and must be exterminated on sight.

 

"Watch closely, Sara. My way of fighting relies solely on swiftness and counter. Against these kinds of monsters, just like the Cyclops previously, a contest of strength will not end well for us. So do not attempt to block their attacks. Instead, you parry them."  Jenna said as she walked toward the Orc."

 

The Orc sent a dirty looked at Jenna; drool dripped down from its face, and a bulge could be seen on its crotch.

 

It didn't register Jenna as an enemy but as a female to capture and breed.

 

(Filthy monster.)

 

Jenna thought as the Orc reached out with its big arms to grab her.

 

However, it couldn't touch her. She had disappeared from its view.

 

She pushed its hand with her left hand and pivoted around it to its back.

 

*Growl*

 

The Orc scream as it felt a burning pain in its back.

 

Jenna slashed it from behind the moment she spun around it.

 

The pain caused the monster to go into a frenzy. It no longer cared about anything else. It could only see red.

 

It raised the crude axe in its right hand to strike Jenna and swung down.

 

But once again, it missed the target.

 

When the axe almost reached her, she tapped the side of her sword and guided the weapon away from her, making the heavy weapon smack into the ground.

 

*Swish*

 

Slowly, the Orc's head disconnected with its neck, falling down to the ground, followed by a thud sound of its heavy body.

 

Whipping the sword once to clear the blood, Jenna sheathed her sword.

 

"Amazing! That Orc couldn't stand a chance!"  Sara cheered.

 

"That's right, and you can do it with enough training. Now try to apply what you have seen to the next monster we face."  (Jenna)

 

And then, the two women continued; on their way, they encountered another Orc and two goblins, which Sara dealt with under Jenna's instruction.

 

 They soon reached the entrance to a shaft leading to the ground.

 

It was morning when they left the city, and now it was around dusk.

 

They decided to camp here, enter the shaft tomorrow and get back before sunset the next day.

 

They quickly set up their camp and had dinner.

 

Then Sara showed what she had learned, and Jenna would fix any mistakes she made.

 

Just like that, time passed until it was time to get some sleep. Sara volunteered to take the first shift on the lookout.

 

Although Jenna told her that she wouldn't mind being the first, Sara insisted that she still wanted to do some more practice. So it was decided that Sara would take the first shift.

 

A couple of hours later.

 

"Urghh... I want to go to pee..."  Sara said as she rubbed

 

She regretted drinking a little too much after her dinner.

 

"Gah! I can't hold it in. fast fast fast." Sara broke out to a dash as she rushed toward a bush.

 

Squatting down to the ground, she slipped her underwear down to her knee to do her business.

 

"Haah~ I made it."

 

Feeling relieved by avoiding an embarrassing incident, she squinted her eyes in bliss.

 

It was at this moment she let down her guard.

 

She didn't know that she had something inhuman tailing her the entire time.

 

Slowly creeping closer to her exposed bottom, the worm creature.

 

It blended in perfectly in the darkness of the forest, waiting for the moment its prey dropped their guard.

 

And that moment finally came.

 

Now standing directly underneath Sara's crotch, the worm creature deftly dug a hole big enough to fit its body inside with its tentacle.

 

Then it extended its upper half toward Sara's defenseless vagina.

 

From within its mouth, a tiny bug about the size of a pinkie crawled halfway out. It was the demonic leech.

 

And then, the worm lightly bent its body down to shoot the small bug out using its body recoil.

 

Right at that moment, Sara finished peeing and used a cleaned dried leaf to wipe her crotch, blocking the entrance to her vagina.

 

The worm couldn't let this chance pass, it had waited long enough, and it didn't know when the next opportunity would come.

 

Luckily for the worm, the woman host had another hole.

 

It changed its aim to slightly behind Sara's vagina, where her anus lay bare.

 

––And it shot out the bug.

 

"Hyaakk!"  Sara screamed.

 

The small bug was small and slippery, so even the inexperienced Sara's anus couldn't keep it from intruding.

 

"W-what was that!!??"

 

She quickly reached her hand down to her anus to check.

 

It was slightly damped, but she could clearly feel that something was pushed inside.

 

Her anus was tingling in discomfort. It was becoming itchy.

 

She looked down between her crotch on the dirt ground, but she couldn't spot anything unusual.

 

She didn't know that the moment the worm shot the parasitic bug, it quickly dropped down to the hole it had previously dug and camouflaged the entrance.

 

"Uuuu... What the hell was that!?"

 

It was the first time she had something inserted in there.

 

Biting her lower lip, she inserted her index finger up to the first knuckle inside her anus to check.

 

Unbeknownst to her, the bug had crawled so deep that even if she were to insert her finger all the way, it wouldn't even reach the bug. Moreover, even if she somehow reached it, she would only push it in deeper.

 

"Kuh! The heck! What was it!? Did some strange bug enter my ass???"

 

Bingo, not that she had any way to confirm.

 

She pushed her finger as deep as she could while her middle finger scratched the rim.

 

"Arghh! What is this weird feeling, like something is squirming inside me? And it's itchy! Damn it! If my finger cannot reach it, then..."  Sara said as her eyes caught a long twig about thirty centimeters just within her grab, lying in front.

 

Frustrated that she couldn't do anything about it, she picked it up and inspected it.

 

It was a little sharp on its end, so she smoothed the surface with the sandpaper she carried with her everywhere.

 

"Damn it!!! Gahh!!"  Sara deemed that the tip was smooth enough not to cause any damage to her, then she cried out in fury as she pressed the twig to her anus and stuck it in.

 

It was a strange feeling to her. It was her first time putting something in the hole that was only meant for excretion.

 

Tears formed at the corners of her eyes.

 

Sara didn't know; dripping along the length of the twig was her intestinal juice.

 

She was feeling it.

 

Feeling shameful, irritated, and agitated, she increased her strength.

 

It was a wrong move.

 

Something terrible happened to her.

 

The movement she jammed the twig firmly inside, it pushed against the bug, forcing it deeper into her colon.

 

The bad news didn't end there.

 

Due to the force of her thrust and the recoil from pushing the bug, the fragile twig couldn't bear the resultant force, snapping it cleanly inside her rectum.

 

"FUCK!!!"  Sara swore in a heartbreak screech.

 

Looking down at the snapped twig, she could see that it was shortened by about five centimeters. And it didn't need a genius to figure out where that five centimeters length ended up in.

 

"W...what do I do!? What do I do!? What do I do!? What do I do!!!!?????"  Tears rolled down her cheeks.

 

"Sara, where are you?"  From afar, she heard a voice calling her name.

 

It was Jenna. Her scream just now might have alerted her.

 

Throwing the twig away and fixing her clothes, she wiped her tears on her sleeves and replied back.

 

"I'm here."  (Sara)

 

"Is there any problem? I heard your voice just now."  (Jenna)

 

"I'm sorry, Lady Jenna. I was picking flowers, and I thought I saw a snake when it was actually just a branch. Ahaha..."  (Sara)

 

"Is that so? Well, if you are finished, then you can go take a break. It's about time we change shift."  (Jenna)

 

"O-OH, It's time already? Well then, I will go take a break. Thank you, Lady Jenna."  (Sara)

 

"You are welcome. Make sure you rest well. Tomorrow is going to be a long day."  (Jenna)

 

"Th-then please excuse me." Sara walked awkwardly toward the tent. Every step she made caused discomfort in her lower stomach.

 

"Sara, you sure you are alright? You look flustered, and the way you walk is strange." Jenna asked in worry.

 

"I'm fine, really. My legs feel a little weak, that's all. Well, good night, Lady Jenna."

 

"If you say so, inform me right away if you are feeling unwell." (Jenna)

 

Sara nodded and retreated back to the ten.

 

There was something in her rectum, and she couldn't take it out.

 

The bug had stopped crawling, but she could still feel its presence and the broken twig inside her.

 

Lying down on the mat, she ran her palm around the lower half of her stomach.

 

"Uuuu... What should I do... But I want to avoid visiting the clinic... This is so embarrassing!!! Aaarrghhh! Damn it! Let's stop thinking about this. I should get some sleep."

 

It was easier said than done. The discomfort feeling was still there. However, her exhaustion saved her from the suffering.

 

After many tosses and turns, Sara finally drifted off.

 

It was an uneventful night for Jenna, although the same thing couldn't be said for the other girl. She didn't know exactly the plight Sara was going through.

 

The following day, Jenna woke Sara up, and then they had breakfast. Then, after washing up and packing up their camp, they started to descend the shaft leading underground.

 

Rustle... rustle...

 

The worm crawled out from the bush after the two women went away.

 

But it was not alone.

 

There were two Alraunes with it.

 

They moved closer to the shaft. It was about a meter wide, and the drop was about four meters deep before it expanded into a sideway tunnel.

 

The two Alraunes released their spores into the shaft. They were mixed powder of sleeping poison and anesthetics.

 

"It should be safe down here, but don't let your guard down. It's just a short walk. And don't use fire magic. This is a closed tunnel, so I'll use light magic to give us some light." Jenna said as she created an orb of light in front of them.

 

Then the two followed the tunnel deeper inside.

 

About twenty minutes later, the dark tunnel slowly lit up.

 

"Wow! This is so beautiful!" Sara muttered in amazement.

 

In front of her, countless crystals radiated in different colors.

 

There was blue, red, purple, white, green, and many more.

 

"We're here. Welcome to the Earth vein." Jenna smiled at Sara.

 

She remembered the first time she saw it, she had the same reaction.

 

"*Chuckle* You can admire the scene around here. Just make sure you don't let your guard down. I will go gather the Earth ores."

 

The two temporarily split up.

 

Fifteen minutes later, Jenna returned with a bag full of Earth ores.

 

"Ok, I'm finished. Let's go." (Jenna)

 

"Yes." (Sara)

 

They traced back their steps to return to the surface.

 

Walking for a while, Sara, who took point, noticed something strange.

 

"Lady Jenna, did you smell something? It's like a sweet smell." (Sara)

 

"Really? Sorry, I couldn't smell anything due to these Earth ores." (Jenna)

 

Earth ores were formed by absorbing magic from Earth veins, so they have a very distinctive smell of earth. Moreover, as a dryad, her sense of smell was worse than Sara, who was a human.

 

"Yes, and the smell gets more concentrated the closer we get to the exit.

 

"Noted. Sara, hold the bag and step back. I'll take point." Jenna said as she drew her sword.

 

"You're right. I can smell something sweet." 

 

(What's this smell? I think I've smelled it somewhere before.)

 

It was a familiar scent for Jenna, but she just couldn't point it out.

 

Soon, they reached the cliff that they could use to climb up the shaft.

 

"Wait here for me. I'll go up first." (Jenna)

 

Jenna climbed up slowly.

 

When she got up halfway, something happened.

 

Something happened not to Jenna.

 

But to Sara.

 

"KYAAHH!!!" Sara screamed.

 

The ground under her gave way.

 

It was an earth worm.

 

Its giant mouth swallowed Sara up to her neck.

 

"WHAT!? SARA!!!! I"LL CO-OOFUUGH––"

 

Jenna turned back and saw Sara being swallowed by the earth worm.

 

However, when she was going to jump down to help Sara, her vision went black.

 

She couldn't see anything as her body dangled in midair.

 

Sara, who was looking up, gasped in shock as she witnessed what had just happened.

 

The moment Jenna pushed herself from the side of the cliff to jump down, a giant worm suddenly appeared from the gap in the cliff and swallowed Jenna's head.

 

"Lady Jenna!!!" (Sara)

 

"Uhmfhh... Ufmhp..." Jenna screamed in a muffled voice

 

(Shit, what is this!? Let go of me!!)

 

Jenna struggled, but what could she do but flail her limbs in midair?

 

With her mouth blocked, she couldn't cast magic to kill the monster, and her weapon dropped when she was swallowed.

 

From within the worm's mouth, a large amount of concentrated sweet scent swarmed her face.

 

Jenna could feel her eyelids turn into lead despite the danger she was facing.

 

(Shit... I remember now... this is the sleeping... spores... from the al...rau...ne...)

 

Finally, it dawned on her. But it was too late.

 

She could feel her strength leaving, and her mind became fuzzy.

 

And soon, her movements stopped.

 

Sara became panicked when she saw Jenna stop moving.

 

"NO!!! LADY JENNA!!! LET HER GO!!!" Sara shouted in despair.

 

She didn't know she was soon going to share the same fate as Jenna.

 

Less than ten minutes later, Sara became sleepy. The sleeping spores had finally shown their effect.

 

Her eyes became dazed.

 

And then, something wrapped around her ankle.

 

Inside the worm's mouth, two tentacles extended from within its stomach and wrapped themselves around Sara's ankle.

 

They slowly pulled Sara deeper into its stomach.

 

"H...Huh? N...no... pl...ease don't e...at me... La...dy Jenna... he...lp m...e..."

 

Slowly, her head sunk deeper. The little light coming from the entrance of the shaft became dimmer.

 

Sara's tears fell down her cheeks.

 

In the darkness of this underground, two female knights were captured by the worm creature.

 

Their fate remained unknown, but it surely was nothing the women would be happy to know.

 

......

 

...

 

.