NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter Fifty Eight
Oh my god…
I might just be an idiot.
How is it that I can hunt animals just fine, but as soon as humans come into the mix I just bomb?
Is it my colors?
Am I too colorful???
I really thought I was better than this…
So… Uh… Long story short, I sort of forgot that the people I was attacking had, you know, weapons on them. Some of them even knew magic, fancy that! Yeah, the first guy I grabbed was a complete breeze, except for the fact that I totally forgot to cover his mouth before he screamed. I needed info, so I didn’t just kill him right away like I usually do to most of my prey while I’ve been sneaking. So yeah, he screamed, and I killed him quickly before he kept screaming, since hey, there’s like at least four other watchers I could have gotten the information I needed out of… And then a guy with a sword came, and then a guy with an axe came, and then two guys who knew magic came together, aaand…
Yeah, it was a whole big mess, and basically everyone in the town saw me shred the guys when I started to panic.
Honestly, it’s not like I was afraid of the sword or the axe. Like, the guys certainly seemed like they knew how to use their weapons better than those kidnappers I killed in that cabin oh so long ago, but I was also better than back then, so there was no way that they were gonna take me down like that, even if they did manage to mess up a few of my tentacles. But uhhh, those two magic guys showed up right at the exact same time while I was preoccupied with taking down those first guys and enjoying my spoils, and one was using wind magic and the other was using fire magic, and ya know what? Their magic was really really strong! Maybe it wasn’t gonna burn me up immediately or cut me in half in one shot, but damn was their magic scary looking enough that I didn’t wanna have to deal with them for very long!
You can see why I had to go the quick and deadly route, can’t you?
Well, the good news is that the wind-mage guy was pretty good at making barriers or something I guess, so he didn’t die quite as quickly as the other one did. Guess flames can’t protect people from getting stabbed with one of my spring vines though, huh? Heh heh heh… But yeah, wind is slightly less as scary than flames, so I captured that one alive. It was a little difficult to get him to shut the hell up and stop using his spells, but once I gave him a couple of nice shakes and squeezes like I did to Til that one time, he closed right up super easy! Might need to fix his ribs up some before I get him to spill the beans to me, but we’ll get there when we get there~!
For the record, I made sure not to let that little boy I brought along see any of what was happening. I stashed him in a safe looking hut on the outskirts of the village and snagged a body or two from the corpse pile in the town before coming over to mess up all the watchers! Still though, with the crowd that was watching the fight from behind a couple of the nearby buildings, I wouldn’t be surprised if he snuck over and had been watching the whole time. Honestly, it would actually have been pretty helpful if he was, since I’d kind of like to gag this guy until it’s interrogation time. I’d stuff a vine in his mouth, but without me supplying it magic, there’s a chance he just chews through it since, you know, it’s literally just a freaking piece of vegetation.
Oh well, guess this is one of those moments when you bank on the kindness of strangers!
I gave ‘em a free show anyways, so they might as well pay up, right?
=Hey, anyone here got something I can gag this guy with?=
Aaaand crickets! Yup, completely unsurprised. Honestly, I wouldn’t be running over to volunteer myself to the murder plant either if I were them. Smart thinking.
As I started debating on making some bark to put in the guy’s mouth or maybe even trying my hand at growing some cotton, suddenly a small and recognizable voice squeaked out from the middle of the crowd.
“Y-you can use this, miss!”
Mhmm, guess I was right to think the little boy might have been watching with everyone else. He scrambled through the crowd, holding up a tattered bit of a shirt and stopping a little distance away to offer it to me. He was far enough that I had to really stretch out my tentacles to reach the offered shirt, but considering what he probably just saw me doing to these ‘strong’ people, I can’t blame the poor kid. Once the little bit of cloth had been stuffed into the mage’s mouth enough so that he couldn’t talk, I reached out another tentacle and slowly and gently patted the kid’s head.
=Thanks lil’ guy.=
Maybe if I could smile my actions would have been more reassuring. Still, the kid didn’t outright freak out and cry, so hopefully my good intentions were shining through! Doesn’t help that everyone else who was watching looked like they were about to witness a horrible murder, though.
A little moment after I’d retracted my tentacle from the kid’s head, a slightly older and more grizzled man stepped forwards. He quickly pulled the boy back behind him, trying to block my sight of him by using his bigger body. It was obvious to me and my odd magic vision that the man’s legs were shaking slightly, but his face was composed as if he was never even afraid in the first place while he looked at me.
Honestly, if this man wasn’t made out of food, then I’m sure he’d give Til a run for his money in my book; You know, once he cleaned up a little and didn’t look like he’d been starving for a few years, anyways.
“...Are you here to consume us, monster?”
Huh? Wowww, he really got straight to the point with the first question, didn’t he? Well, I respect that. Extra points for this guy!
…I guess since I like him so much I should try and just be honest?
=Nah. But I’ll probably eat these guys, and maybe a few of those bodies over there too.=
Okay so I wasn’t 100% honest since I didn’t mention how I’d already eaten a few of the corpses, but that should be honest enough, right? Right.
The villagers totally reacted like they were even more afraid of me than they already were, but the man still held his ground, even if his face grew a few more lines on it. I could even see his adam’s apple moving like he had to gulp a few times before he kept talking to me.
“And why do you want them, and not us?”
Oooh another good question! I pointed a curved tentacle towards where the boy had been peeking out from behind him.
=Because I need to find out where they took the boy’s family! Unless maybe you know?=
Once more the man gulped, and I could see him beginning to sweat.
“...If I do, will you kill me?”
=Hmm? No, that just means I get to eat this guy sooner than planned!=
Oh? Was that not the right reply...? Should I have said it differently? But I tried to keep it PG so none of the kids would get too upset, though. Why did everybody flinch?
“I see… If I lead you there, do you swear to leave this village alone?”
Ahh, I see you don’t really trust me. And yet you trust me enough to believe if I swear on it? Hah, okay, whatever floats his boat! I’d rather be roaming around with this big guy than that dumb wind mage anyways; It’d be much less fuss and remind me of my time traveling with Til!
=Sure! I totally swear! I’m doing this for the kid anyways, and I don’t really have any reason to come back here afterwards, so it’s fine!=
The man looked at me like he wasn’t sure that he believed me, but eventually he just slowly closed his eyes and nodded, looking a bit like he might have been quickly praying or something, before he started slowly walking my way. After stopping a few steps away from me he suddenly got down on his knees and bowed his head, like he was praying towards me instead this time.
“Please. I know it is greedy, but I must ask one more thing of you, monster.”
Huh… Not sure that calling me ‘monster’ was the best thing to do when he was asking me for a favor, but it’s not like he knows my name, and he’s also pretty nice on the (nonexistent) eyes, so I guess I’ll hear him out on this one!
=Yes?=
“When you go there, please kill them all so that we may escape.”
Ooooh, so he wants to set the big bad monster loose on the bad guys, huh?
It'd be a lie if I said that that didn't sound really really fun!
Sounds like a free pass for a big meal to me, but is he really okay with asking me to massacre a bunch of people like this? I know they’re being treated like slaves here, but getting a monster to cruelly eat your enemies is different than raising a rebellion or something like that, you know? It’s not really ‘righteous’, and you can only vaguely call it karma for their actions when he told me to do it himself.
=Well… How will I know exactly who I should be killing and who I should be saving? Will you be pointing them out to me yourself?=
I could see the man’s shoulders tense and shake for a moment as he understood what I was implying, but when he looked back up to me his face looked resolved, like he’d come to terms with accepting the responsibility of it all.
“...Yes. I will be the one to bear that burden, monster.”
Well neat then! I like a man who’s willing to join hands with a local monster and get things done! Now I don’t have to look back and have this weigh on my steadily growing conscience later, since this hottie is willing to carry all the responsibility for it on his shoulders!
Hooray!
Free feast here I come!!!
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AN: And here's the second chapter, as promised!
Hey, you know, I mentioned it before, but today's my birthday. It'd be really cool of you if you wanted to help support your favorite plant writin' author over at patreon.com/user?u=63286737 and got to read 10-15 chapters ahead. But no pressure. ;P Oh, and thank you to the patrons I already have! You have a special place in my heart<3
Also also I put out a new story! It's called 'The Runaway Paladin and the Half Fae Duke'. The first 10 chapters come out today! If you like BL, then maybe give it a chance! And if you don't, that's okay too! If you instead like straight stuff and you're down for some smut, then maybe check out one of my other stories, 'Playing Victim', which is gonna come out uh... Sometime in the next few weeks!
(For the record, I plan to keep putting this story out on it's regularly scheduled 4 day timeline, but all the others are just gonna be whenever the heck I feel like it. And maybe, god willing, I can freaking get back to putting out more chapters of Level Up Saintess and not feel so damn guilty about it.)