NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter Sixty One
AN: For the record folks, *** means a change in narrator~! We still begin this one from Fendel's perspective!
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The monster hadn’t lied, it truly did fix up every wounded person in the dungeon. It even noticed that the captives were having a hard time picking the fruit because of the dim lighting, and grew an odd, yellow glowing moss on the floor to help light the area. It had to take a few trips back up to the courtyard sometimes to pull it all off, and Fendel, who was the only person there who knew why it had been doing it, had to resist thinking about it consuming more of the bodies from the pile it had made, but in the end he decided it was for the best; After all, what would these people think if they went upstairs and the first thing they saw was a large pile of mangled bodies? Yes, perhaps it was for the greater good that the plant-woman was stealthily getting rid of them.
The others, who had no clue why they weren’t allowed to leave the dungeon area yet, simply assumed that they weren’t fully safe yet, and that their savior was going upstairs to keep a lookout for reinforcements. Fendel was perfectly fine with letting them keep their idealistic assumption, while he kept a wary eye on the plant-woman’s actions. He would have loved to believe that the monster was doing all of this out of the goodness of its heart, but in the end, a monster is still a monster. The fact that it was literally sneaking away to consume human corpses in between taking care of the captives in the basement made the monster even less trustworthy, despite how much he was trying to convince the others of the opposite.
He would keep a close watch on the monster, and if it showed any signs of betraying them, he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself to get someone, anyone, out alive.
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It had taken about 2 hours for the dozens of captured people to be tended to and fed. After inquiring with some of them, Fendel had found that the young boy from the village's family that they were looking for had actually been taken to a different room, somewhere on the ground floor, to be ‘inspected’. Such procedures were only carried out before one was to be sold away, so that the buyer could make sure that the product was good enough for them to purchase. It made sense, considering that they’d been taken away from the village precisely because a buyer had shown interest in them. Fendel, too, had once been taken to such a room during his long captivity under the organization. However, because he was no longer fit to fight, the buyer who had been considering using him as a gladiator had decided not to take him after all, and Fendel had been promptly beaten and sent back to the village only a day later. It wasn’t a memory he was proud of by any means, but it’s what gave him the chance to remember the way here and save these people in the end; If he’d been sold off, or only had the memories from when he’d first deliriously been sent to the village to work off of, then he would have never been able to lead the way as accurately as he had.
The door to the inspection room had been firmly locked so as to not let the ‘goods’ inside of them escape, but the monster easily took care of that, just as it had the front door and the cages below. The mother and daughter were frightened, as was to be expected, from the combination of the general unwilling situation they were in, the horrible screaming they’d heard outside that ended in eerie silence, and now the appearance of an odd monster looming over their huddled forms. Fendel had quickly stepped forward to calm the women, and when they noticed who he was, they were obviously relieved and soon agreed to follow them, despite the wide eyed and suspicious looks they continued to give to the monster.
Fendel couldn’t possibly blame them; He was sure they’d heard just as many tales about the plant-beast that roamed outside of their village as he had.
=Heyyy, Fen, you might wanna hurry up and get those two into the basement. Seems like company is coming!=
It only took Fendel a moment of confusion before he snatched up the mother and daughter in his arms and ran off towards the dungeon. All the while he could hear the plant-woman giggling as if she were having a good time or looking at something cute.
And then the trilling sound abruptly ended as the monster shut the door behind him, enshrouding the stairs in darkness.
***
Yup yup, they’re finally here, huh? I figured there might be a bit more trouble coming in the future when I saw that guy running off while I killed everyone. Or, well, let me be honest, I let him run away! I mean, so far this has all been a wonderful banquet, and I really did have fun bowling down all of the little pins that popped up in my path… But what can I say? I’m greedy! Is it so wrong for a plant to want more than what she’s offered? Is it so bad to take a gamble and go fishing every once in a while?
I’m just glad that they were brave enough to take the bait!
See, I noticed something while I was having my fun. I’m a very very observant plant, you see! And do you know what I noticed? Not a ONE of the bad guy’s I tore my way through was trying to protect another person! Not a single one said ‘Hey boss! Hide behind me!’ or ‘Run away boss! We’ll cover you!’ Besides, nobody looked important, you know?
I don’t half ass things!
If Fen and that little boy need me so bad, then I’m gonna get the things that they need done!
…I promise I’m not just making excuses ‘cuz I wanted to eat more people, okay?
Well okay, I did just say that I'm greedy...
Well I mean look. If I wanna keep these people safe, it’s gonna take a much better plan than just takin’ ‘em back home to the village! It’s completely likely that if I let that one guy go, then he might just bring the bigger badder people who should be running this whole show to me, right? I’ll admit, there’s every possibility that the guy just runs away, abandons his job, and never looks back, all because I’m just too big and scary. Buuuut, what if he runs off and tells his boss what happened, and the boss sends some really powerful and scary people to come my way? It’s true that it’s unlikely that the boss himself shows up, but if I get rid of all of his favorite lackeys, then it might just force him to cut his losses and give up on these poor people, right? And who knows, maybe I could get lucky and the big guy himself might show up! A plant can hope, can’t she?
And it looks like the fishies are finally swimming over to my hook, because I can totally feel the vibrations of a group of people stamping their feet at the entrance! They’re not even trying to sneak in here, so they must really believe in themselves! I wonder if they’re going to be super strong warriors, or like, super amazing mages! Or maybe they’ll be something I’ve never had to fight before, like a summoner, or maybe beast masters or whatever!
I wonder if they’ll be even tastier than the average human if they’re a lot stronger?!
Truth be told, those two watcher-mages I killed actually tasted a little bit better than the other, regular watchers. I was surprised for a moment, but I guess it really makes sense, you know? After all, those guys used a bunch of magic to fight me, right? And I, the magical plant that I am, totally thrive on magic, right?! So like, I think maybe the humans who can use magic must have a better purity of magic in them or something! Or, well, it’s actually probably just that they have more magic inside of them. I’d love to think that they’re tastier because their magic is just better, but it’s really looking like it’s just a ‘This juice has more sugar in it than the other one’ sort of situation, you know? So I was hoping that fighting stronger people would help me figure it out! ‘Cuz like, if I fight strong people and they still taste better even without excess magic in them, then-
Oh, sorry, I should be paying attention. They’re getting really close now! I’m not an idiot, so I’ll hide for a sec and see what I’m up against before I attack; You know, really plan out who I go against first. I’ve been in plenty enough fights where I screwed myself by not knowing what was going on first, and I’m too pretty and cute to just let myself die now from being careless. Besides, there’s a bunch of people whose lives depend on me not screwing this up, so I might as well treat this seriously, right?
“...Are these mushrooms growing off of the bodies?”
“It seems that idiot was telling the truth; The attacker must have been sent by the forest.”
“Stay sharp! Whatever it was must still be in the area! Those mushrooms must have been left there for a reason!”
“Yes sir!”
Oh.
Oh wow!
Wowwie wowwie wow!
I didn’t expect this!!!
You know, this entire time I was kind of doing one big eye roll? I mean, when that kid told me his village was being oppressed, I had this whole thought of ‘Oh my god, we’re in a fantasy world! I wonder what fantastical thing is oppressing them!’ But then I actually got there, and it was just more humans abusing other humans for profit, and it’s just like oh, typical humans, right? Don’t get me wrong, humans are delicious, it's sort of like a natural tastiness crossed with guilt sort of thing (You know, kinda like veal), but I was kind of hoping I’d get to take on something new.
Well guess what!
That something new just came!
Maybe it was only for 6 hours, but we had to walk east to get here, right? I knew I must have been veering off the whole ‘go straight south’ path when I found that bush-dog, but now I know which way I must have been slowly turning (Hint: It was to the east)! And you know what really proves that theory?
There’s lizardmen in front of me!
We must be near the Fire territory!
Five little lizard men, all wearing their little suits! Ok no, they’re not little, they're actually a bit bigger than your average human. And I say suits, but really it’s more like tight robes with legs on them, kinda like something that a monk would wear, but black so it looks niiice and form fitting in a way. Their skin is pinkish red, like a human exposed to too much sun, which is the first clue that they aren’t human, since I can actually see their skin color! Oh yeah, and they also obviously have scaling on their skin, although it’s actually kind of faint and soft looking. Doubt it would protect them very much if someone were to, say, decide to beat them with several tentacles!
I’m super happy to have finally seen something new and mystical and stuff, and honestly, my thanks to the chef (God or the Spirits or whatever)! But uh… Now that I’m looking at them longer, and the surprise is starting to wear off, you know, my mind’s gotten to ticking. Some questions are popping up here. Like for instance:
What the fuck?
Why are these lizards here, grabbing up humans and enslaving them in my forest? My forest! Shouldn’t these things be in the Fire territory? I know I probably went east by a lot, but I can feel it; This is definitely still the Forest's territory! I don’t wanna be some kinda bigot, don’t get me wrong, but I’m pretty sure these guys aren’t supposed to be here! They invade my forest, they hurt my humans…
I’m sure both Mom and the Forest Spirit wouldn’t appreciate that.
Heck, I’m starting to not appreciate it either!
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AN: patreon.com/user?u=63286737
It's my patreon link. Ya know, just in case. ;P