Bab 6: Mundane
Observing.
Peeping.
Watching.
The livestock of the beast of rock wasn't so interesting to watch in their everyday life, each of them may have had they peculiarities, small or big things that differentiated them from one another but it felt incredibly boring for the wretch, apart from learning the things they did, it lacked any fun.
Messing with them on the other hand was another story, moving things in their dens, stealing things and returning them in their original spots after some time, leaving footprints near their homes, some dirt on their floor that was unnatural.
Seeing them squirm around in incomprehension and fear, turning their doubts toward one another due to the lack of culprits, he had seen them get more and more panicky as time went by.
But definitely, what was most hilarious for the monster was messing with the small ones, it appeared that for cattle, their young took a long time to grow, it was a clear deficiency, it made no doubt that they were much inferior to him, who had been operational immediately after birth, there simply couldn't be any place for such slow animals in the order of this world, it was only natural that their villages were razed by monsters.
The little ones were obviously much less intelligent, even if that didn't say much, the adults wouldn't believe them if they said a monster had appeared in their rooms and grabbed the limbs they had let hanging from their beds.
At first, he had made sure not to leave any traces, not too grab them too hard but after doing it to ever youngling around this place, it had become clear that even the adults were starting to believe it, it was obvious by their reactions when they heard their children scream, no longer did they act calm, they actively checked for a monster.
He might have been unable to understand their speech but they were so easy to read!
There was no need to be so slick now, he had his fun, he learned all he could from them, the wretch had enough light for illuminating the underground too now, unfortunately, this place was mostly empty and useless, a few tables and other pieces of furniture but none had anything too interesting, even the sturdy wooden boxes were empty, the few that had anything in them only contained rotten food.
Which the wretch happily devoured still but nothing grand, nothing befitting of the incredible monster that he was.
Once again, the wretch underdeveloped brain came up with an idea way beyond what it should be capable and it set off into the nearby woods, dressing up in some shabby clothes he had stolen and making use of the techniques he had learned from observing, stitched up and shortened to fit him.
He wanted to do something but it would be no good when everyone was so tense and on guard, no longer could he make sound through the walls without seeing them look around suspiciously, if he wanted to enact his glorious plan, he needed them to relax.
______
During the few days the wretch was gone off, the villagers finally managed to convinced the council of the nearby city to send a few guards to look out.
For months now, they had all been tormented by what seemed like a ghost or evil spirit, doing as it pleased and terrorising the children as well, it had even stared clawing and biting them recently.
"Please sir! If this continues, it might kill them!" pleaded a mother as she showed the captain of the guards sent here the wounds the creature had left on her son.
The captain stayed dead silent as he analysed the injuries, they were quite peculiar and unique in his eyes and yet, he had no clue what could have left these kind of gashes, the biting marks seemed more common though.
Whatever it was, it seemed to be learning a few things, comparing the first injuries and the more recent, which were only a few days apart, the thing had learned were the soft points were, making it a point to leave impressive but mostly harmless injuries.
The wounds may be deep but they targeted non-vital areas, where no major arteries or anything were found, either it wasn't trying to kill them or it was just enjoying hurting them.
One thing was certain however.
The captain looked at the villagers in front of him, with his helm under his arm, they could clearly see his face, light brown hair, cut short, his face was devoid of any scars and his light blue eyes gazed coldly at the villagers.
They expected him to berate them for calling for guards for something minor.
"Do not worry citizens!" he suddenly yelled loudly, booming a bright smile as everyone but his surbodinates jumped back in surprise, they only sighed at the scene.
"I, Morly, without any family name shall help you out! Me and my men will never let a low life who attacks children go without punishment!" he raised his fist in the air as the villagers just stared at him.
"We shall not give up nor shall we rest easy until the threat is dispelled, we shall set up camp near the village and patrol it at every hours of the day and of the night!" he declared loudly before putting on his helm and striking his chestplate with his fist.
"Rest easy!" he said before shouting orders to his men, who seemed drained of all life while their captain just laughed boisterously at every occasion.
The villagers were stunned that someone from the city, a guard no less, would be so nice toward the folks that lived on the outside.
Despite the fact that they were the ones producing the vast majority of the food here, they were never held in high regard.
Without losing his smile, Morly looked around, his senses never deceived him, something was awfully wrong around here, it simply reeked of pure evil to him, as if some sludge had crawled on every surface.
"Oh! Or rather, something has pissed everywhere!" he thought aloud, letting everyone know about it.
Following his observations has his men where setting up camp, he took a taste of the water well, making sure if it wasn't poisoned or something.
It was faint enough that normal people wouldn't notice anything but Morly taste something off, even with his great sense of taste, he barely noticed it, like no one would do, to make sure he just drank some more.
He looked into the well but saw nothing in particular.
"Strange, it doesn't seem like it could cause harm to anyone but I'll have to pay attention to this" he muttered to himself.
It was clear that he wasn't dealing with something typical, from what he had heard from the children, it sounded like it was a monster rather than some crazy person but that would mean that he was facing some intelligent monster, one developped enough to develop some bad tastes it seemed.
'There aren't any monsters that smart around here, maybe it's an escapee from the monster horde? That seems weird though, a monster that smart would have been in charge of the whole thing and certainly powerful too, maybe it's just a local monster that went through multiple evolutions without anyone noticing anything...'
"In any case, I'll catch you!" he declared to the air as the one he was swearing to defeat was busy testing more of the abilities that had come with his evolution.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone