บท 7: A Lesson In Trickery
Wretches are known to evolve in a strange way compared to other monsters, the abilities, physiology and other aspects of what they devoured became fuel for their evolutions.
A particularity that seemed incredibly powerful for certain, the things that could mimick and integrate other beings in them were known for their potential to become incredible threats.
However, wretches couldn't handle it, after a few evolutions, they would simply mutate into abominations that couldn't sustain themselves, a mess of limbs and organs that didn't fit with one another, they would evolve in random and destructive ways.
Wild wretches would eat whatever they got and would reach their end after two or even a single evolution, dying out to their own ability.
Wretches used in experiments and in labs could go further but only by severely restraining their diet, generally forcing them to only eat small parts of something but it wouldn't work for much further, the sheer randomness of their evolutions could lead to something growing in their brains and killing them even if all they ate was the tail of a most basic lizard.
The furthest people have ever managed to push a wretch was to seven evolutions and that was by restricting them to weak and small amounts of things, resulting in weaklings anyway.
What they could gain though consuming things was very wide and could sometime be invisible to the naked eye.
The handsome wretch didn't have the details of what he had gained clearly shown to him but his instincts responded present and indicated him what he could do.
He had gained the flexibility of the things he had devoured, such as that of an owl's neck, allowing him to bend in impossible ways, the ability to retract and regrow his claws through consumtion of other animals.
They had perfectly melded and adapted to his body, becoming one with him, one other thing he had obtained was much less impressive but was incredibly precious.
One thing many species could encounter was the lack of partners to reproduce with, leading to a decline in their populations, not that these kind of things mattered for wretches but his newfound ability would still help him and the first thing it would help him with, to cause the villagers to drop their guards!
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Morly's confident smile was dashing enough to allow the villagers to regain their senses and calm down.
It had been a week ever since he had gotten here, his men were whiny but their homes were literally within walking distance, just beyond the walls, the strange taste in well water had not changed at all either, as per usual, no monsters were showing around the village, the surroundings of the city were calm after decades of furious huntings by adventurers and such.
The young captain was starting to believe that the monster had understood what was going on and had simply decided to lay low until they left.
Morly already understood that the vile beast had some brain in its skull but it had reacted to the new threat swiftly and understood that it should hide rather than fight or carry on its misdeeds, without even attempting to check.
It might have been even smarter than the captain had first imagined...
Or so he thought, until a humanoid creature emerged from the nearby forest, attempting to push its claws into the back of a little child.
"Not on my watch" it was so slow compared to the captain, that he even allowed himself to say a cool one liner as kicked its body hard enough to to completely snap its neck and shattering many more bones, some of which weren't even close to the point of impact.
The creature's body ragdolled in the distance as everyone but the captain was wondering what was going on.
Morly eyed the corpse suspiciously, he noticed that he got the kill notification and all but he hardly trusted it as he slightly nudge the mess on the ground, no breathing, no heartbeat, no nothing, this was in fact a corpse, even after a few minutes nothing had changed.
One of his subordinate was about to grab the corpse and most likely dump it elsewhere but the captain stopped him, he examined the monster more closely.
It was about the height of a goblin you would find in the region, although it was much lankier, lacking the trademark beer belly, it was wearing a simple loincloth, Morly recognised the fabric as that worn by most people in the city and the village.
He broke one of its needle-like claws off and inspected it, it was the same size and shape of the wounds, the teeth also checked out and it completely filled the descriptions made by the children, they also stated to recognise it.
Everything seemed to point that it was the very same monster, although, Morly wasn't certain what it was, he thought it looked a lot like how he was described wretches, it hadn't been a long time ago as well.
He was informed of that because of the nearby monster horde, since they could sometime emerged late out of their 'cocoon', they could just start wandering around and their self-destructive evolutions could also be destructive to their surroundings as well.
It had been a while since the horde had been terminated however, he didn't expect a wretch to still be around.
Morly was highly doubtful but considering how unlikely it would be for two wretches to still be around, that only a single monster was reported and the fact that the one killed matched the description to utter perfection and also that his superiors were already mad about the fact that he just set up camp outside the walls.
The captain wagered that his lovely superiors would drag him back with a certain amount of anger inside if he still didn't come back to the inside of the walls.
"Let's take back the corpse, I am sure the mages will be happy about that" he told his men and also adding to dismantle the camp as he started walking up to the villagers.
While the captain reassured them once more and shook the many hands offered to him, a certain handsome wretch watched the whole scene with glee from a reasonable distance, meaning he had to squint his eyes hard to even begin to discern anything, it had only been just in case and it was a good thing, one of those cattles or something that looked like them from afar, had brutalised the less handsome wretch.
What power! Even if it was a much lesser version of himself, the smart wretch hadn't expected such power and such speed too! That one livestock had went much faster than the monster's eyes could follow, while it didn't say much it was still impressive when compared to the others he had observed.
What shocked the wretch even more, was that the unfamiliar cattle in grey entered the large beast, it must have been where they had come from as well.
Did the monster store warriors inside its stomach or was the whole thing actually just a grandeur village?
The wretch was curious but it had to follow through with his plan rather than disperse his attention.
It was time to reap the some profit.
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