Chapter 44: Battling a Monster
Morden and Darlus felt their muscles tighten as they stood up to wait for the girl’s arrival with only one thought on their mind.
’We will have to fight that thing,’
Despite not knowing what the girl had done to offend her or even anything at all about the situation, since it was their mission, they had to bring the girl back no matter what.
All while the two prepared for the battle that was coming, the girl kept running, and soon the two were close enough for Morden to see what was actually chasing.
And when he finally did, he couldn’t help but shake his head in remorse.
The Monster currently behind the girl was in the form of an extremely fat human, under the moonlight, Morden could see the grey skin and the warts growing all over it, showing that it wasn’t human.
But all those weren’t actually the determining feature; it was the mouth. Instead of having a normal mouth, the monster had an extremely wide mouth that was totally toothless.
"Morden, that’s the Bellowing Hugeman; we are so cooked."
"Bellowing Hugeman? What the hell are those?" Morden asked.
"They are a type of Monster tha-"
GGGGRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
A loud guttural sound suddenly sounded from the beast the moment it also noticed Morden and Darlus not too far away.
"Shit," Morden shouted while grabbing onto his head with his arms covering his ears. His ears were ringing and his vision was blurring.
"What was that?" Morden asked.
But he got no response, so he forcefully pulled himself together and turned to look at Darlus, who was currently standing in his place, completely frozen in horror.
’What the hell is wrong with him?’ he thought while rushing towards him.
"He is already trapped." Morden suddenly heard a slightly garbled voice from the direction of the girl running towards them.
"What?" Morden responded.
"The Hugeman Bellows, they are extremely dangerous," The girl shouted again.
’Extremely dangerous, how?’ Morden wanted to shout out and ask, but he managed to hold himself back.
’Now is not the time to ask questions.’
Though Morden still didn’t understand what the girl was saying explicitly, he knew the situation was dire, and they couldn’t afford to waste time, especially since Darlus was really out of it.
At this time, the girl had already arrived in front of them and so had the monster.
Without hesitation, Morden summoned the Ghost slayer sword and got into a battle stance.
The girl that had been running earlier too also stopped in her tracks and went back to look at the monster.
"Are you the one we are supposed to pick up?" Morden said, with both his eyes locked on the beast.
"Are you the one I was supposed to meet here?" the girl answered with an equally questioning tone.
The two of them then proceeded to ignore each other and focus on the monster in front of them instead. The monster also looked at the two of them with the same seriousness.
Just as Morden was about to activate boost and charge out, he suddenly heard the girl shout out again.
"Watch out!"
But the warning was too late, and there wasn’t even anything Morden could have done to prevent it.
GGGGGGGRRRRRHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another one of those sounds was released immediately, which caused Morden pain, and this time the effect was much worse. Alongside the ringing head, Morden could see faint figures appearing in his sight before disappearing again while extreme nausea hit him.
’I am not sure I can handle anymore of this,’
"The Bellows usually causes a Mental trigger that forces people to see their most horrific memories over and over thus breaking the will but those with slightly high mental capacity can resist it for a bit, but they will still ultimately succumb unless we can kill this thing as soon as possible," he heard the girl say from the side while she rushed towards the Monster completely unaffected.
She arrived in front of it, and then a faint golden light appeared in her eye.
"Found it," she said with a smile.
A small knife materialized in her hand as she jumped up to weave one of the Monster arm swipes, but the size of the arm made it difficult, and she ended up getting hit, though it was just a bit, it still sent her flying about a meters
Its extremely massive body didn’t affect its agility anyway, and that was also obvious from how it had kept up with her while she ran despite being much smaller and from what Morden observed: she wasn’t slow in any way.
"Get it together already!!! I can’t beat this thing myself," the girl shouted at Morden and maybe Darlus.
Having had a little time to regain himself, her shout made Morden straighten his back and face the Monster again. He looked towards the frozen Darlus to check his condition before quickly returning his attention to the Monster.
[Speed +20(temp)]
With that increase in speed, Morden charged at the beast with his sword in hand, accompanied by the girl also approaching from the other side.
"target about ten centimeters to the left of his chest," the girl shouted.
And without any reason to refute, Morden followed.
When he arrived at the front of the Monster, he leaped into the air with his sword raised high.
[Strength +20(temp)]
Using the massive increase in power, he brought his sword downward, straight at the spot the girl had said.
’It will hit; this was kind of easy,’ Morden thought with a strange excitement.
But how much more wrong could he have been?
GGGGGGRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
And unlike other Bellows, this one didn’t cause nausea or a throbbing head; it instead changed all the scenes of the front Morden into something else.
The wall to their left and the bushes to their right had vanished and were now replaced with a living room; the Monster was gone, and in its place were two bodies in a pool of blood.
This scene was familiar, extremely familiar.
"I-I am...am...back to that night," Morden muttered while staring at his blood-soaked hands.