Shaula slowly climbs to her feet. Her dress has been thoroughly ruined. The complete regeneration of her lower body is not a daily occurrence. The feeling of bone regrowing, of muscle, nerves and blood vessels overlaying it, of tendons tightening into place, of skin regenerating… It will not be something she’ll get used to.

It feels good. However, the pleasure of regeneration doesn’t offset the loss of her perfectly good hips and legs in the first place. She also feels slightly weaker. It shouldn’t affect her at the moment but in the event that large masses of her body disappear again a few more times then…

This creature doesn’t notice her rise since it seems really involved with the taste of her flesh. Within minutes, her entire right leg is eaten. It moves onto her pelvis and her hips consuming it whole as well. What a strange sight to behold your own genitalia being eaten in a non-sexual manner.

It hasn’t noticed her still living presence as it continues eating her left leg, so Shaula takes this short opportunity to listen for the current location of the other few creatures. Two more are headed towards the direction of Tahira, taking a detour route around where Shaula is currently.

Shaula extends her hearing to understand Tahira’s current situation. She can hear her heartbeat. She’s still there, not exerting herself too much, still clearly drugged. But… she hears an overlapping heartbeat in the same direction. She uses her nose to smell the area for any new scents and there is someone there, a new human in that direction.

!! Shit! Someone’s right next to her right now!? Wait… this is someone I know… Tori?

Shaula starts sprinting away from the beast, who has almost completely consumed her left leg, towards Tahira and presumably Tori.

Where did she come from? And where the fuck did those four-eyed shits come from!? They’re strong, abnormally strong. I haven’t met animals that fast or strong before… Are any animals capable of using body strengthening or speed enhancement magic? None of the animals I’ve ever met have been able to use magic and Gren or Jelli or at least Tori should have mentioned magical beasts at least once before. Wait. I heard something right before the animals appeared. That high pitched sound… Could that have been like a dog whistle? Are these things… noble trump card?

“...Shaula! Y-You don’t have anything covering your nether regions… Oh my God, are you alright!? What just happened to you?”

“Wh– Tori, you know her as well!?”

Tori greets Shaula as she reaches where both Tahira and Tori are. Shaula is wearing the remnants of a dress stained with blood so Tori is upset. Meanwhile, Tahira didn’t realize that Tori had any relation to her benefactor. Shaula considers their current situation: the other beasts will be here in a minute or so.

Immediate action is required. Tori is an odd factor here, but necessary at the moment.

“Tori, I don’t know why you’re here but there is no time to waste. I’m going to need your immediate help.”

“O-Ok. Very well, Shaula, I will offer my strength. What’s happening right now?”

“There are some animals coming right now. Do you have any kind of magic spell that can get both you and Tahira out of the general area or underground or something? You can go in that direction.”

Shaula points to an area in the forest directly opposite the path from which the incoming beasts are running.

“Shaula, I can aid you in battle, I have a lot of mana and spell prowess.”

“I would ask for your help but these creatures are incredibly fast. If I lose even a moment of focus, I won’t be able to catch them before they slice you or Tahira apart.”

“...I understand. I have the strength to take Tahira out of this area with me, do not worry about that. However, there might be a tactic I can use to help you in this battle. Would you indulge me quickly?”

“Hmm. What do you have in mind?”

~

Tori and Tahira have escaped the area quite quickly. The beasts in the forest are a few seconds away now. Tori activated a body strengthening magic known as ‘Aspallan Meras’. Ajax had told her about Aspallan and Aspallan Dirma, the higher level version of basic Aspallan; it is a body strengthening magic bestowing its users with a great deal of temporary strength.

So, Tori can use a version of it… She's going to have to explain in details later the depths of her strength. She might be someone I can take with me when I do things like this.

Shaula can sense Tori already a kilometer away with Tahira in her arms. Within seconds. Tahira is still alive so it’s possible that Tori has more experience wielding great deals of power while using it delicately and surgically. Shaula will definitely have to ask her for tips later.

If she’s that strong and fast, then… why didn’t she just escape that brothel by herself? That level of speed and strength should have been more than enough to deal with the scumfuck who was raping her, at least long enough to escape that place? There’s something else I’m missing. I hope she’s not overexerting herself or something…

Shaula, in preparation for the battle with the beasts, has escalated her speed and thought processing to its highest possible level. If she spends too much of her power on speed and thought processing, she’ll lose her energy reserves and she’ll have to immediately find Ajax in order to replenish her strength but this is a good moderation.

They appear. All of them, including the one who ate her flesh and bones. Three of them are large, with different coloured furs. One of them is purple, another is red and the one who swiped at her is covered in slightly dark blue fur. It notices her and appears surprised.

Did it think I was dead just because my hips and legs were severed from my body? Hilarious.

Shaula notices four other smaller creatures of the same type. One with sky blue fur, another with pink fur, one with yellow fur and the last with green fur. These small ones are particularly rabid, growling at her constantly while the large ones are standing their ground cautiously without making noise. Just like the large ones, they have four eyes as well. Quite creepy…

Are they the cubs of the large ones? Probably right–

Before Shaula can finish her thought, the large, purple beast rushes towards her. It sinks into the ground. Shaula smirks. It’s fallen into one of the traps. It was Tori’s idea facilitated by her earth magic. Turning the ground surrounding Shaula into something like tar or quicksand, for an easy trap perfect for the dark. Tori is quite adept at earth magic it seems.

One of the children rushes towards Shaula in anger at the trap. However, before it can do so, one of the larger beasts prevents its impulse action. Shaula notices its care as it simply holds the child in its mouth by the back of its neck. This is an action Shaula recognizes from house cats and African lions back in her home world. They care as parents…

Shaula wonders if there is any option where she doesn’t have to kill these creatures. If they would only not attack either her, Tahira or Tori.

Shaula rethinks her position however when the creature stuck in the pit submerges all the way to the hair on its mane. The other creatures do not move and motion on the surface of the quicksand pit stops as well. Or so Shaula thinks. Foolishly, she wanders slightly close to the quicksand pit. Perhaps not foolishly, rather, the creature stuck in the pit is intelligent.

As soon as she wanders closer, the purple beast leaps out from the pit and attempts to cut off her head with its claws. She blocks the attempt with her forearms as a quick guard. She arms her forearms with intense heat as well; the claws melt as soon as they touch her forearms and the remains of Shaula’s dress burn away too.

The creature screeches at the pain of its claws melting away. It may be fast but it is still a living creature after all. It falls to the ground and quickly scrambles to its feet. Shaula learns that these traps are of no use against creatures of this strength and agility.

Shit… I definitely have to deal with these, don’t I…

If Shaula doesn’t kill these animals who are trying to attack her, there’s no telling whether they will look for people in the forest to consume. People who cannot fight back unlike her. If she runs from them, they might simply continue searching for Tahira and Tori. There’s no way she can simply return to her search for the rest of the nobles with this issue. Furthermore…

They’re intelligent. That purple one tried to trap me and nearly succeeded. Maybe as much intelligence as an Orca whale or a dolphin. Dangerous and angry… Fucking shit, I’m really going to have to kill these things…

Shaula prepares herself for battle. Lightning would be the fastest way to get rid of these things. Even the cubs would be dangerous so she resolves herself to extinguish even the little ones.

The battle commences.

Using a lightning attack, Shaula kills one of the large ones, the one that ate her flesh, with a simple lightning strike. If they were mere animals, they might have simply retreated at the appearance of a threat to their pack. However, they continue to attack her.

This gives Shaula the idea that these things might have some kind of training preventing retreat and ignoring their survival instincts.

They really could be noble trained battle creatures.

The remaining two large ones attack her together with the four little ones attacking continuously as well. The red one slices through her heart and she falls some distance away. Shaula plays dead as they start rushing to consume her, fallen on the ground. Two of the cubs leap towards her and she electrocutes them. The yellow furred and sky blue furred cubs die instantly.

This sends the two remaining large ones into a real killing frenzy, an anger even deeper than earlier.

They’re definitely their children. I’d be pissed too…

She retreats into the trees and manages to escape the two large, angry ones. These creatures start furiously searching for her. She uses this opportunity to divide and conquer: she manages to kill one of the large ones, the red furred one. A single lightning bolt directly to the head.

This however gives away her position and the three cubs wandering the area immediately come to where she is. They’re fast too, and more rabid than even the adults. They are threats that she cannot allow to escape. She electrocutes them all. As soon as any of them touch her, she activates her lightning. She kills all three of them in this manner.

They’re not as smart as the adults. All that remains is the purple furred one. It arrives as soon as Shaula kills the last of the cubs. Under the dim star light of the forest, this one sees the bodies of the remaining three cubs. It sees Shaula raise her hand towards it. It doesn’t move.

It wails.

Loud enough so that anyone else in the forest can hear it. Shaula realizes, perhaps it is calling more of these beasts. Shaula carefully surveils the area. But, she doesn’t see anything around her coming. She cannot hear any similar footsteps or anything that smells like this creature.

“Ah, I see. Because I killed your children… I’m sorry…”

The purple beast looks at her in fury. Did it recognize her speech? Perhaps it has been trained to recognize commands and heard a familiar one… This battle was not as difficult as she had assumed. It's not one she feels good about though. In truth, she still doesn’t know what this creature is supposed to be. She has never heard a description of a creature such as this.

Incredibly strong. Perhaps she’s done the right thing by killing it and its children. Other humans probably have rewards for dealing with creatures as dangerous as these. Perhaps more rewards for finding them and bringing them to be trained. She doesn’t care however, all she has to do is return to Tori and Tahira and continue her night of vengeance.

But, she waits. The creature before it isn’t ready to fight just yet. It’s moving slowly towards one of the cubs. It looks at the cub and feels it. Warmth must be quickly leaving it and there should be no heartbeat. It seems to be confirming that the cub is dead. Perhaps that one was its own child? Shaula doesn’t know which of the three large ones are parents to which cub after all.

The beast screams again and this time Shaula notices tears streaming from its four eyes. This is the last thing Shaula wanted to see. The creature is a good parent. Far better than the father and mother she had back on earth.

The beast raises its paws slowly.

It pauses as it watches Shaula with a look of sadness, despair and unadulterated hatred; Shaula prepares her lightning to finish this. However, she doesn’t have to use it.

The beast slices its own belly apart with its claws. It repeatedly and frantically cuts to where its stomach and intestines should be. It tears and tears until blood gushes profusely from its belly, continuing to cry to itself. The sight of its intestines being exposed to air and falling to the ground is horrifying.

This is a creature intelligent enough to contemplate suicide. Within a few seconds, the beast closes its eyes and falls to the ground. Its blood continues to flow profusely for a few more seconds. The sight of its suicide brings Shaula to tears.

This… doesn’t make sense to her. These things had come to directly kill her and her friends in this forest. Why did it end like this?

What the fuck are these things?