With a slam, the book hit the ground.

"There's nothing! Stupid book! Don't give me false hope!"

Seeing that her efforts were pointless, Mindy was enraged. Nate, on the other hand, sighed as he looked at the book.

"By the way... where did you get that book from?"

Nate was curious. Which store sells a book containing instructions on how to teleport to another world?

"Hmm? Oh... I got it from my grandpa."

Nate's eyebrows turned into a frown and his mouth opened. What the hell is that geezer thinking? Giving his granddaughter an occult book? And even one that works?!

But Mindy ignored his reaction and let her body drop on the bed. She then closed her eyes and sighed.

"I miss grandpa..."

Truth be told, Nate hasn't really thought about their friends and relatives back home... By now, surely someone has noticed they are gone, right? Maybe they were even already declared missing... What will they say when they finally find a way to return...?

But Nate shook his head. They will worry about that when they return. Right now, getting home is the main issue.

He then walked over to Mindy and sat next to her. But before he could speak his mind, Mindy shot up into a sitting position.

"AH!"

"W-what's wrong?!"

Mindy's open mouth and frozen expression triggered Nate's worry mode.

"I-I think we should leave this place..."

Nate was confused. What happened? Did she remember something important?

"Why...? What's wrong?"

"I... err... let's just leave! I'll tell you on the way!"

Although he was confused by her behavior, Nate trusted her. He quickly ran over to the bag and picked it up.

Since, for some reason, they were in a hurry, they used the window to exit. And while they were hurrying out, Mindy explained what happened.

"Someone was stalking you?! Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I... there was no good time to say it! You were all angry and stuff... and then I f-forgot about it...?"

Nate felt both angry and anxious. How could she just 'forget' something like that? Was her memory really that bad? And who was the stalker she mentioned? This cabin's owner? A friend? A foe?

His anxiety grew with each passing second. That person running away couldn't mean anything good...

...

Unbeknownst to them, they were being observed. From the moment they opened the window, six figures hiding behind trees and bushes closely watched them. A skeleton, a lion beastman and four wolf beastmen. They wanted to charge in as soon as they saw Mindy, but upon spotting Nate, they immediately held themselves back.

"T-there's two?!"

A surprised female voice softly rustled the air. But Mindy's ears didn't miss it. She immediately looked toward the voice's source. And after Nate climbed out of the window frame, he followed her gaze.

With her mouth covered and her face losing color, the wolf woman regretted everything. Not only were there two demons, but she gave away their position now. Surprise attack was now impossible.

The lion man wanted to abort mission as soon as he saw their enemy count double, but due to being noticed, he only had one more option left. He clenched his teeth before griping his sword and hoping that the other demon is also a fiend.

"GO!"

To Mindy and Nate, a loud menacing growl resounded in their ears as a group of humanoid monsters rushed at them. Seeing that, Mindy reflexively extended her arm and activated the only 'spell' she knew.

"Fi-...?!"

... but for some reason, she couldn't say the whole word. Something suddenly took away her voice.

The lion man's sharp blade closed in on her, but she was stunned and couldn't move due to shock. As her vision tilted and fell to the side, her life flashed in front of her eyes.

But she didn't die. No... In fact, Nate reacted just in time to push her down milliseconds before the sword tore through her neck... But even though he managed to save her life, she didn't come out unscathed... The victim of the assailant's horizontal slash ended up being Mindy's right arm. And as the severed arm flew, Mindy blacked out due to extreme pain.

On the ground and with his companion unconscious and an arm lighter, Nate was completely defenseless. And not only that... he couldn't even scream. His vocal cords seemed to have given out.

The lion man wouldn't miss his chance and immediately raised up his arm again to finish them off. But before he could do that, three black tentacles coming from the side pierced right through his arms and torso. He vomited blood as his body got lifted off of the ground and his weapon fell to the down. More roars from the other monsters echoed in the surroundings, making Nate's brain finally catch up with the fact that they were saved. His eyes traced the tentacles to the source and spotted their savior...

For some reason... Mindy's severed arm sprouted tentacles and started its 'counter attack' all on its own.

The tentacles shot into the bushes, revealing a skeleton hiding there. He seemed to be concentrating on something, which made his attempt to dodge being smashed too delayed. Nate could only watch as the tentacles tossed the lion around and pummeled the skeleton into the ground. But the chaos didn't end there. The black arms from hell then began pursuing the rest of the assailants, who were already on the run. Two of the wolves were slain in no time, seemingly trying to protect the other two. The humanoid wolf man and woman pair barely ended up escaping.

As the tentacles continued dismembering the corpses, Nate finally snapped back into reality.

"M-Mindy!!!"

He didn't spare the shortest moment wondering about why his voice has returned as he tried to stop Mindy's bleeding. The amount of blood pouring from a wound like that was way too low, but he ignored that as well. He was quick to strip his own shirt and wrap it around what was left of Mindy's arm. But it just didn't work... No matter how much he tightened it, the blood kept flowing. Panicked as he was, he tried to block the blood with his hand and his shirt before immediately realizing how stupid of an idea it was. He was running out of options...

"H-heal..."

With tears in his eyes, he resorted to the same 'tactics' as Mindy, chanting 'spells'. He didn't expect it to work, but he just didn't know what to do anymore.

However, he would later be grateful for his desperation, as multitude of white strings appeared above his vision and wrapped themselves around Mindy's upper arm. Nate felt confused for a second, before he realized that those weren't strings. It was his own hair. For some reason, his hair grew and started to move about.

The strands of hair then bolted over the Mindy's rampaging arm and wrapped around it, making the tentacles calm down and retract. Nate wordlessly watched as the magic happened. The hair brought the arm back to Mindy and placed it where it belonged. It then stabbed into the skin and basically sewed the arm back. Nate's expression distorted due to the grotesque scene accompanied by mushy sounds effects. A good few minutes went by before the last hair threads were sucked into the wound and disappeared. But as soon as they did, Nate was already checking Mindy's pulse as well as the arm's condition. Surprisingly, it was as good as new. Blood was flowing through it just like normal and there were no visible white strings anywhere. Almost like nothing ever happened.

...

A deep sigh left his mouth as he hugged the unconscious girl. His body trembled and tears gushed out.

Who were these attackers? What are these creepy powers of theirs? And just... why do they have to live through this horrific nightmare?

After calming down, he picked up Mindy in his arms and headed inside... before realizing that he can't climb inside through the window while holding her. So instead, he headed to the barricaded door. He planned on putting Mindy down and manually moving all of that stuff out of the way. But then... he randomly decided to try something.

"F...fireball?"

He didn't expect anything to happen, but his expectations got betrayed once again. Just like before, his hair grew and started slithering around. But instead of wrapping around the furniture and moving it as Nate initially anticipated, the hair curled into itself and made shapes in the air. It was the shape of a big bow and an arrow... or rather, a spear. Before Nate even blinked, the bow launched the spear straight through the barricade and completely wrecked it. The loud noise caused by the destruction even made Mindy groan.

...

"What... the hell..."

He was at his wit's end. Too many crazy events happened in a short amount of time. His legs were about to give out. He needed to rest.

With his remaining strength, he carried Mindy inside and placed her on the bed before falling on his behind and breathing out.

At a different place and time...

Hannah, the wolf woman sat next to a tree, holding her head. There were no tears anymore. Just wide open eyes and pale face that wouldn't stop shaking. Right next to her lied Goran, trying his best to hold himself up with his shaking arms. It was a miracle he didn't pass out from the exhaustion and stress.

Neither one of them could utter a word. One thing was seeing a corpse, but seeing the massacre itself was on an entirely different level. And to add to that, they could only powerlessly watch while the nightmarish tentacles tore their comrades to pieces. All they could do was to run and save their own fur. Pathetic.

While they lied there, lamenting their uselessness, a nearby bush rustled. Naturally, chill went down their spines and their entire being jolted as their eyes fixated on said bush. They expected swift and brutal death. But fortunately, the demons weren't the ones to emerge from behind the leaves.

Instead...

"M-maraqua!"

Hannah's voice was filled with both surprise and a bit of joy as she saw the skeleton with most of his bones cracked totter and fall to the ground. They instantly forgot their exhaustion as they rushed to help the skeleton.

"We... need to get back quick...

This is much worse than we were told."

Even though he was barely able to stand with the exhausted Goran's support, Maraqua insisted on getting back as soon as possible.

"What... even happened back there... I thought fiends can't do anything if you silence them... isn't that what you said?"

Hannah, who was in charge of watching their back, finally asked the question that needed answering.

"Yeah... I silenced them... fiends need their voice to utilize their powers..."

His voice showed the concern his skeletal face was unable to express.

"Unless that fiend is in possession of its artifact..."

"Artifact..."

Hannah and Goran didn't know much about these so called artifacts. Just that an artifact was something that the demons wanted to get their hands on. Something valuable to them.

"Or maybe... it was the other demon's doing..."

That was the other possibility. The other demon couldn't be identified since he didn't seem to use any powers. But perhaps, he might have done something without them noticing.

It was a long and nerve-racking walk back to the town, but fortunately... the demons did not chase after them.