“In there? Why would we-, wait, don’t tell me you cleared the cave of Wolololves…?”

Yup! Now come on, I wanna explore the tunnel!

“Look, I know you’re all excited, but Wolololves are dangerous! Even if you scared that many off, they might have a mage wolololf, or even a Leader wolololf! Worst case scenario, they have an Outcast, but that’s really unheard of so…”

Ah, I defeated both mage wolf and leader wolf, yes.

The mage wolf pup got away but atleast I killed the leader wo-, hold-, hold up.

I can’t ignore it anymore.

Did I just kill like half a dozen fucking wolves?

I don’t care if I got reincarnated as someone’s mana(??), I’ve never even hurt a fly!

And that leader wolf even had some human traits, like arrogance and leadership!

How in the-,

You.

Twoey!

Twoey was lying all calm and silent beside the very much confused Allan.

I rushed and grabbed Twoey like a little hurricane, making Allans eyes widen significantly.

“Hey, what are you-, th-, that knife…”

That knife? You mean this knife that made me kill some to-be-dogs in cold blood??

“It’s gem has the same colour as your orb… ah, did you infuse it? Ah, I see, but, I-, well, I hadn’t programmed it yet, so, what abilities does it have?”

Abilities? Well, mainly, it has the ability to fuck people up, wouldn’t you say so, Twoey?

“Hey, take it easy! I was just making it easier for you to help a brother out!”

“It-, it talked!?”

“Believe it, baby, it talks!”

Just you-, shut up, will you? So you admit to doing some mumbo jumbo to make whoever hold you go all Ichi the Killer on everybody they know and love?

“Not everybody, sugar! Just those who may harm sweet-peas over there!”

I looked over to Allan, who had a horrible expression on his face, and cautiously shoot my head.

What a muppet, wouldn’t you say so, Allan?

“Hey! You’re walkin’ on thin ice, buddy!”

Oh, what do I care?!

Allan, what in the holy heck should we do with this poor excuse for a knife?

“Well, I… I don’t know why it’s like that either… I may have some rudimentary skills in enhancing and smithing, but this is really outside my grasp-,”

Nonono, what should we DO with it. DO.

“Da-do?”

Shut it!

I don’t want to hear a single verse from you!

“Oh! Um, you’re wondering what we should do with it?”

Two thumbs up. Heck yes.

“Well, I mean… I’d love to throw it away, but, really… isn’t it the only weapon we have?”

“You’re nuthin’ without me, pal!”

You-, I-, well…

I guess you’re right?

I don’t think I could have cleared that cave without it, I mean, it certainly did make it easier…

If anything, I would definitely have been unable to defeat that leader wolf, it didn’t even burn, so...

But do we really want to keep it?...

“Yes. You may be fully equipped to take on whatever may attack us, but I… I’m weak. And for that matter, altough I may have trained quite a lot with the sword… this is a knife! So even if I wanted to, I could barely defend myself even with this knife!”

Oh, ah, yes. True.

Alright!

I guess, since that whole debacle is over, let’s go explore the tunnel!!

I enthusiastically headed towards the cave.

“Ah, are you going in there? Give me a jin and I’ll gather up my stuff.”

I have no idea what a jin is, but I’m going to guess he means “sec”.

Allan carefully swabbed everything on the ground into his arms, which really was quite a lot, but once he realized he’d forgotten to pick up the knife, he looked pleadingly at me, arms filled to the brim with stuff.

Well, alright.

Don’t think I’m doing this because I want to, b-, baka!

Standing about two arms-lengths away, I picked up Twoey using a very, very long arm, and only touching him with the very tips of my thumb and index-finger. Very girly.

Once I had him in my grasp, I made my arm return to normal, meaning that Twoey was about one arms-length away from me.

Terrifying.

“You’re breakin’ my heart!”

Your achy-breaky heart, eh? Well, I couldn’t care less!

“Come on, babe!”

And don’t call me babe!

“Lighten up!”

You-,

“Wait, can you two understand each other?”

Eh?

I mean, yeah, I guess we do?

“Sure we do!”

Yes. Nodd nodd. Though I wish we didn’t.

“I… see… Well, let’s go into the cave then!”

Yes!!!

Finally!

I almost skipped into the cave.

Actually, scratch that, hell yes, I skipped the fuck into that cave.

Allan probably looked at me weirdly, but I really don’t care about that!

The cave was as dank and dreary as always, but Twoey really lit it up, so it didn’t matter, right?

Looking back, I didn’t notice Allan having quite the distraught look on his face, but I’m sure that’s just the lighting.

Yup.

Must be.

We quickly made our way into the main hall, and Allan, foolishly thinking this was the end of the line, sat his stuff down and took a rest.

“Phew. That was spooky.”

Spooky?

“Yeah. Um, you know? I mean… It really looked like I was just following right behind a ghost holding a knife, and that’s, well… spooky.”

Knife?

Oh, yeah, Twoey!

I immediately dropped twoey to the floor.

“Take it easy!”

I am, droop-snoot!

Oh, right, we still have to go into the tunnel…

So I have to pick Twoey up? Again?

...Do we really need him?...

“But that knife really was a godsend, it could replace any torch, any day!”

…

Oh, Allan, you correct little child.

I solemnly picked Twoey back up.

Hey, Allan, over here!

“Where are you going? There’s nothing over-, oh no.”

What is it? Are you a chicken? Bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak…!

“I have no idea what those flapping motions mean, but somehow, they make me feel bad.”

So come on! Don’t be a chicken! Aka me!

“Look, I don’t know if you know what that tunnel means, but…”

I know exactly what it means!

Mystery! Adventure! Excitement~!

Wait-, scratch that last one, it sounded weird. But let’s go!

“...Right.”

Allan carefully stood up, looking over his stuff closely.

Whatcha doin’ there, Ally?

“Hm? Oh! Ah-, you spooked me! Don’t sneak up on me like that! This?... Oh, well, I’m thinking of what I should bring… We can’t bring everything, after all. I’m thinking of bringing my scalpel, the automaton, and… Sven.”

Sven?

“The p-, plush.”

Why would you-, ah, I understand.

No worries, I won’t tell nobody~

“I don’t like that mischievous look you got, but… alright. Let’s go. To think I’d delve into a Catacomb at this tender age, ahh-,”

Catacomb? I’m sure there will be no dead fellows down there! Apart from me, of course.

...Let’s not think about it.

Alright! Twoey, you lead the way!

Twoey gleamed brightly in the dark tunnel. I had to hunch to fit, but Allan did just fine, so, I guess I’m just really tall?

Or it might be that I’m the size of a full-grown man and Allan is still just a kid.

Well, doesn’t matter!

Tjo-hooo!

The tunnel was quite long, at least a hundred or so meters, but it eventually opened up to a larger cavity, much like the previous caves.

The cave was mostly empty. Mostly.

I couldn’t see too clearly, but there seemed to be something moving about in the shadows…

Slowly, I made my way into the cave, Allan following closely behind.

As we entered, six torches lining up around the walls lit up in a blue, eerie light, taking whatever was moving into view.

Rats.

Big, fat, muscular, grey rats.

Allan, understandably, shrieked.

So would I, had I had windpipes.

I did not.

Hey Allan, how about we turn this ship around and bolt for it-,

H-, hey, Allan, you’re frozen solid-,

There was a great skittering noise behind me.

I turned around.

My eyes met theirs.

Good god.

There must be atleast five dozen of them. Each one must have been a solid meter long.

I don’t want to explore the tunnel anymore.