“When life gives you lemons, well, I don't think you can make apple pie with it, can you?

“The name’s Kog. Senior guardsman. You?”

“Ah. Elaine. Hello.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Uhh nice to meet you too?”

If a hill could move then it would definitely be the friendly... monster staring at her with a twisted smile on its face. He bent his gigantic frame down, extending his hand towards her in a friendly gesture. The hand itself was as large as Elaine’s entire body, and it had rough claws that had cracks all over it.

Initially terrified of him, Elaine couldn’t respond to his gesture until he wiggled his forefinger at her playfully. She cautiously extended her hand and grabbed the tip of the claw, making the large monster grunt in satisfaction.

“Wasn’t too hard now, was it? Don’t worry, unlike those zombies around us, I’m not gonna bite. Maybe.”

That last part did a number on her heart.

“Now, where’s the goody-two-shoes bastard Ss’zsl? Is he inside?”

“Eh? Uhm yes he is.”

“Weird, thought he’d notice me by now. Is he sleeping?”

“Yes. He’s resting.”

“Oho~? Hmm...”

Kog’s head swivelled to the direction of the mound behind her. Elaine couldn’t see an eye on it, making it look even more like an actual xenomorph. The difference was that it had something that looked like craters that lined its back, with smoke being continuously being emitted from it. His tail also ended with a spiked club instead of a spear tip, and his legs looked quite bulky like the common depictions of a tyrannosaurus.

He then extended its arm towards the den and—

“Hey! What are you doing?!”

“Hmm?”

“Why are you destroying his house?!”

Kog laughed heartily, completely dismissive of her worries.

“This? Haha! He made this den in under half an hour, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind!”

He continued sweeping large amounts of soil off the mound until the den was exposed. The moment Kog saw the state Ss’zsl was in, though, he immediately lost all his mirth.

She immediately knew why before he could say anything.

“... Shit, what happened?”

“Well the lake area was attacked. He said he fended off the... monsters together with the forest animals.”

“Tsk.”

Though he didn’t say anything, she knew he was fuming; whether or not that anger was directed at Ss’zsl, the leech monsters that attacked them or at her somehow was a mystery she didn’t dare ask the giant about. Regardless, his mood dropped enough that the big smile on his face from earlier completely disappeared.

He reached down again and gently tapped the golden snake on the head repeatedly. Ss’zsl didn’t respond.

“He’s out cold.”

“Yeah. He’s been like that since I got back.”

Kog thought for a moment and shook his head.

“You’re his guest, right?”

“Mm? I... guess I am.”

“And let me guess, you just got back inside from somewhere, right?”

“Yes. Yeah. I was taking a bath at the lake...”

“Hmph.”

He shook his head and sighed. Though she couldn’t tell from his face, she guessed that he was exasperated for some reason.

“I’m thinking he was waiting for you to get back before sealing the den. You, having no idea it could happen, didn’t return for quite some time. It may not have been a long enough time, but it was enough for him to freeze his blood off and fall into a coma. Make sense?”

It did. That was also what Elaine had guessed earlier, but having someone else confirm it made her face burn in shame. She only realized the possibility after the fact, but being what she is, she didn’t know if she could defend herself. But certainly, she did have a fault in the matter.

Her head hung down. She couldn’t respond to Kog’s accusation because she knew was likely what happened. Fortunately the giant didn’t seem as interested in scolding her as he was in Ss’zsl’s state.

“Don’t get too down, girl. It’s his fault for being too considerate. It’s just like him.”

“Yes...”

An awkward silence dawned on them. She felt his stare on her scalp. It must have been nice, having both the moral and physical high ground between them. After an agonizing minute or so she yelped in surprise as his rocky, rough finger hit her head and rubbed it... hard.

“Hey. Chin up. It already happened. I’m sure he didn’t mind. It’s not like he’ll die even if you freeze him solid... well if he can’t breathe then I guess he’ll die but that’s not the point.”

Being oversized by quite a scale, his way of handling her head was as rough as his skin. She had to brace herself so that her head wouldn’t get thrown around. At the end of it her hair looked like it had been assaulted by a wave of static electricity.

“Look. You can be depressed all you want later. But I came here to get him, and I guess I need to get you too now.”

Kog’s large claws picked Elaine up from under her arms before she could even ask what he meant. He lifted her up high into the sky before he repositioned his hand so she could sit on top of it.

Then he reached down and plucked the pile of snakes up, along with the ground underneath them... and everything else around it.

“The furniture...”

“Hah! He can bill me.”

Elaine thought that the giant couldn’t possibly be a bad person.

.

Fitting his size, Kog’s strides were massive and unstoppable. During the first moments of their travels together, the few zombies that had already risen were merely crushed underfoot. Even those large bear-like beasts didn’t make him flinch even the slightest. The speed at which he was simply walking would outpace Elaine at full sprint, allowing them to cover a large distance within less than an hour.

“You’re a... Mountain Spirit?”

“Yes ma’am, that I am!”

“But you don’t look anything like a spirit.”

“Oh trust me; underneath all this rock I’m as ghostly as your dead great grandparents! Hahaha!”

Kog was extremely lively, which also betrayed his short fuse. Elaine enjoyed talking to him, as he was much more outgoing and talkative than Ss’zsl. Similar to the latter, he had no issues conversing with a human like her, and just like her he seemed to enjoy it as well.

“So how did you meet my scaly friend here, Miss Elaine?”

“He saved me from this... monster. Uhh it had eyes around its teeth and could use some sort of webbing.”

“Lay Beasts? Nasty buggers. They cause a lot of problems among Patrolmen, them having to forage for food to feed themselves and all that. But I ain’t scared of them one bit! Hahaha!”

So that’s what they were called. Lay Beasts... that sounded unoriginal as hell. Whoever named those things must have lacked quite a bit of imagination.

“We met each other again after he saved me... again from those small crawling monsters. You know, the ones with spider legs and big teeth? I lost an eye to them before, too.”

“Ah so that explains your face. You must have had quite the luck to survive running into them. You mentioned that you encountered a whole tide of them the night before, yes? Pretty brave of you to burn your wound off by yourself.”

“Well no, I... kinda fell on top of this stone that’s hot enough to glow. What’s it called?”

“Glowstones? Damn, Miss, you’re quite lucky indeed. You might have bled out if you didn’t with a wound like that.”

They were called ‘glowstones’? That’s quite an unimaginative name for something so magical, but it was an easy and convenient name to use for it.

She and Kog continued their casual conversation together as they passed through the forest. When she checked, they were headed down a direction across from where the cave she stayed at opened, which gave her a peculiar, uneasy feeling. She just couldn’t remember why. Or maybe it was instinctual? In any case, it was just something that tugged at her gut. Maybe it was the unease that accompanied straying from somewhere she had grown somewhat familiar with?

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“Oh did I not tell you? We’re heading towards camp. The army’s set a temporary base ahead.”

Her heart got caught in her throat. That was quite the sudden development. If she had known where Kog was going to take her, she would have... would she have refused?

Ss’zsl mentioned that their King advocated for their coexistence with humans like her, but despite that knowledge the fact that they were monsters was still quite terrifying. After all he also mentioned that they still ate humans or something.

Wait, is she being taken there to be dinner?!

“Umm...”

“Don’t you worry your little head, Miss, we’re not going to eat you. Maybe. Hahahaha!”

That did not impart her with any confidence at all.

.

Kog continued walking until Elaine saw lights in the distance. The farther he travelled the more anxious she became. Something tugged at her mind, something important. But she couldn’t remember. She chalked it up to fear of what was ahead, but she was also aware that she was just fooling herself.

In no time at all they arrived, welcomed by what looked like a Minotaur in armor more than twice her height.

“Reporting in—“

“WRONG.”

“Oh come on...!”

The giant walking rock seemed to have trouble with keeping decorum as well. Elaine found it quite funny that it matched her impression of him to the letter.

“And? Did you pick him up?”

“Yessir. But... there’s a bit of a problem.”

Kog brought his hand down and gently laid all seven of Ss’zsl’s unconscious bodies to the ground. The sight of the limp, badly hurt serpents caught the minotaur off-guard. He stared blankly with his massive, chiselled jaw slightly open until he caught himself with a cough.

“Get the healers!”

The minotaur’s voice was loud and powerful. It echoed inside Elaine’s skull like a dentist’s drill would. Soon, two humanoid monsters that kind of looked like Warcraft trolls ran in to fetch Ss’zsl, who they placed with much care into small vat of fluid.

With him out of the way, the minotaur placed his attention back at Kog. Though he looked calm, his eyes betrayed a feeling of... annoyance? It made her swallow.

“Now care to tell me what that thing is you’re carrying around?”

He finally addressed the elephant in the room. Elaine wasn’t exactly hiding from him, being advised against doing so beforehand. She’d been peeking behind Kog’s thick digits in an attempt to be less conspicuous. It wasn’t like she was scared or anything.

Not at all. Maybe.

Upon mention, Kog lowered his other arm to let Elaine speak without having to look down at the minotaur. That would be disrespectful, right? Especially towards what may be a superior officer among their ranks. At least Kog seemed to answer to it. But having to face the monster with her feet on the ground made her realize just how large he was.

If Kog was large because of his height, then the minotaur was huge because of his bulk. Just his arms were at least twice as thick as Elaine’s torso. His skin was fiery red and his muscles looked harder than Kog’s stone body. A giant warhammer was strapped to his back. Heavily contrasting with his bestial appearance, though, she saw a large hard-bound book and a pair of glasses tied to his waist. With a hand that could encircle her waist with finger length to spare, a horrifying image of him squeezing her to death flashed in her mind. True enough, like most depictions of them in literature, he looked quite hot-headed and brash and addressed Elaine without any of the courtesies Ss’zsl or Kog had extended to her.

“Great. A human. Just what we needed. You, report back to your station. I’ll handle this whelp.”

“Eh? But...”

“You heard me. Go.”

“Yessir!”

Kog offered her a gentle pat on the back before he quickly took off to wherever it was he needed to be. She appreciated the gesture, but in the face of the wall-like minotaur, whatever courage she could muster just fizzled out. She swallowed hard and opened her mouth to speak but she was abruptly cut off.

“What’s your name, girl?”

“A-ah, I’m Elaine K—“

“Well met. My name is Fyrn. Come with me.”

He suddenly didn’t seem all that scary anymore.

They walked towards and through to the center of the camp. Their encampment was huge, with what looked like over a couple hundred monsters in their ranks. As the crowd parted for the minotaur, they stared at the small human behind him in wonder. She heard many different noises from clicks to hisses to strange cackling sounds together with their gossiping. Things like “a human?” or “what is she doing here?” were the most common, with the occasional “she looks delicious, but too skinny,” at times.

There was even one monster that looked like a walking ball of teeth who tried to grab her, but was promptly scared away by the angry-looking minotaur.

Anyway their stares and words were enough to pressure her into keeping her head down, just enough to not lose track of Fyrn, so she wasn’t really able to see what kind of monsters the camp had besides the ones she saw earlier. Judging by the shadows cast by the numerous torches and campfires there, the monsters varied quite wildly in terms of shapes and sizes. She shouldn’t have expected less from a camp of monsters, really.

“We’re here.”

She almost collided with him in her stupor. That would have been extremely embarrassing considering his height made it so that her face would have hit just above his rear end.

At the center of the camp, surrounded by torches and large golem-like sentries, was a circular tent almost as tall as Kog. The sheer size alone was enough of an intimidation to cause her to take a few steps back.

Fyrn opened the curtains and beckoned her inside. Her steps were unsure, wary of what it may contain. Before anything she noticed the heavy scent of sulphur and perfume from inside. The small assaulted her nose, causing her to recoil backwards. Monsters used perfumes? She covered her nose and mouth with her hand then asked Fyrn in tears:

“Where are we?”

He tilted his head and answered her as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“The command tent. We need to ask you some questions, human.”

“... Can I run away?”

“If you don’t value your life, be my guest.”

“Uuu...”

That developed far too quickly for her liking. She had hoped that she was being lead to something like a small camp, isolated from all the scrutinizing eyes of the monsters who’d love to get a bite out of her. At the very least if she was to be interrogated then the cliché good-cop-bad-cop routine would have sufficed. But the command tent? Really?

Her throat had dried up from the number of times she had to swallow in such a short period of time. Mere moments after their exchange, Fyrn was already showing signs of impatience. His hooves were digging into the dirt and his finger was repeatedly tapping the curtain. She knew she had barely any time to think of an excuse.

Or is she being too paranoid about it?

“Well?”

“O-okay!”

Realistically, there was no way out of her situation. She had no choice but to bite her lips and try her best to cope with whatever came of it. What’s the worst that could happen, anyway?

Getting eaten, that’s what.

“Oh? What have you brought us now, Fyrn? Snacks?”

Great. Just great.