Monster country of Etna

The dark nation of death

A child's nightmare threat

Evil, fathomless in depth

Lylyc Port, midnight, south-eastern side of the city walls.

As it was fall season, the expansive fields of wheat had already been harvested to prepare for the following season, making the farmland look bare and lonely. That did not mean the owners of the land could rest, however. Several orcs could be seen working through the night to thresh the wheat. Because of the strong winds, separating the chaff from the grain was easy; the orcs simply used large shovels to throw the grains into the air. Because the edible seeds were much heavier than the chaff, the latter would be blown away while the former would fall back down to the ground.

At first the monsters did not bother doing this, even when they started farms to address their food supplies. But after a few years of living in the lands of the races, they picked up several habits that, they admit, increased the overall quality of their lives.

Unlike human cities that basically stopped at night, a city of monsters, most of which had competent night vision, never slept. That gave them a solid advantage against most members of the Races for they could ignore the time of day for certain work. However, they still lit lanterns as an act of consideration for monsters that didn’t, such as cyclops.

Xizyetama, or ‘Xiye’ as she preferred to be called, was not such a monster.

She sat on top of a boulder that jot out of the plains at the border of the woods. A piece of sugar stick dangled from her small mouth, stolen from the fields of an unsuspecting farmer. Behind her was a pile of eaten sugar sticks. She obviously did not hold herself back at all.

As one of the Facet Foxes, Xiye appeared childlike, and appeared similar to a twelve year old human boy. She was, however, already twenty-five years old. Though they shared the same lifespan as that of humans, they aged similar to elves in that they stopped growing physically extremely early on in their lives, and then age rapidly during their final years. A pair of fox ears adorned her head, whiskers were visible on their cheeks and a pair of fluffy tails popped out of a specially-tailored hole on her skirt. Two black streaks ran down her eyes that made her look like she was crying tears of ink. But despite their frail appearances, they were actually quite vicious fighters.

After all, they were descendants of a legendary calamity, despite the blood running thin through the millennia.

“Hahhhh... so bored...”

Due to the monsters adapting the idea of ‘society’ from the races, they were expected to pick up ‘jobs’ to contribute the community. As monsters were very proficient with certain things due to their traits, they could easily land a job or start their own small business when needed. For example, with the cyclops’ physical strength and affinity to fire, they usually worked as blacksmiths and craftsmen, beholders usually worked as scouts and orcs worked well as frontline soldiers. Unemployment among them was very low.

... and she was one of them.

“Hahhhh... maybe I should get a job...?”

The words came out of her mouth despite knowing full well that by sunrise she’d already be unwilling to do so.

It wasn’t because she couldn’t get a fitting job at the city hall; she was just too lazy to get one. Jobs meant responsibilities and responsibilities meant less time to play after all.

Basically she was a bum.

She spit the remains of the sugar stick on the ground spitefully. Then she pulled a small pack from her side and emptied its contents on her hand.

A silver and seven bronze dragon coins landed on her palm.

“Fuck,” she winced.

That kind of money wouldn’t allow her to afford two weeks of food, yet alone a week in comfort. Should she find some odd jobs in the morning, like milking cows?

But where’s the fun in that?

Alternatively she could go out and hunt beasts in the forest and sell them to the butchers or eat them for herself... but then she remembered that there was a military operation inside their territory and all citizens were required to stay within the range of the patrols.

The city had been in high alert ever since the first upheaval had come to pass. Awakened dungeons were nothing new, so every city already had a set of protocols to follow in the event of an upheaval. It was to prepare themselves for the rare cases of a second upheaval, which were much more dangerous and signified the awakening of high-level dungeons. Though only very few people expected it, caution was the correct choice to make, and they proved worth the trouble when a second wave of rogue dungeon monsters assaulted their walls. What nobody expected, though, was for a dragon sighting to happen.

Dragons were the undisputed strongest species in the world. They had scales tougher than mithril, claws sharper than the finest swords, lifespan as long as elves, and wisdom as profound as hermit sages. Their power was such that the mere act of their breathing saturated the area around them with tumultuous magical energy, and a flap of their wings could summon storms.

Fortunately, they were extremely rare. As far as records went, there were only four dragons in the world, down from the original ten before the Behemoths appeared. During that time, one of the dragons fell from grace and became the World-Eater behemoth, while the remaining nine joined the races to fight against the three. Five dragons died in that battle, which was a testament to the enemies’ strength.

And after several thousands of years the four dragons still did not increase in count – until now.

Significant as it was, Xiye wasn’t interested in what it meant as much as she was in what will happen because of it. Due to the tense peace between the country of monsters and the kingdoms that belonged to the races around them, there hadn’t been much excitement around besides scaring the few human merchants that came by the trading hub a ways away from the city proper. Hunting wild animals offered some entertainment, but after a while it got boring, and hunting them down to sell had become unrewarding due to their recent successes in breeding livestock. But now that a fifth dragon had been spotted, Xiye looked forward to seeing the turmoil that it would result to.

And already, the uproar it resulted in the city provided quite the entertainment for her.

In response to the incident, the city officials hastily assembled a large group to investigate the sightings. But to her, it appeared more similar to a subjugation group than a scouting effort. They even managed to pull the famously troublesome White Storm General into it.

It was probably just a precaution, but such a large group of soldiers mobilizing would attract the attention of any nearby nations, a fact that they couldn’t hide no matter the time of day. After all, they could not completely control the kind of people who stay over at the trading hub. It would only be a matter of time before every nearby country learned of their deployment.

But it was worth it? Xiye wouldn’t know. She wasn’t familiar at all with politics, but considering they still carried on with the operation, then it should be.

The only question, really, was what kind of interesting developments would happen.

Too bad she wasn’t part of the military, or else she would have been out there looking for dragons.

“Hahhhh... so bored...” she repeated herself. “Maybe I should just go home and sleep.”

She knew that would be quite difficult since she wasn’t sleepy at all, but she would rather spend the time tossing about in her sleep than wallow in her boredom.

But just then, something at the corner of her vision caught her eye. It was a small, blue blob bouncing passively around the pile of sugar sticks behind her. Occasionally it would take one of them and dissolve it within its acidic body.

There was something offsetting about seeing someone eat something she’d already placed in her mouth.

“A slime?”

Though they were troublesome creatures, they were extremely dumb and fragile. For Xiye, it would only take a light flick of her finger to pop a regular slime.

“Ah—wait. Aren’t slime cores decently pricey?”

She could remember that each slime core sold for at least two hundred bronze dragons. That was enough money to buy a couple or so decent meals! The reason why they were so expensive despite being such common and weak monsters was that their cores were almost as fragile as their soft bodies. Killing a slime almost always destroyed their cores in the process. For the very rare, stronger slime variants their cores would occasionally persist after their death, but slimes rarely had the opportunity to evolve due to how pathetically weak they were. That was why their slime cores, which were used decoratively or as material for adhesives, fetched for a decent amount of money. Most importantly, hunting them was much more entertaining than tossing about in bed.

So how could she get the cores reliably? Hell if she knew. But if there were enough of them then killing them all should at least get her a few.

“Alright, let’s do it.”

She stood up and walked away slowly while the slime distracted itself with eating its fill. Eventually it would finish and bounce right back to its den, where she hoped to find the rest of them. While there was technically a lockdown, Xiye was confident about being able to hide from anyone as long as it wasn’t a beholder, who could see her regardless of what kind of disguise she used, or an abyss serpent, who could easily smell her even if she hid her scent with magic pheromones.

The greedy little thing ate the entire pile, which was at least twice its own size, and finally bounced off. Xiye stalked it from a distance, while monitoring her surroundings for any patrol members. Despite the heightened frequency of patrols she fortunately didn’t encounter any of the troublesome bunch. Orcs had a less reliable sense of smell compared to abyss serpents, and she could easily pass black stalkers by climbing trees to avoid their network of feelers on the ground. Though they of course noticed the slime she was tracking, they did not pay any attention to it. It was, after all, just a weak, dumb slime.

After following her prey for a long while, way out of the range of the patrols, she was shocked at the scene that greeted her.

There were a massive number of slimes gathered at an upturned clearing. They covered the land like writhing boils on the ground. Not only were there acid slimes, but also the more common variants lake slimes and poisonous swamp slimes. Clustered at the middle of the pack she could also see a scarce number of advanced forms such as freezing slimes.

“Is this... the third upheaval?”

Somehow, though, there was a pleasant scent in the air, similar to morning dew.

Xiye, being an overworld monster who did not care at all about dungeons and whatnot, had no idea what a third upheaval meant. All she knew was that dungeons were a good place to have fun in. And besides, what kind of dungeon released slimes of all things as the third wave? It must be a joke.

She found herself quite excited. Regardless of the number of slimes there were, as long as they didn’t go at her all at once, it wouldn’t matter. If she was able to get rid of everything on that area, then she’ll have no issues with money for a long time to come.

She made up her mind with a fist pump. She decided to start from a corner and work her way around them. That way, even if they decide to escape, she could just round them up.

Winds gathered around her body, forming a barrier of air. Her long blonde hair turned silver and floated weightlessly behind her. The fox ears on her head spouted white flames like a torch that formed burning horns. White fireballs appeared on the palm of her hands, which slowly engulfed them and turned into fiery claws.

Facet Foxes, unlike many monsters, were able to use more than just the magic they were blessed with at birth. They also possessed a unique magic called spirit fire, which only members of spiritually-sensitive, living monsters could use. This allows them to be more flexible in combat. For Xiye, she preferred using wind defensively and her fire for offense.

Looking around, she immediately decided on the location to start her assault. There was an emerald slime bouncing on the same spot while spinning, as if it was trying to bury itself underground. Unlike the other slimes in the area, it was alone and seemed intent on... whatever it was doing. Xiye had a strange feeling that it was unique, but quickly dismissed the thought.

They were just slimes.

She leapt into the night sky and landed soundlessly beside the slime. Her claws flew in a sharp trajectory towards the hapless monster. It was over within the blink of an eye.

“Huh?”

But mysteriously, she only caught air.

She blinked a few times. Maybe she was just seeing things. The slime, right before her claws reached it, jumped out of the way with supernatural speed. It was an utterly unbelievable event. She looked over her shoulder to see her target at rest on a patch of upturned soil, unharmed. A feeling of discomfort pulled at her mind. It felt like the slime was staring at her. She was so shocked that she was unable to move for a few seconds afterwards.

Then, she felt more eyes on her.

The mass of slimes had all stopped moving.

“Oh no...”

Her whimper was the only sound in the eerily quiet night. She heard no insects, nocturnal birds, or even the rustling of leaves in the wind. Her mind screamed, demanding for her to run away.

The green slime she targeted shifted slightly, causing a soft ruffling of the grass underneath it. The sound felt like a knife that cut through the suffocating tension Xiye was under. In panic, she leapt away, as far as she could push herself off the ground.

Yet she fell immediately. She felt like her feet had been tied to something. Because of the strength she placed in her jump, the fall had become much more painful. Fortunately her wind barrier persisted, and she got away with only some bruising on her face.

She looked down to her feet, wondering what caught her. To her horror a black slime had managed to attach itself to her foot. It was a cave slime, known for their weight and body like iron.

But slimes are supposed to be slow. How could it have caught her mid-air? It was like—

They had been waiting. It was a trap.

Her heart sank. She knew better than to stay in one place when faced with a massive number of monsters. Even if they were just slimes, they were formidable with their numbers especially when their prey was unable to move. In that state, even if she could fend them off, she wouldn’t be able to avoid all their body fluids from drenching her, even with a barrier of wind up. That was why it was important to always be on the move. Even the weakest of acid slimes was dangerous if any naked body parts were exposed to their bodies.

“Let go!”

She raised her claws, still engulfed in ethereal fire, and struck down on her feet. Her arm, however, was stopped mid-swing. A cold, wet feeling engulfed her hand, and she felt the flames she was so proud of extinguish.

A lake slime had also engulfed her arm.

Soon, the same feeling crept to her other hand. Then, her remaining leg.

She was being swallowed.

A scream pierced the night sky; her desperate cries rang futilely throughout the woods. Her heart beat rapidly. She tried in vain to get rid of the slimes attached to her limbs by flailing. But her arms and legs grew heavier by the second as more and more slimes caught hold of her limbs. She tried to cast her magic, but as certain slimes were immune to certain elements, her power was similarly useless.

Then, she couldn’t move her body anymore. Yet the slimes kept coming. They engulfed her entire body, slowly, as if they relished the feeling of enveloping a warm body. She could only crane her neck towards the sky to stop herself from drowning.

Tears ran down her face, unnoticeable due to her markings. She didn’t want to die. Nobody did.

It had just been an attempt to have a little fun and gain some spare change on the way.

Eventually, her wind barrier broke. It was like a signal for every slime to go all out. They beat at her torso like waves smashing onto the rocks on the coast. Xiye quickly ran out of air.

She was up to her face with them. It was only a matter of time before the mass of monsters covered her face. Then, she would drown and die.

In a last ditch effort, she tried to bite the slime that attempted to crawl onto her head. Her heart broke at the same time as her teeth did. It was also another cave slime.

“What the hell...”

At a distance, she saw the same green slime she tried to kill earlier on. It didn’t move, as if it was staring at her. Though they did not have eyes, she swore that it was the case.

She had never expected that the last thing she would see before she died was a weak, dumb slime.

.

“Huh... that’s strange... it’s actually quite comfortable here.”