It started off small, a minor pressure in my skull, I thought it was just the weather at first, but as the season passed from ice to fire, it turned into a throbbing, but unlike the pressure, the throbbing ebbed and flowed, picking up in intensity whenever I was making a choice of some kind, whether it was the type of armour to wear that day, or the type of subjugation quest to take, even minor things like the specific apple to choose at a fruit stand.

Not that the ache doesn't have it's good points, I probably would have died if I hadn't listened to it a few times, multiple subjugation quests that turned out to be more dangerous than they should have been, and one time where I encountered a red bear, I would have died if I didn't hit it perfectly in its core. But as much as I find it useful, I can't live with it, the throbbing, it's starting to drive me crazy, dark circles have appeared under my eyes, I'm always so tired and sore now, It's like my body is destroying itself every night.

I find myself thinking about this in the brief periods of time that my mind is clear, I joined up with a small-time, C rank party, for a subjugation quest, we have been tasked with entering into some old ruins and eliminating the current residents, which would be bandits, unfortunately the guild found this out the hard way, the original subjugation was for goblins and a stone-skin variant.

Currently I'm scouting out the area, I wouldn't usually be allowed to do this, but I was recently promoted to D rank, it took a few years to get here, and it would have taken more too, but red bears are fearsome creatures, and the guild saw it fit to promote me, considering my battle prowess, of course, I still had to pass the guild examination, which I did, just barely.

I've been specifically tasked to mark the locations of the bandits, and, if the chance presents itself, kill the bandit leader, with him out of the picture, it would be much easier to kill the rest of them. Most of them should be asleep at this time of the night, except for the guards, of course, but they are sleepy, so I can get past them easily enough, of course, it's at this point that my head starts throbbing, but I'm ignoring it for the most part, it happens when I'm in danger, is what I can gather, and of course I'm in danger, I'm surrounded by bandits.

I marked all the bandits that I saw on a small hand map, although I noticed that some of the terrain was different from the map, so I took a few minutes to correct it before going into, what was embarrassingly more welcoming and attractive than my own home, the bandit leaders chamber. I snuck in, creeping quietly up to the fancy bed, there was a man sleeping in it, and a small girl, a beast-person child, 'sleeping' with him, her eyes puffy and red and her body covered in cuts and bruises, blood and fluids, I would rather not mention, covered her body.

*Stab*

And with that, he was dead, although it was easier than expected, but I don't complain about money with little work, I do complain about the throbbing which has increased in intensity ever since I killed the leader, some of the bandits probably woke up, maybe changing shifts, sadly I can't stay here for long, the reek of blood is unusually intense from this guy, it's almost sickening, but I don't want to leave without the girl, I'm an adventurer, not a monster, plus she's wearing a collar, so, Slave Get!

And yet again the throbbing increased, getting real hard to ignore it at this point, but to be fair, It is much more dangerous to be carrying a little girl through a bandit hideout, especially one without the skills needed for sneaking like I have, it was stupid of me, but I want the little tart, so nothing will stop me from taking her, plus, I gave her a dagger, just in case, although the throbbing really picked up around that time. I recorded the missing bandits, about eight of them have gone from the sleeping area, there were only two guards at the entrance, so maybe they sensed danger and fled.

I made it out of the hideout, the two guards disappeared with the other eight making... ten unaccounted for, other than that, everything was normal, I moved to meet up with the party I took the commission with, Marco the meerkat-man mage, Sacra the snake-person swordsman, and Greg the human support, they called themselves 'Hey look, a bird', although I heard it was a mistake where the party leader, Greg got distracted during the naming process.

"took you a while" Marco's distinctive figure poked out of the bush, with his giant bulging muscles and tall Physique.

"How'd it go?" following Marco, Sacra, the surprisingly swift, considering his short height and fat, stubby body.

"Why are you carrying garbage on your back?" and last but not least, Greg, the racist old dude, which is funny considering his wife and children are beast-people, he's average looking and bald, except for the giant beard covering his chest and bushy eyebrows on his face.

"I killed the leader and rescued a child, ten people unaccounted for, they may have run, the rest are marked on the map" I gave my report and handed the map to Greg

"Marco, I want you in the bushes next to the entrance, attack when they have their backs turned, Sacra, make some noise and draw them out of the hideout, and you, hide in the trees and pick them off whenever you can, Understood?" we all nodded our heads in unison, as much as I find the man distasteful, he is a good leader.

I climbed a tree and hopped from the branches on to the next, until I reached the closest tree to the hideout, I took out my bow and aimed for the entrance, I could see Marco crouching in the bushes, his head was just poking out, Sacra was below me and ready for the signal to start, and Greg was behind him, the child was beside me, sitting on a branch.

"NOISE, I'M MAKING NOISE, BAH BAH BAH, POP POP POP" He was certainly making noise, I almost wanted to shoot him myself, in fact, I'm compelled to shoot him, but I won't, I have more control over myself than that, no matter how tempting it is.

A wave of shouting and cursing poured out of the hideout, with bandits following close behind, their weapons and armours were crude and rusty, and their tactics were lacking, but they had the numerical advantage over us, quickly overrunning Sacra and Greg, who would be dead by now if Sacra hadn't activated his [Taunt] skill, of course Greg wasn't just sitting idly by, he had activated the skills [Invigorate] to prevent muscle fatigue, [Heavy Burden] to sap the bandits stamina and slow their movements, and was casting healing spells to keep death at bay.

I was picking off the bandits where I could, and Marco had jumped out of the bush a while ago, killing a bunch of them with fire spells, then being surrounded himself, in which he responded by breaking their necks, one by one, none of the bandits blades could hit him, because they hit a thin membrane of mana instead, and even if they were able to do some damage, Greg was healing what little they could do. I saw three of the bandits that were unaccounted for in the trees, but they died quickly enough, meaning there was no cause for concern, is what I thought.

*Stab* *Stab* *Stab*

The first hit my right shoulder, effectively disabling my attack, the second hit my right side, through my ribs, puncturing my lung, and the last almost stabbed into my face, but instead lodged itself into my hand as I flailed to protect myself. My attacker? The girl I had rescued, or rather, her master, she was crying the whole time, and resisting to the best of her abilities, it may have been her hesitation that saved me, if I'm being honest.

I fell, crashing to the ground, my body smashed on almost every branch as it went, probably breaking a few bones, but I was more concerned by the copious amounts of blood I was coughing up, that, and the unbearable thumping from my head, screaming at me to get up and run, at least it sounded like that, I also heard some cursing and angry swearing, but I will chock it up to blood loss and intense pain. My right side was warm and freezing, I was having trouble moving, I was light headed, and I was about to waste an extremely expensive failsafe.

*Gulp* *Gulp* *Gulp*

I chugged the blood-red concoction from the bottle, like it was a fine liquor, and It felt amazing, like a drug,, which it was, I could feel my flesh meshing and mending together, the dagger popped out of my hand and I coughed up all the blood in my lungs, but I barely noticed it, I was revelling in the euphoric sense.

I could feel warm liquids flowing down my legs and mouth, I was twitching madly as I tried to recover from the drug induced spasming, unfortunately, it was the only higher tiered potion I could afford, and it took all the money I got from selling the red bear materials and what money I had been saving since becoming an adventurer, I skipped out on a lot of meals to afford this potion, but my life will always be more important than some measure of money.

The thumping pain in my head was clearing my thoughts, I was still feeling a shuddering sense of orgasmic euphoria, but to a greatly lesser extent compared to the pain, It allowed me to think, and realise that we were starting to lose, there was a large woman that was not there previously, an odd bandit, compared to the rest, she was ripped with muscles, wearing nothing but strips of leather, crudely fashioned into a sort of bikini, and she had just dismembered Marco, by tearing of his arms, she then proceeded to beat him with them, which doesn't bode well for any of us.

Suddenly the pounding in my head makes much more sense, I will die if I stay here, and considering that I barely know any of them, besides Greg, whom I have shared drinks with a few times over the past month, I think it best that I run, very fast, away from here. I got up and ran, away from the fighting, I used my knowledge of the geography of this place, a general intuition born from years of adventuring, and the severity of the throbbing in my head, to escape, right back to town, to my warm bed in the inn, the people I could trust to protect me, behind those safe walls.

Then I stopped, not because I wanted to, because I was hanging upside-down, I had fallen into a trap, one that I had set a few days prior to, If I died here, It would be an eternal embarrassment to every scout in the continent, as well as to my family, more so than I already am.

The worst part about this whole situation, is that this is only the first part of the trap, the second function would activate shortly after the first, and would be incredibly painful, as well as humiliating, but it wouldn't kill me, I might starve to death however, or maybe the bandits would find me first, either way, I would die eventually, may as well inform the guild of the inaccuracy of their quest. I wrote a small note on the back of the quest card, explaining the details in as few words as possible, then snapped it in half, just in time for the second function to activate.