Ugh, I feel worse about this than murder. The man’s hairy leg was disgusting, but not really. They tasted similar to the bear. What disgusted me was the fact that I committed one of the greatest taboos known to mankind – cannibalism. C’mon Deidre, you have to. You have to! I chalked it up to another necessary task for my survival. The absolute worst part was the genitals. To get through it, I cut them up into really small parts and ate them with other parts like arms, thighs, and stuff that was much less revolting.

On the bright side, I had a new bedroll, a new pot which wasn’t necessary anymore, some coin, and a brand-new used shield. Yay me! Because I manned-up and got over the 95% Consume threshold, I got the bonus strength, which was pretty miniscule compared to the bear, but still welcomed.

I cast Clean on myself to get the bloody scent off, and well, the blood too of course. My day continued as usual with lots of travel, this time through a mountainous tundra. Puddles of water here and there were becoming more noticeable. There weren’t too many monsters to hunt in that area, but passing through a valley I’d get the rotting stench of carcasses.

I kept going anyway because apparently, I had no sense of danger. There were strange sounds coming from in front of me. A boy was gunning it, speeding the hell out of the valley and dashed past me like an Olympic sprinter. I raised a brow. Soon after, a group of four people looking to be adventurers were also focusing their everything on running.

A rumbling sound was becoming louder, so I peeked over yonder, and around a corner quite far away, was a whole battalion of raptors. I fucking ran too, until I found a nice little hiding spot. To my surprise, the boy was there too. The minute he realized that I noticed him, he shut me up by placing his hand over my mouth and dragging me in further into the tight space. He insisted I keep quiet even after the stampede of raptors passed.

There was a bit of shaking again, a slow, rhythmic thud thundered through the valley of bones. My heart thumped and I swallowed at the sight of whatever the fuck that thing was. Well, I mean, I knew what it was because I played games with Isaac before, but holy shit, seeing it in real just made me remember this world really was a damn RPG game.

The serpent’s head appeared. The black forked tongue searched tirelessly for prey so I cast Clean on both the boy and me, with hopes that our body odor would somewhat diminish enough to save us. Then the lion’s golden-maned head appeared. Its eyes were like that of a goat, and the horns atop its head was also resembling a goat’s. The paws and claws on that thing were gigantic. Prey caught in that had no chance of escape. It continued walking slowly and its massive tan wings finally had room to spread forth when it walked out the valley and into the open. That wingspan was, breathtaking. The chimera’s snake-tail wrapped around its own body and it flew off somewhere.

I was blown away by its magnificence, so I tried to get just one last look at it, but the boy grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me back. “Are you mad?! Wait! It’s circling the area for us!”

Shit! “Still?! How long sho—”

“I saw him run here!” someone said. The group from before was approaching us.

The boy grumbled in frustration. “Those fools!” His fists clenched, and as the roar from above signaled that the chimera was still about the area, he faced a palm towards me. “If you’ve got defensive skills, now’s the time to use it!”

The adventurer’s outcry beelined to my ears; it was a fearful shrill, and I’d understand why when a second sun appeared and filled the valley with its might. The flames of the chimera torched three of the four adventurers who attempted to cross the valley to get to the boy. The trembling earth shook when the giant concoction of beasts landed. Its rumbling bellow filled the valley. I was beginning to realize this place was its territory, because it wasn’t attacking to eat us.

Content with its defense, the chimera flew off once again on golden wings. Both me and the athletic teenager were sweating rivers. Fear, suspense, and our death was the only thing crowding our minds as we hid. A huge sigh escaped him. “It’s finally gone!” I felt him lay back on the walls of rock. “We’re safe!” He breathed deeply a few times to get his composure back from the depths of hell.

I helped us both with a couple casts of Pacify. We slowly made our way out of the crevice and back towards the valley. “Wow, well,” I looked in amazement at the charred corpses, “that’s so overpowered.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you mess around with a death list monster.”

“Oh…” Oh… “Wow, so that was a death list monster, huh? What rank do you think it is?”

He shrugged. “Who knows?” The boy caught up to me and began checking the corpses. “I’m not an adventurer.”

“But I am!” A wizard shimmied his way out of the crevice on the other side. “That chimera is an A-rank monster. The same A-rank monster that killed you!” A sickening smile plastered about his sharp face.

“Shit!” the boy muttered and backstepped a little.

Suddenly, the lanky wizard shot forth a cyclone of fire that spiraled towards the lad. Huh? Three Earth Walls stopped the attack. The wizard grumbled, turned his rage towards me, then attacked me as well. I activated my skills on my legs and gained a good boost of speed but he stopped me in my tracks by casting Sand Trap so I toppled over.

With my feet in thick quicksand, I wasn’t going anywhere too soon. Another whirling cyclone of fire wormed towards me, but a couple Earth Walls protected me. He was rather confused about someone using both spells and skills, and the fact that he saw it meant he had to die. I released the Earth Walls and used a skill on my arm and weapon, then flung that dagger as hard I as could. The wizard dodged it just in time, but I could always make the dagger return to me, so it stabbed him in the back while on its way to me.

I flung it again to ensure he would die faster and stopped him from using any last-second tricks; his split cranium and sliced brain was reassuring. I slowly removed myself from the quicksand and went over to check on the body, just to be sure.

Good. When I looked around, the boy was on his backside, frozen in fear. Oh, shit, he saw too. I breathed. He saw too… My hand tightened on Shadowsiphon and I stepped forward.

“Wait! Please!” The boy begged for his life.

I’m sorry, kid.