(Oct 15)

I’m didn’t go to training today. Fuck William. Fuck Cornelia. Fuck training.

Screw them all.

Last night and this entire day was hell, actual hell.

Once the laxatives in William’s hot sauce started to get active, all hell and chaos broke loose.

No. Seriously. My bathroom blew up. Actually.

I won’t go too much into the details…. but basically it painful as all hell, as if someone shoved a dynamite up my ass.

Is this how my wife feels after we do anal?

God damn, it still hurts now.

But that’s not even the worst part.

After my numerous trips to the restroom, my body released a vast amount of “gases.”

Normally, this “gas” would be harmless and would simply smell bad, but the super hot sauce (mixed with laxatives) that William gave me to eat, got mixed with my dragon essence and when I released my “gases”, the hot sauce chemicals got released along with it.

The “gases” I released were now extremely poisonous due to partially having William’s hot sauce mixed in and would literally burn the lungs of anyone who breaths it in until they die or suffocate on their own burnt blood.

Simply put, if you didn’t have a dragon body like mine, you would die or be extremely hurt.

But it’s simply a gas and would slowly disappear into the air, right?

Yes, that’s true.

That being said though, it will take several days before it completely dissolves and disappears. If it was left unchecked and wasn’t cleaned up ASAP, the “gases” would spread through my house and into the city, harming and killing anyone who happens to breath upon it.

It got so bad that during one point in the day, my wife had to run outside and stay outside. Gabi was at school, so I didn’t have to worry about her breathing it in, but I didn’t want anyone else nearby to get hurt.

That left me with no choice but to clean it up before it leaks out and people accidently breath it in, which took me the entire day to do.

Cleaning up a magic infused gas is a lot harder to clean up than normal gas.

Since the gas contained a small portion of my dragon essence, it couldn’t just be sucked up with a vacuum and couldn’t be purified with a low or mid-tier spell.

So, I had to manually go around my entire house manipulating the magic in the air to transform the magic gas into a normal gas.

This was a long and grueling process that takes a lot of time and concentration.

However during the time I was cleaning, I saw something strange.

When I looked out my window during a break I was taking, I noticed this weird person outside.

The person was covered in a thick green fur and was a lot bigger than your average person.

‘What’s that? Oh. It must be one of those animal mascot costume thingies. Why is someone wearing one at this time of day? Isn’t it sunny out and super hot to be in a thick furry costume?’

I didn’t really think it would be anything significant, so I went to go get a drink and when I came back that person in the green costume outside my window was gone.

Whatever.

I didn’t give it much thought because at the time, I didn’t realize what it was…

And I went back to cleaning my house.

It took me 7 hours. 7 hours to clean up all the gases.

I was pooped and collapsed onto my bed.

But before I could even get some shut eye, someone started banging on my front door.

‘What the fuck? Who is it now?! Let me get some fucking peace and quiet!’

But regardless of how tired I was, I didn’t want to be impolite, so I dragged myself to the door and opened it to see…

“William?”

For some reason, William had come to my house.

“Why… are you here William? Oh. Is it because I skipped training today? I’m sorry, but I couldn’t today…”

“No, I’m not here because of that, Anthony.”

William looked grim. Even more serious than he did usually.

“Um… is something wrong?” I asked.

“Yes. There is something wrong. The Grinch. He’s struck again.”

!!!

I was speechless, but I invited William inside to sit as we talked.

“5 different murder victims, each one brutally murdered and ripped apart.”

“…”

I didn’t how to feel…

I wanted to just get this over with. Why is it keep coming back up? Why can’t I just forget about this already…

Why does “The Grinch” keep haunting me and occurring around me?!

“These five cases are an anomaly though, these five cases happened in completed separate locations but happened at a relatively similar time. This is the first time this has happened.”

I offered William some coffee or tea, but he politely said declined and continued his explanation.

“Usually, The Grinch would kill a couple people in one area, and then stay silent for several days. The murder pattern is completely random, his victims have no connections, and the murders happen anywhere at anytime.

But this case was different. There were five murders, within the span of a couple hours. Not only that… the location of the murders... for some reason, but all the murders also happened near your house within a small radius!”

“W-what?”

William just looks at me.

“A-are you… trying to imply that I… am The Grinch?”

“No. But you did cause a change in The Grinch’s behaviour.”

I caused a change in The Grinch’s behaviour?

William continued speaking, “I think I may also know why this is the case as well. Um… this quite awkward but… you had quite an explosive… night, last night didn’t you…?”

At this moment, William was referring to me going to the bathroom due to the laxatives in his hot sauce and that’s why he used the word; “Explosive.”

And indeed, it was very explosive.

I just awkwardly nodded.

He sighed.

“It seems… that the gas that you released contained so much magic in it… it attracted The Grinch towards your general location. I’m not sure why it attracted The Grinch, but that does seem to be the case.”

Are you seriously joking with me?

My “gases” I released while using the bathroom attracted a serial killer to come kill people around my area?

“I wish this were a joke, but this is the most plausible explanation, all evidence in my investigation points towards this being true. And because I am the one who gave you the laxative hot sauce, I too am at fault… and I’m sorry.”

Out of nowhere, William suddenly apologized. I don’t think he has ever apologized to me before.

“I’m sorry, I went too far. I just thought it would be funny to see you eat hot sauce, but I didn’t think it would be this… destructive… and I completely didn’t expect it to cause The Grinch to rampage.

I was immature and I apologize.”

This was the sincerest William had ever been to me.

I was utterly speechless.

What was I supposed to say in a situation like this?

I panicked, what do I say next???

But I quickly calmed down and just told William that it’s fine. I was mad at him at first, but after hearing him genuinely say sorry, how could I stay mad?

I was satisfied with the apology and there was no reason not to forgive him, so I just redirected the topic of conversation back to The Grinch.

“So, is there anything I can do with this Grinch situation?”

“Hm. I’m not sure actually. As we were inspecting the body of the murder victims, I saw The Grinch.”

“You saw The Grinch?!”

William nodded.

“I only saw a glimpse of him, but with that one moment, I determined that whoever The Grinch is, he is definitely at least an A ranker!”

An A ranker?! Damn!

“Why would… someone so powerful resort to becoming a serial murder?”

“It’s not a someone… it’s a something… it’s not human.”

Not human?

“Indeed. I saw The Grinch. It was covered in a thick green fur, and it was huge. Giant claws, big pure black eyes with thin long legs.”

Thick green fur…

Why did that sound so familiar, I wondered to myself.

That’s when I had a minor flashback to earlier that day, when I had seen a green furry creature outside my window.

William’s description matched what I saw.

I had assumed it was just a mascot or a costume…

but no.

It was The Grinch.

The Grinch was right outside my house.