Making monster girls 7 f.., p.5
Making Monster Girls 7: For Science!, page 5
The ground shook and rumbled as the creature lumbered forward and finally stepped out into the lamplight from the driver’s seat. Before me, the beast was so heavy that its hooved feet left visible divots in the hard packed dirt road. It stood at least seven feet tall at the highest point of its shoulders, which slumped down toward its garish, wrinkled face. Its eyes barely peeked out of the rolls of black skin and wiry hair. It’s pinkish lips stuck out from its jumbled, broken teeth and pulled out from the sides where two large, yellow tusks stuck out.
A tuft of black hair poked out of the pointed crest of its head, and two blood-stained ears stuck out on either side. It’s short, stick-like tail flicked through the air, and it only took a second glance for me to realize it was broken in half and the severed piece flipped through the air lazily. The hair on its sides was a dark brown with flecks of black here and there, and when I stared at it for long enough, I saw the pale, healed skin of old battle scars.
“What…” Kleeia gasped as she opened up the caravan’s side door. “What is that thing?”
The animal lifted its large head and sniffed at the air with its dirt-stained snout. It’s heavily eyebrowed eyes flicked between me, the driver’s seat, and then Edony. It looked as if it were trying to process some difficult information that it didn’t quite understand. White foam formed at the corners of its sloping lips, and the creature let out a murderous grunt in our general direction. I knew exactly what it was, and I was sure Daisy, our resident creature expert, did, too.
“It’s a Calydonian boar,” I explained, and the brunette nodded vehemently in agreement. “One of the most vicious and dangerous beasts of the mountainside.”
Right as I finished speaking, the enormous pig-beast lifted its head, roared up at the darkened sky, and then blasted forward. I held the staff between both hands, bent my knees, and pushed off toward it. Instantly, the core held within the staff glowed a deep scarlet hue just as it had when I fought against Samila, and I barely had time to wonder if my residual blood from the fight was trapped inside of the weapon.
I half expected my heart to hammer out of my chest and sweat to drip down the back of my neck, but a strange, cool calmness settled itself over my mind. I glanced down at the staff in my hands and wondered if this feeling came from the weapon. When would this staff cease to amaze me, or would it continually give me new ways of attack?
The boar reached me, and I barely had seconds to dodge a downward attack from one of its enormous tusks. I was within feet of it, and the animal’s stench hit me like an enormous cloud of vile green smoke. I’d never smelled something so horrible in my life, but I had to press on… I had to prove myself. Right as the pig-beast craned its head back again to attack, I gripped the staff in my hand and took a step back. I slashed forward with the weapon, and instantly, the glowing scarlet core darkened to almost black. For a split second, I suspected that all of its power had died, and I would surely die from the creature’s downward strike.
Suddenly, I knew what to do as if the weapon were telling me what I needed. I dropped to my knees and slid underneath the enormous beast’s thick, hairy neck. Then, I held the staff in both my hands, stood, and slammed the tip of the core directly into the beast’s whistling throat. Boiling blood poured down over my head and shoulders, but I ignored it and hastily wiped my face to clear out my eyes.
The beast screamed in guttural pig noises, roiled above me, and thumped a few feet away. Blood dripped into the dirt from the creature’s wound, and the warbling grunts roaring up its throat were cut off and airy. Its bulbous sides shook from the pain, but it stood tall and glared down at me with it’s tiny, beady black eyes.
“Hit it between the eyes,” Daisy shouted to me from the crowd of monster-women. “It’s the thinnest and frailest part of the skull and will crack pretty easily!”
I settled my eyes on the spot the bear-girl indicated. Above the beast’s sloping forehead and right above the pointed, sloping snout. Snot dripped from the creature’s nostrils and fell to the dirt in long, ropey tendrils. I had to get close to it, even though that was the last thing I wanted to do. Where I had to strike the pig-beast was the closest to its enormous maw and giant, wicked tusks, and I’d be in such close proximity, it could easily hit or injure me.
I couldn’t hesitate for a second, and I certainly couldn’t let the beast attack before I did. I slammed my right foot forward and raced toward the pig-beast with the staff gripped tightly in between my hands on my right side. The creature came closer and closer, and right as I was about to reach it, I lifted the weapon over my head and flipped it, so the core dived downward. Right as the three prongs were about to enter into the softest point of the boar’s head, the animal angled it’s enormous face away, and its tusks clanged against the metal of the staff’s haft. For a split second, the haft slipped from my fingers, and finally, my heart leaped inside my chest out of fear.
I couldn’t let this happen.
I couldn’t lose or die. Especially not to some stupid, wandering beast who’d happened upon our path by accident. I slammed my boots against the hard packed earth, jumped, and reached for the staff. My hands closed over the carved metal shaft, but it was too late. The entire staff was stuck behind the beasts two tusks, and I held onto it for dear life while being face to face with the enormous, hideous pig-beast. It’s reeking, hot breath hit my face, and it’s beady black eyes roiled in their sockets as it whipped me back and forth through the air.
I glanced over my shoulder, and Edony took a step forward with her hands held out on either side of her. Two giant, undulating orbs of electricity crackled to life in her palms, and I hastily shouted to be heard over the creature’s choked roars.
“No!” I boomed.
Rage and hatred washed over me in a colossal wave. I’d fought so hard to become the man that I was… I had to do this alone, or I wouldn’t be able to stand tall in front of my armies or my women. I’d persevered so much to be where I was today, and I couldn’t let a creature such as this beat me, but this was so much different than all the other battles I’d fought. Most of those before, I relied heavily on my wit, genius, and cunning, but this was a physical fight, and I’d only been in a few of those.
Suddenly, a vibration rang up my arms all the way to my shoulders, and I stared down at the staff held by the pig-beast’s tusks. Blinding royal blue light shone from the core, and it brightened so much that I hastily closed my eyes. The carved haft in my right hand changed form, and it’s heavier weight made my arm ache. A sharp pain stung at my left hand, and I hastily let go with my eyes still tightly shut from the glaring light. Before I could realize what was happening, I slid away from the beast, my eyes slammed open, and I fell to the ground at the boar’s hooves.
When I glanced down to my left hand, I wasn’t gripping the staff anymore, but… a sword. The blade wasn’t straight like a broadsword or a rapier, but curved to create something like a flame shape. The pommel was made of the same silver metal that the staff but was shaped into a wicked, ghastly screaming skull with pointed teeth. The same runes were carved into the hilt and glowed with the brilliant royal blue I recognized. The sword’s guard came down in a series of spider webbing to protect my whole hand and wrist. The weapon looked nothing like any other blade I’d ever seen in my life, and I wished I had more time to examine it, but the pig-beast above me bellowed angrily and lowered its deadly tusks in my direction.
“Charles!” Josephine screamed out in horror, and it was clear to me that none of my women had seen my weapon’s sudden transformation.
Her voice warbled through the forest, and the boar’s tiny eyes swiveled toward her in a flash. I scrambled to my feet, gripped the sword’s hilt in both of my hands, and settled my eyes on the point where I needed to strike. My lips parted, and an ear splitting roar exploded from my lips. I plunged the sword forward right as the pig-beast’s gaze met mine. Something passed between us… something I didn’t quite understand. It was as if the beast had accepted its fate and understood I’d bested it. I’d already wounded it once, and from the way it’s sides shuddered and shook, it was already difficult for the creature to suck in a single breath. The tip of the sword slammed into the space below the boar’s eyebrows but right above its snout, and a soft crack resounded through the forest.
I pushed all of my weight against the sword and thrust the blade deeper into the pig-beast’s skull. Even though I didn’t want to, I stared deep into the boar’s eyes and watched as the life slowly faded from their dark color. The creature’s large body tensed one last time and then released as it slumped to the side. The creature laid there limply with most of my sword sticking out of its garish face. In one swift movement, I grabbed the weapon’s hilt and drew it out from the boar’s brain cavity. Blood dribbled out of the wound and dripped down the hideous creature’s hairy flesh.
I held the sword loosely in my hands and turned back toward my waiting group of monster-women. They all stared at me with wide eyes, and their mouths hung open in shock. Blood dripped from my sword’s blade, and I untucked the bottom of my shirt before wiping it off on the white fabric. I already knew I was coated in the boar’s blood, hell, the sticky liquid oozed from my dark hair and dripped down onto my already stained shoulders. When my women stared at me, I didn’t even want to know what I looked like right now… I must’ve looked like a nightmare.
“You did it,” Edony gasped, covered her mouth with a delicate hand, and then grinned excitedly. “You did it! Charles! That was fantastic!”
The she-wolf rushed forward with her white tail wagging excitedly out behind her, and she moved to hug me then paused with a grimace.
“I know,” I chuckled. “I must look disgusting. It’s all over me, isn’t it?”
“You’re utterly coated with gore, Charles,” Kleeia giggled.
“We’ll get you washed up soon enough,” Valerie giggled. “But what’s more important than your appearance right now… What in the science happened to your staff?”
I lifted the sword in my hand as if I’d completely forgotten it and stared at its beautiful, glowing runes pressed into the hilt. When I looked closer, the silver metal shined in the low lamplight, and I made out the same runes carved into the intricately curving blade. As I held it a little higher, the weapon glowed a deep cerulean and began to change form before our very eyes. We watched as the blade shrunk, wavered ever so slightly, and then morphed into the shape of the staff. Once the colors died down, I held nothing more than the unassuming staff in my hands.
“I had no idea…” Josephine breathed. “I can’t believe… I can’t believe it can change form like that. It certainly didn’t do that before.”
“I think there’s a lot of things we don’t know about this staff,” I murmured and brought the core a little closer to my face to examine. “I have so many questions about it… but I doubt we’ll ever have answers.”
“Well, we can easily assume that the mage who owned it before was a very powerful woman,” Daisy uttered. “But, I, too, would like to learn more about her and how she came to earn this mighty weapon.”
“I don’t know if it’s the weapon,” I stated. “I think… I think it has something to do with my blood. When I first used it, the core and all of the runes glowed scarlet, just as they did when I used it against Samila. I think that my blood somehow changed how the staff works.”
“That could be possible,” Edony agreed. “Remember when we tested the weapon out at the manor? It only had a few abilities. You could summon the shadow slaves, but that seemed to be just it. Sure, you could use it as a weapon in this form, but it certainly couldn’t morph into something else. We could possibly try to research it once we reach Granhamn, but I doubt they’ll have much information on it… Maybe when we get to the capital. Oh, that reminds me, Charles. Granhamn has the largest library of records within the city. We could search there for your birth certificate. Do you remember the number they assigned you when you were born, the one they used at the boarding school?”
“How could I ever forget,” I chuckled, shook my head, and breathed a heavy sigh. “IV992468. That was… my name for the longest time, or IV99 for short.”
“You didn’t have a name?” Valerie asked, scrunched up her nose, and pressed a tender hand to my shoulder. “That sounds… horrible.”
“I mean, could I consider it horrible if it were the only thing I was used to?” I shrugged. “All boys are born without names. Our birth-givers don’t even bother giving us names because… what’s the point of doing so? They’re not going to keep us, so they send us off to boarding schools and assign us numbers on our birth certificates.”
“How were you named, then?” Josephine asked. “If you didn’t have one in the beginning… how were you named Charles?”
“Well, around our thirteenth birthdays, the schoolmarms would give us names,” I explained. “But I’d already chosen my name. Surprisingly, they allowed me to keep the name I chose and called me that from that time on.”
“They really allowed you to do that?” the she-wolf murmured. “Most of the men I came into contact with or hired solely had the surname of the consort who bred with their birth-givers… Though, they rarely knew the consorts’ names and had to come up with them at random. I’m honestly astonished that society allowed men to have names at all…”
“They were referred to by numbers,” Daisy breathed.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“My Delphine memories,” the brunette admitted. “Of course, Delphine was too young to remember a time where that was acceptable in society, but her maternal grandmother used to tell her stories about a certain consort, XV64721. They were once referred to by numbers… They didn’t have names.”
“Do you know why it changed?” I asked. “Or do you not have memories of that?”
Daisy’s bottom lip puckered, her eyes lowered to the ground, and she breathed in sharply out of anger. Suddenly, her gilt eyes met mine, and her tiny hands curled into fists.
“Because at the time,” the bear-girl started. “The numbering of ‘brutes’ was too similar to how they numbered cattle and other animals. There were multiple times where aristocrats ordered a head of cattle and received a cattle cart filled with men… So, they had to change it because it was getting too confusing.”
“When did you remember this?” I murmured, stepped forward, and stroked her soft, pink cheek.
“A while ago,” the brunette admitted. “But I can’t stand to think of it… Men were treated the same or worse than animals… They didn’t deserve it or do anything wrong except for being born male. They’re still treated that way, but at least the nobles today have the decency to give them fucking names.”
“Barely even names,” Edony whispered. “They’re not given names out of love but simply because they need something to be called except for ‘brute’ or ‘vermin’.”
I breathed a heavy sigh and looked around at my group of women. How’d we get onto this depressing subject? We’d just been celebrating my victory against the wild boar… We were celebrating what I had done, a lowly brute in the eyes of the aristocrats.
“That’s enough,” I soothed. “Let’s leave that alone for now and get the boar off the road. We’ll set up camp here and then head out in the morning. Daisy, do you think you could help me roll it into the ravine?”
“Of course, Charles,” the bear-girl nodded. “But what are we going to do about the core?”
I paused as I walked down the road toward the dead creature and then slowly turned to face the brunette. I didn’t quite understand what she meant, so I raised an eyebrow and tilted my head.
“What?” I asked. “What about the core? I have it right here in my staff.”
“No,” the petite woman shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. What about the core inside of the boar? Are we going to retrieve it?”
“It has a core?” I asked, raised my eyebrows, and glanced over my shoulder toward the corpse. “I thought it was just… a wild beast?”
“Not from what I’ve read,” Daisy shook her head. “I mean, it’s not as powerful as the Raiju or the drake, but it certainly has abilities, too, such as regeneration and shock absorption. Look at all the scars on its legs. If you look closely enough, you can see that the back left one was once completely torn off at the joint then grew back, probably weeks later though, because their growth as a species is slow. This one may seem small, but it’s only a juvenile. I can assure you that the mature adults are much, much larger.”
“But, it has a core?” I reiterated, and the brunette nodded.
“Yes,” the stunning woman smiled. “As you’ve said before, there isn’t a lot of information about the elemental cores, but from what I’ve read, depending on the size and age of the beast, it might be smaller than most.”
“Will it affect the abilities of the core?” Valerie asked. “Or will it work exactly the same?”
“Well, I can guess,” Daisy giggled. “We’ll still be able to use it, but the pieces of the core may be a lot smaller once we manage to break it.”
“Alright,” I chuckled, nodded, and then gripped the staff a little tighter in my hand. “Let’s cut this thing open and see what’s inside.”
Without even having to raise my staff, the colors in the runes changed, and it instantly morphed back into the shape of the sword. I stared down at it with a wide grin, chuckled lightly, and then shifted my gaze toward the pinkish belly of the boar. Then, I lifted the sword and, with the delicate hand of a surgeon, sliced into the beast’s soft underbelly. Unlike the drake, the boar’s blood was bright red and didn’t sizzle as soon as it touched the air. The liquid dripped down the creature’s wiry hair and landed in puddles in the dirt.
Once the chest cavity was open, I worked with the sword’s blade to wedge my way down to where the core should’ve been. My sword’s tip smashed into the boar’s ribs, but this time, I didn’t need Josephine’s help. The bones shattered upon impact, and I used the tip of my weapon to cut, lift, and then flip out the boar’s large lungs. The organs fell to the ground with a moist flop, but I didn’t hear it as I dug even deeper into the beast’s body. I pushed the blade deeper inside, and suddenly, something clanged against the metal. Vibrations rang up my arm, and I shifted the sword inside the red meat until I felt the tip graze against the core side.
