They called it the Village of Veilmoor, but few dared to speak the name aloud once the sun began to set—even knowing that the sun there never fully rose.
Veilmoor was the kind of place that seemed perpetually suspended between a cloudy afternoon and an early night.
During the day, the sky was a low ceiling of heavy clouds, stained with gray and purple, and the light filtered through weakly, as if it didn't want to disturb. The trees surrounding the village were tall and skeletal, intertwining with thick vines like snakes, creating tunnels of shadow that whispered with the wind.
The very earth seemed to absorb sound. No birds sang there. Even the roosters seemed confused, crowing timidly at the wrong times.
The buildings were all made of thick, roughly cut wood, with heavy thatched roofs that were already darkening from moisture. The windows had reinforced shutters, kept closed with thick locks even during the day. It was common to see candles lit even at noon, spreading a faint, flickering glow to ward off whatever the darkness might bring.
People walked with their eyes downcast, always in a hurry. They went in and out of their homes as little as possible, exchanging brief, curt glances. They spoke in whispers, as if even sound might attract unwanted attention.
They were all like that—except him.
Darin.
Darin pushed the creaking cabin door with his shoulder, feeling the rough wood scratch against his calloused palm. A cold draft entered, bringing the damp smell of soaked mud and extinguished fires. He took a deep breath, feeling the weight in his throat.
Behind him, his wife Mara shrank back, clutching a worn shawl to her chest. Her black hair was tied in a loose knot, with stray strands sticking to her sweaty forehead. Her eyes, deep-set and red at the edges, followed him with silent concern.
"Are you really going?" she whispered, her voice rough from so many sleepless nights.
Darin didn't answer immediately. He closed the door slowly so as not to wake Linn, who slept in a corner, clutching a rag doll. The girl's face was smeared with dry dirt—traces of her dashing around the house when the last thunder echoed through the trees. She trembled even in her sleep.
Darin sighed, running his hand over his face again, as if trying to erase the wrinkles.
"I am," he said finally. "I need to see if what they say is true."
Mara sniffed, wiping the corner of her eye with the shawl.
He armed himself.
It wasn't much.
A short spear, rusty tip, cracked wood. A knife tied at the waist.
He donned the hood. Adjusted the thick gloves.
"Stay away from the forest, Darin."
He tightened the worn leather belt that held his thick coat to his body.
"I'm not an idiot." But the tone betrayed uncertainty.
When Mara tried to hold him by the arm, he didn't pull away. He just gently freed himself, as if he didn't want to hurt her—but wouldn't accept being stopped.
She cried silently. He left without looking back.
As he stepped out, the cold hit him like a slap. An oil lamp hung loosely on the porch, flickering in the wind, casting trembling shadows on the mud below.
He stepped down the crooked step and sank his foot into the mire. Spat on the ground.
"Damn weather. Damn everything."
The village was silent, though it wasn't that late. A few candles flickered in the windows, behind improvised locks. The houses were cubes of rough wood, with roofs sagging under the weight of moisture. Torn curtains covered cracked glass. He heard whispers behind the walls, as if the houses themselves breathed fear.
He walked dragging his boots, his knees protesting with each step. The old wounds from hammers, axes, foolish falls in the pasture. Wrinkles cut across his face like furrows in an over-plowed field.
When he reached the central square—a wider clearing with a thick, blackened trunk in the middle—he saw two men conversing in low voices. He recognized them: Jorin, the blacksmith, and Haskel, the vendor.
Jorin fiddled with his hood, revealing the burnt scalp from working in the forge's heat. Haskel smelled of salted fish even so far from the sea.
"Darin," murmured Jorin, turning with a frown. "It's late for a stroll."
Darin stopped a couple of steps away from them.
"I need to know."
Haskel sniffed.
"Know what? That we're doomed?"
Darin ignored him. He looked at the ground. There were dark stains there—mud mixed with something else. Parallel scratches.
"Did you see?"
The two exchanged glances.
"We saw," Jorin said. "This morning. Three of Selka's chickens, torn apart. Guts hanging like party ribbons."
Haskel made a vague gesture with his hand, as if shooing away imaginary flies.
"Blood on the fence. On the walls. Spread like paint."
Jorin pressed his lips together.
"And feathers. Many. But nothing whole. As if it wanted to show us its work."
Darin took a deep breath. Felt his stomach churn.
"And who says it's a monster?" he asked quietly.
Haskel spat on the ground.
"What else would do this? A wolf? They don't even hunt much around here. Besides..."
He fell silent, eyes moving left, toward the forest.
"What?" Darin insisted.
Jorin breathed heavily.
"The sound."
"Sound?"
Jorin gestured with his head, as if unwilling to speak.
Haskel glared at Darin with nervous anger:
"Growls."
The silence that fell between them seemed thicker than the wind.
Darin adjusted the machete at his waist.
"Growls?"
Jorin frowned even more.
"Not human. Not animal. It's... twisted. Wrong."
Haskel hugged his arms around himself.
"I heard it yesterday. When I went to close the shed. Echoed over the wind."
Darin felt a chill climb his spine. The wind seemed to gain teeth, biting his face.
They stood silent for a moment.
He looked around. More houses. More weak lights. All doors locked. In one window, he saw the silhouette of a child watching, eyes round like coins. When Darin turned his face, the silhouette vanished with a pull of the curtain.
— Is anyone going to hunt that damn thing? — he asked.
Jorin sighed.
— And who's the fool?
Haskel shook his head.
— No guild comes here. And no one has the money to pay them anyway.
— Cowards. — Darin retorted.
Haskel raised an eyebrow.
— Going alone, then? With that blunt machete?
Darin narrowed his eyes.
— I'll just see with my own eyes. Witness what this abomination is, see what can be done.
Jorin cleared his throat.
— Seeing won't do, Darin. It needs to be killed.
Darin just turned his back, leaving those men talking to themselves.
He trudged through the mud. The wind pushed him sideways, as if warning him to give up.
He walked along the main street — if that muddy trail could be called a street — passing by more houses.
He reached Selka's fence — a thin line of wood held together with twisted wire. The smell hit him before he saw it. Old blood.
He crouched down. Touched the damp earth. Dark red, almost black. Further on, feathers stuck together like dead tongues.
The house door creaked open. Selka was there, old and bent like a hook, her eyes sunken and wet.
— Go away, Darin.
— I came to see.
She shivered.
— Isn't what it did enough?
— Did you see it?
She shook her head.
— I heard it. And my chickens screamed.
The old woman trembled, clutching the shawl to her chest.
— It didn't eat. Just tore apart.
Darin swallowed hard.
— It wanted to show.
She sniffled, crying without tears.
— Go away. Don't stay here. Don't look. Don't think about it.
Darin stood up.
— Did you lock the windows?
She didn't answer. Just turned her back. The door closed slowly. Darin took a deep breath. The wind picked up, bringing a smell of mold, dried blood, animal dung. He tightened his grip on the machete.
— Cowards — he muttered.
But he didn't move any further.
The wind passed through the crooked trees as if whispering jokes. He spat to the side and began to walk.
That afternoon — which was night anywhere else — he wiped his forehead, clearing the cold sweat, while banging the makeshift gates of the chicken coop.
*I'm no hunter. I'm no hero. But I won't wait for anyone.*
The trees creaked with the wind. Something moved. Darin widened his eyes, sinking his weight into his heels.
Silence.
Then, a rustling. He raised the spear. A shadow passed between the trees. Fast. Low. He turned his body. Too late.
The sound was of something wet against wood. The spear flew from his hand. Something hit him at the waist, dragging him backwards. He tried to scream, but the air escaped him. He fell to the ground with a dull thud.
The shadow moved away — a muted growl echoing. Darin breathed heavily, his hands searching for the wound on his side. He felt warm blood. The sound of the wind now seemed different. He gritted his teeth, holding the flowing blood.
*I... won't... run...*
But his strength was abandoning him.
As the dark sky closed in further, he gripped the earth with his fingers, as if wanting to root himself and never let go.
────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────────
Eren walked with measured steps, distributing his weight to avoid sinking too deeply into the clay-like mud of the makeshift path, while the yellowish sun did its best to break through thick clouds of gray and soot.
Each step left a dull mark on the trail, swallowed by persistent dampness. He said nothing. There was no reason to. In his mind, the world was a continuous flow of data to be assessed.
The edge of the road was lined with low vegetation, full of twisted bushes that resembled gnarled hands trying to grab any unsuspecting traveler. The air had the bittersweet smell of decomposing wet leaves, mixed with something more acrid — animal droppings, perhaps.
It was the kind of odor that invaded the nostrils without permission.
Nyssa trailed just behind, emitting a wet and insistent sound, a cadence of pops and vibrations that resembled bubbles bursting in mud.
She seemed to enjoy her own elastic body, bouncing in a motion that barely respected physics, turning into a quivering sphere before sprawling back on the ground.
A satisfied, wet plop escaped her each time she reformed, reverberating like a voiceless laugh.
Eren said nothing to her. Not out of benevolence or indulgence — but because he wasn't really listening. His mind was running calculations, forecasts, and risk models, in an almost autistic flow of abstraction.
He had checked the bond earlier, with a dry mental gesture. The translucent panel appeared in the air with its cold, familiar glow:
[Status - Bound Monster]
[Name: Nyssa]
[Type: Slime]
[Affinity: 49%]
Forty-nine percent.
It was almost laughable. Less than half.
It had dropped even more since the last time. He wasn't surprised, but still, it generated an unpleasant feeling of wasted potential, like seeing a good candle being consumed by random drippings. Affinity — that miserable variable — defined everything about the contract.
Low affinity meant that the stats were decreasing. Eren was no longer as flexible, for instance. The failure of the bond was a systemic risk, as lethal as an armed enemy.
He found himself evaluating the decline curve: in recent interactions, every friction, every hesitation of hers, every abrupt gesture of his, had been added as a penalty.
A well-designed system — and therefore odious. The game, now reality, did not forgive social negligence. Eren knew this better than anyone, but knowing didn't help. It was like watching a graph plummet without having the capital to inject.
The most glaring issue was the impossibility of renewal: that is, the impossibility of sex. There was no environment. No atmosphere.
The conditions for a new pact were worse than minimal — they were hostile. The rite wasn't just a contract with clear terms and monetary costs: it was symbolic, social, even emotional. Consent. Participation. A shared act.
It was almost a cosmic joke — to demand that of him, of Nyssa, now. On a muddy road, with the sky overwhelmingly gray, the wind howling like a wounded beast, and the stench of decay covering everything.
He calculated, of course.
He ran mental language models:
What would I say to convince her? and no result passed the test.
Nyssa, despite her obedience, wasn't the type to enjoy having sex in such a decrepit place. He knew this, as he had proposed it earlier that day.
Perhaps if Eren asked more gently, he might persuade the girl, but as he tended to speak with orders that were too direct, too incisive, he ended up being unable to convince a lady to mate with him.
Meanwhile, Nyssa skipped around to kill her own boredom, given that her master was somewhat uncommunicative.
A plop-plop-plop sound echoed mockingly; the only thing distracting her from the somber tone of the path.
By reflex, Eren registered the sound as a potential alert.
In another context, he would have turned to her with a frown and issued a sharp "Stop that," indicating that the noise could attract predators or bandits.
But he was busy. Overloading his mind with thoughts of what to do, what he would do, what he would refrain from doing. At that moment, Nyssa making noise was like a warning log rather than a fatal error.
The path stretched out in a misshapen carpet of dry mud over wet clay.
The sun rose and fell without ever fully showing itself, creating a gloomy illumination, filtered by clouds so dense they seemed ready to sink into the ground.
They walked for hours without seeing a soul. The bushes gave way to more open plains, dotted with bare trunks like sick scarecrows.
Eren paid attention to everything. Every wind pattern. Every semi-buried rock. Every claw or paw mark on the ground.
The mental cartography he created was almost automatic — a habit inherited from thousands of hours of BloodRealm Online.
Imaginary maps overlapped, comparisons of spawn rates, ideal farming lines. But now, the human factor was more severe.
At a certain point, he stopped to check the environment. The air was drier, the vegetation less dense. A good place to camp — but not to hide.
He didn't want to hide. He couldn't. The exile was a self-imposed sentence. The city was no longer an option.
The guild considered him an outcast.
A shitty tamer, I suppose,"he thought. Degenerate. Potential criminal. Reputation in decline. They probably don't know yet that I killed the guild's executor. And even if they do, I still have a few days' advantage.
But then a very pertinent thought crossed Eren's analyses.
I need to continue with the contracts, but I can't keep doing such low-level missions. I need to strengthen myself. More contracts, monsters, power.
He analyzed the variables with an almost cruel coldness.
Nyssa is a weak point. A slime. Low potential. Cleaning, infiltration, absorption — all civilian or secondary utilities. No damage. No intimidation. An investment with minimal return, though her maintenance is cheap. Even if affinity returned to 100%, she wouldn't be a physical combat unit, but a strategic and tactical one. Not the type of asset that intimidates enemies in real PvP.
Eren harbored no illusions. He needed to diversify. Expand. Close new contracts. Obtain monsters with attack, defense, crowd control attributes. He made a mental list: wolves? Lesser trolls? Elementals? Everything depended on the biome. Everything depended on local supply and demand.
And Veilmoor was the next biome. He knew that.
As a player, Lee Min-Jae rarely came here. The map wasn't worth it. The monsters were weak in XP and loot. It was prolonged early game territory — full of slow grind. But the map design had its points. It was more spacious. The respawn rate was high. The AI was mediocre.
Min-Jae remembered the open plains with sparse bushes — good terrain for kiting, good for ambushing, good for training them on predictable routes. For a tamer with planning, it was a logistical paradise. Just needed patience. He always had patience — as long as he saw profit.
Even so, I still need a contract.
And that was the real problem. To bind, he needed consent. He needed to convince the creature. It wasn't enough to hunt, capture, and force. Not anymore. Not in this real system, so relentlessly well-designed.
Min-Jae recognized the cruel genius of the design: you could hunt and kill everything, but if you wanted to grow as a tamer, you needed to convince. Negotiate. Keep bonds alive. It was a social lesson wrapped in an RPG.
Min-Jae was capable of manipulating anyone, as he had the study and mental potential for it. The problem was his lack of patience in doing so.
Laborious work.
They continued walking until the sun began to die on the horizon, creating a reddish streak in the sky.
The wind grew colder. Nyssa dragged behind, her greenish hue darkening with the lack of light. She still hopped occasionally, making satisfied noises — ignoring the fact that she was attracting attention.
Eren registered it mentally.
She acts like a puppy. Behavioral flaw. Problem for infiltration. Needs training.
But he didn't correct her. Not today. Today he didn't have the energy. Today he just wanted to arrive.
And finally, they arrived. The region of Veilmoor.
The ground changed. The mud gave way to firmer soil, dotted with low shrubs and stones scattered like giant bones.
Twisted trees, with trunks black as wet charcoal, rose with bare branches that resembled claws. The smell was different — less of wet decay, more of burnt leaves, smoke, and something rusty in the background, almost like old blood.
Eren paused for a moment to analyze. He remembered this design.
The collisions are better here. Less clipping. More fluid. AI with medium aggro. Low reaction time. Good for kiting. Good for combos.
He felt a touch of dark nostalgia.
But there was no time to complete the analysis.
Because from the bushes on the left, something moved.
Low. Fast. A sound of a deep growl, wet like a throat full of phlegm.
And before Eren could finish raising the machete, a pair of yellow eyes appeared in the shadow.
And then another. And another. Wild dogs.
Their fur bristling like needles, jaws too long, teeth bared in a smile of pure hatred.
They charged without warning, a chorus of guttural barks filling the wind.
Eren narrowed his eyes.
The dogs advanced in deadly silence until their claws met the ground with a dull thud, closing the distance in a single abrupt motion.
Eren did not retreat.
Instead, he planted his heels on the firm soil of Veilmoor, the dagger in his left hand resting close to his thigh, blade pointing downward.
His eyes were not wide with terror but half-closed in pure assessment.
The pale twilight sky reflected in their pupils — six, maybe seven beasts spreading out in an arc.
Shaggy, black fur, with scabs and dried blood forming crusts. The ears were cut, mutilated.
The teeth were exposed even at rest — as if the flesh of their cheeks had rotted away and fallen off.
Eren scanned each one, noting scars, the rhythm of movement, the sound of claws on stone, the breathing pattern that created clouds of cold vapor.
[Status]
[Canis Sanguinus]
[Level: estimated 4–6]
[HP: ~150]
[Standard Attack:]
-Ravenous Bite
He took a deep breath.
The wind rustled the dirty coat he wore, creating shadows that slithered like snakes.
There was nothing heroic in that stance — just a cold, almost indifferent readiness.
Predictable. They spread out to surround. Simultaneou charge. Bite to the throat or legs. Focus on the hesitant target. I am the obvious target. Good.
"M-master…!"
Nyssa was just behind him. She vibrated with a wet, low sound, almost a protest. She seemed frozen, hesitating, no longer jumping around like before. She was better off protecting herself, as she was not yet fully healed from the last fight with the executioner.
One of the dogs growled louder, lips stretching over dagger-like teeth. Eren lightly shifted the machete, testing the weight, calculating the ideal cutting arc. He needed real data to define strategy — nothing replaced initial contact.
To determine dodge and cut timing, I need the real attack.
He flexed his knees slightly. A restrained movement, almost lazy.
Come. I need to see.
As if summoned, two dogs advanced first.
They came from the left and the front, coordinated.
Jaws opening, revealing inflamed gums, breath a stench of rotten meat.
Eren moved half a step back, just enough to escape the ideal bite angle — the first dog bit the air, teeth snapping with enough force to be heard in the wind.
Opening created. Counterattack viable. But not yet. I want the alpha.
The second dog tried to bite his thigh. He pivoted his hip, pushing with his elbow to deflect the beast's head. A growl of frustration cut through the air. He felt the hot breath on his skin. The left arm with the machete lifted a centimeter — almost striking — but stopped.
No resource wasted on fodder. Locate the alpha first.
At that moment, a third dog approached — larger, with denser scars on its flank, a milky eye, jaw split at two angles. Its growl was deep, a sound vibrating in the chest like a drum.
There it is. Command. The rest is the pack. They obey the alpha's priority.
Eren deliberately relaxed his shoulders. He wanted to appear an easy target.
Then something broke the tension: a human shout.
"Hey! Get out of there!"
Eren didn't avert his gaze. But the dogs did. The alpha growled toward the sound.
The farmer emerged from the bushes, holding an improvised torch in one hand and a cracked stick in the other. His face was tense, brow so furrowed it looked like trenches.
"Go! Run! I'll hold them off!"
Eren cursed inwardly.
Idiocy. Unplanned noise. New threat vector. Increases complexity. And the pack's focus shifts.
The dogs turned their heads in unison. One of them, skinnier, took a step toward the farmer, growling with saliva dripping.
Eren raised his voice without emotion:
" Stop."
The man hesitated.
"Are you deaf? Get out of here, kid!"
The alpha growled low, hesitating between Eren and the new target.
Eren didn't move a muscle.
"You just divided their focus. They're pack AI. Now they don't know who leads the threat."
The man gritted his teeth.
"I'm trying to save you!"
"You're making it worse."
Nyssa crept to the side, watching the situation from afar and wondering if that man posed any threat.
"Shut your mouth!" he shouted, raising the torch at the dogs. "Go away!"
Eren took a deep breath and then pulled up the man's status.
[Status]
[Name: Darin]
[Class: Farmer]
[HP: 88 / 88]
[Strength: 9]
[Agility: 7]
[Intelligence: 8]
Eren absorbed the information without blinking.
Low. Not military. No active skills. No chance in real combat. Risk variable.
He spoke lower, in a cold tone:
"Listen. You have a low level, Darin. You need to obey, or you will die."
Darin hesitated.
"What the hell… How do you know my name?"
Eren ignored him and pointed his finger at the alpha of the pack.
"I need him. He's going to attack me."
"What?!"
"You'll attract the smaller ones. Stay on the edge. Use the torch. Keep them away. But the big one stays with me."
"You're insane? He'll kill you!"
Eren raised his dagger.
"I want him to bite me. I need him locked onto me."
"That… That's suicide!"
Eren didn't respond. Eyes fixed on the alpha.
*He detects primary threat by centralized movement. If I expose myself, the alpha won't resist.*
He stepped forward. The dogs retreated a centimeter, growling. The alpha advanced half a step, drooling.
"Last chance" murmured Eren to Darin. "Distract the small ones. Or you die."
Darin gritted his teeth.
Even so, he turned to the other dogs, brandishing the torch, shouting curses. A sound that filled the air with panic and smoke.
The smaller ones hesitated — their basic script pushed them toward the noisier side.
The alpha growled low.
Eren adjusted the dagger in his hand.
Focus. Standard bite. Throat or thigh. I'll give the thigh. It's predictable. I'll sacrifice flesh for position.
He didn't retreat when the alpha exploded into motion.
The impact was brutal. The teeth clamped onto his left thigh with a snap. Blood gushed out. The pain shot up his spine like flames. Eren didn't scream.
Entry confirmed. Prey secured. Target mobility reduced.
He felt the hot slobber on the wound. The dog growled, shaking its head to tear even more.
Analyzing trajectory. Center of mass... there.
The dagger went into the dog's left eye with a wet sound.
He pushed until he felt the resistance give way. He twisted the wrist. The dog let out a hoarse, guttural cry that turned into bubbles of blood and air.
The weight lifted off his leg suddenly. The animal fell to its side, its limbs twitching.
The other dogs stopped.
They looked.
There was an icy silence, full of heavy breathing.
Then they began to retreat, one by one, tails between their legs, growling low but without courage.
In seconds, the pack dispersed into the undergrowth.
Eren took a deep breath. Blood flowed down his leg, hot, pulsating.
Active bleeding. Priority treatment postponed. Zone still hostile. But immediate threat dissipated.
Nyssa crawled nearby, emitting a worried sound.
Darin stood still, the torch trembling in his hand.
"But…" he murmured. "You… scared it off? And let it bite you?"
Eren didn't respond, only wiped the dagger on the dead alpha's fur, with one of his thighs bleeding profusely. He stood supported on one leg.
"Who are you?" Darin was astonished, his lips opening and closing silently.
Eren raised his cold eyes.
"Eren Vale. Monster Tamer… Nyssa! Come here."
Then Nyssa appeared on the scene, to Darin's surprise, who thought it was some monster. However, Eren's casualness upon seeing the slime calmed him and made him even more puzzled about the scene that would follow.
"M-master… a-are you okay?"
Master? thought Darin, completely perplexed at seeing all that. That thing called this boy master?
" I need you to stop my bleeding."
"S-stop… s-stop it?"
Eren sighed.
"I need you to absorb my blood to facilitate my recovery."
Nyssa then poked Eren's leg, absorbing some of his blood.
[Affinity: 52%]
Affinity can rise with the act of care. Or is it because she's absorbing my blood? Positive variable.
Nyssa continued pressing her gelatinous pseudopod against his thigh, absorbing the warm blood that was flowing.
The sound was wet, almost awkward, as if flesh was being sucked by a suction cup. Eren didn't move.
His face remained expressionless, but his eyes were fixed on the contact point, measuring the amount of fluid lost, feeling the throbbing pain as the cut closed only partially.
Darin watched with a pale, almost greenish face.
His hands trembled slightly, the torch casting flickering light over the dead trees around, projecting dancing and distorted shadows on the ground.
"T-that thing… " he swallowed dryly. "It's… eating you alive?"
Eren didn't correct him immediately. He breathed slowly, coldly.
"No. It's absorbing the blood I would lose on the ground. Less attractive to predators. Reduces hemorrhage."
Nyssa turned her face to him — or rather, formed a bulge with something that resembled a face, with opaque and round slime eyes.
"M-master… is… is it hurting?"
Her voice was trembling, embarrassed, with a liquid sound at the end of each word.
The upper part of her body was "dressed" only with a strip of torn fabric that covered part of her gelatinous breasts, revealing more translucent skin than it hid.
It was makeshift, poorly done — made to calm others' modesty but failing miserably.
Eren didn't seem to notice — or if he did, he didn't care.
"Continue, Nyssa. Minimum amount. Don't absorb too much plasma."
She shivered, emitting a contained plop.
"Y-yes… master… it's a pleasure to serve…"
Darin swallowed dry again, eyes wide.
"She… she… she talks?!"
Eren finally lifted his face to him, a movement almost mechanical.
"Yes."
"And she… calls you master?!"
Nyssa shrank even more, forming something like timid arms around her own torso, trying to cover the transparency of her body.
"I'm… his. I obey the m-master…"
Darin looked from her to Eren, mouth agape.
"Is this… is this black magic? Did you bind her? I've never seen a monster tamer with this kind of creature before."
Eren slightly raised an eyebrow.
"It's not black magic. It's consensual."
Darin blinked.
"Consensual? She chose this?"
Eren sighed, without humor.
"She accepted. She's my partner."
Nyssa nodded with a wet sound.
"It's t-true… I… I want to help the master…"
Darin exhaled as if he were being punched.
"I… I've never seen anything like this…"
Eren ignored the commotion. He looked at his leg, assessing the now-contained bleeding. It still throbbed, but most of the blood had already been absorbed by Nyssa or coagulated. It was a deep wound but no longer mortal.
Still, he frowned.
Risk of infection. Bleeding debuff controlled, but not neutralized. Requires sealing.
"You. " He turned his face abruptly to Darin. "Do you have anything for this?"
Darin blinked, still shocked, but his practical instincts kicked in.
He dropped the torch on the ground, where it continued burning in a shallow puddle of mud, illuminating everything in orange hues. He rummaged at his waist, pulling out a worn leather pouch.
"I have this…" And he extended a bundle.
Eren took it without hesitation. Inside, there was a thick linen bandage stained with old browns — used but dry — and a small glass vial with a yellowish liquid that smelled of crushed herbs.
He slightly twisted his lips.
Antiseptic. And bandage. Good.
Darin cleared his throat.
It was… the best I could do.
Eren opened the vial, sniffed the contents, and evaluated the composition.
Local herbs. Medium anti-infective properties. Better than nothing.
"It'll do."
Without asking for permission, he poured the liquid over the cut. The chemical burn made him clench his teeth, but he didn't scream.
The liquid trickled down, washing away fresh pus and clotted blood. Nyssa stepped back a bit, shuddering as if she felt it herself.
"B-burning?"
"Yes."
She bit the "lip" formed on her improvised face.
Eren tied the bandage with clinical firmness. Practical. Precise. In less than a minute, the cut was sealed, even though the pain still pulsed like a siren in his nerves.
He took a deep breath.
Reduced mobility ~20%, but not incapacitated. Acceptable.
He finally raised his face to Darin.
"Thank you."
The word came out without inflection, but it was there.
Darin blinked, surprised.
" Ah… yeah… you're welcome."
For a moment, they remained silent, the torchlight illuminating the three of them — the blood-covered man, the sweaty peasant, the viscous creature trembling with shyness.
It was Darin who broke the quiet.
"Look… Eren, right?"
Eren didn't respond. He just stared. He was beginning to wonder if all the effort to keep the three of them safe was worth it.
"You… you're good at this. — Darin gestured to the bodies of the dogs. — No one in the village could…"
Eren didn't respond.
Darin took a deep breath.
"I… need to tell you something. In my village… the village of Veilmoor… we're… having a problem."
Eren raised an eyebrow.
"And?"
Darin fidgeted with the stick, anxious.
"There's… there's a creature. A… I don't know what. It's been killing chickens. Ripping them apart. Leaving everything scattered. Makes noise…"
Eren seemed less interested than before.
"Chickens."
Darin gritted his teeth.
"It's not just that! It… it… makes these grunts. Sounds that chill the blood."
Eren froze for a moment.
Grunts?
He raised his face more slowly.
"Describe the sounds."
Darin swallowed hard.
"It's… it's like a sort of laughter, I don't know. But twisted. As if the throat is full of blood."
Articulated sound. Intelligent variable.
Eren tilted his head.
"Did you see footprints?"
Darin scratched his sparse beard.
"Yes. Half human. Half beast. Three toes. Long claws."
Possible lycanthrope form. Werewolf. Or bipedal wolf variation. High intelligence likelihood. Pack social model.
Eren didn't speak for several seconds. Nyssa, unbidden, approached his side, curling up like a frightened child.
Capable of accepting contract. Intelligence sufficient for negotiation? If so, high physical attribute value. Chance of failure, but huge reward. High risk, high reward.
Finally, he spoke.
"I'll handle it."
Darin blinked.
"You… handle it? How?"
Eren just nodded, his face immobile like a mask.
"I'm being contracted to solve a problem, not to teach how to solve it."
Darin wasn't even offended. He thought the situation in his village was so critical that he had no more hopes. Therefore, upon seeing Eren's confidence, he was just stunned by the response.
And he saw no reason to doubt since he had seen the young man throw himself in front of several wild dogs just to take out the alpha. Darin knew Eren had something no one in his village had: the slightest courage.
Eren turned to Nyssa.
"Prepare yourself. We're changing direction."
The slime trembled.
"Y-yes… master…"
Darin was still there, holding the stick as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Eren took the first step without even looking at him.
"Lead us to your village."
Darin finally found his voice.
"Right… Okay."
Then the three of them moved on. Meanwhile, Eren was only thinking about what would come next.
Another potential contract. More power. Critical variable for surviving in this world.
He walked, even limping, never losing the cold rhythm, as if even the pain was just another datum to analyze.