The creature howled in challenge. The two sides of its head began to squirm, and then they slowly started to connect, starting from the neck and leading up to the top of the head. When it finished, it was slightly irregular, and Day could hear a squelching sound.
When the noises ceased, its face was perfectly symmetrical.
The eyes of its now connected face both locked onto Day, who was running forward vivaciously with the same dark intensity in his eyes.
When the two forces were supposed to clash, something else happened in place of the dreadful scene.
Day rolled to the left, passing the humanoid creature who had jumped into the air and slammed its two sickle-like hands into the rocks where he stood moments before.
Pushing off the ground by letting go of his sword with his right hand, he quickly regained his balance. His head shot back, followed by his body, but to his dismay; The creature was already upon him.
'Shit!'
Day stumbled back, and the creature slammed its two sickles into the floor where he used to stand once more.
From this bout, Day came to a striking, but somewhat baseless realization.
He was most likely fighting a Dormant beast. Based on its speed, or rather lack thereof, as well as its unintelligent courses of action, Day had come to a vague conclusion that the creature was a Dormant Beast.
The creature was certainly fast, but it wasn't half as fast as anything that was of a higher rank would have been.
At least, that was the conclusion he had come to from everything he had read in the past.
'If it wasn't, I'd probably be dead already. I say that's more than enough to come to such a conclusion..'
Day strained his mundane body and used his sword as leverage to keep himself from falling over. Luckily, he was able to dodge the creature's sickles with little effort, so he lowered his arm down slightly and lodged his lustrous companion into the ground below, which allowed him to shift his foot and push off the ground for a spin that not only brought him around the sword but also put him right in front of it.
Day didn't know how to swing a sword, but he knew how to use his environment to his benefit, and he was certainly going to make use of his flexible, fit body to do things that other mundane people wouldn't be able to do unless they had combat training.
He had decided he wouldn't be self preservative in this fight. If the creature got a singular good blow on him, he and the little girl would die, so why not kill it before it could even begin to contest him?
'Ugh… I'm really out of my league, aren't I? Whatever… The hell if I care.'
This time, the creature's malicious blow had put it in a disadvantageous position. One of its two sickles were lodged into the ground, and it had to take a moment to reorient itself.
Day on the other hand had flexibly repositioned himself to allow for an immediate re-engage, so that was exactly what he did.
In that moment, his lack of knowledge on how to use a sword showed as he raised it up in front of him like a javelin.
'Hopefully this works!'
The creature turned around to look at him. Its ravenous, greed-filled eyes locked onto his approaching figure.
But by that point, Day had already arrived.
Lodging his sword into the creature's stomach, he pushed it as deep as he possibly could. There was an odd, but somewhat terrifying gurgling sound when the sword pierced the creature's abdomen.
The creature let out an angry wail and staggered back.
To Day's dismay though, it didn't kill the creature or injure it enough to debilitate it like he had hoped.
He had no choice but to disengage, leaving his sword behind in the creature's stomach. As he departed from the scene of the crime, one of the creature's tentacle legs was already rising up from the ground.
The tentacle encircled the hilt of the blade and pulled it out slowly and painfully. Day couldn't help but reel back at the gruesome scene.
After a grumble of discontent, the creature's leg threw the sword away. The throw had no purpose, but it still resulted in a frustrating scene where it was too far away for Day to reliably reach it and reorient himself before the creature tore him apart.
'What do I do?!'
Just when he thought all hope was lost, he heard a scream.
It was Audrey. She let out a screech. She was holding the sword that was strapped to her back and slamming it onto the ground to the best of her ability. There were tears rolling down her face, but just as before, there was a glint of determination hidden beneath the veil of fear.
Day's eyes widened.
'Is she… trying to distract it?'
If she was, it worked, because the creature's four legs began to tap on the ground in quick succession, turning its grotesque body around completely to look at her.
Day used this opportunity to dash towards his sword and pick it up. When he caught up to it, fatigue caught up to him as well, and he stumbled slightly while trying to pick up the sword.
'Can't let myself fall apart… I have to move! I need to make a plan… Stabbing the creature isn't going to work, I need to… I need to get a decisive blow.'
An inkling of an idea sprouted in his mind, but he didn't have time to consider it further.
'Damn it… This has to work!'
Suddenly, sparks began to coalesce around his hand, and the memory he obtained before, the Rope of Helios, formed into existence. It was bundled up when it appeared, but luckily, it wasn't tied up. The hole in the middle of the swirl of rope landed on Day's hand, allowing him to get a perfect grip.
He let out a scream of his own, and once again, the creature turned around to face the louder noise. When it turned, it looked pissed. It's head shot back and forward to look at Audrey and him a few times, but then it eventually decided to focus its efforts on Day.
Day was secretly overjoyed, despite the fact that he should have been full of dread.
'Alright… Come on, Day!'
Day ran forward once more to meet the creature. The creature leaped into the air as it had before in an attempt to impale him with its two mighty sickles, but Day took a different course of action.
He slid under the creature's legs, barely managing to avoid being ensnared by the four dastardly amalgamations of darkness.
The creature was utterly bewildered at the fact that it, once again, was unable to impale and tear Day apart, so its rage began to grow, emerging in another deep growl that echoed in the enclosed box.
Before it could turn back to look at him though, Day was already upon it.
Day was betting on the creature's lack of height to hopefully kill it. It was a little tall, but it wasn't that tall; At the very most, it was about six foot three.Its size was mostly made up of fat, so it looked rather huge, but that wasn't the case at all.
And Day was going to be certain to make use of both of those traits.
Day jumped onto the creature and lodged his sword into its wide back. Keeping a grip on the sword for a moment, he wrapped the bundle of rope, which he had reshaped into an untied noose, around its neck.
After he finished, he pulled the sword out of the creature's back and threw it behind the wrestling duo, before putting his arm onto the other side of the rope. While the creature thrashed wildly, Day tied the rope around its pitch-black neck as fast as he could.
The creature's build made it exceedingly difficult for it to reach around in any capacity and get Day off, but the it's head did something else.
It snapped around to look Day in the eyes, and its blackhole-like mouth opened in an attempt to bite him. Luckily, Day had the perfect positioning to stay just far enough away to not only tie it but also prevent his face from being torn off, so he was able to finish tying the rope without too much interference.
Besides having to look the terrifying creature in the face, of course.
'Ugh… This'll work… Come on! This has to work!'
Taking a deep breath, Day positioned his feet on the creature's back like he was about to push off a pool wall to begin a lap…
And jumped back.
The moment he jumped back, he felt the resistance of the creature's mighty strength fighting against his attempt to knock it over; But it was no use, the creature couldn't bear the entire weight of a five eleven male jumping back with all of his might while a rope was tied around its neck.
The creature's four legs raised into the air, as did its body, and it stumbled back. During the chaotic fall, Day, after assuring that the creature was falling, had let go and allowed himself to roll away so he wouldn't get crushed.
When he finished his tumble, his eyes darted around, looking for the sword he had thrown back.
To his immense joy, the sword was right next to him.
Picking it up, his neck practically snapped towards the direction of the creature and his eyes locked onto its writhing figure. Its build was once again working against it, and it was struggling to even begin to raise itself off the ground after the tumble.
Taking advantage of this, Day got up and started to run towards the creature with a grin.
'It worked!'
When he arrived, he slid onto his knees, raised his sword up into the air above the creature's head and lowered his sword.
The sword pierced its head cleanly.
When he felt the resistance from the ground below, the creature went limp.
[Your Memory has been destroyed]
[You have killed a Dormant Beast: Tenebrous Conjuration of the Drowned Chasm]
The fatigue that was vehemently chasing after him during the entire encounter finally enveloped his being, and he passed out with his hand still gripping onto the sword and his head leaning against the brutalized creature's forehead. After a moment, the creature dissolved into the ground below, but Day was already too deep into sleep to react even as his head fell and bounced off of the ground.
"..."
When he awoke, he was leaning against a wall with Audrey poking his cheek. She was repeating, "You've got to wake up," over and over again in his ears.
His eyes fluttered open, and he let out a tired groan.
"Did I sleep for long?"
"Nope! It hasn't been too long! I got a little bit afraid that more monsters would come, so I'm waking you up now. We should probably get going, yes?"
"Yes… I agree. We need to move."
While looking down at his legs, he suddenly heard the shuffling of feet on rocks, just as he was about to look up, Audrey spoke:
"I'm super grateful, by the way! I really thought it would all be over right then and there, and it made me really scared. When you started to run at the creature like that– it made me think you had given up and decided to get yourself killed. I was relieved when I found out that wasn't true. You really had me thrown off there. "
After those words, Day looked her in the eyes and squinted. There was something different about the little girl. She seemed a bit more squirmy. She was shaking slightly, as well. She had a sweet smile plastered on her face, but it didn't feel… Day really didn't know what it didn't feel. But it felt very, very off, like there was a different emotion well veiled beneath her happily squinted eyes. He could also see dried tears
"Did I really seem like that much of a quitter to you?"
Audrey's eyes widened and she started to wave her hands in the air. I
"No! I didn't… I didn't mean it like that! You just… You got so scared before, like my mommy, and then you… Then you got all angry and ran into the wall… Then you…"
Day languidly repositioned himself to his hands and knees and raised himself off the ground.
He had a feeling he knew what was going on here. After all, he had felt this same feeling not too long before.
"Then I ran straight at the monster with a sword like a maniac. It makes sense that you would be scared, I don't blame you. Is there something else on your mind?"
Day wasn't shocked, nor was he mad. In fact, this just made him feel more shameful about his own thoughts. A child was more capable of expressing emotions than he was. That, to Day, was shameful to the utmost. He was almost an adult, in fact, by the influence of the Spell, he was basically already an adult. All he had to do was grow and become better than he was before to reach new heights.
So he had to make it right.
Audrey started to sob.
'Seeing her like this, she really does seem like a child…'
"I'm sorry- You risked your life for me like that but I… I was doubting you so much. I'm sorry…. I'm sorry…."
Day didn't respond in a burst of emotion. He felt calm, triumphant, immovable, empowered. That was the blessing of doing a good deed, so he took this conversation and turned it into something smooth.
"You must have thought a lot about this while I was asleep."
Audrey nodded, wiping tears from her eyes.
"It just feels so terrible… You were the only person who was willing to take me along, and then I- Then I distrusted you… You aren't angry, right?"
"Why did you decide to tell me?"
"Because… I don't think it's fair to work with you and travel with you if you don't know for sure… Ummm, let me put it like this; If we can't trust each other, how can we work together? I mean… I trust you, but I want to… I want to make sure you can trust me. I don't know if it- I don't know if this is enough, but I would feel too guilty about not telling you… My mommy always told me to always be truthful with people, even if it hurt at first, because trust is a really important thing."
Day's heart broke a little bit.
'To think I thought of this child as an obstacle. This damned world that I live in has corrupted me, telling me that I should only live for myself.'
'Turns out that the Nightmare Spell isn't the only thing that makes people cower… I don't like that, not one bit. '
'I will shatter such a precedent and birth a new route, even if it's illogical, even if it's driven by emotions. Perhaps, at times, I need to give into my emotions so that the hidden seedlings of trust that connect people can prosper and grow. It doesn't matter if she's a child and I'm a growing adult, we are both people; That is all that matters. I need to fix my mistakes as soon as I possibly can. Yeah… That's what I need to do.'
"Then shall I tell you something too?"
Audrey's eyes lit up.
"You really aren't upset?! I mean- Yes, of course!"
"It was momentary, likely as long as your own woe, but I thought something of the same nature. When I saw you come up to me, I thought to myself that I would take you along. One would argue that I did it out of the goodness of my heart if they just saw the situation itself, but no… I did it for my own emotional gain… so I wouldn't feel bad about myself, when in actuality, I just thought of you… I thought of you as an obstacle."
Audrey went silent, and Day reeled back as he saw an ounce of sadness flash in her eyes.
"Ah, so that's what it is. I know… I know that's how people feel. I'm used to that…"
Day quickly continued:
"But don't let that dissuade you, as I said, it was momentary. Now, I want to keep you safe. I'm not doing it because it's something to overcome for my own mental fortitude to stay intact, I'm doing it because you deserve to have someone by your side if you want it."
Audrey's eyes regained some of their lost luster.
"Thank you. Um- what's your name? I didn't ask, I should have asked, sorry…"
"It's okay. It's Day."
"Day…? My mommy would say such a name is fitting."
" I'd hope that whoever named me would think the same, too. Now, I think it's important that we get going. The commotion we caused could attract monsters, we are probably beyond lucky that it hasn't already."
"Mhm… Let's go. Oh- Day? One last thing I want to ask you…"
She interlocked her fingers and looked down to the floor shyly.
"Do you trust me now?"
"Of course," Day answered without a second thought.
"..."
Day had been situated against the wall at the very end of the box-like tunnel, so Day and Audrey had to walk for a minute or two to get back to where they arrived.
When they got to the entrance, as Day expected, all that was left was a pile of rubble.
'That creature really was strong, wasn't it? To think it could bulldoze through rocks. How did I even beat that? I should be more proud of myself!'
Day took a deep breath and adjusted his bag, his gaze darkening as he stepped over the rocks.
"Alright… Let's get going."