Chapter 132

“Looks like we’ve finished everything we needed to do for now. Shall we pick up where we left off then?”

Freide, who had just tucked the completed report into her bag, took a sip from her water bottle.

I urged her on with an expectant look.

Long carriage rides are ridiculously boring.

Sitting in a rickety carriage all day, just staring at the scenery outside, is pretty much all there is to it.

Sure, sightseeing is fun for a day or two, but once you hit day four, your patience starts to wear thin.

I was also feeling suffocated by the boredom for a while.

To the point where I wished someone would just attack us or something.

In that kind of situation, what could be more thrilling than a good old fight story?

It’s like watching a martial arts broadcast. Nothing beats it for killing time.

I leaned back in the carriage and pulled out a cigarette.

Freide and Milia wouldn’t say anything if I smoked here.

Well, Milia was asleep anyway, so it probably didn’t matter.

The smoke I exhaled was sucked out the back, trailing a long tail behind the carriage, like exhaust from a car.

“Where did we leave off last time…?”

“Wasn’t it the part where a bunch of monsters jumped out on the right path?”

“Ah, right. That’s where we were.”

Freide nodded and began the story.

I leisurely lit my cigarette and listened to her tale.

“Up until then, there weren’t any major issues. The monsters that showed up were just imps and centipede snails, and since the passage was narrow, they couldn’t really come at us properly.”

Well, with the ceiling so low that my sword could reach it, flying around in a place like that would’ve been pointless.

They probably got swatted like flies.

The centipede snails, with their size, would’ve had a hard time causing much trouble in such a narrow passage too.

“Then… we came across a new room. That’s where things started to go south.”

Freide’s voice lowered, as if just recalling it was exhausting.

“It was a pretty big room. Big enough for the monsters to run wild. Inside, there were broken beds and stuff scattered around.”

“Beds?”

“Yeah. They were just frames, but they were definitely beds. A few of them were still intact, so I’m sure of it.”

As she kept talking, Freide seemed to feel a bit stifled and paused for a moment, tugging lightly at her collar.

Her lace tie loosened, revealing her collarbone.

“The beds were all small, too small for humans. At first, I thought they might be for demi-humans. But it didn’t take long for a monster to show up and give us the answer.”

Finally, we’re getting to the main point.

I remember her writing in the report that they fought a “Cursed Mother.”

Impressive that they won. That’s a pretty tricky monster.

Freide continued her tale in a calm tone.

======[Freide’s Party]======

“There aren’t any monsters here…?”

Milia muttered, puzzled, as they entered the room.

The mana flowing through the place suggested that dozens of monsters could’ve appeared, but the inside was completely empty.

“Isn’t that a good thing? If we’d run into those guys here, it would’ve been a hassle. Thanks to them coming out into the narrow hallway, we managed to take them down easily.”

“Well, that’s true, but…”

Milia still couldn’t shake her unease.

She wasn’t trying to contradict Damien, but she couldn’t help feeling suspicious.

The imps were just small fry, but the centipede snails were a bit more troublesome.

If they’d been in a wide-open space where they could swing their arms and tails freely, it wouldn’t have been so easy to take them down.

After hesitating for a moment, Milia finally nodded, suppressing her anxiety.

On the other hand, Freide shook her head.

‘She’s right. It’s definitely strange for there to be no monsters in a place like this…’

Freide had also been feeling the same unease as Milia since earlier.

It was dangerous to be as optimistic as Damien.

Monsters have intelligence too.

Not on the level of humans, but certainly higher than ordinary animals.

The fact that they left this room, which was advantageous for them, and came out into the hallway to attack us… means there must have been a reason they had to do so.

‘…The mana concentration is incredibly dense. At this level, a strong monster should’ve been summoned, but where did it go?’

Freide’s sharp eyes scanned the surroundings.

She suddenly missed Ha-shal-leur’s presence.

With her detection abilities, she could’ve easily told if there were any monsters hiding nearby.

And even if the monsters that appeared were too much for the three of them to handle, she would’ve stepped in herself, so there was no need to worry.

‘…No use regretting someone who’s gone. I’ll have to handle this myself…’

Just as the three of them reached the middle of the room…

– *THUD!*

A heavy noise and vibration suddenly rang out. The source was behind them.

Turning around in a panic, the three of them saw a massive iron bar descending to block the room’s entrance.

Damien’s greatsword clashed with the iron bars and bounced off.

If it were ordinary iron, it would have bent instantly, but surprisingly, the iron bars remained perfectly intact without a single bend.

Damien clicked his tongue and adjusted his stance.

“The door…!”

“A trap… Are they trying to keep us locked in here…!”

“No, they’re trying to keep us from escaping. Damien, Milia, get ready for battle.”

Freide, holding a saw, approached the group and gave the order, her gaze fixed on one corner of the room. A massive surge of dark energy was gathering there.

It was a sign that a monster was about to appear. And judging by the amount of dark energy, it was undoubtedly going to be a powerful one.

Damien gripped his greatsword with both hands, and Milia aimed her bow in the direction Freide was looking.

The condensed dark energy exploded in an instant, forming a swirling black pillar that stretched from floor to ceiling.

“Uwaaaaaah!”

A chilling cry emanated from within the vortex. It was a woman’s voice, crudely mimicking the sound of a child’s cry. The voice overlapped in a bizarre, almost shattered way.

Freide’s expression hardened. She already knew the identity of the monster that cried like a fetus.

‘Of all times…!’

Cold sweat dripped down her neck. Her right hand, gripping the saw, trembled with tension. If the enemy was indeed what she thought, it would be not just troublesome but downright dangerous.

Soon, the enemy emerged, parting the pillar of dark energy.

“Ugh…!”

Milia let out a soft groan at the sight of the monster. Freide didn’t scold her. Even to her, the monster’s grotesque appearance was enough to make anyone gasp.

A massive body, 8 meters tall. From a distance, one might mistake it for a deer. But up close, one would wonder why a deer was wearing a dress.

At that distance, one might even mistake it for something cute. But face-to-face, the creature was as far from cute as heaven is from earth.

A hybrid monster, the ‘Cursed Mother’. One of the monsters clearly made using humans as material.

The face, with a woman’s nose and mouth stretched forward like a deer’s skull, still bore clear traces of its human origin. Half-rotten teeth protruded from its red, glossy lips, and a sour stench wafted out with every breath.

Curly fur hung like unkempt hair, covering its face and extending down to its tail. The antlers sprouting from its head were made of flesh, not bone.

The antlers were formed by dozens of fetal arms and fingers, grotesquely wriggling.

Its thick, long neck had gills, and its skin was blotched with fungi and tumors. Old weapons were embedded in its torso, oozing yellow fluid, likely remnants of past battles.

The upper body stood upright like a human’s, while the lower body stretched horizontally like a beast’s.

The four arms on its upper body were thin, reduced to bone and skin, and several times longer than a human’s. Eyes embedded in the backs of its hands glared at Freide and Damien.

In its fists, it held four types of weapons. Well, two were clearly weapons, but the other two were harder to identify at a glance.

A sword, an axe, a toy with bells, and… a doll made of flesh that resembled a little girl.

‘Toys for children, all four of them.’

Freide’s gaze shifted to the bells and the doll. Those were far more dangerous than the sword and axe.

The Cursed Mother slowly approached them, its flesh quivering with each step.

Three pairs of breasts stretched from its chest to its abdomen, and below, skin that seemed to melt hung like the hem of a dress, covering its lower body. From its lower abdomen, shapes resembling fetal faces bulged and receded repeatedly.

Those were the reason this monster was called the ‘Cursed Mother’.

“What is that…? A person…?”

“That’s no person. Just a monster. …And a very dangerous one at that.”

Freide raised her saw.