Chapter 268: The Prey Fighting Back

The ground broke, and from below emerged a nightmare.

Truly, a being of horror, one you would meet in your dreams, and wish to wake up already, just so you can escape it.

Yet this time, it was not a dream, but reality.

…

How much he wished this to be all a trick in his mind.

But it wasn’t.

The monster had returned.

It had decided, it had made its decision, and they had been too late to escape before it did.

’Damn it.’ Aether gritted his teeth as he summoned Voidpiercer and stood in front of the others, facing the worm in the face.

Normally, he wouldn’t dare do something so stupid, something that gave him no advantage… yet he was the only person who wished not to fight, the only one of its prey it knew would fight back.

Now that he was standing in front, it knew it had to figure out a way to deal with him.

Either through a fight or something else.

The worm screamed, its saliva flying around, landing on his cheek.

But he didn’t move.

And because of two reasons, the first being noble, if he moved, the others would die.

And the other was because he was frozen.

It had been some time since fear had taken him over.

But how could it not in this situation?

They were at its mercy.

Fighting it was out of the question; it was much stronger than all of them combined, so they wouldn’t do anything. Plus, he was the only one here who could fight. So it would actually still just be him fighting.

They couldn’t run.

Not only was the family tired, but they were too slow to outrun it in the first place; it was impossible to get away from it.

Kade took a steep forward, glancing at Aether occasionally, but mostly looking at the beast.

“What do we do? Do you have an idea? If you don’t, we need you desperately to come up with one.”

Aether bit his nail. “You think I don’t know that? I’m trying my best.”

What if he just continued walking with them, following close behind him? Would that work?

’Probably not, after all, it can just attack from the back, we are willing to turn it towards him, so I would just be making this lazy bastard’s job easier.”

Then what if he stood in the middle?

’Thats even worse, it could attack from both the front and back if I do that.’

So if his position was not the problem, then what?

But then something came to mind.

Kade was standing next to him, yet the beast had not tried to attack him.

He was sure they both knew that if it were to attack the boy, he would not be fast enough to get in the way, so then why hadn’t it tried?

…

“Kade, can you walk closer to it?”

The boy looked at him as if he had said something illegal. “What?”

Aether sighed. “Trust me, alright?”

The boy had been hesitant, really hesitant, to the boy, he closed his eyes when he made his steps forward, if he died here, then at least he didn’t want to see the ugly beast devouring him…

And yet it didn’t attack; it growled at him, but as close as it got, it didn’t attack.

But why… well, this he could answer.

Before, he was its only threat, the only one who tried fighting back; he wanted to face it, well, at least that’s what it thought, since in reality, he definitely didn’t want to fight the beast.

However, when Kade stepped forward, it understood this gesture as its prey fighting back, so now both of them were going against it, making it a lot harder to devour them.

…

This was how he was going to get through.

He turned to the family, who were scared out of their minds.

“If you want to survive, you have to face it.”

But none took a step, which angered Aether.

“Do you guys want to get us all killed-”

But before he could finish, the woman spoke up.

“You are going to get us killed! Our guide tried the same thing, fighting against it, and was eaten alive by the beasts’ little babies. We should have known, you two wanted to kill us from the beginning.”

How much he wanted to let them die… but he couldn’t, if he did, he would lose all the money, and he just couldn’t have that happening.

The woman had said something interesting.

This confirmed his theory.

The man had fought back while they ran, just like him; it considered him a nuisance; that was why it hadn’t killed him. Its babies did.

If they just acted as if they were fighting back, without actually doing so, it was going to run away.

The bad part was that these guys were against it; heck, they thought that this was somehow their plan to kill them. How stupid that was, how annoying it was. Did they not use their mind even a little? Were they that blind to not see the obvious?

…

Yet, even with the women’s accusation… the carry boy decided to walk up. Trusting in what he said.

“You said this would make me live; you better not be lying.”

Aether turned to him and smiled. “I’m not.”

The family had not been happy with this, not even in the slightest.

Yet before the woman could say anything again, her husband followed, taking a step forward, then their children, leaving her alone.

She couldn’t believe it; her own family had betrayed her. She would have expected it from the carry boy, but from her children? That was a deep wound.

…

And yet it was working, the worm was not attacking them, which surprised her… it made her wonder if this could really work.

And as she joined them, the worm seemed to rethink its decision, going back down in the soil, under them, as if nothing would happen.

Act that Aether reacted to with a deep sigh. He had almost forgotten how to breathe.

The family looked dumbfounded, especially the women, who seemed not to understand what had happened at all. Why had the worm gone back down, and why had they gotten close to it in the first place?

Aether turned to them with a big smile on his face.

“Let’s continue.”

…

…

…

After a while… they reached a forest, a forest of mushrooms.

Aether was relieved as he saw it. The place they had been waiting for, here it was. The place without any monsters… that is, if you didn’t consider the small monsters living around, and that he couldn’t have seen before this.

Who had known, yet it didn’t matter; they didn’t attack them even when their guard was up.

There had to be a deal with them, but he didn’t have the time, motivation, or any other necessity to try to figure it out.

Yet at the same time, when it came to the mushroom forest, the little monsters were not the danger, but rather humans like them, bandits.

Because most couldn’t see the monsters, they thought it was the perfect place to rob and kill people. You could see where a victim had died on that pitch, just by looking at where the blood lingered.

Though the question was if taking a break was worth it… after all, being this close to the goal, was it even worth it… No, but the others deserved a reward, so they were going to take a rest in the forest.

He made Kade make the fire, and luckily, the boy made it quite quickly. He was lucky to have him on his team, since he was horrible when it came to basic survival.

Everyone gathered near it as night ascended.

The children looked to be already sleeping, as the five of them stood by the light, not saying anything. But what was there to say after you had almost been eaten alive by a scorpion?

Yet suddenly, the man gestured for the carry boy to give him a bag, and when he got a hold of it, he threw it to Aether.

And when he caught it… he felt the texture of coins inside, of a lot of coins.

Aether looked up at the man.

“What is this?”

The man chuckled. “Your payment.”

Putting the sack next to him, Aether tilted his eyes, confused by this sudden turn of events.

“But I haven’t completed the mission yet.”

The woman rolled her eyes.

“Ugh, can’t you just accept it, it’s mostly done either way, after all the hard part was that ugly worm, this forest won’t be a burden, so its besically done… so please, accept the money, it’s the least we can do.”

Aether looked in the bag, seeing how many embers.

…

Even if they weren’t close to finishing the job.

He would never say no to this much money.

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