11. Bloody Canvas

The forest was dim. The sun filtered by the thick canopy. It was quieter than usual. I haven't seen a monster for a while.

It had been a month. I waited for the demon, but he never came. Two weeks, I remained underground. I dug a hole into the soil and covered it. Hidden underground, fully conscious for over 336 hours.

I eventually realized it was pointless. How long did the shadowy man expect me to wait for him?

Two months? Six months? A year?

I grew impatient. Perhaps it was unwise, but the alternative is stagnation. There was no guarantee that he would return, and I was already two weeks behind catching up to the Stone Hawk.

So I explored, despite the risk.

I headed north, the direction the Stone Hawk escaped to. I intended to defeat it should I meet it again. Though I needed to prepare for it first, I planned to grow stronger on the way.

Day, night, then day. Six days passed. Not much happened, but two monsters happened to be in my way, with insignificant traits, a feathered wasp and a giant fly, who I quickly slayed. They didn't seem to be quite useful, and I had other plans for their wings, so for now I stored their core in my stomach alongside Rampage's.

Still, no monsters. Something strange was brewing, a foreboding sensation. Why was it so quiet? There were singing birds, but they were nowhere to be seen. I crawled up a tree, a long climb, and reached the canopy. I looked down and around, observing. But there was nothing to be found. There was a bird nest nearby, I looked into it, and saw a number of eggs.

Free nutrition.

I swallowed the eggs -- more gray goo.

I realized something, I've never eaten a human. I've only dissected, but their taste… I wondered... The shadowy man told me to avoid humans while he was gone, but he also told me he would come back, and he has yet to return. I never promised I would do that anyways.

I noticed something on the ground. A group of three creatures, they stood on two legs. Humans? No, something else. Their arms and legs -- covered in metal armor. Their upper and lower torso down to the crotch naked, boasting their thick savage brown fur. Their heads were that of boars, but their tusks were cut from the base. Almost two humans tall, they were equipped with a war hammer, axe, or cleaver, but all wielding a metal shield large enough to cover their entire torso, perhaps the reason they could comfortably leave themselves mostly unarmored.

A giant bear followed them pulling a covered cart tied to it.

They pig-squealed at each other in what appeared to be vocal communication. They all headed one direction. From the branches, I followed these strange creatures, carefully to not be detected.

I followed them eastwards. When night came, they found some firewood, and built a campfire. They ate rations they took from the packs tied around the bear's sides. They slept on the grass but one remained on guard. The watchman alternated with each of them. I watched them as close as I could from above. When day came, they continued to travel.

Eventually, they reached their destination.

A camp or outpost of some sort.

There was a human on guard, equipped like an adventurer. The human seemed cautious of them, but not surprised at all, as if it wasn't his first time seeing them. Were those creatures just different looking humans? Whatever they were, they were allowed to pass.

I continued to watch from the branches above. They entered the human camp. Multiple campfires were around, all with tents surrounding them. The creatures stood by for a while as a number of humans began to enter their bear-pulled cart and retrieve wooden boxes, carrying it into a nearby big tent.

Soon, they finished emptying the cart. A human, who appeared to be the one in charge, spoke to the creatures. The towering beings replied with snorts and squeals. But they somehow understood each other.

One of the boars slammed its hammer on the ground, and angrily grunted. The human waved his hands in panic to calm the beast down. He pointed to the side, the boar looked. There were two men, leading a group of smaller humans. The smaller humans wore ragged clothing, torn, bland, and dirty. They looked down with desolate eyes as they were pushed forward by their overseers. They seemed unhealthily thin.

The boars looked appeased as the undefiant children were brought inside the covered cart.

I couldn't understand what was taking place, but it was quite interesting.

The creatures lead the bear wagon to leave, bringing with them their human cargo.

I followed them. An hour later, in the middle of nowhere in the forest, I thought of something.

I made a plan, and commenced.

...

As the creatures escorted the bear wagon. I barfed out one of the cores in my stomach. It was the core of the giant fly, an insignificant and unimpressive monster I found on my journey. Despite its ability to fly, it was quite easy to catch. I vomited gray goo onto it, nourishing it. The creature was reborn through regeneration, and it looked at me with its empty fly eyes. As long as Rampage is lacking a body, I can cancel my control over him and not worry about being hammered into dust. For now, I gripped the fly monster's mind, and gave it some orders.

...

The boars marched, conversing with one another with pig screeches, before suddenly something appeared from the trees. They readied their arms, cautious of what was before them -- a giant fly, floating above the bushes, its wings flapping into a buzzing blur.

One of the beings bravely wandered forward readying its hammer, it seemed excited to be able to finally squash someone with its weapon. When it swung down at the bug, I ordered it to move to the side, dodging.

The boar looked with a mixture of anger and amusement. It swung its hammer again, and once more the fly dodged.

Again and again, it struck at the air, never hitting anything. As I got used to the creature's attacks, the movements the fly made became more and more efficient, until the point it was always dodging a fingertip away from being smashed. The beast panted, looking at the creature with confused rage. It floated completely still in the air. Its buzzing wings sounded like mockery to it.

I've gathered all the information I needed.

The creature swung its hammer one last time, and finally it had squashed the fly monster along with its core. It celebrated by waving its hammer in the air. It heard a loud thud behind it. When it turned around, it did not see its celebrating comrades, but rather -- its cleaver wielding friend flattened, head forced to the ground, its back and body broken by a red chameleon monster standing on top of it, and its mace wielding ally, a standing corpse, head rolling on the grass, and on the bleeding stump where it should be, stood me. We fell from above, an unexpected ambush.

It took a step back, and readied its weapon, immediately I darted to the air as I pounced towards it off the standing corpse, it swung its hammer, I maneuvered my body mid-air, dodging it a fingertip away -- perfect prediction made possible thanks to the giant fly -- I whizzed past the beast. As the creature turned around to track me, It did not see me anywhere, but instead I was stuck on its back with silk grappling me to it. It quickly realized, and tried to grab me, but I stabbed my scythes onto its neck, and sliced in opposite directions, beheading it the same way I did to its comrade.

Its head fell, and then its body.

I looked at the bear wagon. The bear turned corpse was being mauled by Rampage.

It looks like my plan was successful. The creatures were clearly more powerful than me and Rampage combined, but attacking first allowed us to instantly dispatch such stronger opponents. Testing their ability by sacrificing one of my captured cores helped as well.

I wondered what they were. They weren't human but their guard was as loose as one, I should dissect them, but first. I looked at the covered wagon.

I crawled in the wagon. There were 12 humans, the older girls seemed to cover the mouths of the smaller ones, perhaps in a foolish attempt to quiet them to hide from me.

More subjects for dissection, indeed.

But, something strange happened. One of them, the tallest and presumably the oldest one, tried to speak to me. She was shaking in fear, and could barely bring herself to look at me. But she raised her hands at me, the same way that human back then raised their hands at the boars to calm them down.

"H-hey... please don't hurt us."

She said words I couldn't understand.

"You're a good boy, aren't you?" She said nervously. She eyed my blood-stained scythes, dripping fresh crimson.

I remained still.

She stepped closer, reluctant, she touched my forehead. "See... he's good..." The other girls still seemed wary of me. The younger ones were at the verge of crying.

Meanwhile, I was confused. Normally, the human would attempt to kill me as soon as I was detected, they would be scared for a moment, but was this how they were planning to kill me? Strange, very strange.

No, I thought, it must be because they had no weapon, and that they knew they couldn't hurt me. I knew, if they had the ability to, they would slaughter me without hesitation. I raised a scythe, the girl immediately backed off, all the others started crying or screaming in terror.

"Bad! Bad!" She waved a finger at me.

'Bad?' I wondered what that meant.

"Bad." I repeated with her exact voice. She looked at me shocked.

"H-huh?"

"Bad. Bad. Bad." I repeated.

They all stared at me, dumbfounded. Was I saying something? Could they understand me?

"Do you... understand me?" She asked, but I could not understand.

She waited for a response, but I only stared.

She looked around looking for something. She asked something from the other girls, but they only shrugged or shook their heads.

She looked at me, then my scythes. She carefully came closer to me, hesitating, she touched my bloody scythe, I twitched, she jumped, but calmed down when she realized I did nothing. With the wet blood on her finger, she looked at the cover of the wagon, it was made of canvas. She traced her finger onto it, and started drawing something. One dot, then another dot, then one upwards facing crescent under. Two eyes and one smile?

I realized something. If I couldn't understand her words, and she realized it, could this mean she was trying to communicate to me through image?

She seemed to have run out of color. Rampage opened the curtain, prompting all the girls but the oldest one to scream. He dropped the bear's head, a fresh source of paint. I dipped my scythe into it, staining my scythe and drew onto the canvas. Moments passed, my arm moved mechanically, efficiently, and quickly. Soon, my creation was complete. It was the face of the shadowy man, as accurately as I could make it. Though since the blood was red, it resulted in his skin, and eyes, and all other features blending into each other, in other words it was just a blank red shape of a head. I fixed it by poking holes in the canvas where his eyes and mouth would be.

The girl looked at me somehow disappointed. She looked at the bear head, and gulped. I noticed her reluctance, I dipped my scythe into the head again, and offered my stained blade to her. She seemed pleasantly surprised, she touched my scythe again, and started drawing on free space on the canvas.

She drew lines, shaped like a human, but their limbs and body were only one stroke, and head a circle, stick humans? Stickmen? She drew multiple figures interacting with each other. It showed humans whipping other humans. Humans pushing other humans. Humans throwing other humans to the ground. She hesitated on the next drawing, but it was a stickman forced to the ground, but it was... being hugged by a bigger stickman? I could not quite understand, but she seemed to have a pained dark expression in regards to it. She made one last drawing, it was a stickman, and... a scypede? It was me, she drew me.

She completed the last drawing by making a rectangle, no... it was the covered wagon, then several smaller stickmen behind her stickman, which means she was drawing this situation.

She finished, then pointed at her stick human, then with a deep breath pointed to some of the other stick humans she drew that was being abused and thrown around... and forcefully hugged? Was she saying these humans... were her? Beyond my awareness, was a terror I could not comprehend. I was unaware of what she was reliving.

She looked at me, uncertain. The other girls were quiet.

She walked past me, and dipped a finger on the bear head, she did not flinch, and drew once more.

Trees, many many trees. On the west of the trees, were stick humans with pig noses, eating stick humans without pig noses. Then on the east of the forest, were squares with triangles on top, houses. She drew a stickman of herself then me holding hand and scythe. She traced her finger where we were, in the middle of the forest, and led to the land with houses.

"Can you bring us there? Please?"

I did not understand her words. But I understood her intent.

Did she really think I would just help her? I should just dissect her instead... but... somehow... I found it in me to do something else. I decided I would entertain her desire.

The covered wagon suddenly started moving. She opened the curtain to see the driver, it was Rampage, taking the place of the bear in pulling the vehicle eastward, where the houses presumably were. Her eyes lit up, she looked at me but I was not there. The other little humans looked at each other.

I stood outside as I watched Rampage bring the wagon into the woods. I turned and crawled to the humanoid boars' corpses. A shame. When I realized the beasts were retracing their steps when they were bringing the girls, I planned on using the feathered wasp to follow their trail and scent leading to wherever they came from. But I could only control one monster at a time, and at that moment it was being used to bring those little humans to the east. I put that plan aside.

I could choose to find out where those boars came from, or return to the human camp, and understand what's going on there. What I chose was clear, humans are preferable over the pig-headed ones.

In an hour, I returned to the human camp or outpost, watching from the branches above. Rampage had disappeared out of my range of telepathy, but I could still sense that he was loyal to me. I just hoped he could return soon.

If he took too long, I decided I would commence my study without him.