Chapter 008: Pond Monster

"Ugh! It's too hot! I'm dying. Water, I need water!" Maou begged, dragging himself while he walked. He looked like a dried-up carrot. "Please, let's take a break."

We were walking from dawn till about three past noon, only stopping once for a break with little to eat. So, it was expected that Maou was tired, but I wanted to reach a village and ask for clues about my brother as well as get lodging before the night fell.

"Shelly, I hear water." Maou sprang back to life. "It's water!"

Maou began sprinting towards the sound of water at full speed.

"Wait!" I chased after him through some trees. It was impossible to believe he was lifeless a few seconds ago.

When I caught up with him he was once again lifeless. He was flat on the ground, looking like a dried-up leaf.

"It's not drinkable water." He pointed at the pond water with a gloomy look. "I'm so thirsty, I can't even cry."

"If you had just waited instead of running off I could've just given you this." I pulled a flask of water out of my bag. "Here, drink."

Maou eyes lit up with happiness. "Thank you so much!"

He grabbed the container and downed the water.

"Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!"

"Wait a minute." He stopped himself. "I almost drank it all. You haven't had any yet. Here drink as well."

He handed the flask to me. I had forgotten I was thirsty from just watching him look so happy drinking water and he looked so peaceful too.

"Thank you." I drank the remainder of the water. It was refreshing to have as the sun glared down our necks.

"Grrrr!" Maou's stomach snarled. He fell to the grass looking lifeless again. "So hungry. Can't move."

"This kid." I thought to myself, shaking my head while searching my bag for some food.

Suddenly, Maou sprang to his feet, sniffing the air like a wild animal catching his prey's scent.

"Food!" His mouth watered and his hands stretch forward.

"Wait here." He ran off into the trees again.

I stretched out my hand in Maou's direction, calling to him.

"Wait! Where are you going? Be careful of wild-." I stopped mid-sentence, slowly lowering my hands, Maou was already gone out of my sight.

I sat there on the grassy ground with my travel bag next to me. I listened to the soft whispers of the breeze passing by and looking into the small pond. The water appeared to sparkle under the rays of the sunlight. The pond had a nostalgic scent, reminding me of back at the orphanage. I heard the familiar voices of the children.

"Shelly! Come play with us." Standing on the surface of the sparkling pond were the children waving and calling to me.

"Shelly, come back to us." Mother stood close behind the children.

My mind felt light and without suspicion, I answered them. "I miss you all so much."

"Come to us, Shelly. Come back to your family." The children and Mother opened their arms to hug and welcome me.

"I'm coming back to you all. I'm coming back home." I got up to my feet and started strolling towards the pond.

"Come home, Shelly. Come back to us. We missed you."

I was stepping through the water going further and further out towards my family.

"I'm coming back. I'll never leave you guys again." I held out my arms to hug them. I waddled far out in the water and it was now above now my hips.

"We love you, Shelly. Please don't ever leave us again." They all hugged me tightly.

Hugging them closely, I had tears building up in my eyes. "I'm sorry! I won't leave again. I want to go back home with you all."

"Yes! Let's all go back home." We went further out in the water and deeper into the water. The water was now at my chest.

"Shelly! I'm back. Look at what I caught." Maou popped out the trees carrying a huge boar above his head.

"Where are you?"

Maou frantically twists and turn, looking around for me.

Maou spotted me going out into the water and dropped the wild boar to the ground. "Shelly! Get away from that monster, NOW!"

I looked back in Maou's direction. "Maou, it's okay, I'm going back home with my family."

Maou raced towards the pond exclaiming. "Look closely! It's a monster! That's not your family Shelly!"

Looking back at Mother and the children, the water turned dirty and moss green, the children's bodies melted into the same dirty moss green water and Mother morphed into a dark green monster-like creature. This monster had the head of a dark green fish but with long, edged and yellow teeth sticking out its jaws. Its eyes were fully pitch black, large and bulged out the side of its skull. It had a huge, dark green and sharp fin sticking out it's back, the top of its head and both forearms. It had dark green scales, gills at the sides of its neck, webbed claw hands gripping around me and an awful rotting fish scent.

"AHHH! HELP! HELP ME MAOU! PLEASE, SOMEBODY, HELP ME!" The sudden fear that came over me at that moment couldn't be described by words alone.

"Hold on! I'm coming to save you." Maou was tottering through the water, coming towards me.

"Haaah!" The pond fish monster's tongue stretched out towards me. Its tongue was long and had smaller sharp teeth on it. Its mouth dripped saliva on my face. The scent was horrendous and putrefying.

"Stop! Let me go! Get away from me you monster!" I tried screaming and pushing away from the monster but its grip on me was extremely tight. It dragged me completely under the water.

"Hm! Mhm! Hmph! Gah!"

Fighting against the monster's grip made me lose air faster as it dragged me deeper and deeper into the cloudy pond water. Everything became blurry and dark yet leaving me alone with my thoughts.

"This is a joke right? A full day hasn't passed yet I'm already about to die again. How unlucky can I be? Maybe this world just wants me dead? All I want is to find my brother. Why is that so hard? If I had known it would be this hard I would've just stayed at the orphanage."

Looking up to the surface, images from the day I fell into the river came back to me. And the chill and cloudiness made it feel more real, like it was happening a second time.

"Please I don't wanna die! Help me! Mama! Papa! It's cold and dark.... I can't breathe.... I'm scared.... Please... Somebody help me."

In her final moments, she stretched out her hand towards the light refracting from the surface as the fear from that day returned. But swimming towards her, she could make out the slight figure of Maou emerging from the light.

Rushing to her rescue, Maou scissored his legs through the moss-green water, moving swiftly towards the monster and her unconscious body.

Maou missiled a straight left punch under the water at the monster but it simply moved out the way. Maou quickly aimed once more at the monster. Left, right, left, right and another left, but they all fell short as the monster kept skillfully dodged, strafing him underwater.

Its physique and water born nature gave it an obvious advantage while also still holding onto Shelly. Maou felt his lungs longing for air and even more Shelly was still dangerously passed out and inhaled lots of water.

In a desperate attempt to keep both of them alive, Maou chose to grapple the monster. Maou swam to it and almost grabbed the creature but was a second too slow.

"Augh!!"

He tried to get close and grapple it again but a knee was uppercut to his throat, knocking the remaining air out Maou's lungs. Then it swung it's right arm, knocking Maou away from it and causing him to sink as he slowly lost his consciousness.

Maou's body felt weak from the lack of oxygen. Looking up at the two, he saw Shelly helplessly stuck with the monster wrapping his scaly arms around her, hand on breast and the other on her throat. He stretched out his arm towards them as if to try and grab her, but his fading consciousness and sinking body said otherwise.

"Dum!"

His back hit the floor of the pond. Maou's body had already given up yet his mind and heart refused to let things end like this.

"Get... up... Get up! I-I can't... let her die... Maou! Get up!"

In his mind, his will to save Shelly was stronger than his body's signal to give up. Like something out of a Shōnen manga, a surge of mana energy coursed through his body and a new feeling of strength grew in him. Using the pond floor as grounding, he stood up with fury and determination in his eyes.

"Bam!"

Maou launched himself at the monster, breaking the ground beneath his feet in the process. He torpedoed to the monster, leaving a trail of air bubbles behind him. Instant fear and shock came over the monster and it immediately dodged the incoming Maou.

"Blosh!"

Maou burst through the surface of the pond and was meters in mid air. His pursuit hadn't stopped there, rather it was just getting started as his aim was to get a lung full of air. From above the water, he spotted the monster and fell towards them in an Olympic diving stance.

"Splash!"

The monster was cautious and kept closer to the floor of the pond just in case, but Maou was determined to catch it. It was now a high stakes game of tag with Shelly's death imminent.

"Swish! Sizz! Swish! Sizz!"

The monster used it's legs and one arm to swim away from him as fast as it could, but Maou was like a shark after its prey. Any sharp corners it did, Maou was even sharper. Left, right, up, down, any direction it could not break free of Maou's chase.

"Crack!"

The monster felt something grab it's ankle and crush it. The unexpected pain caused it to release Shelly and turn around to attack unrestricted.

"Slam!"

Maou took the opportunity and quickly used the monster's chest as a springboard, sending it flying through the water, and then grabbing Shelly's body to carry her out the water. Hurriedly he scissored his feet and soon burst through the surface of the water. He carried her onto the land and gently laid her down on the grass.

"Pump! Pump! Pump!"

Maou began giving Shelly chest compressions.

"Shelly! Shelly! Come on, breathe!" The water dripped from his hair down his face like sweat and tears onto her.

"Splash!

Bursting out the water was the pond monster and it was falling towards the two bearing its sharp nails.

"Slash!"

Maou could only turn to block the attack with his arms so as to make sure Shelly wasn't hit.

"Ack! Argh!"

Maou let out a groan as the flesh of his arms were sliced open, exposing bone and his body knocked to the side. Quickly standing up, blood was leaking from his wounds but then black flames began to sprout around it and his wounds were slowly beginning to close without his realisation.

"Erkkkk! Erkkk!"

The monster made a loud shriek, exposing its sharp teeth while charging at Maou with killing intentions. It jumped at Maou once more but its attack missed as Maou quickly jump backwards, then in the short span of time that the monster's attack hit the ground, Maou retaliated with a fast kick to its face that knocked it closer to the trees than the pond.

"You made a big mistake fighting me on land..." Maou bent his knees, readying to dash at the downed monster. "... Now you're as good as dead!"

"Boom!"

Maou blasted at the dazed monster, struggling to stand on its feet. Before it could get the chance to fight back, Maou was infront of it with full momentum and his left fist cocked back.

"Crack! Splesh!"

Maou's fist sank in the monster's chest, crushing its ribs, heart, lungs and breaking it's spinal cord. The force of the hit slammed it against the tree, slightly uprooting and leaning it backwards.

Maou stood before the body of the monster, making sure it stopped moving while the black flames on his body disappeared, his wounds healed.

"Hey! Hey! Shelly! Wake up! You can't die on me now." I heard a familiar voice. "What about our adventure? We haven't started yet. You can't die now, wake up!"

"Blegh! Cough! Cough! Cough!" I abruptly woke up, coughing out water.

"Shelly! You're alive!" A teary-eyed Maou hugged me.

"What happened? Am I dead?" I had a splitting headache from the water I inhaled, making me feel delirious and weak.

"You're alive!"

Suddenly, my memories returned. "Wait! Wasn't I drowning a few seconds ago? Where is that fish monster?"

"Oh, the monster, I killed him."

"Really?! Where is it?"

"It's right there, behind you." Maou pointed behind me.

Turning around slowly, I saw the corpse of the fish monster a laying on the grass next to a tree.

"Gah! Getaway!" I shrieked loudly. While still sitting, I instantly push myself backwards along the grassy ground using my feet and hands to get as far away from that fish monster as I could. I collided into the travel bag that I left on the ground previously. "I thought you said you killed it?"

"I did. See?" Maou lifted the head by the monster. Its chest was crushed and blood streamed out its eyes and mouth.

"Don't show it to me!" I closed my eyes and shielded my body from it using my hands. "Get rid of it!"

"It's already dead. It can't harm you now. Plus, If you look at it closely, it's kinda cute." Maou kept holding up the monster by the head in his hands, playing with its jaw. "These teeth are so cool! It's so pointy."

"Stop playing with it and toss it back in the water!" I yelled in fear of the thing.

"Haaa! Ok fine." Maou dragged the corpse, throwing it into the water and watched it sink below the surface.