Chapter 38: The Child

Mill sat in fear as he stared up the barrel of the gun. He had done nothing to provoke this behavior and yet here he stood in this situation. "H-hey now. Why don't we just calm down and take this slowly." Mill tried to grab the rifle, but the person quickly jumped back dodging his hand. 

"I told you to stay back, monster! I've a few questions to ask you so don't make me blow your brains out before I get my answers!" The person stepped into the light allowing Mill the ability to see them. It turned out that the person was just a kid. She was around 13 or 14 years of age from what Mill could tell. She had gentle, olive skin and pale lime green eyes. She was malnourished. Mill couldn't tell for how long she had been in such a state, but it had to have been a while since she was quite frail and could barely stand on her own.

"Hey are you-"

"I said stay back!" The girl quickly tried to pull the trigger. Mill braced himself for death as he curled into a ball and waited.

*Click click* "Crap!" Mill opened his eyes and saw the girl fiddling with the gun. "Why didn't it shoot?! It worked when Mama had it." It was now very apparent to Mill that the girl had never used the weapon before. Realizing that he was out of danger, Mill let out a breath of relief and approached the girl.

"Hey, what happened here?" The girl, noticing Mill attempt to approach her, abandoned the gun by throwing it to the side and retreated backwards. Mill stopped moving and let out a frustrated sigh. 'Why am I the one that has to deal with this?' The girl could clearly tell that she was getting to the monster and a smirk appeared on her face. However, that changed when it suddenly sat down in the center of the room with sign that it would move closer. This confused the young girl as she herself had never met a monster that acted this way. "What are you doing?" The girl asked Mill.

Mill just continued to sit in silence, however, he had even shut his eyes completely ignoring the girl. "Hey, monster. Are you asleep?" The girl called out but Mill seemed to truly be sleeping. The girl inched closer at a slow pace to not awake Mill. She did so until she was mere inches from his face and confirmed that he was asleep. "Monsters fall asleep weirdly fast. I guess that's why they're monsters."

"Alright, now that's just rude." Mill quickly reached out the and grabbed girl's arm as he opened his eyes and put a big smile on his face. " I'm no monster and I hear that some people even find me handsome so try not to pass out." The girl immediately started screaming at the top of her lungs. "Or scream in terror. That is, yeah that's also a response."

"Let me go monster! I promised my mom that I wouldn't let them take me and I intend on keeping that promise."

"Why are you so convinced that I'm a monster? Am I actually ugly and no one told me throughout these years?" Mill looked around for some sort of reflective surface so that he could confirm that he was still good looking. " Your looks don't matter because the monsters can change into the people that they take." That was the first piece of information that Mill had gotten from the girl in this entire exchange and it was actually pretty big.

"Are you telling me that this town was attacked by some sort of shapeshifting monster?" The girl stopped fighting Mill grip as she heard the genuine shock in his voice. " Well yeah, but why are you asking me when it's your kind?"

"I don't know how many times you need to hear it for you to understand me but I'm not a monster kid. I'm an adventurer that came her at the due to a request to help this village." The girl finally started to listen to Mill which caused him so much relief. Mill let go of the girl smiled. "Now let's start over. I'm Mill, so who are you?"

"I'm Xenai." Hearing her respond Mill knew that he finally got through to her. "Can you tell me what happened to this place Xenai?" To Mill's surprise she shook her head. "I don't know what happened because mom didn't let me leave the house back then." Mill didn't know what to say now. This was supposed to be his way of getting information so what now?

"So you don't know anything about what happened to this place?" The girl confirmed again that she didn't know anything about the situation. "I told you what I knew about the monsters but I never knew where they came from. I'm sorry that I couldn't be of more help."

"No no, it's fine. It just means that now I'll have to hope the someone else found information about the situation since this didn't work out the way that I thought that it would. So I guess we're just leaving now." 

"Wait, what do you mean by we are leaving?" Xenai looked to the boy. Mil l stood up from the ground and stretched to try to relieve the tension in his lower back and spoke in a strained voice. "I mean, it's not like I can just leave a kid like you here all by herself. Plus, the town is in total ruins so if my group tried to move around without a guide then we might not ever make it to the mine so it's best if we have a local like you." The girl went to ask more questions but Mill stopped her by gesturing for her to take his hand.

"Since, you can barely walk I can help you so let's go. And trust me I'm an adventurer so I won't let anything hurt you." The girl hesitated before resolving herself and taking Mill's hand only for Mill to very quickly lift her off of the ground and place her onto his back. "This should feel better than walking for a while so I hope you don't mind."

"N-no I don't mind. This is really comfortable you just surprised me." Though she said it was okay Xenai was slightly embarrassed to be place onto Mill's back like luggage but knowing that he was doing it for her sake made her feel better. "Then let's go we need to it should be around time for the group to meet up so you'll meet everyone there." Mill smiled at Xenai and returned to the area where they parked the car to meet up. As soon as, Mill left the building he saw that the sun was setting.

"Woah, I didn't realize so much time had passed I should hurry. Hang on Xenai it might get a bit bumpy back ther-" Mill turned his head to find a sleeping Xenai and smiled gently. "Guess the kid really was exhausted. Guess that takes running back off of the table. It's going to be a long walk though." And so Mill walked back to the car with a sleeping child on his back. Not knowing what was coming to him and his friends.