The Monster Born of Darkness
Darkness gifts people with a primal fear.
Even I was afraid of the dark when I was little. Something unseen lurking in the blackness would stir my imagination and fill me with dread. My nerves would draw taut; every small sound would set me on edge, and I would overreact to the slightest thing. On the rare occasions something half-formed flickered into view, it only amplified the terror until sleep became impossible.
Ghosts in the dark are a staple of horror films, and even in games, whenever a horror element appears, it is almost always bound up with darkness. Stimuli that arrive from places you cannot see give rise to fearful thoughts.
The Schiagua was a creature that gathered all of that into one body.
Emerging slowly from the dark, the Schiagua was a monster grotesque beyond measure. It was vaguely humanoid, yet it walked on all fours, and the vertebrae of its hunched spine jutted up like the teeth of a saw — a sight that made the skin crawl. Its pitch-black hide was a dead color, utterly without sheen. Only its claws held any light at all. Its fish-dead eyes flicked their lids with the restless speed of a camera shutter.
Kerrrr….
The Schiagua let out a thick, rasping breath, its tongue-tip quivering as it made the sound. Its snout jutted forward and split open in a cross-shaped maw. Now and then a wet, scarlet tongue flicked out into the open air.
The Schiagua's hunting was every bit as horrific as its appearance. In an instant it would clamp that cross-shaped snout around its prey's head and drag the victim off, trailing them through the dirt. Its saliva contained a paralytic; it would score the flesh with its teeth and let the venom soak into the wound. Before long the prey would stop thrashing and go completely still. Then the Schiagua would tear into the living, immobilized body and eat it raw.
Any hunter dragged away by a Schiagua had already had their fate decided. They would never return alive. They were not the missing — they were the dead.
I looked at the Schiagua, then spoke to Pina.
"Pina. Link up with the soldiers."
"Ah — yes, Alice-nim. Then I'll have them surround this area."
Pina backed away a few steps, then kicked off the ground and ran. The moment she turned her back and fled, the Schiagua's jaws yawned wide and its neck cracked around with a wet, grinding twist. The skin of its throat corkscrewed like a braid of dough. Drool spattered down and left a slick mess on the ground. Its head completed a full, effortless rotation before snapping back into place. Those fish-dead eyes blinked their lids at Pina with something like regret.
Every single motion of the thing was foul and deeply unpleasant.
I drew an arrow and took it in hand. The fact that it wasn't retreating told me it had switched its target to me. Alone now, I must have looked like a delicious meal. The Schiagua had only ever ambushed and eaten humans — it had never fought one head-on — so it was still wary of me. Since it wouldn't approach carelessly, I lowered my stance a little.
I couldn't thrash around fighting this thing inside the outpost. Even if Schiagua weren't known for roaring much, a real fight would throw the whole place into chaos.
I brought the arrow to the torch I'd set on the ground and lit the tip. Then I pressed the switch on my index finger, lengthened the shaft, and nocked it to the string. High into the sky, over the palisade, I loosed the flame-bearing arrow. At the same moment I shortened the bow again and sprinted after the rising light, vaulting the wooden wall.
Whoosh—!
The Schiagua, which had been watching me carefully, came lumbering after me in a hurried, lurching gait. For a moment I simply enjoyed the chase. The grotesque monster pounding along at my back called up, once again, the childhood terror of the dark. Of course it did — looking like that, anyone who claimed not to be afraid would be lying.
But fear is something you overcome. Simply put: kill it with your own hands.
The Schiagua ran with its body shoving against the palisade.
"Hmph…"
The arrow fell not far from the outpost. With a shot lofted that high, the soldiers nearby would have a rough idea of the location.
I turned and faced the Schiagua. Relying on starlight and moonlight, I could just make out the shape of its body. It felt it held the advantage right now. It must have thought I was fleeing in a blind panic.
I raised an arrow. Catching the bow's grip, I set the shaft against the nocking point. From the tuft of Ekriki fur fixed ahead of the fletching, a fine white powder sifted free.
Ting—.
The arrow flew, carrying the powder with it. It struck the Schiagua but didn't sink deep — just scored a scratch across the hide. The powder that rode the shaft, however, settled and clung to the monster's body.
Its charge interrupted, the Schiagua twisted aside.
Keee!
It drew its head back, then thrust it forward and spat. A thick, clotted gob of saliva came sizzling toward me.
That, I could not afford to take.
I yanked free another arrow and threw my body sideways. Scraping my feet across the sandy waste, I nocked again. The monster's spit hit the sand and soaked into a wet patch of grit.
I sent the next arrow at the same spot as hard as I could. Then another. The Schiagua shook its head as if the arrows needling its hide were starting to sting. Then it slammed its forelegs into the ground, hauled its body back — and its arms, as if they had no joints at all, stretched out long and thin. Its head creaked and ground with a wet kik-kik of bone, and then it launched itself forward like a spring.
It came at me as if it meant to fly. Its cross-shaped maw yawned wide, lunging savagely for my head.
But every move that wasn't a true ambush was no threat to me at all. I charged it right back. Sliding flat beneath the creature as it hung in the air, I slipped under its body. A single droplet of its spit slapped against my cheek. Not nearly enough to paralyze me. I wiped it off with the back of my hand and drew another arrow at once.
As the monster's head swung back toward me after we passed each other, I released the string. Again I aimed for the head, piling the powder into the same place.
Time to detonate it.
I looked at the essence set into the bow's grip. The Essence of Kespiraatos. The orb, a little smaller than my palm, was only half full — but that was more than enough for a common skill.
I raised an arrow. In that same instant the Schiagua swept a foreleg at me. The limb stretched like a whip and lashed toward my body — but the distance was one I could clear by simply stepping back. I slid into a smooth backstep, lengthened the bow into a longbow, and began to load the arrow slowly from the tip.
Chzzzt—!
The shaft scraped past the essence and made a sound like something catching fire. No actual flame took hold, but a strange energy shimmered along the arrow. The string stretched past its limit, drawn tighter still. Veins stood out on my arm.
Just then the Schiagua gurgled a boiling sound and spat again. Watching that sticky mass of saliva gather, I loosed the arrow. The force of the shot shoved my body backward.
The arrow met the Schiagua's phlegm head-on. The spit that touched the shaft burst with a wet pop and sprayed in every direction.
Snipe
The arrow flew true for the Schiagua's eye. Sensing the danger, the creature dropped its lid and turned its head — but it was already too late. The tip punched through the cover and bored into the eye beneath.
KIEEEee!!
The creature that had always kept its voice low now shrieked, thrashing its head from side to side. Thick, blackish blood poured out in streams and fouled the ground.
Stings a bit, doesn't it? Nowhere near as bad as what you did to the hunters you killed, I'm sure.
I shortened the arrow shaft again. I couldn't tear it apart while it was still alive — but I fully intended to kill it in a thoroughly miserable way.
The fire arrow Alice had loosed high into the sky just before the fight began soon fell, spent of its strength — but not before a number of soldiers had spotted it. Melchior, who had not yet gone to sleep, was among them. He had meant to trade shifts with the secretary and keep the night watch for a while yet, at least until the work was done.
Melchior had not expected Alice to go after a monster immediately. But the moment he saw that spark climbing into the heavens, he moved.
"Assemble every soldier who is not on sentry duty."
"Move!"
Melchior went first to the soldiers' tents and had the squad leaders set the troops in motion. The camp stirred into busy activity. Some of the men, still half-asleep, snapped themselves awake and pulled on their armor. Melchior nodded at the sight of men who never fully let their guard down.
Before long the unit stood in crisp formation, spears and shields in hand. One of the squad leaders approached Melchior.
"Your Highness — what is happening?"
"A signal from the hunter."
"…Already?"
The prince nodded. Melchior did not bother with a long explanation. The soldiers were going to move as the prince ordered regardless. There was no need to spell it out in words. Showing them would be enough.
Just as they were about to set out, the secretary came scrambling toward the prince from a distance.
"Y-Your Highness—!"
It was not only the secretary who approached. Looking closer, Melchior saw that Pina was right behind him.
"Go on."
Pina stepped forward in the secretary's place and spoke.
"Your Highness — Alice-nim is fighting a monster right now. I think it might be the one behind the disappearances."
"Can you be certain it is the culprit?"
Pina faltered at the prince's question.
"I-I can't say for certain, but…"
"Very well. Certainty can wait until after the monster is down. We move out. We cannot simply stand by while someone fights a monster. We will surround it so that whatever the hunter is fighting cannot escape. Pina — you know the way, I take it."
"Y-yes…"
Pina nodded. One of the squad leaders spoke up then.
"…Your Highness."
"What is it?"
"Are we simply leaving this to a single hunter?"
The squad leader sounded uneasy. If the hunter died, the losses would only pile up and the situation would not improve at all. And if a hunter failed a subjugation, the blow to morale was inevitable. In an outpost like this, that kind of atmosphere mattered a great deal.
Melchior answered the squad leader in a low, steady voice.
"I share that concern."
"Then…"
"But that hunter told us to trust the hunters."
Melchior took the measure of the soldiers' mood.
"One hunter is facing a monster as we speak. But this hunter is no ordinary hunter. This is the one who accepted the princess's named commission on our army's behalf — and completed it with distinction."
A murmur ran through the ranks at Melchior's words.
"And if you still find it hard to trust the hunter — then trust me. Because I trust that hunter."
With that, Melchior turned his back. The princess's named commission. And the prince's confidence. Even the squad leader who had raised the objection nodded.
"Pina. Take the lead."
"Eh? M-me?"
"You're the only one here who knows the location."
"Ah — yes…"
Pina found herself leading the soldiers forward whether she liked it or not. Fortunately she found the path correctly, and there they discovered a section of collapsed palisade. Melchior frowned at the fallen wooden wall.
"The palisade…"
"Here — footprints, Your Highness."
One of the squad leaders pointed to a set of monstrous tracks, the prints bent at grotesque angles. Held under the light of a torch, the signs of both a monster and a person running were plain to see. Torch in hand, Pina hurried along the trail. Melchior, following behind her, lifted his head at the roar of a monster carrying from far off.
KIEEEee!!
A monster's scream. Whether it was rage or agony, Melchior could not tell — but he knew from it that Alice was still fighting. That being the case, he would move exactly as planned.
"Leave the direction of the outpost open. If it runs that way, it's already dead. Spread out with space between you. Every fourth man carries a torch so the dark doesn't close in. If the monster tries to flee, the soldiers nearby are to close in and assist."
"Yes, sir. Understood."
"If this thing is the culprit, we kill it tonight — or none of us will sleep easy again. Run."
The soldiers fanned out around them. Melchior stayed at Pina's side as they climbed a rise of sand. And only then did Melchior understand what had drawn that scream from the monster.