Essence
Reed shoved Loty aside and threw himself across the floor in a frantic roll.
A razor-sharp forepaw slammed down into the exact spot where the two of them had been standing. The impact shattered the stone with a thunderous roar, sending shockwaves rattling through the entire cavern.
Gritting his teeth, the Militia Captain shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Dammit! It's an Aberrant Variant!"
An Aberrant Variant—the classification reserved for grotesque, drastically mutated horrors spawned within the cursed frontier of the Demonic Borderlands.
Driven into a blind panic by the captain's yell, the village hunter reflexively loosed his weapon.
The bolt launched from his wooden crossbow struck home with a hollow thud, only to bounce harmlessly off the thick quartz encasing the creature like a suit of plate armor. It failed to leave so much as a scratch.
"T-That's impossible..."
"Grrr?"
The Crystal Kobold paused, standing stock-still as if it could not comprehend what had just transpired.
Born with crystals erupting through its hide, the creature had reigned as an apex predator from the moment it drew breath. Its brethren had never dared defy it. Every scrap of food belonged to the beast, and the more it gorged, the larger it grew.
Having never encountered a rival in its life, the concept of being attacked was entirely alien. That utter unfamiliarity kept it stunned for a brief heartbeat—before incandescent fury erupted in its chest.
"Kkyehhh! Kkyaaaahhh!"
A shriek like something dredged from the pits of hell filled the hollow chamber, and the Crystal Kobold charged.
It was a massive, three-meter brute clad in crystalline armor. The sheer weight of its frame made the cavern rumble with every stride, yet the beast moved with startling, terrifying speed.
"Guh-urk!"
A sweeping swipe of its claws ripped straight through the hunter's abdomen.
The hunter flailed for a few agonizing seconds before going limp. With the man still impaled on its talons, the Crystal Kobold swiveled its head, surveying the chamber. Focus flickered in and out of its clouded eyes, while its wrinkled snout twitched incessantly against the damp air.
White as a corpse, one of the mercenaries cast his weapon to the ground and bolted toward the rear.
"Fuck this!"
"W-Where are you going?!"
"Kkyehhhh!"
The Crystal Kobold reacted instantly. Refusing to let its quarry slip away, it lunged with manic ferocity and slammed its foreleg across the fleeing mercenary's back.
The blow hurled him a full five meters through the air before he struck the stone wall and crumpled into a mangled pulp. Even his thick, layered gambeson could not cushion the devastating force.
Worse still, the Crystal Kobold threw its massive shoulder hard against the cavern wall.
Boulders and fractured quartz collapsed in a deafening cascade, sealing off the chamber's only exit. Its message was unmistakable: not a single one of them would walk out alive.
Damn it. The thing actually has a brain.
While sheer panic threw everyone into disarray, Reed alone assessed the slaughter with cold detachment. The familiar stench of death sharpened his faculties, clearing away the fog of terror. That very composure was what had allowed him to survive the Asteritz slums.
No ordinary weapon will pierce that armor. Which means...
Magic was their only viable path. Reed unclasped the pack he had cast to the ground and took hold of the soil packed inside. The dirt drifted upward, coiling like a serpent as it snaked through the air toward the Crystal Kobold.
No matter how mutated the beast was, it remained a creature of flesh and blood. Deprived of breath, it would die all the same.
"Kkyeh?"
Sensing an ominous presence, the Crystal Kobold snapped its head around.
Seizing the opening, Reed surged the earth forward. If he could force the soil into its nostrils and jaws to choke its windpipe, even a giant monster would have no counter. Yet clusters of quartz crusted its snout and jaws as well, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint its airways from a distance. If the beast held still, he might find them, but it certainly was not going to oblige.
Reed's gaze locked with the monster's.
Focus sharpened in those clouded, predatory eyes.
"...Shit!"
Reed spun on his heel and ran.
"Kkyehhhhk!"
The Crystal Kobold barrelled straight toward him. Reed considered manipulating the soil to slick the stone floor and trip the creature, but they were deep inside a cavern; the only earth available was the small supply he had hauled in from outside. He had to run for his life.
Snapping back to his senses, Meister Anton raised his stonemason's hammer to intervene.
The heavy iron crashed against the beast's rear leg. Yet the blow left nothing more than a faint nick on the hardened crystalline armor.
"Khh!"
Swatting Anton aside like a fly, the Crystal Kobold resumed its pursuit of Reed.
Scrambling up with gritted teeth, Anton bellowed across the cave.
"We must protect Reed! His magic is our only way out of here!"
"R-Right! Light! Kobolds are weak to light!"
The Militia Captain hurled the torch from his hand. Tracing a blazing arc through the dark, the flame swept right past the beast's face. The transparent quartz caught the glare, gathering and refracting the glow in brilliant, dazzling bursts.
The Crystal Kobold lit up from within—an absurdly beautiful sight despite the horror.
Subterranean beasts were hypersensitive to sudden radiance.
"Kkyeek!"
Hissing in pain, the monster squeezed its eyes shut. Yet its momentum never broke as it tracked Reed, its snout twitching furiously to catch his scent.
They live in pitch darkness! Their ears and noses matter far more than their eyes! Which means—
When backed into a corner, human wit had a way of sharpening to an astonishing edge. Reed threw himself recklessly into a nearby mound of beast droppings.
"Ugh!"
The vile, suffocating stench made his stomach heave and his vision swim, but rolling through filth was a trivial price to pay for drawing breath. Reed understood that harsh truth better than anyone.
As his scent vanished from the air, the Crystal Kobold skidded to a halt, visibly disoriented.
It worked.
Reed caught the eyes of the surviving men. Overcoming their revulsion, they scrambled to smear the muck over their clothes.
A few were too slow.
Tracking the remaining scent, the Crystal Kobold impaled a paralyzed mercenary with its claws and tore into him with its jaws.
"H-Help—aaargh!"
The man thrashed frantically, but the beast crunched and gnawed, replenishing its spent vigor with savage gluttony.
That brief slaughter bought them their final window. Once the beast finished feeding, its rampage would resume. No matter how softly they crept or how well they masked their scent, they would eventually be hunted down in this sealed space.
Think.
There was no path of retreat. The monster had to die, and only Reed's magic could finish the job. He had to choke it out. Yet suffocating a thrashing, agile target was impossible. He needed to pin it down.
How? Its crystal armor was impenetrable—so hard that even Anton's hammer had barely left a scratch...
As thoughts collided in his head, Reed's eyes snapped back to the monster's hind leg. Right where Anton's hammer had landed, a faint groove remained.
A lesson learned during his masonry training flashed through his mind: To split a boulder, all you need is the smallest seam. A single hairline crack is enough.
Reed reached into his vest and drew out a sharp-tipped chisel—a tool meant for dressing rough stone.
There was no time to weigh the odds. The Crystal Kobold was already crunching down the mercenary's leg. Its meal would end in seconds, and it would move again.
So Reed ran. Before terror could paralyze his limbs, he threw himself forward.
His boots struck the stone floor with crisp echoes. With its keen hearing, the Crystal Kobold flinched.
Right then—
An Earth Grasp erupted from the ground, wrapping thick earthen fingers around the monster's left leg.
"Kkyeek?"
The earthen grip lacked the raw power to hold such a behemoth, but it bought a vital second of distraction. The moment the monster snapped its head around, Reed lunged and rammed the chisel straight into the nick on its leg.
It bit!
By a razor-thin margin, the tip of the tool seated into the fracture.
Reed roared at the top of his lungs.
"Meister!!"
Hearing his name, Meister Anton saw the steel wedged into the beast's leg and understood his duty instantly.
"Hraaaah!"
With a thunderous bellow, Anton swung his stonemason's hammer. The chisel sat at an awkward angle, buried so shallowly it threatened to slip free at any moment. Yet Anton had spent his entire life striking stone. Reed knew with absolute conviction that the master craftsman would not miss.
His faith was rewarded.
The hammer slammed into the head of the chisel with dead-center perfection, driving the steel deep into the crystalline armor.
Fractures spiderwebbed outward from the point of impact. What began as a hairline seam raced across the limb until thick slabs of quartz shattered and rained to the floor.
The impenetrable armor had breached.
"Kkyehhhhk!"
The tip of the chisel bit straight into living flesh. Agony unlike anything it had ever known ripped through the beast.
The behemoth crashed heavily to the ground. It scrambled frantically to rise, but the weight of the crystal encasing the rest of its body dragged it down like a lead anchor. The very fortress of armor that had made it invincible now crushed it against the stone.
It's over.
Reed planted his palms against the ground. Guided by his will, the remaining soil swirled toward the fallen beast's head. With delicate manipulation, he located the creature's airways and forced the earth inside.
Soil packed tightly into its gaping maw and nostrils, sealing its windpipe shut.
"Kkyeek! Kkyehhk!"
Choking, the beast thrashed in wild convulsions, but crippled and pinned, that futile squirming was all it could muster.
In its final moments, Reed met the Crystal Kobold's eyes. Uncharacteristically pure, glossy tears welled in its glassy gaze before the faint light faded from them entirely.
The giant monster drew its final breath.
"Phew..."
Only then did the adrenaline drain from Reed's veins, leaving him to collapse limply onto the floor. Sweat poured down his face and his clothes reeked of filth, yet the sheer realization that he was still breathing filled him with relief.
Anton, the Militia Captain, and the surviving mercenary felt much the same.
"Ha... To think we actually brought down a brute like that."
"I was certain we were dead men."
"So this is why the world reveres mages..."
After catching his breath, Anton pushed himself up.
"Come now. We should see to the aftermath. The village will be waiting for us."
"Right."
Reed walked over and shook Loty awake. Having been struck by the paralyzing venom earlier, Loty had only just begun to regain feeling in his limbs, and he burst into tears the moment he opened his eyes.
"B-Bwaaah! I thought I was dead...!"
"You're telling me. That was entirely too close."
"Meister! Thank you, thank you so much! Reed, you too! You really are the best, man! Bwaaah!"
Blubbering, Loty moved in to wrap Reed in a hug, only to freeze mid-stride. The horrific stench radiating from Reed hit him like an iron wall. Wincing, Loty took two cautious steps backward.
"Ahem. Anyway, I owe you my life."
"..."
The captain and the mercenary tended to the fallen. The bodies were in a dreadful state; one was mangled so thoroughly that little remained beyond a few chewed-off toes. Even so, they could not leave their comrades behind in this damp grave, and the captain gathered every scrap of remains with somber care.
Meanwhile, Anton inspected the carcass of the Crystal Kobold.
"Hmm. Stripping its hide is beyond our tools right now. But we should certainly harvest this quartz."
The crystal encrusting the corpse was remarkably pure and transparent. Taking it back would fetch a tidy sum, which could go toward supporting the bereaved families.
With chisel and hammer in hand, Anton meticulously pried away the clusters. Then, splitting open the monster's chest cavity, he retrieved a bluish pebble.
"Ha. A magic stone, just as I suspected."
Found occasionally within potent magical beasts, magic stones contained concentrated mana. Because they were sought after for crafting magic tools and alchemical reagents, they fetched exorbitant prices. This haul alone would provide generous compensation to the grieving kin.
While Anton worked without pause, the others cleared the rubble blocking the passage, reopening an entrance wide enough for a person to squeeze through. All that remained was to head back—or so it seemed.
"Hm?"
Having harvested all the crystal, Anton stood up and wandered toward a shadowy corner of the cavern. There, a cluster of quartz sat softly glowing. Anton called out to him.
"Reed, come take a look at this."
"Meister? What is it? That doesn't look like ordinary quartz."
A subtle, eerie luminescence pulsed from within the clear stone. The cluster of light inside split apart and reunited in mesmerizing, unnatural currents.
Anton looked it over with open curiosity.
"This is likely an 'Essence.'"
"An Essence?"
"A substance occasionally discovered here in the Demonic Borderlands. Scholars haven't pinpointed its exact nature yet, but some argue this very material triggers mutations in magical beasts."
A mysterious substance capable of causing mutations. Curiosity sparked in Reed's chest.
"May I touch it?"
"Go ahead. There's no danger in touching it."
Reed reached out cautiously and tapped the crystal. The instant his skin made contact, the swirling light within was sucked straight into his fingertip.
"Whoa!"
"What was that?"
Reed and Anton stared at each other in sheer bewilderment.
"W-What did you just do?"
"Nothing at all...?"
"No, wait. Did you feel anything strange? Pain, perhaps?"
"No, not really. I don't feel any different."
Unable to make heads or tails of it, Anton shrugged.
"Well, so be it. No use racking our brains over it now. If you feel unwell later, go see a priest."
Still baffled, Reed nodded. As Anton said, worrying about it wouldn't bring any answers.
With the crystals harvested and the dead accounted for, the party prepared to depart. Yet one crucial ritual remained for Reed.
Taking up a shovel, Reed began covering the dead kobold in earth. Because soil was scarce, he hauled broken stones to pile atop the mound.
The onlookers stared at Reed in utter bewilderment as he labored to bury the beast.
"Is he building a grave? For a monster? Why?"
"Who knows. Maybe he thinks leaving a carcass unburied brings bad luck."
"Well, Reed's a mage, isn't he? They always have their eccentric reasons."
Mages were notorious eccentrics, so the men chalked it up to wizardly oddities. None of them could fathom that this gesture held more significance to Reed than anything else in the world.
Lady Ur, I'm offering you a massive one this time.
Anticipation thrummed through Reed with every shovel of earth. How many Clay Tablets would she grant him this time? Would there be a new spell? If he asked about the Essence, would Ur explain it to him?
Dozens of questions crossed his mind, but one thing was certain: Ur would be delighted by such a monstrous tribute. Without a doubt.
And Reed's expectations proved entirely correct.
That very night, Reed met Ur.
"Well done! Truly, well done! You have performed magnificently once again, my beloved child!"
Affection virtually dripped from Ur's gaze. Under the great turtle's deep, doting stare, Reed shivered slightly.
Did I build up a little too much favorability?
A bead of nervous sweat trickled down his neck.