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Nearly a week passed. and the three of us spent our entire time wandering around town and getting to know the locals. It was like a paid vacation. Scott did get a letter from Iscariot during that time, but it contained nothing more than an informative report explaining that nothing had happened. Otherwise, we did nothing that mattered to our job. On the day of the Willowisps' visit, though, we staked out the bakery that I saw it retrieve pastries from before.
The morning September air was cold to a point of moderate annoyance, along with the moist morning dew. Not only was I cold and tired of sitting in a bush, but my legs had nearly fallen asleep. Meanwhile, Scott wasn’t bothered at all that he had been sitting in the same position for five hours without moving. Elysif, on the other hand, had gotten bored thirty minutes into our stakeout, so she began mixing herbs and chemicals she brought with her. Although it was technically her job, she seemed to view it more as a hobby than anything.
We were armed as well as we could be. Elysif was wearing the iron lined suit she was given, and she had prepared several magical equivalents of a molotov cocktail. Scott had worn his usual garb, and continued to use his gloves, however, the ones he was wearing currently were lined with iron instead of silver. I, on the other hand, had the silver knife, my pistol with iron bullets, and a bag of rice as a last resort.
It was taking forever for this thing to show up, and I was considering leaving, before I heard Elysif whisper, “There it is.” Scott and I both looked at the giant of a man with sudden eagerness. I recognized him as the man I saw before easily, as who could ever forget a face so bland and emotionless? The baker gave him a sack of pastries like before, and with a nod, he strolled towards the forest. Following behind it by a few meters, as we wanted to make sure that it didn’t notice us, we ducked behind another bush.
Once he had entered the forest, though, we saw it begin to change physically. The coat, along with its other clothing, disappeared into its hunched over body. Standing up, the beast revealed that it was roughly four meters tall. Its arms were at least two meters long, with its legs looking to be around two and a half. It had the skull of a cow, rather than an elk like the description, but the jaw was closed. Its skin was black as night, and its eyes glowed a demonic yellow. The strands of hair on the back of its skull head were similar to that of willow branches, but the closer I looked, the more it seemed like dreaded hair with leaves stuck in it. The Willowisp’s hands were long and skinny, but looked around the size of my chest, and hanging from its right hand was the bag of pastries.
The Willowisp looked around for a moment before continuing to stroll deeper into the forest. Or at least we thought it was going for a stroll as it bolted off running at full speed deep into the woods. Jesus it was fast! The Willowisp glode between the trees with such speed that it reminded me of a drag racer.
“Well… fuck!” I said with a defeated look.
“Do you think you can catch up to it, Scott?” Elysif asked, turning to him.
“Of course. I have been sober all day,” he replied with a devilish smile.
“What? There is no way you could possibly catch up to that thing!” I rebutted, but, to my surprise, he stood up from the bush we were crouched behind and took off running almost as fast as the Willowisp did. “JESUS CHRIST!?!?!” I yelled.
“We should try and catch up to him,” Elysif said, without a single sign of shock from what we just witnessed, as she stood up from behind the bush.
“... Sure? But that didn’t seem humanly possible?” I said, as I stood up behind her and the two of us started to sprint after him. My mind was doing everything in its power to comprehend what I just saw.
“It’s not humanly possible. He is the only human in the world as far as we know that can do that. Iscariot turned his body into one giant magic tool and it takes a massive amount of control. There are some negative side effects, though. Magic tools, as you know, help people use magic more easily, but it has a price,” she said as we ran. “Have you ever felt tired after using your knife?” she asked me.
“Well, yes, but only when I use it a lot,” I replied casually, as I jumped over a root.
“Well, his enchantments work the same way, and tire him out, but it also puts strain on his body. His muscles will start tearing if he uses it for too long, but he can temporarily devoid the effects of the runes with alcohol. That, and the alcohol stops him from feeling any pain that he would normally feel as a side effect of the runes on his body. Thus, he can go as long as he needs to without activating the runes so long as he is intoxicated. Though he can’t activate them while under the influence, because of the amount of focus it requires. If he were to make even the slightest error, then he could burst an artery, or worse,” she continued.
“Well, now I know why he drinks so much. But why did he do that if it’s such a danger to his health?” I asked.
“... I… shouldn’t say. That’s the part you’ll have to ask him about yourself,” she said, as we arrived to see Scott hiding behind a tree. He was looking at something beyond it, but he was also breathing heavily. He let out a small cough as we ran up. “You shouldn’t put too much strain on yourself, Scott,” Elysif said in a truly caring voice.
“I’m fine. Now get down,” he whispered harshly to get us to understand the danger ahead.
We squatted down next to Scott to see where he was looking. We saw three Willowisps standing among the trees, all of which were moving their heads back and forth like the security cameras in a crappy spy movie. Scott looked up at them then back at us and whispered, “I’m going to charge them. Lou, you give me cover fire with your gun, and Elysif, you need to chuck a few of the explosives around them to cut off any means of escape. Got it?!”
Both of us nodded in agreement as we pulled out our weapons. “Good, now don’t let me die,” he said semi-jokingly, before charging at the middle Willowisp. Before it could react, Scott jumped three meters with such force that I could see the air behind him moving. Scott’s fist slammed into the Willowisp's face, causing it to fall backward against the ground. Striking it a second time, Scott cracked the creature's skull, and it started to turn to dust as every other creature we killed did. I was in awe.
Scott rapidly turned to the one on his left, as it brought down its hand towards him with incredible speed. He barely dodged with a backward jump, while I fired a shot at the creature's back, but sadly, I missed. Its body was so slim that I couldn’t hit it, and it didn’t help that I had never shot a gun before. From the other side of our hiding spot, Elysif chucked one of her cocktails at the third Willowisp, causing a small explosion of blue flames to rain over the beast. However, the Willowisp was unaffected by the blast, other than being confused for a few seconds. Hoping that I could actually kill it, I took a shot at the one Elysif had attacked, only to just graze its side with a sizzle of its black skin.
As the Willowisp swung at Scott again, he dodged around a tree and grabbed the Willowisp's arm from behind it. This caused the beast to howl in pain, and fling its arm up in the air along with Scott, who was still hanging on to the creature's appendage as it sizzled like grease on a hot pan. He let go of it in time to be released into the air above it, so that he may use the downward momentum to land a hit on the Willowisp. Sadly, Scott missed and struck the ground next to it with a pained thud, creating a small crater, and knocking the Willowisp back.
Meanwhile, Elysif threw another explosive at the one next to Scott, but rather than exploding with blue flames, it released hundreds of small iron pellets like a grenade. The pellets struck the Willowisp, causing it to howl in pain, but it was not truly injured, as the pellets were not flying hard enough to pierce its skin. The other, which had been dealing with Elysif’s other explosives, turned and smacked Scott from behind, sending him flying off into a tree. From there, he fell down the tree to the ground. After a bit of groaning, Scott attempted to get up, but the Willowisp was already on top of him. It struck him again with a swing of its long arm, sending him flying deeper into the forest. In an attempt to get the beast away from Scott, I fired off two bullets at the creature. One missed, the other struck its leg, slowing it down for a moment, as it fell forward and crashed into the dirt with a pained howl.
I was pleased that I had been a bit helpful and was aiming for another shot when I heard Elysif shout, “Lou, look out!” but it was too late. A dark hand came from my side and grabbed me. The Willowisp that was hit with Elysif’s iron shrapnel had recovered to an extent, and reached for the closest threat: me. It lifted me up by my chest and slammed me into the crater that Scott had created just moments ago. When I made contact with the painfully hard ground, the bag of grain broke and fell out all around me. It did nothing to the Willowisp as it was so worried about killing me that it didn’t see it.
The shockwave that the Willowisp sent through me, combined with the force of being slammed into the ground, caused me to cough and sputter. I thought that I could feel my ribs being crushed under the weight of its grip. The Willowisp climbed on top of me, and got its maggot-ridden skull face close to mine. The jaw of the monstrosity's skull unhinged, and a mass of slime-covered green tentacles started to come out. I could only think that I’d seen enough hentai to know where this was going, as a joke, but this wasn’t the time. Using what strength I had, I pulled back the hammer of my pistol and rammed it into the beast's mass of tentacles. The blade on the front burned the creature, causing it to pull away, but I fired a single bullet into its mouth before it could distance itself.
The creature writhed in pain, slamming its fist down beside me, as it faded into ashen dust with a bone-curdling howl. Elysif ran up to me, reaching into her bag as she did. “Please be okay,” she said in a semi-panicked voice, as she grabbed a small vial from her bag and dumped the contents into my mouth. It tasted like grape cough syrup for some reason. She then started chanting as I swallowed the liquid. My body felt lighter, but everything still hurt. Once she had finished her chant, Elysif looked me over and then stood up.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t move,” she said before running off towards Scott and the other Willowisp. Okay, I’ll just stay here… slowly dying from internal bleeding, I guess. I felt like she was making a joke, because I did not want to move, even if I could.
The forest was calm now, peaceful even. I looked up at the sky because that was all I could do. It was nice. I lay there hoping Scott was okay, and that Elysif would return to make sure I had survived. But it didn’t seem like it would play out the way I thought it would. For some reason, my train of thought was disturbed by a strange sensation. My body felt as if it were falling, probably because I was. I, along with the dirt under me, sunk down in a cave—of all things. Dust clouded my vision as I lay there, trying to get a grasp on reality, when I heard a voice.
“Nice of you to DROP in,” the voice said. Was that a fucking pun?
ns 18.68.41.175da2
