Those two are taking their time there, I wish I could see what is like inside of the church. Zenshin told me he “calmed me down” using a skill, I know this place is full of corpses, but I don’t want to think about it, no, it’s not that I don’t want to think, it’s more like, something won’t let me think about it, that’s probably his skill’s effect. It’s nice, I think, to not have a panic attack when I’m surrounded by corpses….

Ok, no, that’s completely not nice, I shouldn’t be this calm when surrounded by corpses. But, if I look at the situation, where, one, I’m completely lost, two, I’m not even on the same planet, and three, I AM A GIANT LIZARD THAT BREATHS FIRE, BUT IN MINIATURE.

Sigh. Ok, ok, I’m calm again. I think I’ll use the time I have before those two come back to take a look around the village, see what I missed last time I was here. I don’t think there will be much stuff to see, considering the size of the village, but it won’t hurt taking a look around.

I begin walking around the well in the middle of the village. It’s old and it looks it’ll almost collapse on the tiniest movement you do, but it’s strong. I was about to jump to see the inside of the well, but then I remembered I never actually tried to jump onto something so thin like the edge of that well with this new body, and probably would fall inside and get stuck. Better look around the houses then.

I start walking to a set of houses down a dirt road, it’s one of the village’s four main roads, but it’s still a dirt road. I was about to enter a house when I heard a wooden door being broken down the road, immediately looking at the source of the sound I see a door, 5 houses in front of me, on the ground, completely shattered, like something broke through that door from inside the house.

Yeah, I fell skill effect wearing off, because if I didn’t get scared when something like THIS happens, I don’t know what I would be scare of… But really, what was that?

I slowly get closer to the house and the broken door. I don’t hear anything, but I think it’s better if I concentrate in my surroundings… No, nothing, it’s like this door just spontaneous exploded, but that’s not actually possible, is it? probably? There’s the magic factor that I don’t know how it works, maybe this door was made to explo…. Wait, there’s footprints here.

I get closer to the footprints that’s near the door. It’s definitely not human, looks some kind of beast and just the size of the footprint is like, three times the size of my own paw… Yeah I’m getting out of here right now. Huh? There’s more of it, going out of the village… What? I-I didn’t see anything going in that direction when the door exploded. Maybe this beast passed through here before the door exploded? Looking better at the footprint near the door, it’s below the wood. Well, if I move the door I can confirm this thing didn’t come from that house, the house I’m one hundred percent not going anywhere near. Yeap, I don’t want to know what’s inside of it.

I put my paw on the wood and pushed it out of the way, just to reveal the footprint was incomplete. No, it doesn’t look like the door destroyed half of it, it’s more like, it’s because the door was on the ground that the footprint became like this… Meaning… Oh boy, yeah, I’m not going not to look at that house.

But it’s still weird, I just heard the door exploding, and nothing else. I should had heard something this big running. Even if it somehow doesn’t make any sound while running, I should have seen something, right? I don’t know, but somehow I’m feeling I should follow this. Yeah, I know, it’s a horrible idea, let’s follow these giant footprints, it’s not like there will be a beast at the end. Yeah, no thanks.

Sigh. It’s weird, I know. Am I going to regret following this? Ninety percent sure that I will, but still...

I gave up on thinking about it and just started walking in the direction the footprints were going, leaving the village and going along the road. of course I won’t just blindly follow it, I’m being cautious, ok? I’m looking around every five seconds, while concentrating on the sounds I’m hearing at the same time, but nothing worth noting caught my attention, just the wind and the occasional bird chirp.

I didn’t walk that long, just ten minutes more or less, but I found something, a fallen wagon a little away from the road, judging from the wheel’s tracks, the one who was controlling it went off road for some reason, lost control of the wagon and tumbled it. looking around I don’t find anything that could indicate the owner of the wagon, nor the reason he went off road. Most important, I need to check the footprints, because if they are going in the direction of the wagon, then I think I might have an idea of what happened, if they aren’t… well, I don’t know what happened to it then, and just thinking about it won’t help me, so, where are those footprints?

I begin searching for them, but I couldn’t find them anywhere, thinking I might have lost them somewhere on the road I start coming back to the village, but I still couldn’t find anything that resembles a footprint besides my own. Not wanting to become a beast afternoon lunch, I run back to the village and when I got there I just stopped near the houses I was when that door exploded because I couldn’t find the door on the ground anymore.

The door that was right here on the ground vanished and the house the door was from is…. Intact? It’s like that door exploding didn’t even happened… Okay now I’m definitely scared, I’m pretty sure that door exploded a few minutes ago, but now it’s there like nothing happened to it? Yeah, I’m telling it to those two. I won’t even wait for them to come back. I’m going into that church.

I walk right back to that statue, I ignored all the bodies around me as I walked, now that the skill effect wore off I need to ignore them on my own, it was just two minutes walking until I got to the statue. I look right at the church, if the churches on Earth are remotely similar to the ones in this planet, the statue will be right on front of the door, so if I go straight from here, I’ll get inside the church. But Zenshin told me there was an “anti-monster field” or something like that with the church at the center, so I can’t just walk to it without thinking or not seeing where I’m going, I need to think of how to overcome this field.

I look at the statue and got myself between it and the church. If I’m right, I can see where I’m going if I use the statue as a mark, I just need to walk backwards, looking at the statue, if my vision moves away from it then I’ll know I’m going off course, so let’s just try it.

I begin walking backwards from the statue and as I thought, just a few meters away from it my vision moves by itself, I almost didn’t notice it, if I wasn’t focusing on that statue I might have walked away without noticing. I move my head until I got a clear view from the statue and correct my body and once again, start walking backwards.

It’s getting hard to keep going, even stopping and adjusting my body is getting hard to do without going to a random direction away from the church, but I need to ask them about that door and those footprints, I’m getting a strange feeling about all of this.

[Proficiency points have reached sufficient levels. Normal skill [Abnormal Mental Condition Resistance] achieved Lv. 4]

Just as the Announcer spoke, it got easier to align myself with the church. Huh, so I guess this field is like a psychic field that affects monsters? Anyway, it’s been a while since that skill level went up, not that much, but compared how it shoot up to level 3 it’s been a while. Maybe it gets this “proficiency points” whenever my mental state is somehow altered, but as this skill makes my mental state harder to get altered it becomes increasing difficult to level up.

Enough thinking about this, I need to enter this church. With myself aligned once more with the statue and the church, I move backwards until I found something by my side and all that disorientation suddenly disappears. Did I get inside of the field, outside of the effect zone? I think.

Looking at the thing by my side, I discover that it’s a door. I turn around and the scene I see will be forever burned on my memory.

Bodies, a lot of bodies. Men, children, women protecting their children, all of them dead, some got their torsos slip open, others had their heads cut off, some have their chest pierced.

Everything starts fading to black.

“Huh? Little gecko? How did you managed to enter here?”

I heard someone, but I couldn’t make anything out of what was said. The last thing I saw before passing out was a blue blur coming rapidly towards me.