After bringing food to the others, William returned to the storage.

Today, after another successful raid on the farmlands outside the capital, the gang returned with spoils and food.

He, a young guy who recently joined the gang, was put in charge of feeding the others.

Unlike the full-fledged gang members, he had to bite his lip and endure seeing the others have fun with a captured woman, while he was bringing them food.

If he is lucky, they won’t do her to death, and he will not have to use her corpse…

William sighed.

The romance of the capital gangs’ life has already turned into the disillusionment of the true life: gore, hardships, and oppression. Unless you participate in the raids, risking your life, you won’t even get a chance at partaking in the spoils.

Still, it was not the time to think about it, because he may end up the thugs’ plaything himself, should he fail to bring those swines new food and drinks.

William turned around to pick some ham, and froze, when he saw it.

Black something, that stood like a human, on its hind legs, silently watching him.

It was looking like it was a skeleton with skin covering it.

But the most conspicuous feature was the creature’s head: jaws with metal-like teeth, black skin, and large, long plate on the back of its head.

“There is a demon!” He shouted immediately.

The creature remained standing. But the next moment it charged at him, with its long skinny fingers spread out to grip his face.

William’s hand automatically reached for the closest object he could find, and before he noticed it, he threw a vial of something into the creature’s face.

‘KIIIII!!!’ It shrieked and convulsed.

That was the last thing William saw, before the twitching creature’s tail cut his throat.

---

The door opened, and one of the thugs barged in.

“William, you f* c*! I was just getting to the best part!” Instead of finding the stupid s*pants, the thug saw some blood on the floor, a broken vial of the transformation elixir, and an empty tray.

He immediately understood what happened.

“FIND WILLIAM! THAT SON OF A B* BROKE THE BOSS’ ELIXIR!” He rushed out of the storage, oblivious that William was there, hidden behind barrels with ale...

Hugged by a little girl…

---

A woman opened her eye.

Her other eye was too bruised to be opened.

“Get that garbage somewhere, while we search for that son of a b*!” The pain she felt resurged when one of the monsters dragged her somewhere else.

She was dragged through a door, and thrown on the floor. Like a waste. Like a corpse.

The woman already knew: she is dying.

She couldn’t breathe, her ribs were broken and she was bleeding. The tormentors were not holding themselves back.

When she tried to resist, her arm was broken and she was beaten until she could no longer feel pain.

Now she was no longer struggling. A dead one does not need to struggle.

As death approached, she closed her eye…

‘Rustle’

When she heard a noise nearby, she looked there.

The sight shocked her: there was a naked little girl, devouring whatever she was finding.

A girl, somewhere in a warehouse.

The woman’s attention was drawn by the girl’s jet-black hair and dull eyes.

The movement of the woman’s head attracted only the girl’s glance.

‘Run…’ She said with her dislocated jaw, but the girl only glanced.

After she saw her children murdered, she thought there would be nothing else that matters to her. However, seeing this little girl who was out here, in the middle of a place she would call ‘hell’, rekindled her enough to put her remaining strength into saving the child.

The woman managed to lift her body and sit.

“Come here, baby…” She tried to draw the child’s attention, but the girl, once again, only looked at her.

She continued calling out to the girl, until the girl answered.

“Ba ba wa?” The girl babbled, as if she didn’t even know how to speak.

The more she was seeing this strange girl’s actions and reactions, the more she felt desire to use her remaining strength to protect the silly creature, as if the girl was her own child.

Driven to the brink of madness by the reignited maternal instinct, the woman desperately searched for a way to save the girl. That is when she saw a broken vial and a puddle of blue liquid.

Nearby, on a shelf, she saw even more vials of the transformation elixir.

[‘If I feed her this…! She… she can flee…!’]

Should the girl turn into a bandit-like guy, she may manage to escape.

Reasoning, logic, or whatever else, they did not matter. Pain did not matter.

The woman stood up and took the box of the elixirs.

“Come here, yes, come here~…” She beckoned the girl.

When the silly baby approached, she opened a vial, and handed it. The adorable baby looked at it curiously, and after the woman showed to drink it, the girl gulped the contents.

And nothing happened.

[‘It is diluted… One more will do it…’]

[‘One more…’]

[‘One more…’]

The woman looked at how her little baby was drinking, and soon collapsed.

On the brink of her blackening vision she saw it…

[‘Yes… it worked…’]

The child starting becoming taller, and taller…