CW animal death. like. lots of animal death.

 

Mally pulled aside the overhang of ivy in front of the cave, holding up the lantern. It was mid afternoon, and the contamination had spread to the very edges of the cave, a faint black mist rising up from the ground that swirled from Mally’s footsteps. Magical animals like Tuna were immune to contamination, so they didn’t have to worry about her effectively getting rabies. They just had to worry about themself, because prolonged exposure could make you sick, and they didn’t want to deal with the blessings from priests that may reveal them to be non-human.

They walked quietly across the wet, slick ground, holding up their lantern, and there was a hiss from deep within the cavern. They paused, looking around, before they decided to sense out the source of the hiss with their spores. Sure enough, there was a small body inside the cave, and they hesitated. They didn’t really want to kill a bunny, but…

The bunny hopped into the light of the lantern, and they stared down at it. It was pure white, with little ears and red eyes. It was actually kind of cute, they thought as they stared at it. It was really cute, and their hand tightened on their hilt as they and Tuna stared at the tiny creature. They didn’t want to kill it, but…

Taking a deep breath, they spun their sword around, and then the rabbit bared its sharp, mutated teeth with a hiss. Immediately, Mally stabbed it through, feeling a little sick to their stomach.

Well. That was one down.

They turned, sensing out the other presences in the darkness with their spores. They could see another rabbit a fair ways away, under the overhang of several rock formations, and without a word, they pushed their spores. Poisoned, it tipped over and died with a squeak, and they sensed as far as they could, which wasn’t that far, because they simply hadn’t trained it up enough. They could sense several rabbits in the darkness, and without much ado, they began to drop dead.

They felt horrible. They were killing bunnies, but, at the same time, they didn’t… Was there something wrong with them? Had their time in the DeVille house broken something fundamental in them? They had lived rather well, but it came with its downsides. Of course, there were a lot of downsides, but they thought about men dropping dead, the blood vessels in their eyes burst, veins in their faces blackened. They had killed them horribly, and they hadn’t even batted an eye.

Was there… something wrong with them?

They paused for a moment, barely breathing. They felt weird and uncomfortable. Wasn’t the fact that they were pausing cause enough for them to be somewhat normal? Tears stung at their eyes. The person they were before all of this happened wouldn’t have even considered killing a man. They would have just… They had to acknowledge they were privileged. They were privileged. They lived in a world where death was something that happened far away, didn’t come into the reality of their position. They lived a privileged life, and they knew that. They knew that.

Death was something that happened elsewhere. It didn’t happen to them. They knew that, and they understood that. But, now, death surrounded them. They had known the moment they sunk into the reality of life and death magic that they would be killing people, animals. They knew that adventuring would come out to this. They knew that. So, why did they do it? They had no excuse. They could have learned a craft, learned herbalism, apothecary stuff. They had the access to the books and knowledge. They could have done that.

But, they didn’t. They didn’t, and it was distressing them. Why had they chosen this path? This path steeped in blood and poison, when they could have done literally anything else? They didn’t know, and it was horrifying to them.

It was horrifying.

They had chosen this, they realized. They had chosen this. And for the life of them, they did not know why. Had something broken in them? Was that it? Had they come to crave the violence, the death, the pain?

They thought of a body, virtually unrecognizable, hanging in the torture racks. He had been covered in blood, with festering wounds, smelling putrid and disgusting, and their breathing came fast in their chest. They couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe through it, and they fell to their knees as they pressed their hand to their mouth. Desperate tears welled, and they sobbed, high in their chest.

It was then that the rabbits struck.

A rabbit came out of nowhere, biting down on their arm with sharp teeth, sinking into the meat of their mushroom suit, and they killed it with a press of poison. It keeled over, white liquid staining its teeth, and they stumbled to their feet as the rabbits began to form around them. One leapt at them, and with a flick of their sword, it was decapitated.

Right. They had to get through this first. They pressed through, poisoning all of them, and they slowly dropped dead. They staggered further into the cavern, clutching their lantern with Tuna on their heels, and they came to a crack in the wall, barely enough for them to slip through. They pushed through and came out onto the other end, Tuna wiggling her way through, and they came out into a cavernous space.

The mist was thick in here, lifting high in the air, and they froze at what awaited them. There was a massive bunny in the middle, easily the size of a small house, and bunnies were swarming everywhere. The rabbit turned gleaming red eyes on him, and he swallowed.

Right. He had to poison something that big. It was clearly trapped in here and had been eating the other rabbits, so that was probably where the size came from. It stared at them, and then it hopped forward with a scree, ear piercing and loud, and they immediately got their poison to work. The rabbits around the chamber began to drop dead, and the big boy came at them with gnashing teeth. They rolled in a dodge, and it smashed into the wall before it came at them, and Tuna growled, going low to the ground.

“Tuna, no,” they commanded. “Let the spores work.”

The rabbit lunged at them again, and they dodged, rolling across the floor and dead rabbits everywhere, and the rabbit hissed at them. Could rabbits even naturally make those sorts of noises? They had no idea.

Tuna growled and lunged, and the massive rabbit keeled over, dead. Tuna paused mid lunge, confused, tilting her massive white head in confusion, and Mally came to his feet. His blade was stained with blood now, and he got out the cloth out of his pocket and wiped it off before he sheathed it. He was pleasantly surprised he hadn’t managed to break the lantern. That had been a lot of rolling around.

“Okay, should we go back?” Mally asked Tuna, and Tuna steadily wagged her tail. This was a dead end, so Mally assumed all of the rabbits had been taken care of. It may do well to explore, though, so they picked up the lantern from the ground and cast it about.

There were… paintings on the wall. Diagrams and magical equations, and Mally slowly walked up to them to take a look. What?

They studied them in silence, their brow furrowed. They weren’t an expert on magical equations of this variety, but… To them, it seemed to be a diagram in how to intentionally poison the land. What? This was an equation for a manmade contamination. Why would anyone do that?

They briefly recalled that this was supposed to be taken care of before the contamination reached the water supply, and they blinked. Oh. A terrorist had taken up residence here, but---

“You killed my babies,” came a voice behind them, and they spun around. Tuna’s ears pinned back as she let out a low growl, and Mally stared at the woman standing there. She was beautiful in a terrifying way, with high, regal features, curly hair piled on her head in a thick bun, with piercing eyes that seemed to be violet and red at the same time. They reflected in the light of the lantern, and she studied Mally in silence.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, and the ground cracked underneath Mally. Black tendrils reached out from the broken ground and seized Mally, pinning Tuna to the ground and muzzling her, and the woman took a few deliberate steps to Mally as the tendrils slithered all over Mally. Tuna strained, growling, and the woman smiled at Mally.

“Your magic is very impressive for your age. You must be very proud,” she said, and Mally studied her in silence.

“You’re trying to poison the water supply,” Mally said, and she hummed as she reached forward to pet Tuna. Tuna tried to lunge at her, but she was thoroughly pinned in place.

“You stink of magic, little one,” she mused. “Like your very body is made of it.”

Mally froze, barely breathing, and she smiled at Mally with a twinkle in her eye.

“Don’t worry, I can keep a secret,” she purred, and scratched Tuna behind the ear. “But, we should make this fair. You killed my babies, I should kill yours.”

A knife of black formed in her hand, and Mally struck.

She choked, mycelium filling her throat and blocking off her airways, because Mally had a feeling that if she had been in contamination this long without any signs of getting sick, she was probably immune to poison, and the tendrils wavered. Concentration spell, then, and Mally swept up Tuna and ran. The wolf was heavy, but Mally was fit and prepared to run. They bolted down the cavern, nearly tripping over a rabbit body, and tendrils reached for them, but they dropped Tuna and slashed them with their blade as the woman opened her mouth and…

Tendrils with mycelium clinging to it exploded from her mouth, and Mally made it to the crack in the wall. Tuna pushed through, and they followed, breaking out into a run through the twisting cavern, running blindly, because they had left the lantern behind. The air became oppressive, dark, heavy, and it was suddenly like running through water. Mally’s nonexistent heart was hammering in their chest, and they sliced through the air, feeling their blade bite into something.

They could see the light of the exit in front of them, but it was growing shallow, like darkness was swallowing it whole. Mally had no counters to this, no light magic to fight back, so they ran, Tuna running in front of them, dialed into their fear. Whoever this woman was, she was leagues ahead of them in terms of magical prowess.

The exit was closing up, bathing Mally in darkness, and they watched Tuna reach it as the air became even harder to fight through. They had no idea what kind of magic this was, but it was powerful, and they reached out and hit the woman again with mycelium crawling up her throat, into her lungs, and the darkness wavered before it began to retreat, just enough for them to burst through the exit of the cave and run for Rat, tethered outside.

He grabbed Rat’s reins and hurriedly untied them, leaping onto his back, and then broke into a run. Rat’s hooves thundered on the ground of the game trail, and Mally looked over their shoulder at the cave. Who was that woman? Who was she??

Hands tight on the reins, they ducked under a low hanging branch and clung to Rat’s neck, his hooves ramming into the ground. They could do nothing but run. They could do absolutely nothing but run.

The church needed to be informed, before they even went to get their payment. They needed to go to the church immediately.

….

Mally reached the temple when the sun was low on the horizon, sweaty and panting lightly. They had galloped all the way to the city, and only then did they slow down. Their thighs were sore and hurting, but they were alive. Without a word, they swung off their horse, and a priest came forward to take Rat.

“Are you an adventurer?” the priest asked, and Mally nodded. “What have you come for? Your horse is sweaty.”

“I need to report to whoever’s in charge of the contamination in the cave complex outside of the city,” they said, and the priest dipped his head.

“That would be Bishop Hayes,” he said. “I’ll send word that you’re here. What is your name?”

“Mally Mack,” they replied, and he lifted his eyebrows.

“Ah, the savior of the Saint,” he replied warmly. “Thank you for coming to the temple. The bishop would like to thank you personally.”

“Oh… Oh, I’m not here about that,” Mally said. “There was an incident at the cave I need to report.”

“Ah! Well, then, let me take you to the bishop. He’s in evening prayers right now,” the priest said and handed off Rat’s reins to the acolyte approaching them. “Please take good care of Adventurer Mally’s horse. He saved the saint.”

“Understood, Father Gregor,” the acolyte said and dipped his head.

“Now, let’s go find the bishop,” Father Gregor said and turned on his heel to walk towards the entrance into the church.

The church was a testament to the donations made by the nobility. It was tall, beautiful, with sweeping parapets and gargoyles on every level. It was beautiful, with massive windows made of stained glass and beautiful architecture. Mally didn’t like it. Mally didn’t like it at all. Taking a deep breath in, they followed Father Gregor inside, Tuna pacing at their heels.

They entered a large room where clergy were assembled, praying in silence to the statue of the Goddess at the end of the room. Father Gregor led them between the pews to a man in white robes, with a full head of white hair and closed eyes as he prayed at the front of the church.

“Bishop Hayes, you have a visitor,” Father Gregor murmured, and Bishop Hayes straightened up and turned to Mally.

“Oh? Who might this be?” he asked, and Mally bowed.

“Mally Mack, sir.”

“Ah! The savior of the Saint!” the bishop said. “Thank you for coming. We would like to reward you.”

“Oh, I’m not here about that…” Mally said weakly. “I’m here about the contaminated cave…? With the killer bunny rabbits?”

The bishop blinked in surprise, and Mally looked around.

“Maybe we should discuss it elsewhere,” they said, and the bishop nodded.

“Of course. I’ll call for tea,” he said and turned for a door at the end of the building. “This way, please.”

Mally followed the bishop through the twisting and turning halls of the temple, Tuna padding just behind him, and they climbed a set of stairs before they found themselves in a quiet study, with comfortable sofas and a lot of books stuffed into the shelves.

“I do apologize for the clutter. I just can’t seem to keep it clean,” the bishop said as an acolyte came in with a full tea service and started setting up the table between the two couches.

“It’s alright,” Mally said as they looked around. Books on theology from different cultures. So, he was well-educated. That was relieving to them.

“Now, go ahead and take a seat,” the bishop said, and Mally sat down. “What do you have to report?”

“The contamination was man-made,” Mally reported, and the bishop stared at them like he didn’t know how to react. “When I was there, I ran into a female mage that used dark arts. Specifically shadow magic, I believe. She tried to kill Tuna… the wolf, for me killing her rabbits. I managed to flee, but there were paintings on the walls with magical equations that I believed was the formula to a man-made contamination. Mana amplification.”

“I…” the bishop trailed off. “This woman… what did she look like?”

“She had dark, curly hair in a bun, pale skin, and eyes that were somewhere between violet and crimson,” Mally explained, and the bishop fell silent. “I don’t know if she’ll still be there when the Saint arrives to clear out the contamination, so you should bring extra paladins.”

“I will relay this information to the palace immediately,” the bishop said. “Was she a skilled practitioner?”

“I’m very advanced for my age, and she was leagues ahead of me,” Mally explained. “I don’t know where she learned, but she was incredibly advanced, and incredibly dangerous.”

The bishop was quiet, and Mally took a deep breath in.

“She’ll probably be gone when you get there, but…” they trailed off. “I just hope something can be done about it.”

“We’ll do our best,” the bishop said, and Mally nodded. “Can you walk me through exactly what happened?”

“Happily,” Mally said, and then they launched into the tale as the acolyte quietly poured them a cup of tea. They took it and sipped it through it, and the bishop listened intently, his brows furrowed in concern as they explained everything that happened.

“So, we have a terrorist of untold magical capacity,” the bishop said, and Mally was quiet.

“Yeah,” they said, and wondered why this wasn’t in the manhwa. How much had changed? “We do.”

Gods. Fuck. This was a problem.

Oh, well. It wasn’t their problem anymore, so it was fine.