Chapter 169: Empathy
Jake’s first reaction was shock.
His mind went blank for a second as he saw the bloody scene.
He had been suddenly teleported to this cave by a strange sword, and now... this.
A guild maid torn open on the stone floor, her blood spreading beneath a humanoid fish-like monster that was still chewing on her flesh.
While Jake stood there and looked on in confusion, the monster didn’t blink.
It just stared at him with those lidless black eyes, a chunk of torn meat still hanging from its jaws.
Blood dripped from its chin and hit the floor in slow, heavy drops.
Soon, it began to turn its body and stood up.
The monster rose to its full height, unfolding from its crouched feeding posture with a wet, heavy motion.
It was taller than Jake had first thought... long-limbed, slick, and hunched only slightly at the shoulders.
Water and blood ran down its scaled chest.
Between its webbed toes, the maid’s blood smeared across the stone.
Then the monster took one step forward.
Schlck.
Its webbed foot pressed into the spreading pool of blood.
At that step, Jake’s shock finally cracked.
The confusion didn’t vanish, but something colder slid in beneath it.
It was... a silent rage.
His jaw tightened as his fingers closed around his weapon.
"Bastards..."
A vein bulged at Jake’s temple.
Even though he didn’t know that maid, and he had never spoken to her nor known her name.
...But that didn’t matter.
What he was looking at wasn’t just a corpse.
It was a fellow human being, torn apart and eaten like meat.
Jake’s stomach turned.
Disgust came first... then rage.
The maid must have been powerless with no class or weapon that could fight something like this.
She had probably been cleaning, following orders, doing her job... and then that artifact dumped her into this cave to be hunted down and chewed through.
Jake’s grip tightened until the hilt creaked in his hand.
Seeing a monster eating a human was already enough to make his blood run hot.
But watching it stand there with her flesh still in its mouth, staring at him like he was next, made something ugly and sharp settle in his chest.
Jake lowered his stance.
"...You picked the wrong place to eat."
Then the monster moved.
It had been silent until now, standing there with blood still dripping from its jaws.
The next instant, its legs coiled.
BOOM!
The creature launched itself forward with surprising speed.
Its webbed feet slammed against the stone, and its long body twisted through the air in a low, bounding leap.
Water and blood sprayed from its scales as it hit the ground once, bounced off a rock, then shot toward Jake from the side.
It looked fast... far faster than its hunched, fish-like frame suggested.
Its jaws opened wide mid-rush, needle teeth gleaming, webbed claws slashing for Jake’s throat.
But at this sight, Jake didn’t panic.
His eyes stayed cold.
[Instinct] had already picked up the shift in its stance a breath before it jumped.
Then Jake stepped in, not back.
The glowing edge of his blade flashed once.
"Slash."
ZING!
A thin arc of light cut through the air.
For a moment, the monster’s charge continued as if nothing had happened.
Then its body split.
SPLURT!
The first cut tore through its chest.
SPLURT!
The second followed so closely it looked like the same stroke, carving from shoulder to hip.
SPLURT!
Then, fragments of scaled flesh burst apart in a spray of dark blood and pale fluid.
The creature’s head, still wearing that empty fish-eyed stare, flew sideways and hit the cave wall with a wet thud.
Its torso collapsed in pieces across the stone floor.
Jake stood in place, arm already lowered, the faint glow on his blade fading.
He looked down at the ruined monster corpse without changing expression.
"...Too slow."
_
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Jake stood over the scattered remains for a moment longer.
The cave went quiet again.
Then he glanced at the maid and noticed that her body had stopped twitching, as the light in her open eyes was already gone.
Jake’s jaw tightened at this.
There was nothing he could do for her now.
He crouched down anyway, checking her neck, then her wrist.
As expected, there was no pulse.
"...Sorry."
The word came out low.
He didn’t know her, but leaving her like that still sat wrong in his chest.
Jake looked around the chamber, then toward a stretch of stone near the wall where the floor dipped slightly and the rock looked more fractured.
He walked over, crouched down, and drove his fingers into a crack.
CRACK!
Strangely, the stone here felt way harder and tougher than the one he knew, but it was still useless against his superhuman strength.
His upgraded strength surged through his arms.
CRACK!!!
Then stone split apart from his hand.
Jake’s expression didn’t change as he ripped a chunk of rock free and tossed it aside.
Then another.
Then another.
His shoulders flexed, muscles tightening as he forced the cracked floor open wider, using both hands and the pommel of his blade when the stone refused to give.
It wasn’t easy.
Even with strength beyond an ordinary man, the cave rock bit into his palms and sent dull shocks up his arms.
But he didn’t stop.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as he tore out enough stone to make a shallow grave along the wall.
When the hole was deep enough, Jake went back to the maid.
He picked her up carefully, as if the way he held her could still matter, and carried her over.
Then he laid her down inside.
Jake stayed there for a second, staring at her ruined face.
"...You shouldn’t have ended like this."
He covered her eyes and began pushing the broken stone back over her, covering the body piece by piece until only the cave floor remained.
When he finished, he wiped the blood and dust from his hands and stood up.
"..."
The chamber was still quiet.
But Jake no longer looked only disgusted.
He stood back up and scanned the chamber.
The space was wider than the tunnel, with more crystal veins running through the walls.
And he could see dark stains marked the floor in several places... not only from this maid.
It was like older smears and drag marks... almost like something had been feeding here more than once.
Jake’s eyes narrowed.
’This wasn’t a one-time thing.’
He wiped his blade on a relatively clean stretch of the monster’s torn hide and slid it back near his side.
Then he looked deeper into the chamber and saw another passage opened at the far end.
And there were even faint wet prints leading toward it.
Those prints were definitely not human... but webbed.
Jake’s expression hardened.
If there was one of those things here, there could be more.
And if Aria and the other maids had been pulled into this cave as well...
With that thought in mind, Jake didn’t dare delay as he began to rush inside.