Chapter 90: She Brought It To Us!
It had taken Tera ten minutes to notice Kiri was gone.
Her first instinct had been to alert everyone, but she paused. Maybe Kiri had gone back to the settlement. The fox had been sulking constantly, and it had been very funny to see. Though it wasn’t the first time she had left early to avoid Tera’s company.
And there was still Feron and two other males in the clan who would keep watch over Kiri.
But as the afternoon wore on, the others noticed the fox female’s absence.
"Where did Kiri go?"
"She was here just a moment ago."
"Did she leave?"
"I did not see her go."
Tera was about to suggest that Kiri had probably gone back to the settlement when a beast man arrived from the path, having come to the lake to wash himself.
"Did you see Kiri in the settlement?" one of the females asked him.
The male refused, saying she wasn’t there, and the murmuring intensified.
Tera sighed. Kiri had probably followed Xavi’s hunting party again. That fox just never gives up. But even though the hunting party had left hours ago, Kiri would have already caught up to them, so she was safe. These people did not have to worry.
But the others were worried, especially since they felt Kiri might not have caught up to the hunting party.
Tera had wanted to add that Kiri was a grown fox who had made her own choices and could deal with the consequences. But not caring would make Tera look exactly like the kind of person Kiri had been trying to paint her as.
’I hate this.’
The group split up, and Tera went out calling out Kiri’s name at intervals that grew less enthusiastic with each repetition.
They walked for a long time too, and Tera was growing quite irritated as to why they were even searching for this foolish female when Xavi would bring her back as always.
Another thing that added to her anxiety was that they had just ventured into a part of the forest they had never set foot in before.
Maybe the hunting party had, but not her.
She called out one more time. "KIRI!"
Nothing.
Tera grumbled under her breath and turned to go back. This was pointless. If that fox wanted to get herself killed by wandering alone in corrupted territory, that was her—
She froze.
Two small figures were standing between the trees ahead of her.
Cubs.
’WTF?’
She walked towards them. These two were supposed to be back at the settlement. She had clearly told one of the males to take them back!
"What are you two doing here?!"
The bear cub’s lower lip trembled. "We wanted to help find Kiri."
"You were supposed to stay—" Tera stopped. This wasn’t the time for lectures. She needed to get these cubs and herself back to safety.
She grabbed both of them. "We are going back. Right now."
Tera decided to use the system to scan the area. She should have done so earlier.
She had barely turned when both cubs went rigid under her hands.
[( ˶óᯅò) !!]
[HOST!]
[CORRUPTED MONSTER DETECTED!]
[HOST MUST RUN! NOW!]
Tera’s blood went cold.
’What?!’
[NO QUESTIONS!]
[HOST SHOULD RUN AND NOT LOOK BACK!!!]
With growing dread, Tera realised she could not move.
She had always watched horror movies and screamed at characters when they wouldn’t move when a monster was rushing at them.
[HOST!]
And now she was in the same situation.
’This can’t be happening.’
[(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥)]
[MOVE YOUR LEGS!]
A sound tore through the forest behind her, like something massive was dragging itself across the earth.
She turned around and saw Kiri.
Their eyes locked, and for a single, frozen heartbeat, Tera saw everything in those eyes. The fear, calculation, and a decision that had already been made.
Kiri swerved sideways and vanished into the shadows.
The treeline behind where Kiri had been exploded.
The corrupted monster crashed through the trees with a force that shattered trunks and sent splinters flying like shrapnel. Its body was enormous, and Tera’s mind refused to process what she was seeing.
Tera had spent some time in this world imagining what the corrupted beasts might look like. She had pictured deformed beasts, not a freaking dinosaur!
This was even worse.
The thing stood on two massive hind legs, its body hunched forward with a thick, powerful tail dragging behind it. Its hide was a sickly mottled green-grey, covered in scales that looked like cracked stone.
Jutting bones protruded from its spine and shoulders at unnatural angles, as if its skeleton was trying to escape its own flesh. Its head was long and filled with rows of teeth that were too many and too sharp, and arranged in a way that suggested they had grown wrong and kept growing.
Its eyes were yellow and filmy, and they locked onto Tera with the mindless hunger of something that existed only to consume.
[!Activating Emergency Protocol!]
[Hijacking Host’s body in... 5... 4...]
The cubs’ screaming snapped Tera out of her stupor. Her heart kicked into gear, and before the system could take over Tera’s body, she started running with both cubs.
Her body protested immediately. Her stomach was heavy, it started to ache slightly within seconds, but the system’s alarm was screaming in her vision, and the distance counter between her and the dinosaur was dropping with terrifying speed.
One of the cubs stumbled.
The cat cub’s foot caught a root, and he went down hard, his small body hitting the ground with a cry of pain. Tera’s grip on him was wrenched free, and she skidded to a stop, turning back.
[HOST! LEAVE IT!]
[DO NOT STOP!]
Tera could not believe what she was seeing.
[THE MONSTER IS TOO CLOSE!]
[LEAVE HIM!]
[HOST MUST RUN NOW AND PRIORITISE HER OWN SURVIVAL!]
[HOST HAS A PURPOSE THAT MUST BE FULFILLED!]
[THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME BEASTS AND CUBS HAVE DIED IN THIS WORLD!]
[HOST CANNOT RISK HER LIFE FOR—]
’I cannot do that!’
[HOST!]
Tera’s eyes burned with tears as she lunged back for the fallen cub.
She couldn’t leave him. He was a child. He was terrified and crying, and she was not going to leave a child behind to die.
Especially not this way.
Her hands closed around his small body, and she hauled him against her chest, deciding to carry the other one too.
She had them both pressed against her chest when a sharp ripping pain tore across her back.
[( ˶óᯅò) !!]
[HOST!]
Terror washed over Tera, and the gut-wrenching feeling, along with the sharp pain, surprisingly only pushed her forward. And the monster’s jaw snapped in the air where she had been standing a moment ago.
She had almost died.
Tera kept running even as her body screamed at her. The weight of her belly, the soreness in her legs, the pain pulsing from her back, and the blind panic crashing through her veins.
It was even to the point that she could barely focus on the system flooding her vision with directional arrows and terrain data, guiding her through the forest with frantic precision.
[LEFT! TURN LEFT!]
[AVOID THE SLOPE! THE GROUND IS LOOSE!]
[THERE IS A ROCK FORMATION 5 METERS AHEAD!]
Tera didn’t know where the strength came from, but she did not stop. But that thing was fast, how long could she even outrun it?
[New Stat Unlocked: Speed]
[Speed: 40/100]
[Speed +1]
[Speed +3]
[Agility +4]
Tera blinked away her tears, barely able to even focus on the irritating stats.
The screeching cubs bounced against her chest as she moved faster than she had ever moved in either of her lives while the monster crashed through the trees behind them.