“Move, people!” Leone shouted, jumping out of the way. “You can name him later!”
The giant, four-armed beast smashed one of its thorny arms into the ground in front of it, barely missing the adventurers. Leone and Iman leapt out of the way on either side of the path, while Azim shoved their carriage several meters back, moving it out of the way of impact. Riva’s horses tripped for a moment but quickly regained their balance, while the fabric seller took a second longer, stumbling inside the cart.
Iman pulled her mandolin from her back, readying herself, while Azim joined up with her and Leone to deal with the “slug”. She and Leone couldn’t help but notice how the thorny-covered creature’s punch had made the air smell like freshly cut grass. The robot turned to the n?r elf, asking, “You said you help travelers who pass through this path. How is it that you do that?”
Before the young woman could answer, the underslug tensed its whole body and screamed, shooting thousands of tiny, needle-like thorns from all over its green skin in every direction. Under the evening moonlight, the thorny needles glistened like rain as they flung everywhere. It would have been a beautiful sight had the imitation raindrops not been so dangerous. These were the thoughts that Iman had as she stared at the incoming thorns. Standing still, seemingly unbothered, Iman was finally brought back to reality when she saw the metal-covered stranger standing in front of her, facing her, as he took all the glistening thorns himself.
How had he moved so fast? She had not even noticed him leave his spot. Then again… she had admittedly not been paying close attention. She had been mesmerized by the shower of needles that shone under the moonlight. Looking down from the entrancing sight, she stared at the metal man who stared back at her; his arms raised, his stance unwavering. Iman figured he must have had some really tough armor, because not only did he not seem injured, but never even flinched. The man was not even the slightest bit concerned that he might have gotten pricked… or worse. Was that just how much confidence he had in his armor?
“Again… how is it that you help?” Azim repeated, unintentionally snapping Iman back to her senses about the situation at hand.
“Oh, uh…” she stuttered.
“Don’t worry about her, buddy, we got this!” shouted Leone, who was covered in the underslug’s thorns. “At least now, that ugly thing doesn’t have its protection anymore. It’s all the more squishy and ready for a beating!”
As if waiting for one of the travelers to say something about it, Azim, lowering his guard, and Leone looked up at the bright green beast to see every inch of its skin grow back thousands more thorns, covering its body like glitter. Only seconds after firing them all from its body, the underslug had already grown back to its original state. “Aw, dang it,” grumbled Leone.
Azim made a note of the fact that despite having several dozen needles sticking into him, Leone did not seem too concerned. In fact, the young man did not seem to even notice. The robot thought about his own composition, recognizing that his body was made of impressive, durable metal that could of course withstand flying thorns pricking him. His companion, however, was human. As far as the robot knew, humans did not have tough, thorn-proof skin. Did they? Maybe he was misremembering. The robot took a moment to scan his back brain, not finding any information on the average human having skin tougher than needles. As the android had assumed. So how was Leone so unbothered?
The young man charged forward brazenly, brushing off the thorns sticking out of his arms as he ran. “Strength Switch!” He chanted.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s gonna’ work,” Iman muttered softly, holding her mandolin tight.
Azim turned to the young woman before looking back at Leone, curious why she had said what she had. “What is it that you expect to work?”
“This,” she replied sassily, holding up her instrument to the robot. “Duh…”
Azim and Iman, as well as Riva, who was still in the carriage, watched as Leone approached the giant creature. The underslug, in response, shot all four of its arms in rapid succession down at the young man like a Gatling gun. Each crashing arm looked like a falling tree coming down to squish the young wizard. Leone, however, did not back down. He stood ready as each thorny fist came screaming toward him, ready to punch them back. When the first one got too close, he threw out a right hook that created a shockwave against the underslug’s hand. Both fighters reeled their hands back, the recently underground monster because of the overwhelming impact, and the young wizard because of all the thorns pricking his knuckles.
“OW! Aw, damn, ow!” Leone screamed. “These things hurt!”
Azim watched as his companion reacted to the pain in his hand. So now he had felt the thorns? He hadn’t before, but for some reason now, they were noticeable to him. What had changed? The android was rather intrigued. However, intrigue quickly changed into concern when the rest of the underslug’s punches connected, smashing a distracted Leone into the ground with little effort. “Dang it…” he groaned weakly.
“Oh my, is he gonna’ be alright?” Iman asked Azim, worried.
“He will be,” the robot replied calmly. “We have milk in our carriage.”
The comment left the young n?r elf a bit confused, but she did not let it get to her too much. He did not seem too concerned with his companion, so they must have already had it taken care of. Moving on from the young man, Iman asked Azim if he wanted to see how she could help. The robot said, flatly, that he did, and waited patiently for the young woman to demonstrate what she did out here every day.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The underslug screamed wildly, its four arms flailing in the arm erratically as it stomped around. It looked to want to rampage around the area, but also seemed nervous to leave the patch of dirt that lay between the two paths and where they met. It would awkwardly lean forward and then take a step back, begin to take a step again, but then stay put. Still, it screamed at the travelers with its warbled screech and flung thorns in various directions. Azim watched all of this very carefully, assessing everything he could from the situation in front of him. Meanwhile, Iman simply closed her eyes and began to pluck at her mandolin.
“Well, it’s a long, long way to home…
And I just wish I could roam
But if I can’t turn back,
And the roads still crack,
Then I guess it’s too soon to unpack
Yeah If I can’t turn back,
And the roads still crack,
Then I guess it’s soon…
To unpack…”
As the young woman plucked the strings of her instrument, Azim noticed the rampaging creature slow its movements and lower its arms. Something about her playing was just as mesmerizing to the monster as the moonlit thorns were to her. It was curious to watch. The thorny green beast’s sporadic movements nearly came to a complete halt, the creature meekly swaying back and forth after only about 10 to 20 seconds of Iman playing. Then, the oddest thing happened. It started crawling back into the ground it had come out of. Meter by meter, the underslug just walked back into the hole, carefully lowering itself with its four arms. It kept going until only the top bit of its head was peeking from above the hole, the sign for the fork in the road still sticking out.
“And now we just bury it back up again,” Iman explained cheerfully.
“I request clarification on one matter,” Azim replied, ignoring what the n?r elf had just said.
“Uh… okay, shoot,” she replied back.
“If all you do is coerce the underslug back to its place of residence and fill its hole back up, will it not simply unearth itself again, leaving you to repeat this process?”
“Well… yeah, I mean that’s kinda’ why I’m here, guy. I gotta’ stay here and keep the big guy satiated, or else he’s just gonna’ roam about. That’s why I’m here helping people pass. ‘Cuz he’s tough. He likes a good song, though.”
“So you have to stay here for when it emerges again? How often does the underslug erupt from its burial grounds?”
“Yeah, uh… couple a’ times a day, I think. I don’t really keep track. Aw, gee, was I supposed to?”
“No, that is not something expected of you nor is it what I am asking of you. I am simply curious at the fact that you spend your life keeping this monster in the ground. I do not think I have met someone before who finds this much joy in an activity such as this.”
“Well, you know, sometimes travelers and whatnot will give me some gold pieces or something as a ‘thank you’ for my help. Sometimes they might even feed me if they’ve got anything on hand. But you know, it’s, well you know, I… I… I wouldn’t say I love doing this, it's kinda' just... my job…”
“Iman, are you not happy?”
Azim, like always with his words, had not intended anything suggestive or implicit. He had not been reaching at something, hinting at something, or leading Iman to an answer he could already see was there. That is what anyone else might have done, but that was not something Azim was capable of doing. The robot could not be suggestive with his words, nor could he lead anyone to something they already knew but just were not realizing. These things may have happened coincidentally, unintentionally, but Azim never intended anything more than the meaning of the question he was asking.
Iman, however, was one of these unintentional instances. At the robot’s question, she began to freeze up, questioning more than she realized she had been troubled with for a while. How long she had been there, how many times she had played her mandolin and sung that song for the underslug, everything she might have missed by going literally anywhere else… all of these thoughts flooded her mind in an instant. Azim noticed a tear trickle down from her eye.
“No, I… I don’t think I am,” she muttered. “I… I’m not happy, guy. I’ve been here so long, helping others take care of this monster. They coulda’ handled it. There adventurers, they’re supposed to be strong, ain’t they? And if not, they shouldn’t be adventuring in the first place, right? Simple travelers, I get… but I’ve helped adventurers on their way to kill a dragon. How the hell do you expect to take something like that on?!”
“Iman…”
“No, no, you’re right, guy, I ain’t happy, I ain’t been happy for a while now. I wanna’ do things, I wanna’ see things! I didn’t write that song for some four-armed freak, I wrote that for me! And I ain’t been getting to live it!”
“It is admirable that you are becoming aware of what you want, Iman. I appreciate those who have desires and goals they seek to accomplish. If you wish to leave this trail, we should leave.”
“Why do I feel like there’s something else?”
“Well,” Azim stated blankly with a raised finger, not speaking in a tone that reflected the message he had to get across, “the underslug is emerging from the ground once more. We may need to deal with it before we go anywhere.”
“What?!” Iman cried, turning around to witness the sight the android had described.
Sure enough, the green, four-armed giant was crawling out of the ground just as it had the first time, the only difference being that it did not take the creature as long, as there was no dirt to claw through. Leone was slowly creeping back to the carriage when he heard the underslug climbing back up behind him. Alarmed, he held his ground, not wanting to appear a coward. Iman mentioned to Azim that the creature had never woken up this close to the previous settling before, and apologized because she figured it had to have been from her yelling.
The metal man assured the young woman that she did not have to apologize before turning his attention to the cart. With a raised finger, this time pointed at Leone, the android loudly commanded, “Roman! Retrieve!”
Instantly, an array of dark green vines shot out from the carriage over Riva’s head. The various green ropes found their way to Leone, who was still facing the underslug with a fierce expression. Not paying attention to the incoming vines, the barely standing young man found himself entangled in leafy green, unable to pull away. “What? Wait, no, I can—“
Without letting Leone finish, the vines wound back, lifting the young man off the ground and pulling him back to the cart. He flew backward through the air, watching the large, green creature get farther and farther away. When he landed in between Riva and Roman, he looked over at the mosstail with a bitter look, grumbling, “Come on… I had it taken care of.”
