38 The Barrel
Before opening the lid of the barrel, Luke looked at the skinny boy next to him, Diggo, and held out a coin bag with one hundred and fifty silver coins.
Diggo opened it with both hands, and the half-wolf let go of the bag. Tlinc! The coins made a noise as they landed in the boy’s palms.
“Thank you soo much!” The brat said, excitedly.
“Thanks!” The other kids shouted too, except for the short, dark-haired girl, who still had her arms in front of her belly.
Luke ignored her and turned his attention to the barrel in front of him, whose smell of blood was quite faint. He took the wooden lid and opened the barrel, inside there was watery blood and the smell became a little more uncomfortable.
A few red limbs were floating on the blood-soaked water. Without difficulty, Nathalia recognized the limbs like those of an ordinary Kobold from the first floor. Among claws, feet, and hands, the small lizard head was the item that caught her eye the most.
With dragon-like scales with an elongated snout, it was noticeable that the mouth was tied by an already worn rope.
“Stand back.” Ordered Luke to the children. “You too, miss.” The children and Nathalia promptly stepped back a little but were still looking curiously at the barrel.
The half-wolf, without even feeling fear, stuck his hand into the bloody water and picked up the kobold’s head. When he lifted it out of the barrel, the head still pigging a bit, the children moved a little further away, muttering things like:
“Urghh…”
“Ah, gross.”
Luke began to unwind the rope that wrapped around the monster’s snout. Since it was already quite weak, it snapped with minimal force. As soon as the half-wolf opened the kobold’s mouth, huge teeth revealed themselves and, between them, another wet scroll.
Looking into the elf’s eyes, Luke handed her the parchment, then looked at the children and asked:
“Did any of you see who left this barrel here?”
Everyone in the group denied with their heads, however, the same girl from before stepped forward.
“Yesterday, w-when I was walking back to my house, a b-big man passed by me. He was holding a k-keg over his shoulder and also whistling excitedly, with a smile on his face. At the time, I thought he was j-just a delivery man, but then Diggo opened the barrel today and found all this blood.” The girl explained.
Diggo stepped forward as well. “Since we didn’t want to get in trouble, we just closed the barrel and stayed to play soccer as usual.”
“Okay kids, but now this area is dangerous, stay away for a few weeks,” Nathalia said and tossed a gold coin into the air.
A chubbier boy caught up and ran off down the path that led to Cat’s Eyes. The other children, frantic, started running after him as they shouted:
“Give me that, Beto!”
“Hey, she gave the coin to all of us!”
“I’m not giving it away ever, this here will change my life.”
At the same time, Luke looked indignantly at the Elf. ‘Did those kids just earn the same thing I earn a month?’ he thought.
Nathalia noticed his look and opened the scroll, to disguise her embarrassment. However, after so many open scrolls, that one should have remained closed forever. When unrolled, the paper flew out of the Elf’s hand.
“Huh? W-what do you mean?!” She was confused as she felt paper being pulled from her hand by an unknown force.
Suddenly, not only was the paper floating but so was the water in the barrel. As if gravity didn’t exist, the liquid flew at an absurd speed to near the paper.
Even faster than the watery blood, Luke reacted and threw a throwing knife in the direction of the paper to end that ritual before it could be completed. Vushh! The knife cut through the air, however, the liquid entered the front of the paper and caught the knife.
The half-wolf didn’t give up and quickly set his other three knives, meanwhile, Nathalia was still in shock. Witnessing his four throwing knives being defended, Luke took the girl by the lap and jumped back. “Wake up! We don’t have time to get afraid.”
Nathalia blinked hard twice, and her pupils returned from the emotional dilation. The red-eyed elf, who was born a knight within the Dungeon, was not the same when surprised.
The watery blood did not focus the pair, in fact, he took advantage of the fact that there was no one in his way, to finish his transformation. The Kobold’s limbs, which had previously been floating in the water of the barrel and were now in the liquid, began to grow supernaturally and in moments reached a size ten times larger than normal.
<strong>— Simultaneously, in the vicinity of the docks. —</strong>
“Lizz, do you believe we are close?” Jean Pollo questioned, apprehensive. Muddy streets were not quite the category of place he was used to.
“Ah… what an unusual reaction coming from you. Hehe! At the Academy, you were so strict and here you are looking like a fearful teenager.” The woman with the pointed hat replied.
The man stopped, straightened his spine bent out of fear, and looked into Lizz’s rose eyes.
“You’re not the same shy girl you used to be, either.”
“Of course, silly… My breasts have grown!”
The woman had huge breasts and also wore very daring clothes. Despite the cloak that covered her upper body, she was wearing an almost transparent pantyhose, which further provoked the men and women who looked on. Jean Pollo was not left out, so he swallowed her pride and looked at Lizz’s arm.
‘We’ve known each other for a while, she won’t think it’s weird if I take it, right? It’s not as I lik—’
BOOMM! A stone wall exploded the moment he tried to grab the woman’s arm.
With his ears hissing, Jean’s vision was severely blurred from the shock against the wall, which he was propelled into, and also from the dust in the enclosure.
“What was that?” He wondered, with considerable pain in his spine.
A moment later, his question was answered. A few inches ahead, he saw Lizz fall unconscious. There was bleeding on her forehead, and the liquid was already running down into her eye. That vision of blood running down the skin of his former classmate’s face seemed to last for minutes, hours.
However, something interrupted this haunting vision. The blood on Lizz’s head began to float, in an impossible and illogical way. In a flash, the blood flowed to something else that was floating above the debris of the exploding wall.
Looking further up, Jean could see the personification of the horror stories he used to hear from his grandfather. The Spirit of Vengeful Blood was in front of him.
______
Discord for illustrations of the characters:
https://discord.gg/qz2vDAn7Kb