Fall 2018 Anime Thread

The first thing he did after learning that people carried large quantities of magic stones was watch them in order to learn.

Early on, he realized that the ones who went along at the back of the group singing songs were a real pain. Those songs were atrocious things that burned his body and often nearly killed him. Therefore, it was necessary to kill the ones in the back first.

Those at the front of the group were very strong and killed heaps of his brethren as he watched with bated breath. Quite often they were outstanding members of the surface dwellers. Still, if they were alone, he could beat them. Therefore, he focused on ways to reduce the size of the groups or prevent them from forming gangs.

He also learned that the stronger ones protected the ones who carried the magic stones. He devised all sorts of weapons to outwit humans and take their crystals. The seeds were one of those weapons.

He laid the groundwork and waited for just the right moment to attack.

Usually the ones who sang songs were females with long ears. If he beat them to death first, the other people became amusingly upset. In that moment, he would hit them, splitting their heads open and throwing the contents around. Trampling on these beings who had caused him so much suffering filled him with a dark excitement and joy.

The females shrieked and cried a lot. For some reason, when he heard them, he felt better. It was as if those cries fulfilled something within him, and so time and again he grabbed their thin, twiglike hands and feet and swung them around and beat them on the ground. He bit them and hit them many times. "Please!" "Stop!" they would cry. He did not understand their words, but the tone of their singing made him feel good. The flesh of the females whose mouths frothed with blood tasted better to him than flesh of other people.

"Ah, I want to kill.
I want to bite them to death over and over.
Over and over and over.
Even if I fall over the precipice of death and am reborn..."

But he had started out weak, and he was careful never to give himself wholly to his instincts. He gave precedence to the intellect that had saved him, and that choice served him well.

He never, ever let humans who tried to escape get away. If they escaped, he was certain they would change, like he had. He knew it intuitively. And he was right. The reason he had descended from his birthplace to the water's edge was partly to find better magic stones and partly to to be sure adventurers did not escape. The thundering of the water drowned out their screams. The water was his ally. He learned to use it. If he threw the bitten corpses into the current, no one would discover what he was doing.

In situations where he determined he could not kill all the humans, he planted seeds in them and retreated. These second selves grew into ivy that weakened his targets and alerted him to their location. It was exceedingly easy to devour the weakened humans. The seeds were his most prized creation.

He still had a lot to learn, so he still felt afraid often. He had felt most frightened of all when he saw the girl with golden hair and golden eyes and her party. Even though they were far away, they terrified him. They would be impossible to defeat. He knew he must not take them on. Before they could draw near, he ran for his life into the depths of the labyrinth. There were other humans like her, too. Beings he knew he should not under any circumstances engage in battle. At the very least, not yet, not when he was still weaker than them. That was something else he had learned.

He also noticed that among his brethren was a certain strange subset. These were heretics who had betrayed him and the other brethren. Many times, a powerful hatred andn anger that seemed to burn his body overtook him, and he nearly gave in to his impulses. But the wisdom that whispered in his ear won out each time. He knew he could not beat them, because they formed gangs. He had to gain the strength to take them down single-handedly. He sought greater power so that he could one day bury his fangs in those heretical brethren--especially that siren who looked so soft. To start with, he would go after females who lived here.

He had learned to hunt at the proper time.

At some point, he had become proud that he was a hunter.

His mace scraped along the ground as he walked down the crystal path.

Illuminated faintly by the light from the white crystals, he stroked his body with his fat, boneless fingers. The cut inflicted by the blade on his torso was already healed.

He thought back to the hunt that had occurred earlier.

Although the opportunity had presented itself by chance as he was chasing the prey that had run off with the magic stones, he hadn't been able to finish them.

In particular, there was that white-haired human who had injured him. He would be a pain to deal with.

The brown female in the rear also concerned him. He shouldn't underestimate the ones who had withstood the ricocheting seeds, either. He knew full well that a group of talented surface dwellers meant serious trouble.

He decided he would have to trap them. He stopped and used his mace to demolish the crystal column he had been looking for, then slid into the gap he had created. Beyond it was a small cave.

Several pieces of leftover food that he had caught and hidden in the cave were rolling around at his feet. He'd use those.

"A-ahhh...!"
"Stop...!"

The long-earned people were shivering. Tears pooled in their eyes.

He knew that many humans were unable to abandon their brethren. No matter how severely injured a person was, if he scratched one of their brethren a bit and made it cry, the other human would fly into a rage and bravely face him down. But at the end, that human would itself be attacked.

Perhaps he should torture the females to death. The idea occurred to him, but he decided against it. He had learned that it was folly to lick his chops while the prey was still there. He must not let down his guard until the last human had stopped breathing.

Slowly, he raised the mace that he held in his right hand.

"Stopppppp..."
"Please, don't..."

He was unmoved by the pleas, and meanings of which he did not understand. Without pausing, he brought down his arm.

"Aaaaaaaaahhhh!"

The next instant, unbearably ugly screams rent the air.

He stared in disbelief.

The trap composed of the bait and the replica of himself seemed to have worked.

He seemed to have snuck up successfully behind the female humans.

But then the boy with the white hair had rushed over with ridiculous speed and gotten in his way.

His favorite crystal weapon had been broken in half and sent flying toward the ceiling.

He was irritated. His carefully laid hunting plan had been destroyed, and his chance to eat magic stones had been stolen from him.

He listened to his anger and decided his first move would be to kill the boy who was skidding onto the ground.

"..."

But then the boy looked up, and he saw his eyes, and his instinct told him something.

This human is dangerous.

The glinting rubellite gaze that shot through him was unflappable, cold, and infused with a single-minded will to fight.

If had been a long time since he looked into a pair of eyes and shivered with that sensation akin to terror.

The light glowing in those red eyes was the flame of outrage. The human was incensed that his fellow humans had been injured and placed in danger.

"--Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

The boy charged forward gripping two knives.

Fast. Fast. Fast.

One after the next, the black and white blades flew at him, trying to gouge into his body.

But--he was still just the slightest bit stronger than the human.

"?!"

He ignored the blades digging into him and swung his fist down.

Instantly the boy dodged, tumbling onto the floor. The gouge where the moss had flown off his body quickly filled back in.

His body was convenient. It regenerated itself. The more magic stones he devoured, the more his cells multiplied.

When the human stood up, he had an astonished expression on his face. Right away the boy charged again with a speed and force that was less like a rabbit than a wild horse. At least, that was how it looked to him, and he had hunted countless humans.

This opponent was not hurried, just fast. But that did not undermine his composure. He could handle an endless number of those sharp insignificant cuts.

"Mr. Bell?!"

The small female looked at the boy's distorted face and screamed. The scent of magic stones was coming from her. After he crushed the boy, he would destroy that female next.

"Yaah!"

The boy, who had been forced to step back before the swinging arms, thrust out his left hand.

He knew all about that trick the humans used. It was called "magic."

He couldn't even count the number of times he and his brethren had nearly been obliterated by it back when he was still weak. It was the human weapon he had to be most wary of. But he also knew that in order to use the magic, they had to sing. They needed time. And no matter how short the song was, his attack would be faster.

Idiot. He sneered.

But at that very moment when he planned to leap toward the boy and crush him--something unexpected happened.

"Firebolt!"

It only took an instant.

An instant for the flaming light to be released.

Frozen in the face of this magic he'd never before experienced, he took a direct hit.

A scream burst from his throat.