NOVEL WEB Ch.65 – Turning Tides
POV: Tamara
A few days passed and the two were still inside that cave lost in the mountains, in a place that seemed to be safe for them, and in fact the problem was not safety but rather hunger: Tamara was a monster of a certain level now and to continue developing she needed to continuously consume food, which she wasn't doing at that moment. Rosalia had worked hard to get all the food she could in the forest but it was quite obvious that berries and a few roots certainly couldn't satisfy Tamara.
For this reason, Tamara had decided to take matters into her own hands and leave the cave to go and recover something substantial, like the fresh meat of a recently killed monster. She sighed with relief after leaving the human alone, at least by doing so she had solved the problem caused by the fact that she was starting to find her tasty... and not in the aesthetic sense of the word.
Of course, Rosalia certainly couldn't be said to not be a beautiful girl, but Tamara was a monster and in all honesty she wasn't even in a position to waste time fantasizing about unlikely romantic relationships. She had stopped having those thoughts ever since she woke up in Tala's world in the form of a lizard monster, partly due to her new nature, partly because she was too busy trying to stay alive.
‘Maybe when I can get a real body?’ She thought, forcing herself to remove the IF from the question and replace it with a WHEN.
She narrowed her eyes and shook her head, the most urgent thing now was to eat. Surprisingly, the most laborious part of the operation was not the fighting and killing the prey, but the time spent looking for it: at a certain point she climbed up and began to glide between the branches of the trees to give herself an advantage that two hours later repaid her by allowing her to kill a monster that was more or less the size of a boar but looked like some sort of crossbreed between a bear and a reindeer.
The procedure of devouring the carcass was so spontaneous that Tamara almost didn't even realize that she had to put in some effort at least tear and swallow it, her head was much more busy trying to keep in check that feeling of excitement caused by the flavor of the raw flesh and the blood that dripped into her jaws. As the carcass was consumed, the idea of killing and eating Rosalia became less insistent in her mind, to the point that Tamara was certain she could keep it at bay even though she wasn't yet completely satisfied.
“Of course you're such a butcher,” said a voice that seemed to come from above her head. The voice had a masculine (though young) quality to it, and when Tamara raised her head, she saw that the source was a Guardian Spirit. “You're all dirty, worse than a real monster!”
Tamara jumped with the last morsel of monster still in her mouth and stepped back warily, “are you the Guardian Spirit of this place? What do you want?"
The Guardian Spirit made a sound like a snapping of fingers, “You guessed it! You can't imagine how long it took me to get you to come to this point, all the Guardian Spirits here are old friends of mine and I'm sure that none of them want to spy for the big bosses above our heads!” The spirit replied, “and I am here on behalf of Lyndvrath, it seems she has unfinished business with you.”
From the way the Guardian Spirit was posing and the fact that he wasn't asking any basic questions, Tamara concluded that he must have somehow been informed of who and what she was and at least that Lyndvrath probably had something to do with it, “Lyndvrath knows about me?? I have no unfinished business with her!” Tamara protested, “so you can tell her that whatever she has in mind for me this time, she'll have to resign herself like she did the first time.”
“She told me it was possible you would respond that way, so she told me to tell you that she's the only ally you have left,” he said floating closer to her, “don't you want to save your friends? There is someone similar to me who is saying your name while her essence slowly dissolves in the air and in the river that generated her..."
"Velen!" Tamara's tone suddenly changed from one of distrust to one of pure apprehension, “what did she do to Velen??” She didn't even realize the question she had been asked about the friends in need of rescuing, as if hearing about the Guardian Spirit who had saved her by reincarnating her on Tala had overridden her priorities.
“She didn't do anything, not that I know if what she told me is the truth or not,” the spirit replied, “as far as I know, she was tortured by another god to the point that her essence was broken and now it's… well, dying.” the orb of greenish light lowered over the carcass of the slain monster, as if he were sitting on it, "Gornowayl however was banished and placed in the Gray Zone as he was accused of having contributed to the birth of Nightmare Tyrant, your little friends are in no position to help you, and the only person still at your side is a girl who's more afraid of holding a sword than being hurt by it.”
The situation was even worse than Tamara had thought, if anything, it seemed that Luchael and Helen were still alive, even if unable to help her. Tamara had a genuine dislike for Lyndvrath seeing as the ordeal that was her current existence was caused by her actions, where if she hadn't taken her soul from Earth she would probably by now be reincarnated as a human and into a world devoid of monsters, or at least, monsters in the literal sense of the term.
However…
“Tell me what to do,” she murmured softly, as if she didn't want to hear herself give up to the idea of seeing that deity again, “can she help Velen?”
“And your friends?”
Tamara felt ashamed at how quickly she was putting them second on her priority list, so she tried to convince herself that this was simply because Velen was dying while they weren't, “in the hospital, emergencies always take priority.”
“In the hospital?” The spirit asked in a puzzled tone.
“Forget it,” Tamara sighed, “go ahead, talk.”
“Lyndvrath wants you to present yourself at the nearest of her temples to speak with her, there, she will tell you of her plans and what help she can offer to your dying friend,” said the Guardian Spirit, “from here I believe the nearest temple is in Seltipont, it's south-east of here from what I know.”
“I don't know how to get there,” Tamara pointed out.
"Why? You think I do?” He replied annoyed, “ask your friend in the cave, Seltipont is inside Heliolite, she is from Heliolite, so she might know how to get there.”
“…Okay,” Tamara bowed her head, “then if there is nothing else, I would go back to get my guide.”
“Yes, bye bye,” Tamara had the impression that if the spirit had had hands, it would have waved them like a child… that Guardian Spirit was behaving like a bartender whose tips had been stolen.
. . .
Tamara quickly went back, taking advantage of her great speed and the pseudo-wings she developed to give herself further momentum, by now she was becoming good at using those membranes and she had the impression that by increasing of a level or maybe two [Flying Membrane] she would have managed to get to the point of obtaining the ability to actually fly. Rosalia was sitting just outside the cave busy eating some berries, it was evident that she too was feeling hungry even if she was trying not to show it, and Tamara was too hungry and in a hurry to think about saving anything from the prey she killed and bring it back to Rosalia, assuming that she had been capable of cutting, preparing and cooking a monster.
The beautiful black haired girl looked up from the few berries she held in one hand and looked at Tamara turning pale as she saw her covered in blood, “N-Nightmare Tyrant! Are you ok??"
Tamara hadn't even realized that perhaps she would have done better to wash herself before returning, there was no time to do that anyway, just as there was no time to give a complete report to Rosalia; she nodded in the affirmative and after activating [Humanoid Form (Minor)] she moved the earth in search of a soft enough spot where she could write, she armed herself with a twig and then made her intentions clear to the human... hoping that she knew how to read and interpret the Trade Alphabet.
[Do you know Seltipont?]
Rosalia looked at the writings with a frown, “yes, I know it, it is a village in the northern borders of Heliolite, why do you ask?”
[I have to go there]
"Why?"
Tamara rolled her eyes, as if she had time to answer stupid questions.
[Do you want me to stop your sister or not?]
Rosalia bit her lower lip and dropped her head between her shoulders without further objections.
There were at least two reasons why going to Seltipont would help hers and Rosalie's cause: if Tamara could save Velen and free her, they would get the help of a quasi-divine being free from the constraints that normally limited it... her heart wanted to save Velen for the affection and gratitude she felt for her, her head wanted to save her for the practicality of having a powerful ally who would help her not only in stopping the real Nightmare Tyrant, but also in rescuing Helen and Luchael, wherever they were.
But wasn't she being a bit too harsh towards Rosalia? Tamara wondered what she herself would have felt in a parallel world where the evil monster of a prophecy was her brother. She sighed heavily.
[I'm sorry if I seem harsh, but someone very dear to me needs my help. She will help us with your sister once she is with us. Can you help me?]
Rosalia's eyes shone again, she looked like she was trying not to cry, "y-yes, I can."
Tamara cleared the ground and threw the stick away before approaching Rosalia and giving her an awkward hug caused by the fact that the difference in size was what there would be between an adult and a child and that her physiognomy was not yet entirely humanoid, for example: her legs were stubby and the torso was quite longer than a human one.
“Thank you…” Rosalia whispered to her, closing her eyes, “now that I think about it, what should I call you? I don't think I can call you Nightmare Tyrant in public, also because in fact you aren't really one..."
Tamara cuddled up to her for a few seconds before stepping back, putting one knee on the ground and using the claw of her right index finger to write on the ground... Tamara had to accept a reality that had now become undeniable: Tamara no longer existed, that whether she liked it or not, the young and carefree girl from Earth was no more, the violence of Tala's world had pushed her to do things she otherwise would never have even imagined. Tamara died and something else took her place without her even noticing, someting new, something different, something like...
[Aradra]
