My Life As A Reborn Monster - Chapter 85

“Hello… My Daughter.” Is all I could get out before I started choking up and tears flowed freely.

“Daddy….. I’m sorry….” She muttered in a low voice while looking down. After the happiness of the moment passed all that was left was her stuck in her own head and thinking that somehow all this was her fault.

I wiped my tears before grabbing her and hugging her again.

“Honey, this was all my fault. I should have made sure you were well protected before I used that spell. I should have done alot of things before I do something. I know now that without everyone here to stop me and monitor what I’m doing, I might just cause the world to collapse because of my experiments. I’m so sorry I did this to you Hannah, I only wanted you to live, I didn’t expect for the healing spell to use my blood as a catalyst to change your species entirely.”

Hannah looked up at me with sad eyes still. “You mean your not mad at me?” She asked, I couldn’t help but feel a huge stab in the heart at seeing her like that. How could my baby girl think anything she did today be her fault. She fought hard and if it wasn’t for my dumbass spell work, she would still be human and I wouldn’t have had a brush with death.

‘You had more than a brush bud, you were full on laying down on his bed waiting.’

‘Gross.’

“Hannah, honey, nothing you did was your fault. You fought hard, you did everything perfect. The way you were today made me proud. I couldn’t have done any better if I were in your position. But now we have to focus on what’s left over and see if we can find Mcillians lover’s spirit…. OH and I guess see if that staff survived. I have a feeling it could come in handy if you could tame it.”

“The staff is all in pieces, and my wife’s spirit is gone along with every other spirit here. It looks like they were bound to the Shaman through that staff and now that it’s destroyed, they were released to pass on.”

Mcillian spoke from my left and as I turned I was shocked at what I saw. His entire right side was burned away and only his left side was barely working. His scales were seared off completely up to his head and his body looked like it was flambéed.

“HOLY FUCK, Mcillian how are you still alive. Shit man I’m so sorry, I was lost in the fight and I didn’t think.”

“It’s fine. Alligatormen are known for surviving worse. It does hurt make no mistake but thanks to your healing team over there, I was able to keep my head above water so to speak.”

I sighed as yet again I saw the results of my fuck up and lack of self control. I looked over to Shorunt and Sylvania and they nodded back to me in understanding. I finally put my hand out for help and I was surprised that another scaly hand had grabbed it.

“Glad to have you back father.” It was Michael, but he had changed. He now was bipedal and had purple scales. His face was now a dragon snout but with large mandibles that covered his whole face to look almost like a helmet. When it was pulled back you could see his dragon features but the bad thing was that his mandibles pulled out and looked super creepy, kinda like what happened when a certain creature did that only comes out every 23 years… to eat…..

“Michael….. Ya look good son, Is this change only for you or did your siblings go through a similar change?”

He pulled me up and then turned and raised his hand towards a 100 different colored dragonoid ant….. Dragonantoids…. Yea it’s gonna require some thinking on what to call them now. But none the less each one now had a different styled helmet/mandible that covered their face except for their deep piercing red eyes. All of them were kneeled and looking up at me as if bowing to a king.

Harper walked up besides me and I saw that she had more of an ant like feature rather than dragon.

“I evolved into more of a queen ant than taking after your dragon genes. I hope your not upset father.” She said while glancing down in shame. I could tell that for her this was upsetting and I could feel the resentment start to grow in her heart.

“Harper, For one, call me dad, and for two, this is not a bad thing. You are one of my brightest and strongest children, I don’t know what you can gain from this but all I want is for you to be happy with your own body. I don’t mind that you took more after your mother than me, but I do know that whatever you decide I will 100% have your back. I think you, me and my other children all need to have a hunting party and we can discuss what everyone has gained. I suspect that more than a few of the others have gained higher intelligence and even some unique abilities of their own.”

She seemed to like what I told her and smiled before backing away. Grayson was the next one to step up and this guy… Wooo. This guy went from a 4 legged hot head to a 2 legged brick shit house. I mean this guy was atleast as big as Mcillian. He had grey scales….. I know don’t come at me. and had a long tail that whipped back and forth but what caught my eye was that every so often his tail would swipe just a bit faster than normal and a burst of heat and flame would ignite. His helmet mandible was in the shape of a vikings helmet. It didn’t cover his whole face but instead covered his eyes and then extended upwards to mimic 2 large and very threatening looking horns. His scales on his body also seemed to have merged and formed into what looked like heavy plate armor. All in all this guy looked built and ready to fuck shit up.

“Hey dad….. How do I look?” He asked with a bit of nervousness in his voice. Hell I don’t know why, he is huge and looks meaner than a junkyard dog.

“Dude….. You are fucking huge. You look ready to take on a whole army!” I said with awe and amazement at how much this guy changed.

He beamed widely and I could see rows and rows of razor sharp teeth that sent a chill down my spine.

“Like I said to Harper, you guys and me are gonna take a hunting trip and we can discuss how and what you all have gained. But now that I got this shock out of my system we have to get back to reality and figure out what we can do. First, Shorunt, what can we do for Mcillian? Can we regrow his limbs and body? Or maybe should we figure out an alternative like replacement limbs? Then Kitsoma…” I turned and looked at her and before another word came out I was overwhelmed with emotions as I completely forgot to make sure she was ok.

“Dammit….. Kitsoma, I’m sorry I worried you so much….. I should have made sure that you were second in line to be reassured but my mind totally was scattered. We can talk in private later on but for now can you please do me a favor and have your team make sure to gather up whatever is left behind and follow me into the hut? I want to loot the place for anything shiny….” I said with a stupid grin on my face in a half assed attempt to lighten the mood.

She walked up to me and smiled sweetly. “You are such an idiot. Second thing you do before anything else is worry about some staff then you go off and get amazed by your kids and the last thing you figure out is ‘oh I should check on my girlfriend.’ Yes we will make sure to inventory everything but I swear tonight you and me are having a serious sit down.”

Then she walked away with a bit of a serious step. Sondar walked up to me while looking at Kitsoma walk away. “Man, you fucked up, and after reviving from the dead no less, you have to be some kind of self sabotaging master. Anywho…. I went ahead and had the guard unit set up a perimeter now and we will go ahead and set up a camp here for the night. I’m assuming since there are no more spirits here we can rest easy somewhat.”

I only nodded as my mind wondered about what I can do to make this up to her. I hoped that maybe something inside the hut was a good enough ‘forgive me’ gift but I wasn’t banking on it.

A couple hours later after we all settled down and I went around hugging the ones who needed it and were still shook up about me dying and coming back to life. I finally got around to investigating the hut along with Sondar and Greyson as my backup. I had Michael and Harper along with Grace who looked more of a slimmer version of Harper but with small draconic wings attached to her back, I had them help Kitsoma inventory what we had and take teams around the site to investigate anything else that we didn’t have time to look into.

Immediately upon entering the hut I felt a bit of nausea rush over me and the others as a almost imperceptible wave came up and physically knocked us off our feet. I helped the other two up and looked around with confusion as all around us was a huge room filled with many different treasures all on elaborate looking podiums.

“Weren’t we just outside of a small ass hut? Where the hell are we dad?” Greyson asked as he took a couple steps forward. I put a hand on his arm to stop him and then pointed down at the floor. I clearly saw a raised stone just an inch away from his foot.

“Watch your step. Wherever we are now, is filled with traps. I just barely caught sight of this one but I’m sure this place is filled with stuff to kill and maim would-be plunderers. I’m guessing that the allure of the treasures is supposed to draw the attention away from the glaringly obvious traps.”

“Dammit your right…. and I almost fell for it. Is there any way to disable them? If we could than maybe we could gather the mechanisms to use for ourselves.” Greyson said which totally surprised me because who would have thought a muscle hot head like him would think of something like that.

“Great idea Greyson, Vexsus why don’t you take a look around and see if there’s anyway you can disarm them. I can disarm the traps but my magic could only destroy them and then it would be useless, not to mention I don’t know what effect my magic would have on the integrity of this place.”

“Yea, I hear ya. Just give me a few and I’ll do a quick scan of the place.”

I close my eyes and send out waves of mana to my surroundings and within seconds I get pings from over 50 different traps. Some were ballista like traps that were meant to skewer and impale, some were flame traps that spewed from the ceiling and others were a combination of ice or poison. I was impressed with the sheer number of traps but also the variety. Some were setup to be discovered and while the person went around said trap, they would then hit another hidden trap that would activate and cause the intruder to back up and hit the previous trap aswell. The level of planning was incredible.

“Whoever made this place was an outstanding planner. I mean the trap layout and variety are stunning. I mean if I wasn’t worried about the traps killing me, I would bow down to this guys level of mastery.”

“Fantastic, start bowing then.” A deep rumbling voice said as it’s very bass shook the walls and our ears.

“Oh shit, I did it again.” A lighter voice said as a 5 ft. Demihuman catgirl walked out from a stone façade that was at the end of the large room.

“I always fuck this up. I try and scare intruders but end up breaking all my traps in the process. What’s the point of the damn traps if they aren’t useful anyways….. Dammit that fat bastard is gonna be pissed at me again.”

There was pin drop silence as the three of us stare at this chick just completely ignore us and start repairing the traps.

“…. Ummm, Excuse me? Who are you?” I ask while taking a step closer but that was a big mistake as a Kunai lodged itself straight into a pillar that was directly to my left.

“Just because I showed myself doesn’t mean you can do whatever you please. Your still plunders and I’m under contract to protect that fat bastards treasures.. Either way, your dying today.”