System:Of The Ugly - Chapter 63

“Pen! Pen!” called a Magus.

Behind thick leaves of green we stopped, Pen scanned around for more tracks, it was a big and dense jungle where we were lead but he still manages to take in hints of where the animals tracks had gone.​​

Me and my many giggles on my playful experiments with Souta were urged to keep it silent since there was no telling of when the Hellspawns will come.

“Pen! Pen!” a Magus called again.

“What?” gruffed the knight as he turned his Faceless helm.

In his eyes he saw two Magus’s, I have made Souta turn into me, we were identical down to every breath.

“Which is Phillipi, Pen?” we both said in unison.

“This is no times for jovial games, the vile spawns of the black depths finds no rest!” he scolded us for the many-eth times, even with tender whispers were our talk, we felt his annoyance.

“Souta turn back now! He’s such a bore!”

With yet another light she turned to her small cute self presenting herself with an energy of a showmen, just as I had taught her, “Ta-Da!!” arms wide she whispered with wide a brightened smile.

She really does bring joy to an elder brother’s eyes.

Minutes after we had move on, we halted in the sights of a vast grassy plains where a family of wolves and bulls were out in the open, basking in the soft light of the sun.

“Wow! We’ve finally found them!” said I, I was impressed that a nine year old could be this adapted to the treacherous forest, clapping my hands slow and tenderly.

“But how are we going to get them to come along with us?”

“This Dear Phillipi is how you mold Little Souta!” he quipped, looking at Souta he gave her a command, “Turn thyself to a gargantuan wolf with saber fangs and claws. This is much like the other times, lead them and we shall follow!”

“Shouta promished, only Phillipi will tell Shouta what to do!” standing blank and short.

She was just too pure to my eyes, however what glared with utter annoyance at yours truly was a faceless knight, even as his face was hidden I could feel the disdain coming from his eyes.

‘I bet he’s thinking, ‘Really?!’ right now!’ I presumed, tongue bit in my humour with a thought which was not far off, straying my eyes creeping slow from the sight of his eye-less helm.

Things went as planned and Souta did her job, morphing into a colossal Alpha wolf with the word Alpha being an emphasis, the animals in their instinct followed the Alpha, we were now on on our way back to Gaia.

On all fours she near stood to a hulking feet of six, strong enough to carry both me and Pen, behind us in a march were the pack of wolves and bulls totaling to more than a thirty and more to which I failed since boredom struck me dead from further keeping count.

Instead I wondered of the limitations of Souta’s perk.

‘Aeyai is there no limits to her perk?’

<Based on the limited knowledge every perk has limits>

‘Enough with the ‘l.k’ I mean, can’t she like turn into a whole mountain?’

<As Master already scanned, Souta uses her mana to transform. The bigger the mass the more she spends mana>

‘So she can transform into a mountain!?’

<Affirmative yet Tis base on thy Master’s paltry wisdom!>

‘You just did a Pen? Hahah! Whatever! I’m too at bliss to be mad at the likes of you right now, I’ll ring you up when we get back so go rest or something!’

<Tis be thine honour!>

‘Yeah Fuck you!’

The past days we spent traversing the vast lands, herding and saving lives battling and running from hellspawns, my eyes saw many stranger things on the outside world, vine like hellspawns with only two sharp teeth; ‘A planted buck-toothed snake’ I named them, as much as we were bizarre with our perks, these hellspawns were more, “Grotesquely repugnant!” I exclaimed to the many of them.

As though these atrocious crumbling beings are made to spite nature and it’s beauty, each head, each faces and body derived from nature’s design yet they morphed it into the most vile and ugliest from a nightmare can imagine.

One such thing we saw when we were hiding in a shade of a ginormous blue leaves of a pear-shaped banana on one of our quest; As though a giant’s single foot, a size of a young hill which were chopped and removed from its calf, awoke a vengeful consciousness with not any head or other putrid protrusions, its huge toes crept and dragged the rest leaving a marred crater in its wake.

“That’s a literal foot!”

‘Aeyai you recording?’

<Affirmative!>

‘It’s far away for a scan right?’

<Affirmative!>

“Pen have you seen that thing before?”

“Nay! This be the first I have seen the devil’s foot!”

“Yea! Devil seems about right!”

We watched on as it crept slow and further and further away, there were a flock of wings which followed the Foot, only wings were the creatures with no beak or talons but just a pile of flying rocks.

Our awe aside we breathed that we don’t have to fight such a colossal abomination and the Wings which flew around it.

My nightmarish imaginations of the hellspawns were more than quenched instead and furthermore they were overwhelmed by what I couldn’t have dreamt of even in my deepest horrors.

The Serpent, the Mother Hellspawn and now the Foot; they were the largest I have ever seen bare with my own two eyes and what thrilled a heart was what more putrid beings awaited me, for that I was curious to see.

Our quest resumed as Pen led us to the eastern side of the land, “We will search until we reach the sea!” he made an order.

Slaying minor tier fours and sometimes the occasional tier sixs and fives and herding more animals along the way, what started with just a minor distance away from Gaia, where in a single day we could venture out and return for the night, now it would take days and more to go back and forth.

The journey was never tedious as I found more ways to cheer the both of them up and hopefully invoke lust for mundane joys in their eyes, I experimented with Souta and her perk, transforming her to many machines and doodads from inside the towns.

First on the list was a small car, which I drew a rough picture in the ground, but as she transforms she couldn’t move however this I had expected, ‘So she must now how it works! Engines and all!’ I nodded to my thought.

Her ability was wild, with not an ounce of a limit, the only requirements being her mana and her knowledge on what she transforms into.

‘What if she transforms into Burke?! But I’m guessing the mana required would be immense!’ I smiled in the thought, ‘I’m gonna ensure you deal your own justice!’

Days, nights and all the dusks and twilights in between we spent traversing the vast sea of the outlands, more and more animals we have herded and more and more obnoxious plants clouded my eyes with awe.

Battles and skirmishes with minor hordes of tier fours, “Let them come any!” he would roar endlessly, swinging his Greatswords and War-Hammers, chopping and mincing all in his wake.

It was hard to not be filled with these aching desires to enjoy more of these fights, even if I was a hardheaded battle-crazed maniac myself, the heart was more filled with dignity in slaying these beasts, it maybe the aura of Sir.Lothar which Pen took.

“We are safe from the clutches of the fouler servants of Lucifer. There be more black barren depths out there like where you were Phillipi! Animals strayed from those lands so we need not face them.”

Pen claimed there were more cursed lands like the barren place where I had fallen from out the cave and a morbid plain which he called, “The Maw of hell!” lies far yonder near the tiding seas.

I somehow made little connections however I could; the barren lands, the higher tiers of hellspawns which hailed and lived in the place and now this Maw of hell, only my darkest nightmares could tell me a hint of what demons lurked in that place.

My level had gone up to Seventeen from our near endless skirmishes day in amd out, accumulating many stat points along the way and as I said this was a quest for me too.

We spent weeks now scurrying every place to the eastern side of the lands, until finally we hear winds creaking the side of cliffs, waves splashing, we were now near a beach where we found the salty sea of foaming whites and tiding blues but not then we knew that death swam with the tides, our noses which sniffed the ocean air would soon be reek by a revanous and voracious beast.