Miyamoto and I have left the town of Schei?loch behind us and started our way to a town with a library. Hoping that the reek of shit won’t follow us.

  Sun Tzu said, "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." It may be mad to consider a whole country, continent… Hell, maybe even the world as an enemy, but The Devil can never be too sure.

  Jesus, am I going to actually start calling myself that? I guess only the tides of time will be able to tell. As we walked on, it seemed like we were surrounded only by grass and forest. There were a few dirt roads we had taken, but they were few and far between.

  One must ponder the economic health of this country and wonder whether this whole country was some shithole or maybe this region just pissed off some god. It can be as simple as saying that these lands were the slums. Fill with those that couldn’t fill their role as a citizen.

  We decided to set up camp in a nearby opening in the field and decided to sleep in shifts. I said that I'd take the first shift, and he agreed but said to wake him if anything happens.

  So I sat here looking up at the untouched night sky, gazing at its beauty, while my MP3 was playing Vesti la Giubba, Turandot, and Puccini: Gianni Schicchi: "O mio babbino caro" in the background. The beauty of stars always caught my eyes. In my youth as a Boy Scout (shut up, I know how it sounds), my favorite part of camp was being in the middle of nowhere. Due to the lack of light pollution, stars would brighten the sky not too bright to bother rest but bright enough to make me ponder about the endless abyss of space. About my fucking life and the heartburn the booze brings.

  Lost within my mind, thinking I snap out due to hearing something from the forest right behind us.

  I ready my gun.

  I was ready to wake Miyamoto up, but the sound stops, and a rabbit-like thing runs away.

  Jesus Christ, the whisky is doing a number on my skull. How bloody foolish am I to lose it over some rabbit… I would have kept on thinking it when I heard a blood-curdling scream and hideous roar.

  Better wake Miyamoto the hell up now if that damn roar didn’t.

  “Oi, Miyamoto, it seems hell has opened up right behind us!”

  “Well, good thing we have the King of Hell.”

  The sound of the beast became more and more noticeable, and that fucking yelling grew louder as well. Miyamoto and I ready our weapons for mortal combat. Trees breaking, birds flying, and that damn roar was bloody deafening now. It reminded me to hand out ear protection to both of us. I do rather hate the sound of bells.

  We both know that something was in there, a beast of a thing, but the wait was what was bothering us the most. Just some boys in the trenches of that Great War waiting for the officer to blow his whistle to send us to meet our maker.

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  The ground starts to shake, and the sound of trees breaking apart was heard a few feet from where we stood. Finally, something came out of this forest, and what we saw was not a beast, or a monster, not even an animal; it was a woman charging straight at us… With a giant T-fucking-Rex behind her!

  “WHAT THE FUCK!” While starting to blast at the beast.

  The screaming woman keeps on running right at us.

  With a 40-foot-tall beast on her heels.

  The roar of the T-Rex damn was blowing our damn eardrums clean out, even with earplugs. Miyamoto draws his blade.

  I ready my gun once more.

  Miyamoto takes in a deep breath and sprints past the screaming woman and toward the beast.

  The katana combusts into blue flames as if it were pulled straight out of the pits of hell.

  With a single slash, Miyamoto decapitated the T. Rex-like monster.

  With a great big boom of a Thud.

  The 15,000-pound monster slammed upon the ground like a localized earthquake. The wound was cauterized due to the immense heat Miyamoto’s blade was giving off. Seeing what was inside a T. Rex was rather interesting; nothing different from that of a pig or a man.

  A silence falls between the three of us.

  Miyamoto was standing in a bloodbath, and both on his blade and on his clothes were drenched from the beast's head. The woman seems to be on the brink of having a bloody breakdown. She had an uneven breath and was shaking as if the earthquake had never stopped for her.

  As I got a better look at the woman, I saw she was much younger than I had once thought. I say a teenager in their later years. The last thing I noticed about her, which should have been the first, was that there was a dim light surrounding her and the faint smell of power drawing from her.

  Kind of bothers me, that faint smell of power.

  Glancing at Miyamoto, that he should do something to comfort her.

  His return glance answered my glance that I should do it.

  I don’t know how to comfort people. I'm Irish… well, I’m actually American… to be technical, I’m Japanese… Whatever, I just don't know how to comfort people. My second glance replied.

  Well, with his second glance, he just said he was covered in blood.

  Fine, I’ll fucking do it, I said with my third and final glance.

  “Well, ahhh, Miss... Are you okay, young lady?”

  “I'm—I’m okay.”

  “Well, why were you being chased?”

  Why a T-Rex… Well, I couldn’t get a good view of the beast. It is the middle of the goddamn night. The roar just reminds me of the ending of the first Jurassic Park.

  She gives herself a long breath. “Where to start… I’m Celeste, and a… a mage.“ Tears start to roll down her face. “My party and I went out for our first adventure when we—we were ambushed by a horde of monsters.” I passed a napkin I found in one of my pockets. She blows her nose. “We stood our ground, but people started dropping. M-My friends told me to run. But...but one of the monsters was able to find me by my scent or something and chase me here.” While looking at both of us, her knees buckled. That’s when I ran into you two. Please… will you help me see if they’re still alive, please?”

  “Why should we? I unloaded 8 rounds into that thing, and the bastard didn’t even flinch. The only reason we’re all still kicking is because of Miyamoto's vedoo lood katana.”

  “It was magic, V.”

  “Who cares?”

  “Don’t you want to be a hero?”

  “No.”

  “Why… Why not?”

  “Because we’re the Devils… and our only goal is to get to a city with a damn library.”

  “If you are going to a city. You’ll need coins. Those monsters… Those monsters have hoarded piles of gold.”

  Is Smaug hidden in this bloody cave? What would beasts or monsters have the need for money, something that only men deem as vulnerable through sociality?

  “It’s from all the people that were caught by them. Please, won’t you help me?” It sounds like a damn pain, and fighting in a cave doesn’t sound too good either. “If Miyamoto is okay with it, then we go.”

  “I’m fine with batting these things, and having a few coins on us won’t hurt either.”

  “Let’s save some folks then.”