"The thing that I want you guys to investigates is a nightmare"
Auel immediately stood up "Nope, we're leaving"
"Hey, wait, wait, hear me out first" Sihr quickly stood up and tried to stop him
"There was nothing else to hear"
"Come on, please hear me out"
"What do you mean, you basically want use to fight a creature as powerful as a god"
Sihr forced a laugh, but Auel's expression never changed
"Hey, please hear me out, you said that you don't believe in Gods, right?" Sihr continued "So that's mean you don't believe that the creature that I asked you to investigate is a nightmare, right?"
Auel started to listened to him
"And also, what if the creature that I saw wasn't a nightmare?"
Auel slowly sat back down "So, what makes you think that creature is a nightmare?" he said coldly
"Ok, so let me tell you how I met that creature"
The atmosphere inside the hut suddenly felt heavier
"So, around last week I was fixing the fence around my hut. It was almost dark when I finished"
He leaned back slightly
"But when I was about to head inside, I noticed something weird, like someone was watching me"
"Something… watching?" Erin asked quietly
"Yes"
His fingers tightened around the cup in his hand
"There was someone watching me from the grass field, a woman, she had a pale skin, really pale. And her hair was long enough to cover most of her body"
"At first, I thought she was injured or lost, so I called out to her"
"But she didn't say anything, her just stood there and face stayed flat"
His smile slowly disappeared
"So, I started walking toward her… and the moment I moved, she ran"
"She ran absurdly fast straight towards the forest, so I tried to chase her, but she didn't stop"
"Until she entered the forest and I couldn't see her anymore"
The room became quiet
"At first I thought I was imagining things"
"Like a ghost?" Erin asked
"Yeah… that's what I thought too"
Sihr lowered his voice
"But then… I saw a pair of hands waving at me from the shadow of the forest"
He stared at the floor while speaking
"So, I stepped closer to the forest again"
"But then another pair of hands appeared, waving at me"
"I kept thinking positive, maybe there were multiple people asking for help"
His expression stiffened
"But it kept getting worse, the hands kept popping out from the darkness and waving at me"
Erin unconsciously gripped her own sleeve
"And then suddenly…"
"They all pulled back into the darkness"
"For a moment nothing happened, no sound, no more hands, not even the woman"
"I started to get goosebumps and wanted turned back to get home"
Sihr swallowed slowly
"And suddenly I hear something, a high pitch sound, stuttering, calling my name, a weird voice, I couldn't identify if it was a male or female voice"
"I barely had any strength to look back, who called me, and how come they know my name"
"I barely had the courage to turn around"
"But eventually… I did"
"And I saw her face again"
His eyes slowly lifted toward them
"Right behind me"
"Because it kept getting darker, I couldn't see her body"
"But then that face was moving to the side, what made it worse was, it moved really smooth, it wasn't looked like a movement that a normal human did, it slid sideways"
"Smoothly"
"It looked like the face itself was gliding through the dark"
"I was really terrified, but then I saw something in the darkness¸ a long body, it had the same color as the face, a really pale color"
"Looking at that thing I immediately ran away"
"I didn't even look back"
"Luckily I could get back to the hut safely"
Silence, only the sound of the chimney crackling filled the hut
"So" Auel finally spoke "you mean that there was some creature with a long pale body with a woman's face?"
"I think so"
Sihr immediately smiled again
"You said that you didn't believe in Gods, right? So, I guess that you didn't believe in nightmare too, so from the explanation that I just said what do you think this creature was"
A snake… impossible, there are no such snakes with head looks like human face
But the strangest things are the hand, he said that the hands were waving at him, and it not just a pair, it was multiple of them
While Auel was thinking, Rikka spoke up "Did the creature ever came back?"
"Nope, never" he said with a bright smile
"Wait, what? That's weird"
"So…" Sihr leaned forward excitedly "will you accept my request?"
"Nope, we still can't" Auel kept rejecting
"Come on, please" Sihr clasped his hands together "I really want to know what that creature was. If it's money you want, I can increase the reward"
"Let say your guess was right about that creature being a nightmare, there is no guarantee that we could come back alive"
"Oh, I prepared something for that too."
Sihr immediately searched through the piles of strange objects around the hut
"Ah here it is"
He gave them a weird looking item, a small crystal with a strange inscription
"What is that?" Erin asked while carefully examining it
"That's an instant magic" Auel answered
"Wow, so you know about instant magic" Sihr's eyes brightened
"Instant magic…" Erin continued "so it's the same instant magic that you used?"
"No, that's different, the one I used was green, but this is purple"
"Wait, what's the different?" Rikka asked
"There are levels in instant magic, green, purple and pure white, the green the weakest, while the white is the strongest"
"So, you mean it has a brighter light?"
Auel took the instant magic from Erin and tried to read the inscription
"No, it's different…" Auel said "It's not a flash instant magic. What is it?"
"It's a teleportation magic"
"Teleport?" Rikka asked
"Yes, the moment you activate that instant magic, you immediately teleported here. So, if you guys somehow fight that creature you can use it to run away"
"And make sure to get close so no one left behind"
"And if the creature follows us here?" Auel asked immediately
"Well... I've thought about that too, I also have another instant magic, so when that creature gets here, I can sent use to the city"
He laughed awkwardly
"Well, the that's mean I need to left all this things and research behind, but yeah, I have a plan b"
"So, what do you think?" Sihr asked carefully
Auel hesitated, until
"I want a higher reward" Auel answered
"That's fine with me, how much do you want?"
"Let's talk after we took care of the quest, the harder it is the higher I will ask the prize"
"Hmm… Ok deal"
Sihr extend his hand
And finally, Auel accepted it
"So. when are you guys going to do it?" He asked
"We'll do it now, it's better to do it in daylight"
"Well… ok then"
They all went outside to the grass field
"Where did you saw it last time?" Auel asked
"If I don't forget…" Sihr pointed at the forest "I think around that way"
Together they went straight to the forest
"Good luck and stay safe" Sihr waving at them
Carefully the three explore the forest for any clues
Branches cracked softly beneath their steps.
"Hey Auel, do you think that creature is really a nightmare?" Rikka asked
"I hope we are wrong about it, but to be honest I don't think so, there must be something about that creature… or that weird guy"
"Hmm… I hope so, but if that creature really a nightmare that means we have to fight a god right"
"Yes, but let's keep hoping"
"By the way, when you were talking about why you don't believe in gods, you said that you didn't believe them because they are gone when humans need them right? So I was wondering are you worshiping a God in the past?"
Auel became quite for a while
"Yes, I used to"
"Why did you stop"
"Well… nothing special, it just something happened in the past"
"What kind of gods are you worshiping?"
"The God of the moon"
Rikka realized that God
"Wait isn't that the god the people from Kouzlo worship?"
"Yes, I was born there, so it obvious that I worship him"
"What! You were born there, so why are you here right now, aren't Kouzlo one on the most prestigious Kingdom?"
"I don't like to live in glamorous, so I came to another place and here I am"
"Wow, that weird… wait isn't you said that you became adventurer because of money?"
Auel kept quite
Three of them kept searching for a while but nothing
The forest slowly grew quieter, too quiet
Even the insects had stopped making noise
"Hey that's weird, we found nothing at all" Rikka muttered
"If it's really some giant snake creature" Auel said "there should at least be traces"
They kept walking until they found an open field
Auel felt something strange
Hang on… an open field
Then suddenly, both Auel and Rikka froze danger
"Did you feel that?" Rikka immediately pulled out his sword
Auel nodded "Erin stay close"
Erin tightened her grip on her staff and moved behind them
They paid attention to every corner of the forest
But nothing
The forest remained silent, but the feeling wouldn't disappear
"What is this…" Rikka whispered "Why do I feel like something's watching us?"
Auel suddenly noticed the shadows beneath the tree, they were moving strangely
Not from the wind, something else
"W-what is that?" Erin yelled while pointing upward
Auel and Rikka looked up at the sky and froze
The sky was moving
The sun and the clouds moved, no… the sky was moving
It spun unnaturally fast
The sunlight disappeared
From daylight to night, covered the forest
But it didn't stop
The stars, the moon, everything in the sky was moving
The morning returned
Then night again
It kept going, again and again
Daylight to night, night to daylight
Changing again and again
The sky kept changing at an impossible speed
"W-what the hell is happening" Rikka voice trembled
It didn't stop
The moon itself twisted through different phases, three a quarter moon, half, crescent
It kept going
Until nighttime… A full moon hung above them, shining brightly
The forest became really dark with only moon as source of light
Silent, bright, cold
"I-it stops?" Erin whispered
And then the feeling returned, Auel and Rikka felt something again, stronger
The three of them slowly looked toward the same spot within the trees
Something pale was staring at them from the darkness, a woman's face, pale
"T-that…" Rikka trembled
It didn't stop, the face suddenly moved, it twisting its face clock wise
Not like bones moving, not like flesh twisting
The three of them couldn't said a word, they were frozen, silent
Then the face moved to the side, the same way Sihr told, really smooth
The three instinctively followed its movement with their eyes
Until slowly the head moved forward showing its body, emerging
Neck, shoulder, chest
A pale body, unnaturally thin, naked
But the weird thing didn't stop there
The way it showed its body was really weird, the body was coming from the shadow straight forward horizontally and the face is looking at them while its hands hanging down
It slowly moving forward toward them, and something even crazier emerged from the shadow
The creature slowly showed its waist
But then the next thing showed up was not legs, another body, another torso
Shoulder attached beneath the waist
The three of them became terrified
The creature kept coming out of the shadow but it was the same
Shoulder until waist and then another shoulder attached to the waist, again and again
The creature crawled horizontally from the forest using its hand as footing, non-stop
Its countless human torsos connected endlessly together like a grotesque chain of bodies
Its arms dragged against the ground while its face remained pointed directly at them
Three, seven, ten body, never stop, the thing kept crawling forward from the shadows without stopping
An endless mass of pale human bodies fused together into something impossible, something that should not exist
"W-what…" Rikka's hands trembled around his sword "what is that abomination"
Auel stared silently at the creature
"Yeah, I understand" Auel replied "That's everybody nightmare"