Chương 103: Confirmed Suspicions

The cohort's collective mouths dropped. River gagged. June wrapped his finger around the bartender's face and, with a simple motion, crunched his face out." I FOUND YOU!" June's voice trembled with will as his aura was violently expelled from his body in a golden-red mist. The body fell to the floor as June shook brain matter, bones, and blood off his hands."

STAGE 2 - WATER" His arms violently burst with blood as strings wormed their way out of the exit wounds, and then his fists turned into translucent amorphous shapes of blood. He plunged both fists into the bartender's stomach and tore the cadaver's intestines out. River had fallen out of his chair, while the rest of the cohort were in a mix of standing and still sitting.

The bartender's faceless and gutted corpse slowly creaked as it threw its hands up and shoved its unnaturally pale fingers into June's sides; its pale face slowly began to reform into a pink imitation of the bartender. He pushed through the pain and infused his fist with will before punching a hole in its chest and tearing out the moving cadaver's spine on the way out. With that, the bartender's body slowly turned into blue mist and faded away.

June focused his eyes as blood seeped out of his sockets, and after a moment of looking around wildly. He sighed as his hand reverted back to normal and slammed the table next to him, shattering it. He plopped back on his chair, making it creak back slightly.

"SHIT! I was right!" Eren slowly raised a shaking hand; his face was deathly pale.

"W-Why did you do that!?" June tried to wipe his bloody tears, but the blood on his hands just smeared more across his face.

"That isn't the bartender, shit!" June looked to River. The man was drenched, but a distinct wet spot had formed around his groin area.

"River, go get the Dreamers ASAP; leave the ones with strong auras for later!" River's mouth had stayed agape until June slammed the other side of the table that had kept its form after his first hit, shattering the table completely." GO!" June sighed and jaunted over to the bar counter and grabbed a towel to wipe the blood off him. The possessed bartender had already disappeared into blue mist, and so did the blood and viscera covering his hands, but his own blood lingered afterwards.

While absorbing it was an option, he didn't want to risk ingesting contaminated blood. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. After briskly wiping his hands improperly, he tossed the towel to the side and picked a gourd bottle full of alcohol off the shelves and waterfalled it into his mouth before putting it on the hardwood table with an echoing clack.

He wiped a bit of his drink off his mouth with a hairy forearm and looked to his cohort, still waiting for an answer from their crazy Lord. They looked stunned, confused, and even a little scared. June scratched his nose and coughed.

"Eren…" Eren tried to let out a few words in response, but gibberish came out before he simply nodded. June let out a sigh and took another long swig before placing the gourd back down.

"The Wendigo isn't dead…." Eren looked at June with his face going paler. Ann looked at June incredulously.

"What do you mean? You guys brought its corpse to Brighthaven and burned it in the place of not being able to have death rites for its victims… unless…" Ann's face went pale, too. Silvester looked at the two and then at June.

"What's with the serious faces, guys?" June tilted his gourd, letting infrequent drops dribble down.

"Remember how Eren told you guys, how a unit member got possessed by it after we killed it… and remember how I said not to bring it up to anyone?" Silvesters' faces finally paled.

"Y-You don't mean it escaped, right? Y-you already killed it twice! … right!?" June tossed the gourd and placed a firm hand on his table.

"Three times now, the bartender was possessed, or he just happened to survive his brain being split like a grape, then gutted… Also, other than my ways of identification, if his body were still here, I would show you that his fingers were pale and slightly elongated." Ann shivered and slowly stood up.

"H-how long was he…. How were you sure enough to kill him outright?" June shrugged and tapped his nose.

"I could smell emotions, and people don't smell like that. A unique adaptation, per se." Silvester placed a hand on his dagger.

"Is that why you've been looking so tense all the time? W-wait, is it still near us?" June looked surprised, and his mouth fell agape for a moment.

"Did I really show it? I thought I had my act together…. Well, nothing I can do about that." He cleared his throat.

"It's most likely still around us. Leonard said it would be dumbed down, but instinct might be the reason it's capable of mimicry. Also, consider this: the bartenders always greet me; this one didn't utter a word, and I'm assuming it was the same for you." The cohort fell silent, and June took that as an acknowledgement.

"Unfortunately, Leonard's gone, and no offence, but the more brawny ones like us are the only ones left with our hands cupping Brighthaven's future… We keep the fact about the Wendigo a secret, even from the other Dreamers. The last thing I need is someone having a mental break and going on a killing spree." The three nodded, and June continued.

"From the three past cases, the Wendigo struck stragglers and targeted weaker people specifically, so from that, we can guess it's observing us. Also, from my observations and probably some of the hunters', wildlife in the simulation has dumbed down even further after the start of the week… I think it might be something to do with the simulation's bandwidth, so it might be as dumb as rocks like we thought it would be." June stretched his arms.

"The best course of action, unless you guys have anything better in mind, would be to concentrate our people more and have our construction squad build large interconnected cabins with shared rooms; the closer everyone is to one another, the fewer opportunities the Wendigo will have to pick us off, or even watch us." Silvester sighed and rested his body against the table, looking at the paper lanterns above.

"And what about us? Don't we need a safe word or something if it possesses one of us?" June switched to back stretches over the table.

"Worst case, I'll step in, but my nose has been able to push me in the right directions; the spirits are out looking for the Wendigo as we speak…. I don't know if he could eventually learn to imitate words, too, or not, so maybe bring up an embarrassing story each time and catch one another's reaction." Ann took a sip of her drink before gently setting it down.

"So, we just pretend that the wendigo is truly dead…. The next event starts tomorrow. If we're struggling to deal with a single IMP, what the hell do we do if a Demon-Class Nightmare pops in?" June froze, and a few seconds went by as gears turned in his head before he spoke with a grin.

"I can ask a friend for help!"