Chương 61: Something In The Water... Something In The Woods...

"Honey? I think there's something wrong with the water from the river…"

"What do you mean, Darling?" Lost amidst tall trees, a big, comfy cottage stood in a small green plain surrounded by a forest on all sides. Shepherd dogs ran across the grass and flowers, keeping herds of sheep, goats and cows from wandering into the woods. It was where a young couple and their children lived year-round. Their only communication with other people was the occasional forest rangers and merchants who came to buy some of their products. Life was simple.

Today, though, the wife had brought an unusual piece of news. She lifted the buckets in her hand.

"Have a sip, but I swear that it has a weird metallic taste" The husband raised an eyebrow, bringing his hands together to gather some water. The taste test made him frown. It was just as his wife had said, there was an odd taste to the water. But when he had heard 'metallic', he had expected something more along the lines of the taste of blood in the mouth, but this genuinely felt like he had licked a rusty piece of steel.

"What could be causing this? Let's gather water from the other river from now on, alright? It's a bit further away, but we won't have to worry about getting sick…" The husband and wife agreed on this point, but the man, being curious and worried that something might be wrong in the area, decided to go and check out the river he had been drinking water from since he was a child. At a glance, nothing was wrong. It was just like many of the rivers and smaller streams that could be found throughout the forest.

The water was clear and nearly completely see-through, but the bodies of water around were deep. He wondered if someone had dumped old steel, or a bunch of rusty tools, into the river… but even then, could something like this really alter the taste of water so greatly? Especially a river, the flow should quickly cleanse just things. The husband would have to inform a forest ranger about this.

They weren't an official group, but being that they were forest elves for the most part, they could be trusted with taking care of the woods. The husband even knew that they had druids and nature mages, so they should be able to locate the problem quickly. He simply needed to run into one or wait for one to come check up on the farm. It wasn't too urgent, though. There were other rivers that could be drunk from… Night fell quicker than usual.

It seemed like the colder days of the year would soon be coming, sunlight would grow rarer, and just like every year, they would probably be buried in snow. The animals would have to stay indoors for a while and be content with eating hay for several months. The children of the couple were put to bed, and the parents themselves huddled together in their bed… A loud bang woke the husband up, his gaze immediately alert. His wife hadn't heard the sound at all, but that was the norm.

She was an impressively heavy sleeper. The man stood up, got dressed, grabbed his trusty crossbow and a machete. This was far from the first time he was woken up in the middle of the night. He didn't have to worry about bandits thanks to the protection of the forest rangers, but being friends of nature, they wouldn't interfere with wild animals. It was upon him to take care of such problems. He stepped outside with a lantern at his waist, his cold breath visible.

He approached the source of the noise, which was the most common area for it to be coming from. The chicken coop. Foxes were quite cheeky and would often try to break in to claim food for themselves before running off. Frankly, the husband didn't get why they were so persistent. The coop had been built and upgraded to ensure that nothing could get in. Not to mention that many had already bitten the dust trying, be it from a crossbow bolt, or being caught by the dogs.

The shepherd dogs were numerous, and they weren't exactly small. A fox stood no chance against one of them, so the whole pack? It would be a massacre. Still, there were always some wild animals willing to give it a try. He approached with long, quiet steps. The moonlight was shining softly. He focused intently, trying to catch any movement.

"Holy…" The man was taken aback. The grate was made out of soft, but tough steel that made up most of the coop had been punctured, there was a huge hole right through it where the grate was just completely gone. Apart from a bear, there wasn't much in the forest that could have done this. There were no monsters in the forest, only animals and a few beasts. He entered the coop and found no traces of struggle, but a quarter of the chickens were missing.

The rest were standing perfectly still, seemingly so frightened that they were either paralysed with fear or attempting to play dead. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. What was most bizarre was the lack of feathers, blood, or anything else, for that matter. The sound had been heard only a little while ago, and yet, the culprit was already gone and had somehow managed to not leave any trace other than a hole… As well as another piece of damage.

Namely, the grate was what protected the chickens during the day, but during the night, they were inside a little wooden house for themselves. The steel lock that kept that door shut was entirely missing, but it hadn't just been ripped off… No. It was simply gone. There wasn't even a trace of damage on the wood. Nothing.

Even after looking around for several minutes, the husband found no traces of what could have done this, so he simply mended the damage with whatever he had available to last the night and went back to bed full of questions. The next day, it certainly felt more urgent to talk to a forest ranger. The night must have made it too difficult to notice, but it turns out that there were several traces of activity all around the farm.

To be precise, apart from the loss of chickens, many tools had lost their iron heads, leaving only the handles behind. Something was obviously off, and it was looking more and more like the work of at least one person rather than a creature, but that shouldn't be possible. The forest rangers were especially wary of strangers wandering into the woods.

The man and his family were allowed here because the land had belonged to his ancestors long before the forest rangers were even a thing, and some of his ancestors had been part of the forest rangers as well. Only merchants would come in and out, and even then, that was only done through a single, tightly guarded road… Unfortunately, no forest ranger came by, and the man's attempts at finding or calling for one did not bear fruit.

Instead, he spent part of his day fixing the chicken coop, as well as inspecting suspicious scratch marks left on his front door. It looked somewhat had clawed at it, leaving very noticeable marks. He downplayed the problem to his wife for now, but only slept lightly, his ears focused on what was happening outside. Most of the time, it was quiet. Only the distant sounds of animals and the wind passing through leaves would break the silence… Nothing else happened for an entire week.

The man got in touch with a forest ranger, but it didn't yield much result. They did not seem to know much either and only said that they would be checking out the surroundings more frequently on top of looking into what was wrong with the river.

"Papa" Whilst working outside, one of his young daughters approached him, carrying a deer plush that she kept close to her chest in a tight embrace.

"What is it, Sweetheart?"

"Where is the neighbour?" She asked, and being an expert in discerning what his children meant, the father understood that she was asking where the neighbour's house was out of curiosity.

"Sweetheart, we don't have any neighbours, our only neighbours are the animals and the forest" He replied with a smile.

"Where does the songstress live then?"

"The songstress? That's a new word from you…" His daughter tilted her head.

"The lady said that""Hold on, what lady?" Asked the father.

"The lady who comes to sing at my window at night! She says she's a songstress, and her voice is so pretty, it makes me fall asleep every time!"

"... What does this lady look like, Sweetheart?"

"Mmh… I don't know! But her voice is pretty, so she must be too!"

"I see… Why did you want to know where she lives?"

"She said that she had younger sisters I could play with""Right…" The man reminded his daughter that she shouldn't converse with strangers who came up to her window, especially at night, and also made it clear that this 'songstress' lady could not possibly be living anywhere nearby. He strongly suspected that there was a genuine monster out in the woods now.

Whether literally or figuratively was yet to be determined, but anyone who crept up to a little girl's window to sing songs was highly unlikely to be someone with good intentions. That very night, the rest of the chickens disappeared, and the entire coop was reduced to pieces as all of the steel vanished. A smell of rusted steel was left hanging in the area… The man paid close attention to the windows of his children's bedrooms, but saw no signs of the supposed songstress…

Perhaps that person or creature had never been real, but the details provided by his daughter made it difficult to write it off as a dream or as her imagination. Another week passed, and it was a sheep that went missing. A forest ranger confided that wild animals were suspiciously decreasing in numbers around the farm. The only good thing about all of this was that the river water had returned to normal. Apparently, there had been genuine rust in the water.

It had accumulated and given it that odd metallic taste, but the source of this rust was never found. After a cow went missing, the man decided that it was time to catch the culprit red-handed. So he devised a simple plan and hid himself on the top floor of his barn, burying himself beneath some hay, his heart resolute and determined to figure out what was happening. He needed to know what it was that threatened his family and his livelihood. The moonlight was bright, so he didn't need to light his lantern.

He simply focused his gaze, having a nice view of nearly the entirety of his property.

"What the hell is this thing…?" he muttered to himself in confusion as he saw a most bizarre shape crawl out from behind a tree. He had no idea what he was looking at. The way it was moving didn't make sense to him, but it was moving surprisingly quickly. It did not take long for it to reach the place where the goats were kept, seemingly intent on switching targets at every occasion.

"I don't think you will…" The creature was far away, but the man was confident in his aim. He hadn't held back when buying and maintaining his crossbow. That thing, when coupled with a steel bolt, could definitely pierce several layers of gambeson without problem. He aimed and fired without a shred of hesitation, hitting his target right in the side of the head. The bolt bounced off as though it had hit a shield made from steel.

Two small purple eyes turned to look in his direction for a short moment, but the creature merely picked up the bolt and seemed to eat it before making its way toward the goats anyway. There was no doubt about it now. A monster crept amidst his farm and around his home at night.