Chương 71: Center of Attention

I don't think that I'll ever get used to being the center of attention. Whenever people look at me, my instinct is to assume that something is wrong. Growing up on the streets, you quickly learn that most attention is dangerous. Kids out here can get abused, kidnapped, or worse without provocation. Until I am very sure that someone doesn't mean me harm, I don't want them to even know I'm here.

Years and years of that habit aren't going to go away, no matter how much I'm intellectually aware that I'm not in danger and that it is perfectly reasonable, at least currently, for everyone in the street to be staring at me with hanging jaws. At least I don't need to ask anyone to get out of the way. I am given a wide, wide berth. I do my best to ignore all of the eyes on my back, finally reaching the hunter's guild and stepping inside with a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the hunter's guild as well, more than usual, and the eyes of everyone inside just snap to me instead when I make my way to the front desk. I am exhausted. Dragging this giant corpse all the way back here was almost as much work as killing the damn thing in the first place.

"You have anyone here that knows how to skin one of these?" I ask. The receptionist, whose name I haven't learned to this day, gives me an utterly dumbfounded look instead of responding. I scowl, not at all in the mood to have to deal with this sort of thing.

"It's an ironshell pentapede," I grumble.

"These are valuable, right? I killed it, but I don't think any of my weapons can skin it. What should I do?"

"U-uh, well, we might have someone…? I'll ask around…?"

"I also have a dozen or so pentapede eggs. They're alive. I don't know if you can domesticate these or whatever, but do you think someone would buy them?"

"You brought live monster eggs into the city!?"

"Yes!" I snap.

"I just said that. Don't freak out about it, they're not going to hatch yet. Can I sell them or not?" The receptionist just pulls a string underneath her desk that I'm fairly sure connects to a bell in the branch leader's office. This is quickly confirmed when I feel him getting up and moving down the stairs towards us. Everyone present in the lobby continues to stare at me until I turn and glower in their directions. I must look like a nightmare.

I couldn't fit all of the eggs in my backpack, so I ended up making a makeshift satchel out of little disciple skin. It took me quite a few tries to put it together successfully, so most of the front of my body looks like a storm rolled through a butcher's shop. My boss finally shows up, the fat older man's eyes widening as he takes in my gruesome visage and even more gruesome cargo.

"Vita? Goodness, you… have you been in the forest?"

"No," I growl, "I just found this thing wandering around in the middle of the main thoroughfare and figured I was hungry for fresh meat." He blinks, mind taking a while to catch up with the joke.

"I-I mean, your team has been here the entire time. How did you survive on your own?" I just glower at the man for a few moments before eventually deciding that I am too damn hungry to continue this inane conversation for a second longer. I drop the section of the corpse I haven't been dragging along the ground, and set down the eggs as well.

"Look, I just brought these back because I thought they might be useful. Do what you want with them, I'm going to get some food. I haven't eaten anything for two days." Other than souls, anyway, but they don't have to know that. I leave my confused guildmates behind, wasting no time before grabbing myself a bowl and filling it with as much stew as I'm able. Sitting down at the closest table, I start to devour it.

Soon I'm onto my second bowl, trying to slow down my consumption by sheer force of will so that I don't make myself sick. Now that I'm back in a familiar location, I can tell how much more range I've gotten on my soul sense just from this one outing. Another one hundred yards, at least. Why have I not been doing this the entire time? I could be getting so much stronger so much faster, but I've been… what, afraid? Of the Templars that will kill me the moment they have the opportunity anyway?

I don't have anything to lose anymore. I should probably just head right back out when I'm done here. Whispers flow around the mess hall as I continue to fill my belly, sounds that I would normally tune out without a thought. Today, however, it's a little more difficult to ignore since everyone seems to be talking about me.

"Seriously? That little girl?"

"The body is still in the lobby if you don't believe me."

"She must be insane. Even senior hunters don't go out alone!"

"Yeah, there's no way. I helped Remus train her just a few months ago. She could barely fight."

"Look man, I believe you, but if I felt something like her out on a job I would turn the entire team around. I don't know what else to tell you." I keep to myself, trying to hide my face behind more stew. It doesn't feel like I'm that much stronger than when I first got here. I suppose I've been comparing myself more against Penelope than the average person, though, and she could probably kill everyone in Skyhope if she put her back into it.

Even still, a lot of these people feel like they have bigger souls than I do. Am I missing something? I push my senses into and around the souls of the few random hunters, comparing them to my own. There's definitely something different. I'm not sure how to describe it. Density? Structure? Whatever it is, I'm starting to suspect that directly comparing myself to humans might be somewhat of a misleading measurement. I'm not growing because I don't grow anymore.

My tentacles are getting longer, but my core isn't getting bigger the way a human's soul would. It's just… changing. Evolving. The realization brings a smile to my face. It's exciting, in a way. Validating. Me, as I am… it's not enough. The little street rat who got a lucky talent isn't a person that can fix the messes I made. But if I can become something more, then maybe I have a chance. Soon, my physical body can't take anymore food. Which… now that I think about it, is just a terrible design feature.

I can eat as many souls as I want, but I can't have as much stew as I want? The human body sucks. I exit the mess hall after cleaning my bowl with my tongue and putting my dishes away. Penelope had been called from the infirmary into the main room where I left my corpse and the eggs, where she is now arguing with the branch leader.

"No, don't destroy them. Hell, I'll buy them. Johann would be ecstatic to have these."

"If you want them, you can just have them, Penelope," I say.

"Vita!" Something so utterly alien happens at that moment that I doubt I will ever be able to convince myself that it is real. Penelope, of all people, suddenly bolts towards me and gives me a hug.

"Watcher's eyes, Vita, thank goodness you're alive! You just left without a word and your mother and I couldn't find you anywhere and— holy shit you are absolutely disgusting, why did I touch you." The moment ends just as suddenly as Penelope pushes me away and starts trying desperately to wipe the monster guts off of her dress. I'm left stunned, and it isn't until Penelope finishes casting a spell to clean herself that the world seems possible again.

"Hi?" I manage to say.

"Don't look at me like that. We were all worried about you. Did you… did you really kill this?" I shrug.

"It had to protect its nest so it couldn't move very well. But yes. I did."

"By yourself?" I raise an eyebrow.

"No, I assembled a small army. Didn't you see the levy?" I keep my words thick with sarcasm so everyone else will misinterpret them, but by the pause in the song of Penelope's soul, I know she understands what I really mean.

"Mm-hmm. And where is your army now?" she answers playfully, not outwardly betraying a hint of anything other than a continuation of the joke. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Disbanded," I reassure her. What, does she think I'm just going to leave an undead army outside the gates? I ate the lot of them.

"Sorry I made you worry, I guess. I just needed to burn off some steam." I admit, I do feel a lot better with a full belly and well over a hundred souls newly digested. However, while I can almost feel the raw grouchiness fading away in the aura of my food coma, my thoughts of relaxation are quickly dashed. Angelien's soul rubs up against mine, pressed tightly against me just like Penta's. I don't have the luxury of calm. I don't have time.

It's starting to get a bit tight inside my body, and with all the human souls I've been picking up whenever I come across one, I'm worried I'll run out of storage space. What am I going to do when I can't physically fit any more? Do I start turning them into Revenants? Or do I just start eating them, like the Mistwatcher would be doing anyway? That's... a problem for future Vita. Present Vita has more than enough problems all on her own.

The branch leader hurries over to me again, and thankfully it feels like he's calmed down quite a bit from the last time I saw him.

"Ah, Vita! So, we can certainly help you with managing quality materials like this, but I feel the need to remind you that the guild is currently understaffed and incredibly busy dealing with matters of security for the country. We've lost a lot of good hunters to the creatures that Hiverock dropped on us, so I would like to emphasize the importance of taking a structured, planned mission if you feel the need to venture out into the forest again. I am… certainly impressed by your performance, however.

And surprised. I would've assumed your team working together would have struggled with an adult ironscale." I frown at him, declining to answer the obvious question and instead asking my own.

"Do you have a specific job you need me for right now?"

"Er, no, we are waiting for another team to get back before we—""Okay, are there any smaller jobs I can do, or something? If you have work, I'll work. But if you don't, I'm going back out there." He, Penelope, and the smattering of onlookers don't seem to have a response to that. I feel the rest of my team moving closer, perhaps alerted by someone that I'm here or maybe just noticing the general commotion I seem to be causing.

They enter the room, each apparently relieved to see me but somewhat intimidated by the heavy atmosphere. It's the branch leader who breaks the silence again. The portly middle-aged man is clearly having a difficult time coming up with something to say, taking a high level of caution and care with his words like he thinks they could somehow injure me.

"Vita... I know you're having a difficult time right now. I'm aware of some of the events from the other day, but… I think at least for a little while, it will be better if you get rest."

"Waste of time," I dismiss.

"Well… I need hunters available. Moving in smaller groups has just led to casualties. We are withdrawing and doubling up teams to deal with these Hiverock threats from now on, and I need your team on standby for the moment your partners return from their mission. This is not a good time for haste. We have learned that the hard way."

"Every moment you waste is a moment those black-toothed monsters are getting stronger," I argue, "but whatever. You're the boss. I'll be sure to check back more often. Will that be enough?"

"Vita, quit being a fucking moron," Norah says, finally speaking up. I glance her way.

"Honey, you're grieving," she continues.

"You're not thinking straight. This…" She motions at the pentapede corpse.

"... It's not you being efficient. It's you butting your head into a wall so you don't have to think about pain. It's a miracle you survived out there and you know it." I smirk, which doesn't seem to be the reaction Norah was expecting. It's not a miracle. It's just what I can do when I don't have to worry about people selling me out to the church.

"Fuck, Vita," Orville grumbles, "if you could do this kind of shit the whole time and you've just been holding back, I'll be pissed."

"I've been holding back," I answer bluntly, "because you all hold me back." Orville flinches.

"Hey," Norah growls, "we are your team. We are your friends. Don't give us a load of shit and push us away." Penelope clears her throat.

"I… I don't think she means it that way. I think she's saying she's actually forced to limit her talent so she doesn't accidentally hit us with it. Isn't that right, Vita?" I sigh. Right. Gotta keep the cover. At this point I almost feel like it would be worse for Penelope than for me if the truth got out. Maybe not. I'm just struggling to care. I'm tired of hiding this. I should be out fighting, not wasting my energy here.

"Yeah," I lie.

"Sorry guys, it's nothing personal. It's just way easier to kill stuff when I'm by myself because I don't have to worry about collateral. If I let loose, all of you would die." Shots of fear erupt in my senses all around me. It feels like just yesterday I wouldn't have had a chance in hell to pick up emotions from strangers. Now I'm not even trying and I still manage to do it. The lie does the trick, at least, and it's not even entirely a lie anyway.

The rise in fear is accompanied by a drop in confusion, presumably from people putting together the incorrect picture of how I slew a powerful monster by myself. Talents. So horribly, incredibly unfair. Only Bently feels truly unfazed by what's going on. Penelope knows how I actually killed the monster, or at least a lot more of the truth than anyone else. I look forward to seeing how she reacts to my new kind of soul shard. Yet Bently believes the lie and it doesn't feel even a hint of fear at the revelation.

In fact, he approaches me, towering over my head with the nearly two feet he has on my height.

"Um, I know you don't normally like it…" Bently begins, "but can I give you a hug?" I blink. Well, at least he's asking this time.

"Sure," I allow, against my better judgment. He doesn't pick me up like I expected, leaning down to wrap his arms around me and rest his chin on my shoulder. Bently has always been a happy guy, and in a lot of ways I tend to ignore him because of that. His optimism is often annoying, and I find myself struggling to respect anyone as stupid as he is.

I consider Bently a friend, and have ever since the first day when he showed me the mess hall, but he's the sort of friend that I spend more time being frustrated with than actually appreciating the company of. I don't know if that's a common or normal sort of friend to have, but I certainly have had plenty of people like that in my life. People I call friends, but ignore. Bently might not be the smartest, but he certainly never ignores anyone. I really shouldn't look down on him.

Sometimes, he understands things a lot better than I do.

"Angelien would never want you to do this," he says. My body goes rigid. My first instinct is to yell, to accuse him of barely knowing the girl for a couple hours, but really I know I can't say I spent much more time with her either. He continues to speak, driving the stake further.

"She loved you. When you love someone, you don't want them to be hurt. You don't want them to die. You don't want them to blame themselves for things that aren't their fault. Angelien is your sister, so she loves you. Please don't go back out alone."

"I didn't get hurt. I'm fine."

"But it's still dangerous. You don't have Penelope to heal you. You don't have Norah to protect you. You don't have Orville to back you up. All of us care about you too. Please don't go back out alone. Please don't blame yourself for what happened." I swallow.

"I could have stopped it." It's no longer about the forest and we both know it. But I could have stopped it. That's simply a fact. I messed up. I was too slow, too foolish. Nothing Bently can say will change that. I was there when she died. I could have stopped it. But Bently doesn't disagree with me.

"You are not who she would blame," is all he says. He doesn't add anything after that, and neither do I. Everything still hurts. No amount of words will change that. I want to go out and get things done. I can't let myself stop moving again. I'm so scared that if I let myself rest I'll just devolve back into the lazy, passive nobody that never puts any work into anything, and this will all happen again. Maybe some less deadly work wouldn't be remiss, though. I do lose everyone if I bite it.

"…Maybe there's some work I can do in the city?" I ask. It's a long shot. Hunters are fundamentally people that operate outside the walls. But we're also more or less fancy mercenaries, and sometimes people will come with requests for problems within the city. The branch leader clears his throat.

"Well, we have a few, actually. Some things that are nearby that you could do? If you're absolutely sure that you aren't tired?" I haven't slept in days, but no, I'm not tired. I recently gorged myself on well over a hundred souls, many of which were quite powerful. My body is sore and slow, but my soul only wants to keep going.

"What are they?" I ask. Only then does Bently release me from his hug, the branch leader handing me a folder which I immediately pass to Penelope.

"Read this for me," I demand. She glowers at me.

"Don't you know how to read?"

"Yeah," I admit, "but I'm really slow. You're faster." Grinding her teeth a little, she complies. The jobs are horrendously boring, most of which boil down to pest control. I may as well be spending my time hunting rats. I start to tune out a little, until one of the things Penelope says catches my ear.

"Say that one again," I order. She sighs dramatically, but complies.

"Strange noises coming from sewage exflow channel four hundred and sixty-three," Penelope recites, enunciating dutifully.

"Suspected to be squatters or monsters, intelligent enough to avoid detection. Scout requested."

"I'll take that one," I confirm, turning to leave immediately.

"Wait," Penelope calls. I turn back towards her just to watch her finish casting a spell, pulling the majority of the blood and guts off of my face and armor.

"There, now you won't look like a tiny serial killer," she says.

"Drop by our place soon, would you? I've collected quite a few tasks for you in the interim." I nod. Good. The more progress we make, the better. That actually gives me an idea. I walk over to where I left the eggs on the floor, pointing to a bunch of them.

"Since you want them anyway, keep these six for us and bring them." Penelope raises an eyebrow at me.

"Sorry, which six?" I glance down with the eyes in my head, realizing that I've been pointing with one arm and five tentacles. I point out the other five with my finger, mumble an apology, and then head on out. Moving at a brisk walk for about a block, I break into a full sprint the moment I'm out of sight from the hunter's guild. The city has a lot of sewage, and therefore a lot of sewage exflow channels.

I would have no hope of recognizing the majority of them by number, but I know a couple since they happen to be near where I live. For example, number four hundred and sixty-three would be the channel closest to the shack. It's probably unrelated, but if it's not… Well, let's just say I'm in deep shit.