Chapter 11: Kyū Evolves
Before Freya could even get back up, a small bird alighted gently on her shoulder. From its beak came a voice she knew well, Aria’s.
"I’m on my way at once, mistress. Don’t do anything reckless."
"No!" Freya’s answer snapped out, sharp. "Stay where you are. I’ve got a Mycofox with me and the pen, I’ll be fine. Your mission is essential, so see it through to the end. And keep an eye on the dungeon, just in case."
"Very well. But do be careful, I beg you."
With that, the bird took flight, and silence settled back over the cavity.
Freya found herself alone, facing a choice: this long corridor sinking into darkness, or the way she’d fallen through.
I could turn back. She stared into the shadows ahead. But this place appeared right beneath my lands, hidden with care. If there’s a connection to whatever that unknown party is after, the answer might lie at the end of this corridor.
That left caution. Wisdom would have had her wait for Aria’s return, safe and sound. Except waiting was exactly what she’d been doing since her arrival in this world, over and over, to the point of nausea.
And that weariness weighed heavier, in the balance, than any fear of the unknown.
So she got to her feet, brushed off her suit, and started down the corridor, Kyū at her heels and the Quill Pen floating at her side.
"Let’s go."
Her decision was put to the test within mere minutes, when a first creature sprang up before them.
A goblin. Alone. It seemed as startled as they were at first, but once the moment of hesitation passed, it drew its dagger and hurled itself at them with a shrill cry.
Freya didn’t even have time to form an order for the pen. Kyū had beaten her to it.
The little soldier slipped under the blade with a fluid motion, dodged it by a hair, and in the same surge, sank his claws into the creature’s throat. The goblin collapsed, drowning in its own blue blood within seconds.
That first clash set the tone for all the rest. The goblins invariably came alone, never on their guard, armed with a mere dagger, so Kyū picked them off one after another without Freya having to step in.
You really are a proper little warrior, Kyū. She watched him at work, proud of him the way a mother would be of her son. The dungeon’s grump, the one who balked at the slightest walk, was turning out to be a genuine little war machine.
It was only after a good thirty minutes of this routine, and more than a dozen slit throats, that the corridor finally opened onto a vast chamber.
The sight that awaited her froze her dead on the threshold.
At the back swarmed dozens of baby goblins, tiny, surrounded by what had to be females, judging by their heavy bare breasts that swayed with every movement.
Freya’s eyes dropped instinctively to her own chest, then lifted again, an irritated crease on her brow, before she turned her attention where it belonged.
Because at the center of the chamber stood an altogether different creature. A goblin, yes, but built to the height of a man, muscles bulging, a sword clenched in its fist.
A hobgoblin, like in games? The evolution of a mere goblin? The idea was as unsettling as it was fascinating, and she drew from it a conclusion that troubled her more still. If that’s the case, then the monsters of this world can evolve too.
True to his nature, Kyū stepped forward with a cocky stride, ready to take it on alone.
Freya, on the other hand, was far from sharing his confidence. A single glance at the monster’s build, at that sword it wielded like a true fighter, was enough to measure the gulf: against an opponent like this, the little soldier’s courage wouldn’t be enough.
She’d have to be clever.
That was why, before the hobgoblin had even fully risen, she slid her pen discreetly into the cave’s shadows, guiding it soundlessly toward the females and their young. All those hours spent taming ink magic were about to prove their worth, for her control over it now bordered on perfect.
Sea Urchin Barrage.
The ink answered her thought by bursting all at once, hurling several hundred needles of extreme fineness. Carried by the force of the detonation, they drove into throats, limbs, and skulls, mowing down the entire nest in the space of a heartbeat.
The efficiency was undeniable. The name of the technique, on the other hand, left Freya just a touch mortified.
Thank goodness no one can read my thoughts.
Her little massacre at least had the merit of drawing the hobgoblin’s attention. It spun around, alerted by the carnage, and found its whole clan on the ground, bathing in a pool of blue blood. Shock froze it for a second.
That second, Kyū was watching for. He pounced, claws stretched toward the throat, in a thrust meant to be fatal.
The hobgoblin, alas, was worth more than its kin. Inches from the mark, the warrior’s instinct took over: it pivoted, dodged the assault by a hair, and brought its sword down on the little Mycofox, now too committed to his charge to avoid it.
CLANG!
Against all odds, the blade ricocheted off a wall of ink risen from nowhere. By the time the monster understood, the wall was already liquefying, streaming along the weapon and coiling around its wrists, leaving it helpless.
Kyū had been waiting for just that. With a twist of his hindquarters, he sprang toward the exposed throat, and this time, he struck true.
Bring back Kyū. With a thought, Freya recalled the pen, which swept Kyū back toward her in the same motion.
The hobgoblin, for its part, staggered, hands clutched to its open throat, blood streaming between its fingers. Everything pointed to it collapsing.
It did no such thing. Far from faltering, its gaze hardened, and in one final surge of rage, it lunged at them one last time.
That stubbornness was its undoing.
Freya split the ink with a single thought: one half coiled around Kyū’s paws and drew taut like a spring, while the other shot out, thin and razor-sharp, toward the monster’s legs, too blinded by its fury to see it coming.
The thread of ink sheared them clean through. And at the precise instant the hobgoblin toppled, robbed of its footing, the spring released and launched Kyū like a projectile.
The little soldier tore through the monster’s abdomen from one side to the other, claws first, leaving behind nothing but a gaping hole spilling a flood of blue blood.
Landing on the far side, drenched in blood from snout to paws, Kyū clambered onto the corpse and let out a cry, as if to celebrate his first real victory.
"Kyuuuuuuuuuuuu!"
The howl echoed through the whole cave. And as if in answer, a window opened before Freya.
[ Congratulations! Your Mycofox Soldier "Kyū" has reached the experience threshold required for evolution. ]
No sooner had she acknowledged it in her mind than the window shifted into another.
[ Make your choice. ]
Three options unfolded before her eyes.
[ Mycofox Berserker — Path of Rage. Gains raw strength and ferocity at the cost of defense. A fearsome attacker, but fragile. ]
[ Mycofox Sentinel — Path of the Rampart. Develops a sturdy carapace and heightened endurance. Slow, but nearly unshakable. ]
[ Mycofox Tracker — Path of Shadow. Gains speed and stealth, able to melt into the dark. Ideal for ambush. ]
Freya scanned the three paths, and her strategist’s mind at once set to weighing the pros and cons of each.
Then she stopped. After all, there was a main party concerned here, and he alone would be living in this new body.
She crouched down to the little soldier’s level, still dripping with blue blood.
"All right, Kyū, listen to me. You’ve got a choice." She counted on her fingers. "One: more strength, more rage, but you become more fragile. Two: a big carapace, you take any hit but you’re slow. Three: fast and quiet, perfect for slipping through the shadows."
The Mycofox tilted his head for a second, as if genuinely weighing the matter. Then his cap flushed bright red, and he puffed out his chest.
"Kyu!! Kyu!!" he barked, standing tall on his paws, without a shadow of hesitation.
Freya held back a smile. Of course. The little hothead who’d been charging in headfirst from the start wasn’t about to pick the carapace or the stealth.
"Rage, then. I should’ve seen that coming." She straightened up. "System, evolve Kyū into a Berserker."
[ Do you wish to evolve your Mycofox Soldier "Kyū" into a Berserker? ]
"Yes."
A bright light instantly enveloped the little body, so intense that Freya had to look away for a moment. When she could look at him again, Kyū had changed.
He hadn’t grown an inch, still that same small silhouette that fit in two hands. But everything else had hardened. His fur, once gray-blue, was now streaked with dark strands, bristling like spikes. His fangs jutted out of his mouth now, and two little bony protrusions had pierced through either side of his cap, a deep blood red. His claws, longer, sharper, gleamed with a wicked sheen, and his eyes burned with a ferocious light.
The result was almost comical: the same tiny ball of fur, but now radiating the aura of a little demon ready to bite.
Curious, Freya opened his status with a thought.
[ Kyū — Mycofox Berserker — Rank E ]
[ Skills: Enraged Charge | Bloodthirsty Frenzy ]
Rank E already, and two skills on top of that. She nodded, satisfied.
Then he lifted his eyes to Freya, and furrowed his brow.
... Ah. And he looks even grumpier than before, apparently.
"Kyu," grumbled the new Berserker, with all the ill temper in the world, as if to confirm her thought.
She burst out laughing despite herself and scratched the top of his skull, between the two budding horns.
"Don’t ever change, you."
He let out an annoyed "Kyu!" and turned his head away, but didn’t budge an inch under the caress. Freya found it all the more amusing.
The hours that followed, however, were far less delightful.
The scattered pieces of corpses had to be gathered up from around the chamber, along with the goblins’ meager belongings. Freya had no intention of letting all that potential mana go to waste: she shaped a wide net of ink right on the ground, piled the grisly harvest into it, and sealed it up to drag behind them.
The way back went slowly. They collected the corpses of the goblins felled on the way in, all along the corridor, adding each carcass to the net that scraped over the stone in their wake.
Then at last they reached the cave’s entrance, and set off toward Freya’s dungeon.
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