Episode 7. A Bigger Prey (2)
“Hey, didn’t you hear me? I told you to bring the dried meat from the kitchen.”
“B-Brother Monk is guarding the door…….”
“You should’ve climbed through a window or begged on your hands and knees to get it, you stupid bastard.”
Thud, thud.
The sound of beating continued.
Isaac knew that even if he stopped this violence now, they would only find another victim. The lack of supplies and the closed-off environment were fueling the children’s violent tendencies.
In truth, it was a situation that could not be fundamentally resolved.
“You wretched bastard, you wanna die? You want to die? Huh?”
Thud, crack! Hans’s assault was growing increasingly brutal. It was clear he was going too far. Isaac sensed something slightly desperate in Hans’s attitude. The boy was anxious about something.
“I’ll freaking kill you…….”
The moment Hans tried to kick Yorhan, who had finally crouched down, Isaac revealed himself. He didn’t block their path; he simply stepped out from around the corner. But immediately, Hans’s gang’s gazes snapped toward him.
“……What!”
Hans shouted, flustered and hesitating. Isaac stared at him quietly, expressionless. Hans seemed like he wanted to yell something in anger, but he couldn’t do anything.
The rabble that followed Hans around panicked, asking what was wrong, but eventually fell in behind him. Seeing the boy’s attitude, Isaac had a thought.
‘Is it because of my Charm stat?’
The word “Charm” carried connotations of seduction, but in reality it encompassed various meanings: seduction, trust, respect, goodwill, presence, and more.
However, Isaac ultimately viewed the Charm stat as the ability to “persuade” others.
A person with high Charm could seduce others more easily, make threats more frightening, and tell lies that were readily believed. Especially in cases like young children, where instinct overpowered reason, the Charm stat seemed to exert a particularly strong influence.
‘But why are they scared when I haven’t said anything yet?’
The children, especially Hans, were clearly terrified.
Isaac had never once threatened or frightened them. Though he had looked at them with that intention.
However, the Nephilim’s uniquely high Charm stat gave Isaac an overwhelming presence while simultaneously stimulating the children’s sense of guilt and fear.
Thanks to that, Hans had been unable to withstand the pressure and fled.
‘Anyway, he’s lucky. Or maybe he has good instincts.’
Isaac fiddled with the hoe he had hidden below his hand. He had no desire to fight a child, but if that huge lump of a body rushed at him, he had no intention of taking it lying down.
“A-Isaac.”
Yorhan hurriedly approached. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to be badly hurt.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“H-He’d ask me to bring potatoes sometimes, but recently he’s been demanding I steal more and more. The monks have started guarding the place more strictly too…….”
Yorhan spoke incoherently. Isaac listened carefully and tilted his head. The amount of food Yorhan had stolen was clearly more than Hans and his gang could eat.
‘It’s not like they’re feeding tentacles either, so where are they using all of it?’
***
Finding the answer to that question wasn’t difficult.
That evening, Hans and his group began to move. Seeing the four of them slipping out quietly late at night, Isaac also rose to his feet.
They walked barefoot along the monastery walls to avoid making noise. They opened a back door that seemed to have been picked in advance and went out into the still-dark forest.
Isaac quietly approached the back door.
“……So, once we reach the village…….”
“……But it’s too dangerous…… We should tell the monk…….”
He only heard fragments, but it was exactly as he had expected.
‘As I thought, they’re trying to run away.’
Most of the food the children had told Yorhan to steal were things with long shelf lives. There should have been plenty of other things to prepare, but considering those idiots’ stupid heads, it was obvious.
Escape.
‘Honestly, it’s not like I haven’t thought about it either.’
No, he had already decided to get out of this monastery. But that would be when his bones had grown sturdy enough and he was confident he wouldn’t be at a disadvantage as an adult anywhere he went—not now.
Or if his tentacles were discovered.
“If you don’t want to come, don’t, bastard! We have to escape before the monks find out!”
Hans seemed to have forgotten that he had snuck out secretly, browbeating the frightened children and dominating the discussion. But seeing as he was trying to drag them along even while saying that, he was apparently still scared of running away alone.
‘At least he’s not stupid about that one thing…… though he’s stupid about everything else.’
The chances of survival were higher with a group than alone, so it was better to go together.
But this was a world where even adults fled to the monastery because they couldn’t endure society’s tyranny. If they ran away without any skills, they would only starve to death or become beggars.
It was none of Isaac’s business. But still, he couldn’t just let four children voluntarily starve to death. He clicked his tongue briefly and walked out the door.
“Stop this nonsense and go back inside to sleep.”
The moment Isaac spoke, the children froze in shock. Hans stood with a frozen expression, then belatedly bared his teeth and glared.
“You little…….”
“What are you going to do by running away now? At least wait until you’re a bit older and ask the monks to recommend you to a workshop. Or study harder. You can at least learn to read and write if you stay at the monastery.”
Hans quickly looked around. He was checking whether Isaac had brought any monks or Gebel. Though he confirmed they weren’t there, Hans couldn’t hide his tension.
Watching Hans—who was a whole head taller than him—nervous like that, Isaac wondered why. He took a step forward as if testing the waters. Instantly, Hans flinched and stepped back.
‘Will you look at that? A big guy like him cowering from a smaller kid?’
This was something that couldn’t be explained by a high Charm stat alone. It was more strange than funny.
He had expected the children, being greater in number and older, to try to overpower him.
Seeing how frightened they were, he even thought about browbeating them into going back inside.
‘Calm down, they’re just kids. It’s an adult’s duty to talk sense into them.’
Isaac let out a sigh and spoke.
“Hans, where do you think you’ll go even if you run away?”
“To the village, of course…….”
“The villagers respect the monks. Since the monastery is the only orphanage around here that feeds and cares for children without letting them starve, they’ll recognize you at a glance. Then what do you think the adults will do to you, Hans?”
Most of the children here had been caught after running away exactly like that. It was probably why Gebel didn’t come running and why the monks’ guard was so lax.
If they were unlucky enough to run into monsters or criminals, they would die.
“And what have you even prepared for running away? A few potatoes and some dried sausages? I get that you want to eat your fill, but winter is coming soon. If you don’t want to freeze to death, shouldn’t you have stolen some boots and furs too? Since scriptures are worth money, why didn’t you steal a few of those as well?”
Hans’s face turned red, unable to say anything. He had known his preparations were inadequate.
“Just wait until you’re seventeen. The monastery gives you options once you turn seventeen.”
“I’m sixteen!”
“You’re not seventeen. Then you can go outside, or become a monk. If you become a monk, you’ll be respected and won’t go hungry.”
This was a world where even adults struggled to survive on handouts. Let alone an orphan.
“If you really did run away with all the kids, Hans, there’d be fewer mouths to feed. You weren’t much help to the monastery anyway. So why am I even stopping you? If you stupid mouths ran away, maybe there’d be an extra potato for my mouth.”
Damn, he’d gotten heated and mixed in a bit of provocation. But Hans seemed to understand the implication; his face flushed red and purple as he glared at Isaac.
Meanwhile, the expressions of the other children were gradually turning ashen.
“You little bastard!”
Hans roared and charged. In a fight where he had a full head’s advantage in height, the gap was overwhelming. But his movements were so slow they drew a sigh. Compared to a rat scurrying quickly, Hans’s movements—watched in advance—felt leisurely.
Of course, whether Isaac’s body could keep up after seeing that was another matter entirely.
Isaac failed to dodge in time despite seeing Hans charge, and his collar was grabbed. If only Isaac had eaten better and grown a bit more, things might have been different, but he had yet to show any visible growth.
But Isaac had brought something just in case. He hadn’t intended to use it now.
“What do you know!”
Yet even after subduing Isaac, Hans somehow looked even more frightened. He had the expression of someone who had committed an act he couldn’t handle.
“If you hadn’t shown up out of nowhere…….”
“Please grow up, you brat.”
His collar grabbed, Isaac—his nerves on edge—growled in a whisper.
In that moment, every child around except Isaac felt something gruesome and viscous.
At the same time, Hans let out a groan as if his breath were completely cut off and released the collar he was holding. He scrambled backward as if he were about to fall over at any moment and finally sat down. Seeing that, Isaac reflexively thought he looked like a rat.
[Nameless Chaos is watching you.]
At the message that rang out at that moment, Isaac came to his senses with a start. He felt his tentacle wriggling as if trying to come out of his hand before hiding back inside. It hadn’t been exposed, but realizing what he had been about to do, Isaac slapped his own cheek with a sharp crack.
‘Have I lost my mind?’
Without realizing it, he had been thinking of Hans as prey.
The very “bigger prey” that Nameless Chaos had been seeking.
Isaac realized a deathly silence was spreading among the children.
‘They didn’t see it, did they?’
No. The tentacle hadn’t even popped out yet. Only a viscous, unpleasant sensation had spread, as if his palm had been licked by a tongue.
Nevertheless, all the children looked terrified. Hans was even gasping for breath, having wet his pants. He looked shocked by an unbearable killing intent that wouldn’t have made it strange for him to die on the spot.
Only then did Isaac realize why Hans had felt fear toward him. The presence of Nameless Chaos had been flowing out through his high Charm stat. It was only natural that Hans had felt terror rather than charm or respect.
Isaac felt sorry that such an aura had unconsciously leaked out, but he took advantage of the children’s stunned calm to persuade them again.
“I’m stopping you because I don’t want you guys to run into a pedophile, a slave merchant, or a wild beast for nothing while running away.”
“…….”
“It’s not a common occurrence, but that doesn’t mean it never happens. And wild beasts aren’t even the worst of it—you could trip on a rock while running and die.”
The children remained steeped in silence. Rather than understanding, it seemed they were too frightened to hear anything. The fear effect from the threat seemed to have been amplified too strongly due to his Charm.
Isaac sighed and approached Hans. Hans scrambled to flee but stopped when his back hit a tree. Isaac held out his hand to him.
“I’m not going to be scary, so let’s do better from now on, okay? Don’t disappoint me.”
Hans eventually nodded with difficulty and clasped his hand. Whether he accepted the reconciliation or simply had no choice because he was too terrified was impossible to know.
‘I had no intention of getting friendly with them anyway, so this works out in its own way.’
Rather, if he established the pecking order clearly now, he might be able to control the children. If they became a bit more human, he wouldn’t have to feel unnecessarily guilty. Boys this age acted as if hierarchy was the most important thing in the world.
“The monks might come looking for us soon…….”
At that moment, Isaac’s words stopped.
The children turned to follow Isaac’s gaze, then recoiled in horror.
Yellow eyes gleamed in the darkness. Only then did the thick, beastly stench of a predator waft over. It was a smell they had missed due to the excitement and the stench of urine.
A wild boar approached, snorting and shaking its head viciously. It was a massive beast, its head nearly level with Isaac’s chest.
‘A wild boar? Even if we’re kids, a wild animal wouldn’t approach a group of people so easily.’
Isaac soon realized the creature was no longer normal. An inerasable stench and the loud buzzing of flies were overwhelming.
It was the smell of rot.
Isaac spoke calmly.
“Don’t panic, just calmly step back…….”
“Uwaaaaah!”
Without exception, the children scrambled to run backward. The boar, seeing that, immediately snorted loudly and charged. While beasts normally avoided humans, it was clearly abnormal for it to charge the moment they turned their backs.
“U-Uwaa……!”
Hans, whose legs had given out, fell without taking a few steps. Isaac muttered a curse and yanked Hans hard. In that instant, a tentacle shot out unconsciously, coiling around the back hem of Hans’s clothes. Thanks to that, Isaac was able to hurl Hans backward with unbelievable strength.
Boom! Instead of Hans, Isaac was struck by the boar and thrown backward.
Isaac had no time to marvel at this new use for his tentacle, nor any leisure to check if Hans had landed safely.
“Right here, you pig bastard!”
*Zing.* Isaac scrambled up and deliberately showed his back to the boar as he ran. It was toward the outside, away from the monastery. The boar targeted Isaac as prey—he appeared “straggling” alone, more so than the group of fleeing children.
The boar began to chase him fiercely.
The boar’s momentum was ferocious as it smashed through small trees and weeds. But there was a reason Isaac had no choice but to act even at the risk of injury.
‘A bigger prey.’
Isaac looked at the boar—larger than himself—and licked his lips.