Scarlet

After spending about an hour or so letting my mana regenerate back to halfway full – which was helped by me raising my mental stat again with free points and therefore increasing my mana – I begin to make my way through the eleventh floor. But not even a few minutes in, I start to hear the cries of a child along with panicked screams of a few adults somewhere down the hall. So I begin running in that direction, clearing out the two spawn panthers that try to stop me along the way.

Soon enough, I find a huntsmen aiming his crossbow at three adults and a young girl who looks to be only about six or seven years old.

|Demon Huntsman – Level 15|

My eyes narrow as I find the huntsmen’s fingers gravitating over the trigger, about to fire before I use blood boil on it, making the creature’s blood begin to boil beneath the surface as it cries out in pain and staggers, making it just barely miss its shot. The bolt going straight into the wall next to one of the adult’s – a woman who is currently hugging onto the child – head.

Everyone – including the demon – turns to look at me, but I’m already rushing towards the huntsmen with my blood claws out and ready to strike. The creature raises its crossbow to block, but I just push through, shoving the crossbow into its chest and knocking the air out of it in the process. I then kick out at it while still using blood boil, making little bubbles of blood pop across its skin before I eventually tear out its throat.

{Level 15 Demon Huntsman defeated. An EXP penalty has been extracted for killing a creature below your level.}

{One Skill Point is awarded for killing a demon.}

[Blood Thirst Effect applied. Stack is now 1]

I try to catch my breath while I climb back to my feet from on top of the demon’s corpse before wiping my forehead of sweat, only to grimace as I realize there was blood on my jacket sleeve. So I deal with that by using the clean skill.

This amount of blood at this point isn’t really much to bother me, but it might be a problem for that child over there.

I’m already bad enough with kids as is, there’s no reason to add a bunch of blood smeared all over me to that.

As soon as I look over at the civilians, I feel relief at having done that. Because not only is the child still crying, but one of the three women looks like they’re in shock.

I take a second to close my eyes and focus my hearing on the floor, feeling one of them twitching in the process before I open my eyes again.

“The bunker should be open still on the other side of the floor,” I explain to the people, bringing the attention of the woman who is still holding the child to me. “There aren’t any other people on the floor, and there aren’t very many demons either. I’ll escort you there while I deal with the creatures.”

A visible wave of relief floods across their bodies as they relax a little, but that goes away rather quickly when a spawn that I had heard coming jumps around the corner, only to slow down when I use blood boil on it. This one isn’t very strong – only being around level ten or so – so I finish it off without much issue before turning back to the others again as I ask, perhaps a little callously, “You coming or not?”

Callous or not though, it does the job as the three women quickly begin moving, with one of them – the same one who was holding the child before – picking up the child and bringing her with us. Somewhere along the way though, the child calms down and stops crying, just looking around with a tiny bit of curiosity and confusion mixed into her fear.

The child looks a lot like the one carrying her, having the same blue eyes and blond hair, making me think they’re a mother-daughter pair. They’re also wearing some rather expensive looking clothing, each with magi-tech on them that I can see on their coat sleeves. Which I guess is par for the course considering what hotel we’re in right now.

After a few minutes of traversing the halls in the direction of the bunker and occasionally killing a demon or two along the way – most of which being spawn – I’m surprised by the mother suddenly saying from several feet behind me, “Thank you, Scarlet Wolf.”

My eyes widen at her use of my ‘title’ before I glance at her and give her a nod. “Don’t worry about it.”

I was on the floor anyways, dealing with the demons in the process. No reason not to help.

A few more seconds pass and we turn down another corner, only for a young voice to sound from behind me, making me turn my head to find the child reaching for me as she says, “Touchy!!!”

“No, Sara! You can’t touch her ears!” the mother immediately understands what her daughter is wanting to do before looking at me with worry and saying, “Please don’t mind her. My daughter’s just turning six today, so she’s probably feeling a little spoiled.”

“Lemme touuuchhh!!!” the kid begins to whine, making both my eyes and ears twitch a little in irritation. But right before the mother is about to admonish her again, I let out a sigh and stop moving, my ears twitching as I find no demons making any sounds nearby. Then I walk up to the mother-daughter pair and lower my head to her while saying, “Just this once. But only if you stay quiet until you get to a bunker, okay?”

“Yaay!!!” the kid practically squeals in my ear, making me wince before she roughly grabs them and starts caressing them, making me wince again at how sensitive they are.

I let her do it for about three seconds before I pull away again and immediately turn around.

Never again.

It’s like someone tickling the bottom of an incredibly ticklish person’s foot. And I’ve always had rather dull senses when it comes to that sort of thing, which only makes it worse when it’s that bad.

We continue walking through the hallway with the kid now silently mumbling about how soft my ears were with a very pleased expression on her tiny face, to the amusement of her mother and the other women who I noticed shifted their attitude towards me from a respectful but distant one to a slightly more casual and free attitude.

Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. But at least she’s quiet now, giving my ears a break from her whining.

Because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s the whining of little kids. It’s just so annoying.

My thoughts pause as I stop in place, the sound of shifting feet echoing in my ear from the bunker.