Chapter 20: Who is the head boar?

"Monare tell what you see?" remarked the man who was father but liked to be called uncle. He crouched down to a small seven-year-old Monare, who was looking at the tall grass with grave expression as he responded:

"Just tall grass, dad, sorry, uncle," he corrected himself.

The man laughed a bit and said:

"I see the herd has arrived, and I have a task for you." Point to the herd's direction using just your senses of scent and sound, without looking."

"Like we practiced?" Monare spoke with a sparkle in his eyes.

"Yes, as we practiced. "To begin, you must..."

"I need to focus, yeah," he stopped his uncle and answered for him.

"Rude" he chuckled.

"Apologies, sir; now I must focus," Monare answered respectfully, closing his eyes to control his breathing and listening to the air howl a little.

His father, oh, sorry, his uncle, was someone who wanted Monare to understand his surroundings before acting on his wishes; right now, he was being taught how to track using solely the senses that his uncle had specified.

Monare listened while crossing his legs and taking a meditative attitude.

He heard something dropping in the neighboring river. Something was moving in the grass, causing them to ruffle slightly as the creature walked about. He inhaled the air, and the strange lingering smell made him cringe a little, almost covering his nose with his top lip.

Monare mentally determined which direction the two sounds and fragrance were coming from. His ears picked up another sound that was unlike anything he had heard before, so he focused again as the wind carried another weird fragrance that made him want to wince, but he stopped himself.

Monare grinned, and with his eyes still closed, he used his right hand to point northwest where he picked up a trace of the herd and asked:

"Am I wrong?"

Monare heard his father think aloud, humming, sighed, and added

"Maybe" with hints of amusement.

"Maybe! Come on uncle, just give me a pass this time. There is a river to the east, and while I may be mistaken, I heard something being dropped into liquid, and we also crossed rushing water back there; even when my vision was obscured by the tall grass, I heard it. According to the loud sound generated when it contacted the water's surface, the object or creature had some weight. In addition, I heard something else racing in the grassland in front of me, which I believe could be a rabbit, snake, or mouse owing to the subtle rustling of the grass, a sneaky animal. "Whatever it is, it pooped there." He pointed again.

His father chuckled, adding:

"Those two you mentioned now are correct, but what I wanted was the herd I was tracking not the other one"

Monare raised an eyebrow and added in confusion:

"There is another?"

His father smiled, patted him on the head, scooped him up, placed him on his shoulder, and explained what he was talking about. Monare noticed the river he had indicated and the small animal that was going toward the river, which came into view when he saw a hare running toward the river and drinking from a puddle formed near the stream.

He looked northeast and noticed a bunch of bucks grazing, as well as a herd of wildebeests to the west.

"So, you were tracking the wildebeests huh"

"Yes, and because you did one assignment wrong, you get to kill one of the creatures in the assigned task. So, assassinate the ones they looked up to in their teens."

Monare sighed and reached for his slingshot, which he had hidden under his animal leather undergarment, along with a pouch of ammunition for the weapon.

Monare moved into the tall grass at a measured speed, stopping to sniff the air and hear the noises of wildebeest, then running and stopping again, mumbling with displeasure beneath his breath.

His uncle gazed at the youngster with a serious expression as he evaluated.

"He was able to sense the antelopes with only the smell of their dung and without them making a sound loud enough to outclass the wildebeests grazing… ha-ha." This kid is a freaking genius. He purposefully ignored the Wildebeest because of the size of their meat and assumed that we wouldn't be hunting something so large."

He giggled softly as he hit his knee with eagerness from the laugh; he immediately felt his hair stand on end as the rush of the wind made him shiver a little and continued with annoyance:

"I'll go after him, okay..." I did pledge to care after him because, well, what sort of mother still haunts her own child?" Saying the final word in an inaudible whisper so that the child's ears wouldn't hear him.

He pursued Monare in the breezy afternoon of the grassland.

***

After half an hour of intense torture minutes,

Monare launched and landed on the alley dirt, his scales gradually bending with his skin and his claws retracting into human-sized nails; within seconds, Monare's skin was black again. He swiftly stretched his body out, his eyes remaining blue from his exile's condition, and his body was now drenched in blood.

After he completed stretching, a sound caused the earth to shake, and Monare quickly turned his head slowly, his face expressing signs of satisfaction. He is currently covered in his own blood and breathing heavily as his large stomach contracts with air. The man was still alive as his form gradually shrank back to his natural body; Monare came closer to the obese man.

He sat down and leaned against the wall next to him, placing his palm on his elevated knee and taking a breath:

"Well, I let you to survive not because I am a decent guy. I am in town seeking for something, and I want someone who knows about Onskeard's inner workings because my moral compass has already royally twisted me over to the negative side of life."

Monare noticed the merchant opening his eyes and taking deep breaths. He smiled and continued:

"Who better to ask about the information of Onskeard than a merchant dealing with slave trading?"

The merchant took a leisurely breath, his bloodied visage unreadable as he asked in a quiet tone:

"Why should I help you slave, I should have you arrested at the moment for attempted murder on civilian of the capital"

Monare cackled like a madman and shook his head. Then his attitude altered as he stood up and remarked, his eyes beaming brightly once more:

"It doesn't matter if you tell them the truth; the help you need is already on its way..." I can hear them from a distance, soldiers and medics judging by the smell of their damp bandages, and I hope what I smell is medication, hahaha dear merchant, we will see one other soon." Monare replied jokingly, bowing like an actor after a successful performance on stage when the audience applauded. 

He then seductively stroked the cheeks of the chubby merchant and inquired:

"By the way what is your name?" He spoke in a way that suggested flirting.

The merchant gasped slightly and spoke in a low, raspy voice:

"Meyrick… "But my friends call La boar."

Monare said with a smirk:

"Piggy it is," he exclaimed in a childlike tone.

As he spoke, he leaped on the unclosed walls, claws evident on his hands, climbing and leaping toward the roofs before disappearing into the night. The merchant, lying there bloodied and broken, said in thought:

"That kid is trouble and not fun at all; perhaps that man will understand my embarrassment." He then looked at the wall he was stuck to because of the boar's big body, and where he had been clawed to death, massive amounts of dried blood splattered on the wall. He groaned and continued:

"I require another boar as a servant and bodyguard..." Hahaha, another Tethered in this spot; the boss will love this."

The passageway was met with a panicked cry, and someone who heard the ruckus ventured the quiet alleys of the perilous Onskeard to find the source of the noise, yelling for the guards to arrive as the word'murder' was uttered. The guards hurried with a reasonable speed as the sounds of their shoes hitting the ground. "What happened here?" one soldier asked the distressed civilian as he set the civilian on the step on the door to their house, where Monare took the jug.

The civilian was guided by his breath, and they told him that he had heard screams from the merchant Meyrick mansion, which he initially mistook for pleasure moarning. The citizen had heard them before, but this time they were different; they sounded like screams from someone in anguish.

The citizen wanted to observe what had happened first, and then they would have contacted the city guards for help, as well as a medic for the injured, if they had yelled out to the nearest neighbor for assistance, but they were fortunate to see the guards running this way.

The guard led the civilian home and went to his friends; when he returned, he observed doctors transporting the injured man to the clinic in a makeshift wooden bed-like construct, gently carrying him away to be met by a horse dragging an empty hay wagon and placing the man in it.

They vanished with the horses and wagon in the night. It was almost midnight when some of the guards arrived at the victim's house and entered the bedroom. They were confronted with a horrifying scene of blood on the walls, drapes, and bed, as well as a gigantic, strange cadaver that made the room smell like death and rot.

One guard exclaimed with calm horror:

"What is that?"

Someone yelled:

"Is that pig...?" Why does it have a man's face? "What kind of animalistic witchcraft occurred here?"

Suddenly, a peculiar atmosphere swept through the room as one of them stated tone that made everyone stay still in fear of moving:

"What happened here stays with this room?"

As he spoke, there was the sound of a steel blade tearing flesh and bone as four bodies fell to the ground, their heads severed.

The guard groaned and removed the blue ball from his pocket. He murmured some unusual words that caused the wave with unseen energy, the orb illuminated, and the guard

"Sir we have a problem"

"Of which kind?" asked a voice from the bright orb in the guard's hand.

"There seems to be unregistered spirit tether user in Onskeard with an affinity that cannot detect"

The voice hummed and inquired:

"Describe the seen"

The guard nodded, adding:

"There is blood on the wall, bed, curtains, and a homemade hole in the wall that leads to the alley. One of our boars appears to have died in the clash; he appears to be new, as far as I can tell. His body is red, possibly from the blood and stage red of the demonic change; the confrontation concluded in the street with Meyrick in serious condition, sir."

"The other spirit tether user, any trace of them around?"

"They fled the scene before I can truly see them"

The voice groaned and continued:

"Meyrick is compromised due to this event; he drew too much attention; if he lives, he will be moved immediately"

"What is to happen to the house and bodies sir?"

"The invader will be blamed; make sure to cover up the converted boar and remove the demonic energy it is emitting at the moment. Ensure that the killed all lead to the intruder's understanding."

"Yes sir"

As the sphere dimmed and turned steely grey like a rock, the voice remarked, "Excellent, message received".

The guard sighed and placed the orb in the pouch.

"Now where do I begin?" He questioned himself as he examined the dead bodies and the stained walls, bed, and drapes.