Maybe that "creature" living inside this cave wa actually a very tall person that just didn't like to socialize and was very very very ugly. Yes, that must br why the fisherman described them that way.

As I drew near the entrance, what seemed like small groans could be heard through the doors. They sounded almost painful.

Taking a deep breath in, I pushed one of the doors open and tried making out of what was inside. The groans suddenly stopped, making me grab onto my sword tightly. I hated all this. I hated the old man, I hated this cave, I hated this world and all these fucked up creatures living inside of it. The war I was stuck in back in my world was far better than whatever I was doing right now...

With a steady pace, I slowly walked inside the dark space. The place was humid and very dark. It made it almost impossible to know if whatever was making that groan earlier was in front of me, or anywhere else. The fisherman did say that this "thing" couldn't see well in the dark...

The only reason why I could still somewhat see the inside of the cave, was with the light from the moon, which was surprisingly bright. I didn't walk further than the light went, which was barely 2 meters inside the cave.

In the darkness, something shifted. I turned around to face it, quickly, only to be faced with more darkness. Another subtle sound in the dark nervously made me turn around to face it with my sword in hand. What seemed like a vase fell and broke on the floor, its pieces scattering towards me. I stepped back, flinching, even as I looked up to be met with another pair of eyes.

I froze upon seeing them. A pair of glittering eyes were looking down at me, 4 or 5 feet taller than me.

I took a step back before this things eyes widened and launched itself on me. Nope, this creature could definitely see well in the dark.

"Eeeek!!"

Now, for the second time today, I was running for my life. I could hear it groan as it tried to catch me, but I was too quick. I ran out the door at the speed of light. I didn't look back, not even as I ran through the plain and passed by the fisherman, ditching him. Not even when I ran through the forest, adrenaline pumping in my blood.

By how fast I was running, it only took me 5 minutes to get back to the village, where I sat down on a bench to take my breath and to think to what just happened. 

About ten minutes later, the fisherman walked out of the forest and was panting as much as I was. The little pig was wheezing in and out each breath he took, joining me on the bench and practically collapsing on it.

I glared down at him. He said that it couldn't see well in the dark. How foolish of me.

"You told me it couldn't see well in the dark."

The fisherman was struggling to catch his breath, not noticing the angry tone in my voice. He looked up at me as if he didn't care.

"I'm old, you know? I make mistakes too once in a while!" he paused before completely gnoring my reaction and asking his long awaited question with eagerness.

"So, what did you see in there? Did you see the monster?"

I looked down at him, my reaction staying nonchalant even as I screamed internally. That's it, that was my last straw. I leaned forward to grab my sword from my waist, but couldn't seem to find the hadle. It was as I looked down that I notice that my sword was missing, again. For fucks sake, where could I have dropped it?

In the forest? In that evil looking cave with the creature? Or was it during the attack? Ahh, what bad luck. God was really messing with my ass today.

The fisherman repeated his question, but I had already lost my patience for it.

"What did you see inside??- huh, wait!"

I got up from the bench and turned around to glare down at his giant forehead. How I wish I could just hit him. "You're lucky I dropped my sword."

His mouth remained slightly open, like he was shocked that I would rebel against him. I didn't waste any time and started walking in the direction of the forest. Yup, that same forest where the little shit and the "witch" lives in.

"Hey! You can't just leave me like this. We had a contract!" Contract my ass. I didn't stop even as he continued to spout nonsense.

"W-what about the information on the Book of Life??"

Walking inside the forest, I disappeared along the trees. I ignored his annoying pleads to wonder how I could get my sword back. Since there was a possibility that it was with that monster... and where would I sleep? 

The problem wasn't that I hadn't slept outside before, it was what was lurking around the sleeping area... like that bald little shit for exemple.

I thought at this point that if it saw me again, it wouldn't charge at me like it did previously and would only bring me back to that woman. So, safe to say that it wouldn't hurt me.

* * *

I ended up climbing a tree in the forest and resting on one of the big branches adorning it. It felt nice, wasn't too cold or hot either. I did hear some strange noise during the night, but I wasn't sure if they were animals or just that bald freak.

The next morning, when I climbed down, I saw the creature. Upon seeing it, the solution to getting my sword back popped into my mind.

It was, once again, hiding half of its face in a bush. Only its eyes and forehead could be seen. Even if the idea of speaking to that thing and it understanding me made me very uncomfortable, I looked straight at it.

"Can you take me to her..?"

The creature looked stunned, its eyes quivering with happiess as it got up from the bush to show the rest of its body. It started leading me somewhere, and I followed. I didn't really want to associate myself with that woman, considering what she was capable of, but I couldn't think of anyone else at the moment.

After like 20 minutes of walking silently through the forest without knowing where that creature was leading me, what looked like a portal, hidden between trees and more bushes. The closer we walked towards it the more the colour of natures vivid green started fading away. It looked dead, if I was being honest.

Around the portal, some weird looking mushrooms and plants I had never seen before srpouted from it. They didn't look edible, neither did they look apetizing...

"Errr..." the creature groaned. It signaled me to walk ahead before it.

I walked inside the portal, amazed and anxious at the same time. That chilly feeling from before started clinging to my skin the moment I walked inside. The air also felt different, it felt a little difficult to breath. 

Inside the portal, I was back at that same dark room from before. A small round table in the middle with two chairs around it. A lamp sat in the middle of that table, nothing special. Looking around, I realized that there wasn't any walls. The only thing that could be considered as a potential "wall" in the room would be where the light from the lamp didn't reach.

"Hi how's it goin'?" the voice of the witch I saw yesterday rang from beside me out of no where. I barely stopped myself from hitting her by instinct, instead falling to the floor in utter shock. I felt like an idiot though, looking up at her and her stupid smirk.

She held out her hand to me with an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting you to jump like that..." 

Oh yeah, because you were totally expecting me to greet you back like you didn't just spawn out of fucking no where.

I held back my tongue and took her hand. She pulled me up with ease before starting to examine me up and down, as if to see if I was okay. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.

"Where's your sword? You look thick-witted without it."

I take what I thought back.

"... I lost it in a fight."

"Is that why you're here?" I nodded.

"You know you could've just come directly to me instead of sleeping in a tree like a koala."

I barely held myself from looking at her with a baffled look. Now how the hell did she know that?

"... witch..."

"Sorry?" she leaned her ear towards me with a smirk playing on her lips.

"I said you're a witch."

She leaned back and frowned up at me.

"A witch? I'm no witch."

"Yeah right," I laughed, "then how did you know I slept in a tree?"

She pointed to the bald shit behind her, whos head perked up at its mention.

"Larry told me."

"..."

Silence.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" she confusedly looked up at me, like what she just said was the most logical thing in the world.

"Just- nevermind..." I sighed, rubbing my temples in the process. I didn't wanna waste any more time and just went straight to the point.

"I've come for your help."

Her reaction remained unchanged, like she had been expecting this kind of behaviour out of me. It almost made me wanna puke.

"Go ahead." 

"Well," I started, "I tried helping an old fisherman with a favour and I ended up loosing my sword in a fight..."

For now, I was going to leave out the reason of the fight. She seemed like the kind of person who would laugh at my ass if she knew that I had fled like a total coward in the middle of a fight.

"You mean when you entered Magnolia's den and you ran away like a weakling after she showed herself? Is that how you lost it?"

Well fuck me. I couldn't help looking down at her with a suspicious look, terrified and surprised all at once before she could explain herself.

"I had one of my children following you."

Her children? That's one of her kids? I looked at the bald freak still behind her, listening to our conversation attentively, but she shook her head.

"It wasn't Larry this time. It was another one."

She told me that as if it would make me feel better about this whole situation. I sighed at her confession, already exhausted from talking to her.

"Who's Magnolia exactly?"

"Ah, that's right. You don't know who she is."

She pulled a chair from underneath the table towards her, sitting down on it to cross her legs on top of the other.

"She's the owner of the cave you entered yesterday night."

"What... that monster's den??"

"...yes, that monster."

Aha, so I wasn't wrong. A giant who was ugly and who didn't like to socialize really was living there. But who was that Magnolia then? The woman before me seemed to understand my curiosity and confusion and decided to answer my unspoken questions.

"The woman you invaded the home of, she's a hald-kind."

"What do you mean?" the word 'half-kind' didn't make sense to me, since none of that existed back in my home dimension. It still somewhat felt weird to say that...

"She's got the long and strong tail of a serpant instead of human legs."

That phrase made me realize, once more, why the fisherman had called her that way. I didn't know if it was because I was slow or if I was just stupid, but the sudden image of someone with half its body as a tail popped up in my mind. Maybe the poor thing thought I was going to attack her, and was simply defending herself. This made me feel bad...

"Well... do you know if she is okay?"

"Good question." she took a sip of her steaming cup of coffee- wait a minute. Since when..? Sighing once again out of submittion, I ignored her magically appearing cup as she spoke.

"2 or 3 years ago, she lost her daughter."

My eyes opened widely in surprise. She continued without paying attention to me.

"She's become aggressive since then and has been scaring off anyone who came close, almost killing them. And you, for some reasons, got away without a scratch."

I frowned at her statement. "But I barely got away from her."

"Yeah, the difference is that she could've caught you, but she didn't. Some people came back with deep cuts on their arms and legs, 'barely' excaping her like you did."

"OKAY, but I don't know how that's supposed to help me."

She stared up at me in silence without any reaction. Maybe I shouldn't have spoken... My eyes looked around the room as I tried to come up with something to change the subject.

"Hey, uh..."

"Lucille."

"Lucille. Since you know Magnolia so well... ya think you could go talk to her to give me back my sword?" She slowly sipped off of her coffee while staring up at me. The question lingered in the air before she finally answered with a laugh.

"Ha! Good luck with that."

"Well, will you help me?"

"I can't." she breathed, only making me frown.

"Why?"

"Because first off, I don't actually know her."

I rolled my eyes. "Stalker much."

She side eyes me before continuing.

"... and second, if your sword was shiny, Magnolia probably collected it."

She made a dramatic pause, which I knew not to ask questions, before she continued.

"She likes shiny things."

I looked at her, waiting for her to add more, but it seemed all. What the heck was I supposed to do with that information? Did she expect me to just hand her gold in exchange for my sword with this information? How useless.

"Well, what am I supposed to do then?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, go make a deal with her or something."

Was she serious? I was for sure going to make myself killed if I did! As if I ever wanted to go back there. At my internal crash out, an idea popped into mind.

"Can that bal- Larry come with me to help then?"

"No, Larry has a job to do already."

"Okay, then what about the other thing that's been following me?"

"She won't be of much help to you either."

I let my hands fall from the air to my thighs, letting out a huge sigh at the same time. Then, she asked an unexpected question, probably hype me up.

"Are you still searching for information on the Book Of Life?"

I pulled my head down to her at the mention of this God forsaken book.

"If you succesfully get your sword back from Magnolia, I'll tell you information on the book."

Yet another person trying hard to scam me, only that this time, I couldn't do anything about it... "How do I know that you aren't puuling my leg..?"

"You'll know. Now, it's time for you to go back."

Without wasting a single second, she snapped her fingers as I was about to retaliate. In a blink of an eye, I found myself outside again. The portal was gone, Lucille was gone, and the tall ugly freak too was gone. I groaned out of frustration at my situation and stopped myself from kicking the nearby flowers with my foot.

END CHAPTER 4