The red sky, the numerous terrifying screams, the shifting shadows of the mountains, which probably aren't mountains because sometimes they move, and finally, not a single human in sight... No, this is not the Earth I came from.
Keck!
Suddenly, I heard a sound from below, the creatures in front of the castle starting to fight among each other, and at the moment, one of them got eaten by the others.
If I don't want to end up like that, it's probably safe to stay inside, but... I glance back towards the room I came from. There's also a waiting death for me there. I don't know what happened to my girlfriend... Gilda and the other girls, but I know they didn't let go of me that easily.
So, my best solution here is to escape secretly without getting caught by any one of those creatures.
"First of all, I need something as a weapon, just in case," I hurriedly walk back to the room and began to look around it, opening drawers.
Upon one of the tables, there were a few books, and I carefully looked at them but didn't understand, as they were written in another language.
"Useless," I muttered as I threw the book away and opened the large cabinet beside it.
Clang!
As soon as I opened it, a few old and rusted weapons fell out. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to put these things in a cabinet, but it ended up helping.
An axe, sword, and a lance were the weapons that fell from it.
I picked up the rusted old sword,
Phew!
As I blew some wind onto it, some dust blew away from its surface.
"How long have these things been here?" I picked up the other two as well in my hand and placed them all upon the table.
I can't get my hand full, so I could only bring two weapons with me, so I had to decide which one to leave behind.
"I kind of guess that learning kendo while in school might come in handy."
Out of the three, I picked up the sword in my hand.
It felt a bit heavier than the bamboo sword we used in training. Out of curiosity, I swung it a bit.
Clang!
But while I was swinging it, I mistakenly hit the sword on the table and made it fall down along with the weapons on it. The sound it caused was quite loud.
"Shit!"
I tried to lift up the table, but its leg is broken, so picking up the axe and lance, I tossed them toward the bed. After that, I began to search the room to find if there's anything other than weapons.
Considering a girl used to be here, I at least hoped I might be able to find her underwear, but I found nothing.
"Maybe she is not living here and using this place only like the place for eating."
as I thought about it, I shivered, picking up the axe from the bed, and ran out from the room with the sword and axe in my hand.
Once in the corridor, I hurriedly came toward the staircase leading toward the lower floor.
I could see the lower floor from where I was, and it was not much different than the upper floor. Most of them seemed older and dustier.
Walking down the staircase, I slowly came to the lower floor.
As I already saw the main door of the castle, I walked according to what I saw and finally managed to find the door to the outside.
But as soon as I got closer to it, I hid behind a large desk placed at the entrance because a few creatures were walking around closer to the door.
As I saw their approach, they closely resembled the imp demons I saw in video games.
"Is this hell?" If I think back about the things I saw, I won't be surprised if it's true.
"Hell or whatever, I'm not going to die by any of them. I'm too young for that." Holding the sword and axe in my two hands, I secretly watched the few imps walking around the door.
There were three of them, and they moved like a group, not being separated by any of them, so going secretly is not a option. Comparing their appearance and size, I felt that I could handle one of them, but three? That's not something I can do. I have to separate them.
Thinking quickly, I looked up and saw a flower vase on the table and grabbed it.
Tossing the flowers aside, I threw the vase a few steps away from me.
Cling!
The vase broke with a loud sound, and the three imps became alerted by it.
"Oh, Crap, not what I expected,"
Instead of one all three of them ran towards the place where the vase had fallen.
I stayed unmoving as they stood close to the vase, even holding my breath just in case.
The three imps had bright red skin and wore a grey-looking underwear that only covered their genital parts.
At the moment, the three of them gathered around the vase and murmured to each other in an unknown language that I couldn't understand.
Suddenly, among the three, one imp stopped murmuring and looked around in an observing gaze.
"Hmmm," it took a large breath, and after that, it took another few quick breaths, like a dog that caught a scent of something.
"Oh god, I think it's my mistake to think about fighting the unknown. Who would have thought they could smell humans?" I realized I had done the wrong thing as that imp began to walk toward the place I was hiding. The other two also seemed to have caught the smell and began to walk toward the table I was hiding behind.
Even though it was a bit unclear, I was sure that these three were coming toward me, sniffing my smell. And if I waited until they caught me, it would be my loss.
I grabbed the sword and axe and waited until the imp that was coming towards me came closer.
When it was two to three steps away from my hidden place, I jumped out and swung my sword toward it.
Pop!
The imp exploded like a balloon as my sword went through it.
"Kha!..chaka!..khica!..hika," the other two imps, who were a few steps behind the one I killed, hurriedly stepped back, exclaiming some strange sounds.
"What, are you blaming me for your brother's death? Don't blame me, blame him. He died being a fucking idiot who can't mind his own business. And let me do you a favor by sending the two of you to him, so that you can meet him in... wherever you go after dying."
Holy shit, I talk a lot. Maybe killing that guy made my morale boost.
However, I was sure about it now; they were weaker than how they looked, and if I landed one strike toward them, they were done for.
With my confidence, I took a step forward, and the imps showed fear toward me as they began to walk back.
"Stay right there," I leaped forward and swung my sword toward one of the imps, but it managed to jump up and evade my sword. After that, it began to run back toward the door.
I hurriedly ran behind them, but as they got closer to the door, they suddenly stopped and looked toward me. I, who was following behind them, also stopped because I didn't see any fear in their faces now.
"Khakha, chkahkacha," they murmured something while looking at me. Even though I didn't know their language, I understood that they were mocking me.
"What's this?" I stepped forward and lifted up my sword to swing it toward them, but at the next second, a whole lot of sounds similar to the ones these imps made came from outside the door.
And when I looked at the door, I saw a huge amount of imps, like a flood, running toward my direction.
"Fuck, no fucking way I can fight all of them!" As soon as I saw them, I abandoned the thought of killing them and swiftly turned around and began to run.
The flood of imps came directly behind me; they seemed to have no intention of letting me go.
As I was climbing up the staircase, one of them jumped up like a monkey and rapidly approached.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" There's no time to go to the room I was in previously, so I hurriedly banged on the door Gilda was in and hastily closed its door, then with shaking hands, I looked for a lock, thankfully finding one and put it on.
But I didn't stop there. While the imps were banging on the door, I dragged a cabinet and placed it against the door. I arranged things in the room as best as I could against the door, and in the end, only the bed was left as I didn't have the strength to move it.
The sound of imps hitting against the door and their murmuring could still be heard.
I was scared. If they caught me, I knew my death would not be something easy. I already saw how they ate one of their own alive, bit by bit, while it was still alive.
I looked around the room and found nowhere to escape.
"Is this it? Am I going to go like this?" But at that moment, I looked at the ceiling of the room and got a not much of a wise idea.
I found I could climb up on that. Maybe I would be able to hide from them. I slowly pushed back a table, once again, to the door and climbed onto it, but it was still not enough height. After that, I took a chair from the things against the door, and then it was the right height for me.
Holding the ceiling, I hit toward it hard until one piece fell down. Holding from that place, I first put my sword and axe into it, and then I climbed up to the ceiling.
It was a bit dark up there, and there were many more spiderwebs. Some even got onto my mouth as I crawled.
"Oops, almost forgot."
I carefully crawled back and kicked toward the chair that I used to climb. I'm not sure if imps have the mind to understand what I do, but I learned that it's better to be careful when facing unknown dangers.
After crawling a little toward the ceiling, I stayed there for a few seconds, the imps banging on the door still audible to me.
"How long are they going to keep doing that?" Maybe because of the dim light and cozy atmosphere, I even felt a bit sleepy as time went by.
And when it almost came to the point that I closed my eyes,
"What are these little shits doing in here? Get out before I boil one of you in my pot!"
Suddenly, I heard the voice of a woman behind the door, the voice of an old woman.
And the banging of the door and imp's murmuring also disappeared after her voice.
Thump! Thump!
"Why are these things so curious about?"
I heard a footstep from the other side of the door, and the door's lock strained as she tried to open or wedge into the room.
"I don't think an old lady like her can push that door," I judged from her voice. For all this time, I watched all of this happen from a hole I made in the ceiling using my sword.
"Who locked the door in my house?" the old woman said. And in the next second, I heard something pointy hitting against the door.
Suddenly, the stuff I placed against the door began to float up and moved away from the door.
"What the.." The hole I created was not enough to watch what was happening in the whole room, so I held my sword again and crawled a bit forward to make another hole.
Creak!
"ah? ," I don't think that's a good sound.
Crash!
Suddenly, the ceiling I was in broke down, and I fell down. Luckily, I landed right onto the bed.
But at the same time, the door handle moved again, and it magically unlocked from my side.
The door opened as I lay upon the bed, pure naked.
"Kha kha, these imps, they sure lured me to some good stuff. A human male, eh? How long has it been since I've seen one?" A short and weird-faced lady entered the room while looking at me.
- - - - - -
"Worst day of my life," that's all I can say about today. Right now, I was in the hands of an old, weird-faced lady.
She was short and wore a black robe around her body. She had an abnormally large nose with large pimples all over it. It was disgusting to look at, and her skin was a bit green.
No doubt about it, as soon as I saw her, I could only think about the witches I heard about in my childhood tales.
The lopsided staff in her other hand might be her magic wand; the floating of furniture in the room surely caused by that.