"The freakin' book spoke to me," I told Pororo, who was engrossed in playing Call of Duty on my PS5. I could hear the loud banging of guns echoing from his headset.
"Uhhm, try that one more time," Pororo replied, his fingers moving swiftly on the console.
"I said the book spoke to me..." I repeated, more slowly this time.
"What book?"
"The Eldritch Bestiary... it spoke to me like some kind of AI or something."
"What did it say?" Pororo's attention was still firmly on his game.
"Can you put that down for one sec? I think this is a serious matter. Besides, it's supposed to be your job to brief me on all of this, isn't it?"
"Well, if you hadn't let the beasts escape…"
"Oh, you want to start that way? What if I told you I could just stop all this right now, walk away from it, and not be associated with any of your bullshit ever again? How's that?"
"You know you can't do that…."
"Oh, indulge me, cat!"
He hated it when I called him that. "What is wrong with you?" he shot back, finally turning his attention to me.
"Look who's talking! You mean, what is wrong with yourself?"
"Urrgghhh!" He put the PS5 controller down, finally. "You know you can't just walk away from all this, right?"
"And why not?" I challenged.
"Well, first. The beasts you so carelessly unleashed if left to their own device will live on this physical realm in perpetuity, you know what that means. Well, that means, at some point they're gonna ran out of spiritual reserves, and feed off of human souls and every living, breathing thing in here that have a soul will be at risk."
"Heyy! How was I supposed to know these things exist?? I didn't ask for this, I didn't even ask for you to treat me like I owe the world something! I still feel like I'm going crazy talking to you right now, to be perfectly honest… a talking stuffed toy, and now a talking book… this is just too much!"
"Alright, alright. Tell me about the book," he quizzed.
I told Pororo that right when I was about to get beaten in a stamina game by the Baku, the book spoke to me and said something about autopilot mode. "It's crazy. Is this some kind of a video game?"
He explained that the Eldest Bestiary only responded like that because it adapts to me. When I asked him how so, he said, "The book might have sensed it will be easier for you to comprehend everything if it remodels itself into some kind of a game, which is something that you are fond of and interested about. Afterall you're a gamer. It's a smart book you can put it that way."
"What about the levels it spoke of?" I asked.
"Well, obviously, like a game, the more quests or levels you finish, the more you unlock the book's inherent powers. Remember the levels of beasts I told you about? The more you catch beasts from the ground level up, the more you acquire skills as a Beast Seeker. Let's put it that way. The autopilot it tells you about is the book's innate defense system designed to protect you. When it senses you're in danger, and help you assess things, which might be the case all the time given your low aptitude for physical combat or anything physical, really…" He laughed, mocking me.
Pororo continued explaining that for each beast I capture, I get points that serve as currency to access the sacred magical tools sealed inside the book. "Those that have already been unlocked previously are just noob tools, nothing compared to the other tools you can utilize once you leveled up. The Eldritch Bestiary is unique among Beast Seeker books because it never stops evolving and adapting based on its user's capacity. Eldritch, my master who designed that book, after all, is a big shot in the spirit realm. That pervy geezer really was something," he said, a hint of nostalgia in his voice.
"You have great potential, kid. That is why the book chose you. It wasn't something you did out of the blue or out of character. The book chose you, and it's your fate to be a Beast Seeker, to police the physical and spiritual worlds, making sure they don't interfere with each other's business." "How about MYYYY business then?" Geez!
When I calmed down, I told him I very nearly lost to the Baku and that I put my family in harm's way because of it.
"Don't blame yourself…" Pororo said. "One way or another, things like that are bound to happen, and we can expect that it will only get worse. The least we can do is prepare. I can feel the evil witch's power growing day by day. I might not show it, but I am worried, especially now that I am in this stupid form and almost have nothing to offer you as help."
"Oh, don't be too hard on yourself, Pororo. You've been useless since day one," I teased.
"Just wait until I get my old form back," he said. "I am Eldritch's most powerful familiar, you know. That's the reason why Elektra wanted to get rid of me."
"How do you get back to your form?" I asked him.
"Well, my body right now is sealed somewhere by the evil witch when she cursed me. I am only talking to you right now because I managed to separate my soul from my body before the sealing was completed. I just didn't think I'd end up in this pretty useless vessel," he admitted. He encouraged me to be more serious with my role because if the beasts don't get sealed, they're going to roam free unchecked forever as part of the physical world. "If Elektra succeeded in merging the two worlds, one will annihilate the other for these worlds cannot exist in one realm. "Many will die, beasts and humans alike. We don't want that to happen, do we?" I think of dad and my sister. We already lost mom, I can't afford to lose them as well.