"You're sure you don't need any more help?"
Barns looks around the village. It's morning, and the seven happy villagers are all out and about, putting up decorations, foraging for food, or relaxing on the beach.
Yunie looks back at Barns and Clancy, touching her heart. "I'm sure you'll return soon. Saving the town of Dimartino should be your top priority. But there were hundreds of people living there - meaning hundreds of monsters. Will you be okay?"
Barns flexes and taps his arm. "I'm a legendary hero who's on a quest to save humanity! If I can't bring back one town, what good am I?"
Yunie smiles so big her eyes close. "That's right, Master Barnacles. Then I shall pray not for your safety but your speedy return."
Barns and Clancy take off on foot into the jungle. Dimartino was a tropical region, and the weather was always balmy and breezy. It feels like home, having grown up in a similar climate for so long.
In Barns' first life, he'd only ever visited Dimartino once.
On the walk to town, the duo encounters no monsters. Barns is surprised by this, but King Clancy has an observation.
"MONSTERS LIKE TOGETHER."
Clancy was of course completely accurate - monsters habitually formed groups in the wild, and seldom went off on their own. Being alone, especially early in the apocalypse, was a death sentence - for humans AND monsters.
As they approach the town of Dimartino, they hear raucous laughter and the sounds of festivities. Barns climbs a nearby tree so he can get a look at what's happening in town.
The town is overrun by monsters. Makeshift barracks and beds litter the town streets, as the monsters prefer to sleep outside. These monsters are living life to the fullest. Ever since the town of Dimartino fell ten years ago, it has been a non-stop party for the forces of evil.
Dimartino was a town with a reputation for two things - booze and prostitutes. It seems that monster culture has been able to successfully replicate both things. Barns narrows his eyes as he sees two busty goblins shaking what their mommas gave them in an alley as they're showered with silver coins.
"This is going to be awkward," Barns sighs, shimmying down the tree.
"Alright, Clancy, here's the deal. The monsters in the town are having a party and they have no defenses set up anywhere. Our best bet will be to split up and ambush them from both sides. Kill, kill, kill - and remember, please try not to cut their heads off this time."
Clancy ran back and forth (sideways, of course). He frantically clicked his pincers together.
"NO CHOPPING IN HALF AT ALL!?"
Barns shakes his head. "Maybe you can, I don't know…skewer them? Like we do with the fish?"
Barns said the right words. The King was ecstatic. "SKEWER! SKEWER!"
He smiles weakly at his crab. "Alright, let's go."
Twenty minutes later, Barns and Clancy are both in position. Clancy was ready to emerge onto the east side of town, where the monsters were having some sort of piñata party. Meanwhile, Barns was on the west side - where all the hooking and boozing was happening. Better for him to be over here. This would all distract King Crab too much.
He creeps up to the town gate. There's only one person around right now - a female goblin going to town on a cigarette. She was dressed like a bar wench and every time she stepped Barns could hear the clink of silver from her boots.
He sneaks up behind her. He's armed with a longsword and a small dagger - he opts for the dagger. Without alerting the lady goblin, He grabs her head and covers her mouth with his hand as he shanks her in the side several times. Until she stops moving.
The goblin corpse slides out of his arms and he snakes into the town.
On his left, a drunk orc and two imp hotties. He gets the jump on them, stabbing one imp with his sword and another with his dagger. The orc barely has time to react, stumbling backward and landing on his piggy rear. Barns thrusts his longsword into the ground, impaling the orc's heart. So far so good.
He rips the cloak off from the orc and wraps it around himself, covering his body and his face. To a casual observer, he could blend in as a fellow monster. Maybe this won't be so hard after all.
He is alerted by the sound of screaming coming from the other side of town. It seems Clancy has made his move. Nothing stealthy about a giant crab, he supposes. Oh well. With the distraction, picking off outliers should be even easier.
On the other side of town is absolute chaos. A horde of monsters has surrounded Clancy, who is methodically skewering his foes three at a time and then laying them out carefully like kabobs.
"NO BEHEAD!" Clancy roars as he smashes - flattens - a goblin against the wall of a house. Barns perhaps should have told Clancy that 'turning monsters into paste' also made them ineligible for resurrection.
A snake woman wraps her tail around one of Clancy's many legs and tries to get inside his shell. In a panic, Clancy snips her head off.
"A LITTLE BEHEAD."
Clancy shoots out some foam and spins in a circle, coating all the monsters near him. His cleansing foam has a purifying property and all of the monsters begin to scream and burn. He's still surrounded, but the lesser monsters are keeping their distance now.
The pack of monsters separates, making way for their leader. From the center of the town, a tall monster with an ominous aura begins to pace slowly toward Clancy.
Clancy scuttles around a bit, sizing up his opponent. He's never seen one before, but he knows the monster in front of him. It is a demon. The pale, almost bluish skin and the long horns erupting from its forehead are dead giveaways, but other than that, this could be a human. He shows off the weapon in his hand to taunt Clancy. It's a large, spiked hammer. The kind that could crush even a shell like Clancy's.
The other monsters take a knee, bowing reverently to their demon lord. They create a circle around the demon and the crab, cheering and jaunting for their leader.
"BOSS BATTLE!" Clancy fumes. He raises both of his pincers in a defensive formation. It was about to get real for King Crab.