A bit of sensing, and a bit of sniffing out.
It found it.
A sizable town, walls around the perimeter, a large building in the center, and a plaza of roads circling around it.
The beast smiled, showing its teeth in an ugly display.
It took a few hours to find it, and it's now well into the night. The silver and blue moon of Aeon highlighting the beast in contrasting colors that don't match it at all.
It sensed that 'new' thing in the town below. It wasn't too different from the rest of the humans, but enough that it could tell.
The monster slowly lowered itself downward, down into the town below.
As it lowered into a dark alley, two poor souls came across the beast, both wearing some lightweight armor, and hoisting weapons on their backs. Two drunk Chasers.
Normal humans, normal Infusions.
Truly, poor fools.
"Hic, hey, uh… Hic… you better scram…" One of the Chasers slurs over his words, his face flushed as he can barely stand up, his friend having his arm slung over their shoulder.
His friend, on the other hand, is sober enough to tell what's in front of them.
"O-oh… oh shit…" His breathing quickens as his eyes water, staring at the monstrosity before the two.
"F-fuck… fuck…" His legs shake as they immediately lose any sense of strength, and he drops, his friend tumbling forward toward one of the monster's hooves.
"Hic- H-hey! What'dya drop me for… bastard… Hic…" His face turns to his friend behind him, and back up at the beast, "...you think you're tough? Huh? I'll… Hic… show you tough…" His hand stumbles for the hilt of the sword on his back.
The beast only stares down at the moron with a mix of pity and disgust, repulsed by the human beneath it.
It would gag, if it could.
The beast looks down at the drunkard at its hoof, slowly lifting it…
The drunk man's friend behind him pales, "E-eek! D-Dan!"
He turns, "Huh-"
SPLAT
With that, the drunk chaser, Dan, is turned into red pulp underneath the giant hoof, his brain, pieces of his skull, and blood splatting across the wall and road of the small alleyway.
However…
"Ahem." The other human, who was cowering in fear just moments ago, immediately stands up on his feet. "Eugh, yuck, really?" His red hair is unkempt from the nervous sweat that was there just seconds ago, his green eyes almost glowing in the dim alley.
The man straightens his collar with a sigh, and fixes his hair a bit. His armor turns into more formal attire, still soaked in the red blood.
"Disgusting… did you really have to kill him that messily, Cronus?" He fixes up his tie as his form changes. His skin turns into a lusterless black with infinite depth, his facial features vanish, replaced by a mess of pure white eyes that seemingly stare from an endless void. His red hair disappears, now replaced with the same pitch black, and resembling movement like a flickering flame.
Cronus, the beast, only stays silent.
"Ugh, no matter. What are you doing here anyway?" The jumbled eyes flick up toward Cronus's face. With a snap of its fingers, the blood splattered on its dark suit steams away, evaporating into nothing.
"Sensed something… off, and new. Wanted to devour it." The beast replies, not even caring about the bloody mess at its feet.
"Ah, you too?" The eyes shine a bit, the being seems to smile, "I thought I was going to be in this crummy town for a while, but I guess now that you're here… I suppose I could leave."
It chuckles devilishly, "I assume you're going to level… what did they call it? Tenna?"
Cronus let's out a little laugh and nods slowly, "Might as well. Haven't woken up in decades. Could be entertaining before sleep again."
The being claps its hands quickly in delight, "Joy! A spectacle it could be! I'll be watching, Cronus!"
It turns to leave, but stops before its first step, "Or…" The mess of eyes in the shape of its eye make an upward crescent shape, arching as if its smile was broadening, "...we could make it a game?"
*****
A couple of days pass without much to note or say. I do my best to work in the tavern, typically just cooking food, since I prefer to. I go to school normally, not much happens there either, aside from having technically graduated from Infusion Preparation, now moving onto History of Mana and Infusions.
The normal.
One thing I have noticed for certain, though…
I glance outside the window of the kitchen, pausing between cooking meals and glancing outside into the dining hall of the tavern.
'Haven't a decent number of the Chasers not been here this morning?'
I think the bastards finally moved out of Tenna. Usually there's at least a dozen or so washed-up, alcoholic Chasers that sit here in The Den every hour of every day.
It's shocking Kain never ran out of booze for them… I can't even begin to imagine how much money he made from their drinking habits.
Or how they had that much money to spare.
I smile and exhale to myself.
'Glad to be rid of them, at least.'
They probably realized they were running out of money for booze and got the hell out of town before Grant put their asses to work.
"Serves them right…"
"Serves who right?"
"...! Gah!" I jump back from the window.
'When did I get so close? When did-'
Hale smiles at me from the other side, giving me his classic pretty boy face.
"Has anyone said your Infusion looks pretty damn freaky?"
I blink, looking back at him.
"Uhm…?"
I think back to how Grant had praised the way my Infusion looks. A lot.
"...No." I give a small shake of my head.
Hale shrugs back and rests his chin on his hand, plopping down on the bar stool in front of the window, "Slide me some water, please."
I nod slowly and grab some ice and a cup from a cupboard, putting a couple of cubes into the wooden cup and filling it with water from the sink.
"Here." I hand the cup to him, already feeling the coolness of the water inside on my hand.
"Thanks." He takes it from me, and a small smirk forms on my face.
"That'll be twelve copper." I say, trying to make a little joke.
He only raises his eyebrow at me as he downs his water.
"..."
"Gulp, gulp…" He finishes off the water in a couple more swallows.
"... nevermind." I sigh and shake my head.
"Paaah…" Hale sets down the cup of now just ice and glances around, "...have we had less customers recently?"
I blink and turn to him, "You noticed that too?"
He nods back, "Especially the Chasers that hung around here, they just sorta vanished, or maybe they left."
I smile and nod, closing my eyes, "Serves them right, the bastards only lounged around and drank booze twenty-four seven."
He looks at me, his face expressionless, or… a bit worried?
"I'm not too sure, even though they were drunkards, they were still brilliant rank in their Infusions at least."
I open my mouth to retort, but the words die in my throat.
"I mean… how many were there usually? We had anywhere between twenty to forty show up every day here at the tavern… but these past couple of days?"
He gives one last look around. "Hardly ten."
I blink, seeing what he's saying now, "You're… right." I agree, "Why did so many leave at once…? Unless-"
"Something happened to them?" Hale finishes my sentence.
I feel my brows furrow as I tense up a bit.
'No way, right…? Surely they just up and left Tenna… headed into the nearby forest for mithril and hunting game, right…?'
I feel my thoughts spiraling a bit, my imagination getting the best of me.
"Or maybe they did just leave, and we're worrying for no reason." Hale speaks up and shrugs. He stands up off the stool he was sitting on.
As he moves to head back upstairs, I say nothing to stop him as I just quietly think to myself. I only stare at his back as he heads up.
*****
Cronus lays still within a basement, thinking about the deal it had made with that person. Turning its little feast into a game was not something its had expected to do, but a welcome challenge, nonetheless.
It remembers the details specifically.
…
"It's a resident of this town, Tenna, that gives that strange and new feeling. Find who they are, but don't kill and eat them immediately…"
Cronus blinks, "Why?"
The being seems to tilt its head at Cronus, "I'll make you stronger."
Cronus's eyes widen, and he shuts up to listen carefully.
"When you find out who the person is, and don't kill and eat them for a week, I promise to ascend you into a Dark Monster rank…"
Cronus swallows, a chance to ascend… it had been centuries since it'd become a dark rank, so this chance of becoming a Monster is certainly… alluring.
"Okay." Cronus nods.
"But…!" The being raises its hands high up as if presenting a show, "...if you so much as scratch them, or be found within Tenna, then I'll take your sanity, and turn you into something quite grotesque…"
Cronus stares at it, now this is when the 'game' part comes into play… either they risk losing their sanity and become this entity's plaything, or rank up to a Dark Monster.
A smile appears across Cronus's maw, if you could call it a smile.
"Accept."