[••The day after Melissa abducted Mirelle, around 2 and a half years ago••]
Mirelle suddenly woke up inside a dark, cold and musty place. The last thing she remembered before she passed out was the maniacal laughter of 1 year old girl coming from the creature that abducted her.
Her armor and underclothes were in tatters and she had several wounds on her face, hands and other parts of her body that had already started to heal. Her ankles were in a different situation, with the skin around them being stretched and even ripped, exposing the delicate flesh beneath.
She tried looking around but she could barely see anything, but judging from the smell, she was most probably inside some cave near or inside GreenWood forest.
Her breaths were strained and fast as she tried to calm herself, thinking that she had survived worse things before. She hadn't, but she was trying to fool herself in order to not start crying.
Her throat was parched, her stomach was letting out low growls and she has been taken to a cave by a horrifying monsters for gods know what purposes. She was in her early twenties and has thought that the worst thing that could happen to her is her father's agents finding her and sending her to another monastery.
-'I want to go back to the inn, the innkeeper was always so kind to me back then, why didn't I thank her for her efforts? I miss mom...I want to see my mom one last time before I die.
I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die!'
A few tears had already started coming out of her eyes and she started feeling chocked up, barely able to even breathe in the musty cave air.
She slowly started searching for a wall and once she found one, she slowly got up, suppressing a yelp of pain due to her injured ankles.
The walls were rough with some spiky parts and when she tried to take a step and stumbled, her hand pressed hard on the cave wall, lightly injuring herself on the tiny spikes, slightly biting down on her lip in order to not yell from the pain.
'That thing might still be here so I cannot afford to make any loud noises. Maybe it is asleep and simply keeping me as emergency food? I-I don't even know what that thing was. T-the way it just...stared at me still scares me.'
Mirelle already learned that whatever abducted her was clearly intelligent. It knew to wait until she was separated, somehow lured the Letos' to her location and chose the weakest member of the group.
She took yet another step, almost fell again and this time injured her other hand, biting down even more on her lip while praying earnestly so that the monster doesn't smell the scent of her blood and wake up.
She decided to walk up, feeling the slight incline of the cave floor as she slowly walked. After a few more steps and going by a corner she could finally see torchlight and cleaner air. She didn't dare to yell for help in fear of waking up the creature, so instead she just continued walking.
Step by agonizing step, slowly getting used to the pain. Her mana reserves were almost completely gone, only enough to cast 3 more healing spells and she decided to keep them for emergencies. She knew that even if she was completely injured, she stood no change against that creature.
Plus, by the time she finished casting a healing spell inside the cave, the creature would have already eaten a good chunk of her body.
The torchlight was constantly moving at the cave's entrance, as if it was searching for someone.
'That must be Vladimir, I heard him boast about being among the best northern scouts, it seems that he wasn't exaggerating.'
She let herself smile, just a small bit. Her eyes were still wet with tears but she still smiled, finally thankful that she was about to go back to her room in that cheap inn. Her 'sixth sense' was constantly telling her that the creature was still close so she hurried her steps, and once her eyes slowly adapted to the light of the torch she managed to see...
A little girl in a purple dress...
'W-what? What's a child doing here? Are they lost?'
The little girl was facing away from her but she could still see her black hair and the enchanting purple dress. She looked to be 1 year old and she could faintly hear her voice as she spoke.
-"Papa....you...for...Papa"
-'Is she searching for her father? Judging by the quality of her dress, she seems to be the child of a noble. I don't want to risk getting found out and sent to my father but I can't just let a child become that thing's next meal.'
She suppressed a small shudder, imagining how that creature would butcher this small girl and then eat her body with its needle filled maw.
She then started feeling like the creature was slowly starting to get closer and closer so she started moving faster and faster towards the little girl, wanting to at least tell her to run while she gets the creature's attention.
-"Young miss you have to run, there's a scary thing in this forest so run before it-"
'Wait a minute...'
Mirelle was by now outside the cave and only a few steps away from the little girl. Her senses were telling her that the creature was also only a few steps away but when she took a quick look behind her, she only saw the dark cave entrance.
She started breathing fast and her heart was starting to beat against her chest once again. Her palms were slick with her blood and her ankles hurt like never before.
'If the creature is so close to me...and it isn't behind me then...'
She heard some movement come from the little girl's direction and then heard her voice once again.
-"Papa, thank you for giving me such a resilient playmate."
Her hair went on end and cold sweat started to cover her back. She wanted to run, cast a spell, pray to the Gods or do anything but look back. Her senses were telling her that if she were to turn back now, it won't end well for her.
"You know...Papa once told me that it is very rude to not look at the face of the person that is talking to you...It can be seen as a sign of disinterest...or...discomfort."
-'She's speaking way too clearly for a 1 year old girl and the voice doesn't feel like it is coming out of her mouth...'
-"I know that I have been acting pretty rudely recently. Stealing you from your friends...dragging you to my cave...tricking you into thinking you were safe."
The little girl then started giggling, that same giggle that Mirelle heard while she was dragged like a sack of vegetables through the forest.
"Oh I apologize for laughing at you, I know that only close friends can laugh like this at their friends' misfortune but it is too comical. Did you really think you were lucky enough to wake up when I was still asleep? That I couldn't taste the sweet scent of your blood in the air? That you just so happened to see a light at the end of the tunnel?"
Mirelle was shaking from fear and anger... Fear from realizing that this creature was so smart that it could play around with her like this...And anger from getting tricked...At feeling like she actually had a chance to escape.
-"W-w-what are y-you going to do to me? Why are you acting like we're friends? Friends don't do this!"
She turned around and yelled in the creature's face and once she slowly opened her eyes to look at her death, she instead saw...
The little girl standing right in front of her...laughing as if she just heard the funniest joke ever.
The little girl didn't have a face and yet continued to laugh, even holding her stomach with her freakish hands.
'W-what the he-'
The little girl then started laughing even more, leading to her head splitting in two, revealing the massive maw filled with needle-like teeth. What Mirelle thought was the little girl's hair was instead her monstrous tongue and its thin 'feelers'.
The young healer's knee's gave out and she was now sitting on the ground, trying to process what is currently happening.
'I-I thought that it was a disguise, illusion magic. S-she....It can just make herself look like this without using any spells?'
As Melissa continued to laugh, the sound of her 'cute' laugh echoing all around the forest and the cave standing behind Mirelle, the young woman finally couldn't take it anymore. If she was going to die anyway then she might as well saw what's on her mind.
-"W-what the hell is so funny!? Answer me!"
Melissa then completely stopped laughing and then looked straight at Mirelle, who was now starting to regret her words, covering her mouth with her bloody hands.
The maw of the creature then opened up completely while the girl tilted her head down, making Mirelle look straight into it's maw. The long, black tongue slowly snaked through the air and then went to touch Mirelle's face, licking up the sweat and dried tears.
The tongue was covered in small, rough scales while the feeler's coming out of the gaps between the scales were smooth and silky. Mirelle shuddered and froze in place as she stared into the creature's open maw.
The tongue continued to explore her face and neck while the little girl's voice came from the maw once again, sounding a bit winded from all of the laughter.
-"I apologize but it was too funny not to laugh at your little misunderstanding. While I called you my 'friend' earlier, that did not mean we were actually friends. You are simply a 'gift' given to me by Papa because I was a good girl, in essence...You are my toy"
Mirelle shuddered once more and was starting to get even more scared, but also a little enraged. She might not be a noble anymore but that doesn't give this creature the right to make her its toy!
-"H-heh, I bet your father is some abominable monster if he is your parent. He must be really blind if he thinks you deserve a-AAAAAAGHHHHH!!"
The small feeler's coming out of the creature's mouth suddenly entered Mirelle's face, going under her skin, muscles and even touching the nerves. They squirmed and pulled while making sure that they did not make her bleed or 'harm' her.
The voice of the little girl was now monotone, completely devoid of emotion. She made sure to grab Mirelle's jaw with her close and force it shut while the feeler's continued to squirm inside her face, some even going behind her eyes and into her sinuses.
-"It seems that you have to be educated, toy. It was really such a shame, I was only going to cut your skin and lick up your blood and then force you to heal your wounds over and over before we started playing more 'roughly'. You shouldn't talk badly about my Papa...That makes me angry."
Mirelle tried to move away or push the creature away with with her hands but its tails wrapped around her wrists, with the excruciating pain from getting her nerves, eyes and sinuses touched by those feelers making it hard for her to move.
She continued to scream but her mouth remain closed. Tears, snot and saliva started to cover her face as the pain started to be too much for her after only a few moments. She could feel her skin bulge out, her breathing to get strained and every time she tried to move her eyes, it brought her more pain and discomfort.
"Don't worry, this is just the start of your punishment. I have to make sure that you won't even be able to think negative things about Papa by the time we're done. Now before we start the second part of your punishment, do you have anything else that you want to say?"
Melissa then slowly let go of Mirelle's mouth and stopped the squirming of her tongue's feeler's. The young woman started coughing and after a few moments of catching her breath, she managed to ask the following.
-"W-what are y-you? Y-you are no animal and I've never heard of a sentient being like you."
Mirelle wanted to curse the creature and her abominable father but she decided to instead ask something that wouldn't lead to an even worse 'punishment'.
Melissa tilted her head, letting some saliva to leak out of her open mouth and land on the ground, causing the ground and plants to sizzle as the liquid landed on them.
-"Why, I'm a perfectly normal human. What else could I be? Now I think your break is over, let's start the second step of your punishment."
Melissa then took out the feeler's from Mirelle's face and then started dragging her back into the cave while the young woman clawed desperately at the ground and screamed desperately for help, begging the god's, demons, anyone to help her.
But nobody heard her pleas, for she was simply a regular person.
[Melissa Status Window] (Neiro wanted to check his daughter's status window the day before he got a name)
Name:Melissa
Species:Human
Stats:
STR(She can lift her Papa with one hand!):3
AGI(Trained her reaction speed by fishing!):8
DEX(Has better control over her tongue and limbs!):9
END(Gained a lot of stamina from her hunts):6
THG(Started growing scales on her tongue and her claws are now as strong as Grandma's kitchen knife!):10
PER(She can now see through the fabric of her dress and still see normally. Her hearing got much better and she now has thermal vision if she uses her tongue!):25
WIS(Very smart! Learned how to make the Letos' do what she says!):5
CHR(Even cuter!):200
INT(Learned a lot of things from Papa and Mr. Box!):5
LCK(Fate is still confused):0
Mana Capacity(Still small): 150/150(Full)
Trait(s):
-Diurnal vision(Her eyes can see well in both day and night time, adapting quickly to changes in light levels)
-Vomeronasal(Uses her tongue to detect chemicals in the air and to 'see' the heat that animals give off, allowing her to hunt effectively without having to use her eyes)
-Hybrid breathing(Can breathe both water and air)
-Improved Partial Mimicry(uses her tongue in order to hunt, making it look like an insect in order to attract birds. Can manipulate the feeler's on her tongue to make it look like she has hair, making herself look more and more like a normal human girl)
-Internal Analysis(Can use the feeler's on her tongue to enter the bodies of their targets if she can penetrate through their skin and inspect possible injuries or cause internal damage)
-Prehensile tails(Can use her tails to climb, balance herself, grab objects and attack.)
Skill(s):
Active:
-Call for Papa
Passive:
-Torture(Master):Knows how to physically punish her toys.
-Sneaking(Adept):In preparation of receiving her first playmate(Toy) she started learning how to sneak better by climbing the tall Vintu tree's and move silently above her prey.
-Manipulation(Intermediate):Can make animals do her bidding through 'coercion'. Likes making her prey think that they have a chance to escape before she crushes their hope. Can coerce her Papa to do what she says if she acts cute.
-Tracking(Intermediate):Uses the feeler's on her tongue to smell the lingering scent of her prey. Ends up relying on her superior eyesight anyways so her tracking skills haven't improved that much.
-Butchering(Intermediate):Uses her sharp claws to slice and prepare the meat of her prey and drinks the blood she drains from the corpses. Due to the sharpness of her claws she sometimes cuts too deep and opens up the intestines and stomach, leading to the contamination of the meat.
-Camouflage(Intermediate):Has a harder time camouflaging herself due to her increased size.
-Disguise(Intermediate):Can disguise herself using her feeler's and the dress she got as a gift in order to look like a normal human girl. Will only fool people with terrible eyesight or those that see her from a distance.
-Cooking(Beginner):Has started to learn how to cook what she hunts over a fire. Only sometimes burns the meat but still very tasty.(Taste test given by The Anomaly)
Title(s):
-Firstborn of The Anomaly(Given by Existence)
-Cutest Daughter ever (Given by The Anomaly)
-First Midorian Monster(Given by Mirelle)
[End Status Window]