Chapter 19 - Child

After a little while of just sitting there and staring at the small creature in the basket, the Imp chose to finally start moving again, and then carefully picked the basket up by the large handle attached to it.

And then, the Imp began to walk, walk, and walk, without pause. After all, that seemed to be what he was supposed to do. Every once in a while, the small creature seemed to wake up, although it luckily fell right back asleep so that the Imp didn't need to worry about what he was supposed to do with its screams and cries.

But then, a few hours later, the Imp chose to take a break, just because that's what he learned from the three he has been traveling with until now and wanted to use that break for something else. First of all, he wanted to properly try and figure out what exactly happened to him after they entered that place with the four-armed man, and the Imp tried to disappear, and for that grabbed the small card out of his bag.

Again and again, the Imp tried to use it in the same way again, but nothing ever happened. Instead, after a little while, a notification appeared.

[Ace of Cups Cooldown: 29 Days, 6 Hours, 46 Minutes, 9 Seconds]

And once again, it seemed to be one of those notifications that kept changing over time, switching out the numbers all the time. The Imp slowly understood that it meant that it would take a certain amount of time until the countdown hit zero, but he wasn't entirely sure what would happen when it did.

Either way, for now, he had no choice but to accept it as it was, and instead angrily placed the card back into his bag, starting to eat some of the meat inside of there. At the very least, that's what he wanted to do, but instead he suddenly bit into something very hard that the Imp accidentally picked up together with the chunk of meat.

Annoyedly, he spat it onto his hand and took a look at it, recognizing it as one of the shiny things that he found inside of the pile of sticks from before, although he once more really wasn't sure what it was. There was so much that he didn't know about, and now he had nobody that he could ask either. So, instead, he resolved himself to try and find out what it was himself!

It was small, round and blue… It was hard and couldn't be eaten… And most importantly, it was shiny and was found in a pile of sticks… Combining all of these things together, the Imp came to a simple conclusion.

He had not the slightest clue what it was supposed to be.

Although, he did see something similar before, attached to Avalin's dagger. Carefully, the Imp pulled it away from the strap of his bag and took a closer look at it, noticing that there really was a similar thing set into the end of the dagger, even if it was red instead of blue and a slight bit smaller. But at the very least, it was a clue!

Next, the Imp swiftly chose to grab the other shiny things that he found on top of the pile of sticks and compared them to the two things that he already found. Most of them seemed to be different types of the same thing, usually just in different sizes or colors. There were some other things as well, but the Imp really had no idea what they were supposed to be.

And then, the Imp picked up one of the small, yellow shiny things which seemed to be different from the other yellow shiny things, because it had a different shape and other colors on it as well. But when the Imp played around with it a little, he accidentally moved a small part of this shiny thing, and it broke apart!

"Whaah!" He exclaimed, for some reason feeling really nervous at the fact that he broke it, although for some reason, it seemed to be still hanging on one side. When the Imp played around with it a little more, he soon figured out that he indeed didn't break it, and actually just… opened it. And inside of it, the Imp found another monster!

It was another Imp, even, at the very least it had the same red skin as the Imp! On top of that, it was also wearing the same clothes as him! And while the other Imp was incredibly ugly, the Imp was glad to at least see someone else!

Although, for some reason, he was only able to see the other Imp's face, and only inside of the small shiny plate of the thing. And when he got closer, the other Imp also got closer…

And then, the Imp remembered something else. Whenever he looked into water, he would be able to see himself inside of it as well, so maybe this was actually the Imp it was showing?

But the shiny flat piece didn't really seem like water, so the Imp was a little confused about it… Either way, for now, the Imp just placed it away.

Other than this small item, the Imp found one more thing. Although it looked like a stick at first and the Imp meant to have it burnt together with the other sticks, it had some shiny bits inside of it, so he really didn't want to burn it if he didn't have to for some reason.

He wasn't sure what exactly this stick was, and why it was special enough to have shinty bits inside of it, but all of the shiny bits were the exact same color as the blue thing the Imp bit into before.

So maybe they also had something to do with each other? The Imp really wasn't sure what that might be, though, so he put it back into the bag with the other things, because it was just about time to get moving again.

But exactly when he tried to pick the small creature back up, the Imp heard something else behind him, immediately turning around in response.

Just there stood another person, although a very, very short one. As far as the Imp could remember from what Avalin taught him, that person could be one of three things just based on size. One, a Dwarf. However, the Dwarf could be excluded pretty quickly, because they were supposed to have heads that were a lot bigger, a lot of hair on their faces, and shorter, stumpier arms and legs.

Then, a Gnome. But the Imp could also exclude those because Gnomes were supposed to have pointy ears, and this one's were just as round as Avalin's ears were.

And third, a 'Child'. The Imp didn't really understand what a child was supposed to be and why it could become other types of people later on, but from what the Imp could tell, this could be the most likely type of person this one was.

But when the 'Child' saw the Imp, it immediately dropped onto the ground and placed its hands against its face, starting to cry in response to seeing it. "Stop…" The Imp told it, but the child was already crying way too loud to be able to hear him, so the Imp got closer and grasped his Dagger tightly. "Stop." He exclaimed, a slight bit louder.

This time, it seemed like the child did hear him and slightly flinched in response, but just started crying even louder.

And now, the Imp got really angry. Once more, he moved in closer and pointed the Dagger at the child, leaning in toward it so that it could really hear him speak. "Stop!" The Imp yelled out as loudly as he could, because he didn't want to deal with whatever this person was trying to do, and immediately, the Child stopped crying and just stared at the Imp with its whole body shaking, just like what Avalin, Thomas and James did when they all ran from the burning island.

But then, the Imp noticed something else. A very unpleasant smell that just entered his nose, and he swiftly turned toward the source, which seemed to be in between the legs of the child, where a small puddle formed on the cold and hard ground.

[You have instilled immense fear in someone. Charisma Stat Unlocked]

Entirely annoyed at the sudden appearance of a notification, the Imp swiftly took a look at what it said and then slashed it with his dagger. He understood what they were telling him now, but he still didn't care.

Instead, the Imp was thinking something very different. Which was that no matter the unpleasant smell this child gave off, the Imp was hungry, and the small creature in the basket would probably wake up soon enough as well.

And if it couldn't eat anything, then maybe the Imp was able to give it some blood to drink. He saw a few monsters back in the Horde do that, so perhaps the small creature could do the same. But just when the Imp was about to turn his Dagger at the Child, exactly that tiny creature began to cry as well.

For some reason, the cries of this small creature and the child caused very different feelings in the Imp. This Child just made him very angry, but the little creature, on the other hand, made him feel scared, although it was a different type of fear to what he used to feel before in different situations.

So of course, as fast as he could, the Imp turned around and ran toward the small creature in the basket to take care of it, and even if the Imp felt a little bit of pain when he got closer all of a sudden, he still couldn't help himself.

Quickly, the Imp stuffed the Dagger into his bag, not even trying to put it onto the bag's strap, and tried to figure out what to do to calm it down, most importantly trying to find more of that white liquid that made it stop last time.

But no matter how much he looked, there only seemed to be that one bottle. And at the worst timing, another notification appeared.

[Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Leveled Up!]

Once more incredibly annoyed, the Imp turned toward the notification and without even thinking about reading it, hit it with his hand to make it disappear. And behind that notification, the Imp saw something that might help him out.

The Child. Immediately, the Imp grabbed the basket it one hand and tried to haul it over toward the Child while grabbing his Dagger again with his other hand. And when the Imp stood in front of the child, he placed the basket down and pointed the dagger at it while trying to grab the bottle that had the white liquid inside of it before, and held it toward the child as well.

He wasn't exactly sure if it could help him, but the child and the small creature looked somewhat similar in a few ways, so it might know something about the white liquid.

Then, seeing that the Child didn't understand, he pointed the bottle at the still-crying creature, "It needs… food." The Imp growled, and then pressed the bottle against the child's hand. "You give food."