Ank

Mouth shut so we wouldn’t give up ourselves or our potential numbers immediately, my sister and I jumped with our weapons in hand ran straight towards our enemies:

[Species: Chullachaki

level: 5

HP: 15/15]

The closest of the short humanoid creatures; grayish brown little men with furry hoofed legs, no taller than 70 centimeters; turned around, only when I was already over it with my improvised mace:

[Stealth attack bonus! +30% Damage!]

The little monster backed off from my hit and I missed its head, but not collarbone, and as a [-3.09!] showed up the creature’s head, its HP bar falling to [12.1/15], I heard a bone crack, and the monster cry in pain.

Hunah bypassed me, as I jumped back and used my one spell, and she got her mace straight on her opponent’s jaw, disfiguring the tortured monster’s face.

I wanted the stealth damage bonus, and didn’t want to waste magic or the limited time my summon had by summoning my 1 creature too soon, but I was a summoner after all, and only then the battle started for real: my little predator bird; I just felt an instinctive link between us, and knew it wouldn’t hurt anyone that I wasn’t an enemy, but my control over it was limited to this; went around the [Chullachaki] and tried to bit its calf.

The small men noticed, however, and pulling his wooden club bashed my summon away… showing me an opening, and this time my mace did found its bald head:

[Critical hit! +100% damage!]

The little monster stumbled forward, blood dripping from its head. But with, still, half of its HP bar full.

And, just like Hunah foreshadowed, 3 more [Chullachakis] came out of the cave that was their nest.

“Fuck~ I really hoped that it would have died with that”, my naturally perpetually half-closed eyes and voice tone failed to express how despaired I really felt seeing things don’t go a tenth as smoothly as I hoped they would.

As I saw one of the newcomer monsters pointing a blowgun at me, my summon bit the weakened creature I was fighting, taking it out of balance, and I pulled the monster by its neck, using it as a cover from the poisonous dart.

My meat shield tried to hit me with its club even after being poisoned, but unfortunately for him, my mother was a [Filled Teeth], and I herded her shark-like biters as a [Half], and chewed away the little men’s face, only then the [Chullachaki] dying.

“Gah!”, I screamed, as I felt a spear tip piercing my right side and messing with my entrails. As my HP fell to 12/20, the following message popped up just to brighten my day:

[Poisoned! Effects: “Lethargy”!]

[Debuff resisted: “Mind-numbing Pain”, “Blood loss”!]

At least my high pain resistance allowed me to immediately hit back my aggressor, a second [Chullachaki] holding a tiny spear, and I bashed the but of my improvised mace right on top of his head, stunning him for enough time for Hunah to show up and strike the monster’s nape, making it fall, when my summon jumped on small men’s neck, biting the jugular and scratching the opponents face with ts own sharp bird claws; after helping with my aggressor, Hunah hid herself behind me and my meat shield.

“Fuck, can you run away?”, she asked me, concerned even if her nose was bleeding and one of her eyes closed behind an incredible swelling.

“No, I won’t be able to outrun these other bastards”, I replied, holding the closest part of the spear, while my sister broke the rest of the tiny pole, so I wouldn’t walk around with that thing dangling, begging to be pulled out or pushed even deeper, either way activating the [blood loss] I was lucky to resist. I was covered in sweat, tormented by excruciating pain, but we had only one choice: “We have to kill them.”

As I finished, I dashed straight against the blowgun monster, protecting me and Hunah with the corpse of my opponent's brethren; as the remaining 2 enemies were not close quarter combatants, and we should close our distance as soon as possible if we really wanted to win.

[Inflicted: Fear!]

It looked like my idea worked, as both the little furry guys focused on my sister and I using a corpse of their kind to approach, that they didn’t even notice my summon quickly going around us, and biting the leg of the blowgun one, bringing it down.

My sister jumped on the enemy still standing, and I, throwing my meat shield away, attacked the fallen one.

Because of the poisoning effect, however, I missed the head of the monster, and hit the ground of the cave entrance, bringing the durability of my weapon to 0, when the rock that made the hitting part came off the shaft, and rolled away deeper inside the cave. And I wasn’t the only one that took advantage of enemies' mistakes: the fallen [Chullachaki] kicked me in the balls, and dug two of its pointy darts in my summon’s eyes, killing it.

As I sat there, with my knees on the ground, I heard my sister cursing:

“Fuck”, the lack of a couple of fingers on her right and dominant hand was obvious, and worse, her opponent had transformed in an ugly ass human holding a snake.

With a very angry little monster holding two darts standing right over me, his [level] more than twice mine, once again I wasn’t in a position to help her. And, have I ever been? I had everything taken from me.

Not anymore.

Gritting my teeth and frowning, I grabbed onto the broken tiny wooden spear protruding from my side, pulled it out, and quickly slashed the belly of the [Chullachaki] who had just lifted his darts to stab me. I bathed on the blood of the creature, as its viscera fell all over me, and the face of the monster went to stunning, to utter terror and pain, when it finally fell down, and until it died.

“Graw!”, I turned to see my sister, with an expression just like mine even if showing deep cuts all over her body, holding the little apparently magic-user over her head, and throwing her enemy right over a stalagmite, impaling the monster and killing him instantaneously. She checked on me right after the deed.

We lifted our thumbs up to one another, and I got up, pressing my wound:

“06/20 HP”, I said, breathing with hardship.

“I’m at 05/20, but no debuffs. The spear wound?”

“Bleeding: 1.5 Hp per hour”, I was lucky the spear was so tiny. “As long as I keep pressure, that is.”

Because I didn’t have much time unless I got some healing, and staying in the wild with ow health wasn’t a good idea too, my sister helped me with the first aid, and we moved to get our promised loot, and get the fuck out of that cave before any predator showed up, attracted by all the blood and noise, or I bleed to death.