It was hideous.

Milo couldn’t help but think of it that way: an it. It looked wrong. It wasn’t just a scaled-up baby; it was also, very clearly, monstrous.

Instead of the normal baby fat that gave a regular-sized baby its chubby, cherubic charm, this creature’s flesh sagged and drooped in a vaguely grotesque way. When it opened its mouth to scream, Milo could see two rows of sharp teeth that would give any breast-feeding mother nightmares. And the eyes.

There was something predatory and sinister about its eyes. There was a shrewdness there that was...unbecoming of a baby.

All of that wasn’t even mentioning the foul layer of gore that was smeared all over it, most notably its hands and mouth. The source of said gore became sickeningly obvious when the baby picked up one of the dingos littering the area in front of its cave—in a single hand—and savagely bit into it. It pulled, tearing the dog apart with its teeth and immense strength. Blood sprayed. Entrails dangled.

Milo nearly threw up. It was hands down the most gruesome and upsetting thing he’d witnessed firsthand.

It was also frustrating to know he’d wasted six whole mana providing a buffet for what he now assumed was the boss: a dingo-eating baby. The System had flipped the script on him. Maybe the dingos would have even helped him out in the fight if he’d just let things play out.

He eyed the contentedly chewing baby, which was ignoring him for the moment.

At least it’s so horrific I won’t mind killing it. But how do I kill it?

What were critical baby weaknesses? Choking? SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome?

Wouldn’t that be nice.

He watched in horrified fascination as it messily devoured the dingo in just a couple of bites. The size of it. If it wasn’t choking on half of a mostly-unchewed dingo, Milo didn’t think he’d be able to cram anything big enough down its throat to matter.

Would his book even make a dent? Maybe he could gouge out an eye, try to mash its brain…

Hmm...I guess? Actually, no, probably not, he revised.

Looking at it carefully, he didn’t think he’d be able to fit his book inside the eye socket and slurpify its brain like he’d sort of envisioned, but he should be able to blind it at least. That seemed like a good start.

But first, Milo wanted a little distance. Right now the baby was occupied with feasting on dingos. It had selected another choice beast for munching, and didn’t seem to have even noticed him up high on the stalagmite. If it did, though, Milo would be at a grabbable height once it crawled the few steps it would need to reach him. He didn’t fancy getting the dingo treatment.

He spent another point of mana, very grateful for his doubled pool size, to retreat back to the first stalagmite he’d landed on.

“I’m gonna try to...make it not see,” he told Backlebutt as he was landing. He wanted to get as much out of his mana as he could. There was still time to do some damage with his remaining Fetch Book time.

Backlebutt nodded. “(Blind) it. It’s a good idea. Do you think you can kill it? I won’t be much use here. It wouldn’t even notice my attacks. If I had a bow...”

Milo nodded distractedly, balancing atop the stalagmite while lining up a shot. “Probably. If I can find a weak spot.”

Wait, don’t babies have a soft spot on their skulls somewhere? So their heads can grow or something?

Whatever, it probably wasn’t any better than a squishy eyeball.

Here goes.

Suppressing a thrill of fear and excitement, Milo blasted his textbook corner-first as hard as he could at the mutant baby’s eyeball, initiating the fight.

It seemed like a direct hit, but, as predicted, he wasn’t able to penetrate any deeper than surface level. The book was stopped short by the bony socket.

That didn’t mean the hit was ineffective, however. The baby immediately began wailing again, much louder than when it had simply been hungry for dingo. It clutched at its eye.

Milo made sure to pull the book away before it could potentially get trapped by the hand. Then, shrugging, he blasted the book into the baby’s second eye. It was another hit. He saw something spurt this time, causing him to wince in a perverse kind of empathy.

That can’t feel good.

He summoned the book back to his side, deciding what to do next. Things were going really well so far. He’d half-expected the baby to have some kind of improved resilience, but, if it did, it wasn’t enough to stop his textbook from gouging its eyes out.

“What do you think?” he asked Backlebutt, glancing at the man.

“Too easy,” he said, sounding strangely perturbed by the idea.

“Easy works for me,” Milo replied.

“No, I mean—”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!”

The baby had been already been screaming up a storm, but its most recent cry was on a whole other level—probably some kind of magic-imbued attack. The entire cavern shook violently, threatening to dislodge Milo from his stalagmite. He only just held on, dropping his textbook in the process. Backlebutt lost what appeared to be all of his stones in making sure he didn’t fall off his own stalagmite.

As if the shaking wasn’t already bad enough, the baby began beating against the walls and ground, which shook the cavern even harder. Shockingly loud cracking sounds rang out from around the cavern. Milo looked around wildly, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise. It immediately became apparent what it was; numerous stalactites had been dislodged from the ceiling, crashing to the floor. Some were big, some small, but any one of them could be deadly. Milo watched as one half his size shook loose and landed not ten meters from where he was, spraying shards. He squeezed his eyes shut and flinched away.

Holy shit!

He looked up anxiously, fearful that one could be dropping his way any moment. There were some directly overhead that could hit either Backlebutt or himself if they came loose.

“Cover!” yelled Backlebutt, pointing at Milo for some reason.

“Yeah!” Milo returned. Where though?

He looked around frantically. There.

Directly off to his left, maybe twenty meters distant, he spotted a cluster of large boulders. One of them had a slight overhang. It should be enough to keep them safe if they hunched over and pressed themselves up against it.

Belatedly, he realized that Backlebutt had been pointing at that exact rock earlier, and not, as Milo’d thought, at himself. Too afraid for his life to spare any emotional bandwidth for embarrassment, he spent another point of mana on Fetch Book, bringing his total down to 12.

Holding his left arm over his head to ward off any small stalactites that might come his way, he lowered first Backlebutt, then himself to the ground. The order wasn’t out of anything like heroism or chivalry; Milo simply reasoned it would be easier to see what he was doing with Backlebutt that way. Plus, Backlebutt was able to start hobbling over there on foot while Milo flew himself directly from his stalagmite, ultimately reaching safety first. He sent his textbook to hover over Backlebutt for the last couple of seconds it took the man to reach the boulder’s relative safety.

There really weren’t a ton of stalactites raining down, so the measure turned out to be unnecessary. All it took was one unlucky hit, though. Better safe than sorry.

They waited out the tantrum from hell in the shelter of the boulder. It lasted for something like a minute before the baby’s rage trailed off. Milo spent the time thinking about what he could do that might stand a chance of inflicting enough damage on the baby to kill it. He was pretty certain he’d blinded it completely, so the chances of it being able to dodge or retaliate successfully were pretty low. Really all it came down to was thinking of literally any method to hit something vital.

Milo’s thoughts returned to the wrecking ball he’d rigged up. It was probably his best bet, but his gut told him the chances of succeeding were pretty low; the baby had an attack that literally made it rain giant hunks of stone. He had to think it was built to withstand dropping the odd stalactite on itself inadvertently.

He wished he had some way to slice it open. Bleeding it dry seemed like the way to go here.

But first things first. He’d been itching to try the wrecking ball for a while now, and it maybe had a shot.

“I’m going to try something,” he told Backlebutt.

Keeping an eye out for any of the few remaining dingos, as well as the baby itself, Milo cautiously walked over to the entrance where he’d left his backpack. Backlebutt tagged along with a sour look on his face. Milo sensed the man was pretty displeased at his general irrelevance to the current situation.

Milo snaked the rope dangling off the book through his backpack’s handle, knotting it off. Then he hitched the bag up onto his shoulders. It was really uncomfortable, the rocks digging into his back through the relatively thin fabric of the backpack.

After that, he headed in the direction of the baby’s last known location, just outside its cave. It sounded like it was still there, though Milo didn’t have a clear line of sight. It wasn’t crying anymore. Judging by the crunches, it sounded like it was actually eating again. That seemed somewhat excessive to Milo; it had already eaten two dingos that he’d seen.

Rather than get back up on the stalagmites, which he’d decided was rather mana-intensive and unnecessary, he just walked around them until he found the baby again. Its back was to him while it busily devoured a dingo.

That should work.

If Milo got lucky and hit it in the right spot in the back of the head, maybe he’d strike one of those soft spots not protected by bone. He really had no idea where they were supposed to be, so it was a long shot...but maybe.

He walked away from the baby until he was up against the furthest wall, giving himself the largest runway he could. Building up as much speed as possible was key here.

Letting the backpack drop from his shoulders, Milo activated Fetch Book once more, levitating the backpack wrecking ball off the ground. After a moment’s thought, he actually moved it along the wall to his left, giving it a slightly longer runway. He wanted enough room to be able to build up speed gradually; too much too fast, and he might rip his backpack just in the acceleration phase.

When he judged it to be enough, he finally sent it ghosting toward the baby, which had just finished its dingo and was now selecting another one. Its head faced slightly toward Milo, but it shouldn’t matter. Blinded as it was, it wouldn’t be able to see the wrecking backpack coming.

As the backpack reached the halfway point, Milo was getting his hopes up. It had built up some serious speed already, and it would only get faster. He continued pushing it at about half strength, still cautious about ripping it.

Just then, the baby turned to fully face Milo, and he realized with a start that both of its big, blue eyes were completely whole.

He knew he’d ruined the second eye at the very least. He’d only been about 80% sure on the first one, but the second one had definitely splattered. Nevertheless, two undamaged eyes gazed his way. They latched onto the rapidly incoming package.

Milo only had a split second to process this before impact. It was enough to think, Whatever, doesn’t really matter right this second.

But the baby had a split second as well.

Its arms came up—but not quite fast enough to intercept the bundle of heavy stones, which smashed straight into its face. Stones exploded out of the backpack, the force of the impact enough to bust the seams completely.

Milo waited expectantly, hoping the baby would fall over, dead of a traumatic brain injury. Unconscious at the very least.

But no.

The baby screamed in pain, grabbing at the offending object still hovering around its face. It grabbed it...and didn’t let go.

Milo tried to yank the book away, but it was his strength versus the baby’s, and it was freakishly strong. He pushed and pulled, trying to surprise it by changing the direction of force suddenly. The fist moved back and forth through the air slightly as a result, but that was it.

The baby stopped crying, looking at its fist curiously. It shook it in an oddly adorable fashion, almost like a real baby with some little toy clenched in its hand. Milo decided he wasn’t too concerned; he could probably just wait until the baby lost interest and dropped it.

Fetch Book’s duration ended while he waited.

And then, taking Milo completely by surprise, the baby stuffed his book inside its mouth and began to chew.