It was only the slightest tremble at my feet that warned me I had managed to attract the attention of another one of the adults. It was coming, to protect its brood, tunneling through the earth until it was right below its prey.

I stomped the ground, sending my own strategically placed tremors into the earth to lead it to where I wanted it. I prepared my dagger. Then, I angled my body just right, presenting an exposed neck that I knew the mimixcoa would not be able to resist.

The ground underneath me burst open. A gaping maw, a horror of jagged teeth trailed by a writhing worm of dung-colored flesh, lunged for me.

When the worm came only inches from my neck, I plunged my dagger straight into one side of the head, and out the other. Its tubular body twitched a last few desperate spasms. Those were just reflexes, the creature already dead the moment I pierced through the nerve-centers it had for a brain.

I held the slain monster up to inspect it, gave it a quick taste to make sure it was really dead, and flicked it onto the pile. It was another big one, this time the size of my arm. Thank the gods I got to this infestation when I did, or clearing this field would have taken three months instead of the three weeks I was spending on it now.

I resumed my shoveling. Spade. Flip the earth. Stab and pick out one… two… three… four slimy finger-sized white larvae. Next spade. It looked like mindless work, but there was a pattern to getting rid of mimixcoa. Another slight shifting of the ground beneath my feet heralded the arrival of the next adult.

I went through the same steps: stomp the ground, ready myself, wait for the lunge, stab when it was mid-leap and couldn't maneuver. The toothy thing skewered on my dagger got a scowl that contained three weeks of my pent-up frustration. Then I tossed it on the pile together with all its siblings.

Somewhere underneath that giant mound of dead things was a wheelbarrow. Only the handles stuck out now. The stack of corpses I was amassing had grown to swallow the thing whole. And this was just from one night.

It was endless, and I had to get all of them. Especially the adults, those hid deeper underground, needed to be lured out. If I only took care of the larvae, if I missed just one of the adults the infestation would simply come back twice as bad next spring.

Aaaaah… why are there so many?

Three weeks of this! Three weeks of nothing but rooting around in the dirt!

I sighed. One more day, maybe two, and then I would finally be done with this extermination and could go on my way to the next job. East would be the most sensible direction to set out in. There was always work for a monster hunter like me on the plains in summer, always a new horror to get rid of. Going south would be fun as well but… no. I was not heading south. Nothing could change my mind on that. Not even my own treacherous longing.

A low whistle pulled me away from my musings. “Wowie lass, the number of those buggers ya dig up just grows larger every night, doesn’t it!” The owner of this farm, my client for this job, gave me another variant of his usual excited morning greeting.

I squinted against the pale strip of sunrise-orange glow at the horizon to make out the vague form cutting towards me through the fields. “Morning!” I waved at him in fake cheer.

“Still slaving away at night, I see.” the good-natured male stomped over and attempted to engage me in the same brand of annoying small talk he went for every morning.

“Easier that way.” I wiped my gloves on my trousers to get rid of the worst of the worm-slime, and tugged at my braid, trying to get my hair into a semblance of order after a whole night of gruesome slaughter. “Cooler than working in the midday sun as well.”

Terrible as I was at small talk, I had probably said that line close to a dozen times myself. At least when talking with this man my inability to carry a conversation wasn’t as noticeable as usual. He was nearly as bad at it as I was.

“And then to know that both times Old Cork had these buggers on his land, the hunter that showed up took care of them during the day. I so have to tell him his lads did it wrong. You’re way more efficient at this than they ever were.” He circled the day’s pile of carcasses in obvious admiration, and from a very safe distance.

Please, don’t tell him that. You’ll get those hunters killed.

“Breakfast’s waiting for ya, by the way.”

“Thanks, I am nearly done here. I will go grab it in a minute.”

“Still can’t convince ya to eat with us, can I lassie?”

I wanted to groan. This again. Instead of showing my annoyance, I laughed away his offer. “Middle of summer? Busiest season for you. I can not impose and have you taking time out of your day to entertain me for three whole weeks now can I?”

“Yeah well, I still can’t believe you’re doing all this girl.” He gave me his usual bubbly laugh. It did little to hide the discomfort he felt at my continued refusal to partake in his hospitality. “Especially with how little we’re paying ya.”

“Free meals. Roof over my head. Cushy job to enjoy the summer instead of needing to face giant beasts that could fit all of me in their jaws.” I shook my head. “I would say what you are doing is more than sufficient. Maybe I should pay you for all you are offering me. Especially considering you probably lost half a harvest to these things.”

I was lying. I'd do anything to face something that would give me a real challenge, a proper hunt. But of course I couldn’t show that. I had to lie, like always. As much as giant beasts were fun, if a lowly child hunter like me took on too many creatures that gave even Inquisitors pause then people would start asking questions.

The farmer shrugged off my refusal with a little more awkwardness in his gestures than usual, then stood there for a moment, perhaps looking for words. I had deviated slightly from my usual reply, and now we were both off-script. Eventually, he simply gave up on continuing the conversation. Instead, with cautious steps he inched closer to the wheelbarrow, one hand slowly reaching for a handle.

He hesitated, fidgeting with his overalls and studying the pile of dead creatures some more. “Hooo boy, those are some nasty ones. You’re sure they’re dead?”

I shrugged and leaned on my spade. “Very dead.”

One of his hands reached out again, fingers twitching and heart beating to the pace of his rising anxiety. With a quick poke he prodded at one of the larger adult worms to make sure, then he whipped his hand back. Three weeks of this and he still wasn’t quite used to it. He was exaggerating in his caution. They were monsters, certainly, but it was not like mimixcoa were ever that dangerous.

Except for the adults, with their ravenous ring of inch-long teeth on their tube-mouths. Adults the size of an arm, that could easily take your head off if you weren’t careful. If I mistimed my stab when one of those adults lunged out of the ground, they could burrow their way straight through my neck. In fact, if the one the farmer had just prodded hadn’t been properly dead it would have chewed the man’s hand straight off.

Only not dangerous to me.

For everyone else… this job is really skewing my sensibilities.

The male took in a big gulp of air and rubbed his hands together. “I’m off with this then,” he stated to himself, his voice vibrating with feigned confidence as he gathered his courage.

I hummed in assent.

“Same treatment as usual?”

“Yes.” I nodded and suppressed a grin at his pointless stalling.

Aaaah… three weeks and still so scared. Sooo cute.

“Still can’t believe ya can use them as fertilizer like this,” he blathered on to work past his fear of the things. “I mean, that’s just gold. See how many of them there are. It’s never-ending and so much easier than manure. I’d almost start wishing for an infestation every year.”

Please don’t. Oh gods, please don’t.

Three weeks of this has been enough for a lifetime.

Finally, he grabbed on to the handles, heaved the overloaded wheelbarrow into motion, and carted the load of disgusting worms away.

As soon as he was gone I got back to work. The sun was rising. It was already affecting my sight to a horrendous degree. I wanted to get as much of this done before I was blind and useless. Spade. Flip. One… two… three quick stabs to the larvae and I could pick —

Ah! Hey hey hey, no! Not the finger! Not the finger!

I grit my teeth and squeezed the horrid thing gnawing at my glove. Just the right amount of pressure on just the right spot at the back of their heads and… there. The toothy jaw lost its bite and I pried the larvae from my glove. Another stab, this time in the right spot and it was properly dead.

If they ever bite you, always get them loose before killing them. They’ll never let go otherwise. Yes, they have a back of the head but no discernable back. No, I do not know why. The only thing I do is kill these things for a living.

And I had done enough of that for the night. That mistake, stabbing the larvae in the wrong spot and letting it bite me, meant I was too damn blind to continue this. Traumatizing the client because I accidentally got half an arm chewed off was not the right way to perform this job.

I collected my bowl of breakfast mush and retired to the little resting spot I had been given in their barn. Once I was safe in the shade I waited for a quiet moment where I was certain no one was observing me, and then discreetly fed my meal to their pig.

Three days later, while I was busy packing my horse, the farmer whose barn I had spent three weeks living in came to see me off.

“So, where ya heading after this lassie?” He took a step forward, reaching for my horse.

Without even a moment's hesitation my trusty traveling companion, the traitorous steed, leaned in towards her new favorite human to receive her daily scritches.

I gave Fern a tug on the reins to call her to order. “South.”

No! East!

I wanted to stuff my own fist in my mouth. I was not going south. Why had I said that?

“Ah, Birnstead and Rivenston then,” the farmer nodded. “Heard they had it bad in winter. Floodings and stuff. Don’t know if there’ll be much work for ya there lassie.”

Oh yes, it was bad there. Bad and terrible and oh sooo wonderful and I am not going south.

“Really? Wow?” I feigned surprise, as his mention of the flooding was the perfect way to correct my statement. “Might head east then.”

I got on my horse. The road went south. That was fine. It would split later. I was not going south. When the dark of the woods swallowed me, I took off a glove so I could scratch a phantom itch. It was right there, on my arm. Now that I was this close to Birnstead, it just kept on bugging me, the itchy spot a reminder of where the little wildflower girl had prodded me.

She had been so curious, and worried, and completely unafraid despite being aware of the claws I always, always hid behind gloves. The same claws I was now using to pick at the memory of her simplest touch.

I am not going south.