Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)
Chapter 344: Monsters

As my father pulled out his shortsword, I felt the tension in the area spike. The people around us seemed nervous, in stark contrast to the excitement they had felt moments ago. They quickly bunched together, quickly forming a circle of archers. Just outside of the circle of archers… were the melee weapon users, though they were few in number. Everyone’s eyes drifted to the skies, scanning them for an unseen foe.

Everyone except for the spellcaster, that is. Instead, she turned towards my father, and frowned.

“You have kids! Get in the center of the damn circle!” she hissed at him.

“I have a sword!” My father protested.

“And you have kids! They have to be… what, two? Three? I doubt they’re any older than ten, and that’s if they’re slow @#$*&#!” hissed the woman. “I’m not going to let your kids have their first #*%#$ be of their father’s corpse! Or worse, for one of them to remember their #*$&#$ sister! Get in the center of the #*$&# circle!”

A few other people nearby glanced at him, and then glanced at us as well, before they started adjusting their positions. While it wasn’t very wide, they created a narrow walkway to allow my father to get into the middle of the circle. The safest spot. My father glanced at the skies again, before he started shuffling into the center of the group. Even though he looked nervous, he also looked a bit relieved. Clearly, my father also didn’t want to be in a position where he - or Anise and I - might be in danger.

As I watched the crowd pressure my father into moving to the safest spot, I felt strange. We hadn’t been to that many worlds so far… but in the ones we had been to, experienced spellcasters were valued. In this world, I had only felt a few other spellcasters - so they were probably more valued here, due to their rarity. The woman in front of us should have been something akin to nobility. Furthermore, this woman didn’t seem like a combat mage. Unless she had access to a second essence or her abilities had other uses, she was clearly more on the support side of things.

Despite that fact, the very first thing she did when danger struck was usher my father into the safest spot in the circle. I had to admit, she had made a good impression so far. I just hoped that other people in this world had similar mindsets. If so, we might end up enjoying our time in this world a lot more. Dealing with people being jerks was never fun.

“Thank you,” my father said, after a few moments of hesitation. “I won’t be able to %#*(&$@ much to the #($*$# this way, but… “ he looked at us, and smiled. “I don’t want my girls getting hurt more.”

“Don’t #%*&#$ about it. Kids should be *#%&#$,” said the woman. Her eyes darted to the nearby street, before she pointed at one of the nearby houses. “I don’t see any enemies yet. Let’s get under some cover. We can always leave if #*$&#$.”

The other people seemed fine heeding the spellcaster’s commands, so as a group, we migrated towards the house she had pointed out. The spellcaster knocked on the door. It only took a moment for a man to open it, holding a bow and a quiver. When he saw the size of our group, he seemed relieved.

“A big group! You’re #$(*&#$# welcome right now! We have four #%*(#$ spots in the house, with another six #%*#&$ for archers! Does anyone need a weapon?”

A few people raised their hands, and the man rushed towards a closet, before pulling out a few bows and arrows. He gave them to the people raising their hands, and then glanced at us again. He grinned.

“I think -”

Before he could finish speaking, I heard two more rings of the distant bell. Unlike the first bell, which had served as some sort of warning, this time the bell had a much deeper tone to it. The group listened carefully, and then, a few moments later, sagged in relief.

“Only two rings. Nothing too %(*#$#, then. If another ##*$&#$ came, who knows how many people would get hurt,” said the singer with a shudder.

“Glad to hear it’s only two rings. One would have been even %#)!, but we can’t always be lucky,” said another woman.

I listened to the parts of the conversation I understood, and quickly got a rough idea what they meant. After the initial ring of the bell to indicate danger, the second, deeper bell would ring a certain number of times, indicating how ‘dangerous’ the incoming danger was. Based on everyone’s words, one bell was the lowest possible danger, and two was still very manageable. I wondered how high the ‘maximum’ danger was rated. Five bells? Ten? Some other number entirely? Either way, I had a baseline to assess danger on my own now. I was also glad that this attack wouldn’t be too horrible. My build wasn’t online yet, and I wanted to keep any truly scary fights for later, when I was grown up and prepared for them.

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard an unearthly hissing sound in the distance. Even though we were inside a house, and we were far from the origin of the sound, I could still hear it clearly - and half of the city probably also could.

A moment later, I heard the beating of distant wings, thrumming as they moved steadily closer to us.

My father rushed to one of the slits in the wall, and I swapped to my soul-sight to get a better idea what we were facing.

In the distance, I got my first glimpse of the enemy. It was… odd.

I saw a great, amalgamated mass of souls in the distance, slowly flying towards us. I could tell that there were huge clusters of individual souls - but I could also tell that there was some sort of connection between each soul. Perhaps the monsters here had some sort of hive-mind-esque link? Or perhaps they simply had a communication connection of some sort? I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing.

At least I finally understood why everyone here was using bows as a weapon. Every single monster I saw in the distance was flying. Swords wouldn’t do much against a monster a hundred meters in the air.

I blinked, and glanced at my father. If all of the monsters here were flying, why were some people carrying around swords? I was missing something here. I stared more carefully at the monsters, until I found the oddity.

All of the monsters in the distance were airborne, but if I looked closely enough, it looked almost like some monsters were inside of other monsters.

These monsters weren’t a disorganized flock of flying monsters. They were acting like cargo ships. Many of the flying monsters were carrying other monsters inside of the city. I frowned. That hinted at a lot more organization that I was hoping the monsters would have.

“I see them in the #(%*#$! Looks like it’s a bit larger than the #%*&#$ two-bell #%&#. But we should still be mostly safe. Is anyone here from the #(*#$#?” asked the singer woman. Nobody responded for a few seconds, so she nodded.

“In that case, I’ll take #*#&$. Does anyone object?” Again, nobody spoke, so the woman relaxed. “The enemy will probably #*&#$ above the city, and then start air-dropping #*&#$ on us. We don’t have the reach to hit the flyers, but we can hit some of the #*$&# before they hit the ground. Those who are #*#&$ in their aim, take the best #*$&# spots in the house. On my #*(&#$, release your arrows.” People started scrambling into positions, getting their arrows ready, and concentrating as the monsters in the sky moved closer to the city.

A moment later, I saw several huge balls of fire fly out of the center of the city, each of them tracing a distinct, winding path through the air. I blinked in surprise.

There may not be many spellcasters in this world, but the ones that did exist seemed very impressive.

A moment later, several of the massive pillars of fire detonated. I heard a thunderous roar, as about half of the flying monsters in the air turned into piles of ash. However, the rest of the monsters continued towards the city, undeterred by the deaths of their comrades. The singer gritted her teeth.

“They only got half of them. I was hoping they would get at least two thirds. #*&#$ it.” She stared out the window again, and then grimaced. “Looks like one is moving near us. Archers, prepare to loose in about a #*$&#$! Melee weapons, I want you near the #%*&#$ and the #*&$#! It’ll take a while before the #$*&#$ are ready with their next spell, so be prepared to hold out for a while! You!” She pointed at my father, who blinked in surprise. “Make sure the archers have arrows! Refill the quivers if someone runs out!”

My father nodded, and started checking the quivers of everyone in a good sniping position.

“Get ready!” Yelled the woman. 

Seconds ticked by as everyone eyed the sky through the slits in the wall. Finally, about a street away, one of the flying monsters stopped. I got a better look at it for the first time with my physical eyes, instead of my soul-sight.

It had three heads, and each of them looked wildly different from each other. The first head looked kind of like what I would have expected a dragon’s head to look like - except for the fact that it had fur instead of scales, and two different mouths. The second head looked more like that of a human’s head, but it was horribly distorted. Even if it hadn’t been attached to a monster, the face was stretched so thin that it would have triggered an uncanny valley effect. The distance between its chin and forehead was larger than the distance between the ceiling and the floor of this house. The third head looked like some kind of fish head - although I couldn’t identify a species for it.

It had ten paris of wings, and its body looked like a twitching, squirming mass of flesh.

The creators of this world had really gone out of their way to give the monsters a heavy ‘horror’ vibe. They had succeeded. This thing looked like a horrible monster.

A moment later, the stomach split open. 

“Loose!” Yelled the singer. All of the archers released their arrows into the sky, right as the squirming mass of flesh opened. A moment later, nearly forty souls dropped out of the monster’s stomach, falling almost fifty meters to the city below. Nearly two thirds of them got hit by arrows and died, as all of the nearby houses launched a volley of arrows at the falling monsters. I noticed something strange about how the arrows flew - they seemed to have more accuracy than they should have. But I couldn’t observe it very well before a heavy thump dragged my attention towards the street outside of our house.

Two thirds of the monsters had died, but the final thirteen or so had hit the ground safely. And from what I could see, five of them had decided our house was their target.

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