Kraxxksken watched as Artigan fed the children. The adventurer was in good cheer now that all the children didn’t seem like they were starving. Tar’el the elf was beside him, giving out food. It seemed that despite Artigan insisting that placing him on his shoulder was a punishment, he had tired of it after a couple hours.

  It would quickly change the moment these elves stopped bringing food.

  Artigan finished feeding the monsters and left Tar’el with . If this was an argument that an elf could be left alone with the Unwanted then it was a futile one. The moment she left the elf’s side he would be devoured whole.

  Artigan approached his workshop with a face full of determination. As if that would be enough to change hearts and minds.

  The younglings were still gorging themselves on the guts of the monsters that Artigan brought.

  As Artigan sat in front of him and started talking to him, Kraxxksken remembered his own past.

  He had starved once before.

  …

  The first memory he had was being forced out of the den. There was no familial love in the dark world, no understanding or a sense of compassion. They realized that he would always be too small to contribute to hunts.

  When it was clear that he was always going to be a runt, his den had tried to eat him instead. Kraxxksken still had the marks on his shoulder. His own sire taking a bite out of his flesh as he barely escaped.

  From there, he walked the caves alone. Hunting, surviving, he knew he was small, a weakling. He often ate more dirt than insects. Barely able to hunt anything himself.

  From that weakness, he knew he couldn’t hunt the same way. So he watched the only other creatures that grew up to be weaker than he was.

  The smaller creatures called humans and dwarves.

  He learned from them, how they hunted for food. They used traps in great manners, and if that didn’t work they’d escape with some flashing weapons he didn’t understand.

  Whenever they managed to spot him, they would do their best to hunt him down instead.

  Even they wanted to eat him.

  And he wanted to eat them in return.

  And that was normal. It made sense.

  Once, a glorious lucky moment, he caught a dwarf in a cave. His hands reaching out from a crevice and pulling her in through a too small hole. He fled with most of the corpse as her allies couldn’t get through the hole.

  He ate her flesh, her bones, her shoes, her clothes. Everything was delicious. He was about to eat at her other belongings but paused when he tasted the skin of his own kind. His head tilted at the notepad made out of the white skin of his people.

  There Kraxxksken recognized some of the symbols he had seen on the walls. The dwarves and humans used them to navigate.

  A simple idea came to him. That if he understood these scratches, then perhaps things would be safer for him.

  This was, perhaps, the second major step in his abnormality.

  So… he became the first skin shambler to have ever stalked someone so he could learn their language.

  He hid and learned, and the more he learned, the more he understood. The more he understood, the more dangerous he seemed to become.

  Traps, foods, weapons and rusted artifacts.

  From then on, he had barely ever starved.

  Life… was good.

  Until one day a message blared through his own mind. He did not understand words but the meaning was clear in his mind.

  .

  There were places where power was stored, he could grab it and grow. Then head to the center of these new lands. An image flashed in his head. Of a glorious world. Bright, green, blue, yellow. He could not describe what he saw or felt but he knew one thing.

  If he reached the center, he could claim it all as his. Everything would be his. He would not fear anything and would starve.

  He had to have it.

  Perhaps with it, he would have something more.

  So he dug upwards. Leaving the dark underground behind. He would climb up and see what was at the center of this new land. See and learn, take everything for himself.

  He dug. Painstakingly making tunnels around other ones that were already there. The underground was a chaotic mess of shattering destruction. All the other monsters receiving the same message he had.

  He climbed up…

  He did understand that these seven were saving the dwarves and humans. He tried to learn what they were doing, the powers they were using. He could not win so he watched and learned.

  Until one day he got too close.

  Once he met eyes with a beautiful creature. She was so painfully beautiful that he wanted to grab her face

  He gave up, and the quest told him he had failed.

  That was it then, he did not belong up there, he was not human nor dwarf. He ate them, ate his own kind. The dark was where he belonged, where things made sense. You hunted for food, you were hunted in return.

  He found himself a place where those seven monsters above could not come. Where he would never have to see another beautiful creature again.

  He sat, and went back to scrounging around in the dark. He did learn some things, that spells could be created. He began tearing things apart. Rusted items that had faded through time, some of their runes barely visible.

  He no longer hunted dwarves and humans for he did not want to anger the seven beings.

  For once, working tirelessly on learning, he was content.

  Until one day, once more, there were explosions close to his base. It happened often enough. Monsters would come in, weird humans would dive deep down, looking for weapons.

  .

  He left his place like usual. There was nothing here worth worrying about, anyway. He just packed his food and–

  A young skin shambler stumbled into his tunnels, burnt, in pain and looking up at him with big eyes.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  At first he just saw food.

  He leaned down to tear her throat and she screeched in fear. Scrambling to get away. She dug at the walls–not knowing that he had a secret exit.

  Something tugged at Kraxxksken’s mind. The dwarven girl that he had once eaten. The deeds of the Seven that saved their own kind. For the first time in his life, he hesitated. He collapsed the tunnel he heard the explosions coming from and then there was silence.

  A third anomalous thought. Wondering if he could be more. So he started teaching her some of the language he made up.

  The girl learned things quickly.

  Once she felt safe with him, she excitedly dragged him along the tunnels, taking care, navigating around to her own den. He did not expect much, though if he was being honest…

  He did hope.

  She returned to a large community of skin shamblers. A group that should have been too large to sustain itself. They pointed at him and didn’t immediately try to chase him down. For the first time, he sat and taught, and they listened.

  They spoke of a brilliant beautiful creature in black fur that hadn’t killed them and brought them together. The beautiful creature tried to teach them some things before she had left.

  They hadn’t truly understood much. Though her lessons had remained strong. They did not kill their own or push each other out when the group got too big.

  They hunted and preserved food.

  His hopes rose once again. He sat down and he started to teach them. Easier words they could pronounce. His own dialect that he found comfortable with.

  They copied it all.

  Decades went by and they created a city. Processing things deep underground. Sometimes relocating when too-strong monsters came by. Though now with thousands of skin shamblers, they dug through more than he could have ever dreamed of alone. There, amongst the ruins of long forgotten technology, he found the truth.

  There had been six races of this blighted land, not just two.

  They had been one of the races. Alongside the humans and dwarves. They had just changed. For a glorious time, he had more hope than he ever had. That he could go back to the top, meet with that beautiful elf once again.

  They found two things. Two more things that shattered all hope. One was an adventurer’s phone. The other was when he had killed a system enhanced monster.

  By the time came back he had understood the truth.

  They really were just monsters.

  A brilliant real elf in black robes and a pointy black hat appeared in front of him. He had never forgotten her, although it seemed as if she had forgotten him.

  She looked around his workshop in wonder.

  “I had always hoped that the seeds I left would sprout. ”

  Kraxxksken did not move, nor care. He had found out the truth. He was hollow. There was no urge to kill her for her beauty.

  The Witch Tyrant frowned.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Leave us alone, Witch Tyrant. We are best forgotten and left behind. If you knew better, you would damn the humans and dwarves that come from this Sector too.”

  The Witch Tyrant seemed to process his words instantly.

  “The problems of the ancestors should never lie with their children. Furthermore it is a waste to have you all here when you could be contributing to The Realm instead. Come, if you want to make up for your ancestors’ mistakes then let it be through your contributions on magic.”

  He cackled, his hissing wheezing mad laughter. “The only thing we can contribute is to be the foil to your Trialists. Come back when you have something to throw our filthy bodies at.”

  His eyes flashed with a gleam of unnatural power. Of one thing that truly signified the Unwanted as monsters.

  The Witch Tyrant understood.

  “”

  …

  She had tried since then, multiple times to convince him of what needed to be done. Of the possible solutions they could implement and the decades of adaptations and changes that could follow. He had none of it. Throwing out arguments that she could not break down. At one point she tried to have him removed and he threatened to collapse the entire city.

  This entire cave system was held up by his own enchantments. Without him, this entire structure would fail and kill everyone in it.

  Oh the Witch Tyrant tried to worm through his magic but the restricted her greatly. Furthermore his magic had no singular cohesive point. The moment she tried to worm her way into his magic, he would collapse the city.

  He promised it.

  There the stalemate lay. She could not kill him so easily in a leveled zone and he refused to let the monsters free.

  They were the things that adventurers fought. The reminder to the rest of the world of what could happen if you let your guard down.

  And things were back to normal.

  That was, once again, she arrived. Eyes tinged with more emotion than he had thought was possible from her. For a moment, he thought she was here to kill him and damn the consequences. He had a feeling she wanted to convince him as much as save his little den of monsters.

  She was definitely powerful enough to save a quarter of the city if she wanted.

  He was readying to bring the city down on his monsters until he felt something else.

  At first Kraxxksken was suspicious, then when he heard what she wanted the Unwanted to do.

  He smiled.

  Yes, this was what they were destined to do.

  …

  They discussed what would happen if Artigan were to drop down here. Plans had been shifted around for this one adventurer. She had always pointed out specific adventurers to push around. To test their limits with traps and death. They sent some of their own to kill and hunt them.

  Even to torture them if they were deemed as too indecisive.

  But this Artigan was special. She pulled back some of their plans for him. They were supposed to have moved months ago, when the Witch Tyrant had been attacked. They were supposed to have a full mobilization for the recently talented.

  Throw their bodies and test this promising generation of Fourthers.

  They stepped back, all for this one adventurer.

  Artigan came down, not as a slaughterer but as an adventurer. The second of his kind to see the Unwanted as people.

  –

  The conversation went as expected. Artigan was , maybe not in strength but in mindset. Someone who couldn’t make the decisions necessary to survive. Throwing himself into a hole to save a random elf that tried to kill him.

  .

  You could see it here, the way he talked, the way he walked, the way he still tried to pander to whatever kindness he believed the leader of the Unwanted still had.

  Artigan sat in front of him and put a wiggling grub in his mouth. Grimacing as he bit down on it, the juices exploding in his mouth.

  Artigan gagged and wiped his mouth but tried to smile at the leader of the monsters.

  “So, like I said, adventurers don’t work for free. How about we set some terms? I brought you these grubs. You let me take the children away to safety, maybe some of the parents too. Surely you can’t be that heartless of a guy to send children into battle are you?”

  He remembered the adventurers that the Witch Tyrant had believed were too indecisive for their own good. This Artigan was the worst one of them all.

  He laughed internally as the poor adventurer tried to scrape and bow. “You can have any pick of the artifacts here. Most are useless but there are some that are capable of killing even realm fives, yes?”

  Artigan leaned back, annoyed at the rebuttal. He had stopped carrying that elf around his shoulder and instead traveled with an entourage of the Unwanted. They would help carry the kills back and Tar’el and

  He had simply let Artigan do as he pleased because it meant that Artigan’s hopes would rise.

  So he could crush them.

  It only took a day of thinking before he came to his own conclusions.

  Artigan was more important than all the other Fourthers combined. ‘Rax’ was the monster and this was likely going to be the final lesson he gave to a promising adventurer.

  Artigan argued from a place of weakness, of compromise, too compassionate, too weak.

  Artigan’s eyes were firm enough. “At least let the children go, Rax. ”

  “Do you think you can change them from what they are? Do you think because they don’t attack you that they can change their nature? We Unwanted are monsters! We will be nothing else, and in the end, you understand that you were only giving them false hope instead!”

  He would kill everyone, including that elf, then when he was killed in turn by Artigan then

  Artigan had punched him in the face. Then the adventurer grimaced.

  “Damn, you really are strong.”

  Kraxxksken just laughed, having taken the fist to the face willingly. His bleeding nose spraying blood everywhere as he bared his teeth.

  “If this is the best you’ve got, then you will watch as I kill everything you fought for.”

  Artigan just sighed, as if the threat didn’t bother him in the slightest. “Do you know what your problem is? You’re too easy to read. I knew from the start you wouldn’t accept letting your people free. I know you are going to do something predictable like forcing me to make a decision. Like some bad Instant Trial at the highest Sectors.

  Something about the tone snagged at the back of his mind. He stopped laughing. He sat up, pulling at the enchantments around him.

  “I know you’ve got the city rigged to blow. Probably a deadman’s switch. One where it collapses if you die.”

  Now he was no longer smiling.

  Artigan spread his arms. His wicked grin as wide as could be.

  “! You were so paranoid of me that I was the only thing you focused on for the past three days. You didn’t spare a single thought that someone else might step up.”

  Artigan laughed, a victorious laugh that declared he’d already won.

  Kraxxksken unsealed his workshop, then ran past Artigan, heedless that he was leaving himself open, he had to see–

  Only to find a mostly empty city, his senses reaching wide–he looked to the ledge. The lookout where one lone Unwanted, the girl that had once stumbled into his workshop. Her expression firm as a rock as she held up a rectangular device up high.

  ’s eyes burned with pure hatred as she stared down at him. But he was single minded, he spread his vision to see his Unwanted scattered in different tunnels, holding up the walls with their hands. Reinforcing it as a group. Even he couldn’t collapse those tunnels through those reinforcements.

  “How…?”

  Artigan’s sneering voice answered from behind him. “Do you think I enjoy talking to you? ”

  He put it out of his mind. He was focused on one thing only, he would need to go to each group himself. Would have to collapse the entrance to each of those tunnels and hunt them all down.

  He took a step forward when a strong hand gripped his shoulder.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going? You and I have a .”

  Rax hissed as he went to claw out Artigan’s throat. The enchantments around the city blaring out. The turrets stationed in the city turning around.

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