At this point in time, I couldn’t deny that I had a jinx worse than Nimir… in any case, living on the run was my specialty, so seeing that didn’t make me nervous in the slightest. I just equipped my camoufge amulet and then used the spare on Gcien. I was pnning to make new ones using the ores that I obtained, but maybe I won’t have the chance to wait for that.

  “Awoo!”

  “Don’t make any noise, also you aren’t going to lead me anywhere anymore. I can tell that you love seeing me get in trouble. In any other situation… no, forget about it. Not like you would care, anyway.”

  Gcien was highly intelligent, and she wasn’t as self serving as me, so if she found something off or something wrong, she would try to correct it. Even if there were no benefits in sight. It was just the kind of animal that she was.

  In any case, the floating isnd kept moving around the area like it was a ship… it was on the smaller side, but even that small side was five hundred meters across and it was two kilometers high in the sky. I couldn’t see the harpies moving around, but I could tell that they were looking for something… or perhaps someone.

  ‘I guess I should wait for them to leave the area… there is something that they are looking for here, and there is a chance that they will find us, so it is better to get a move.’

  The area ahead was colder and it would snow more and more. Even with camoufge amulets, we would still leave footprints in the snow. In any case, how bad was my luck when most of the territory of the harpies was supposed to be free of the floating isnds?

  “Awoo!”

  “No, you lost your chance to lead me to a byrinth. Now take the back seat and wait.”

  “Awoo!”

  I let out a sigh… I wanted to believe that Gcien wanted a chance to redeem herself, but that was just me putting too much faith on her.

  Well, I wasn’t going to give up on the compass, so might as well let her lead me for a while longer. Even if she was going to lead me to trouble, I could just always ignore the final result, no matter what.

  The territory of the Aesira Empire didn’t have anything special aside from the floating isnds and the snow that accumuted further north. Thanks to that, there weren’t many things along the way that could be considered ndmarks. As we moved further north, the snow and white began to take over the area, so it was really hard to find the entrance of a dungeon or byrinth around.

  Despite that, Gcien led me to the tallest hill in the area… while I wanted to turn to the side in order not to expose myself since the floating isnd was still in the area. She headed straight into it.

  “... I just hope that she is leading me to a dungeon where she can get a lot of meat.”

  The entrance of the dungeon made me recall the other one where I found the dwarves camping before I met that redhead dwarf girl. I had to move a bit of the snow to confirm it, but the drawings around the entrance were still incomplete.

  “A new byrinth? Interesting…”

  The incomplete drawing was on the ground, and the base seemed like something with a lot of thin legs. I couldn’t see anything else, so it was hard to say what kind of things I would see inside…

  “Awooo!”

  Gcien looked a bit restless. After making a bit of a fuss, she dashed to the byrinth. I knew that I was getting into trouble, so I considered stopping her by force and using my authority as her master, but in the end, that was unnecessary. I would have to check the byrinth sooner or ter, after all.

  I went down with Gcien and after sliding into a small slope, I stopped and found her in front of something unexpected, a small mountain of monster bodies and two suspicious figures. One was a human with wild and avian features… Another was a kid in her arms, a newborn baby.

  ‘Oh, man… Now this, huh?’

  The woman was definitely a harpy… What I had read about them was that they were very beast-like, a lot more than beastkin. It always made me wonder why they weren’t considered beastkin. In any case, she had a golden plumage around most of her body, but now it was covered in a lot of blood. She was wearing a dark cloak too, and that was even more dirty with blood.

  All of a sudden, she opened her eyes and then noticed that something was off. She immediately tried to get up, but her wounds made her call once again. We were camoufged, so she couldn’t see us. I let out a sigh and then took out my amulet.

  “We are just passing by. Don’t mind us.”

  I appeared before the harpy and she studied me with the eyes of a predator. The harpy’s eyes, though weakened by exhaustion and gzed with the pain, still burned with the powerful ferocity of a predator.

  They were shadowed by the weight of impending death, but within their depths one could see a primal, undying instinct, a refusal to succumb completely. The irises, dark and sharp, held a flicker of desperate will, scanning for any chance for any way out in her weakened state. It was a gaze that seemed to pierce through flesh, holding a haunting reminder that, even at death’s door, the predator’s spirit could not be extinguished.

  Even while she was injured, she dealt with the monsters that came for her and her kid. The bodies of the monsters were of giant brown ants. Seeing them with this size made my skin crawl… while this was only the first section of the byrinth, they were already one meter tall, after all.

  “... Did you see… a floating isnd around?”

  The harpy asked me just when I was thinking about moving on with my business. I nodded and then took out some healing potions that I got from the magic bag of the dwarf girl. I wanted to pass them to her, but she just shook her head.

  “Unless you are a high priest, there is nothing you can do to heal me.”

  She moved a bit of her cloak and then showed her torso… I squinted my eyes, seeing some festering wounds there. It looked like she had a bunch of her organs pierced by some sort of cursed weapon. I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. She was a goner…

  “Her name is Alissandra… Can you find someone to look after her in the kingdom of Talimor?”

  “I can’t. Don’t you see who I am?”

  “Yes… you are the half vampire born fifteen years ago… they don’t have many people that aren’t half elves, half dwarves or simir, but they do have other kinds of half humans… they have a hard time having children with each other… so they won’t refuse… the chance… to raise her… I love you… Aliss.”

  I let out a sigh… it looked like the harpy had finally reached her limits and her body almost fell to the side. I had to stop her before that could happen. It was unreasonable of me to think of that, but she could have at least expined why she was attacked and why she was running away when she wasn’t half harpy or something.

  I looked at the baby in her arms. It was a cute little girl who also had a bit of golden plumage on her. Her soft features made me consider that she was half human, but it was hard to be certain yet. She was sleeping peacefully, even in this state.

  “Did it belong to her the blood that you found earlier?”

  “Awoo…”

  Gcien had her tail and ears down, so she looked sad since she understood that the woman died. Perhaps that was why Gcien was in a hurry. She could tell that the woman was mortally injured and that she had a baby with her.

  It was messed up… someone tried to kill a harpy who had just given birth. I didn’t know if they y eggs or not, but it was still messed up. As far as I remember, they didn’t attack each other, but I didn’t know much about their society. They only attacked the empire borders, after all, and not much else.

  ‘... What now?’

  I didn’t know what this woman was thinking, but I couldn’t look after this newborn baby. The distance to the Kingdom of Talimor was still immense, and the weather was pretty harsh, too. I couldn’t move fast either while carrying a newborn baby.

  While I was thinking about that and hesitating to take the baby from her mother’s arms, two giant ants emerged from the depths of the byrinth.

  “I am kinda busy here. Begone.”

  You received 15 experience points.

  You received 15 experience points.

  I bsted away the monsters without considering what parts of their bodies could be used. I let out a sigh as I began to use my leatherworker skills to make a mix of a bag and a basket. I only had monster materials, but it shouldn’t be that bad. I had some pieces of cloth that I also used as sheets when I could sleep while lying down.

  It didn’t take long for the final product to be finished. It felt comfy and big enough, but I still hesitated for a moment to take the baby from her arms. Even while clearly dead, she was still holding her tightly in her arms.

  “... I just hope that this won’t make things more difficult ter.”

  I put the baby from her arms and put her in the basket while praying that she wouldn’t wake up anytime soon. I was a baby two times, but I didn’t know shit about how to look after one. I only knew that they make a lot of fuss, no matter what.

  “I guess that exploring this byrinth will have to wait…”

  WritingMachineGun