Tamed Monster - Chapter 86

It must have been that they brought a large soldier force at the worst possible time—right when the monsters were at their most sensitive—so it really riled them up. Maybe he let his guard down after so many victories in the past, too.

“I really mean it. I’m not doing it.”

Sylvia almost gave in to her husband’s advances for a moment, but the sudden wave of unease she felt quickly killed any interest. She turned away from him and pretended to fall asleep.

Sensing that she truly wasn’t interested, her husband began muttering grumpily to himself, saying things that were all just complaints about not getting what he wanted.

“It’s not like you wear it out by doing it… so petty…”

He grumbled, borrowing those exact trashy lines men use. Even so, she caught herself thinking he was cute, and wondered if she’d lost her mind.

Sylvia kept her eyes shut and focused on steady breathing, and before long, she actually drifted off.

[You son of a b***h.]

Some time later, just before dawn, she started to wake up to the sound of an unfamiliar voice nearby.

* * *

She couldn’t quite make out what was being said, but it was definitely a voice, forming words as if it were using language.

It sounded just like the monster whose arm her husband had chopped off—it wasn’t just similar, it was identical.

“….”

Her husband lay behind her, quietly breathing in his sleep, and before long that raspy, indistinct metallic voice echoed through the cave again.

[How could you possibly fall for a human woman unless you’ve lost your mind?]

Monsters almost never fell in love. Most were purely focused on breeding and producing offspring, with only a vague concept of a mate. At best, they might have a partner they bred with regularly, but nothing more. That made it nearly impossible for monsters and humans to form a real bond.

“What’s it going on about?”

Kuinan replied curtly. Sylvia slowly opened her eyes. She listened quietly to her husband’s half-asleep muttering. A moment after that mysterious voice spoke, her husband would mutter a short reply, and then the voice would sound again.

[Are you really going to deny it?]

“….”

[You turned me into this just because of some girl. You could have finished your mission without her. Don’t leave loose ends—kill her now. If you won’t even listen to this—]

A long, scraping sound echoed from the left corner of the cave, right where her husband had dropped the monster’s severed arm. Sylvia wished she could just lift her head and look over there.

Suddenly, she heard the flutter of wings and instinctively hunched her shoulders.

‘What the…?’

There weren’t even insects in this swamp, let alone birds. But now, out of nowhere, there was the sound of wings flapping, so close she could almost feel the breeze on her hair. For a moment, she wondered if she’d imagined it, but then a loud caw rang out.

“You wanna die? You’ll wake Sylvia up.”

Just then, her husband snapped at the crow, and Sylvia realized the truth.

Her husband was talking to a crow—which meant the crow was the source of the mysterious voice. And if her gut feeling was right, the voice belonged to the head monster she’d seen before. That meant, somehow, her husband was having a conversation with that monster—right now.

How was that possible?

That monster had definitely died by her husband’s hand. Its ribs had been pierced with a poisoned dagger, and its arm had been chopped off. There was no way it survived.

But here was that same familiar voice, echoing in the cave. Sylvia swallowed hard and listened again.

[Calling her by name now? What a joke. How did the infamous madman of the western swamp end up like this?]

“Look who’s talking. Looks like your skills have gotten rusty—you let your guard down and fell for a stupid expression.”

[As if I was distracted by an expression! You were trying to hug me, weren’t you? It was disgusting, I almost died.]

He used to pull pranks like that all the time. Hector absolutely hated being touched—he’d snarl and warn him off if he so much as looked like he’d get close. Kuinan, on the other hand, was always chasing after him, intentionally brushing up against him whenever he could.

[You f*****g pervert.]

Apparently Hector remembered those days too, because he immediately cursed Kuinan out. Given the way Kuinan used to mess with him, there was nothing to say in response—he just laughed to himself, as the injured crow wobbled and glared at the traitor who had cut him down with that dagger.