đźź Chapter 32 :
We were heading for the dungeon with the old hawk. Before we left the house, Viteco asked the hawk about our human bodies.
"Old man, where did you put our real bodies? They were supposed to be outside the door — that's where we were swapped," Viteco demanded.
The hawk led us to a room. There, everyone's human bodies were lying on three beds — everyone except mine. The three of them cheered to see their bodies intact. The hawk said,
"I moved each of you into this room and sedated you so you wouldn't wake and do anything foolish. After all, the animals whose bodies you're in are inside your human bodies, but…"
He stopped speaking, looked straight at me, then continued.
"Your body - I couldn't find it when you passed out. I went inside to prepare another room for you, but when I came back, you were gone."
"You must be joking. Who would take my body?" I blurted.
"That depends on the rooster that woke up in your body. I hope he hasn't wandered far from the village," the hawk replied.
Great—I'd be the only one in a truly embarrassing situation. We had to reach the dungeon before Koko did something with my body.
"All right, old man, we have no time. Let's go," Viteco said.
"Good. Use the back door. I know a shortcut to the gate," the hawk answered.
We left through the back door into a small yard and a little shed full of the hawk's supplies. His workshop was full of strange, magical-looking cubes, each with a button. He rummaged through them carefully until he found the one he wanted — a completely black cube with a button.
He explained what it did.
"I told you about the shortcut. This device will get us there instantly. It teleports us to the nearest device of the same kind — the one I placed at the gate. That way we don't have to travel the distance."
He pressed the button, and in an instant, we were all transported there - behind what seemed like a large cave, in the middle of a grassy field. The spot where we stood, however, was stone.
"Look over there," Argos said, pointing to a giant circle on the ground.
When we approached, we saw it divided into six sections, each painted with an animal: rooster, horse, rabbit, turtle, hawk — and… a fish. I asked the hawk about the fish.
"Old man, what's with the fish? Didn't you say it would only be us five?"
"That fish is an extra slot — not necessarily used. The five of you are enough. Anyway, each of you should pass a part of your body — a wing, a hand, whatever — over your painted animal. When you finish, your icon will light up. Then the circle will open and we'll descend straight into the final chamber of the dungeon."
Everyone was suspicious, but we had no choice. We couldn't return to our bodies without one of his strange devices, so we pressed on.
We all ran a part of our bodies around the image of the animal we were in. When we finished, each icon lit up, and the circle — the gate — glowed and opened.
We fell through the opening. What awaited below was not weapons or anything like the hawk had promised. Instead, there were cages — each of us fell onto the cage above our own painted icon. Metal cages closed automatically over us. The hawk, of course, hadn't fallen in; he had stayed outside.
Viteco roared in anger and tried to smash the cage, but it was useless.
"You filthy old man — you tricked us," he shouted.
The place contained nothing but cages and us — and a monster in the middle. I'd never trusted that hawk from the start; now I regretted relying on anyone but myself. If I hadn't followed him, maybe I'd have been cooked by some villager instead, but still — this was bad.
The hawk grinned at us smugly.
"I can't believe this crazy plan actually worked. Yes, it's a strange one, but let me make it clear the story I told you earlier doesn't exist, and neither do the weapons. All that's here is my sleeping monster, called Tiras, who loves devouring animals like you."
Carrotou snapped, "Did you have to do all this — change us into animals — just so your stupid monster could eat us?"
"Shut up, you dumb rabbit," the hawk hissed. "I didn't get to the point yet. I needed human bodies governed by animal minds so I could control them and make servants. I can't control human minds directly, so I invented this strange plan. I've always been looked down on; that bred a desire to control people. I'm not talented at magic, so I used my skill-making devices — enchanted materials I gathered between countries — to build items that do odd things."
The man was clearly mad. I didn't understand everything he said — could materials really swap bodies or enable instant teleportation? This world kept getting weirder. And was the Land of Zôo real? I had so many questions, but there was no time. This man wanted to kill us.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather have been dinner than end up like this. I wish you hadn't saved me, horse," I muttered.
Viteco glared at me as if this were a terrible time for jokes — and yet both his companions looked at me surprised.
"Is this seriously the time for that, Koko?" Viteco asked.
"I'm just saying what's on my mind. It's not like we can get out of here anyway," I answered.
The hawk cut us off.
"All right, that's enough. I've heard enough of your nonsense. Time to wake my little monster, Tiras. Come on — wake up."
He stroked the monster's head, but it didn't respond. He stroked harder and harder, to no avail.
"Heh — Tiras likes to sleep a lot, so he doesn't wake quickly," the hawk joked.
He even tried shaking the monster and then hit it, but nothing worked.
"Get up, you stupid monster! I've controlled your mind to make you work for me."
The air was thick with dust; I — or what served for my nose — reacted. I sneezed — or emitted some birdlike equivalent — and that startled the monster awake. In the first movement after waking, it threw its arm out and slammed the hawk into the wall.
When Tiras stood fully awake, its shape became clear: deep red eyes, a face and body covered in thick black hair, and a size reaching five meters.
The hawk returned to the monster, trying to make it eat us.
"Look, Tiras - what I brought you. I know you're hungry. Go on-wait, don't eat me, you stupid monster! I'm not food!"
The monster, ignoring everything the hawk was shouting, lunged straight at him. The hawk quickly pulled out another small cube hidden beneath his wing - yes, another one with a button and pressed it just before the monster could devour him. The creature froze instantly.
"YOU STUPID MONSTER. Now go and eat those dumb animals," the hawk ordered.
Tiras left the hawk and turned toward us. Despair began to settle in; any hope of escape seemed lost.
But before the monster could reach us, the inner gate of the room not the one we'd fallen through but the one linked to the dungeon - shattered.
Through the cloud of dust... Haizen appeared.