They Wanted a Hero. They Made a Monster: Born at the Bottom
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 52: Dylan Runs for His Life Again
Lead-gray clouds hung low, and thunder rumbled overhead.
A black-robed figure crouched beside a body severed in two and tore open its cargo sack with withered fingers.
After searching through it, the figure seized the remaining half of the bag and shook it violently, spilling everything onto the muddy ground.
The other attackers gathered one after another and emptied the contents of the remaining three sacks beside it.
Eight black-robed figures crouched together, searching with the care of people hunting a needle in a haystack.
They did not find what they wanted.
The person in the center crushed a crystal in one hand. The others backed away, whether to avoid the flying fragments or their leader’s rage was impossible to tell.
“Nothing ... nothing ... nothing! Why isn’t it here?”
The low voice carried suppressed fury, but the words belonged to no human language.
“Our intelligence cannot be wrong. These inferior humans could not possibly have discovered the problem this quickly. Something else happened!”
“My lord.” One of the others stepped forward and offered a cautious suggestion. “Could it be on one of the bodies?”
“Then why are you still wasting words here? Find them!”
“Yes!”
Several black-robed figures scattered in alarm to search for the other corpses.
Ten minutes later, every attacker stood at the original ambush site, staring at the bloodstained arrow on the ground.
Their leader picked it up.
“Avina?”
One of the black-robed figures immediately fell to her knees and hurried to defend herself.
“Lord Rakus, I swear that arrow pierced his heart!”
“Then explain this.”
The arrowhead pressed against Avina’s forehead as though it might pierce her skull at any moment.
She did not dare move. Trembling, she begged for another chance.
“H-he must possess some other means of preserving his life. I can track him! Please allow me to redeem my failure!”
A brief but suffocating silence followed.
Then the arrow plunged into the mud before Avina.
“Track him. If we fail to recover what our superiors demand, you can look forward to becoming blood chattel.”
At those words, not only Avina but every other black-robed figure shuddered.
“Yes!”
Fine rain fell through the forest. Dylan’s boots sank into layers of decaying leaves, pulling up thick mud with every step.
He braced one hand against a tree and bent over, gasping as he tried to calm his heaving chest.
After sprinting for more than ten minutes, his stamina was nearly exhausted.
Becoming half mushroom had not improved his Stats, but at least his heart no longer hurt much.
There was no sound behind him. Perhaps he had escaped the attackers. They might not even have noticed that he was still alive.
Dylan found a sheltered slope and prepared to wait out the rain.
The water falling across his face actually felt pleasant. Soaked clothing, however, would be miserable.
And there was the book in his hands.
Yes, the book!
Dylan held it up and stroked the wrinkles in its cover.
What was written inside?
The moment he wondered, opening it felt perfectly natural.
Blank. Blank. Blank.
Nothing appeared on the leathery pages.
Dylan rapidly flipped to the end without finding so much as a single note.
Was this an entirely unused book?
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