The Guide is Actually a Body-Switching Esper [BL]
Chapter 117: Teddy Bear Monsters

Chapter 117: Teddy Bear Monsters

It was only a good few hours later - perhaps even more than a few, Lane had completely lost his sense of time because of the boredom - that they finally saw the Wall. They had left the dark forest, coming out into open fields, and there it was, endlessly tall, milky white, faintly glowing.

And in front of it, there was... another wall?

Well, a wall of sorts, that’s for sure, but the two could hardly be compared. The Mana Wall was majestic, flawless, climbing high into the sky with no end in sight, while the other... Wooden, crude, and incredibly short. It formed a semi-circle, and connected to the Mana Wall.

But its questionable quality wasn’t the most important. A structure like that was a mark of civilization. A primitive one, but still.

It wasn’t exactly anything new, not entirely. There were stories circling around, about intelligent monsters, capable of crafting weapons, tools, and complex settlements. They were few and far between, but they appeared sometimes, in S-rank dungeons. And, while they couldn’t quite compare to human civilization, they sparked some interest regardless... Including some, ahem, unsettling fantasies. There wasn’t a shortage of novels posted online, about a guy meeting a cute elven girlfriend in a dungeon... As well as many far less ’tame’ smuts.

Of course, there were also scholars who were simply curious about other civilizations, but their voices seemed to drown in the sea of hostility of those who unconditionally saw all the monsters as a threat, and unhealthy attraction of the freaks on the internet.

Lane himself didn’t belong to either of the three groups. He didn’t view monsters with hostility - he liked to fight them, of course, but that only made him welcome their presence even more! Without monsters and dungeons, there wouldn’t be any special abilities...

And without them, as a discarded son from the Allen family, his life would have surely turned out pretty pathetic.

But he didn’t have any particular interest in monsters either - there were so many sexy specimens among humans, so why should he search for satisfaction anywhere else?

Now that he stood in front of the wooden gate - a tiny one, that barely reached his shoulder level - and stared at the small, furry creatures pointing their spears at them, he had to admit, he was a bit intrigued. Not in any weird way, of course, just pure curiosity.

"Bab bjabjab pyam!" one of the creatures called. It charged out of the gate, followed by a group of forty or so others, armed with spears and other similar, pointy weapons. They surrounded the team, making all sorts of sounds, that perhaps were meant to be intimidating...

But it came off kind of adorable instead. The creatures were shaped like teddy bears, and sized similarly, their stature reaching only around knee-height. It was hard to see them as a threat, even when they waved their weapons around. Covered in long, corded coat resembling the Hungarian sheepdog, their shiny black round marbles of eyes were only visible when they vigorously shook their heads. Their soft, pink triangle noses twitched and flared, and their tiny mouth opened and closed with the intelligible sounds they made, showing off blunt white teeth.

"Ugh..." The team brandished their weapons, exchanging hesitant glances. They were under attack, right? So they should fight back... right?

All things considered, those were dungeon monsters. No matter how adorable they looked, they were a threat to humanity. If they were to leave the Gate, their mere presence could start the process of Manaforming, and slowly transform the environment into a dungeon-like one, causing another Forbidden Zone to come into being...

So, the team raised their weapons, engaging in a - kind of one-sided - fight.

"Stop!" Damien commanded, making everyone momentarily freeze.

And get poked and cut by the tiny spears as a result. It was only the team members that reacted to the command, as the teddy bear monsters most likely couldn’t even understand.

"I don’t think they’re aggressive!" Damien quickly explained, stating his observations.

"..You think?" Lane couldn’t help but lift his brows, glancing between Damien and the monsters. He bent down, swooping one of the teddy bears that tried to turn him into a human skewer, and lifted him in his extended arm. The teddy bear was flailing his short, thick stumps of limbs around, swaying in Lane’s grip as it tried its best to stab him.

Giving Damien a pointed look, Lane presented the monster in his hand. "They seem pretty aggressive to me."

"...They’re probably defending themselves. Think about it, from their point of view, aren’t we the ones invading their world?"

"Hm." Lane hummed lightly. Damien’s explanation made perfect sense. In fact, that was the feeling he - as well as everyone else on the team - also got watching the monsters. That’s why most of them were reluctant to respond with violence...

However.

"Then what do you want to do? Just stand around and let them stab us?"

"This..." Damien glanced around. The teddy bears were indeed still thrusting their spears forward, and so the team members had to defend themselves. It was easy to say ’don’t choose violence’, but how was he to convince the monsters to do the same?

"First of all, but it, um, him, down," Damien finally said, sighing quietly. "I don’t think they can understand our speech... But if we show them with our actions that we mean no harm, then perhaps they will calm down as well?"

"Hmm. Alright, I guess." Lane shrugged his shoulders. Honestly, he didn’t care if those monsters were left alone. They didn’t seem like particularly fun monsters to hunt in the first place.

And besides, while Lane liked to RAID dungeons, he didn’t exactly want to CLEAR them. Once a dungeon was cleared, it became a dead and empty place. After all, it was reality, not a video game. No monsters could spawn out of thin air. Monsters were needed for more monsters to breed.

So, he flung the teddy bear into the side. It flew a good thirty feet away, and landed on the ground with a loud yelp, rolling around for another ten feet or so.

Earning Lane a disapproving look from Damien.

"What?" Lane lifted his brows. "Was I supposed to drop it next to me, so it could try to stab me again?"