Alright. Maybe I slightly overreacted, but I would have killed it anyway, so it doesn’t change anything in the end.

  Though I do not have the faintest clue what that thing was, I quickly found out that it wasn’t alone, as other creatures of its kind were showing up all over the farm. Walking around with long, slow steps, with their lanky arms just swinging back and forth.

  I hate the way they look, I hate the way they sound, I hate the way they walk–They are just so easy to despise! And of course, they are trying to kill and eat animals I have granted grace to, which is an action equivalent to taking a piss on my feet.

  Several hours of the night were spent running around, beating lanky bastards into pulp, or dismembering them… Or picking them up to beat another one to death… Or frying them with some lightning… The latter, I found especially entertaining.

  As long as I focused and controlled the amount of lightning correctly, I could make them tremble like leaves in the wind whilst on the ground, and that for several minutes before their heart stopped beating.

  Slowly electrifying things until death was a form of entertainment like any other.

  Though I found it quite annoying how little nourishment these things provided, as thin and emaciated as they looked, it was obvious that those monsters had some strength to them. Especially in their teeth, as they were capable of chewing on just about anything they got into contact with.

  One even left teeth marks on one of my arms after merely biting once.

  Of course, this was negligible damage, but most things would have hurt themselves trying to bite into me, so it was rather impressive even if the actual track had been ineffective. And also, I splattered the biter all over the place afterwards for daring to put his filthy saliva on me.

  No man has ever done this, what makes you think your ugly mug would be allowed to, huh? Go drool in the distance like everyone else.

  Once I confirmed that all of the lanky bastards had been taken care of, I went back into the forest… Unfortunately, I did not have any tunnels here, but I had made myself a little burrow to stay in during the day. I simply buried myself in and decided to wait, finding the sensation of being buried alive most pleasing…

  ___

  The traces were gone, but the father had clearly heard that something had been going on outside for part of the night. He was fairly certain that living things had been repeatedly smashed into wooden walls, and he was also convinced that he had heard bones snapping so loudly that the sounds had echoed.

  Now that the sun had risen, there was no proof of what he had heard anywhere. The only thing that was to be discovered was the disappearance of his cows and sheep, as well as the loss of a lot of goats… Not to mention that the locks, which he had had to reinstall several times, were also gone.

  The worst part of it all is that he was the only one who actually heard anything! His children had inherited their mother’s ability to sleep through anything. There could have been a storm that picked up the house, and they would be none the wiser.

  “Hopefully, the commotion was caused by forest rangers dealing with the monster…”

  He did not receive any updates on the situation from the forest rangers, but in the following days, he did not lose any animals, and his locks did not vanish even once. So he naturally assumed that the problem had been dealt with.

  The next time he encountered a forest ranger, all they told him was to be careful because a large group of monsters had invaded the woods, but the father hadn’t noticed anything off despite checking the surroundings of his farm daily.

  No marks or footprints that he did not recognise had been around. Still, he took the warning seriously and made sure to keep a close eye on his children as well as to take care of the business that required someone to move away from the farm…

  “Tell me, Sweetheart. Is the songstress still singing to you at night?”

  His daughter hadn’t told him anything else about this mysterious lady after the first time she had mentioned her.

  “Mmh… No!”

  “Is that so?”

  ___

  “I lied to Papa today…”

  “Th–There is a fir–first to every–thing… Lying is just a p–part of life”

  When night fell and I wasn’t busy slaughtering lanky monsters, I was conversing with Ophelie. She had quite a cute name and wasn’t too awful to talk to, since she was so gullible and conciliant.

  Ophelie was a short girl who always walked with short, silent steps. She had long blonde hair that cascaded over her back, and soft brown eyes that were nice to look at, like those of a puppy.

  She was still too small to do any meaningful work on the farm, so her time was mostly spent petting and hugging the animals when she wasn’t hugging her plushes instead. Speaking of which, I had underestimated this girl’s interest in plushes.

  Turns out, most of the plushes in her room, she had made herself, even the larger ones. Though the deer one that she always carried around had been made by her mother instead, and had been the inspiration for her plush-making ventures.

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  Those things were very well made. It was hard to imagine that the clumsy hands of a little girl had made them.

  “...Mmh… Why don’t you want Papa and Mama to know?”

  “O–Ophelie, I am too–too scary for people”

  “I don’t think you’re scary”

  “You haven’t s–seen me”

  All that Ophelie ever saw of me were my two beady, glowing purple eyes, shining from the darkness behind her window. This much would already be enough for most people to be unnerved, but this girl remained unfazed.

  “Can I see you, then? Please?”

  What is this kitten-like stare of hers? She’s almost as good at this as Gigi…

  I really hate how pushy little spawnlings like her can get. She’s in luck, though. It is a bit hard to get mad with her when she looks so damned cute, and I have an objective to accomplish as well. It is best for us to be good friends for it to succeed.

  “Lis–Listen, Ophelie. Trust me, I do lo–ook scary, so… Pro–Promise me not to get scared, alright?”

  “I promise!”

  “Then… Open your wi–window, and let me–me in”

  Anyone sane would have hesitated, but this cute little gremlin didn’t even blink and instantly did it. Allowing a steel monstrosity into her home.

  “Whoa… You’re so tall! Can I get as tall when I grow up?”

  “You’re a fa–arm girl, so… May–Maybe”

  That girl really didn’t get scared at all. I could literally eat her whole with a single bite if I tried to, and she wasn’t even giving off a speck of fear. She even went ahead and wrapped her small hands around two of my fingers, trying to pull me along so that she could show me some of her plushes in greater detail…

  So anyway, that’s how I ended up taking residence inside a pile of plushes.

  Being buried under plushes wasn’t so different from being buried with dirt. Though the downside of this operation was that I now had to spend a lot more time with a brat, or so I assumed, but Ophelie wasn’t annoying at all.

  In fact, that girl was clearly weird. I could get it if she wasn’t afraid of me since I sang songs and had been nice to her, but she had never seen any of my cute assistants, and yet, she wasn’t spooked at all by their undead-like looks when she first met them.

  Elowen, due to being able to actually interact with physical objects, ended up getting her hands seized and forced to swing arms and dance in a circle with Ophelie, awfully often.

  As for me, it seemed like Ophelie wanted to tell me all about plushes and how to make them. It seems like she didn’t have many people she could speak to about this subject.

  It was this way that I found out that she was quite perceptive. She could tell that even if her father listened to her, he really didn’t get what she was going on about, and that she had unfortunately eclipsed her mother in terms of plush-making skills.

  Her brothers weren’t exactly too big on the concept either, so now, it was onto me that she was dumping all of it.

  On my own end, I only knew how to mend plushes that were torn or a few tricks to clean them. I had to deal with a few of those back at Harvey’s Diner, but making them? I was clueless.

  I had to listen since making Ophelie sad would go against my plan, but as it turns out, I got another incentive to listen carefully.

  I wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but I received several tingling sensations, indicative that at least one of my forms was having its conditions completed. I was naturally under the belief that it was the ‘Plush Form’, but Nara wasn’t allowed to confirm that.

  All my little sister told me was that there were actually two forms that had gotten some of their conditions met, not just one.

  So clearly, it was far from a waste of time. In fact, it was probably an excellent usage of my time.

  No one else in the house was none the wiser about the fact that a literal murder machine was inside with them nearly at all times… The only moment I would go outside was to teach some lessons to some lanky creeps. Indeed, I had killed at least a hundred by now, but they just kept showing up.

  I was fairly certain that I had seen one rise from the ground without even leaving a hole, just a little bit of upturned dirt, like it was a bump made by a mole.

  And seeing it this way, it did seem like there was a suspicious number of moles in the area now.

  But that was fine, even if not exceptional. They delivered free flesh to me, and they were far too weak to be a threat to me. A dozen of them could attack me at once, and I wouldn’t be worried in the least.

  So really, most of my focus was spent when with Ophelie.

  I did not really bother to count the days, but eventually, Ophelie came up to me with a gift.

  Obviously, it was a plush.

  “That’s what your voice made me think you would look like!”

  She said excitedly, presenting to me a plush slightly larger than the average one. It didn’t look like me at all. It looked like a female knight, a fact made obvious by the gauntlets, greaves, sabatons, and mask-like helm that had a bizarre gap at the back of the head, allowing flowing black hair to pour out.

  Definitely not a practical suit of armour, but it was made by a little girl who had probably never even seen a single piece of armour, so accuracy was probably not the intention.

  Especially since the rest of the body was covered in a simple, but very pretty black dress that ended at the bottom with feather-like, white protuberances.

  The mask-like helm itself was strangely elaborate.

  Overall, it was a very nice plush, and apparently, it was how she had been imagining me before actually getting to see what I truly looked like…

  This girl thought this was who she was talking to? Certainly, a knightess was better than a monster, but the dark colours and overall looks didn’t really paint the picture of a nice-looking knightess. It looked like a female knight in service to a dark lord.

  If anything, a random knight showing up out of nowhere to sing songs was ever creepier than a monster doing the same.

  But… I had to admit the plush was quite nice, and apart from the glaring issues in the design, I had to say that I wouldn’t have minded looking like this had I actually become a knightess.

  “Th–Thank you, Ophelie”

  The girl giggled, but my attention was dragged elsewhere.

  All conditions met

  A new form has been acquired

  Well… That was actually easier than I had imagined.