No, no, no, no! Please don’t be dead.

  I grunted as I lifted a huge chunk of rubble and threw it away. My black hair tentacles grabbed smaller concrete chunks and set them aside. Samsara had to be here somewhere. The sun shone bright above us. I should be able to find her easily. Her pink hair was hard to miss.

  A guttural scream of pain echoed out.

  “Samsara!” I gasped.

  Her upper torso was pinned down against a piece of concrete. Running up to her, I saw deep wounds on her body. Her clothes were shredded, leaving her pink scales visible. And no sign of her tail. I began yanking her out of the rubble after my hair tentacles dug out the area around her torso. Blood began gushing out of wounds that were previously covered by the rubble. Dammit.

  Her tail was crumpled and squished. Legs wouldn’t make a difference here. I cradled Samsara with my gloves in a princess carry, using my hair tentacles to suspend her tail. Some of the blood stopped gushing out of her wounds. Her mana was trying its best to heal her. I used some of my hair tentacles to apply pressure to her deeper wounds.

  “Stay with me, Samsara,” I told her. I used [Sacrificial Mana Transfer] and started giving my mana to Samsara. Her blood stopped gushing out. [Tracking], I still had 300 out of 1000 mana left. Unfortunately, I needed more mana to use [Sacrificial Mana Transfer] again. I should have eaten more.

  “Ramona,” she whimpered. “I can’t feel my tail.” A pang of sadness welled up in my chest.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’ll get you out of here.”

  And so I began leaping out of the remains of this apartment complex. A few of my hair tentacles took out my phone from my pocket and brought it in front of me. I typed with my tentacles to find the quickest way out of Utlond city. I wished we had chosen an abandoned complex somewhere close to the edge of the city. Not in the middle of it.

  I’d need to hunt for food. We couldn’t hunt in the city because the Monster Purifiers would quickly find out why humans were disappearing. We’d be lucky if we survived even a minute against a mech. Those giant mechs would easily stomp us into a paste.

  But it might take hours or even days to find something to eat in the wilderness. Ugh. We shouldn’t have stored all our meat in this apartment. But it was already a pain keeping this one a secret.

  I’d cross that bridge when I get there.

  But instead of there being a bridge for me to cross, a giant wall of metal appeared to block my path.

  I jumped back, taking a peek up at the giant that almost crushed us.

  Thankfully, the blue-painted mech wasn’t hunting us. Its forearms were each equipped with a sharp scythe that held back a colossal Kaiju tiger girl. Both the Kaiju and the mech were unfathomably tall. It strained my neck to look up at them. On the mech’s leg, the words “PROPERTY of BEVOR VAMBRACE” were written in black. But scratches ruined the paint on the mech, while the thick orange fur of the tiger girl seemed unblemished. The Kaiju growled at the mech. A feral monster girl? The clashes of the mech’s scythes and the Kaiju’s claws sent shock waves throughout the air.

  Some humans might think I, as a monster girl, would celebrate a Kaiju girl winning against a mech. I wasn’t that short-sighted. If the tiger girl won, one of two things would happen. Either she would eat us since she was feral, or more mechs would come. We’d be dead either way.

  That meant the best course of action was to get out of here. I began leaping to the other side of the destroyed apartment. The sound of the mech and Kaiju fighting echoed dangerously close. I used my tentacle hairs to tap my phone to get out of the map app and switch to the camera app. A portable mirror.

  Didn’t human cars have these? A side-view mirror so they could make sure they didn’t crash into anything behind them. I’ve never driven a car before, though. I had no need to.

  As I jumped from one pile of smashed concrete to another, the back of the Kaiju girl was facing towards me, with the mech on the other side. Please don’t go in this direction. I already had to turn around before.

  Suddenly, the Kaiju was sent hurtling in our direction. I was lucky that only a small cross-section of the Kaiju was sent hurtling towards me. I dove to the side, but lost my footing as I landed. Crap. I held on tight to Samsara as I tripped.

  “Sorry, Samsara,” I said, quickly getting back up. I began leaping perpendicular to the fight. The mech was approaching the tiger girl, and I didn’t want any part of this.

  “Don’t worry, just get out of here,” she said. “If you need to, just leave me behind.”

  “I’m not leaving you!” I told her, finally making it to an alleyway. “I’ll find us a lifetime supply of meat, and everything will return to normal.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “But I don’t want to be dead weight,” she said, looking up towards me. Her scaly hand caressed my face. “If I’m holding you back with any fight going on, then I don’t want you to die because of me.”

  “You’re not dead weight,” I said, one of my tentacle hairs pushing her hand down. “Besides, we’re heading away from the fight.”

  “Not just this fight, but any fight,” she said as I made it out of the alleyway. “I don’t think our meat survived, and I can’t really help you out during a hunt. If anything, I’d be a hindrance.”

  “You don’t need to finish that sentence,” I said, continuing to run through the alleyways. “You’re not going to be a hindrance. Just trust me.“

  We came out to a large highway. The clash between the Kaiju and the mech sounded more distant now. A cluster of cars filled the road. It looked like a kaleidoscope of colors. Nobody seemed to be in the cars.

  I jumped on top of the roof of a car. No way was I going to zigzag through all of that. I hopped from roof to roof.

  A large thump sound echoed in the distance. Good, it didn’t sound close at all.

  “Are you feeling alright?” I asked Samsara.

  “Not really,” she said, a bit dreary. She began to yawn.

  “Hey, stay with me,” I said. She probably didn’t have enough mana to heal. And whatever mana was left was simply trying to keep her awake.

  Dammit. I needed a source of meat. Where the hell was I going to find one? Should I just break into one of these buildings?

  Suddenly, a large shadow covered us. Huh? I tilted my phone upwards.

  Oh fuck. The Kaiju tiger girl’s back was rapidly descending on us. Unlike before, there was way more surface area of Kaiju I would have to dodge. And there was no way I could dodge it. It was like a building was falling on top of me.

  And then something caught my eye. A vent grate was nearby. It was large enough for us to fit through. I activated [Serrated Tentacles] and cut through the grate's bars. I quickly leaped down.

  The drop was deep. My durable body protected me from the harsh fall. A putrid stench filled my nose. Ew.

  And then the Kaiju landed. I could hear the crash above us. But her body didn’t stop at the surface. The ground above also collapsed with her. Damn it! Did I just bury us alive?

  I crouched low to the ground, hoping she wouldn’t reach us. But my hopes were quickly crushed as the Kaiju’s body impacted me.

  I tried to cough as pain racked through my body. I was entirely squished against the Kaiju and Samsara. My mana was rapidly plummeting as my body tried to keep its form and not collapse. Next, I tried to grasp for air. But all my mouth got was a bunch of thick fur.

  My mana continued to dwindle, and I found it hard to focus. Was it really all going to end here?

  No. I was not going to die here. And neither was Samsara. I didn’t just rescue Samsara for nothing.

  With my mana quickly approaching 150, I activated [Serrated Tentacles] again, bringing my mana closer to 100. I sliced through the fur and skin above me. Blood fell down, and I was drenched with blood. I quickly began drinking it. My mana slowly began to creep up.

  As I passed 300 mana, I used [Sacrificial Mana Transfer] on Samsara. Thankfully, it went through; otherwise, she would be dead. We couldn’t stay here though. The pressure from the blood was still too much. And it looked like the Kaiju wasn’t getting up anytime soon.

  Did the Jaegar throw the Kaiju after killing it? I hated those disgusting humans for putting me and Samsara in this situation.

  It was just me and Samsara that mattered. Everything else in the world was conspiring against us. Why else would all this bad stuff be happening to me? Here I was, being forced to drink the Kaiju’s blood.

  If I stopped drinking the Kaiju blood, then I’d run out of mana. We couldn’t stay here. The humans would probably send a cleanup crew to remove the corpse. Once they saw us, we would be quickly killed by the Monster Purifiers. So there was only one thing to do.

  I began swimming upwards while drinking, dragging Samsara along with me with a few tentacles. There was a lot of Kaiju blood.

  There was no light in here. And I bumped into something squishy. I cut through it with my tentacles. Probably one of her organs.

  And there was a lot of cutting I had to do. I cycled between cutting and transferring my mana to Samsara. I hoped I wouldn’t run into the Kaiju’s stomach. What would happen if I accidentally cut it? Would the acid leak into her blood and burn us both? I’m not sure if my mana could keep up with that.

  But then, as I cut through another piece of fleshy viscera, a faint orange light peered through the Kaiju blood. There was only one thing that could glow in here. The Kaiju Core.

  I swam upwards, bringing Samsara along with me to the Core. This was a great opportunity. If we consumed part of the Kaiju Core, we would each become Kaijus ourselves.

  Samsara would become strong and durable. I wouldn’t ever need to worry about a building falling on her again. Furthermore, it would be way quicker for us to leave the city if we were a hundred meters tall. We could easily hunt for meat out in the wilderness. The only issue was that I wouldn’t have a blender to cut the meat for Samsara, but I did have the [Serrated Tentacles] ability, so I could cut up any meat. Besides, it probably wouldn’t be hard to find prey smaller than us out in the Wild Lands.

  I made the decision that we would become Kaijus. After what felt like an eternity, we reached the Kaiju Core.

  The Kaiju Core was massive, around the size of a large truck. I tried to look at Samsara, but I couldn’t see her reaction since the blood was opaque. The Core’s orange glow somehow passed through the nontransparent blood. Touching the Core with my hand, I felt it had a jiggle, gel-like texture.

  I brought Samsara up to the Kaiju Core, bringing her right next to me. While I couldn’t see her, I hoped she would understand what I wanted her to do.

  I could feel the Core start to wobble. Samsara was probably consuming it already. I should make sure to get my share too.

  I placed my mouth near the surface of the Core and began to suck. The Core broke apart easily in my mouth, leaving a sweet taste.

  We continued drinking in the Core. It began to shrink. My mouth greedily sucked onto the Core like a leech, not letting go. Somehow, our stomachs didn’t fill up even though we probably ate more than our entire size already. As we finished up consuming the Core, the orange light it emanated disappeared.

  I could feel the energy from the Kaiju Core merging with my own Core.

  And then pain erupted from the very center of my being.