***

  ? Escape a Shadow Beast’s grasp.

  ? Drink fresh water.

  ? Eat a Strobe Berry.

  ? Discover the Laughing Passage.

  ? Kill a Shadow Beast.

  ? Discover a Trial Terminal.

  ? Activate a Trial Terminal.

  ? Visit a foreign settlement.

  ? Activate a Nascent Terminal.

  ? Extinguish a Torch of Preserving Shadows.

  ? Gain a God Arm.

  ? Kill 10 Shadow Beasts (2/10).

  ? Discover 10 Hidden Treasures (1/10).

  ? Punch 10 types of Shadow Beasts (1/10).

  ? Use a Core Key

  ? Catch sight of a fairy.

  ? Cook a Cool Water Leech.

  ? Claim victory in a Trial.

  ? Defeat a Husk.

  ? Defeat 10 Husks (4/10).

  ? Punch 10 types of Husks (5/10).

  ? Steal a settlement’s blessings.

  ? Enjoy a dish of a foreign settlement’s local specialty.

  ? Discover a Hidden Passage between settlements.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  ? Scale a wall, natural or otherwise, that is greater than 50 feet tall.

  ? Slay a White Phantom Monkey.

  ? Slay a Mushroom Boar.

  ? Eat a Gigas Berry

  ***.

  “Whoa.”

  The surprise rattled me more than I thought it would. There was so much to make sense of. First off were the “Husks.”

  Given that I was already building up a count, it meant that the grey monsters I had been fighting were classified as Husks. Kind of interesting that I needed to defeat another Husk even though I had defeated a bunch already, but maybe that was just a quirk of the system.

  The name “Husk” got me thinking hard. A husk is like an outer layer of something. And it's usually empty. Those monsters all had something they repeated.

  The climber–

  "Humans were meant to climb the walls…"

  The hunters–

  “I will hunt the pale monkey.”

  “I was born to be the greatest hunter.”

  The big-mouths–

  “It was the greatest taste I ever experienced.”

  “I would eat it every day if I could.”

  The water-drinker–

  “This water is so blessed.”

  The female–

  “It was the best thing I ever felt!”

  The blacksmith–

  “This will be a blade you’d be proud to own.”

  If they were all called Husks… And all seemed to repeat one thing that, in some cases, matched with their physical forms. If it’s a husk… then are these monsters all that are left behind? The desires humans left behind, or what’s left of humans…

  I covered my mouth. The settlement was empty. Were they all that was left of the humans here? Why did it happen? Because their flame went out? My village had no record of Husks. We thought it was just the Shadow Beasts.

  Was there anything else it could be? They’re so monstrous, they could be creations of the humans that fell into disrepair or something. Like a blacksmith creation, or hunter creation… I couldn’t fit the other ones in, but maybe that was valid, too.

  If what I’m looking at are human husks, though…Figuring out what causes them to come about would be the most prudent course of action. Maybe there are clues around the village?

  Related to the Husks–I wasn’t ignorant of the final four items on the Checklist.

  Climbing something? Slaying what sounded like animals, one of which is called a “White Monkey?” Eating something?

  I had defeated four Husks. I was willing to bet they were the climber, the hunters, and one of the big mouths.

  I wanted to say that I received items related to the Husks, but maybe I was wrong… If I defeated the blacksmith, I would be able to confirm it.

  And that thought led to the next–what was my next move? The Checklist was allowing me to know that there exists a “Hidden Passage” between settlements. Maybe there was one here too, even though it didn’t count as “foreign.”

  Then there was the item about “Blessings.” Well, there was one thing in this chamber that sure looked like a magical blessing.

  “Alright… I’ve got a lot of options, but first, I gotta figure out how to get out of here.”