Chapter 7: THE ROTFIEND FIELD
Kasimir returned from his first village run with a leather satchel full of bad news.
"Three fields," he said, spreading a hand-drawn map across my work table. "All within a day's walk. The livestock are dying without wounds."
I studied the map. His cartography was better than I'd expected — precise distances, terrain features marked with consistent symbols, the kind of detail that came from someone who had learned to navigate by paying attention rather than asking directions.
"No wounds means no predator kills," I said. "What are the farmers reporting?"
"Bloating. Their animals swell up overnight and don't move by morning. Some of them burst when they try to drag the bodies away." He tapped one of the marked locations — a field about two miles north of the manor. "This one has the freshest reports. Henryk's family. They've been working that land for three generations."
"And they're still working it?"
"They can't afford to leave."
I grabbed my ledger and the short sword I'd been practicing with since the Nekker encounter. The scar on my forearm — the one I'd earned the first time I'd trusted Anatomy Read in live combat — had faded to a thin white line. A reminder that knowing where to hit something and being able to hit it were still different problems.
"Show me."
The field looked wrong before we reached it.
The vegetation was stunted in patches, the soil disturbed in mounds that suggested underground activity. The CDM pinged three locations before I consciously identified the burrow signs — amber markers appearing in my peripheral vision like points on a diagnostic overlay.
[WILDS REGISTRY — ACTIVE SIGNATURES DETECTED]
[SPECIES: ROTFIEND (VELEN VARIANT) — 3 SIGNATURES]
[CLASSIFICATION: NECROPHAGE | THREAT: MODERATE]
[BEHAVIORAL NOTE: NESTING PATTERN DETECTED — STATIONARY POPULATION]
Nesting. Not transiting through. These creatures had established territory here, which meant the contamination would get worse, not better.
Across the field, a man was plowing the far edge with the determined focus of someone who had decided that ignoring a problem was the same as solving it. His family — a woman and two children — watched from a cart near the road, close enough to help and far enough to run if help became impossible.
"Henryk," Kasimir said quietly. "He's been working around the burrows for a week. Lost two goats and a pig."
I activated Anatomy Read and turned toward the nearest mound.
[ANATOMY READ — ACTIVE]
The overlay showed me what was beneath the soil before I saw it move. Chemical signature indicators, the specific rot-miasma that Rotfiends exhaled, concentrated in a chamber three feet underground. Organ positions. Movement patterns. A single amber point at the base of the skull labeled PRIORITY.
The soil shifted.
"Kasimir. Get the family to the road."
I didn't wait to see if he complied. The Rotfiend was emerging — bloated, corpse-pale, its body distended with the gases that made these creatures explode when killed incorrectly.
Beast Tamer's Voice had worked on Nekkers. It had produced territorial disorientation, a pause in aggression that created windows for retreat.
I tried it now.
The low-register tone came out of my throat with the instinctive force of something that wanted to be used. The Rotfiend... hesitated. Not pacified — not even close — but confused. Its forward momentum disrupted by a frequency it couldn't process.
[BEAST TAMER'S VOICE — PARTIAL EFFECT]
[SUBJECT: ROTFIEND | RESULT: TERRITORIAL DISPLACEMENT — AGGRESSION NOT SUPPRESSED]
[NOTE: NECROPHAGES RESPOND POORLY TO STANDARD PACIFICATION]
The creature turned away from me — not calm, but no longer advancing. It moved toward the field margin with the jerky locomotion of something caught between instincts.
A second Rotfiend emerged from another burrow, responding to the tone with the same confused displacement. Both of them retreating toward the deeper field margin, away from the active burrows, away from the family.
The third one was already out and engaged before I could extend the ability's range.
It came at me fast — faster than the Nekkers had — and Anatomy Read flooded my vision with priority points I couldn't reach in time. I got my sword up, caught the creature's lunge with a deflection rather than a block, and used the momentum to spin clear.
The Rotfiend recovered and came again.
This time I read it properly. Weight shift to the rear. Shoulder rotation. The coiling tension of a predator committing. The same pattern I'd learned from the Nekker juveniles, adapted for a different body type.
I stepped left, let the lunge pass, and put the sword through the amber point at the base of its skull.
The creature dropped. It did not explode.
[COMBAT COMPLETE — ROTFIEND (VELEN VARIANT)]
[ANATOMY READ: PRIORITY STRIKE SUCCESSFUL]
[NOTE: PRECISE TARGETING PREVENTS NECROPHAGE DETONATION]
I stood over the corpse, breathing harder than I wanted to admit, and catalogued what I'd learned. Beast Tamer's Voice worked on Rotfiends, but only for displacement — they were too agitated for full pacification. Anatomy Read's priority points translated to combat success when I could actually reach them. The visceral reality of killing something with a sword was different from the clean abstraction of veterinary euthanasia.
"My lord?"
Henryk had crossed the field while I was processing. His family stayed by the cart, but he had come close enough to see the Rotfiend corpse clearly — and to watch me examine it with professional detachment.
"Nest relocation," I said, keeping my voice flat. "These three were the active population. There may be dormant burrows deeper in the field, but they'll follow the displaced ones if they wake. You should have about two weeks before anything returns."
He stared at me with the expression of a man who had heard many lords make many promises.
"You're the one who built the forge," he said finally. "The carters mentioned it."
"I am."
"And you hunt monsters? Personally?"
"When required." I lifted the Rotfiend carcass by one limb, turning it to examine the organ structure. The adrenal gland was intact — Marta could use that for her research. "Your family has been here three generations. You know this land better than anyone I've brought with me."
"What are you asking?"
"Nothing you can't afford. Come to the manor if the pattern gets worse. Tell me what you see. In exchange, you have a secondary refuge for the worst weeks — shelter, food, protection if the creatures return in numbers you can't handle."
Henryk looked at the Rotfiend in my hand, then at the field where his livestock had been dying, then at the cart where his wife and children waited.
"You're different from the last lord."
"The last lord ran after three seasons. I intend to stay."
Something shifted in his expression — not trust, not yet, but the beginning of calculation. A man weighing whether this bargain was worth the risk of believing it.
"The youngest will tell everyone she meets about the lord who hunts monsters," he said. "That's not something you can control."
"I know."
His daughter — maybe seven or eight years old — was watching us from the cart with the unfiltered curiosity of childhood. Her eyes tracked to my face, then away, then back.
"What's wrong with the man's eyes?" she asked her mother, loud enough for us to hear. "He looks at things twice."
I went very still.
The observation was accurate. Anatomy Read created a subtle visual artifact — a moment where my attention locked and refocused as the overlay activated. I'd been using it without thinking, reading the Rotfiend's organ structure with the same automatic reflex that had served me in veterinary practice.
The child had noticed.
[SUSPICION ALERT — VISUAL TELL DETECTED BY EXTERNAL OBSERVER]
[SUBJECT: CHILD (HENRYK'S DAUGHTER) | THREAT LEVEL: LOW]
[RECOMMENDATION: MINIMIZE PUBLIC ABILITY USE]
"My lord?" Henryk was watching my face now, reading whatever expression I'd failed to suppress.
"Your daughter is observant," I said carefully. "Most people don't notice the details she notices."
"She notices everything." His voice carried the weary pride of a parent whose child saw too much. "It makes her difficult to surprise."
"That's a useful trait in a dangerous world."
I wrapped the Rotfiend sample in cloth and nodded toward the cart. "I'll have someone check the field in two weeks. If the burrows are dormant, we can discuss permanent measures."
Henryk extended his hand. I took it — the grip of a farmer who had spent his life working soil and wrestling livestock. Strong, calloused, skeptical.
"Two weeks," he said.
I walked back toward the manor with Kasimir, the Rotfiend sample tucked under my arm and the child's observation echoing in my mind.
"He looks at things twice."
I would need to be more careful about where I let the overlay run.
To supporting Me in Pateron.
with exclusive access to more chapters (based on tiers more chapters for each tiers) on my Patreon, you get more chapters if you ask for more (in few days), plus new fanfic every week! Your support starting at just $6/month helps me keep crafting the stories you love across epic universes.
By joining, you're not just getting more chapters—you're helping me bring new worlds, twists, and adventures to life. Every pledge makes a huge difference!
Join now at patreon.com/TheFinex5 and start reading today!