Chapter 4: April
The pumpkin crawler ended up with a bloody hole in the front of its face after the Minotaur aggressively charged into it like a true bull. The vines no longer moved. The head (and body) of the pumpkin crawler was already rotting from the inside, while resulting in more and more of a bloody mess on the outside.
"You should have let me collect it."
"Let you, what now?"
"Collect it."
"..."
"Add it to my collection of monsters and creatures. My army," she casually told, as much as a matter of fact as possible.
"Is it completely dead now?"
"It's dying. It's too bad. But it is what it is. Crawlers are everywhere. It's rare to see one as large and as dangerous as this one, but it's not the end of the world. I guess."
"Do you have any healing powers? Can you fix this?"
"I am no healer, berserker," she calmly replied to him.
"You tell me that you are a hell of a powerful witch, but you can't do any healing? Are you forgetting about your milk?"
"Most witches can't heal that well. And I am not interested in wasting mana milk on anyone right now, except you, that is. Don't worry about it. We can collect other creatures elsewhere," she tranquilly said as she continued her path. Walking over the deadly wounded and bloody head of the pumpkin crawler in the patch. The Minotaur followed.
Now outside of the dark forest, they continued their journey during the seemingly eternal night in the middle of the field.
"When I woke up, you were already gone. Where did you go like that? I went after the screaming woman's voice because I thought it was you and that you were in danger."
"I never am in danger."
"Ah, okay..."
"I don't need to sleep much. I rested for about five minutes. You fell asleep pretty early on, and I was monster collecting when you showed up."
"Oh, I see. Any luck?"
"The only one I saw tonight was the one you murdered."
"Understood. In any case, it's still night. I guess the both of us didn't get much sleep, even though you don't need much yourself compared to me. Where are we walking toward now? What's the hurry?" the Minotaur asked her.
"That part didn't change: We are going to see my ally."
"Is she closer now?"
"A lot closer."
"Why do you need some ally anyway? What's the big deal? If you are The Witch Queen, why are you not in your castle or some shit like that?"
"Because they took my castle," she dryly and calmly revealed to him.
"They took it?"
"They took my home," she explained to him.
"Who did?"
"The conspirators."
"... Are they strong?"
"You will find out soon enough. We will be en route to cross the first name off my list shortly," she announced to him.
***
Two hours later, two hours of journey in that same field at night. This trek felt like forever for someone like the Minotaur. There was no sign that it was ever going to be dawn ever again. The sky was still pure black.
"I feel like I'm going to crumble," the beast said.
"It's here," she calmly announced to her subject.