Mary pulled back the thick blanket, revealing her eyes, and saw the light of broken ice in the cave. She felt as if she were in a crystal cave, or wandering in a magnificent galaxy.
"Where do these lights come from?" She moved her head and rubbed Murray's chest.
Muri raised his hand and grabbed a piece of broken ice to show her. Mary looked at it carefully for a long time before she discovered that there were tiny sparkling particles in the middle of the broken ice.
"It's something that comes out of the bones of a monster long after it died. It glows. These icebergs are filled with many monsters that died long ago."
So the inside of the iceberg is not dark, but because of the diffusion of these substances, it is brilliant and bright. This is also what he accidentally discovered before, and he wanted to bring her to see it.
Meili really liked it, and she reached out to take the ice. Her hand was red, and compared to his bear paw, it was small and soft. After holding the ice for a while, she felt cold, and put the ice back into his palm, sighing with satisfaction.
A strong wind blew outside, and the gap at the entrance of the iceberg used for ventilation made a whimpering sound like someone crying.
The sound was not scary, and it even seemed a bit ethereal when it entered the small cave. As Mary listened, she felt sleepy.
Just when she was about to fall asleep, she felt Muri move beneath her, and he suddenly sat up as if startled by something.
Mary opened her eyes immediately and saw that he was looking at the tiny gap carefully, with his ear slightly tilted as if he was listening to something, and his round ears moved.
She listened to the sound of the wind outside, but heard nothing.
When Murray finally moved, she scratched the hair on his neck and asked, "What are you listening to?"
Murray said: "There was a strange shout, calling me."
It was a terrifying thing to be called in a place like this.
Meili hugged the blanket tightly and asked, "What kind of voice was that? Was it calling your name?"
Murray: “No, it was a roar, a lot of different sounds, not calling me, but meant to call me.”
He had occasionally heard such sounds in previous winters, but they were always vague and unclear. This year, the sound was much clearer. He had chased the sound for a long time, ran to the farthest glacier, but found nothing, and finally returned empty-handed.
They spent a night by the glacier and then set out to return.
On the way back, Murray suddenly stopped again, looked back at the empty distance, and again seemed to be listening to something.
"I heard that voice again." Murray showed a little distress.
It was clearer than what he had heard last night. This voice was attracting him and urging him.
Meili carefully distinguished other sounds in the wind, but still heard nothing. However, seeing that Murray was concerned, she couldn't help asking him, "Where did the sound come from? Why don't we go check it out?"
Murray rejected her proposal directly, "No."
He felt that the voice of the call was far away, coming from the deepest part of the polar region. He had never been to the deep polar region, but his instinct told him that it was a very dangerous place.
If it was like the previous winters, he would be alone and not afraid of anything, so he would just go and have a look. But now... He glanced at the red-haired Meili in his arms.
She was a fragile human being, and even a little cold could freeze her to death. He was going to the depths of the polar regions, and she definitely couldn't follow him. If she was left alone here, she might be taken away and eaten by other monsters.
She was trying very hard to survive here, and he couldn't leave her, nor did he want to.
Muri decided to put the annoying voice behind him and ignore it, and continue living in the lighthouse with Mary as usual.
However, the sound became clearer day by day, from intermittent at the beginning to continuous, leaving him unable to rest.
I don’t know if it was because of the sound, but Murray felt an uncontrollable anxiety.
When he went hunting, he encountered a powerful intermediate-level monster. The intermediate-level monsters that remained in the polar region were also affected by the tide and became more frenzied than usual. Once they started fighting, they could not stop.
Muri was entangled by it and could not easily escape, so he had to fight it. Watching the bright red blood oozing out of the monster's body, he felt more and more excited and more and more unable to control himself.
When the monster finally fell, its body had been torn into pieces by him.
Muri came to his senses and found himself biting the neck of the monster, with a fishy taste in his mouth.
He wiped his mouth, feeling strange. He was a hybrid of human and monster. His grandfather had told him that although he looked different from humans, he lived more like a human and did not like to adopt the habits of beasts.
Only when he is still young and wild will he bite his prey like a beast.
He would go out hunting every day, and this happened more and more frequently. Every time, he could more clearly perceive what was changing in his body. The restless blood of the Warcraft was boiling in his body, making him enjoy the process of hunting and killing.
On this day, he did not bring back the prey he had killed because the body of the monster had been beaten to pieces.
He didn't really want Mary to see this scene.
His clothes were stained with blood. He rolled on the snow several times but failed to remove the blood smell. He went back with a distressed face.
The call from afar came again with the wind. He moved his ears, without stopping or looking back, and quickened his pace towards the lighthouse.
Mary was practicing archery. She made a target out of an old animal skin and some bones. She practiced not only inside the lighthouse, but also placed the target on the snow outside.
Not long after they returned from the glacier, Muri, who had been worried about her every time he went out and wanted to take her with him, suddenly let her stay in the lighthouse alone.
He said that due to the influence of the tide, there were not many monsters left here, and the lighthouse was relatively safe, but the monsters he went to hunt became more violent and ferocious, so he no longer took her with him.
Meili had no objection and stayed in the lighthouse to practice archery. She was very talented and had already mastered the bow and arrow. Every time she shot an arrow, her arms became stronger and her eyes could see more clearly and farther.
This progress was beyond the normal range, her body was changing in a good direction. She thought that this body might be hiding some secrets.
Opposite her is Murray.
Murray is really a simple man. The extremely simple world has shaped his character. Any little secrets he wants to hide can be discovered by Mary through observation.
Like his recent emotional abnormalities and physical discomfort.
"You're back... You're covered in blood and your clothes are torn. Go change."
“… Uh, yeah.”
Meili opened the big box and looked for clothes for Murri. He had just entered the human world and the city for the first time some time ago, but in the past few years he had wandered around the edge of the human living area and met some merchants, exchanging clothes with them for animal skins and other things.
He used to throw away all his clothes when they were torn and never took care of them again.
A few days ago, when Mary was tidying up the sundries in the lighthouse, she found a pile of clothes. She thought they were some rags, but after cleaning them up, she found that they were all good clothes and the torn parts could just be mended by sewing them.
A few smaller sets of clothes became her change of clothes. Seeing those small sets of clothes, she imagined how Muri looked in those clothes in the past, when he was still so small, that was a real little bear.
Murray sat by the fire while she found him some clothes, fidgeting and scratching his back and arms.
Meili came back with the clothes, "Does it itch?"
Murray responded with a muffled sound. Actually, it wasn't itchy, but painful.
From the moment he began to hear that kind of call, his body began to change, and the changes became more and more obvious.
In the quietest night, he could hear the sound of blood flowing in his body, as turbulent and silent as the dark river under the ice. Bones pressed against each other, like the collision of broken and melted ice, making a tooth-grinding sound.
An entire polar change was quietly taking place in his body.
He didn't know what was going on; this had never happened before.
"If you're itchy, let me scratch it for you." Mary's soft voice sounded in his ears. She hugged his arm and scratched the place where he felt unbearable pain.
Unlike his own force that seemed to be able to crack the skin, her movements were neither light nor heavy, and very delicate.
Murray had always felt bad, but at this moment, he felt better. He was comforted, the pain temporarily subsided, and he lay on Meili's lap, unconsciously closing his eyes and resting his chin on her legs.
Meili's fingers gently wiped the blood stains on his mouth that had not been cleaned up, and combed the hair on his back. After scratching for a while, her hands were tangled with a lot of white hair.
She quietly removed the white hair and hid it aside, and her movements became even lighter. But no matter how light her force was, she was still able to remove a lot of white hair from Murray.
This is the coldest winter, will he shed his hair at this time? Meili thinks it is unlikely.
Moreover, under the hair, she saw some blood seeping out.
Murray, are you sick
Mary hugged Muri, who was full of worry and could kill hundreds of bandits alone and could bite a two-ton monster to death brutally, with her arms full of worry. She felt that the way he put his head in her arms so obediently was really pitiful.
She thought the situation would gradually get better, but Murray's condition became increasingly serious and he could no longer hide the changes in him.
Not only did a lot of his hair fall off and his skin cracked and bled, but his claws and teeth also grew rapidly, making him even more hideous.
After returning from an outing, Meli couldn't tell whether the blood on his body came from other monsters or from himself.
The strong smell of blood pungent, his fangs, which were usually hidden, were exposed, with blood and minced meat hanging on them. Mary saw him turn his head and stare at her, and for a moment she got goose bumps and felt fear instinctively.
His eyes were the eyes of a hunter, cold and indifferent, with only a strong appetite and bloodlust.
"Muri." She called his name.
After blinking his eyes, Murray's tense back slowly relaxed. He noticed the blood on the side of his mouth, wiped it with his hand, lowered his head and said nothing, and did not look at Meili.
Meili took out a wet cloth and held out her hand to him, "Let me wipe it for you."
Only then did Muri come over and let her wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth.
Meili's hand trembled a little as she held his warm, bloody chin. Murray closed his eyes and gave her his head, motionless, as if he didn't notice her trembling.
After a while, Meili hugged his head and rested her forehead against his nose, "Muri, are you sick?"