Stitched Beast

"Feed the Stitched Beasts beneath Adela's Wizard Tower—60 points."

Taylor blinked at the round badge in his hand, stamped with the distinctive pattern of a Wizard Tower, then looked up at the chubby manager of the Miscellaneous Affairs Office.

This really was a good job. It paid well.

After accepting the task, Taylor waved to the chubby manager and followed the instructions to a grayish-white, three-story Wizard Tower.

After he presented the round badge bearing the special Wizard Tower pattern, the spell formation shrouding the tower opened a small gap. Taylor quickly stepped through and immediately felt the tower's abundant elemental aura and the ever-present suppression of magical power.

No wonder they said that wizards with Wizard Towers were practically a different species from ordinary wizards.

After a brief moment of reflection, Taylor followed the task instructions through a special passageway and arrived at the dungeon where apprentices like them carried out their assignments.

The dungeon beneath the Wizard Tower held nothing but Stitched Beasts specially cultivated by the wizard. It was separated from the tower proper, and only under special circumstances would the two become one.

Torches made from beautiful crystals lit up one after another, illuminating a deep, shadowy path. Taylor followed the spiraling road downward until he reached a vast underground space filled with strange cries, roars, and howls.

Before Taylor stretched a terrifying underground expanse, enormous enough to far exceed the Wizard Tower's visible size.

The underground space had been divided into cage after cage, each one containing Stitched Beasts with bizarre and unusual appearances.

Some had the bodies of lions and two wolf heads. Others had owl-like eyes and snake-like bodies. All kinds of stitched creatures howled and snarled as they huddled inside their cages.

"There's such a huge underground space beneath the Wizard Tower, and they're raising so many Stitched Beasts. What are they for?"

Taylor watched the strange beasts. Some spat tiny flames, some breathed lightning, some secreted venom, and some tried to fly up and ram the bars of their cages. He could not help but feel puzzled.

Setting those doubts aside for the moment, Taylor quickly approached a spell apparatus that resembled a giant funnel. A transparent container so tall its top could not be seen had been installed above it, while several enormous pipes extended from below. The apparatus was covered in countless spell runes, many of which Taylor still could not understand.

He could roughly identify some of their meanings: stability, heating, preservation, and solidification.

From one of the pipes beneath the enormous apparatus, he took out a barrel-shaped spatial spell item with storage capacity.

The barrel-shaped spatial item was filled with food for the Stitched Beasts.

What a luxury...

Looking at the bucket in his hand, which resembled a slop pail but was actually a spatial spell item, Taylor could not help clicking his tongue. Powerful wizards really were filthy rich.

Then Taylor carried the barrel-shaped item from cage to cage, feeding the grotesque creatures.

The oddly shaped Stitched Beasts merely lifted their eyelids to glance at him before sluggishly making their way to the feeding troughs and burying their heads in the food.

At the same time, Taylor noticed that some Stitched Beasts were covered in wounds. One even had an arrow lodged in its back, as though it had just returned from a great battle. Others appeared completely uninjured, and even the thread-like seams joining their bodies looked freshly stitched.

Taylor fed them as he continued deeper inside. The farther he went, the more he could sense monsters radiating powerful auras. The creatures farther in were also more active, madly slamming against their cages and roaring at Taylor. It felt as though the stench from their mouths could spill out through the bars.

In their eyes, Taylor could see only disorder, savagery, and madness.

Even from where he stood, he could not see the end of these monsters.

"ROAR!!!!"

A tremendous lion's roar came from the cage beside Taylor. A lion with three heads lay within it, unleashing an utterly terrifying bellow.

The roar even carried a trace of mental pressure. Taylor felt as though his head had been struck by a hammer, and his entire body swayed. The barrel-shaped spell item fell from his hand, and he could not help crouching down and clutching his head.

The lion had originally possessed only one head, but the wizard had specially attached two more to the left and right sides of its neck. One head could spit fireballs, one could spray venom, and the other could release wind blades.

After the lion roared, the other monsters that had been jumping around and ramming their cages immediately quieted down. Some even let out chittering cries of surrender, as though that roar was a form of torture and suppression to them.

"Pshhh~~~~"

After roaring, the three-headed lion lay back down, and three streams of hot vapor puffed from its thick nostrils.

Only after the torment ended did Taylor manage to climb to his feet. He was still dizzy, seeing double, and when he touched his nose, he found blood dripping from it.

It took Taylor quite a while to recover. As he looked at the monstrous lion lying not far away, his eyes were filled with alarm.

"Roar..."

The lion gave a lazy growl. The two heads at its sides closed their eyes and began lightly snoring.

Taylor did not dare delay. He quickly picked up the fallen barrel, ran to the lion's feeding trough, and poured in more food—twice as much as an ordinary Stitched Beast received.

"Huff, huff, huff..."

The great lion's nostrils flared, exhaling a blast of hot air over Taylor. He smelled gunpowder and felt an especially dry heat wash over his face, but he did not make a sound.

That made the great lion look at Taylor once more. Then it shook its head, woke the lion heads on either side, and all three mouths buried themselves in the trough and began devouring the food.

Just one roar was enough to make me lose my ability to fight. Is this the kind of stitched monster wizards create?

Taylor felt his scalp prickle as he watched the three-headed lion gulp down the mixture of animal remains.

Even the small pride he had gained from staying up all night studying spell models and spell runes vanished completely.

Wizards truly were versatile supernatural talents. Even the creatures they created so casually were beings far beyond his current reach—beings he could only look up to.